Search results for "geography."
showing 10 items of 11308 documents
Exergoeconomics as a Cost-Accounting Method in Thermal Grids with the Presence of Renewable Energy Producers
2022
Thermal grids are efficient, reliable, and sustainable technologies for satisfying the thermal demands of buildings. The capability to operate at a low temperature allows not only for the integration of heat produced by renewable energy sources but also for the storage of surplus electricity from the grid via “power to heat” technologies. Besides, in the future, heat consumers are expected to behave increasingly as “prosumers”, supplying in some periods heat produced by renewable energy plants on site. In this scenario, it is important to propose a method for the cost allocation among producers connected to the grid. In this regard, this paper proposes Exergoeconomic…
The new face of university–business cooperation in Finland
2016
This paper analyses the development of university-business cooperation (UBC) in Finland in the context of the University Reform Act of 2009, drawing on the experience of four universities: Aalto University, University of Jyvaskyla, University of Turku, and Lappeenranta University of Technology. Six UBC dimensions are examined: institutional context, stakeholders, motivations, facilitators/inhibitors, benefits, and drawbacks. We find that UBC, while a relatively recent process, is growing fast in dynamic local innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. The University Act of 2009 had an uneven effect on the six UBC dimensions, with the most visible impact being manifested on motivations. Aal…
Red list of threatened vascular plants in Italy
2021
Italy has a rich natural heritage, which is dangerously under pressure. In recent years, there is an increased awareness of the crucial role of plants in ecosystem functioning and in providing ecosystem services. Consequently, an updated Red List of the Italian vascular flora was compiled in this work, at the request of the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection, with the scientific support of the Italian Botanical Society. The IUCN Red List criteria were applied to 2,430 Italian native vascular plant taxa to assess their current extinction risk and to highlight the major threats affecting the Italian flora. Our results revealed that 54 taxa (2.2% of the assessed taxa) are extinc…
IDPlanT: the Italian database of plant translocation
2021
IDPlanT is the Italian Database of Plant Translocation, an initiative of the Nature Conservation Working Group of the Italian Botanical Society. IDPlanT currently includes 185 plant translocations. The establishment of a national database on plant translocation is a key step forward in data sharing and techniques improvement in this field of plant conservation. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2021.1985004.
Verifying the predicted risk of extinction based on ecological characteristics
2021
Red List status of species should reflect species extinction risk. Because data are limited and species response has a time lag, species may be threatened by extinction even if they are not Red‐Listed. The ability to predict species risk of extinction from ecological characteristics holds promises for proactively targeting conservation measures to species at high risk. In 2005, the risk of extinction from ecological characteristics was predicted for 81 species of Finnish butterflies. Now, after 15 years and two additional national Red List assessments, these predictions are verified. Species with a higher risk of extinction according to the original ecological extinction risk rank (EERR) ha…
Modèles de comportements collectifs et coopératifs
2012
Le choix résidentiel est considéré comme un acte individuel ou celui d'un " mini-groupe " (famille) qui est conditionné par des références collectives. De ce fait, il s'appuie sur des informations (renommée de quartiers, d'une école, accessibilité à des services, commerces ...) mais il contribue également à l'émergence de tendances (préférence de certains modes de vie et de quartiers ...) qui peuvent être à l'origine de flux migratoires. Ces derniers participent à l'émergence de nouvelles configurations spatiales à l'échelle d'une ville, donc de phénomènes macroscopiques. De telles tendances sont donc le résultat d'interactions entre individus et groupe sociaux, entre individus et société, …
Information, Communications and Media Technologies for Sustainability: Constructing Data-Driven Policy Narratives
2021
This paper introduces the idea of data-driven narratives to examine how the use of information, communications, and media technologies (ICMTs) impacts the sustainable growth of economies. While ICMTs have regularly been advocated as a policy tool for growth and development, there is a research gap in empirical studies validating how such policies may be effective. This analysis is based on historical panel data from 39 economies across the developed North (19) and developing South (20). The industry-standard Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology was applied to construct narratives that weave extant theories with empirical data. The art of developing data-dri…
From South to North? Mobility of Southern Italian Students at the Transition from the First to the Second Level University Degree
2018
In the last decades, the Italian University System has encountered several structural reforms aimed at making it more internationally competitive. Among them, the introduction of the University financial autonomy has triggered an “internal” competition among Universities to attract students from the entire country. Students’ enrollment at the first level has decreased significantly especially after the economic crisis of 2008, while the students’ migration from the South to the Central and Northern regions of the country has increased. These phenomena have created further inequalities within the country and a cultural and socio-economic loss for the South that does not appear to slow down. …
LEAVES OFNERIUM OLEANDERL. AS BIOACCUMULATORS OF POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS (PAH) IN THE AIR OF PALERMO (ITALY): EXTRACTION AND GC-MS ANALYSIS,…
2005
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) were determined in the leaves of Nerium oleander L. an evergreen plant that occurs widely in both urban and rural areas, to monitor the degree of pollution in the urban area of Palermo (Italy) compared to remote areas. Twenty sites (urban roadside, urban, urban park, suburban and rural) in and around Palermo city were investigated. The purpose of this research was to investigate concentration levels and distribution patterns and relate them to possible sources. Analysis of 19 PAH was performed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GCMS) using selected ion monitoring (SIM). The total amount of PAH ranged from 10 to 166 μg/Kg d.w. Each source gives ri…
A New Spatial Shift‐Share Decomposition: An Application to Tourism Competitiveness in Italian Regions
2020
The paper proposes a new version of spatial shift-share decomposition to improve on the various approaches to conventional shift-share analysis found in the literature. The novelty of our proposal is that it enables researchers to assess spatial competitiveness effects controlling for the influence of industrial specialization at both regional and neighborhood level. This new version is applied to inbound tourism in Italian regions and enables us to identify the best and worst performers. Our empirical results identify favorable scenarios in some areas of the country, such as Sardinia as well as regional advantage in a sizeable number of well-known destinations.