NILM techniques for intelligent home energy management and ambient assisted living: a review

The ongoing deployment of smart meters and different commercial devices has made electricity disaggregation feasible in buildings and households, based on a single measure of the current and, sometimes, of the voltage. Energy disaggregation is intended to separate the total power consumption into specific appliance loads, which can be achieved by applying Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) techniques with a minimum invasion of privacy. NILM techniques are becoming more and more widespread in recent years, as a consequence of the interest companies and consumers have in efficient energy consumption and management. This work presents a detailed review of NILM methods, focusing particularly on recent proposals and their applications, particularly in the areas of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), where the ability to determine the on/off status of certain devices can provide key information for making further decisions. As well as complementing previous reviews on the NILM field and providing a discussion of the applications of NILM in HEMS and AAL, this paper provides guidelines for future research in these topics.Agência financiadora: Programa Operacional Portugal 2020 and Programa Operacional Regional do Algarve 01/SAICT/2018/39578 Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through IDMEC, under LAETA: SFRH/BSAB/142998/2018 SFRH/BSAB/142997/2018 UID/EMS/50022/2019 Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La-Mancha, Spain: SBPLY/17/180501/000392 Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (SOC-PLC project): TEC2015-64835-C3-2-R MINECO/FEDERinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MACROSCOPIC LESIONS ON THE GREY TRIGGERFISH, BALISTES CAPRISCUS (PISCES) ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRESENCE OF THE PEDUNCULATE BARNACLE, CONCHODERMA VIRGATUM (CIRRIPEDIA, THORACICA)

Fifteen live specimens of Conchoderma virgatum were attached to a grey triggerfish (Balistes capriscus) caught in S.W. Portugal. The barnacles were distributed in three groups (right abdominal external face, anterior side of the insertion of the pelvic spine, and close to (5 mm) the left eye (on the lacrymal bone)). The specimens were very different in size, ranging from 2 mm to 18.9 mm (maximum capitular length, CL). The four largest barnacles (CL 16.4 mm) had egg lamellae. Signs of potential predation on the barnacles (rests of barnacles and half-cut cirri in a barnacle) were detected. The left-eye blindness of the grey trigger fish could have been caused by traumatic action performed by the barnacles that settled close to the eye. The skin surrounding the barnacle cluster attached to the right abdominal external face was inflamed. Skin lesions were of sub-acute or chronic nature and the gall-bladder dilatation was consistent with a prolonged status of injury. Both traumatic and inflammatory lesions could have contributed to the loss of body condition of the grey triggerfish. This study is the first report of C. virgatum in S.W. Portugal and the first record of attachment to a grey triggerfish

Optical devices for biochemical sensing in flame hydrolysis deposited glass

Previous research in the field of Flame Hydrolysis Deposition (FHD) of glasses has focused on the production of low cost optical devices for the field of telecommunications. The originality of this doctoral research resides in the exploration of this technology in the fabrication of optical bio-chemical sensors, with integrated "Lab-on-a-chip" devices. To achieve this goal, we have combined and applied different microfabrication processes for the manufacture of sensor platforms using FHD. These structures are unique in that they take advantage of the intrinsic benefits of the microfabrication process, such as, miniaturisation and mass production, and combine them with the properties of FHD glass, namely: low loss optical transducing mechanisms, planar technologies and monolithic integration. This thesis demonstrates that FHD is a suitable technology for biosensing and Lab- on-a-Chip applications. The objective is to provide future researchers with the necessary tools to accomplish an integrated analytical system based on FHD. We have designed, fabricated, and successfully tested a FHD miniaturised sensor, which comprised optical and microfluidic circuitry, in the framework of low volume fluorescence assays. For the first time, volumes as low as 570 pL were analysed with a Cyanine-5 fluorophore with a detection limit of 20 pM, or ca. 6000 molecules (+/-3sigma) for this platform. The fabrication of the sensor generated a compilation of processes that were then utilised to produce other possible optical platforms for bio-chemical sensors in FHD, e.g. arrays and microfluidics. The "catalogue" of methods used included new recipes for reactive ion etching, glass deposition and bonding techniques that enabled the development of the microfluidic circuitry, integrated with an optical circuitry. Furthermore, we developed techniques to implement new tasks such as optical signal treatment using integrated optical structures, planar arraying of sensors, a separating element for liquid chromatography, and finally a pumping system for delivering small amounts of liquid along the microfluidic channels. This thesis comprises six chapters. In Chapter 1, an overview of the topic was presented, offering a review of the various fields addressed, as well as a description of the motivation and originality of this work. Chapter 2 describes the processes developed to fabricate an optical sensor, and Chapter 3 assesses its performance. In Chapter 4, integrated optical circuit designs and their fabrication methods, as well as developing and testing of an array of sensors, are presented. The description of a separating element involved in a liquid chromatography system, and the pumping of liquids in a FHD optical device, were addressed in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 summarised the conclusions and suggested possible future work. Last but not least, the appendix, contains techniques for hybrid integration; recipes for etching of rare earth glasses; as well as instrumentation designs. This research has taken Flame Hydrolysis Deposition technique into the world of optical bio-chemical sensors, creating a bridge between analytical assays and FHD glass. In this respect, the demonstrated flexibility of the technology will enable a variety of configurations to be created and implemented, with the prospect of using the techniques for laboratory-on-a-chip technologies. The work has been patented by the University of Glasgow, for future exploitation in analytical biotechnology and Lab-on-a-Chip

3D Compressible Simulation Of a Muffler With Pseudosound Prediction Levels

The main objective of this paper is to present a numerical resolution of a suction muffler configuration by using an in-house object oriented CFD & HT code TermoFluids (Lehmkuhl et al. 2007), able to handle tridimensional geometries, unstructured meshes and parallelization availability. This code has been adapted to be able to resolute 3D Navier-Stokes equations in their compressible form and coupled with the numerical resolution of the whole compressor domain by means of a parallel and object-oriented called NEST tool (Lopez, 2016). The numerical results aim to study the influence of the suction muffler inner geometry in the fluidynamic behavior inside the muffler while considering how this internal geometry affects the global performance of the compressor. Hence, the inlet and outlet boundary conditions at the muffler are obtained from the numerical simulation of the whole compressor using NEST, while the fluid behavior inside the muffler is numerically simulated by means of detailed analysis. In addition, the paper presents a methodology that handles with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) models for the turbulent motion of fluid inside the muffler, the formulation of Navier-Stokes in their compressible form, dealing with numerical problems derived from the compressible part, and the coupling of the whole compressor simulation to set boundary condition. Finally, the obtained results will be compared with the empirical data obtained in the CTTC facilities from the study of a real muffler placed in a reciprocating compressor

A General Method to Compute Numerical Dispersion Error

This article presents a new methodology to compute numerical dispersion error. The analysis here presented is not restricted to uniform structured meshes nor linear discrete operators as it does not rely on sinusoids to compute the associated error. When using uniform meshes, the results obtained with the present method collapse onto the obtained with the classic one via an easy change of basis. If non-uniform meshes are used, a new kind of results are obtained which shed some light onto the role stretching has on dispersion error

Towards proper subgrid-scale model for jet aerodynamics and aeroacoustics

This article presents the investigation of different grey-area mitigation (GAM) techniques towards achieving accurate subsonic turbulent round jet aerodynamics and aeroacoustics results. Combinations of new adapting subgrid length scales with 2D detecting LES models are used as the GAM technique. The numerical simulations are carried out on a set of refining meshes using two different scale-resolving codes: NOISEtte and OpenFOAM. The results show that all the considered techniques provide appropriate accuracy to predict the noise generated and the importance of both the numerical scheme and how subgrid eddy viscosity is modelled

Prevalence and factors associated with violence and abuse of older adults in Mexico’s 2012 National Health and Nutrition Survey

Background: Factors associated with violence and the abuse of older adults are understudied and its prevalence in Mexico has not been reported. The aim of this study was to identify the prevalence and factors associated with violence and abuse of older adults in Mexico. Methods: We used Mexico’s 2012 National Health and Nutrition Survey, which included a sample of 8,894 individuals who are 60 years or older and who self-reported a negative health event related to robbery, aggression or violence in the previous 12 months. We used chi-squared test and Fisher’s exact test to analyze the variables related to violence. Adjusted estimates were completed with multiple logistic regression models for complex surveys. Results: The prevalence of violence was 1.7 % for both men and women. In 95 % of the cases, the aggression was from an unknown party. Verbal aggressions were the most prevalent (60 %). Among men, physical aggression was more common. Violence frequently occurred in the home (37.6 %); however, men were primarily assaulted in public places (42.4 %), in comparison to women (30.7 %). There were also differences in the risk factors for violence. Among men, risk was associated with younger age (60–64 years), higher education (secondary school or above) and higher socioeconomic status. Among women, risk was associated with depression, not being the head of the family, and region of the country. Conclusions: Violence against older adults presents differently for men and women, which means it is necessary to increase knowledge about the dynamics of the social determinants of violence, particularly in regards to the role of education among men. The relatively low prevalence found in this study may reflect the difficulty and fear of discussing the topic of violence. This may occur because of cultural factors, as well as by the perception of helplessness perpetuated by the scarce access to social programs that ensure protection and problem solving with regards to the complex social determinants of individual and family violence that this population group endures.publishedVersio

Relativistic screened hydrogenic radial integrals

The computation of dipole matrix elements plays an important role in the study of absorption or emission of radiation by atoms in several fields such as astrophysics or inertial confinement fusion. In this work we obtain closed formulas for the dipole matrix elements of multielectron ions suitable for using in the framework of a Relativistic Screened Hydrogenic Model