The Internet of Things is being used in several application domains and is identified as one of the key enablers of the Smart City paradigm. Notwithstanding some efforts have been carried out to advance in the adoption of Web standards and Cloud and Fog computing technologies, developing a Smart City IoT platform remains a challenge. This paper describes our experience building a Smart City Internet of Things platform framed on the SusCity project. The proposed platform allows the gathering, processing, and visualization of typical gauges in Smart City scenarios, such as water and air quality, temperature, humidity, mobility, and noise levels. The data is standardly collected from different sources and then displayed in a dashboard to the final users.

A project for the creation and implementation of a distance-learning course on Indoor Environmental Comfort in Buildings (IECB) is presented. This course resulted from a request by Ordem dos Engenheiros (Portuguese engineering professional body) to the University of Coimbra. It was based on the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) course of the Master in Energy for Sustainability and PhD in Sustainable Energy Systems of the University of Coimbra, coordinated by the first author. Jointly with the support of the Distance Education Service of the University of Coimbra, using as a starting point the existing contents of a formal discipline, the teaching methodologies and a set of activities were developed to implement a distance-learning course with a strong e-learning component by the students. Diversified strategies, using the existing platform running on Moodle, such as webinars, virtual laboratories, remote access labs, discussion forums and synchronous sessions, were tested to ensure a dynamic and interested engagement of the students along the course.

A new approach for measuring air infiltration rates in buildings is proposed. The method belongs to the class of tracer gas techniques but, unlike conventional CO2 based methods that assume the outdoor ambient CO2 concentration is constant, the proposed method recognizes that photosynthesis and respiration cycle of plants and processes associated with fuel combustion produce daily, quasi-periodic, variations in the ambient CO2 concentrations. These daily variations, which are within the detection range of existing monitoring equipment, are utilized for estimating ventilation rates without the need of a source of CO2 in the building. The new method has the advantages that no tracer gas injection is needed, and time resolved results are easily obtained.

In this paper some of the recent developments and ongoing work at the Energy, Environment and Comfort research group of ADAI (Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics), in the areas of Indoor Environmental Quality and Energy Efficiency in Buildings are presented. Summarily, it is show cased a state of the art of the Indoor Live Lab, developed at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Coimbra.The Indoor Live Lab (I2L) is a new platform for research and technology demonstration in Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). The main motivation for initiating this effort arose from the increasing necessity that researchers, educators and decision makers have for continuously available monitored data on all aspects of building functioning. This paper aims at presenting early developments at the I2L, as well as associated research projects which were at the centre of its creation. Firstly, the objectives of the I2L are presented. Secondly, ongoing research on both residential buildings and services buildings is exposed. After, the several IEQ parameters studies are discussed in particular. This is followed by the I2L description, location and specific features. Finally, a conclusion and future work section are presented. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper summarizes the steps that were followed in the creation of a dynamic webpage for publishing, in real time, the data from the Environmental Noise Monitoring station installed at the Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics (ADAI), at the University of Coimbra. The webpage has been used as part of a remote laboratory activity in a distance learning course about indoor environment comfort in buildings, organized by the University of Coimbra.

The ISO 1996-2:2008 standard, currently under review and dealing with the description and assessment of environmental noise, suggests applying corrections to the readings in situations where the microphone is mounted directly on a facade or on some of its elements. To obtain the value equivalent to the sound pressure level in free field, the correction corresponds to subtracting 3dB or 6dB from the measured value, for the situations where the microphone is located at a distance of 2m from the facade or directly placed on it, respectively.

We propose a new approach for measuring ventilation air exchange rates (AERs). The method belongs to the class of tracer gas techniques, but is formulated in the light of systems theory and signal processing. Unlike conventional CO2 based methods that assume the outdoor ambient CO2 concentration is constant, the proposed method recognizes that photosynthesis and respiration cycle of plants and processes associated with fuel combustion produce daily, quasi-periodic, variations in the ambient CO2 concentrations. These daily variations, which are within the detection range of existing monitoring equipment, are utilized for estimating ventilation rates without the need of a source of CO2 in the building. Using a naturally-ventilated residential apartment, AERs obtained using the new method compared favorably (within 10%) to those obtained using the conventional CO2 decay fitting technique. The new method has the advantages that no tracer gas injection is needed, and high time resolution results are obtained.

The present study deals with the influence of the sampling parameters on the uncertainty of noise equivalent level in environmental noise measurements. The study has been carried out through the test of different sampling strategies doing resampling trials over continuous monitoring noise files obtained previously in an urban location in the city of Coimbra, in Portugal. On short term measurements, not only the duration of the sampling episodes but also its number have influence on the uncertainty of the result. This influence is higher for the time periods where sound levels suffer a greater variation, such as during the night period. In this period, in case both parameters (duration and number of sampling episodes) are not carefully selected, the uncertainty level can reach too high values contributing to a loss of precision of the measurements. With the obtained data it was investigated the sampling parameters influence on the long term noise indicator uncertainty, calculated according the Draft 1st CD ISO 1996-2:2012 proposed method. It has been verified that this method allows the possibility of defining a general methodology which enables the setting of the parameters once the precision level is fixed. For the three reference periods defined for environmental noise (day, evening and night), it was possible to derive a two variable power law representing the uncertainty of the determined L-eq values as a function of the two sampling parameters: duration of sampling episode and number of episodes.

The present study deals with the influence of the sampling parameters on the uncertainty of the equivalent continuous noise level in environmental noise measurements. It is also intended to assess the possibility to define, as much as possible, a general methodology which enables the definition of the parameters once the precision level is defined. The results were obtained through the resampling of a sequential set of equivalent noise levels, acquired at 5 min intervals throughout a continuous measurement period of 17 days, thus including the three reference periods, day, evening and night. From these data, the written resampling software allows one to recreate several sampling strategies which consider the duration periods and their frequency, as they relate to simulating different measurement strategies. Since the software tool simulates a large number of repetitions of the data acquisition campaign, generating randomly the time location of the sampling periods, the evaluation parameter is the standard deviation of the equivalent noise level, for the considered reference period.For short term measurements, not only the integration time but also the number of samples obtained in order to characterize a given time period have influence on the uncertainty of the result. This influence is higher for the time periods where sound levels suffer a greater variation, such as during the night. If both parameters, time and number of measurements, are not carefully selected, it may result in high uncertainty which contributes to the loss of precision of the measurements.Another interesting outcome of this work is that it has been possible, for the three distinctive temporal variation patterns, to derive mathematical expressions representing the effect of the sampling parameters on the uncertainty of the equivalent noise level. Despite the differences in the time patterns of the equivalent noise level along the three reference periods, the three expressions obey to the same structure, presenting only variations in their numerical coefficients. This fact indicates the possibility of the existence of a general model to define the effect of the sampling parameters on the uncertainty of the equivalent noise level. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

EnglishEvaluations of environmental noise are nowadays frequently carried out for different purposes, e. g. licensing of urban and industrial buildings and facilities, validation of noise maps calculations, scientific studies, etc. As the type of the signal under analysis has a typical random nature, even if with some periodicity pattern, it is not easy the definition of the sampling parameters to be used in measuring campaigns. Moreover, the descriptor usually used to characterize environmental noise, the noise equivalent level Leq, is calculated through an algorithm where the application of logarithms creates strong asymmetries in the relative contributions of the individual sound pressure levels used to compute it. In each period, the maximum levels of sound pressure are strongly dominant in the formation of the final noise equivalent level value. In the present work an analysis of the influence of sampling parameters of noise signals on the uncertainty of environmental noise descriptors (Lden and Ln) is presented. The work is based on the resampling of records of LAeq,30min data collected continuously in urban environment during a period of three weeks. portuguesActualmente, sao levadas a cabo avaliacoes de ruido ambiental com diferentes objectivos, destacando-se o licenciamento de edificios e instalacoes urbanas e industriais, a validacao de calculo de mapas de ruido, estudos cientificos, etc. Uma vez que o tipo de sinal em analise e de natureza tipicamente aleatoria, ainda que com alguma componente periodica, nao e facil definir os parâmetros de amostragem a usar nas campanhas de medicao. Alem disso, o descritor geralmente usado para caracterizar o ruido ambiente, o nivel equivalente de ruido Leq, e calculado atraves de um algoritmo onde a aplicacao de logaritmos cria fortes assimetrias na contribuicao relativa dos niveis de pressao sonora individuais usados para o calculo. Em cada periodo, os valores maximos sao fortemente dominantes na formacao do valor do nivel do ruido equivalente final. No presente trabalho, e apresentada uma analise da influencia dos parâmetros de amostragem dos sinais sonoros na incerteza dos descritores de ruido ambiente (Lden e Ln). O trabalho baseia-se na reamostragem de valores de LAeq,30minrecolhidos, em continuo, num ambiente urbano, por um periodo de tres semanas.