• Rural Digital Europe
• 2013-2022close
• European University of Technology close

The purpose of this paper is to address current issues in industrial robotics applications and to address also the current trends occurring in the industry regarding smaller mobile units in factory and external manufacturing processes relating to the battery powering of robotics devices. Specifically, we shall concentrate the efforts herein on “Mobile Industrial Robotics”. The paper touches briefly on problems associated with both definitions of industrial robots and problems associated with power supply sources of mobile industrial robotics and provides an outline of future work with appropriate solution for smaller mobile industrial mobile units operating in the variable input range of 24V to 48v and outputs in the range of 3.3V to 12V @ 20A in three stages. The project required a fast, turn-key solution which did not allow for a “design from scratch” solution and so detailed herein is suitable design produced in other sectors and relating the details, design process, modelling and examination of a successful and efficient high current DC to DC switch mode power supply. Parameters have been adjusted to our own preferences in the design considerations regarding “Industrial Service Hybrids” [1] (ISH)1. Other design issues are under assessment and shall be included as the project moves forward.

Abstract Agriculture is the second most significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with approximately 24 % of Latvia’s total GHG emissions in 2014. Emissions from agricultural soils contributed major share of the total emissions – 59.6 %, enteric fermentation emissions was second largest source – 32 %. The share of manure management emissions was evaluated as 7.5 % of total emissions in the sector, remaining 0.9 % of emissions refer to liming and urea application. GHG emissions increased in 2014 by 3.3 % comparing to 2013 due to increase of cattle, sheep and fur animal numbers. Statistics also showed increase of synthetic N fertilizer consumption approximately by 4.6 %, sown area by 0.3 % and lime application to soils 42.9 % [1]. Bearing in mind significant share of agricultural emissions in total GHG emissions in Latvia and the growing emission trend the additional attention is necessary for evaluation of impacts of agriculture on the environment. The purpose of this study is to explore indicators for assessing eco-efficiency in the Latvian agriculture sector. First the paper describes methods which can be used for measuring eco-efficiency, second availability of activity data and third, presents calculations of selected indicators for eco-efficiencies.

The aim of this paper is to present our strategy and vision to upgrade the existing ERATOSTHENES Research Centre (ERC), established within Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), into a sustainable, viable and autonomous Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment (EXCELSIOR), which will provide the highest quality of related services both on the National, European and International levels. The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project is a Horizon 2020 Teaming project, addressing the reduction of substantial disparities in the European Union by supporting research and innovation activities and systems in low performing countries. It also aims at establishing long-term and strategic partnerships between the Teaming partners, thus reducing internal research and innovation disparities within European Research and Innovation landscape. The ERCis already an established player in the local community and has excellent active collaboration with actors from various sectors in (a) the government, (b) industry, (c) local organisations, and (d) society. In order to further engage users and citizens and to become more attractive to international research and education community, the Centre aims to be fully involved in strategic positioning on the national level, but also in Europe, the Middle East region and internationally. Some examples of how space technologies are integrated with other tools or techniques such as UAV, field spectroscopy, micro-sensors, EO space/in-situ sensors etc. for the systematic monitoring of the environment is shown. Indeed such examples fulfills the objectives of the COPERNICUS academy network (in which ERC is a member) for empowering the next generation of researchers, scientists, and entrepreneurs with suitable skill sets to use Copernicus data and information services to their full potential. Finally, opportunities for future collaboration and investments with the ERC in the Eastern Mediterranean Region are stated. Five partners have united to upgrade the existing ERC into a CoE, with the common vision to become a world-class innovation, research and education centre, actively contributing to the European Research Area (ERA). More specifically, the Teaming project is a team effort between the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT, acting as the coordinator), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA), the German Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the Cyprus’ Department of Electronic Communications of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works (DEC-MTCW).

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Volume 9229, 2014, Article number 922912 Accurate assessment of water use is an important issue in a globally changing climate and environment, where water is becoming a scarce but essential resource. The concept "?Water Footprint (WF) of a crop is defined as the volume of water consumed for its production, where green and blue WF stand for rain and irrigation water usage, respectively. This indicator provides valuable information for a global assessment of how water resources are used. Remote sensing (RS) provides physically-based, worldwide, and consistent spatial information over space and time, and has been used in hydrological applications in order to estimate relevant variables at different temporal and spatial scales. The paper focuses on exploring and exploiting the potential of using RS techniques and data for WF assessment in agriculture. Based on recent papers initiated in this research topic the investigation focuses on how variables needed in the calculation of water footprint are obtained (based on non RS and on RS approaches), on identifying the inputs required for estimating the WF of crops and whether it is feasible to integrate various RS approaches. The results of this study demonstrate the usefulness of satellite data for water footprint assessment, which were obtained by the Remote Sensing Working Group in the framework of the ESSEM COST Action ES1106, "Assessment of EUROpean AGRIculture WATer use and trade under climate change"? (EURO-AGRIWAT). © 2014 SPIE.

In this article we will present a transdisciplinary approach to carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. The software provides a method proposed to measure the amount of carbon that can be captured from different soil types and different crop. The application has integrated an intuitive interface, is portable and calculate the number of green certificates as a reward for farmers financial support for environmental protection. We plan to initiate a scientific approach to environmental protection through financial incentives for agriculture fits in EU rules by taxing big polluters and rewarding those who maintain a suitable environment for the development of ecological and competitive agriculture.

This thesis considers the energy efficiency of information and communication infrastructures in a smart grid - cloud system. It especially deals with communication networks and cloud data centers due to their high energy consumption, which confers them an important role in the network. The contributions of this thesis are implemented on the same framework integrating the smart grid, microgrid, cloud, data centers and users. Indeed, we have studied the interaction between the cloud data centers and the smart grid provider and we have proposed energy efficient power allocation solutions and an energy cost minimization scheme using two architectures: a smart grid-cloud architecture and a microgrid-cloud architecture. In addition, we paid close attention to execute user requests while ensuring a good quality of service in a fog-cloud architecture. In comparison with state-of-the-art works, the results of our contributions have shown that they respond to the identified challenges, particularly in terms of reducing carbon emissions and energy costs of cloud data centers.; Dans cette thèse, nous étudions l’efficacité énergétique des infrastructures informatiques dans un système smart grid – cloud. Nous nous intéressons plus particulièrement aux réseaux de communication et aux data centers du cloud. Nous nous focalisons sur ces derniers à cause de leur grande consommation d’énergie et du rôle vital qu’ils jouent dans un monde connecté en pleine expansion, les positionnant, ainsi, comme des éléments importants dans un système smart grid - cloud. De ce fait, les travaux de cette thèse s’inscrivent dans le cadre d’un seul framework intégrant le smart grid, le microgrid, le cloud, les data centers et les utilisateurs. Nous avons, en effet, étudié l’interaction entre les data centers du cloud et le fournisseur d’énergie du smart grid et nous avons proposé des solutions d’allocation d’énergie et de minimisation du coût d’énergie en utilisant deux architectures : (1) une architecture smart grid-cloud et (2) une architecture microgrid-cloud. Par ailleurs, nous avons porté une attention particulière à l’exécution des requêtes des utilisateurs tout en leur garantissant un niveau de qualité de service satisfaisant dans une architecture fog -cloud. En comparaison avec les travaux de l’état de l’art, les résultats de nos contributions ont montré qu’ils répondent aux enjeux identifiés, notamment en réduisant les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et le coût d’énergie des data centers.

Analizar el cambio que se está produciendo en las entidades bancarias españolas, estudiando los distintos ámbitos estratégicos que están siguiendo, indicadores de cambio, y el desarrollo a corto plazo de la digitalización en la banca española Estudio de los diferentes cambios que se están produciendo en la banca española y consecuencias de los mismos Facultad de Ciencias de la Empresa Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena

Abstract Concerns about drinking water (DW) quality contamination during water distribution raise a need for real-time monitoring and rapid contamination detection. Early warning systems (EWS) are a potential solution. The EWS consist of multiple conventional sensors that provide the real-time measurements and algorithms that allow the recognizing of contamination events from normal operating conditions. In most cases, these algorithms have been established with artificial data, while data from real and biological contamination events are limited. The goal of the study was the event detection performance of the Mahalanobis distance method in combination with on-line DW quality monitoring sensors and manual measurements of grab samples for potential DW biological contamination scenarios. In this study three contamination scenarios were simulated in a pilot-scale DW distribution system: untreated river water, groundwater and wastewater intrusion, which represent realistic contamination scenarios and imply biological contamination. Temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), total organic carbon (TOC), chlorine ion (Cl-), oxidation–reduction potential (ORP), pH sensors and turbidity measurements were used as on-line sensors and for manual measurements. Novel adenosine-triphosphate and flow cytometric measurements were used for biological water quality evaluation. The results showed contamination detection probability from 56% to 89%, where the best performance was obtained with manual measurements. The probability of false alarm was 5–6% both for on-line and manual measurements. The Mahalanobis distance method with DW quality sensors has a good potential to be applied in EWS. However, the sustainability of the on-line measurement system and/or the detection algorithm should be improved.

Part 4: Building Information Modeling (BIM); International audience; Large-scale 3D city building models have been widely used in urban planning, intelligent transportation, military simulation and other fields. The traditional ways of modeling generally have common problems such as low efficiency, waste of manpower and time consumption. How to find a rapid approach to automatically complete large-scale 3D modeling is a very hot research topic. In this paper we propose a novel approach of procedural modeling of buildings with CityEngine, which is combined with ArcGIS technology for the geographic information. This approach produces extensive architectural 3D models with high visual quality and geometric details at low cost. It includes following two contents concretely. At first, directly writing computer generated architecture (CGA) shape grammar to complete procedural modeling of building and other objects. Secondly, using facade modeling based on two-dimensional images to generate architectural model as well as creating high geometry details. It is validated that this novel approach of procedural modeling is a significant step forward that reduces a lot of modeling times by CGA shape grammars.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for use in remote sensing offer simple and affordable observation from the air. Due to the decreasing size of the sensors, receivers and antennas, it is now possible to create integrated low-altitude airborne systems. Remote sensing technologies on a UAV platform are an efficient, non-invasive and low cost resource for the detection, documentation and monitoring of various environmental (both natural and cultural) features, in high resolution and quality. Different remote sensing techniques can be used alongside to the UAVs, such as field spectroscopy, multispectral cameras, infrared cameras and thermal cameras. This integration in terms of techniques and technologies, contributes further to more solid outcomes depending on the case study. The possibility of adding a variety of sensors to the basic UAV unit amplifies both the application cases and the results. Among the types of camera sensors that can be used with the UAVs are the visible spectrum cameras, the multi-spectral cameras and the hyperspectral cameras. These cameras can extract more detailed information since an entire spectrum is acquired from each pixel of the image. In this paper, various UAVs used for environmental and archaeological applications in different areas of Cyprus are presented.