Search results for "ECONOMICS"
showing 10 items of 14389 documents
Toward sustainable environmental quality : Priority research questions for Europe
2018
P.J. Van den Brink et al.
Pricing of electricity futures based on locational price differences : The case of Finland
2018
We find that the pricing of Finnish electricity market futures has been inefficient during the latest 10 years, when the trading volumes of Electricity Price Area Differentials (EPADs) have more than doubled. Even though the calculated futures premium on EPADs is related to some risk measures and the variables capturing the demand and supply conditions in the spot electricity markets, there has been a significant positive excess futures premium in the Finnish market, and financial market participants should have been able to utilize this also in economic terms. This finding is new and relevant for the participants of the Nordic electricity markets also in the future, because both the specul…
EUA and sCER Phase II Price Drivers: Unveiling the reasons for the existence of the EUA-sCER spread
2011
International audience; This article studies the price relationships between EU emissions allowances (EUAs) - valid under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) - and secondary Certified Emissions Reductions (sCERs)--established from primary CERs generated through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Given the price differences between EUAs and sCERs, financial and industrial operators may benefit from arbitrage strategies by buying sCERs and selling EUAs (i.e. selling the EUA-sCER spread) to cover their compliance position as industrial operators are allowed to use sCERs towards compliance with their emissions cap within the European system up to 13.4%. Our central res…
Transitions in Herd Management of Semi-Domesticated Reindeer in Northern Finland
2008
In northern Finland, reindeer-herd management has experienced two major transitions: extensification of intensive herding, and development of supplementary/corral feeding in winter. The transitions were studied in six herding associations in different parts of the Finnish reindeer management area. It was suggested that intensive herding turns into more extensive forms as the reasons for intensive herding (predation, reindeer disappearing to foreign areas, protection of agricultural fields) gradually ceased to exist. The results of the study, based on interviews of elderly reindeer herders, were variable. In the three southern areas intensive herding changed to the free ranging system at the…
Branch-Price-and-Cut for the Soft-Clustered Capacitated Arc-Routing Problem
2021
The soft-clustered capacitated arc-routing problem (SoftCluCARP) is a variant of the classical capacitated arc-routing problem. The only additional constraint is that the set of required edges, that is, the streets to be serviced, is partitioned into clusters, and feasible routes must respect the soft-cluster constraint, that is, all required edges of the same cluster must be served by the same vehicle. In this article, we design an effective branch-price-and-cut algorithm for the exact solution of the SoftCluCARP. Its new components are a metaheuristic and branch-and-cut-based solvers for the solution of the column-generation subproblem, which is a profitable rural clustered postman tour …
Arc routing problems: A review of the past, present, and future
2020
[EN] Arc routing problems (ARPs) are defined and introduced. Following a brief history of developments in this area of research, different types of ARPs are described that are currently relevant for study. In addition, particular features of ARPs that are important from a theoretical or practical point of view are discussed. A section on applications describes some of the changes that have occurred from early applications of ARP models to the present day and points the way to emerging topics for study. A final section provides information on libraries and instance repositories for ARPs. The review concludes with some perspectives on future research developments and opportunities for emergin…
A branch-and-cut algorithm for the Profitable Windy Rural Postman Problem
2016
[EN] In this paper we study the profitable windy rural postman problem. This is an arc routing problem with profits defined on a windy graph in which there is a profit associated with some of the edges of the graph, consisting of finding a route maximizing the difference between the total profit collected and the total cost. This problem generalizes the rural postman problem and other well-known arc routing problems and has real-life applications, mainly in snow removal operations. We propose here a formulation for the problem and study its associated polyhedron. Several families of facet-inducing inequalities are described and used in the design of a branch-and-cut procedure. The algorithm…
Solving the length constrained K-drones rural postman problem
2021
[EN] In this paper we address the Length Constrained K-Drones Rural Postman Problem (LC K-DRPP). This is a continuous optimization problem where a fleet of homogeneous drones have to jointly service (traverse) a set of (curved or straight) lines of a network. Unlike the vehicles in classical arc routing problems, a drone can enter a line through any of its points, service a portion of that line, exit through another of its points, then travel directly to any point on another line, and so on. Moreover, since the range of the drones is restricted, the length of each route is limited by a maximum distance. Some applications for drone arc routing problems include inspection of pipelines, railwa…
Machine learning for rapid mapping of archaeological structures made of dry stones – Example of burial monuments from the Khirgisuur culture, Mongoli…
2020
11 pages; International audience; The present study proposes a workflow to extract from orthomosaics the enormous amount of dry stones used by past societies to construct funeral complexes in the Mongolian steppes. Several different machine learning algorithms for binary pixel classification (i.e. stone vs non-stone) were evaluated. Input features were extracted from high-resolution orthomosaics and digital elevation models (both derived from aerial imaging). Comparative analysis used two colour spaces (RGB and HSV), texture features (contrast, homogeneity and entropy raster maps), and the topographic position index, combined with nine supervised learning algorithms (nearest centroid, naive…
Analytical studies of the Sirocco room of Villa Naselli-Ambleri: A XVI century passive cooling structure in Palermo (Sicily)
2015
Abstract This work focuses on a passive cooling architecture particularly popular from the Renaissance in Palermo area, as building sumptuous suburban villas became a real hobby for the Sicilian aristocracy. A Sirocco room is an artificial subterranean construction, built close to a water spring in order to reproduce the pleasant conditions of freshness that could be experienced in a natural cavern. In these places, nobles used to spend their time with friends to escape from the hot summer. The room of Villa Naselli-Ambleri is nowadays the best preserved in Palermo thanks to its owners’ conservation care and it is unique for its cooling operating principle. The above-mentioned consideration…