9,297 research outputs found

    An approach for energy management of renewable energy sources using electric vehicles and heat pumps in an integrated electricity grid system

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    The demand for electricity has been increasing worldwide and it is predicted that this trend will be particularly reinforced in developing countries by the gradual electrification of the transport sector and heat generation in buildings. The energy supply infrastructure required to meet the additional electricity demand should be carefully managed in light of the climate change carbon emission targets and commitments. A large proportion of the new electricity loads will be met from renewable sources. Therefore, means of power storage become vital to smooth out the intermittent nature of these energy supplies. The introduction of Electric Vehicles (EVs) could provide a viable and dynamic power storage solution through the concept of Vehicle-to-everything (V2X). This involves the storage of renewable energy (RE) in EV batteries during the charging cycle and restitution to the grid (V2G) or homes (V2H) when needed. In this context, this paper presents a methodology involving several strategies to stabilise the grid system and examines the impact of various types of EVs and heat pumps (HPs) for supplying heat in buildings. The results of this research approach show that the synergy of using V2H could reduce the carbon footprint of a typical domestic building in the United Kingdom (UK) by up to 87% and potentially recover up to 21.9 kWh/day of surplus renewable energy

    Challenges in the Design and Implementation of IoT Testbeds in Smart-Cities : A Systematic Review

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    Advancements in wireless communication and the increased accessibility to low-cost sensing and data processing IoT technologies have increased the research and development of urban monitoring systems. Most smart city research projects rely on deploying proprietary IoT testbeds for indoor and outdoor data collection. Such testbeds typically rely on a three-tier architecture composed of the Endpoint, the Edge, and the Cloud. Managing the system's operation whilst considering the security and privacy challenges that emerge, such as data privacy controls, network security, and security updates on the devices, is challenging. This work presents a systematic study of the challenges of developing, deploying and managing urban monitoring testbeds, as experienced in a series of urban monitoring research projects, followed by an analysis of the relevant literature. By identifying the challenges in the various projects and organising them under the V-model development lifecycle levels, we provide a reference guide for future projects. Understanding the challenges early on will facilitate current and future smart-cities IoT research projects to reduce implementation time and deliver secure and resilient testbeds

    Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

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    A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

    Multi-dimensional omics approaches to dissect natural immune control mechanisms associated with RNA virus infections

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    In recent decades, global health has been challenged by emerging and re-emerging viruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV-1), and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV). Studies have shown dysregulations in the host metabolic processes against SARS-CoV2 and HIV-1 infections, and the research on CCHFV infection is still in the infant stage. Hence, understanding the host metabolic re-programming on the reaction level in infectious disease has therapeutic importance. The thesis uses systems biology methods to investigate the host metabolic alterations in response to SARS-CoV2, HIV-1, and CCHFV infections. The three distinct viruses induce distinct effects on human metabolism that, nevertheless, show some commonalities. We have identified alterations in various immune cell types in patients during the infections of the three viruses. Further, differential expression analysis identified that COVID-19 causes disruptions in pathways related to antiviral response and metabolism (fructose mannose metabolism, oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), and pentose phosphate pathway). Up-regulation of OXPHOS and ROS pathways with most changes in OXPHOS complexes I, III, and IV were identified in people living with HIV on treatment (PLWHART). The acute phase of CCHFV infection is found to be linked with OXPHOS, glycolysis, N-glycan biosynthesis, and NOD-like receptor signaling pathways. The dynamic nature of the metabolic process and adaptive immune response in CCHFV-pathogenesis are also observed. Further, we have identified different metabolic flux in reactions transporting TCA cycle intermediates from the cytosol to mitochondria in COVID-19 patients. Genes such as monocarboxylate transporter (SLC16A6) and nucleoside transporter (SLC29A1) and metabolites such as α-ketoglutarate, succinate, and malate were found to be linked with COVID-19 disease response. Metabolic reactions associated with amino acid, carbohydrate, and energy metabolism pathways and various transporter reactions were observed to be uniquely disrupted in PLWHART along with increased production of αketoglutarate (αKG) and ATP molecules. Changes in essential (leucine and threonine) and non-essential (arginine, alanine, and glutamine) amino acid transport were found to be caused by acute CCHFV infection. The altered flux of reactions involving TCA cycle compounds such as pyruvate, isocitrate, and alpha-ketoglutarate was also observed in CCHFV infection. The research described in the thesis displayed dysregulations in similar metabolic processes against the three viral Infections. But further downstream analysis unveiled unique alterations in several metabolic reactions specific to each virus in the same metabolic pathways showing the importance of increasing the resolution of knowledge about host metabolism in infectious diseases

    Facilitating prosociality through technology: Design to promote digital volunteerism

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    Volunteerism covers many activities involving no financial rewards for volunteers but which contribute to the common good. There is existing work in designing technology for volunteerism in HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) and related disciplines that focuses on motivation to improve performance, but it does not account for volunteer wellbeing. Here, I investigate digital volunteerism in three case studies with a focus on volunteer motivation, engagement, and wellbeing. My research involved volunteers and others in the volunteering context to generate recommendations for a volunteer-centric design for digital volunteerism. The thesis has three aims: 1. To investigate motivational aspects critical for enhancing digital volunteers’ experiences 2. To identify digital platform attributes linked to volunteer wellbeing 3. To create guidelines for effectively supporting volunteer engagement in digital volunteering platforms In the first case study I investigate the design of a chat widget for volunteers working in an organisation with a view to develop a design that improves their workflow and wellbeing. The second case study investigates the needs, motivations, and wellbeing of volunteers who help medical students improve their medical communication skills. An initial mixed-methods study was followed by an experiment comparing two design strategies to improve volunteer relatedness; an important indicator of wellbeing. The third case study looks into volunteer needs, experiences, motivations, and wellbeing with a focus on volunteer identity and meaning-making on a science-based research platform. I then analyse my findings from these case studies using the lens of care ethics to derive critical insights for design. The key contributions of this thesis are design strategies and critical insights, and a volunteer-centric design framework to enhance the motivation, wellbeing and engagement of digital volunteers

    Key technologies for safe and autonomous drones

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    Drones/UAVs are able to perform air operations that are very difficult to be performed by manned aircrafts. In addition, drones' usage brings significant economic savings and environmental benefits, while reducing risks to human life. In this paper, we present key technologies that enable development of drone systems. The technologies are identified based on the usages of drones (driven by COMP4DRONES project use cases). These technologies are grouped into four categories: U-space capabilities, system functions, payloads, and tools. Also, we present the contributions of the COMP4DRONES project to improve existing technologies. These contributions aim to ease drones’ customization, and enable their safe operation.This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 826610. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands. The total project budget is 28,590,748.75 EUR (excluding ESIF partners), while the requested grant is 7,983,731.61 EUR to ECSEL JU, and 8,874,523.84 EUR of National and ESIF Funding. The project has been started on 1st October 2019

    Knowledge Graph Building Blocks: An easy-to-use Framework for developing FAIREr Knowledge Graphs

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    Knowledge graphs and ontologies provide promising technical solutions for implementing the FAIR Principles for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data and metadata. However, they also come with their own challenges. Nine such challenges are discussed and associated with the criterion of cognitive interoperability and specific FAIREr principles (FAIR + Explorability raised) that they fail to meet. We introduce an easy-to-use, open source knowledge graph framework that is based on knowledge graph building blocks (KGBBs). KGBBs are small information modules for knowledge-processing, each based on a specific type of semantic unit. By interrelating several KGBBs, one can specify a KGBB-driven FAIREr knowledge graph. Besides implementing semantic units, the KGBB Framework clearly distinguishes and decouples an internal in-memory data model from data storage, data display, and data access/export models. We argue that this decoupling is essential for solving many problems of knowledge management systems. We discuss the architecture of the KGBB Framework as we envision it, comprising (i) an openly accessible KGBB-Repository for different types of KGBBs, (ii) a KGBB-Engine for managing and operating FAIREr knowledge graphs (including automatic provenance tracking, editing changelog, and versioning of semantic units); (iii) a repository for KGBB-Functions; (iv) a low-code KGBB-Editor with which domain experts can create new KGBBs and specify their own FAIREr knowledge graph without having to think about semantic modelling. We conclude with discussing the nine challenges and how the KGBB Framework provides solutions for the issues they raise. While most of what we discuss here is entirely conceptual, we can point to two prototypes that demonstrate the principle feasibility of using semantic units and KGBBs to manage and structure knowledge graphs

    KYT2022 Finnish Research Programme on Nuclear Waste Management 2019–2022 : Final Report

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    KYT2022 (Finnish Research Programme on Nuclear Waste Management 2019–2022), organised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, was a national research programme with the objective to ensure that the authorities have sufficient levels of nuclear expertise and preparedness that are needed for safety of nuclear waste management. The starting point for public research programs on nuclear safety is that they create the conditions for maintaining the knowledge required for the continued safe and economic use of nuclear energy, developing new know-how and participating in international collaboration. The content of the KYT2022 research programme was composed of nationally important research topics, which are the safety, feasibility and acceptability of nuclear waste management. KYT2022 research programme also functioned as a discussion and information-sharing forum for the authorities, those responsible for nuclear waste management and the research organizations, which helped to make use of the limited research resources. The programme aimed to develop national research infrastructure, ensure the continuing availability of expertise, produce high-level scientific research and increase general knowledge of nuclear waste management
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