Stochastic-Based Models for Electricity Market Analysis with High Wind Energy Penetration

Renewable energy is now seen as an almost indispensable instrument to overcome or at least mitigate climate change. Wind and solar energy are among the most generally quoted renewable energy forms that are envisaged to offer the quantitative potential contribution to decarbonization, and between them, wind energy is the one usually considered to be closest to being economic. A system of incentives has been, and remains, necessary to foster the development of intermittent sources with the view of increasing their penetration into generation systems, sometimes at levels that are unjustified by current market conditions. The effects of incentive policies of the subsidy type are usually difficult to monitor, and unintended consequences should not come as a surprise. This is the case in the European Union, which has been at the forefront of the use of renewable energy with the result that subsidized intermittent capacities are now jeopardizing the short term economics of conventional units to a level that puts the adequacy of the system in question, with many new conventional plants being mothballed or dismantled because they are not profitable. This thesis concentrates on the situation going on in some European countries, where the high penetration of renewable energy, combined with energy conservation and other events related to the economic crisis have lead to a reduction of wholesale electricity prices that questions the survival of conventional plants in the market. The main questions addressed are the loss of conventional assets value, the cost of the subsidies implied by the current policies, and the influence of the technical constraints (reserve, ramping constraints and uncertainty in wind generation) for the system operation. The methodology consist of using equilibrium models based on stochastic programming. Two kinds of models are considered: i) a complementarity formulation for a multi-firm configuration that accounts for the separation between the PX and the TSO, and ii) a welfare maximization problem for a single firm configuration. All the models assume price taking agents and no market power with the objective to simplify the economic discussion and concentrate on the economic and physical issues of market design. The use of the models is illustrated on two questions motivated by the current phenomena observed in Europe, that consist of conventional plants, necessary for providing services, are driven out of the market because of low energy prices. The common wisdom (and the observation of the market) is that renewable energies induce a decrease of energy prices together with a reduction of the activity, and the profit, of the conventional units. The models show that this phenomenon indeed seems rather stable under different structural assumptions (premium to wind generation and risk aversion), but it may also crucially depend on the demand for ancillary services (here frequency maintenance) induced by renewable energies and on their pricing by the market design. We find that a higher demand for load following reserve and an economically sound pricing (marginal cost pricing) restore the revenue of the conventional plants. The question of the sustainability of conventional plants then leads to the proper identification of the demand for services and the acceptance that they will be properly remunerated

Low computational cost method to calculate the hosting capacity in radial low voltage networks

This study presents a low computational cost method to compute the hosting capacity of each user in a radial single phase power network. It is assumed every user install generation. The method is based on two key points, one is the Thevenin equivalent for the installation of each user and for the whole system, the other is the representation of the operation region through the contour of the regions for the Thevenin circuits parameters. The method calculates the range of power injection allowed for each user in order to comply with the network and devices constraints. This range can be included in optimization problems to define the feasible operation region avoiding the explicit inclusion of the power flow equations. The method is illustrated on a simple case study with three users.Ministerior de Economía y Competitividad. Proyecto ENE2016-80638-R Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Effect of Ramping Requirement and Price Cap on Energy Price in a System with High Wind Penetration

Sebastian Martin, Yves Smeers, and Jose Aguado. Effect of Ramping Requirement and Price Cap on Energy Price in a System with High Wind Penetration. In proceedings of the 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Pittsburgh, July 12-17, 2015The European power market is currently retiring or mothballing large capacities of conventional plants, and at the same time incorporating a significant amount of non-dispatchable renewable generation, in particular wind. We analyse the mothballing process (and the resulting system) and study how they are affected by a price cap implemented in the energy only market, and by a possible implementation of ramping products in the system.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Individualized exercises for continuous assessment in engineering

This project focuses on the development of a web application that automatically grades the solution to engineering exercises. The input data of each exercise is different for each student in order to reduce plagiarism and increase motivation. Students can access the web app from any device with internet access (computer, laptop, phone, …) at any time. The fact that the exercises are enunciated and evaluated in an individualized way eliminates the possibility for students to share the solutions and divert the profitable collaboration between students towards the learning of the resolution procedure itself. From the professor’s perspective, this tool allows an efficient and continuous evaluation of students. Besides, the storage of the data (number of attempts, time required, etc.) provides valuable information both for the self-assessment of the professor and for the analysis of the individualized learning process of each student. The web application is coded in Python, which easily allows the incorporation of additional features according to the needs of professors and students. The web application has already been tested during two academic years in two Spanish universities and for several engineering degrees. Ten professor and more than 2000 students have already benefit from this web application.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Loss of Pax5 exploits sca1-BCR-ABLp190 susceptibility to confer the metabolic shift essential for pB-ALL

Preleukemic clones carrying BCR-ABLp190 oncogenic lesions are found in neonatal cord blood, where the majority of preleukemic carriers do not convert into precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pB-ALL). However, the critical question of how these preleukemic cells transform into pB-ALL remains undefined. Here, we model a BCR-ABLp190 preleukemic state and show that limiting BCR-ABLp190 expression to hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HS/PC) in mice (Sca1-BCR-ABLp190) causes pB-ALL at low penetrance, which resembles the human disease. pB-ALL blast cells were BCR-ABL–negative and transcriptionally similar to pro-B/pre-B cells, suggesting disease onset upon reduced Pax5 functionality. Consistent with this, double Sca1-BCR-ABLp190+Pax5+/− mice developed pB-ALL with shorter latencies, 90% incidence, and accumulation of genomic alterations in the remaining wild-type Pax5 allele. Mechanistically, the Pax5-deficient leukemic pro-B cells exhibited a metabolic switch toward increased glucose utilization and energy metabolism. Transcriptome analysis revealed that metabolic genes (IDH1, G6PC3, GAPDH, PGK1, MYC, ENO1, ACO1) were upregulated in Pax5-deficient leukemic cells, and a similar metabolic signature could be observed in human leukemia. Our studies unveil the first in vivo evidence that the combination between Sca1-BCR-ABLp190 and metabolic reprogramming imposed by reduced Pax5 expression is sufficient for pB-ALL development. These findings might help to prevent conversion of BCR-ABLp190 preleukemic cells.J. Hauer has been supported by the German Cancer Aid (Project 110997 and Translational Oncology Program 70112951), the German Jose Carreras Foundation (DJCLS 02R/2016), the Kinderkrebsstiftung (2016/17), and the "Elterninitiative Kinderkrebstiftung e.V." S. Ginzel has been supported by a scholarship of the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. M. Muschen is an HHMI Faculty Scholar (HHMI- € 55108547) and supported by NIH/NCI through an Outstanding Investigator Award (R35CA197628, R01CA137060, R01CA157644, R01CA172558, R01CA213138) to M. Muschen, a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, € the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Norman and Sadie Lee Foundation (for Pediatric Cancer, to M. Muschen), and the Dr. Ralph and Marian € Falk Medical Research Trust (to M. Muschen), Cancer Research Institute € through a Clinic and Laboratory Integration Program grant (to M. Muschen) € and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) through DISC2-10061. A. Borkhardt has been supported by the German Children's Cancer Foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Bonn, Germany. Research in I. Sanchez-García's group is partially supported by FEDER and by MINECO (SAF2012-32810, SAF2015-64420-R, and Red de Excelencia Consolider OncoBIO SAF2014-57791-REDC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PIE14/00066), ISCIII- Plan de Ayudas IBSAL 2015 Proyectos Integrados (IBY15/00003), by Junta de Castilla y Leon (BIO/SA51/15, CSI001U14, UIC-017, and CSI001U16), Fundacion Inocente Inocente and by the ARIMMORA project [European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 282891]. I. Sanchez-García's lab is a member of the EuroSyStem and the DECIDE Network funded by the European Union under the FP7 program. A. Borkhardt and I. Sanchez-García have been supported by the German Carreras Foundation (DJCLS R13/26). Research in C. Vicente-Duenas's ~ group is partially supported by FEDER, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ("Miguel Servet" Grant - CP14/00082 - AES 2013-2016) and (PI17/00167) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. A. Martín-Lorenzo and G. Rodríguez-Hernandez were supported by FSE-Conserjería de Educacion de la Junta de Castilla y Leon (CSI001-13 and CSI001-15, respectively). F. Auer was supported by a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) fellowship (AU 525/1-1)

Knowledge Graphs Evolution and Preservation -- A Technical Report from ISWS 2019

One of the grand challenges discussed during the Dagstuhl Seminar "Knowledge Graphs: New Directions for Knowledge Representation on the Semantic Web" and described in its report is that of a: "Public FAIR Knowledge Graph of Everything: We increasingly see the creation of knowledge graphs that capture information about the entirety of a class of entities. [...] This grand challenge extends this further by asking if we can create a knowledge graph of "everything" ranging from common sense concepts to location based entities. This knowledge graph should be "open to the public" in a FAIR manner democratizing this mass amount of knowledge." Although linked open data (LOD) is one knowledge graph, it is the closest realisation (and probably the only one) to a public FAIR Knowledge Graph (KG) of everything. Surely, LOD provides a unique testbed for experimenting and evaluating research hypotheses on open and FAIR KG. One of the most neglected FAIR issues about KGs is their ongoing evolution and long term preservation. We want to investigate this problem, that is to understand what preserving and supporting the evolution of KGs means and how these problems can be addressed. Clearly, the problem can be approached from different perspectives and may require the development of different approaches, including new theories, ontologies, metrics, strategies, procedures, etc. This document reports a collaborative effort performed by 9 teams of students, each guided by a senior researcher as their mentor, attending the International Semantic Web Research School (ISWS 2019). Each team provides a different perspective to the problem of knowledge graph evolution substantiated by a set of research questions as the main subject of their investigation. In addition, they provide their working definition for KG preservation and evolution

Comparison of seven prognostic tools to identify low-risk pulmonary embolism in patients aged <50 years

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Native diversity buffers against severity of non-native tree invasions

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species$^{1,2}$. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies$^{3,4}$. Here, leveraging global tree databases$^{5,6,7}$, we explore how the phylogenetic and functional diversity of native tree communities, human pressure and the environment influence the establishment of non-native tree species and the subsequent invasion severity. We find that anthropogenic factors are key to predicting whether a location is invaded, but that invasion severity is underpinned by native diversity, with higher diversity predicting lower invasion severity. Temperature and precipitation emerge as strong predictors of invasion strategy, with non-native species invading successfully when they are similar to the native community in cold or dry extremes. Yet, despite the influence of these ecological forces in determining invasion strategy, we find evidence that these patterns can be obscured by human activity, with lower ecological signal in areas with higher proximity to shipping ports. Our global perspective of non-native tree invasion highlights that human drivers influence non-native tree presence, and that native phylogenetic and functional diversity have a critical role in the establishment and spread of subsequent invasions