Search results for " Policy"
showing 10 items of 4303 documents
A Systematic Review of the Hydrological, Environmental and Durability Performance of Permeable Pavement Systems
2021
Due to urbanization, large portions of vegetated territory have been replaced by waterproof surfaces. The consequences are greater outflows, lower infiltration, and lower evapotranspiration. Pavement systems made with permeable surfaces allow the infiltration of water, ensuring reduction of runoff volume. In this paper, the methods of analysis of the hydrological and environmental performance of the pavement systems are reviewed in the context of urban drainage and regarding their durability. The purpose is to present an overview of the studies published during the last decade in the field. The Pubmed and Web Science Core Collection electronic databases were used to conduct the scientific l…
Soil conservation and sustainable development goals(SDGs) achievement in Europe and central Asia: Which role for the European soil partnership?
2021
Abstract Voluntary soil protection measures are not sufficient to achieve sustainable soil management at a global scale. Additionally, binding soil protection legislation at national and international levels has also proved to be insufficient for the effective protection of this non-renewable natural resource. In 2012, the FAO Members established the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) with the mission to facilitate and contribute exchange of knowledge and technologies related to soils, and develop dialogue and raise awareness for the need to establish a binding global agreement for sustainable soil management. Moreover, region-specific aspects of implementation are considered and strengthened th…
Occurrence of antibiotics and antiretroviral drugs in source-separated urine, groundwater, surface water and wastewater in the peri-urban area of Chu…
2020
Recently, there has been an increased interest in bridging the knowledge gap in the occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in African urban water cycles. In this study, the occurrence of 7 antibiotics and 3 antiretrovirals in source-separated urine, groundwater, wastewater and surface water of the peri-urban area of Chunga in Lusaka, Zambia, was studied. In groundwater, the pharmaceuticals were only sporadically present with 4 antibiotics and 1 antiretroviral detected. The concentration of the antibiotics ranged from below limit of quantification (<LOQ) to 880 ng/L, with sulfamethoxazole having the highest detection frequency of 42.3%. In the surface water, a comparatively high concentrati…
Vision guided robotic inspection for parts in manufacturing and remanufacturing industry
2020
AbstractEnvironmental and commercial drivers are leading to a circular economy, where systems and components are routinely recycled or remanufactured. Unlike traditional manufacturing, where components typically have a high degree of tolerance, components in the remanufacturing process may have seen decades of wear, resulting in a wider variation of geometries. This makes it difficult to translate existing automation techniques to perform Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) for such components autonomously. The challenge of performing automated inspections, with off-line tool-paths developed from Computer Aided Design (CAD) models, typically arises from the fact that those paths do not have the r…
Public Policy Design for Climate Change Adaptation: A Dynamic Performance Management Approach to Enhance Resilience
2017
This chapter proposes dynamic performance management (DPM) as a suitable method to identify policies in the context of climate change adaptation. Namely, it focuses on the role it can play to support the analysis of how to enhance resilience of social and economic systems to climate change. While ‘resilience’ is a buzzword in the policymaking world, putting the concept into practice is still undeveloped. In a public administration focused on accountability, intangible outcomes of resilience represent a complication. The chapter discusses the findings and lessons from a case study applying the proposed approach. The results highlight the role of a dynamic performance approach to support stak…
An Additive Model to Predict the Rheological and Mechanical Properties of Polypropylene Blends Made by Virgin and Reprocessed Components
2021
In this work, an additive model for the prediction of the rheological and mechanical properties of monopolymer blends made by virgin and reprocessed components is proposed. A polypropylene sample has been reprocessed more times in an extruder and monopolymer blends have been prepared by simulating an industrial process. The scraps are exposed to regrinding and are melt reprocessed before mixing with the virgin polymer. The reprocessed polymer is, then, subjected to some thermomechanical degradation. Rheological and mechanical experimental data have been compared with the theoretical predictions. The results obtained showed that the values of this simple additive model are a very good fit fo…
English Language Policy in Relation to Teachers and Teacher Educators in Latvia: Insights from Activity Systems Analysis
2020
The ambitious objectives of European language policy and the strive for competitiveness have led to an increasing emphasis on foreign language competence at the level of national education systems. Using Spolsky’s onion model of language policy (2004) and Engeström’s Expansive Learning theory (1987, 2008), the study attempts to determine the formative influence of the existing multilayered language policy on the professional development of Latvian educators with the aim to compare the situation for teachers and teacher educators in respect of their English language proficiency.Given the prioritisation of English and strategic differences in foreign language management in relation to teacher…
Care Workers’ Readiness for Robotization : Identifying Psychological and Socio-Demographic Determinants
2020
Successful implementation of robots in welfare services requires that the staff approves of them as a part of daily work tasks. In this study, we identified psychological and socio-demographic determinants associated with readiness for robotization among professional Finnish care-workers. National survey data were collected from professional care workers (n = 3800) between October and November 2016. Random samples were drawn from the member registers of two Finnish trade unions. The data were analyzed with regression models for respondents with and without firsthand experience with robots. The models explained 34–39% of the variance in the readiness for robotization. The readiness was posit…
Does EU cohesion policy work? Theory and evidence
2017
This paper evaluates the effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy in the regions of 12 EU countries in the period 1991–2008, on the basis of a spatial growth model, which allows for the identification of both direct and indirect effects of EU funds on GDP per worker growth. We find that “Objective 1” funds are characterized by strong spatial externalities and a positive and concave effect on the growth of GDP per worker, which reaches a peak at the ratio funds/GDP of approximately 3 percent and becomes non-significant after 4 percent. “Objective 2” and “Cohesion” funds have nonsignificant effects, while all the other funds exert a positive and significant effect, but their size is very lim…
Shelf life-based inventory management policy for RF monitored warehouse
2018
Post-harvest losses of perishable products strongly depend on inefficiencies of the entire supply chain. In particular, these inefficiencies can be reduced by optimizing the warehouse management, taking into account the remaining shelf life of the product, and matching it to the requirements of the subsequent part of the handling chain. The replacement of First In First Out picking rule with Last Shelf Life First Out policy has been proved to improve the overall performance of the supply chain. The practicability of such approach is related to the possibility of monitoring the deterioration rate of the products and of predicting the residual shelf-life, that is mainly influenced by harvesti…