A novel DSM philosophy for building integrated renewable systems

This paper presents an overview of a novel concept in IT network design and power control focused on matching building integrated renewable power generation with local demands. It describes how this is achieved through combination of energy demand reduction and dynamic utilisation of embedded energy storage in a robust, efficient and cost effective manner. A brief overview of the main features of the design is given in terms of its intended benefits as an integrated system. The load components and distribution topology are described for this experimental system within the limits set by the capacity, capabilities and desired function of the network. Power supply to the network is described as including a back-up source to the photovoltaic (PV) source to add functionality and stability with no requirements for undesirable exporting of excess PV generation. The necessary configuration of the renewable array integrating with the network is also highlighted with an example compatible solar module device. A trial of the technology and demand management control in a high profile office building is described. This trial in a live working environment is providing invaluable real world data to compare against modelling and network simulation results

Process development

An overview is given of seven process development activities which were presented at this session. Pulsed excimer laser processing of photovoltaic cells was presented. A different pulsed excimer laser annealing was described using a 50 w laser. Diffusion barrier research focused on lowering the chemical reactivity of amorphous thin film on silicon. In another effort adherent and conductive films were successfully achieved. Other efforts were aimed at achieving a simultaneous front and back junction. Microwave enhanced plasma deposition experiments were performed. An updated version of the Solar Array Manufacturing Industry Costing Standards (SAMICS) was presented, along with a life cycle cost analysis of high efficiency cells. The last presentation was on the evaluation of the ethyl vinyl acetate encapsulating system

An integrated dexterous robotic testbed for space applications

An integrated dexterous robotic system was developed as a testbed to evaluate various robotics technologies for advanced space applications. The system configuration consisted of a Utah/MIT Dexterous Hand, a PUMA 562 arm, a stereo vision system, and a multiprocessing computer control system. In addition to these major subsystems, a proximity sensing system was integrated with the Utah/MIT Hand to provide capability for non-contact sensing of a nearby object. A high-speed fiber-optic link was used to transmit digitized proximity sensor signals back to the multiprocessing control system. The hardware system was designed to satisfy the requirements for both teleoperated and autonomous operations. The software system was designed to exploit parallel processing capability, pursue functional modularity, incorporate artificial intelligence for robot control, allow high-level symbolic robot commands, maximize reusable code, minimize compilation requirements, and provide an interactive application development and debugging environment for the end users. An overview is presented of the system hardware and software configurations, and implementation is discussed of subsystem functions

Collation of monthly and semiannual reports covering instrumentation at the Decade 80 house in Tucson, Arizona

The Decade 80 solar house, located in Tucson, Arizona, was built to show the use of copper in home building and to demonstrate the use of solar energy to provide space heating and cooling and domestic hot water. The auxiliary energy sources are electrical resistance heating for the domestic hot water and a gas fired boiler for space heating and operation of the absorption air conditioning units. The Semi-Annual report gives an overview of the instrumentation effort with the back-up monthly reports reflecting more detail of the effort that went into the implementation of the data acquisition system

Study of water recovery and solid waste processing for aerospace and domestic applications. Volume 2: Final report

The manner in which current and advanced technology can be applied to develop practical solutions to existing and emerging water supply and waste disposal problems is evaluated. An overview of water resource factors as they affect new community planning, and requirements imposed on residential waste treatment systems are presented. The results of equipment surveys contain information describing: commercially available devices and appliances designed to conserve water; devices and techniques for monitoring water quality and controlling back contamination; and advanced water and waste processing equipment. System concepts are developed and compared on the basis of current and projected costs. Economic evaluations are based on community populations of from 2,000 to 250,000. The most promising system concept is defined in sufficient depth to initiate detailed design

Performance and scalability of the back-end sub-system in the ATLAS DAQ/EF prototype

The DAQ group of the future ATLAS experiment has developed a prototype system based on the trigger/DAQ architecture described in the ATLAS Technical Proposal to support studies of the full system functionality, architecture as well as available hardware and software technologies. One sub-system of this prototype is the back- end which encompasses the software needed to configure, control and monitor the DAQ, but excludes the processing and transportation of physics data. The back-end consists of a number of components including run control, configuration databases and message reporting system. The software has been developed using standard, external software technologies such as OO databases and CORBA. It has been ported to several C++ compilers and operating systems including Solaris, Linux, WNT and LynxOS. This paper gives an overview of the back-end software, its performance, scalability and current status. (17 refs)

EU pension reform - An overview of the debate and an empirical assessment of the main policy reform options

This paper on European Union (EU) pension reform provides an overview of the debate and, on the basis of a series of model simulations, makes an empirical assessment of the main pension policy reform options at the EU, not the Member State, level. It estimates what it would take to bring the public PAYG pension system back into equilibrium and assesses the case for a shift to funding. The main conclusion of this paper is that the EU pension system should in the very long run (i.e. over more than one generation) be fully funded, with this being achieved using a two-stage optimal transition path. Stage one of this transition process should concentrate on stabilising the PAYG system and achieving a partial shift to funding, with stage two only occurring once circumstances permit. The fully funded system, once established, should have public and private pillars, with the public system in effect replacing the old PAYG system with a similar compulsory, defined benefit, system and with the private pillar being a voluntary, defined contribution, system.pension reform, policy reform options, ageing model, Mc Morrow, R�ger,