Tueday 08/02/2011

I have recently done some reading, here is a few updates:

-           Have read the paper of “TheDesign of Eco-Feedback Technology” and going to read some related reference papers.

-         Statistical hypothesis testing: have understood after reading Wikipedia and the HCI book, gonna read more on the “Research methods” book.

I now try to develop the main concept/model of the 9-month report as I think it is the focus point. Therefore I always try to get some related points from the papers/books to develop my thinking. In addition, I think it is better to start developing my thinking now (with help from supervisors) and I hope the model will be built soon.  Here are my initial development points, if you would find anything to add, please do.

Initial Concept/Model Development:

·         Each house has an agent, acted on behalf of the house owner

·         Each agent can see the daily energy consumption

·         The electricity costs vary depending on time:

·         Costs may be different from day and night

·         Costs may be different from the daily hours

·         Costs may be different based on the tariff given by the electricity suppliers

·         Users (Humans) have a list of activities (events) daily

·         Each event normally costs a certain amount of energy usage

·         Some events (human’s habits) seem to repeat in a given period (e.g. cooking, having showers). (This is one of the feature from Figure Energy)

·         Users want to reduce/minimise costs

·         In an organisation with the given number of agents, agents can negotiate, form with others to maximise the social welfare

·         The optimal social welfare is to minimise the electricity costs

·         Constraints (for coalition formation)

·         Human interference (e.g. users might need the specific activity at the specific time)

I will read and discuss more for further development.