Search results for "Energy source"
showing 10 items of 615 documents
Managing electrical energy storage systems and shiftable loads with an innovative approach in energy districts
2014
In this work, a power dispatch problem for a system composed of an aggregate of loads and an electrical energy storage system is considered. The approach to solve the optimal dispatch is innovative and shows good performances in limited calculation times. According to the more recent indications coming from the European distributors, the architecture for energy dispatch at distribution level will be hierarchical. The 'Aggregator' is the interface between groups of loads and the energy distributor and sends the individual consumers the desired load profiles, following which the user may gets a discount on the energy bill. On the other hand, the energy tariff may follow a given daily profile …
When is Green Really Green? A Latvian Case Study on Updating of Food Supply Green Public Procurement
2020
Abstract Green public procurement (GPP) is an important tool and is used to reduce adverse environmental impacts caused by food production. To have a more detailed look at the application of GPP in Latvia, the authors screened 97 public tenders for supply of food products, documenting the choice of the green criteria. Only 15 % of the screened tender documents corresponded to the national GPP requirements. Only 4 % of the tender documents gave higher priority exclusively for organic products compared to products within national quality schemes or integrated pest management agriculture. The authors compared these findings with the opinions of environmental experts, GPP guidelines by the Euro…
Economic and Financial Comparison between Organic and Conventional Farming in Sicilian Lemon Orchards
2015
Sicily has a long tradition in citrus fruit cultivations that with vineyard and olive tree represent the main Mediterranean tree crops. In this paper we have evaluated the economic and financial sustainability of lemon production, both in organic farming and in conventional farming
A Systematic Review of Air Quality Sensors, Guidelines, and Measurement Studies for Indoor Air Quality Management
2020
The existence of indoor air pollutants—such as ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and total volatile organic compounds—is evidently a critical issue for human health. Over the past decade, various international agencies have continually refined and updated the quantitative air quality guidelines and standards in order to meet the requirements for indoor air quality management. This paper first provides a systematic review of the existing air quality guidelines and standards implemented by different agencies, which include the Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS); the World Health Organization (WHO); the Occupational Safety and Heal…
Characterization of pressure retarded osmosis lab-scale systems
2016
Power generation from salinity gradient is a viable alternative to produce energy from renewable sources. Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) is one of the technologies proposed so far for the exploitation of such energy source. In the present preliminary work, two different geometry modules were tested under atmospheric pressure (i.e. forward osmosis or depressurized-PRO conditions). The first one is a conventional planar geometry cell. The second is a customized cylindrical membrane module, able to mechanically support the osmotic membrane along with the spacers. The latter, thanks to its design, allows membranes and spacers to be easily changed for testing purposes. A novel simplified proced…
Responsive and Minimalist App Based on Explainable AI to Assess Palliative Care Needs during Bedside Consultations on Older Patients
2021
[EN] Palliative care is an alternative to standard care for gravely ill patients that has demonstrated many clinical benefits in cost-effective interventions. It is expected to grow in demand soon, so it is necessary to detect those patients who may benefit from these programs using a personalised objective criterion at the correct time. Our goal was to develop a responsive and minimalist web application embedding a 1-year mortality explainable predictive model to assess palliative care at bedside consultation. A 1-year mortality predictive model has been trained. We ranked the input variables and evaluated models with an increasing number of variables. We selected the model with the seven …
Effects of a Travel Behaviour Change Program on Sustainable Travel
2018
The main objective of the present study is to analyse the effect of a Travel Behaviour Change Program (TBCP) based on health improvement actions, in relation to a potential for an increase in walking and cycling, with reference to particular groups of people defined according to sociodemographics. A TBCP consisting of three persuasion actions based on health improvements was planned and executed in Valencia (Spain). A two-wave panel survey was used to study the effects of taking part in the TBCP. The panel survey collected data related to activity-travel scheduling process before and after the execution of the TBCP. To study the influence of participating in the TBCP, respondents were separ…
Gender Inequalities and Social Sustainability. Can Modernization Diminish the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge?
2020
The gender gap in political knowledge is a classical problem of Western democracies. In the 21st century, political knowledge is still unequally distributed between men and women, as many cross-section studies have shown. This is an indicator of women’s disempowerment and the distance which remains to be covered to achieve an inclusive and sustainable society. Could public policies and gender equality laws change the situation? Using a longitudinal database in which 600,000 survey responses are analysed from 1996 to 2017, this case study of Spain aims to shed some light on this question. It combines sociological and political approaches in line with the development theory of the gender gap …
Predicting First-Year College Student Retention: Validation of the College Persistence Questionnaire in a Spanish Sample
2019
This paper analyzes the factorial and predictive validity of a Spanish adaptation of the College Persistence Questionnaire (SCPQ) on the retention of first year students (FYS) at university. The participants were 490 FYS from two public universities in Southern Europe (Spain). Factorial analysis of the SCPQ (&chi
EU transition in power sector: How RES affects the design and operations of transmission power systems
2019
In the past, much of Europe's electricity grid network has been designed in consideration of the locations of conventional generation plants. However, a large share of today's renewables production – notably variable wind and solar – does not correspond to this grid architecture. Interconnectors, in addition to internal infrastructure, are key to creating new electricity corridors to connect areas of surplus to areas of scarcity. In this context, in 2014 the European Council, in recognizing that a fundamental role of transmission infrastructure is to enable the integration of areas of high renewable energy potential with main consumption areas, endorsed the proposal by the European Commissi…