In this study, the Colombian electricity market, its regulation and its current tariff scheme was examined. Here, the operation of the electricity system and its value chain are described in detail. Future scenarios of supply and demand are also shown. The study presents a description of the legal incentives given by the government for the promotion of renewable energies, and strategic aspects and recommendations for the development of solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in Colombia were identified and formulated. In particular, strategies for collaboration between Colombia and Germany, which is a leader in the PV industry. The report presents an overview of solar PV systems markets worldwide and in Colombia. Regarding the solar market in Colombia, not only the historical development of the PV industry in the country is explained, but also the solar radiation in the whole country is shown. In the same way, this study shows a description of the most common alternatives for the electrification in off-grid areas and an enumeration of drivers and barriers for the development of the PV industry in the country.

En este texto se encuentran datos sobre construcción de líneas eléctricas aéreas, los conductores, los aisladores y sus diferencias, las campanas del aislador, soportes de líneas y postes de madera y de concreto.

The results of this report indicate how niche product developments for Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) can be easily achieved using present day technology, which markets need to be addressed, which niche configurations to pursue, and which organizations have the needed competencies to proceed. Classical SBSP concepts generally call for large rigid systems to be placed in orbit to collect and transmit several GW of energy down to Earth’s commercial electricity grid, and are still faced with many problems including system complexity, development, and costs. Smaller more specific niche applications of these concepts focus on different markets with lower complexity and barriers to entry while developing technologies and infrastructure needed for the classical SBSP. Technical research was performed in order to identify potential system configurations as well as crucial competencies and technologies needed by the SBSP effort. A pair of unique technical configurations was proposed in an attempt to mitigate standard SBSP challenges such as construction, rigidity, and launch costs. A strategic evaluation tool was created to evaluate all potential system configurations in terms of risk and complexity; ideal configurations were chosen based on anticipated markets and the results from the strategic analysis. Market research was performed in order to understand and valuate the utility of different niche configurations; these included the scientific, remote, green, space to space, and military markets. Very high value segments were observed in each of these market areas with a range of $0.37 to $1.88 USD per kwh for Terrestrial applications, and a range of $380.00 to $1200.00 per kwh for space applications. Exploration of the European Carbon Trading Exchange as a source of revenue is explored due to CO2 offsets. A unique satellite product is proposed and valuated which receives energy directly from an external on orbit source. The value of restoring functionality to damaged satellites is estimated in the millions of dollars.

The sum of small and big decisions made in all levels of companies determines its performance. Also, the quality of the decisions can be improved when there is information available to help decision makers in their task. All this has motivated the development of specific types of information systems aimed to provide the information necessary in the different levels of the company to support structured and semi-structured decision making. This research will be focused on a specific group of information systems to support decisions that make intensive use of historic data integrated from multiple sources; Data-driven Decision Support Systems (DDSS). On the other hand the features of the systems to support decisions together with tasks and techniques that are unique for these systems demanded the creation of specific development methodologies to perform the development process. In response to that demand, several proposals have been elaborated but there is no consensus in the field. Currently there is a debate around two development methodologies that are analysed on this paper. After the analysis of the proposed methodologies a case study organization with experience on the development of DDSS will be analysed. The research aims to understand and present the development process carried out in the organization to develop DDSS. In the analysis the influence of the existing methodologies and other sources, like traditional development methodologies and standardization is included. Finally a proposal to improve the development of DDSS in the case study organization is presented. The proposal is generated in the light of the existing methodologies and other particular proposals that deal with single tasks on the development process.

In this thesis two different studies are presented separately because each study has a different purpose even though the two studies are complementary. For the first study an available dataset for BCI is used. This dataset is consistent with the aim of the first study because it allows the implementation and development of the proposed technique for BCI based on imaginary limb movement with a small amount of electrodes. The technique I implemented trough this study is a reliable option to be used for a BCI-based on imaginary movements. In the second study a different dataset is used because the requirements for the technique to be implemented are different. Training and testing dataset are necessary to describe a practical computational technique that is applied for a single trial classification based on a Common Spatial Pattern and complemented with a linear discriminator. The training data is used to build a classifier and the testing data allows measuring the performance of the classifier implemented. After testing the classifier the good performance obtained makes this technique of great interest for any imaginary movement based-BCI.

Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are known for their application in surveillance and tracking with on-board cameras. Videos from UAV usually suffer from jitter and high frequency unintended movements which makes necessary stabilize the footage. This is a Computer Vision problem, particularly difficult due to level of noise in acquisition and different types of scenarios which make hard to implement online stabilizer (on the fly). The present thesis explains in depth algorithms, methods and implementations of the OpenCV module videostab. We presented a version in C++ of videostab in context of video from UAV. Two main blocks constitute the current implementation: motion estimation and motion stabilization. In the former, the system robustly estimates global displacement in between every consecutive pair of frames. The latter can be used in two possible ways: Assuming that estimated motion contains intended UAV motion and high frequency vibrations or assuming that all estimated motion is undesirable. The first case is solved with a Gaussian filter to smooth motions and, in the second case, a filter called Zero Motion was implemented to give sensation of stillness. Results show that the implementation is robust and can work in different scenarios of UAV. Moreover, it is possible to run it in a general purpose computer with high speed performance. Online performance can be achieved using some function with graphic processing unit (GPU).

Abstract: Different contract types means different incentives, burdens and relationships. The contract type responsibilities and price should be in accordance with the project needs and organization capacities, not knowing this could entail less project profitability and chances of success. It is necessary to understand the alternatives and how they behave, in order to develop the right strategies to avoid overruns and improve the project quality. The goal of this thesis is to develop a decision analysis model for contract type selection. This model will become a useful tool for contractor and client preferences in an easy and effective way. Decision analysis is a powerful tool that will help us to bring clarity of thought in this process; during this thesis it is described what is a project, its phases, activities and the components that understand it, in the same way it is presented the contract management life cycle. This model attempts to link and evaluate the contract types, differentiators, and the client and contractor preferences in order to quantify the costs and benefits of each type, which could be the best option. One priority of this thesis is to understand the synergetic relationship between contract type, contract management, project management and contract price, in order to take the best decision, increasing the probability to achieve a successful project execution. As application example, a contract type selection for the EPCI (Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Installation) of a topside for a semisubmersible platform is presented.Resumen: Diferentes tipos de contrato significa diferentes incentivos, cargas y relaciones. Las responsabilidades y el precio del tipo de contrato deben estar de acuerdo con las necesidades del proyecto y las capacidades de la organización, sin saber que esto podría implicar una menor rentabilidad del proyecto y posibilidades de éxito. Es necesario comprender las alternativas y la forma en que se comportan, a fin de desarrollar las estrategias correctas para evitar los excesos y mejorar la calidad del proyecto. El objetivo de esta tesis es desarrollar un modelo de análisis de decisión para la selección del tipo de contrato. Este modelo se convertirá en una herramienta útil para las preferencias de los contratistas y clientes de una manera fácil y efectiva. El análisis de decisiones es una herramienta poderosa que nos ayudará a tener claridad de pensamiento en este proceso; Durante esta tesis se describe qué es un proyecto, sus fases, actividades y los componentes que lo comprenden, de la misma manera que se presenta el ciclo de vida de gestión de contratos. Este modelo intenta vincular y evaluar los tipos de contrato, los diferenciadores y las preferencias del cliente y del contratista para cuantificar los costos y beneficios de cada tipo, lo que podría ser la mejor opción. Una de las prioridades de esta tesis es comprender la relación sinérgica entre el tipo de contrato, la gestión de contratos, la gestión de proyectos y el precio del contrato, para tomar la mejor decisión, aumentando la probabilidad de lograr una ejecución exitosa del proyecto. Como ejemplo de aplicación, se presenta una selección de tipo de contrato para el EPCI (Ingeniería, Aprovisionamiento, Construcción e Instalación) de un topside para una plataforma semisumergible.

Abstract: The Environmental Control System (ECS) allows the control of the environment within the cabin and flight deck for pilot and passenger comfort, and protects them from adverse weather conditions. This study presents a Matlab-Simulink® model developed to calculate the shaft power and ventilation required by the ECS during different flight conditions. The ECS model includes two blocks. The first block determines the requirements of the ECS by means of the analysis of thermal loads presented inside the helicopter. The second block computes the ECS air-conditioning pack of the helicopter (for cooling, heating and demisting). Two different ambient and flight conditions are simulated to find the power consumption of the air-conditioning pack once a comfortable cabin environment has been achieved. It is concluded that by using this model, the changes in the comfort level can be predicted in real time in order to intelligently reduce the ECS overall power consumption in a helicopter by choosing among five different ECS configurations the most appropriated, thus maintain the thermal comfort of the pilot and the passengers. Resumen: El Sistema de Control Ambiental (ECS por sus siglas en inglés) permite el control del ambiente dentro de la cabina y la consola de control del helicóptero, proporcionando confort y protección a los pilotos y pasajeros en condiciones climáticas adversas. Este estudio presenta un modelo en Matlab-Simulink® aplicable a diversas condiciones de vuelo para calcular la potencia mecánica y la ventilación requerida por el ECS. El modelo ECS incluye dos bloques. El primer bloque determina los requerimientos del ECS por medio del análisis de cargas térmicas presentadas en el interior del helicóptero. El segundo bloque computa el sistema de acondicionamiento de aire del ECS dentro de un helicoptero (para refrigeración, calefacción y desempañado). Dos condiciones diferentes de ambiente y de vuelo son simuladas para encontrar el consumo de potencia del sistema de acondicionamiento de aire una vez alcanzado un ambiente de cabina confortable. Se concluye que por medio de este modelo, los patrones de cambio próximos en el nivel de confort se pueden predecir en tiempo real con el fin de reducir de forma inteligente el consumo general de energía del ECS en un helicóptero al seleccionar entre 5 configuraciones la más apropiada, y asi mantener el confort térmico del piloto y los pasajeros.

As it has been proved in several researches carried out by different authors, riverine floods and the scour induced by these are one of the main causes of bridge collapse. More specifically, local scour causes a loss in the lateral resistance of bridge foundation, thus potentially increasing the seismic vulnerability of a bridge system. The present study assesses the combination of scour and earthquake effects for a bridge located in a road network crossing valleys in the Pyrenees Mountain range (France). The bridge spans over a river stream of trapezoidal cross-section, which is more able to capture actual physical behaviours than the rectangular section generally used for similar studies. The bridge consists in a continuous RC deck supported by two multi-column piers. Making use of the OpenSees software, a 3D finite-element model of the bridge is built and subjected to a suite of 312 ground motions (i.e., non-linear time history analyses). Fragility curves are developed for this multi-hazard case study, considering specific levels of damage that might be of interest, as well a comparison between fragility characteristics obtained in the absence and presence of scour. In order to fully study the potentially detrimental effects of scour on the dynamic behavior of the considered bridge, it is considered different scour combinations in the non-linear time-history analyses, such as: • Equal scour depth in all columns. • Same scour depth in the columns of the same pier. • Same scour depth in columns of different piers. • Scour depth concentrated in just one column of the bridge This study demonstrates the ability of a given numerical model to account for various hazard loadings and failure mechanisms, thus providing support to decision making regarding bridge management and monitoring.

Nowadays, the development of global competition has been one of the main factors that have driven the efforts toward the optimisation development. Therefore, oil refineries have been encouraged to be restructured for competing successfully in this new scenario with low profit margin, tighter environmental regulations and more efficient plant operation. However, many years and a lot of human and computational efforts have been dedicated to improve the techniques applied for the overall refinery optimisation. Good developments have come successfully operating at the planning level; but developing and solving rigorous overall plant optimisation models at the production scheduling level still are at research stage and much more work must be done to continue improving in this field through the involvement of difficult tasks due to the mathematical complexity of the models which have the compulsory use of a large quantity of equations and variables that hugely increase the size of the problem. This Thesis presents a new generic mixed integer linear programming model for optimising the scheduling of crude oil unloading, inventories, blending and feed to oil refineries that usually unload several kinds of crude oils with different compositions. The objective function of the model consists on minimising the operational cost generated during the mentioned operation. Case studies are presented and compared each other illustrating the capabilities of the model to solve operation scheduling problems in this area and to support future expansion projects for the system as they happen in real situations. The solution involves optimal operation of crude oil unloading, optimal transfer rates among equipments in accordance with the pumping capacities and tank volume limitations, optimal oscillation of crude oil blended compositions and fulfilment of the oil charging demand per process unit. border’s fringe.