Search results for "LEVEL"
showing 10 items of 3465 documents
Sensitivity of Regional Water Supply Systems Models to the Level of Skeletonization – A Case Study from Apulia, Italy
2015
AbstractSimulation models supported by state-of-the-art software packages are nowadays available to explore operation rules of regional water supply systems or to select structural alternatives for improving long-term service performances.Given the, sometimes high, complexity of these systems, model calibration can become a lengthy procedure and many runs are necessary before obtaining convincing results. However, even after calibration, depending on system's complexity and the number of time steps investigated, a single run can take up to several minutes, even on state-of-the-art computers, so that simulation time can become a true bottleneck if such models are to be coupled with metaheuri…
Improvement of a Service Level Negotiation Protocol using Formal Verification
2013
International audience; The goal of the pervasive connectivity is to enable mobile users to be permanently connected to the Internet. Mobile users are often connected to wireless networks and consuming services that require quality of service guarantees. Accessing services using wireless technologies may make the service delivery vulnerable to security attacks because of the open medium of these technologies. In this context, we need to guarantee both quality of service and security for mobile users communications. In this paper, we present a protocol for service level negotiation which covers both quality of service and security and assigns a profile to each user in order to optimize and a…
Estimating the cost of improving service quality in water supply: A shadow price approach for England and wales
2015
Service quality to customers is an aspect that cannot be ignored in the performance assessment of water companies. Nowadays water regulators introduce awards or penalties to incentivize companies to improve service quality to customers when setting prices. In this study, the directional distance function is employed to estimate the shadow prices of variables indicating the lack of service quality to customers in the water industry i.e., written complaints, unplanned interruptions and properties below the reference level. To calculate the shadow price of each undesirable output for each water company, it is needed to ascribe a reference price for the desirable output which is the volume of w…
Springback Evaluation In Basic Sheet Metal Stamping Processes
2000
In the present paper a measurement technique based on the shadow moire method has been set up in order to evaluate the springback phenomenon in deep drawing operations. Two proper coefficients are introduced to quantitatively describe the effect considered. In particular the proposed technique is able to acquire the final profile of the drawn parts along one or more generatrices, once extracted out from the dies and to compare such profile with the ideal one derived from the dies CAD geometry. The proposed technique has been applied to an axysimmetrical deep drawing operation and moreover the influence of the blankholder force level and of the lubricating conditions have been taken into acc…
An Optical Technique for Springback Measurement in Axisymmetrical Deep Drawing Operations
2001
Abstract In this paper, a measurement technique based on the shadow moire method has been set up to evaluate the springback phenomenon in deep drawing operations. Two proper coefficients are introduced to quantitatively describe the investigated effect. In particular, the proposed technique is able to acquire the final profile of the drawn parts along one or more lateral contour, once extracted out from the dies, and compare such profile with the ideal one derived from the dies CAD geometry. The proposed technique has been applied to an axisymmetrical deep drawing operation, and, moreover, the influence of the blankholder force level and lubricating conditions has been taken into account. T…
Paesaggio culturale dei sistemi tradizionali: l'olivo in Italia
2005
We used a new sedimentary record to reconstruct the Holocene vegetation and fire history of Gorgo Basso, a coastal lake in south-western Sicily (Italy). Pollen and charcoal data suggest a fire-prone open grassland near the site until ca 10,000 cal yr BP (8050 cal BC), when Pistacia shrubland expanded and fire activity declined, probably in response to increased moisture availability. Evergreen Olea europaea woods expanded ca 8400 to decline abruptly at 8200 cal yr BP, when climatic conditions became drier at other sites in the Mediterranean region. Around 7000 cal yr BP evergreen broadleaved forests (Quercus ilex, Quercus suber and O. europaeo) expanded at the cost of open communities. The …
High quality extra virgin olive oil from olives attacked by the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi) (Diptera Tephritidae): which is the tolerab…
2017
The infestation due to the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi), the key pest in most of world olive groves, has been monitored in six years, from 2004 to 2008 and in 2014, in eight coastal Sicilian olive groves consisting of ‘Cerasuola’ and ‘Nocellara del Belice’ cultivars. Infestation was recorded following the classical sampling method based on olive collection and dissection, in order to count live olive fruit fly instars (eggs, larvae and pupae) and exit holes. Four different infestation indexes, all of them calculated using data recorded at harvest, have been used to assess their relationship with the main three quality parameters of the olive oil obtained from the same olive sam…
The effect of distance between parasitoid and host on the parasitism of Psyttalia concolor (Szépligeti) in organic olive orchards
2013
Bactrocera oleae (Rossi) is a major pest of olive fruits. Biological control of olive fruit fly mainly relies on the activity of the Braconid species Psyttalia concolor (Szépligeti), which parasitizes Bactrocera oleae at the larval stage. Parasitism tests have been carried out at the insect growing facility (insectariums) of the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (C.I.H.E.A.M.). The critical point of the use of P. concolor as a biological control agent in organic olive crop is the assessment of its effectiveness against B. oleae. Its lower presence in fruits of cultivated olives rather than in small fruits of wild olives suggests an influence of the size of the fruit, and of the thic…
Phytoplankton dynamics and structure: a comparative analysis in natural and man-made water bodies of different trophic state
2000
Previous investigations on Sicilian man made lakes suggested that physical factors, along with the specific morphology and hydrology of the water body, are important in selecting phytoplankton species. In particular, the variations of the zmix/zeu ratio due to the operational procedure to which reservoirs are generally subject were recognised as a trigger allowing the assemblage shift. To investigate if these variations may be considered analogous to those occurring in natural lakes as trophic state and phytoplankton biomass increase, causing a transparency decrease and a contraction of the euphotic depth, phytoplankton were collected in two natural water bodies, one mesotrophic (Lake Bivie…
Trophic structure of vermetid reef community: High trophic diversity at small spatial scales
2013
Stable isotopes were used to investigate contributions of autochthonous (i.e. benthic: epilithon and macroalgae) and allochthonous (i.e. pelagic: phytoplankton) organic matter sources to the diet of suspension-feeders, grazers and predators associated to small reef-pools (cuvettes) created by the reef-building species Dendropoma petraeum in the north-western coast of Sicily (Italy). Contributions of potential food sources were calculated using Bayesian mixing-models and integrated to a multivariate approach to highlight the diversity of C and N pathways within Dendropoma cuvettes. Both pelagic and benthic organic matter sources were exploited by benthic consumers, although clear differences…