Aggregating energy supply and demand

Energy usage in general, and electricity usage in particular, are major concerns internationally due to the increased cost of providing energy supplies and the environmental impacts of electricity generation using carbon-based fuels. If a "systems" approach is taken to understanding energy issues then both supply and demand need to be considered holistically. This paper examines two research projects in the energy area with IT tools as key deliverables, one examining supply issues and the other studying demand side issues. The supply side project used hard engineering methods to build the models and software, while the demand side project used a social science approach. While the projects are distinct, there was an overlap in personnel. Comparing the knowledge extraction, model building, implementation and interface issues of these two deliverables identifies both interesting contrasts and commonalities

Ontology-based demand support systems for urban development

Demand support systems (DSSs) can help clients by presenting design solutions using virtual reality, and by offering relevant feedback such as costs, energy usage, distances and density. Using these systems, clients and stakeholders can run 'what-if' scenarios on different design solutions and see the consequences of their changes. To make sure that a DSS is suitable, it needs to cope with the project situation at hand. This paper investigates DSSs that can be built 'on-site' and that are flexible enough to model project-specific issues. A custom-built DSS can be tailored for each project. Therefore this paper explores the use of ontologies. The use of an ontology enables further reuse of software components and software models. With this approach, several parts of software components can be reused and put together to quickly develop a customised DSS. This paper describes this approach and demonstrates a prototype implementation that is useful for urban design projects in early design phases

Improved PCR-walking for large-scale isolation of plant T-DNA borders

International audienc