Combined micro-cogeneration and electric vehicle system for household application: An energy and economic analysis in a Northern European climate

In recent years, Denmark boosted investments in renewable energy and electrification of transportation. The Danish Agenda proposed that all primary energy consumption will be covered by renewable sources such as wind, biomass and solar by 2050. These changes require significant investment and re-thinking of entire energy infrastructures and types of consumption. The Agenda also suggested, among other things, improving the efficiency of energy systems.In this paper, the interactions between charging an electric car and an innovative cogeneration system for household application (micro-solid oxide fuel cell with an integrated heating system) are investigated. The charge of the electric car by the cogenerator produces waste heat that can be used to partially cover the heat demand of the house. In this way it may be possible to increase overall efficiency and decrease total energy costs. Different innovative strategies are proposed and analyzed to manage charging an electric car and efficiently using the waste heat available. The aims of this study are to make the system grid-independent, to decrease the thermal stress of SOFCs and to determine the nominal power of an integrated heating system. The results show energy efficiency and economic profitability of the system, even if subsidies are not included.     

Environmental Innovations,Local Networks and Internationalization

This paper investigates the forces correlated with environmental innovations (EIs) introduced by firms in local production systems (LPS). The role of inter-firm network relationships, agglomeration economies and internationalization strategies is jointly analysed for a sample of 555 firms in the Emilia–Romagna (ER) region (North-East Italy). Cooperating with a certain kind of local actors—i.e. suppliers and universities—is the most important EI driver for the investigated firms, along with their training coverage and their adoption of information and communication technologies. The role of agglomeration economies is instead less clear-cut. They spur EIs only in the presence of established LPS, with idiosyncratic sector specialization, while conversely they act as EI barriers. Networking effects and agglomeration economies are instead found to strongly promote the adoption of EIs by multinational firms, thus highlighting the importance of local–global interactions. Interesting specifications for these results are found for particular kinds of EIs, in such fields as CO₂ abatement and ISO labelling, generally extending the analysis of EI drivers by joining local and international factors. In addition, the role of regulatory sector factors confirms the induced innovation hypothesis and provides a robustness check to our results.     

Distributed Fault Diagnosis With Overlapping Decompositions: An Adaptive Approximation Approach

This technical note deals with the problem of designing a distributed fault detection methodology for distributed (and possibly large-scale) nonlinear dynamical systems that are modelled as the interconnection of several subsystems. The subsystems are allowed to overlap, thus sharing some state components. For each subsystem, a local fault detector is designed, based on the measured local state of the subsystem as well as the transmitted variables of neighboring states that define the subsystem interconnections. The local detection decision is made on the basis of the knowledge of the local subsystem dynamic model and of an adaptive approximation of the interconnection with neighboring subsystems. The use of a specially-designed consensus-based estimator is proposed in order to improve the detectability of faults affecting variables shared among different subsystems. Simulation results provide an evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed distributed fault detection scheme.     

Design and characterization of a current sensing platform for silicon-based nanopores with integrated tunneling nanoelectrodes

Solid-state nanopores have been gaining popularity in nano-biotechnology for single molecule detection, in particular for label-free high-throughput DNA sequencing. In order to address the improvement of the resolution/speed trade-off critical in this application, here we present a new two-channel current amplifier tailored for solid-state nanopore devices with integrated tunneling electrodes. The simultaneous detection of ion and tunneling currents provides enhanced molecule tracking capability. We describe the system design starting from a detailed noise analysis and device modeling, highlighting the detrimental role of the conductive silicon substrate and of all the stray capacitive couplings between the electrodes. Given the high input capacitance (0.1–1 nF), the input voltage noise has been carefully minimized choosing a discrete couple of matched low-noise JFETs as input stage, thus achieving an equivalent input noise of 1.5 nV/√Hz (corresponding to a current noise floor of 15 fA/√Hz at 10 kHz). Low-noise performance (11 pA rms noise integrated over a 75 kHz bandwidth) is preserved at a wide bandwidth (300 kHz) and high gain (100 MΩ) thanks to the adoption of an improved integrator/differentiator cascade topology. Furthermore, along with biasing networks and selectable low-pass filters, an AC-coupled channel providing additional gain has been introduced in order to “zoom” in the current signature during pore blockade events. Together with an experimental characterization of the system (and comparison with the noise performance of other instruments), the platform is validated by demonstrating the detection of λ-DNA with 20 nm pores.     

Rawseeds ground truth collection systems for indoor self-localization and mapping

A trustable and accurate ground truth is a key requirement for benchmarking self-localization and mapping algorithms; on the other hand, collection of ground truth is a complex and daunting task, and its validation is a challenging issue. In this paper we propose two techniques for indoor ground truth collection, developed in the framework of the European project Rawseeds, which are mutually independent and also independent on the sensors onboard the robot. These techniques are based, respectively, on a network of fixed cameras, and on a network of fixed laser scanners. We show how these systems are implemented and deployed, and, most importantly, we evaluate their performance; moreover, we investigate the possible fusion of their outputs.