Integration Of Water Supply Distribution Systems By Using Interoperable Standards To Make Effective Decisions

This paper aims at presenting current standards used and their implementation to integrate different decision making tools spread throughout the Water Supply Distribution Chain. Nowadays in Europe the water supply distribution managers use many tools to perform their decisional processes and multiple data sources to aid in decision making which are totally unconnected and use different communication languages. The data and protocols heterogeneity provides a lack of fluidity in communications between the tools, and in many cases non-existent. An architectural proposal, which uses hydrologic standards, with the aim to offer a common way to interconnect existing tools and data to provide an easy way to take better and effective decisions, is proposed in this paper. To achieve the goal, tasks such as the identification and analysis of the different standards and protocols that are currently present in the water world have been reviewed focusing in the OGC standards as main target. Moreover, the current tools used for decision making in the water supply distribution approaches have been identified and analysed to detect the key issues for their integration through these standards. Furthermore, a background of water supply distribution chain systems, interoperability and standards in hydrological systems are also summarized. Finally, the paper presents the work done showing that OGC standards such as OGC WPS, OGC WMS, OGC WFS, OGC SOS, WaterML2 should be used to create an open interface which permits integrate different building blocks such as demand management systems, decision support systems and others in a common framework. This paper will also observe work done so far in WatERP EU\u27s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project

UrbanWater And WatERP: Decision Support Systems For Efficient And Integrated Water Resources Management

In this work we present UrbanWater and WatERP, two EU-FP7 projects with the common objective of designing and developing innovative ICT solutions to integrate real-time knowledge on water demand and supply across water distribution networks. On one hand, WatERP proposes to develop a web-based Open Management Platform (OMP) supported by real-time knowledge on water supply and demand, enabling the entire water distribution system to be viewed in an integrated and customized way. The OMP provides inferred information regarding water supplies, flows, water consumption patterns, water losses, distribution efficiency, and water supply and demand forecasts to the user. This information is stored in a Water Data Warehouse using semantics and open standards (such as WaterML 2.0) which are defined in the ontology developed to ensure interoperability and maximize usability. In addition, external linkages to costs, energy factors, control systems, data acquisition systems, external models, forecasting systems and new data sources are made available for easy integration into the system. On the other hand, UrbanWater proposes to develop an ICT-based platform for efficient and integrated management of urban water resources, incorporating weather prediction and water availability data, household consumption data, and water distribution among others. Its design corresponds to a highly flexible Spatial Decision Support System capable of connecting manifold data sources and data processing modules that enable to (i) effectively estimate water demand in urban water areas to manage water distribution networks in an efficient way; (ii) reduce waste of water and economic losses associated to leakages; (iii) smoothen daily water demand peaks in order to save costs; and (iv) provide an off-line and on-line operation framework that allows defining scenarios of availability and demand to test specific strategies for the distribution network operation

Sediment Level Prediction of a Combined Sewer System Using Spatial Features

The prediction of sediment levels in combined sewer system (CSS) would result in enormous savings in resources for their maintenance as a reduced number of inspections would be needed. In this paper, we benchmark different machine learning (ML) methodologies to improve the maintenance schedules of the sewerage and reduce the number of cleanings using historical sediment level and inspection data of the combined sewer system in the city of Barcelona. Two ML methodologies involve the use of spatial features for sediment prediction at critical sections of the sewer, where the cost of maintenance is high because of the dangerous access; one uses a regression model to predict the sediment level of a section, and the other one a binary classification model to identify whether or not a section needs cleaning. The last ML methodology is a short-term forecast of the possible sediment level in future days to improve the ability of operators to react and solve an imminent sediment level increase. Our study concludes with three different models. The spatial and short-term regression methodologies accomplished the best results with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) with 0.76 and 0.61 R2 scores, respectively. The classification methodology resulted in a Gradient Boosting (GB) model with an accuracy score of 0.88 and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.909.The work described in this paper has been conducted within the project SCOREwater. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no 820751. R. Béjar also acknowledges funding from project PID2019-111544GB-C22 from the Spanish Government. C. Mateu also acknowledges funding from project RTI2018-093849-B-C31 from the Spanish Government. Lluís Corominas acknowledges the Ministry of Economy and competitiveness for the Ramon and Cajal grant and the corresponding I3 consolidation (RYC-2013-465 14595). ICRA researchers thank funding from the CERCA program and from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Consolidated Research Group 2017 SGR 1318. Marc Ribalta also acknowledges funding from AGAUR DI-2019-066

PANGEA – Platform for Automatic coNstruction of orGanizations of intElligent Agents

This article presents PANGEA, an agent platform to develop open multiagent systems, specifically those including organizational aspects such as virtual agent organizations. The platform allows the integral management of organizations and offers tools to the end user. Additionally, it includes a communication protocol based on the IRC standard, which facilitates implementation and remains robust even with a large number of connections. The introduction of a CommunicationAgent and a Sniffer make it possible to offer web services for the distributed control of interaction

Proximity Detection Prototype Adapted to a Work Environment

This article presents a proximity detection prototype that uses ZigBee technology. The prototype is primarily oriented to proximity detection within an office environment and some of the particular characteristics specific to such an environment, including the integration of people with disabilities into the workplace. This allows the system to define and manage the different profiles of people with disabilities, facilitating their job assimilation by automatically switching on or off the computer upon detecting the user’s presence, or initiating a procedure that automatically adapts the computer to the personal needs of the user

Detección de los movimientos de la cara de un usuario delante de la pantalla de un ordenador

Estudio de diferentes alternativas para detectar el movimiento de la cara de un usuario delante de la pantalla de un ordenador. Realización de una aplicación capaz de desplazar el mouse de forma relativa y realizar clicks de una forma sencilla mediante la cabeza del usuario con una webcam de bajo coste

Using the Optical Flow to Implement a Relative Virtual Mouse Controlled by Head Movements

Abstract: The following paper introduces the work conducted to create a relative virtual mouse based on the interpretation of head movements and face gesture through a low cost camera and the optical flow of the images. This virtual device is designed specifically as an alternative noncontact pointer for people with mobility impairments in the upper extremities and reduced head control. The proposed virtual device was compared with a conventional mouse, a touchpad and a digital joystick. Validation results show performances close to a digital joystick but far away from a conventional mouse

Using the Optical Flow to Implement a Relative Virtual Mouse Controlled by Head Movements

The following paper introduces the work conducted to create a relative virtual mouse based on the interpretation of head movements and face gesture through a low cost camera and the optical flow of the images. This virtual device is designed specifically as an alternative non-contact pointer for people with mobility impairments in the upper extremities and reduced head control. The proposed virtual device was compared with a conventional mouse, a touchpad and a digital joystick. Validation results show performances close to a digital joystick but far away from a conventional mouse