Search results for "Transparency"
showing 10 items of 291 documents
An improved photographic method to estimate the shading effect of obstructions
2012
Abstract A new photographic method is presented to evaluate the shading effects of obstructions on surfaces exposed to the sun. The method overcomes the difficulties caused by the need to accurately describe the surrounding objects to estimate the shading effects by means of the usual tools that use the spatial reconstruction of obstructions or cylindrical or polar suncharts. The photographs of the surrounding objects are used as the background on which the solar disc is depicted at the various hours of the day. In this way it is easily detectable if the sun is visible from the place where the photographs were taken or if the surrounding obstructions obscure the sun. In spite of the complex…
A photographic method to estimate the shading effect of obstructions
2012
Abstract A new, simplified photographic method is proposed to estimate the shading effects of obstructions. In spite of the complex mathematical background of the new tool, its practical application is very simple, and only requires the measurements of three angles for each photograph. The proposed method is particularly useful for overcoming the difficulties caused by the need to accurately describe surrounding objects to estimate shading effects. The new method uses the information contained in a picture and allows one to draw daily solar paths directly on the photograph. The procedure is useful to verify the suitability of a generic site for solar exploitation; its main benefit is the si…
Exploiting the Human Factor in a WSN-Based System for Ambient Intelligence
2009
Practical applications of ambient intelligence cannot leave aside requirements about ubiquity, scalability, and transparency to the user. An enabling technology to comply with this goal is represented by wireless sensor networks (WSNs); however, although capable of limited in-network processing, they lack the computational power to act as a comprehensive intelligent system. By taking inspiration from the sensory processing model of complex biological organisms, we propose here a cognitive architecture able to perceive, decide upon, and control the environment of which the system is part. WSNs act as a transparent interface that allows the system to understand human requirements through impl…
L'ammortamento alla francese: una questione di trasparenza
2023
Il saggio esamina i numerosi problemi posti dal c.d. metodo di ammortamento alla francese per osservare che buona parte dei problemi dibattuti sorgono dal difficile dialogo tra giuristi e matematici finanziari. Sotto il profilo giuridico rileva, in particolare, che l’ammor- tamento alla francese pone soprattutto problemi di trasparenza delle condizioni contrattuali e di comprensione, da parte del cliente, delle modalità di rimborso del capitale mutuato e dell’entità del debito residuo. The essay examines some problems posed by the so-called French amortization method to observe that most of the debated problems arise from the difficult dialogue between jurists and financial mathematicians. …
Publicity and the Rule of Law
2021
By the ‘Rule of Law’ I mean a set of formal and institutional features the law may possess in varying degrees. These features define an ideal, which laws have traditionally been expected to live up to. One of these features is publicity. Part of what constitutes the Rule of Law is the requirement that the laws should be public. This is the subject of this paper. When it is claimed that the Rule of Law requires that the laws should be public, what is to be understood by this claim? My main claim is that the Rule of Law requirement of publicity is best understood in terms of the notion of common, or mutual, knowledge. When it is required that the laws should be public, what should be meant by…
AN ACTUARIAL BALANCE SHEET MODEL FOR DEFINED BENEFIT PAY-AS-YOU-GO PENSION SYSTEMS WITH DISABILITY AND RETIREMENT CONTINGENCIES
2014
AbstractIn this paper, we develop a theoretical basis for drawing up a “Swedish” type actuarial balance sheet for a defined benefit pay-as-you-go (DB PAYG) scheme with retirement and disability benefits. Our model enables us to obtain the system's expected average turnover duration, measure the scheme's solvency and explore the phenomenon identified as “pension reclassification”, a widespread practice that masks the system's real status unless further pension information becomes available. The model is clearly linked to actuarial practice in social security and gives partial support to the practical adaptation of Swedish methodology carried out by OSFI (2012) in applying the concept of the …
E-corporate social responsibility in socially responsible firms: the case of Spanish firms
2011
The design and the content of a website that is positively valued by the firm's stakeholders can become a source of competitive advantage. In recent years, information on the extent to which the firm undertakes its social responsibility and environmental protection efforts is gaining increasing interest among the agents with whom it interacts. The aim of this paper is to analyse e-corporate social responsibility in firms listed in the socially responsible investment index FTSE4Good Ibex, focusing on the type of information concerning the corporate social responsibility, which this type of firms provides via their websites.
Algunas propuestas graduales de democratización del procedimiento de reforma constitucional
2020
AbstractIn recent years, a part of the Spanish constitutional doctrine has focused its attention on the procedure of constitutional reform of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 suggesting diverse reform proposals. Practically all of the researchers who have dedicated efforts to this issue start their analysis from a conception of the Constitution according to which the constitution-making process is considered secondary, if not irrelevant, or playing down the possibility of direct citizen participation. The goal of this article is to present a series of gradual proposals for democratizing the constitutional reform procedure from a differentiated approach of the one commonly defended by the ma…
Digital transparency and Web 2.0 in Spanish city councils
2016
Abstract The purpose of this study is to provide a Web 2.0 Disclosure Index to measure the Web 2.0 presence of Spanish city councils and the information disclosed by them on these media, and to test whether the use of Web 2.0 tools and social media by local governments improve their Web 1.0 digital transparency. We have structured the Web 2.0 Index as the sum of three partial indexes, referred to presence, the content and the interactivity of the Web, and we have estimated these indexes by a content analysis of the city council's websites. We find that the use of Web 2.0 tools has an essentially ornamental focus, and thus it is necessary to increase the content disclosed, especially at the …
The Europeanization of Health Care Coverage Decisions: EU-Regulation, Policy Learning and Cooperation in Decision-Making
2013
The paper presents two cases of Europeanization in health policy – an area that has so far been viewed as hardly affected by European integration. We show that even in the less likely case of coverage decision-making, some traces of Europeanization can be found. This is possible because the Commission has a strong interest in further integration in this field and all other relevant actors have motives to at least engage in cooperation. Our first case deals with the EU’s transparency directive and shows that this has forced member states to establish formal decision-making procedures, but did not result in a harmonization of decision-making processes and institutions, which is why the Commis…