Search results for "Computer programming"

A comparison of corporate social responsibility engagement in the OECD countries with categorical data

2015

This note presents a new method to compare the engagement level of the OECD countries with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities when achievements of their companies are described by CSR standards. We introduce the eigenvector procedure developed by Herrero and Villar (2013), applying the analysis of group performance with categorical data. We find that differences in CSR engagement across OECD countries are quite low in the top and the bottom of the eigenvector classification compared with those of the GRI index. However, there are important differences across countries placed in the middle rank of these two classifications.

Optimising the efficiency of olive harvesting considering operator safety

2019

Mechanical-assisted harvesting of olives, which is carried out using hand-held harvesting units that detach the drupes through vibration supplied by electric motor or combustion engines, is a widespread method used in southern Italy. Such machines are able to harvest more than 80% of the overall quantity of olives available per tree in 5–10 min, but their performance is influenced by several factors related to the mechanical characteristics of the device and to the features of the trees. Here the problem of optimising harvesting efficiency whilst minimising the health risks to the operators is investigated, with the aim of demonstrating that it is possible to determine an optimum harvesting…

Innovative control logics for a rational utilization of electric loads and air-conditioning systems in a residential building

2015

The paper focuses on the evaluation of the impact on residential buildings of innovative control logics defined for a rational utilization of the electric loads and air-conditioning systems. The control logics are implementable thanks to a Decision Support and Energy Management Systems developed by the same authors and easily installable in new and still-existing houses. The paper shows how a significant reduction of the primary energy consumption can be obtained by controlling the air-conditioning units together with the other electric loads of the house. After having explained how the control logics operate, a simulation tool is described, developed for a preliminary evaluation of their e…

Instrumentation in sports biomechanics

2007

La biomecánica deportiv emplea una serie de herramientas y técnicas de instrumentación paara el análisis de las diferentes disciplinas físico-deportivas, así como también para el desarrollo de nuevos materiales y equipamiento deportivo. Sin embargo, estas herramientas empleadas actualmente, poseen su cuerpo de conocimientos teóricos en los conocidos como "precursores de la biomecánica". Aristóteles, Da Vinci, Galileo, Descartes, Borelli, Newton, etc... El documento, presenta diferentes técnicas instrumentales desarrolladas para evaluar y aportar información relevante en la ejecución físico-deportiva, así como contribuir en la disminución de la epidemiología deportiva. Entre las principales …

Is naturalistic driving research possible with highly instrumented cars? Lessons learnt in three research centres.

2011

This paper provides an overview of the experiences using Highly Instrumented Cars (HICs) in three research Centres across Europe; Spain, the UK and Greece. The data collection capability of each car is described and an overview presented relating to the relationship between the level of instrumentation and the research possible. A discussion then follows which considers the advantages and disadvantages of using HICs for ND research. This includes the obtrusive nature of the data collection equipment, the cost of equipping the vehicles with sophisticated Data Acquisition Systems (DAS) and the challenges for data storage and analysis particularly with respect to video data. It is concluded th…

Sailing dinghy hydrodynamic resistance by experimental and numerical assessments

2020

Abstract Hull forms of high-performance sailing dinghies are very interesting for yacht designers. After a long period in which the attention has been focused on one-design boats, in recent years a few exciting restricted classes such as International Moth, International 14′, 18’ Skiff and Class A catamaran become recognized in several countries and led to interesting advances in high-performance yacht design. “1001VELAcup R3” class is two people racing dinghy designed according to a box rule with limitation on LOA and Bmax and total sail area. The boats must be designed and built by students of European Universities and race yearly in Italy. This paper focuses on two best-ranked boats “LED…

Comparing Different Crowd Emergency Evacuation Models Based on Human Centered Sensing Criteria

2014

Emergency evacuation of crowds is a fascinating phenomenon that has attracted researchers from various fields. Better understanding of this class of crowd behavior opens up for improving evacuation policies and smarter design of buildings, increasing safety. Recently, a new class of disruptive technology has appeared: Human-centered sensing which allows crowd behavior to be monitored in real-time, and provides the basis for real-time crowd control. The question then becomes: to what degree can previous crowd models incorporate this development, and what areas need further research? In this paper, the authors provide a survey that describes some widely used crowd models and discuss the advan…

Dynamic Distributed Intrusion Detection for Secure Multi-Robot Systems

2009

A general technique to build a dynamic and distributed intrusion detector for a class of multi–agent systems is proposed in this paper, by which misbehavior in the motion of one or more agents can be discovered. Previous work from the authors has focused on how to distinguish the behavior of a misbehaving agent in a completely distributed way, by developing a solution where agents act as local monitors of their neighbors and use locally sensed information as well as data received from other monitors at a particular time. In this work, we improve the system detection capability by allowing monitors to use information collected at different instants and thus realizing a dynamic state observer…

Containment in the Pharmaceutical IndustryJ.P. Wood, editor, Marcel Dekker, New York. Series ‘Drugs and the Pharmaceutical Sciences’, 2001, Vol. 108,…

2001

Electronics for Application of Ion Beams in Nanoscience

2009

The breadth of ion-beam nanoscience methods discussed in the proceeding chapters implies that the control and readout systems also span a wide range of techniques. For many nanoscience and technology applications the need to process or characterise a batches of samples has lead to a convergence of data acquisition systems and control systems. This coupled with the development of high-performance lowcost computing over the past decades has lead to a progressive evolution in data acquisition technology. Historically, much of the electronics used in nanoscience and technology using ion beams is based on nuclear analogue pulse counting and spectrometry where NIM (Nuclear Instrumentation Modules…