Virtual Power Players Internal Negotiation and Management in MASCEM

Electricity Markets are not only a new reality but an evolving one as the involved players and rules change at a relatively high rate. Multi-agent simulation combined with Artificial Intelligence techniques may result in very helpful sophisticated tools. This paper presents a new methodology for the management of coalitions in electricity markets. This approach is tested using the multi-agent market simulator MASCEM (Multi-Agent Simulator of Competitive Electricity Markets), taking advantage of its ability to provide the means to model and simulate Virtual Power Players (VPP). VPPs are represented as coalitions of agents, with the capability of negotiating both in the market and internally, with their members in order to combine and manage their individual specific characteristics and goals, with the strategy and objectives of the VPP itself. A case study using real data from the Iberian Electricity Market is performed to validate and illustrate the proposed approach.

Decision support tool for Virtual Power Players: Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization applied to Day-ahead Vehicle-To-Grid Scheduling

This paper presents a decision support tool methodology to help virtual power players (VPPs) in the Smart Grid (SGs) context to solve the day-ahead energy resource scheduling considering the intensive use of Distributed Generation (DG) and Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G). The main focus is the application of a new hybrid method combing a particle swarm approach and a deterministic technique based on mixedinteger linear programming (MILP) to solve the day-ahead scheduling minimizing total operation costs from the aggregator point of view. A realistic mathematical formulation, considering the electric network constraints and V2G charging and discharging efficiencies is presented. Full AC power flow calculation is included in the hybrid method to allow taking into account the network constraints. A case study with a 33-bus distribution network and 1800 V2G resources is used to illustrate the performance of the proposed method.

Simulated Annealing Approach Applied to the Energy Resource Management Considering Demand Response for Electric Vehicle

The aggregation and management of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) by an Virtual Power Players (VPP) is an important task in a smart grid context. The Energy Resource Management (ERM) of theses DERs can become a hard and complex optimization problem. The large integration of several DERs, including Electric Vehicles (EVs), may lead to a scenario in which the VPP needs several hours to have a solution for the ERM problem. This is the reason why it is necessary to use metaheuristic methodologies to come up with a good solution with a reasonable amount of time. The presented paper proposes a Simulated Annealing (SA) approach to determine the ERM considering an intensive use of DERs, mainly EVs. In this paper, the possibility to apply Demand Response (DR) programs to the EVs is considered. Moreover, a trip reduce DR program is implemented. The SA methodology is tested on a 32-bus distribution network with 2000 EVs, and the SA results are compared with a deterministic technique and particle swarm optimization results.

A New Heuristic Providing an Effective Initial Solution for a Simulated Annealing approach to Energy Resource Scheduling in Smart Grids

An intensive use of dispersed energy resources is expected for future power systems, including distributed generation, especially based on renewable sources, and electric vehicles. The system operation methods and tool must be adapted to the increased complexity, especially the optimal resource scheduling problem. Therefore, the use of metaheuristics is required to obtain good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. This paper proposes two new heuristics, called naive electric vehicles charge and discharge allocation and generation tournament based on cost, developed to obtain an initial solution to be used in the energy resource scheduling methodology based on simulated annealing previously developed by the authors. The case study considers two scenarios with 1000 and 2000 electric vehicles connected in a distribution network. The proposed heuristics are compared with a deterministic approach and presenting a very small error concerning the objective function with a low execution time for the scenario with 2000 vehicles.

Knowledge Society and Geography: A Theoretical Approach

The transition process between information and knowledge is faster and so the inputs that influence social and political practises. The dissemination of information is now determinant in terms of territorial competitiveness and both public and private sector take large benefits when the data-information- knowledge value chain repeats itself trough space and time. Mankind depends nowadays on the creation and diffusion of good and reliable information. Speed is also important and the greater the speed, the faster the opportunities for global markets. Information must be an input for knowledge and obviously for decision. So, the power of information is unquestionable. This paper focuses on concepts like information, knowledge and other, more geographical and tries to explain how territories change from real to virtual. Knowledge society appears on an evolutional context in which information dissemination is wider and technological potential overwrites traditional notions of Geography. To understand the mutations over the territories, the causes and the consequences emerges the Geography of the Knowledge Society, a new discipline inside Geography with a special concern about modern society and socio-economical developing models.

Organizational Culture in Cooperatives: an exploratory approach

In recent years, organizational culture has become one of the common themes of interest of scientific and academic research. Each organization has its own unique cultural identity. Based on the recognition that organizational culture is considered important to an organization’s results, and social economy organizations are concerned with improving managerial practices and results, our objective is to study organizational culture in cooperatives: identifying their organizational culture as a specific type of organization of the social economy, recognized as increasingly important economic agents; and in doing so, explore the usage of a widely known model, the Competing Values Framework (Quinn & Rohrbaugh 1983). Three cooperatives were studied. Their presidents were interviewed, and a questionnaire was applied to cooperative members to obtain demographic and organizational culture data. Differences between the cooperatives’ cultural profiles seem to be consistent with both the circumstances of Portuguese social economy organizations (SEOs), and to the organizations’ uniqueness regarding their trade, focuses, and history. International firm trends were compared with this study’s results, and also appear to be explained by the SEO’s management practices evolution standpoint: lack of structured way of working, and the need to improvise and innovate in order to get things done. The importance of our research is held in the fact that social economy, and the cooperative movement in particular, has a developing importance in the expansion of many economies, the lack of literature on culture in SEOs, and the exploratory usage of a well-known model of management literature in cooperatives.

Organizational culture in cooperatives: an exploratory approach

In recent years, organizational culture has become one of the common themes of interest of scientific and academic research. Each organization has its own unique cultural identity. Based on the recognition that organizational culture is considered important to an organization’s results, and social economy organizations are concerned with improving managerial practices and results, our objective is to study organizational culture in cooperatives: identifying their organizational culture as a specific type of organization of the social economy, recognized as increasingly important economic agents; and in doing so, explore the usage of a widely known model, the Competing Values Framework (Quinn & Rohrbaugh 1983). Three cooperatives were studied. Their presidents were interviewed, and a questionnaire was applied to cooperative members to obtain demographic and organizational culture data. Differences between the cooperatives’ cultural profiles seem to be consistent with both the circumstances of Portuguese social economy organizations (SEOs), and to the organizations’ uniqueness regarding their trade, focuses, and history. International firm trends were compared with this study’s results, and also appear to be explained by the SEO’s management practices evolution standpoint: lack of structured way of working, and the need to improvise and innovate in order to get things done. The importance of our research is held in the fact that social economy, and the cooperative movement in particular, has a developing importance in the expansion of many economies, the lack of literature on culture in SEOs, and the exploratory usage of a well-known model of management literature in cooperatives.

Interoperability on low power devices

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

A system’s approach to cache hierarchy-aware decomposition of data-parallel computations

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

From Consciousness to Knowledge – The Explanatory Power of Revelation

Epistemology in philosophy of mind is a difficult endeavor. Those who believe that our phenomenal life is different from other domains suggest that self-knowledge about phenomenal properties is certain and therefore privileged. Usually, this so called privileged access is explained by the idea that we have direct access to our phenomenal life. This means, in contrast to perceptual knowledge, self-knowledge is non-inferential. It is widely believed that, this kind of directness involves two different senses: an epistemic sense and a metaphysical sense. Proponents of this view often claim that this is due to the fact that we are acquainted with our current experiences. The acquaintance thesis, therefore, is the backbone in justifying privileged access. Unfortunately the whole approach has a profound flaw. For the thesis to work, acquaintance has to be a genuine explanation. Since it is usually assumed that any knowledge relation between judgments and the corresponding objects are merely causal and contingent (e.g. in perception), the proponent of the privileged access view needs to show that acquaintance can do the job. In this thesis, however, I claim that the latter cannot be done. Based on considerations introduced by Levine, I conclude that this approach involves either the introduction of ontologically independent properties or a rather obscure knowledge relation. A proper explanation, however, cannot employ either of the two options. The acquaintance thesis is, therefore, bound to fail. Since the privileged access intuition seems to be vital to epistemology within the philosophy of mind, I will explore alternative justifications. After discussing a number of options, I will focus on the so called revelation thesis. This approach states that by simply having an experience with phenomenal properties, one is in the position to know the essence of those phenomenal properties. I will argue that, after finding a solution for the controversial essence claim, this thesis is a successful replacement explanation which maintains all the virtues of the acquaintance account without necessarily introducing ontologically independent properties or an obscure knowledge relation. The overall solution consists in qualifying the essence claim in the relevant sense, leaving us with an appropriate ontology for phenomenal properties. On the one hand, this avoids employing mysterious independent properties, since this ontological view is physicalist in nature. On the other hand, this approach has the right kind of structure to explain privileged self-knowledge of our phenomenal life. My final conclusion consists in the claim that the privileged access intuition is in fact veridical. It cannot, however, be justified by the popular acquaintance approach, but rather, is explainable by the controversial revelation thesis.

Brazilian equity risk premium analysis: A macroeconomic approach

Double Degree Masters in Economics Program from Insper and NOVA School of Business and Economics

Analysis of a controversial decision process: the case of the pumped hydro storage power plant Atdorf in Germany

Based on the report for the unit “Métodos Interactivos de Participação e Decisão A” (Interactive methods of participation and decision A), coordinated by Prof. Lia Maldonado Teles de Vasconcelos and Prof. Nuno Miguel Ribeiro Videira Costa. This unit was provided for the PhD Program in Technology Assessment in 2015/2016.

A relational algebra approach to ETL modeling

The MAP-i Doctoral Programme in Informatics, of the Universities of Minho, Aveiro and Porto

Organization of construction activity in medieval Portugal: a comparative approach

This paper aims to identify and characterize the organizational models of construction site and building activity in late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, through the analysis of specific Portuguese case studies, related with important buildings financed by the royal power. This paper also intends to develop a comparative analysis between those different organizational models, identifying the main features of each one, as well as their similarities and differences. In this sense, we intend to present a comparative analysis between the two main models of organization of the construction site, through a methodology of crossing different types of sources, including written ones, such as books of accounts, but also iconographic and material sources, as well as the buildings and monuments still preserved today. In terms of written sources, the construction site accounting books allow us to study several specific aspects of the construction process, but also allow us to infer the organizational models of the construction activity.

Sequencing lifeline repairs after an earthquake: an economic approach

Recoveries after recent earthquakes in the U.S. and Japan have shown that large welfare gains can be achieved by reshaping current emergency plans as incentive-compatible contracts. We apply tools from the mechanisms design literature to show ways to integrate economic incentives into the management of natural disasters and discuss issues related to the application to seismic event recovery. The focus is on restoring lifeline services such as the water, gas, transportation, and electric power networks. We put forward decisional procedures that an uninformed planner could employ to set repair priorities and help to coordinate lifeline firms in the post-earthquake reconstruction.