Search results for "Resource"
showing 10 items of 4058 documents
An integrated and shared approach to sea of the regional town master plan of Sicily
2006
The work addresses one of the most important problems in contemporary environmental land planning. Already existing procedures, in fact, must now conform to the new requirements imposed by the recent national and international regulations and standards that call for a more conscious approach to the use of natural resources. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), for example, takes into account, the different effects of a plan in various fields such as the environment, the economy and the development. This obviously calls for global analysis tools that could help administrators, stakeholders and technicians in the decision-making process of such complex systems. SEA of the Town Master Pla…
Exploring the Potential and the Boundaries of the Rolling Horizon Technique for the Management of Reservoir Systems with over-Year Behaviour
2016
The paper presents a set of experiments on the Rolling Horizon Technique (RHT), applied to the management of a multi-reservoir, multipurpose water resources system with over-year behaviour. In the RHT, decisions on releases from reservoirs are taken for a number of time steps ahead (the Forecasting Horizon – FH) through an optimization model, based on the present water availability in reservoirs and on some forecasts of future inflows over the FH. Only the decision concerning the first time step (the current month) is then implemented, as new information on reservoir levels and forecasts becomes available so that the process can start again with updated information. The paper investigates h…
Renewable energy sources to fulfill the global energy needs of a country: The case study of Malta in Mediterranean Sea
2016
The paper shows the advantages using different energy resources for the islands of Malta. Moreover, this work is focused on the analysis of the wave energy potential along Malta's coasts. This important resource can be exploited to produce electrical energy using an innovative Point Absorber based on a new generator prototype realized by University of Palermo. The use of renewable source will reduce greenhouses emissions and increase the energy independence of Malta. The procedures applied in the present article, as well as the main equations used, are the result of previous applications made in different technical fields that show a good replicability [1]-[7].
Mobility scenarios in the Valley of the Temples
2015
The valley of the Temples in Agrigento is one the most known wonders of the ancient Greek time to be still standing is South Italy. Chosen as an emblematic location in the center of the island, it is the exemplary site used to assess the potential for electric mobility in terms of energy and environmental benefits of electricity over standard fuels. Such an assessment is performed by means of a life-cycle approach, including the use of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, the use of the standard ILCD-PEF indicators and the development of a parametric analysis investigating the impact of different electricity penetration levels in the local transports system. The results identify relevant …
The Energy System of Sicilian Region, Italy: 2014 situation and evolutionary trends
2015
The development of reliable energy scenarios are become increasingly more important and crucial due to scientific interest but also because it is essential for the deployment of effective energy policies in the territory. The depletion of Fossil Fuels and the need for the most industrialized countries to achieve the target of a sustainable development have induced important national, European and global initiatives. These actions have led to major changes on each energy system of countries and regions, contributing to the evolution of new local energy systems. In this paper, the Authors have collected, processed and analyzed the data concerning the evolution and changes of the Sicilian ener…
The importance of reliable climatic data in the energy evaluation
2012
Abstract In the last few years, more and more attention has been focused on energy issues, as it is pointed out, for example, by the Directive 2002/91/EC on the Energy Performance of Buildings and Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. However, in order to do that, reliable tools for technicians to design systems for such topics should be provided. Nowadays, several software are available; the weak point is the availability of reliable climatic data and, above all, the ones referring to solar radiation. In this work, after a short overview of the world climatic databases, a description of three statistical methods for the elaboration of a climatic…
Smart Cities and Municipal Building Regulation for Energy Efficiency
2015
The “Smart Cities & Communities Initiative” of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan is the strategic European response to lead cities and regions to a carbon free future. In this contest energy efficiency in buildings has a crucial role and must be considered in a holistic approach to the urban planning. In order to implement the minimum requirements stated by the European Directive about the Energy Performance of Buildings, and in order to consider different planning layers with the view to a smart city planning, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. This paper investigates the possibility to draft a basic structure of Municipal Building Regulat…
Vertical Software Industries
2009
The software industry (SWI) was born only a few decades ago, and is still relatively young compared to other industries. Its origins can be traced down to the decisions to unbundle some secondary parts of IBM computer development to independent software companies (Campbell-Kelly 2004). The software development was then considered a secondary activity serving the core business, which was at that time computer hardware manufacturing. This focus on hardware is still visible in the brand names of both the global information and communication technology (ICT) giants, such as IBM, and the major professional and scientific establishments of the field, such as the Association for Computing Machiner…
Recent advances on intelligent packaging as tools to reduce food waste
2018
[EN] Food waste is one of the main issues for international organisms. It is not only an ethical and economic issue but it also depletes the environment of limited natural resources. Among strategies suitable for fighting such challenge, intelligent packaging is an interesting tool to reduce waste derived from households and retailers. A revision of 45 recent advances in the area of optical systems for freshness monitoring is reported herein. The study covers fruits, vegetables, fish products and meat since they are the most representative fields of application. Furthermore, a discussion about the main research challenges and opportunities that will be faced by intelligent packaging in the …
Test Bench Realization and Application of Specific Working Cycles for the Characterization of Wheelchair Electrical Drives
2006
The life quality of motion disabled people is increased by the use of more and more sophisticated electrical wheelchairs. Despite the diffusion of such aid tools, specific technical standards for the determination of characteristic parameters of their electric drives are not so developed as the ones available for urban electric vehicles. In this paper, in order to define new technical standards for wheelchairs electrical drives, a wheelchair test bench has been purposely carried out. Moreover two specific working cycles, previously conceived and defined by some of the Authors to characterize the performances of the propulsion systems suitable for electrical wheelchair applications, have bee…