Open-Source, Open-Architecture SoftwarePlatform for Plug-InElectric Vehicle SmartCharging in California

This interdisciplinary eXtensible Building Operating System–Vehicles project focuses on controlling plug-in electric vehicle charging at residential and small commercial settings using a novel and flexible open-source, open-architecture charge communication and control platform. The platform provides smart charging functionalities and benefits to the utility, homes, and businesses.This project investigates four important areas of vehicle-grid integration research, integrating technical as well as social and behavioral dimensions: smart charging user needs assessment, advanced load control platform development and testing, smart charging impacts, benefits to the power grid, and smart charging ratepayer benefits

Smart Urban Water Networks

This book presents the paper form of the Special Issue (SI) on Smart Urban Water Networks. The number and topics of the papers in the SI confirm the growing interest of operators and researchers for the new paradigm of smart networks, as part of the more general smart city. The SI showed that digital information and communication technology (ICT), with the implementation of smart meters and other digital devices, can significantly improve the modelling and the management of urban water networks, contributing to a radical transformation of the traditional paradigm of water utilities. The paper collection in this SI includes different crucial topics such as the reliability, resilience, and performance of water networks, innovative demand management, and the novel challenge of real-time control and operation, along with their implications for cyber-security. The SI collected fourteen papers that provide a wide perspective of solutions, trends, and challenges in the contest of smart urban water networks. Some solutions have already been implemented in pilot sites (i.e., for water network partitioning, cyber-security, and water demand disaggregation and forecasting), while further investigations are required for other methods, e.g., the data-driven approaches for real time control. In all cases, a new deal between academia, industry, and governments must be embraced to start the new era of smart urban water systems

Measuring user experience for virtual reality

In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) and 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) have seen a drastic increase in popularity, especially in terms of consumer-ready hardware and software. These technologies have the potential to create new experiences that combine the advantages of reality and virtuality. While the technology for input as well as output devices is market ready, only a few solutions for everyday VR - online shopping, games, or movies - exist, and empirical knowledge about performance and user preferences is lacking. All this makes the development and design of human-centered user interfaces for VR a great challenge. This thesis investigates the evaluation and design of interactive VR experiences. We introduce the Virtual Reality User Experience (VRUX) model based on VR-specific external factors and evaluation metrics such as task performance and user preference. Based on our novel UX evaluation approach, we contribute by exploring the following directions: shopping in virtual environments, as well as text entry and menu control in the context of everyday VR. Along with this, we summarize our findings by design spaces and guidelines for choosing optimal interfaces and controls in VR.In den letzten Jahren haben Virtual Reality (VR) und 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) stark an Popularität gewonnen, insbesondere bei Hard- und Software im Konsumerbereich. Diese Technologien haben das Potenzial, neue Erfahrungen zu schaffen, die die Vorteile von Realität und Virtualität kombinieren. Während die Technologie sowohl für Eingabe- als auch für Ausgabegeräte marktreif ist, existieren nur wenige Lösungen für den Alltag in VR - wie Online-Shopping, Spiele oder Filme - und es fehlt an empirischem Wissen über Leistung und Benutzerpräferenzen. Dies macht die Entwicklung und Gestaltung von benutzerzentrierten Benutzeroberflächen für VR zu einer großen Herausforderung. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Evaluation und Gestaltung von interaktiven VR-Erfahrungen. Es wird das Virtual Reality User Experience (VRUX)- Modell eingeführt, das auf VR-spezifischen externen Faktoren und Bewertungskennzahlen wie Leistung und Benutzerpräferenz basiert. Basierend auf unserem neuartigen UX-Evaluierungsansatz leisten wir einen Beitrag, indem wir folgende interaktive Anwendungsbereiche untersuchen: Einkaufen in virtuellen Umgebungen sowie Texteingabe und Menüsteuerung im Kontext des täglichen VR. Die Ergebnisse werden außerdem mittels Richtlinien zur Auswahl optimaler Schnittstellen in VR zusammengefasst

Fluidmem: Open Source Full Memory Disaggregation

To satisfy the performance demands of memory-intensive applications facing DRAM shortages, the focus of previous work has been on incorporating remote memory to expand capacity. However, the emergence of resource balancing as a priority for cloud computing requires the capability to dynamically size virtual machine memory up and down. Furthermore, hardware-based or kernel space implementations hamper flexibility with respect to making customizations or integrating the continuing open source advancements in software infrastructure for the datacenter. This thesis presents an architecture to meet the performance, bi-directional sizing, and flexibility challenges of memory disaggregation in the cloud. The implementation, called FluidMem, is open source software that integrates with the Linux kernel, KVM hypervisor, and multiple key-values stores. With FluidMem, a virtual machine's local memory can be transparently extended or entirely transferred to a remote key-value store. By fully implementing the dynamic aspect of data center memory disaggregation, FluidMem allows a VM's footprint to be precisely sized, expandable for application demands, but it leaves cloud operators with a non-intrusive recourse if memory becomes scarce. Full memory disaggregation in FluidMem enables the local memory footprint of a Linux VM to be scaled down to 180 pages (720 KB), yet still accept SSH logins. A user space page fault handler in FluidMem uses the userfaultfd mechanism in the Linux kernel to relocate any page of the VM to remote memory and outperforms swap-based paging. Page fault latencies via FluidMem to RAMCloud are 40% faster than the RDMA remote memory swap device in the Linux kernel, and 77% faster than SSD swap. FluidMem's remote memory expansion performance with three key-value backends is evaluated against swap-based alternatives for a MongoDB workload and the Graph500 benchmark

A Profitable Online Poker Agent

Jogos de informação incompleta tais como poker são uma fonte contínua de estudo e pesquisa no âmbito da inteligência artificial. No poker problemas como: modelação de oponentes; gestão de riscos e detecção de bluffs representam um desafio. O desenvolvimento de agentes capazes de considerar esses problemas e realizar cálculos probabilísticos é considerado como uma tarefa árdua de se realizar, uma vez que é exigida uma adaptação dinâmica para que seja criado um agente de poker robusto. Esta tese irá focar-se no desenvolvimento de um agente de poker capaz de jogar contra jogadores humanos e alcançar a adaptação dinâmica necessária para superar alguns jogadores humanos de poker online. Algo que será possível usando um conjunto de informações sobre cada jogador que o agente enfrenta. Utilizando como auxílio o Holdem Manager, uma ferramenta que regista mãos jogadas em salas de poker online, é possível obter estatísticas sobre todos os jogadores que o agente enfrenta nas mesas. O agente é capaz de explorar algumas destas estatísticas de maneira que possa decidir melhor sobre a acção a tomar. Alguns factores como quão agressivo é um adversário, a posição ocupada na mesa, quantos jogadores estão envolvidos, quanto dinheiro está em causa, e o par de cartas que o agente recebe são uma pequena porção do conjunto de informações utilizadas na determinação do comportamento do agente. Este agente foi desenvolvido baseando-se numa estratégia "short stack", e modelando adversários com o auxílio do conjunto de informações reunido através do Holdem Manager. Pela primeira vez na literatura do Computer Poker, são apresentados resultados de jogos de poker online, num ambiente controlado, contra jogadores humanos sem estes saberem que estão em jogo contra um agente. O agente é capaz de jogar poker online ao vivo contra jogadores humanos, e apresenta um pequeno lucro na vertente Texas Hold'em em micro limites6 de apostas, nomeadamente 0.01 e 0.02 cêntimos.Games of incomplete information, such as poker, are a continuous source of research and study in the area of artificial intelligence. Poker presents challenging problems such as opponent modeling, risk management and bluff detection. The development of agents capable of probabilistic calculations considering those problems is considered to be difficult to achieve, since dynamic adaption is required in order to create a robust computer poker player. This thesis focuses on the development of a poker agent able to play against human players and aiming to achieve the dynamic adaptation needed to beat some human players online. This will be achieved by using some sets of information about each player the agent plays against. Using Holdem Manager, a tool that registers the hands played in an online poker room; it is possible to obtain statistics about every player the agent is playing against. The agent is able to explore some of these statistics so that it can better decide on which action to take. Some factors like how aggressive an opponent is, the position held at the table, how many players are involved, how much money is involved, and the hand dealt to the agent are a few portions of the information sets used to compute the agent's behavior. This agent was developed based on a short-stack strategy, and through the use of the sets of information provided by the Holdem Manager. For the first time in the Computer Poker literature, results on online Poker agent games versus human players in a controlled environment are presented, and without the players being aware their opponent was a computer agent. The agent is able to play live online poker versus human players, and presents a small profit in the No-Limit Texas Hold'em poker game at micro stakes, namely 0.02 and 0.01 cents

DIGISER. Digital Innovation in Governance and Public Service Provision

Digital Innovation Challenges In view of the increasingly intense pressures on the public sector to address the challenges of our time, governments and other public entities are gradually adopting digital innovation, seeking to promote quality public services. Digital technologies and capabilities create opportunities to re-organise public service inno- vation and delivery in ways that reduce cost and increase quality, proactiveness and citizen-centricity. Multilevel governance, networks and other collaboration systems (at local, regional, national and interna- tional level) are gaining importance as key drivers of this process of digital innovation and transformation. The link to the innovation ecosystem, including all sectors of activity, both private and public (e.g., academia, industry, business, citizens and governments) appears as fundamental in all phases of the creation, devel- opment, implementation and maintenance of public services and policy making. Information and communi- cation technologies are conceived as essential elements to support the creation and sustainability of these collaboration processes. In an era in which information gains relevance in the management of the territory and allows new power relations, the expectations of citizens are increasingly demanding and specific. Considering the develop- ments of recent years, such as the economic, social and health crises, the pressure placed on the resolution of global challenges is progressively transferred to the scope of cities. There are several elements that con- tribute to the importance of cities in the digital innovation transformation process namely buying- power, being closer to citizens and being able to work across different sectors. In fact, urban territories increasingly represent a greater number of citizens - in Europe, for example, they correspond to 75% of the population - have greater autonomy in management, worldwide they contribute to 80% of the global GDP and have the potential to provide a major contribution to the resolution of global challenges. The balance between change (promoted by the digital innovation strategies) and stability (driven by organi- sational inertia) needs to be handled carefully. The transformation process has to be based on a long-term strategy and to occur in a sustainable way, by focusing on learning experiences and knowledge and tech- nology transfer, while being sensitive to the local context to ensure improvement. At the European level, the Digital Transition has been considered a main goal for the next decade. The EU launched the European Green Deal and Europe Fit for the Digital Age, a twin initiative, which links green and digital transition. The vision for the EU ́s digital decade is reflected in the Digital Compass 2030 and includes 4 cardinal points: skills, government, infrastructure and Business. With the aim of having 100% of the key public services online by 2030, the digital compass ensures that digital will contribute in a positive way to improve citizens quality of life while reducing the resources spent. To support this vision, and by understanding the importance of community-led data-driven solutions and the potential of collaborative ap- proaches, several initiatives are being implemented. The Living-in.EU movement, for example, points out the European Way’ where multi-level governance and co-creation processes support the development of a cohesive digital Europe in the path towards digital transition. Another initiative contributing to this strategy is promoted by Open & Agile Smart Cities which is connecting cities through Minimal Interoperability Mech- anisms (MIMs) - “a set of practical capabilities based on open technical specifications that allow cities and communities to replicate and scale solutions globally”. The MIMs contribute to the creation of the European Single Market by providing a common technical ground for the procurement and deployment of urban data platforms and end-to-end solutions in cities

Commercial Systems for the Direct Detection of Explosives (for Explosive Ordnance Disposal Tasks)

The main goal of this study, carried out by the author on behalf of the Swiss Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), was to characterise existing technologies, and identify corresponding commercially available systems, for the direct detection of explosives for Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) tasks. Systems should be able to determine if a given piece of munition contains explosives or is inert, and ideally in the former case to establish the type of explosive (see also Annex A2.1). This will be often referred to in the following as the “task at hand”, or the “task of interest to us”. Note that the object in questions has already been detected by other means (usually visually, e.g. lying on the surface) – what is needed is the capacity to characterise its contents (explosive or inert)

Placespeak Business Plan

PlaceSpeak is a new product in the consultation software industry, which is an emerging sector with many competitors. This project reviews potential markets for the product and the product’s competitive advantages. While confirming that PlaceSpeak addresses a gap in the current consultation market, the research identifies some of the risks in the market and suggests several mitigation strategies. The project also highlights gaps in the current product design and implementation, and suggests possible strategies to fill these gaps prior to commercialization