Strategic Research Agenda for organic food and farming

The TP Organics Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) was finalised in December 2009. The purpose of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) is to enable research, development and knowledge transfer that will deliver relevant outcomes – results that will contribute to the improvement of the organic sector and other low external input systems. The document has been developed through a dynamic consultative process that ran from 2008 to 2009. It involved a wide range of stakeholders who enthusiastically joined the effort to define organic research priorities. From December 2008 to February; the expert groups elaborated the first draft. The consultative process involved the active participation of many different countries. Consultation involved researchers, advisors, members of inspection/certification bodies, as well as different users/beneficiaries of the research such as farmers, processors, market actors and members of civil society organisations throughout Europe and further afield in order to gather the research needs of the whole organic sector

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Implementation Action Plan for organic food and farming research

The Implementation Action Plan completes TP Organics’ trilogy of key documents of the Research Vision to 2025 (Niggli et al 2008) and the Strategic Research Agenda (Schmid et al 2009). The Implementation Action Plan addresses important areas for a successful implementation of the Strategic Research Agenda. It explores the strength of Europe’s organic sector on the world stage with about one quarter of the world’s organic agricultural land in 2008 and accounting for more than half of the global organic market. The aims and objectives of organic farming reflect a broad range of societal demands on the multiple roles of agriculture and food production of not only producing commodities but also ecosystem services. These are important for Europe’s economic success, the resilience of its farms and prosperity in its rural areas. The organic sector is a leading market for quality and authenticity: values at the heart of European food culture. Innovation is important across the EU economy, and no less so within the organic sector. The Implementation Action Plan devotes its third chapter to considering how innovation can be stimulated through organic food and farming research and, crucially, translated into changes in business and agricultural practice. TP Organics argues for a broad understanding of innovation that includes technology, know-how and social/organisational innovations. Accordingly, innovation can involve different actors throughout the food sector. Many examples illustrate innovations in the organic sector includign and beyond technology. The various restrictions imposed by organic standards have driven change and turned organic farms and food businesses into creative living laboratories for smart and green innovations and the sector will continue to generate new examples. The research topics proposed by TP Organics in the Strategic Research Agenda can drive innovation in areas as wide ranging as production practices for crops, technologies for livestock, food processing, quality management, on-farm renewable energy or insights into the effects of consumption of organic products on disease and wellbeing and life style of citizens. Importantly, many approaches developed within the sector are relevant and useful beyond the specific sector. The fourth chapter addresses knowledge management in organic agriculture, focusing on the further development of participatory research methods. Participatory (or trans-disciplinary) models recognise the worth and importance of different forms of knowledge and reduced boundaries between the generators and the users of knowledge, while respecting and benefitting from transparent division of tasks. The emphasis on joint creation and exchange of knowledge makes them valuable as part of a knowledge management toolkit as they have the capacity to enhance the translation of research outcomes into practical changes and lead to real-world progress. The Implementation Action Plan argues for the wider application of participatory methods in publicly-funded research and also proposes some criteria for evaluating participatory research, such as the involvement and satisfaction of stakeholders as well as real improvements in sustainability and delivery of public goods/services. European agriculture faces specific challenges but at the same time Europe has a unique potential for the development of agro-ecology based solutions that must be supported through well focused research. TP Organics believes that the most effective approaches in agriculture and food research will be systems-based, multi- and trans-disciplinary, and that in the development of research priorities, the interconnections between biodiversity, dietary diversity, functional diversity and health must be taken into account. Chapter five of the action plan identifies six themes which could be used to organise research and innovation activities in agriculture under Europe’s 8th Framework Programme on Research Cooperation: • Eco-functional intensification – A new area of agricultural research which aims to harness beneficial activities of the ecosystem to increase productivity in agriculture. • The economics of high output / low input farming Developing reliable economic and environmental assessments of new recycling, renewable-based and efficiency-boosting technologies for agriculture. • Health care schemes for livestock Shifting from therapeutics to livestock health care schemes based on good husbandry and disease prevention. • Resilience and “sustainagility” Dealing with a more rapidly changing environment by focusing on ‘adaptive capacity’ to help build resilience of farmers, farms and production methods. • From farm diversity to food diversity and health and wellbeing of citizens Building on existing initiatives to reconnect consumers and producers, use a ‘whole food chain’ approach to improve availability of natural and authentic foods. • Creating centres of innovation in farming communities A network of centres in Europe applying and developing trans-disciplinary and participatory scientific approaches to support innovation among farmers and SMEs and improving research capacities across Europe

Distributed Contingency Analysis over Wide Area Network among Dispatch Centers

Traditionally, a regional dispatch center uses the equivalent method to deal with external grids, which fails to reflect the interactions among regions. This paper proposes a distributed N-1 contingency analysis (DCA) solution, where dispatch centers join a coordinated computation using their private data and computing resources. A distributed screening method is presented to determine the Critical Contingency Set (DCCS) in DCA. Then, the distributed power flow is formulated as a set of boundary equations, which is solved by a Jacobi-Free Newton-GMRES (JFNG) method. During solving the distributed power flow, only boundary conditions are exchanged. Acceleration techniques are also introduced, including reusing preconditioners and optimal resource scheduling during parallel processing of multiple contingencies. The proposed method is implemented on a real EMS platform, where tests using the Southwest Regional Grid of China are carried out to validate its feasibility.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, 2017 IEEE PES General Meetin

Application of Advanced Early Warning Systems with Adaptive Protection

This project developed and field-tested two methods of Adaptive Protection systems utilizing synchrophasor data. One method detects conditions of system stress that can lead to unintended relay operation, and initiates a supervisory signal to modify relay response in real time to avoid false trips. The second method detects the possibility of false trips of impedance relays as stable system swings “encroach” on the relays’ impedance zones, and produces an early warning so that relay engineers can re-evaluate relay settings. In addition, real-time synchrophasor data produced by this project was used to develop advanced visualization techniques for display of synchrophasor data to utility operators and engineers

INTELLIGENTE TRANSPORT SYSTEMEN ITS EN VERKEERSVEILIGHEID

This report discusses Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This generic term is used for a broad range of information-, control- and electronic technology that can be integrated in the road infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, saving lives, time and money bymonitoring and managing traffic flows, reducing conges-tion, avoiding accidents, etc. Because this report was written in the scope of the Policy Research Centre Mobility & Public Works, track Traffic Safety, it focuses on ITS systems from the traffic safety point of view. Within the whole range of ITS systems, two categories can be distinguished: autonomous and cooperative systems. Autonomous systems are all forms of ITS which operate by itself, and do not depend on the cooperation with other vehicles or supporting infrastructure. Example applications are blind spot detection using radar, electronic stability control, dynamic traffic management using variable road signs, emergency call, etc. Cooperative systems are ITS systems based on communication and cooperation, both between vehicles as between vehicles and infrastructure. Example applications are alerting vehicles approaching a traffic jam, exchanging data regarding hazardous road conditions, extended electronic brake light, etc. In some cases, autonomous systems can evolve to autonomous cooperative systems. ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) is an example of this: the dynamic aspect as well as communication with infrastructure (eg Traffic lights, Variable Message Sign (VMS)...) can provide additional road safety. This is the clear link between the two parts of this report. The many ITS applications are an indicator of the high expectations from the government, the academic world and the industry regarding the possibilities made possible by both categories of ITS systems. Therefore, the comprehensive discussion of both of them is the core of this report. The first part of the report covering the autonomous systems treats two aspects: 1. Overview of European projects related to mobility and in particular to road safety 2. Overview for guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects. Out of the wide range of diverse (autonomous) ITS applications a selection is made; this selection is focused on E Safety Forum and PreVENT. Especially the PreVent research project is interesting because ITS-applications have led to a number of concrete demonstration vehicles that showed - in protected and unprotected surroundings- that these ITS-applications are already technically useful or could be developed into useful products. The component “guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects” outlines that the government has to have specific evaluation tools if the government has the ambition of using ITS-applications for road safety. Two projects -guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects- are examined; a third evaluation method is only mentioned because this description shows that a specific targeting of the government can be desirable : 1. TRACE describes the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects which are useful for the evaluation of specific ITS-applications. 2. FITS contains Finnish guidelines for the evaluation of ITS project; FIS is an adaptation of methods used for evaluation of transport projects. 3. The third evaluation method for the evaluation of ITS projects is developed in an ongoing European research project, eImpact. eImpact is important because, a specific consultation of stake holders shows that the social importance of some techniques is underestimated. These preliminary results show that an appropriate guiding role for the government could be important. In the second part of this document the cooperative systems are discussed in depth. These systems enable a large number of applications with an important social relevance, both on the level of the environment, mobility and traffic safety. Cooperative systems make it possible to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions (e.g. when approaching the tail of a traffic jam, or when a ghost driver is detected). Hazardous road conditions can be automatically communicated to other drivers (e.g. after the detection of black ice or an oil trail by the ESP). Navigation systems can receive detailed real-time up-dates about the current traffic situation and can take this into account when calculating their routes. When a traffic distortion occurs, traffic centers can immediately take action and can actively influence the way that the traffic will be diverted. Drivers can be notified well in advance about approaching emergency vehicles, and can be directed to yield way in a uniform manner. This is just a small selection from the large number of applications that are made possible because of cooperative ITS systems, but it is very obvious that these systems can make a significant positive contribution to traffic safety. In literature it is estimated that the decrease of accidents with injuries of fatalities will be between 20% and 50% . It is not suprising that ITS systems receive a lot of attention for the moment. On an international level, a number of standards are being established regarding this topic. The International Telecommunications Uniont (ITU), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB) and European committee for standardization (CEN) are currently defining standards that describe different aspects of ITS systems. One of the names that is mostly mentioned in literature is the ISO TC204/WG16 Communications Architecture for Land Mobile environment (CALM) standard. It describes a framework that enables transparent (both for the application and the user) continuous communication through different communication media. Besides the innumerable standardization activities, there is a great number of active research projects. On European level, the most important are the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative, the eSafety Forum, and the COMeSafety, the CVIS, the SAFESPOT, the COOPERS and the SEVECOM project. The i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative is an European initiative with the goal to halve the number of traffic casualties by 2010. The eSafety Forum is an initiative of the European Commission, industry and other stakeholders and targets the acceleration of development and deployment of safety-related ITS systems. The COMeSafety project supports the eSafety Forum on the field of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In the CVIS project, attention is given to both technical and non-technical issues, with the main goal to develop the first free and open reference implementation of the CALM architecture. The SAFEST project investigates which data is important for safety applications, and with which algorithmsthis data can be extracted from vehicles and infrastructure. The COOPERS project mainly targets communication between vehicles and dedicated roadside infrastructure. Finally, the SEVECOM project researches security and privacy issues. Besides the European projects, research is also conducted in the United States of America (CICAS and VII projects) and in Japan (AHSRA, VICS, Smartway, internetITS). Besides standardization bodies and governmental organizations, also the industry has a considerable interest in ITS systems. In the scope of their ITS activities, a number of companies are united in national and international organizations. On an international level, the best known names are the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, and Ertico. The C2C CC unites the large European car manufacturers, and focuses on the development of an open standard for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications based on the already well established IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard. Ertico is an European multi-sector, public/private partnership with the intended purpose of the development and introduction of ITS systems. On a national level, FlandersDrive and The Telematics Cluster / ITS Belgium are the best known organizations. Despite the worldwide activities regarding (cooperative) ITS systems, there still is no consensus about the wireless technology to be used in such systems. This can be put down to the fact that a large number of suitable technologies exist or are under development. Each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but no single technology is the ideal solution for every ITS application. However, the different candidates can be classified in three distinct categories. The first group contains solutions for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), such as the WAVE technology. The second group is made up of several cellular communication networks providing coverage over wide areas. Examples are GPRS (data communication using the GSM network), UMTS (faster then GPRS), WiMAX (even faster then UMTS) and MBWA (similar to WiMAX). The third group consists of digital data broadcast technologies such as RDS (via the current FM radio transmissions, slow), DAB and DMB (via current digital radio transmissions, quicker) and DVB-H (via future digital television transmissions for mobiledevices, quickest). The previous makes it clear that ITS systems are a hot topic right now, and they receive a lot of attention from the academic world, the standardization bodies and the industry. Therefore, it seems like that it is just a matter of time before ITS systems will find their way into the daily live. Due to the large number of suitable technologies for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems, it is very hard to define which role the government has to play in these developments, and which are the next steps to take. These issues were addressed in reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project. Their state of the art overview revealed that until now, no country has successfully deployed a fully operational ITS system yet. Seven EU countries are the furthest and are already in the deployment phase: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain and France. These countries are trailed by eight countries which are in the promotion phase: Denmark, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium,Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Finally, the last ten countries find themselves in the start-up phase: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg. These European reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project have defined a few policy recommendations which are very relevant for the Belgian and Flemish government. The most important recommendations for the Flemish government are: • Support awareness: research revealed that civilians consider ITS applications useful, but they are not really willing to pay for this technology. Therefore, it is important to convince the general public of the usefulness and the importance of ITS systems. • Fill the gaps: Belgium is situated in the promotion phase. This means that it should focus at identifying the missing stakeholders, and coordinating national and regional ITS activities. Here it is important that the research activities are coordinated in a national and international context to allow transfer of knowledge from one study to the next, as well as the results to be comparable. • Develop a vision: in the scope of ITS systems policies have to be defined regarding a large number of issues. For instance there is the question if ITS users should be educated, meaning that the use of ITS systems should be the subject of the drivers license exam. How will the regulations be for the technical inspection of vehicles equipped with ITS technology? Will ITS systems be deployed on a voluntary base, or will they e.g. be obliged in every new car? Will the services be offered by private companies, by the public authorities, or by a combination of them? Which technology will be used to implement ITS systems? These are just a few of the many questions where the government will have to develop a point of view for. • Policy coordination: ITS systems are a policy subject on an international, national and regional level. It is very important that these policy organizations can collaborate in a coordinated manner. • Iterative approach to policy development: developing policies for this complex matter is not a simple task. This asks for an iterative approach, where policy decisions are continuously refined and adjusted