Abstract
Demand response (DR) programs can offer various benefits especially in microgrid environments with renewable energy systems (RESs) and energy storage technologies when effectively planned and managed. Accordingly, this study proposes an energy management approach for a neighborhood including residential end-users with photovoltaic (PV) systems, a shared energy storage system (ESS) and an electric vehicle (EV) fleet. The proposed approach presents a novel energy credit mechanism (ECM) for the EV fleet and households separately to exploit the EV batteries and store the excess PV energy in the neighborhood through the shared ESS for later use. End-users gain energy credits before a DR event and use these credits during the peak periods to minimize their total energy cost (TEC), resulted in a decrease in the peak demand. Also, the energy credits gained by the EV fleet are used through the vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services with the same objective. In order to conduct a more realistic analysis, a battery degradation cost estimation model is employed and the uncertain behavior of the EV users is considered. The case studies show that the proposed optimization strategy has the capability of considerably reducing the energy costs and peak demand.

Abstract
The identification of olive-tree cultivars is a lengthy and expensive process, therefore, the proposed work presents a new strategy for identifying different cultivars of olive trees using their leaf and machine learning algorithms. In this initial case, four autochthonous cultivars of the Tras-os-Montes region in Portugal are identified (Cobrancosa, Madural, Negrinha e Verdeal). With the use of this type of algorithm, it is expected to replace the previous techniques, saving time and resources for farmers. Three different machine learning algorithms (Decision Tree, SVM, Random Forest) were also compared and the results show an overall accuracy rate of the best algorithm (Random Forest) of approximately 93%.

Abstract

Abstract
Abstract Recently, research concerning the navigation of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) has been increasing. However, a large-scale implementation of these vessels is still held back by several challenges such as multi-object tracking. Attaining accurate object detection plays a big role in achieving successful tracking. This article presents the development of a detection model with an image-based Convolutional Neural Network trained through transfer learning, a deep learning technique. To train, test, and validate the detector module, data were collected with the SENSE ASV by sailing through two nearby ports, Leixões and Viana do Castelo, and recording video frames through its on-board cameras, along with a Light Detection And Ranging, GPS, and Inertial Measurement Unit data. Images were extracted from the collected data, composing a manually annotated dataset with nine classes of different vessels, along with data from other open-source maritime datasets. The developed model achieved a class mAP@[.5 .95] (mean average precision) of 89.5% and a clear improvement in boat detection compared to a multi-purposed state-of-the-art detector, YOLO-v4, with a 22.9% and 44.3% increase in the mAP with an Intersection over Union threshold of 50% and the mAP@[.5 .95], respectively. It was integrated in a detection and tracking system, being able to continuously detect nearby vessels and provide sufficient information for simple navigation tasks.

Abstract
Language is closely related to how we perceive ourselves and signify our reality. In this scope, we created Desiring Machines, an interactive media art project that allows the experience of affective virtual environments adopting speech emotion recognition as the leading input source. Participants can share their emotions by speaking, singing, reciting poetry, or making any vocal sounds to generate virtual environments on the run. Our contribution combines two machine learning models. We propose a long-short term memory and a convolutional neural network to predict four main emotional categories from high-level semantic and low-level paralinguistic acoustic features. Predicted emotions are mapped to audiovisual representations by an end-to-end process encoding emotion in virtual environments. We use a generative model of chord progressions to transfer speech emotion into music based on the tonal interval space. Also, we implement a generative adversarial network to synthesize an image from the transcribed speech-to-text. The generated visuals are used as the style image in the style-transfer process onto an equirectangular projection of a spherical panorama selected for each emotional category. The result is an immersive virtual space encapsulating emotions in spheres disposed into a 3D environment. Users can create new affective representations or interact with other previously encoded instances (This ArtsIT publication is an extended version of the earlier abstract presented at the ACM MM22 [1]). © 2023, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

Abstract
The papers in this special section focus on advances in renewable energy forecasting, predictability, business models, and applications in the power industry. During the last 25 years, research has been conducted for developing renewable energy source (RES) forecasting algorithms, especially for wind and solar energy, seeking an improvement of predictability and uncertainty forecasting products. Research on wave energy forecasting is also being conducted, although this technology is not at the same maturity levels of wind and solar energy technologies. Furthermore, the number of companies selling forecasting services has proliferated and the reliability and availability of the services have improved. Currently, power system operators and electrical energy traders use weather and power forecasts embedded in their decision-making processes. Despite all this research and adoption by the energy industry, deterministic forecasts are still predominant in utility practice mainly due to: i) lack of understanding and standardization of uncertainty forecast products; and ii) high computational time associated with stochastic and robust optimization approaches. Moreover, proven business cases are also needed to demonstrate the benefits of uncertainty forecasts to end-users.