Smart metering and Internet of Things for efficient water management

Global water use has grown steadily in the past decade, and climate change will further worsen the levels of water stress. Another global issue lies in the ageing of water infrastructures, registering conspicuous water losses (40% in the Italian scenario). A great opportunity is represented by the exploitation of new technologies relating to IoT, namely smart meters, which can enable the prediction of water consumption, detect leaks, and customise the service. This paper assesses the economic and environmental impact of smart meters adoption for water consumption, by taking the Italian scenario as a reference context, through the development of an analytical model which considers the benefits and costs associated with their adoption, with the ultimate objective of evaluating the convenience of the investment. Data to feed the model was collected through secondary sources, literature reviews, and interviews with utility companies' employees. Results provide corroborating evidence of the positive impact of smart water meter adoption, both in economic and environmental terms, in particular by increasing the roll-out number, given the higher amount of data available and economies of scale to be exploited. The present study contributes to the academic literature by providing a comprehensive model that considers economic and environmental aspects of smart water adoption, which allows practitioners to have an insightful understanding of the involved variables in such investments

Smart Retailing: a model to assess the economic sustainability of smart shelf-enabled dynamic pricing

Smart Retailing, a new approach to retail management that leverages digital technologies, is gaining much attention, as it enables innovation and improvements in consumers’ quality of life. However, the potentialities stemming from the application of such technologies are still not fully explored. Investment analyses addressing specific technologies could be useful to fill the academic gaps and guide retailers in their digital transition. This paper aims thus at evaluating the economic sustainability of investment in smart shelves, which are employed to perform dynamic pricing in presence of perishable goods. A model simulating the pricing variation in different scenarios was built and economic and financial analyses were performed to evaluate the sustainability of the investment. Data to feed the model were collected through semi-structured interviews with a smart shelf technology provider and three grocery retailers. The results show that the employment of smart shelves allows retailers to increase their profits. First, they are always able to assign to the product the price which most accurately reflects the customers’ willingness to pay. Second, the costs related to misplacement issues are reduced. This study contributes to the knowledge in this unexplored field by providing a model that simulates the dynamic pricing policy after the introduction of smart shelf technology and evaluates its economical sustainability. It also provides retailers who want to join the digital transformation of the stores with a useful tool to guide their investments

Cross section measurement of t-channel single top quark production in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe

Measurement of quarkonium production cross sections in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

Differential production cross sections of prompt J/psi and psi(2S) charmonium and Upsilon(nS) (n = 1, 2, 3) bottomonium states are measured in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV, with data collected by the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 fb(-1) for the J/psi and 2.7 fb(-1) for the other mesons. The five quarkonium states are reconstructed in the dimuon decay channel, for dimuon rapidity vertical bar y vertical bar <1.2. The double-differential cross sections for each state are measured as a function of y and transverse momentum, and compared to theoretical expectations. In addition, ratios are presented of cross sections for prompt psi(2S) to J/psi, Upsilon(2S) to Upsilon(1S), and Upsilon(3S) to Upsilon(1S) production. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Search for new long-lived particles at root s=13 TeV

A search for long-lived particles was performed with data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.6 fb(-1) collected at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV by the CMS experiment in 2015. The analysis exploits two customized topological trigger algorithms, and uses the multiplicity of displaced jets to search for the presence of a signal decay occurring at distances between 1 and 1000 mm. The results can be interpreted in a variety of different models. For pair-produced long-lived particles decaying to two b quarks and two leptons with equal decay rates between lepton flavors, cross sections larger than 2.5 fb are excluded for proper decay lengths between 70-100 mm for a long-lived particle mass of 1130 GeV at 95% confidence. For a specific model of pair-produced, long-lived top squarks with R-parity violating decays to a b quark and a lepton, masses below 550-1130 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence for equal branching fractions between lepton flavors, depending on the squark decay length. This mass bound is the most stringent to date for top squark proper decay lengths greater than 3 mm. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Constraints on anomalous Higgs boson couplings using production and decay information in the four-lepton final state

© 2017 The Author A search is performed for anomalous interactions of the recently discovered Higgs boson using matrix element techniques with the information from its decay to four leptons and from associated Higgs boson production with two quark jets in either vector boson fusion or associated production with a vector boson. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 38.6fb −1 . They are combined with the data collected at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8TeV, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 5.1 and 19.7fb −1 , respectively. All observations are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson

Search for single production of vector-like quarks decaying into a b quark and a W boson in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe

Upsilon (nS) polarizations versus particle multiplicity in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for excited quarks of light and heavy flavor in gamma plus jet final states in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search is presented for excited quarks of light and heavy flavor that decay to gamma + jet final states. The analysis is based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV at the LHC. A signal would appear as a resonant contribution to the invariant mass spectrum of the gamma + jet system, above the background expected from standard model processes. No resonant excess is found, and upper limits are set on the product of the excited quark cross section and its branching fraction as a function of its mass. These are the most stringent limits to date in the gamma + jet final state, and exclude excited light quarks with masses below 5.5 TeV and excited b quarks with masses below 1.8 TeV, assuming standard model like coupling strengths. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe