Search results for "technological"
showing 10 items of 285 documents
Presentación del Monográfico: una mirada a la emigración española cualificada reciente: Estado de la cuestión y enfoques teóricos
2018
The study of qualified emigration has returned to the political and scientific agendas in recent decades. Currently the theoretical approaches have changed from a completely renewed economic, political, social and technological context. This article presents a summary of these new approaches and a current overview of skilled migration of Spaniards, based on a review of the specialized literature.
Assessing the dynamic eco-efficiency of Italian municipalities by accounting for the ownership of the entrusted waste utilities
2021
Abstract This study evaluates and compares the dynamic eco-efficiency of municipalities with publicly owned, privately owned, and mixed ownership solid waste utilities by estimating the Meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index for a sample of 68 major Italian towns. On average, the eco-productivity of Italian waste service providers increased by 8% from 2016 to 2019. Although municipalities with private utilities improved their eco-productivity most, the differences among the three clusters reflecting utility ownership are not statistically significant. The results show that publicly owned waste operators drive technology and that the technological levels of private utilities h…
The Role of Net Interest Margin in Improving Banks’ Asset Structure and Assessing the Stability and Efficiency of their Operations
2014
Abstract Against the background of the growing diversity of financial instruments, technological progress and increasing interconnectedness of financial institutions, ensuring the stability of the banking sector has become an important task for economic policy in every country. This paper shows that net interest margin is the most appropriate criterion for evaluating the effectiveness and stability of banks’ operations. It is superior to the return on assets in illustrating how successfully a bank manages its interest bearing assets. The author analyzes banking sectors in the Baltic countries, the Euro Area as well as the United States and their management strategies, as well as indicators …
A Constructal Law optimization of a boiler inspired by Life Cycle thinking
2018
Abstract The aim of the paper is to explore how design optimization contributes to a technology's ecological evolution. The article develops this concept through an application of Constructal Law, used to account for the “evolution” of technologies design (configuration, shape, structure, pattern, rhythm), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), used for quantifying the environmental impacts of the design choices. The combination of both methods assesses how technology evolution affects the environment during its life, extending the concept of evolution of design. The study is applied to a case study of a real biomass boiler. The study analyses basic case and a series of alternative scenarios opti…
Technology Assessment of Socio-Technical Futures: A Discussion Paper
2019
Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions (Leitbilder) represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology assessment (TA) as an observer of these processes and a consultant on the implications of technology and innovation. TA faces increasing demands to assess imaginations of futures that circu…
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Changes to Working Life : What Supports Adult Employees in Adapting to New Technology at Work?
2020
AbstractThis chapter aims to increase current understanding of adults’ individual learning pathways and needs when adapting to new technology. We review adults’ overall technology skills and depict, through chosen examples, how adults have adapted to technological change in their working lives. We present prior research on the challenges that the Fourth Industrial Revolution poses to adults’ further education, and based on the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), we review adults’ problem-solving skills in technology-rich environments. Overall, the findings emphasize the importance of design-based education and the need for companies to flexibly address …
From risk assessment to in-context trajectory evaluation - GMOs and their social implications
2011
Purpose: Over the past twenty years, GMOs have raised enormous expectations, passionate political controversies, and an on-going debate on how should these technologies be assessed. Current risk-assessment procedures generally assess GMOs in terms of their potential risk of negatively affecting human health and the environment. Yet, is this risk-benefit approach appropriate to a deliver a robust assessment of GMOs? In this paper, we question the validity of current risk-assessment from both a social and an ecological perspective, and we elaborate an alternative approach, namely in-context trajectory evaluation Methods: This paper combines frame analysis, context analysis and eco-social anal…
Equal Pay for a Green Future
2020
In the present chapter, challenges to our growth-driven political-economic model are identified—including lethal economic inequality, growing unrest, technological unemployment in an era of robotization and artificial intelligence (AI), and limits to growth at a time of environmental and climatic collapse. The author is hesitant to offer a “yes” or “no” answer to the question of equal pay, suggesting instead that the answer hinges on time and context. In a future world of limited material resources, where jobs are increasingly automated and substituted by AI algorithms, the legitimacy of inequality-producing incentives for the main exploiters of resources and robots will erode. At a time wh…
Potencialidades de Google Maps en la investigación social aplicada
2019
In recent years, Google has devoted resources to build a complete map of the world. They constantly scan the territory, collecting a large amount of data that provides updated and complete geographic information. This allows us to have an interoperable map that provides the end user with a search tool, not only of routes but also of shops, equipment and any type of geo-referenced information. In addition, Google Maps provides a series of Application Programming Interface (API), which provides a library of set of subroutines, functions and procedures (in object-oriented programming) that can be used by other software to automate the extraction of information of the Google platform. These fre…
En kartlegging av teknologiske hjelpemidler til personer med nyoppdaget demens
2014
Masteroppgave i helse- og sosialinformatikk HSI 500 Universitetet i Agder 2014 The main objective of the national program of welfare technology is that welfaretechnological solutions will be an integrated part of the health and care services within 2020.Several projects in this program will include safety packages. Before technological tools areimplemented, a survey regarding the needs and challenges should be conducted. The presentstudy has focused on people with dementia and their relatives, because in 2040, the number ofpeople with dementia is expected to double.Welfare technological solutions can be divided into three parts: fall, isolation, and cognitiveimpairment. Thus, the current st…