Data gathering and architecture aspects of a major EU wide energy efficiency project for SMEs

“Support and Training for an Excellent Energy Efficiency Performance” is a 3-year European project helping over 600 European cross-sector small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to reduce their energy use and become more energy-efficient. Companies participating in STEEEP benefit from tailored training and guidance on effective energy management tools and best practices provided by an established network of energy advisors from Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCIs) in 10 different countries. SMEs in many EU countries employ over 90% of the workforce, so improving the energy efficiency of EU SMEs is therefore compelling, with clear advantages for the European economy. Energy efficiency in SMEs previously received less attention than in larger companies, the public sector and dwellings. Previously, policymakers had little energy (and related) data for SMEs, making prioritising ways to support energy conservation difficult. In addition staffing resources and knowledge levels within SMEs frequently determine the level of commitment to energy efficiency and implementing EU energy and climate policy, with a dedicated or even part time energy manager for many SMEs a rarity. The STEEEP project aims to help this by introducing training to SMEs via CCIs, and monitoring savings and providing feedback to SMEs. Crucial to this is the benchmarking of energy use: Basic data about the SMEs, the SME’s energy consumption, and information about the SME policies and procedures relating to energy were gathered form each of the over 600 participants. Managing these data is a considerable task, notably in several languages, using combinations of numeric, free text and other data, gathered through questionnaires. It is not merely fiscal metering data, and supporting information that are gathered, we ask for from occupancy, to building types, and to complete the energy management matrix. We describe how this is done; the data processing . survey design, initial data gathering, benchmarking, and database architecture. Energy use is gathered as the project progresses , with interventions and changes captured. This paper describes the methods used and presents lessons learnt. This include the process of collecting , storing and analyzing the data from over 600 SMEs in 10 different countries. It identifies how barriers were overcome and how information from the data collection is being used by Chambers of Commerce and Industry to help reduce energy use of SME

Advertising andproduction of a seasonal good for a heterogeneous market

We bring some concepts from market segmentation, which is a fundamental topic of marketing theory and practice, into the statement of an advertising and production problem for a seasonal product with Nerlove- Arrow's linear goodwill dynamics. We consider two kinds of situations. In the rst one the advertising process can reach selectively each segment. In the second one one advertising medium is available which has a known eectiveness spectrum for a non-trivial set of segments. In both cases we solve, using the Pontryagin's Maximum Principle conditions, the optimal control problems in which goodwill productivity of advertising is concave and good production cost is convex. Two special cases are discussed in detail

An ant colony system approach for variants of traveling salesman problem with time windows

The Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows has important applications in routing and scheduling and has been extensively studied in literature. In the paper, a mathematical formulation of the temporal-Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows is presented and a metaheuristic based on Ant Colony System is proposed and implemented. Computational experience on a benchmark problem is reported and a case study is analyzed, where interesting results are obtained

Advertising exposure for a seasonal good in a segmented market

ISSN: 2239-273

Amplified spontaneous emission and efficient tunable laser emission from a substituted thiophene-based oligomer

We investigated gain and lasing in spin-coated films of a soluble substituted oligothiophene. With increasing excitation power, the photoluminescence spectra show a clear line narrowing due to amplified spontaneous emission. We measure a low threshold (20 μJ cm−2) for line narrowing and a large gain cross section (6×10−16 cm2), indicating that this molecule is a promising active material for organic solid-state lasers. As a demonstrator, we realize a transverse electromagnetic (TEM00) single-mode laser with tunable emission from the yellow to the red (a range of 37 nm), with a pump threshold as low as 18 μJ cm−2 and efficiency of 1.9%. These results are among the best so far reported for organic lasers

Rubbing induced reversible fluorescence switching in thiophene-based organic semiconductor films by mechanical amorphisation

Here, we applied rubbing on thiophene-basedorganic semiconductor thin films to induce a reversible mechanical amorphisation. Amorphisation is associated with fluorescence switching, which is regulated by the polymorphic nature of the film. Thermal annealing of rubbed films produces an opposite effect with respect to rubbing, inducing film crystallization. Notably, thermal crystallisation starts at a low temperature but generates the polymorph stable at a high temperature in the bulk. The mechanism of mechanical transformation is explained considering the mechanical properties of the material and demonstrated through combined X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence at confocal microscopy. This journal i

Solid-state supramolecular organization, established directly from powder diffraction data, and photoluminescence efficiency of rigid-core oligothiophene-S,S-dioxides.

The "rigid-core" material 3,5-dimethyl-2,3'-bis(3-methylthiophene)-dithieno[3,2-b:',3'−d]thiophene-4,4-dioxide (DTTOMe4) has the highest photoluminescence ever reported for thiophene-based molecule..

Concentração e perda de nutrientes em microbacias hidrográficas agrícolas do planalto médio gaúcho.

A agricultura é considerada uma das principais atividades que influenciam na degradação dos recursos hídricos, principalmente quando se trata de agricultura intensiva, com uso indiscriminado de fertilizantes, ausência de mata ciliar e inadequado uso e manejo do solo e das culturas, como a não adoção de práticas conservacionistas (MINELLA et al., 2014; RIBEIRO et al., 2014;BORTOLOZO et al., 2015), os quais potencializam a perda denutrientes por escoamento superficial, tanto na forma solúvel,quanto na forma particulada (MINELLA et al., 2014