Search results for "FLEX"
showing 10 items of 1677 documents
Investigation of design strategies and quantification of energy flexibility in buildings: A case-study in southern Italy
2021
Abstract The need for nearly (net) zero energy buildings in the current European landscape does not merely refer to energy balances: the aim to investigate the interaction between generation and load and find sources of technical-economic energy efficiency is marking the rise in interest throughout research and practice of energy flexibility solutions in buildings. In this regard, the study aims at enhancing the energy flexibility of a building in southern Italy through Rule-Based Control algorithms for the control of the space heating system and the charge and discharge of an electricity storage. The influence of electricity pricing and the thermal comfort conditions on flexibility is also…
A new architecture for Smart Contracts definition in Demand Response Programs
2019
The present paper shows the possibility to use a smart contract for defining a distributed Demand Response mechanism. The use of the blockchain and smart contracts for the Demand Response mechanism allows the creation of an automatic system, where network users can communicate with the DSO to provide their flexibility. The blockchain ensures that the same information is shared among the users of the grid, while preserving user privacy. The DSO notifies the request to increase or reduce the load in a given period of the day using channels, a native abstraction of Hyperledger Fabric. The smart contract computes the support provided by each user to fulfill the requested load adaptation and aut…
Scenario-based Serious Game to Teach about Healthcare
2019
Author's accepted manuscript (postprint). © 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Available from 29/10/2021. In this paper, we explore the concept of a scenario-based serious game for healthcare solutions. The complexity of the interactions and the multitude of actors is captured in a scenario, which is then played with the help of an additional game pl…
A Fast and Interactive Approach to Application Development on Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks
2014
In Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) sensor and actuator devices are connected through radio links to perform tasks in many different contexts. Conven- tionally, applications for WSANs are developed using traditional operating systems which application code is linked with at the end of a cross-compilation process. We propose instead an alternative approach for building applications on WSANs that is based on interactivity and does not require time consuming cross-compilation phases. In our development methodology, it is possible to define procedures and services according to the application target, simultaneously test them and reprogram the nodes interactively when needed, even a…
Cloud Computing Vulnerabilities Analysis
2019
Nowadays cloud computing technologies are the most widely used tools due to their great flexibility and also to their lower maintenance costs. Many vendors of cloud computing have appeared on the market for each type of cloud. These solutions still pose certain vulnerabilities and work to improve the security of cloud computing technologies. We analyze the main cloud computing solutions, analyze the vulnerabilities identified for these solutions, and also calculate the impact of these vulnerabilities based on the NVD scores. We average the scores for each solution for each cloud computing model. This way, we can see the impact of the vulnerabilities identified so far for each cloud computin…
Design of a modular locomotion system for autonomous mobile robots
2021
Autonomous mobile robots are becoming more popular today and are successfully integrated into many civil and industrial projects. In the industrial sectors flexibility and modularity have an important role, so the production can be diversified and achieved with low costs. This paper presents the conceptual and functional design of a modular locomotion system for an autonomous mobile platform that can be configured according to the needs of the industrial environment it serves. The architecture of the locomotion system is based on a spring suspension system and three types of wheels: conventional wheels, omnidirectional wheels and mechanum wheels. The calculations for the chosen suspension s…
New Acoustic Test Chambers at the University of Palermo
2008
Acoustic test chambers at the University of Palermo have been completed after a design optimization of existent building structures. A unique building houses five reverberation chambers, differently coupled each other in order to achieve a large flexibility on testing procedures, and offices for the staff. Main measurements offered to national and international standards include determination of sound power, sound insulation and sound absorption. Reverberation chambers present peculiar geometries in order to achieve the desidered sound fields. Chambers structure and layout within the whole building, housing all the acoustic facilities, has been designed in order to achieve strong sound insu…
Added Value of Intangibles for Organizational Innovation
2012
The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical basis for a measurement and improvement system that will help organizations create a more innovative climate. The role of intangible assets in contributing to organizational innovativeness is clarified within six hypotheses on the basis of a cross-disciplinary literature review combining studies from psychology, human resources management, communication, information technology, and marketing. These factors range from the individual level to interaction with the environment surrounding the organization, and involve (a) individual psychological flexibility, (b) institutional and interpersonal trust, (c) diverse human resources, (d) strat…
Life-Cycle Costing Decision-Making Methodology and Urban Intersection Design: Modelling and Analysis for a Circular City
2021
The importance of being circular reflects one of the key concepts of the life-cycle thinking that promotes the sustainable production of goods and services. If it is true that the analysis of the product life-cycle is fundamental to optimize the use of resources and to plan for the future reduction of adverse effects on urban environment, it is also true that there are still several barriers covering conceptual and practical issues which hinder the building of shared approaches for the economic evaluation of infrastructure projects. The chapter presents a case study where the Life-Cycle Cost methodology is used to compare three alternative intersection projects based on their total life-cyc…
Energy flexibility in Mediterranean buildings: a case-study in Sicily
2020
Since the building sector is responsible for 40% of the world’s electricity demand, it is essential to act on it in order to reduce emissions of climate change gases on a global scale, as expressed also in the latest directive on the energy performance of buildings. A design approach that focuses on the energy flexibility of buildings can contribute to the improvement of its energy-environmental performances. In this context, the objective of the study is the analysis of the energy performance of a residential building in Sicily and the definition of strategies aimed at increasing its energy flexibility. In particular, the case study is a 631 m2single-family house, modeled and simulated in …