Search results for "motive"

2020

Arts-based practices can support sustainability, combined with research that points out needs for intervention. We practiced environmental sensitivity and dialogic art with fifth-grade school pupil...

A New Software Tool for Design, Optimization, and Complete Analysis of Rotating Electrical Machines Windings

2015

In this paper, a new software tool developed by the authors for ac winding design, optimization, and complete analysis is presented. In particular, this software can be used as a valid aid in design and analysis for a wide variety of motor and generator windings with generic number of phases (including the case of those machines in which some slots are left empty), pole pairs, slot number, and so on. The calculation of winding factors and the evaluation of their harmonic distribution is also accomplished. The software is implemented in the MATLAB programming environment. By means of some examples, covering the most relevant winding types, the capabilities of this software will be shown. In …

A model for managing and evaluating solar radiation for indoor thermal comfort

2007

Thermal comfort of people occupying indoor spaces depends, to a large extent, on the direct component of solar radiation incident on the human body. In turn, even the diffuse component of the solar radiation could affect the thermal sensations of people. Despite this evidence, at the present there is a lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods capable of taking into account the influence of the solar radiation on thermal balance in the human body. In this work a comprehensive method is presented for the computation of the mean radiant temperature of people in thermal moderate indoor environments in the presence of solar radiation. The effects produced on the amount of solar ra…

Impacts of roundabouts in suburban areas on congestion-specific vehicle speed profiles, pollutant and noise emissions: an empirical analysis

2019

Abstract Increasing concern about global warming and air quality has meant an increasing use of energetic and environmental indicators in roundabout design. This research compares different suburban roundabouts in terms of traffic performance, pollutant and noise emissions through an integrated empirical assessment. Field measurements were carried out with a light duty vehicle in single-lane (SL), compact two-lane (CTL) and multi-lane (ML) roundabouts using Portable Emission Measurements Systems, On-Board Diagnostic scan tool and Sound Level Meter, to measure real-world exhaust emissions, engine activity and acoustic data, respectively. Afterwards, predictive discrete choice models that cor…

A general procedure for the construction of Gorges polygons for multi-phase windings of electrical machines

2018

This paper presents a simple and effective procedure for the determination of the Gorges polygon, suitable for all possible winding configurations in electrical machines. This methodology takes into account the determination of a Winding Distribution Table (WDT), in which all the information about the distribution of the currents along the stator periphery is computed and from which the Görges polygon are easily derived. The proposed method can be applied to both symmetrical and asymmetrical multi-phase windings, including concentrated, fractional, reduced and dead-coil ones. The examples provided in this paper demonstrate the versatility of the proposed method.

A real-time non-intrusive FPGA-based drowsiness detection system

2011

Automotive has gained several benefits from the Ambient Intelligent researches involving the deployment of sensors and hardware devices into an intelligent environment surrounding people, meeting users’ requirements and anticipating their needs. One of the main topics in automotive is to anticipate driver needs and safety, in terms of preventing critical and dangerous events. Considering the high number of caused accidents, one of the most relevant dangerous events affecting driver and passengers safety is driver’s drowsiness and hypovigilance. This paper presents a low-intrusive, real-time driver’s drowsiness detection system for common vehicles. The proposed system exploits the ‘‘bright p…

Key advantages of the leverage points perspective to shape human-nature relations

2021

This perspective paper synthesises the special issue 'Human-nature connectedness as a leverage point for sustainability transformation'. Based on the articles in this special issue, we aim to foster the operationalisation of the leverage points perspective to shape human-nature relations to enable sustainability transformations. Specifically, we draw on four key advantages of the leverage points perspective: (i) the explicit recognition of deep leverage points; (ii) the ability to examine the interactions between shallow and deep system changes; (iii) the combination of causal and teleological modes of research; and (iv) the ability to function as a methodological boundary object. The contr…

Designing multi-attribute auctions for engineering services procurement in new product development in the automotive context

2010

Abstract In recent years, use of multi-attribute auctions has been consolidating as a powerful mechanism in procurement settings where multiple drivers affect the transaction outcome. This paper provides a project management approach for multi-attribute auction design for standardized engineering services procurement in the context of new product development in automotive industry. Two variables are taken into account in the bidding process: price and duration of the given engineering activity. From a theoretical viewpoint, we fully determine optimal suppliers’ bidding strategies and expected outcomes, i.e. score/utility, price and duration, for the buyer under both first score sealed bid a…

Automatic Segmentation and Enhancement of Pavement Cracks Based on 3D Pavement Images

2019

Pavement cracking is a significant symptom of pavement deterioration and deficiency. Conventional manual inspections of road condition are gradually replaced by novel automated inspection systems. As a result, a great amount of pavement surface information is digitized by these systems with a high resolution. With pavement surface data, pavement cracks can be detected using crack detection algorithms. In this paper, a fully automated algorithm for segmenting and enhancing pavement crack is proposed, which consists of four major procedures. First, a preprocessing procedure is employed to remove spurious noise and rectify the original 3D pavement data. Second, crack saliency maps are segmente…

Analysis and optimization against buckling of beams interacting with elastic foundation

2017

We consider an infinite continuous elastic beam that interacts with linearly elastic foundation and is under compression. The problem of the beam buckling is formulated and analyzed. Then the optimization of beam against buckling is investigated. As a design variable (control function) we take the parameters of cross-section distribution of the beam from the set of periodic functions and transform the original problem of optimization of infinite beam to the corresponding problem defined at the finite interval. All investigations are on the whole founded on the analytical variational approaches and the optimal solutions are studied as a function of problems parameters. peerReviewed