Posted by Ian on Tuesday, July 10, 2012.

CompSust'12

I’m just back from the 3rd international conference on computational sustainbality in Copenhagen, Denmark. A beautiful scandinavian city, a jazz festival, and the latest on using machine learning and linear programming to develop intelligent energy management systems, integrate electric vehicles into the electricity grid, and optimize logistics - who could ask for more?

One of the things I liked was the conference’s size. At a bit less than 100 people it was big enough to have a variety of sessions but small enough that you could track down anyone you’d missed or had questions for. It was also a refreshing change to go to an academic conference as opposed to a professional one.

Some of the presentations I particularly enjoyed included:

Developing an intelligent system that automatically learns the characteristics of your home and your energy use patterns and then provides energy-saving tips (Nick Jennings).

A model that improves short-term local wind forecasts by analysing spatio-temporal correlations in forecast versus actual wind speed across all of Denmark (Julija Tastu).

Optimizing purchasing and distribution logistics for biomass power plants (Niels Kjeldsen).

Automating the repositioning a shipping fleet (Kevin Tierney).

Predicting future vegetation cover in the arctic (Theo Damoulas).

All in all a great summary of how computational techniques are being applied to sustainability issues.

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