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"De Paola, Antonio"
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Erandi's braids
In a poor Mexican village, Erandi surprises her mother by offering to sell her long, beautiful hair in order to raise enough money to buy a new fishing net.
Book
Including Sustainability Criteria in the Front End of Innovation in Technology Ventures
This study evaluates the presence of sustainability parameters in the product development process, especially in the early stages of innovation, using the Sustainability Technology Readiness Level (STRL) tool. STRL assesses the initial planning of products or product and service systems (PSS) and suggests possibilities for incorporating sustainable features in the short, medium, and long term based on responses from startups (EBTs). The research was conducted in two ecosystems at different maturity levels: Florianópolis (Brazil), a more mature stage, and Santander (Colombia), which is growing, considering their cultural and social differences. To validate the STRL tool, four out of the eighteen winning startups from the MuEBTe SANTANDER public funding project in Colombia were selected. Characteristics of the two researched ecosystems, their actors, strengths, approaches, and expansion possibilities were identified and compared. The innovation lies in establishing a sustainable baseline when applying the tool by acquiring the front-end characteristic matrix. It was observed that sustainability as a variable has relevance and independence from product design in product planning, allowing for the selection of short, medium, and long-term actions throughout the product’s lifecycle. It was concluded that considering sustainability involves context and vision, resulting in significant choices of materials, processes, and production methods that add value and appreciation for the customer.
Journal Article
Nasal vs. oral BREATHing WIn Strategies in healthy individuals during cardiorespiratory Exercise testing (BreathWISE)
Nasal and oral exclusive breathing modes have benefits and drawbacks during submaximal exercise. It is less known whether these responses would extend to anaerobic work performed at high intensity. The purpose of this study is to find the most efficient mode of breathing during different phases of a maximal exercise at cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET).
Healthy subjects were recruited to perform 4 maximal CPETs (standard conditions (STD), exclusively nasal breathing (eNAS), exclusively oral breathing (eOR), partial nasal breathing (pNAS) with just one blocked nostril) using the same ramp protocol on an electronically braked cycle ergometer. Before the exercise a standard spirometry was executed in the same order. Twelve healthy subjects (28.6 ± 5.2 y, 50% males) performed the 4 CPETs within one month. Variables were analysed at rest, at anaerobic threshold (AT), at intermediate exercise steps, and at peak.
Compared to STD, eOR, and pNAS conditions, eNAS was associated with a significant lower peakVO2, peakVCO2, peak ventilation, respiratory rate, VE/VCO2 slope, respiratory exchange ratio, and workload (p < 0.05 for all). Moreover, peak inspiration and peak expiration time were augmented, while forced expiratory volume and vital capacity at rest were reduced. Only minor differences were detected at rest or AT. eNAS breathing Borg scale was higher in all phases of the exercise.
In young healthy subjects, an exclusively nasal respiration induces significant impairment on peak exercise capacity at CPET due to ventilatory limitation, with only minor effects on metabolic parameters at rest and in submaximal effort.
Journal Article
Holistic Evaluation of Demand Response Events in Real Pilot Sites: From Baseline Calculation to Evaluation of Key Performance Indicators
Explicit demand response plays a significant role in the future energy grid transition, as it involves end consumers in smart grid activities and, at the same time, exploits the potential of flexibility, giving the opportunity to grid operators to accommodate a total amount of energy without the need to reinforce the grid infrastructure. For evaluating the successfulness of a demand response program, thus, evaluating its advantages, it is fundamental to have an accurate baseline curve consumption along with meaningful key performance indicators. In this work, we propose a novel way of calculating the baseline consumption using artificial intelligence techniques. In particular, regression models have been applied to a database of historical data. In order to present a complete evaluation of demand response programs, we present five key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPIs have been selected so as to depict the successfulness of the explicit demand response program. We suggest a novel way of evaluating two of the five KPI using a quantitative approach. We also apply the proposed methodology for baseline calculation and KPIs evaluation in a practical example: two pilot sites have been used and real-life scenarios of demand response events have been applied for this scope to actual nonindustrial consumers and especially residential consumers. The baseline has been calculated for these pilot sites and the KPIs have been evaluated for them. The presented results complete the picture of evaluating a real-life demand response program and show the effectiveness of the selected approach. The proposed schemes for baseline calculation and KPI evaluation can be used by the scientific community for evaluating future demand response programs, especially in the residential sector.
Journal Article
Distributed Control of Clustered Populations of Thermostatic Loads in Multi-Area Systems: A Mean Field Game Approach
Thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) can effectively support network operation through their intrinsic flexibility and play a pivotal role in delivering cost effective decarbonization. This paper proposes a scalable distributed solution for the operation of large populations of TCLs providing frequency response and performing energy arbitrage. Each TCL is described as a price-responsive rational agent that participates in an integrated energy/frequency response market and schedules its operation in order to minimize its energy costs and maximize the revenues from frequency response provision. A mean field game formulation is used to implement a compact description of the interactions between typical power system characteristics and TCLs flexibility properties. In order to accommodate the heterogeneity of the thermostatic loads into the mean field equations, the whole population of TCLs is clustered into smaller subsets of devices with similar properties, using k-means clustering techniques. This framework is applied to a multi-area power system to study the impact of network congestions and of spatial variation of flexible resources in grids with large penetration of renewable generation sources. Numerical simulations on relevant case studies allow to explicitly quantify the effect of these factors on the value of TCLs flexibility and on the overall efficiency of the power system.
Journal Article
Analysis of embodied energy and product lifespan: the potential embodied power sustainability indicator
In the context of life cycle assessment sustainability indicators, this article proposes a new indicator that is related to the embodied energy, in order to assess the lifespan of products based on their components. The indicator, called “potential embodied power” (PEP), considers that a non-replaceable component with a shorter lifespan will determine the lifetime of the product. The PEP indicator can be considered as an inherent property of the product, and it can be optimized by using a material selection method based on the concept of annualized embodied energy. This indicator can be used for product design decision making, since it determines the impact of product disposal in relation to the lifespan for which the product was designed. Also, a methodology is proposed to contribute to evaluating the environmental impact caused by the energy discarded resulting from the design decisions. A case study was performed on smartphones, and the results show that the variation of factors such as module lifespan or embodied energy allows achieving a lower value of the embodied power.Graphic abstract
Journal Article
Decomposition of Convex High Dimensional Aggregative Stochastic Control Problems
We consider the framework of convex high dimensional stochastic control problems, in which the controls are aggregated in the cost function. As first contribution, we introduce a modified problem, whose optimal control is under some reasonable assumptions an ε-optimal solution of the original problem. As second contribution, we present a decentralized algorithm whose convergence to the solution of the modified problem is established. Finally, we study the application of the developed tools in an engineering context, studying a coordination problem for large populations of domestic thermostatically controlled loads.
Journal Article
Nasal vs. oral BREATHing WIn Strategies in healthy individuals during cardiorespiratory Exercise testing (BreathWISE)
BackgroundNasal and oral exclusive breathing modes have benefits and drawbacks during submaximal exercise. It is less known whether these responses would extend to anaerobic work performed at high intensity. The purpose of this study is to find the most efficient mode of breathing during different phases of a maximal exercise at cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET).MethodsHealthy subjects were recruited to perform 4 maximal CPETs (standard conditions (STD), exclusively nasal breathing (eNAS), exclusively oral breathing (eOR), partial nasal breathing (pNAS) with just one blocked nostril) using the same ramp protocol on an electronically braked cycle ergometer. Before the exercise a standard spirometry was executed in the same order. Twelve healthy subjects (28.6 ± 5.2 y, 50% males) performed the 4 CPETs within one month. Variables were analysed at rest, at anaerobic threshold (AT), at intermediate exercise steps, and at peak.ResultsCompared to STD, eOR, and pNAS conditions, eNAS was associated with a significant lower peakVO2, peakVCO2, peak ventilation, respiratory rate, VE/VCO2 slope, respiratory exchange ratio, and workload (p < 0.05 for all). Moreover, peak inspiration and peak expiration time were augmented, while forced expiratory volume and vital capacity at rest were reduced. Only minor differences were detected at rest or AT. eNAS breathing Borg scale was higher in all phases of the exercise.ConclusionsIn young healthy subjects, an exclusively nasal respiration induces significant impairment on peak exercise capacity at CPET due to ventilatory limitation, with only minor effects on metabolic parameters at rest and in submaximal effort.
Journal Article
Distributed control in the smart grid
This thesis addresses some of the challenges that arise when the new smart grid paradigm is applied to power systems. In particular, novel control strategies are designed to deal in a decentralized matter with the increasing complexity of the network. Two main areas are investigated: participation to frequency control of variable-speed wind turbines and management of large populations of competing agents (e.g. micro-storage devices and \"smart appliances\") that exchange energy with the system. The first part of this work presents two different techniques that allow wind turbines to provide frequency response: following the trip of a large power plant, the turbines population increases its aggregate generated power, reducing the resulting drop in frequency. A first method models the wind turbines as stochastic hybrid systems: the generators switch randomly between two operative modes characterized by different efficiency and generated power at equilibrium. Transitions are driven by frequency-dependent switching functions: single generators behave randomly while large populations perform deterministically, changing the total power in response to frequency variations. The second proposed control strategy allows a prescribed increase in generation, distributing the control effort among the individual turbines in order to maximize the duration of frequency support or minimize the resulting kinetic energy losses. The second part of the thesis deals with large populations of agents which determine their operation strategy in response to a broadcast price signal. Micro-storage devices performing energy arbitrage are initially considered: each agent charges/discharges during the day in order to maximize its profit. By approximating the number of devices as infinite, modelling the population as a continuum and describing the problem through a differential game with infinite players (mean field game), it is possible to avoid synchronicity phenomena and determine an equilibrium for the market. Finally, the similar case of flexible demand is analyzed, with price-responsive appliances that schedule their power consumption in order to minimize their energy cost. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium are provided, extending the results by introducing time-varying constraints on the power rate and considering partial flexibility of the devices.
Dissertation
A framework for receding-horizon control in infinite-horizon aggregative games
A novel modelling framework is proposed for the analysis of aggregative games on an infinite-time horizon, assuming that players are subject to heterogeneous periodic constraints. A new aggregative equilibrium notion is presented and the strategic behaviour of the agents is analysed under a receding horizon paradigm. The evolution of the strategies predicted and implemented by the players over time is modelled through a discrete-time multi-valued dynamical system. By considering Lyapunov stability notions and applying limit and invariance results for set-valued correspondences, necessary conditions are derived for convergence of a receding horizon map to a periodic equilibrium of the aggregative game. This result is achieved for any (feasible) initial condition, thus ensuring implicit adaptivity of the proposed control framework to real-time variations in the number and parameters of players. Design and implementation of the proposed control strategy are discussed and an example of distributed control for data routing is presented, evaluating its performance in simulation.
Paper