Distributed Intelligent Management of Microgrids using a Multi-Agent Simulation Platform

Multi-agent approaches have been widely used to model complex systems of distributed nature with a large amount of interactions between the involved entities. Power systems are a reference case, mainly due to the increasing use of distributed energy sources, largely based on renewable sources, which have potentiated huge changes in the power systems’ sector. Dealing with such a large scale integration of intermittent generation sources led to the emergence of several new players, as well as the development of new paradigms, such as the microgrid concept, and the evolution of demand response programs, which potentiate the active participation of consumers. This paper presents a multi-agent based simulation platform which models a microgrid environment, considering several different types of simulated players. These players interact with real physical installations, creating a realistic simulation environment with results that can be observed directly in the reality. A case study is presented considering players’ responses to a demand response event, resulting in an intelligent increase of consumption in order to face the wind generation surplus.

Sustentabilidade e bem-estar humano : duas faces da mesma moeda? : estudo exploratório do bem estar subjectivo em comunidades intencionais que vivem segundo princípios de sustentabilidade

RESUMO - Nos últimos vinte anos tem-se assistido a uma crescente consciencialização de que os nossos estilos de vida são insustentáveis aos níveis económico, social e ambiental, o que tem repercussões na nossa saúde e bem-estar. Do crescimento populacional à pobreza e inequidade geradas pelo modelo de “crescimento económico” actual, à perda de biodiversidade e disrupção dos ecossistemas naturais, ao desmesurado crescimento urbano, à poluição e acumulação de desperdícios, às alterações climáticas, ao isolamento individual e à diminuição do capital social na sociedade do consumo: a necessidade de desenvolvimento sustentável e gerador de bem-estar nunca foi tão grande e evidente. Ao longo dos últimos anos têm surgido comunidades intencionais que se organizam segundo princípios de sustentabilidade, como um fenómeno de contra-cultura – as Ecoaldeias (Ecovillages). No entanto, os benefícios para a saúde e bem-estar deste tipo de comunidades não são ainda claros, sendo a experiência de investigação nesta área escassa. O estudo aqui proposto visa conhecer, a título exploratório, os níveis de bem-estar subjectivo em comunidades intencionais que vivem segundo princípios de sustentabilidade em Portugal, se estes níveis são melhores que na população em geral, e quais os factores percebidos que o influenciam. Para tal, terá componentes quantitativas e qualitativas e irá basear-se num questionário auto-administrado aos residentes das Ecoaldeias portuguesas, que inclui o Índice de Bem-estar Pessoal - uma escala de medição do Bem-estar subjectivo validada para a população portuguesa. As suas conclusões poderão contribuir para o desenvolvimento de abordagens mais elaboradas, capazes de edificar uma infra-estrutura teórica para o sistema de conceitos em foco, tão necessária quer a investigações com maior potencial explicativo, quer a decisões com melhor fundamento. ------------ ABSTRACT - Over the past twenty years there has been a growing awareness that the way we live is unsustainable at the economic, social and environmental level, which has impact in our health and wellbeing. From the population growth to poverty and inequity generated by the current model of economic growth, to biodiversity loss and disruption of natural ecosystems, to disproportionate urban growth, to pollution and waste accumulation, to climate change and the individual isolation social loss capital in the consumption society: the need for a development that is sustainable and generates wellbeing has never been greater and more evident. Over the last years intentional communities who live according to principles of sustainability have emerged, has a phenomenon of counter-culture - the ecovillages. The health and wellbeing benefits of this type of communities are not clear, as the investigation in this area is little. The aim of this exploratory study is to know the levels of subjective wellbeing of such communities, in Portugal, if these levels are different from the general population and what are the main perceived contributing factors. This study will have a qualitative and quantitative component and will be based in the application of a self-administered questionnaire that includes the Subjective Wellbeing Index, a measurement scale of subjective wellbeing, validated for the Portuguese population. Its findings may contribute to the development of more elaborate approaches that allow to build a theoretical framework for the system of concepts focused, needed both for further investigations with more explanatory potential, as for more grounded decision-making, to tackle the challenges of sustainable development.

Seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in chronic chagasic patients, and in the rural and urban population from Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil

As patients with chronic Chagas disease exhibit morphological and functional changes of the stomach (hypomotility and hypochlorhydria), malnutrition, immunological deficiency and high prevalence of peptic disease associated to Helicobater pylori infection, the purpose of this study was to evaluate if the prevalence of H. pylori infection in chronic chagasic is higher than in non-chagasic individuals in the urban and rural population from Uberlândia, MG, Brazil. Serological determination of IgG antibodies to H. pylori was performed using a second-generation ELISA. Thus, 598 people were evaluated: 128 chagasic (CG), 222 non-chagasic living in urban area (U-NCG) and 248 non-chagasic living in rural area (R-NCG). Regarding the age range from 21 to 50 years, the prevalence of H. pylori infection in the CG (85.1%) was significantly higher than in the U-NCG (56.3%, p < 0.01) and the R-NCG (67.4%, p < 0.05). In the patients over 50 years, the prevalence in the CG (86.4%) was similar to the U-NCG (78.8%) and R-NCG (86.1%). Similar results were also found between the U-NCG and R-NCG for all age ranges, with prevalence rates of 29.1% and 35.3% for the age range from 5 to 13 years, and 47.2% and 40% for that from 14 to 20 years, respectively. We conclude that chagasic patients showed a higher seroprevalence of H. pylori infection than non-chagasic individuals, in the age range from 21 to 50 years, and that the prevalence of this infection was similar in the studied urban and rural non-chagasic population.

System Level Simulation and Radio Resource Management for Distributed Antenna Systems with Cognitive Radio and Multi-Cell Cooperation

4th International Conference on Future Generation Communication Technologies (FGCT 2015), Luton, United Kingdom.

Visualization and interaction in a simulation system for flood emergencies

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

Spatial analysis and investigation of fire events occurrences in the Valencian Community, Spain

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Implementation of an IoT-based Sensor Network Integrating IoT-based Sensor Networks with Large-Scale Message Distribution

As technology advances not only do new standards and programming styles appear but also some of the previously established ones gain relevance. In a new Internet paradigm where interconnection between small devices is key to the development of new businesses and scientific advancement there is the need to find simple solutions that anyone can implement in order to allow ideas to become more than that, ideas. Open-source software is still alive and well, especially in the area of the Internet of Things. This opens windows for many low capital entrepreneurs to experiment with their ideas and actually develop prototypes, which can help identify problems with a project or shine light on possible new features and interactions. As programming becomes more and more popular between people of fields not related to software there is the need for guidance in developing something other than basic algorithms, which is where this thesis comes in: A comprehensive document explaining the challenges and available choices of developing a sensor data and message delivery system, which scales well and implements the delivery of critical messages. Modularity and extensibility were also given much importance, making this an affordable tool for anyone that wants to build a sensor network of the kind.

A utilização de actos complementares de diagnóstico: uma análise económica

Dissertação submetida para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Saúde Pública Especialidade de Economia da Saúde

The influence of burden of care and perceived stigma on expressed emotions of relatives of stable persons with schizophrenia in Nigerian semi-urban/urban settings

RESUMO: Schizophrenia’s burden defines experience of family members and is associated with high level of distress. Courtesy stigma, a distress concept, worsens caregivers’ burden of care and impacts on schizophrenia. Expressed emotion (EE), another family variable, impacts on schizophrenia. However, relationship between EE, burden of care and stigma has been little explored in western literature but not in sub-Saharan Africa particularly Nigeria. This study explored the impact of burden of care and courtesy stigma on EE among caregivers of persons with schizophrenia in urban and semi-urban settings in Nigeria. Fifty caregivers each from semi-urban and urban areas completed a socio-demographic schedule, family questionnaire, burden interview schedule and perceived devaluation and discrimination scale. The caregivers had a mean age of 42 (± 15.6) years. Majority were females (57%), married (49%), from Yoruba ethnic group (68%), monogamous family (73%) and Christians (82%). A higher proportion of the whole sample (53%) had tertiary education. Three out of ten were sole caregivers. Seventy three (73%) lived with the person they cared for. The average number of hours spent per week by a caregiver with a person with schizophrenia was 35 hours. The urban sample had significantly higher proportion of carers with high global expressed emotion (72.7%) than the semi-urban sample (27.3%). The odds of a caregiver in an urban setting exhibiting high expressed emotion are 4.202 times higher than the odds of caregiver in a semi-urban setting. Additionally, there was significance difference between the urban and semi-urban caregivers in discrimination dimension. High levels of subjective and objective burden were associated with high levels of critical comments. In conclusion, this study is the first demonstration of urban-semi-urban difference in expressed emotion in an African country and its findings provide further support to hypothesized relationship between components of EE and burden of care.

A multiagent based shop floor transportation system simulator

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

Analysis of urban land use and land cover changes: a case of study in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Watershed-scale runoff routing and solute transport in a spatially aggregated hydrological framework

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Dynamic adaptation of interaction models for stateful web services

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Identifying the urban communities of New York City using bikeshare data from NYC citibike

This study identifies a measure of the cultural importance of an area within a city. It does so by making use of origindestination trip data and the bike stations of the bike share system in New York City as a proxy to study the city. Rarely is movement in the city studied at such a small scale. The change in strength of the similarity of movement between each station is studied. It is the first study to provide this measure of importance for every point in the system. This measure is then related to the characteristics which make for vibrant city communities, namely highly mixed land use types. It reveals that the spatial pattern of important areas remains constant over differing time periods. Communities are then characterised by the land uses surrounding these stations with high measures of importance. Finally it identifies the areas of global cultural importance alongside the areas of local importance to the city.