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Abstract
Evaluating the efficiency of surface treatments is a problem of paramount importance for the cork stopper industry. Generically, these treatments create coatings that aim to enhance the impermeability and lubrification of cork stoppers. Yet, current methods of surface analysis are typically time-consuming, destructive, have poor representativity or rely on indirect approaches. In this work, the use of a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) imaging solution is explored for evaluating the presence of coating along the cylindrical surface and in depth. To test it, several cork stoppers with different shaped areas of untreated surface were analyzed by LIBS, making a rectangular grid of spots with multiple shots per spot, to try to identify the correspondent shape. Results show that this technique can detect the untreated area along with other features, such as leakage and holes, allowing for a high success rate of identification and for its performance at different depths, paving the way for future industry-grade quality control solutions with more complex surface analysis.

Abstract
Isolated power systems with high shares of renewables can require additional inertia as a complementary resource to assure the system operation in a dynamic safe region. This paper presents a methodology for the day-ahead Unit Commitment/ Economic Dispatch (UC/ED) for low-inertia power systems including dynamic security constraints for key frequency indicators computed by an Artificial Neural-Network (ANN)-supported Dynamic Security Assessment (DSA) tool. The ANN-supported DSA tool infers the system dynamic performance with respect to key frequency indicators following critical disturbances and computes the additional synchronous inertia that brings the system back to its dynamic security region, by dispatching Synchronous Condensers (SC) if required. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology proposed by enabling the system operation within safe frequency margins for a set of high relevance fault type contingencies while minimizing the additional costs associated with the SC operation.

Abstract
Extensive literature is available for modeling and simulating local electricity markets, often called P2P electricity markets, and for pricing local energy transactions in energy communities. Market models and pricing mechanisms provide simulation tools to better understand how these new markets behave, helping to design their main rules for real applications, and assessing the financial compensations of the internal energy transactions. As such, pricing mechanisms are often needed in energy management systems when centralized management approaches are preferred to market-based ones. First, this paper highlights the links between local electricity markets, pricing mechanisms for local electricity transactions, and other approaches to sharing the collective benefits of participating in transactive energy communities. Then, a standard nomenclature is defined to review some of the main pricing mechanisms for local energy transactions, an innovative pricing mechanism based on the economic principles of a post-delivery pool market is proposed, and other relevant approaches for local electricity market simulation such as Nash equilibrium or agent-based simulation are also revisited. The revision was based on systematic searches in common research databases and on the authors' experience in European and national projects, including local industrial applications for the past five years. A qualitative assessment of the reviewed methods is also provided, and the research challenges are highlighted. This review is intended to serve as a practical guide to pricing mechanisms and market simulation procedures for practical designs of internal financial compensation to share the collective benefits of energy communities.

Abstract
Budgets are important management tools recognized for their help in planning, communication, monitoring the expense performance, and even motivating collaborators. However, recently there has been criticism of the traditional Budgeting Process due to its cumbersomeness, long duration, and eventual diversion of the focus from the day-to-day activities. Thus, improving the Budgeting Process by incorporating Expense component uncertainties is of uttermost importance to accelerate its approval. This paper presents a methodology for companies to assess their budget risk based on their historical Expense data by applying Monte Carlo Simulation and Time Series Bootstrapping Techniques. Besides, some state-of-the-art sensitivity Importance Measures are also implemented to help evaluate the relative importance of the Expense components. The methodology proposed, based on a real case study with data from a major Portuguese retailer, has the advantage of being objective and supported by data, thus not being subject to bias from the management. © 2023, Universidade do Porto - Faculdade de Engenharia. All rights reserved.

Abstract