Search results for "Infrastructure"

Impact evaluation of EU funds: Examples in infrastructure projects

2011

Being one of investment areas within EU Cohesion policy the sector of public infrastructure frequently faces the issue of efficiency. This issue largely arises from the lack of theoretical and practical concepts on how the evaluation techniques could achieve rigorous estimations of the investment impact on the current processes in the sector. The present paper seeks to contribute to these discussions by defining crucial problems in developing rigorous estimations relevant to public infrastructure projects and setting the assumptions. The research method is comparative and logical analysis of the theoretical concepts, methods and conclusions, published in scientific literature including poli…

Infection risks of city canal swimming events in the Netherlands in 2016.

2018

Introduction Swimming events in city canals are gaining popularity in the Netherlands, even though canal water is usually not officially designated for recreational use. Knowledge regarding the risk of infection after swimming in canals is limited. An outbreak was reported in 2015 following a canal swimming event in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Local governments were concerned about the health risks of such events. In order to assess the safety of canal swimming, the Public Health Service (PHS) prospectively investigated two city canal swimming events in 2015. In 2016, we repeated this study, aiming to prospectively determine the risks of infection during two urban swimming events, the Utrecht…

French railway history in geo-historical perspectives, infrastructure, demographic dynamics and territorial change

2014

International audience

The Effect of Public Infrastructure on the Private Productive Sector of Spanish Regions

2002

In this paper we analyze the effect of infrastructure on the cost and productivity performance of the private productive sector of Spanish regions over the period 1980–1993. We use a dual approach based on cost functions that allows us to recover the usual parameters estimated with production functions. In addition, we obtain rates of return and cost elasticities of production factors at the regional level. Our framework explicitly considers that some factors are quasi-fixed and their volume can differ from their optimal endowment levels. Our results indicate that the public sector has contributed significantly to enhance productivity and reduce costs in the private sector of almost every S…

The ReIReS Workshops Use and Study of Special Documents

2019

Green infrastructures for the energetic and environmental sustainability of cities

2019

The inexorable extension of urbanization is consuming huge amounts of soil drastically reducing natural vegetation, replacing it with buildings and low albedo surfaces. The changes due to the different thermal properties of surface materials and the lack of evapotranspiration in urban areas lead to a phenomenon known as "urban heat island effect". By reintroducing the vegetation back into the urban landscape, a partnership between nature and cities should be strengthened to create a new sustainable urban environment. Since the outer surfaces of building offer a great amount of space for vegetation, planting on roofs and walls has become one of the most innovative way to provide several envi…

Combined IT and power supply infrastructure sizing for standalone green data centers

2021

International audience; In this work, we propose a two-step methodology for designing and sizing a data center solely powered by local renewable energy. The first step consists in determining the necessary IT equipment for processing a given IT workload composed of batch and service tasks. We propose an adapted binary search algorithm and prove its optimality to find the minimum number of servers to handle the IT workload. When the IT sizing is computed, the second step consists in defining the supplying electrical infrastructure using wind turbines and photovoltaic panels as primary sources. Batteries and a hydrogen system are added as secondary sources for short- and long-term energy stor…

Online Black-Markets: An Investigation of a Digital Infrastructure in the Dark

2021

AbstractThis paper investigates the functioning of Online Black-Markets (OBMs), i.e. a digital infrastructure operating in the Dark Net that enables the exchange of illegal goods such as drugs, weapons and fake digital identities. OBMs exist notwithstanding adverse conditions such as police interventions, scams and market breakdowns. Relying on a longitudinal case study, we focus on the dynamics of interactions among actors and marketplace technologies and we identify three mechanisms explaining OBMs operations. In particular, we show that OBMs infrastructure is the result of commoditization, platformization and resilience processes. Our contribution relies on the identification of communit…

Urban Stormwater Management, A Tool for Adapting to Climate Change: From Risk to Resource

2020

The effects of climate change on rainfall in the Mediterranean region are manifested in an overall decreasing trend, and greater irregularity in annual volumes and the city of Alicante is no exception. In addition, there has also been a spread of the urbanised area, which has led to an increase in the flood risk in urban areas (due to a greater runoff and the occupation of flood hazard areas) and drought events due to an increase in the water demand. In light of these new scenarios, the Mediterranean cities should design adaptation systems based on rainwater harvesting within the framework of a circular economy. This study analyses the integration of rainwater in flood and water demand mana…

Vertical relationships for the European railway industry

2001

Abstract A key question in the reform process of Europe's railway industry is the decision whether to opt for a market structure that vertically integrates infrastructure and operations, or for one that separates them. In making this decision, knowledge of the relationship between operating costs and the infrastructure is fundamental. For this purpose a translogarithmic cost function is estimated, including the multi-product nature of railway companies and a measurement of the value of the infrastructure. The results show that costs deriving from freight transport and from the infrastructure are complementary, while those deriving from passenger transport and from the infrastructure are sub…