Search results for "resource"
showing 10 items of 4058 documents
Distribution of biomass and site location of combustion and gasification power plants in western Sicily
2012
The substitution of conventional fossil fuels with biomass for energy production results both in the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions and in the replacement of non-renewable energy sources. The use of biomass for energy production responds to the growing pressure of government policies towards the achievement of better environmental sustainability of power generation processes. This is particularly true for the agricultural areas of Sicily, where the realization of new economic dynamics can lead to development of a local economic system. However, at present, generating energy from biomass is rather expensive due to both technological limits related to low conversion efficiencies, and…
The importance of OER in engineering education
2017
The problem of education is a very important one and occupies an increasingly wider register among educational specialists, who see these changes directly related to current generations of students. It speaks increasingly more and more about the desire of young people to learn when they want, how they want and how much they want, in their own way, without any constraints imposed by fixed educational program, established by teachers, according to their idea how to go on an educational route. In this context, open education provides crucial support of any person who is interested, and covered a complete and appropriate educational needs, in connection with time and availability of the person.…
Predicting human performance in interactive tasks by using dynamic models
2017
The selection of an appropriate sequence of activities is an essential task to keep student motivation and foster engagement. Usually, decisions in this respect are made by taking into account the difficulty of the activities, in relation to the student's level of competence. In this paper, we present a dynamic model that aims to predict the average performance of a group of students at solving a given series of maths problems. The system takes into account both student- and task-related features. This model was built and validated by using the data gathered in an experimental session that involved 64 participants solving a sequence of 26 arithmetic problems. The data collected from the fir…
Critiques of island sustainability in tourism
2019
Island sustainability influences and is influenced by tourism resources, such as sun, sea, and sand for warm water destinations and ice and large mammals for cold water destinations. To understand ...
Farmland abandonment in Europe: Identification of drivers and indicators, and development of a composite indicator of risk
2015
Accounting for more than half of the European Union's (EU) territory, agriculture ensures food production, manages important natural resources and supports socio-economic development of rural areas. Moreover, it is estimated that 50% of all plant and animal species (including some of that are listed in the EU Habitat Directive) depend on agricultural practices. The continuation of appropriate agricultural land management is essential to ensure these primary functions. Avoidance of farmland abandonment is therefore an important rationale for the EU's Common Agricultural Policy which requires improved knowledge of this phenomenon at the European level. This study assesses the risk of farmland…
Outlining the impact of intellectual capital accumulation and depletion processes on the performance of an insurance firm: a dynamic resource-based p…
2014
This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework on how Intellectual Capital (IC) accumulation and depletion processes are dynamically interrelated with firm performance. Such a framework makes explicit the relationships between policy levers, strategic resources, drivers, end-results and performance indicators through a Dynamic Resource-based perspective. Such an approach matches the Resource based perspective and the System Dynamics (SD) methodology. This paper argues that in order to explain a firm superior performance, it is not sufficient to look at the endowment of strategic resources in a given moment of time; it is instead required to investigate the dynamics of company strategic r…
Farming Efficiency and the Survival of Valuable Agro-Ecosystems: A Case Study of Rice Farming in European Mediterranean Wetlands
2009
Beyond the conventional role of providing food, rice farming in European Mediterranean wetlands performs a valuable non-marketable function related to the provision of environmental services. Rice and biodiversity are jointly produced, so that provision of flooded-rice-fields based environmental services depends crucially on private profitability of rice farming. Recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and increasing access of third party countries to the domestic European market are challenging the competitiveness of European rice growers. This paper combines conventional competitiveness indicators and non-parametric efficiency analysis to ascertain the economic profitabilit…
Predicting Coaches' Adherence/Dropout: A Prospective Study
2015
The objective of this study was to examine motivational variables based on self-determination theory (SDT) and positive psychology as predictors of coaches' adherence and dropout. A prospective study was performed using a sample of 286 coaches who were tracked over a two-year period. Initially coaches' motivation and psychological need satisfaction were measured; two years later they were contacted and asked if they were still coaching in their original sport. Those who did not were considered as drop-outs for the current study. Logistic binary regression analyses were performed to analyse predictors of persistence and dropout. Need Satisfaction Index (NSI), perceived competence and percei…
Integrated Sustainability Reports
2017
Disclosure of corporate social and environmental sustainability, resumed in ‘sustainability reports', have occupied most of the attention of accounting thought and practice over the last few decades. Evaluation of ecological footprint and social sensitiveness is becoming relevant also for the investors. The chapter presents institutional disclosure concerning social, environmental, and integrated (financial, social and environmental) issues in a threefold perspective. The first is a historical one: after some definitions the birth and development of sustainability reports are presented to the reader. The second is a theoretical one: a paradigm or framework is developed for including what va…
Integrating Social Skills in Task-Oriented 3D IVA
2005
This paper presents a set of mechanisms oriented to incorporate social information into the decision taking of task-oriented 3DIVA. The aim of this approach is to integrate collaborative skills in different character's roles (seller/buyer, worker, pedestrian, etc.) in order to enhance its behavioral animation. The collective intelligence expected in this kind of multi-character domains (e.g. storytelling, urban simulation, interactive games, etc.) requires agents able to dialogue/interact with other characters, to autonomously group/ungroup (according to their goals), or to distribute tasks and coordinate their execution for solving possible conflicts. The social model implemented follows t…