Intelligent Distributed Environmental Decision Support System

This article discusses the development of an Intelligent Distributed Environmental Decision Support System, built upon the association of a Multi-agent Belief Revision System with a Geographical Information System (GIS). The inherent multidisciplinary features of the involved expertises in the field of environmental management, the need to define clear policies that allow the synthesis of divergent perspectives, its systematic application, and the reduction of the costs and time that result from this integration, are the main reasons that motivate the proposal of this project. This paper is organised in two parts: in the first part we present and discuss the developed Distributed Belief Revision Test-bed — DiBeRT; in the second part we analyse its application to the environmental decision support domain, with special emphasis on the interface with a GIS.

The influence of inherent properties of building limestones on their bioreceptivity to phototrophic microorganisms

Annals of Microbiology, 59 (4) 705-713 (2009)

Distributed, Agent-Based Intelligent System for Demand Response Program Simulation in Smart Grids

A distributed, agent-based intelligent system models and simulates a smart grid using physical players and computationally simulated agents. The proposed system can assess the impact of demand response programs.

Impact of design options in zero energy building conception: the case of large buildings in Portugal

The new recast of Directive 2010/31/EU in order to implement the new concept NZEB in new buildings, is to be fully respected by all Member States, and is revealed as important measure to promote the reduction of energy consumption of buildings and encouraging the use of renewable energy. In this study, it was tested the applicability of the nearly zero energy building concept to a big size office building and its impact after a 50-years life cycle span.

Thermodynamic and kinetic modelling of the redox properties of tetrahaem cytochromes C3

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Bioquímica,especialidade Bioquímica-Física, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Cincias e Tecnologia

Multiple linear and principal component regressions for modelling ecotoxicity bioassay response

The ecotoxicological response of the living organisms in an aquatic system depends on the physical, chemical and bacteriological variables, as well as the interactions between them. An important challenge to scientists is to understand the interaction and behaviour of factors involved in a multidimensional process such as the ecotoxicological response.With this aim, multiple linear regression (MLR) and principal component regression were applied to the ecotoxicity bioassay response of Chlorella vulgaris and Vibrio fischeri in water collected at seven sites of Leça river during five monitoring campaigns (February, May, June, August and September of 2006). The river water characterization included the analysis of 22 physicochemical and 3 microbiological parameters. The model that best fitted the data was MLR, which shows: (i) a negative correlation with dissolved organic carbon, zinc and manganese, and a positive one with turbidity and arsenic, regarding C. vulgaris toxic response; (ii) a negative correlation with conductivity and turbidity and a positive one with phosphorus, hardness, iron, mercury, arsenic and faecal coliforms, concerning V. fischeri toxic response. This integrated assessment may allow the evaluation of the effect of future pollution abatement measures over the water quality of Leça River.

Modelling the Contribution of 40K, 232Th and 226Ra to Radiation Dose and Risk from Airborne Discharges of Coal-Fired Power Plants

Coal contains trace elements and naturally occurring radionuclides such as 40K, 232Th, 238U. When coal is burned, minerals, including most of the radionuclides, do not burn and concentrate in the ash several times in comparison with their content in coal. Usually, a small fraction of the fly ash produced (2-5%) is released into the atmosphere. The activities released depend on many factors (concentration in coal, ash content and inorganic matter of the coal, combustion temperature, ratio between bottom and fly ash, filtering system). Therefore, marked differences should be expected between the by-products produced and the amount of activity discharged (per unit of energy produced) from different coal-fired power plants. In fact, the effects of these releases on the environment due to ground deposition have been received some attention but the results from these studies are not unanimous and cannot be understood as a generic conclusion for all coal-fired power plants. In this study, the dispersion modelling of natural radionuclides was carried out to assess the impact of continuous atmospheric releases from a selected coal plant. The natural radioactivity of the coal and the fly ash were measured and the dispersion was modelled by a Gaussian plume estimating the activity concentration at different heights up to a distance of 20 km in several wind directions. External and internal doses (inhalation and ingestion) and the resulting risk were calculated for the population living within 20 km from the coal plant. In average, the effective dose is lower than the ICRP’s limit and the risk is lower than the U.S. EPA’s limit. Therefore, in this situation, the considered exposure does not pose any risk. However, when considering the dispersion in the prevailing wind direction, these values are significant due to an increase of 232Th and 226Ra concentrations in 75% and 44%, respectively.

Dispersion Modelling of Natural Radionuclides 238U, 232Th and 40K Released from Coal-fired Power Plants Operations

The aim of this work was to simulate the radionuclides dispersion in the surrounding area of a coal-fired power plant, operational during the last 25 years. The dispersion of natural radionuclides (236Ra, 232Th and 40K) was simulated by a Gaussian plume dispersion model with three different stability classes estimating the radionuclides concentration at ground level. Measurements of the environmen-tal activity concentrations were carried out by γ-spectrometry and compared with results from the air dispersion and deposition model which showed that the stabil-ity class D causes the dispersion to longer distances up to 20 km from the stacks.

Building a person home behavior model based on data from smart house sensors 2015

Dissertação para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica Ramo de Energia

Adapted Control Methods for Cerebral Palsy Users of an Intelligent Wheelchair

The development of an intelligent wheelchair (IW) platform that may be easily adapted to any commercial electric powered wheelchair and aid any person with special mobility needs is the main objective of this project. To be able to achieve this main objective, three distinct control methods were implemented in the IW: manual, shared and automatic. Several algorithms were developed for each of these control methods. This paper presents three of the most significant of those algorithms with emphasis on the shared control method. Experiments were performed by users suffering from cerebral palsy, using a realistic simulator, in order to validate the approach. The experiments revealed the importance of using shared (aided) controls for users with severe disabilities. The patients still felt having complete control over the wheelchair movement when using a shared control at a 50% level and thus this control type was very well accepted. Thus it may be used in intelligent wheelchairs since it is able to correct the direction in case of involuntary movements of the user but still gives him a sense of complete control over the IW movement.

Diagnosis of an EPS module

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e Computadores

Projeto de fundações e estrutura de um hotel em Lisboa

Trabalho de Projeto para obtenção do grau de mestre em Engenharia Civil na Área de Especialização em Estruturas

Prognostic modelling of breast cancer patients: a benchmark of predictive models with external validation

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores – Sistemas Digitais e Percepcionais pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Fractional order modelling of dynamic backlash

This paper studies the dynamical properties of systems with backlash and impact phenomena. This type of non-linearity can be tackled in the perspective of the fractional calculus theory. Fractional and integer order models are compared and their influence upon the emerging dynamics is analysed. It is demonstrated that fractional models can memorize dynamical effects due to multiple micro-collisions.

Railway vehicle modelling for the vehicle-track interaction compatibility analysis

Railway vehicle homologation, with respect to running dynamics, is addressed via dedicated norms. The results required, such as, accelerations and/or wheel-rail contact forces, obtained from experimental tests or simulations, must be available. Multibody dynamics allows the modelling of railway vehicles and their representation in real operations conditions, being the realism of the multibody models greatly influenced by the modelling assumptions. In this paper, two alternative multibody models of the Light Rail Vehicle 2000 (LRV) are constructed and simulated in a realistic railway track scenarios. The vehicle-track interaction compatibility analysis consists of two stages: the use of the simplified method described in the norm "UIC 518-Testing and Approval of Railway Vehicles from the Point of View of their Dynamic Behaviour-Safety-Track Fatigue-Running Behaviour" for decision making; and, visualization inspection of the vehicle motion with respect to the track via dedicated tools for understanding the mechanisms involved.