Search results for "Maximization"
showing 10 items of 84 documents
Power tracking with maximum efficiency for wireless charging of E-bikes
2014
Wireless charging techniques, based on Inductive Power Transfer (IPT), are attractive for Electric Vehicles (EV), due to benefits such as convenience and safety. An accurate valuation of the maximum achievable efficiency in an IPT system is extremely unlikely due to the high sensitivity to parasitic elements variations. Therefore, an “on site” procedure of power efficiency characterization is useful to get a precise description of the efficiency curve and obtain the actual maximum efficiency. In this paper, a power tracking algorithm aiming at efficiency maximization is proposed for a Wireless Charging system. The algorithm aims at finding the maximum power transfer efficiency with respect …
Reconfiguration Techniques of Partial Shaded PV Systems for the Maximization of Electrical Energy Production
2007
In this paper, the research of the optimal layout of photovoltaic (PV) modules in a PV array giving the maximum output power under different shaded working conditions is carried out. The particular condition of non uniform solar exposition of the modules is analyzed. The study of the different configurations has been carried out starting from a circuital model used for the design of PV cells and for the simulation of the working behavior of PV arrays. The attained results appear to be interesting although the complexity of the problem in mathematical terms is huge when the number of panels is high. Moreover, the results confirm that this approach often allows to attain a higher electrical e…
Are Farmers in Alternative Food Networks Social Entrepreneurs? Evidence from a Behavioral Approach
2015
Social entrepreneurship, individual activities with a social objective, is used in this study as a conceptual tool for empirically examining farmers’ participation in alternative food networks (AFNs). This study verifies whether their participation is driven by the social entrepreneurship dimension to satisfy social and environmental needs. We develop a more inclusive view of how social entrepreneurship is present among farmers participating in AFNs by using a behavioural approach based on three main psychological constructs: attitude, objective, and behaviour. The empirical results show that two types of farmers participate in AFNs. One type is closer to commercial entrepreneurs; the main …
Is there sustainable entrepreneurship in the wine industry? Exploring Sicilian wineries participating in the SOStain program
2016
Abstract Global climate change and the accelerating depletion of natural resources have contributed to increase discussions about the role of private enterprises in reversing negative environmental trends. Rather than focusing on profit maximization, policy makers and consumers pressure groups expect firms to meet a triple-bottom line of economic, environmental and social value creation. Hence sustainable entrepreneurship has received recently increasing interest as a phenomenon and a research topic. More recently, the concept of sustainability has been taken seriously in the Italian wine industry. The organizational challenge for entrepreneurship is to better integrate social and environme…
Handling the epistemic uncertainty in the selective maintenance problem
2020
Abstract Nowadays, both continuous and discontinuous operating systems require higher and higher reliability levels in order to avoid the occurrence of dangerous or even disastrous consequences. Accordingly, the definition of appropriate maintenance policies and the identification of components to be maintained during the planned system’s downtimes are fundamental to ensure the reliability maximization. Therefore, the present paper proposes a mathematical programming formulation of the selective maintenance problem with the aim to maximize the system’s reliability under an uncertain environment. Specifically, the aleatory model related to the components’ failure process is well known, where…
Whom to befriend to influence people
2020
Alice wants to join a new social network, and influence its members to adopt a new product or idea. Each person $v$ in the network has a certain threshold $t(v)$ for {\em activation}, i.e adoption of the product or idea. If $v$ has at least $t(v)$ activated neighbors, then $v$ will also become activated. If Alice wants to activate the entire social network, whom should she befriend? More generally, we study the problem of finding the minimum number of links that a set of external influencers should form to people in the network, in order to activate the entire social network. This {\em Minimum Links} Problem has applications in viral marketing and the study of epidemics. Its solution can be…
Fast Estimation of Diffusion Tensors under Rician noise by the EM algorithm
2016
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is widely used to characterize, in vivo, the white matter of the central nerve system (CNS). This biological tissue contains much anatomic, structural and orientational information of fibers in human brain. Spectral data from the displacement distribution of water molecules located in the brain tissue are collected by a magnetic resonance scanner and acquired in the Fourier domain. After the Fourier inversion, the noise distribution is Gaussian in both real and imaginary parts and, as a consequence, the recorded magnitude data are corrupted by Rician noise. Statistical estimation of diffusion leads a non-linear regression problem. In this paper, we present a f…
Shear resistance analytical evaluation for RC beams with transverse reinforcement with two different inclinations
2020
An analysis-oriented mechanical model for shear strength evaluation of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams with transverse reinforcement with two different inclinations, which required a numerical analysis, is turned into a design-oriented analytical model that can easily be utilized for practical purposes. The model assessed the shear resistance, according to the “lower-bound solution”, employing a numerical procedure that maximizes the element shear strength varying the stresses in the two sets of transverse reinforcement and the magnitude and inclination of the web concrete compressive stress field. The model is formulated with the aim of representing an extension of Eurocode 2 framework to R…
Competition, risk taking, and governance structures in retail banking
2005
This paper investigates the extent to which the linkages between bank performance and governance structure affect deposits market competition and risk taking incentives when commercial banks compete with organizations with objectives different from profit maximization. These organizations include savings banks whose corporate and ownership structure yields an objective function that can incorporate labour expenses. It is found that such objective function enables the savings banks to capture a greater market share of bank deposits and to take on relatively less risk in their portfolio of investments. The empirical evidence from the Spanish retail banking sector documents these conclusions.
Nonparametric clustering of seismic events
2006
In this paper we propose a clustering technique, based on the maximization of the likelihood function defined from the generalization of a model for seismic activity (ETAS model, (Ogata (1988))), iteratively changing the partitioning of the events. In this context it is useful to apply models requiring the distinction between independent events (i.e. the background seismicity) and strongly correlated ones. This technique develops nonparametric estimation methods of the point process intensity function. To evaluate the goodness of fit of the model, from which the clustering method is implemented, residuals process analysis is used.