261 research outputs found
Pressure factors affecting Lombardy agricultural system : the environmental cconsequences of the Fischler Reform
No full text
Pressure factors affecting the Lombardy agricultural system : the environmental consequences of the Fischler reform
No full textUsing UHF RFID properties to develop and optimize an upper-limb rehabilitation system
No full textRehabilitation of the upper limb is an important aspect of the therapy for people affected by neuromotor diseases for the recovery of the capability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). Nonetheless, the costs associated with the administration of rehabilitation therapy and the increasing number of patients highlight the need for new solutions. Technology-based solutions and, in particular, telerehabilitation could strongly impact in this field. In this paper, a new system based on radiofrequency (RF) technology is presented which is able to effectively provide home-based telerehabilitation and extract meaningful information on the therapy execution performance. The technology has been tuned to the needs of the rehabilitation system, optimizing the hardware, the communication protocol and the software control. A methodology for extracting the execution time of the rehabilitation tasks, the distance covered by the patient’s hand in each subtask and the velocity profile is presented. The results show that a highly usable system for the rehabilitation of the upper limb has been developed using the RF technology and that performance metrics can be reliably extracted by the acquired signals
Development of an integrated methodology for the management and assessment of the impact of agricultural policies at a territorial level
No full textIn recent years, the European agriculture has been subject to increased pressure due to both radical dismantling of a long-standing support regime, and to the new EU environmental policies. In order to analyse the impact of these changes at a regional level, an integrated methodology, based on Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) techniques, and a Geographic Information System (GIS), is developed.
As case study the methodology analyses the impact of the CAP, together with water and nitrogen policies, on the agricultural system of the Lombardy irrigated lowland (Northern Italy). Results show that the introduction of the single payment makes farmers’ more influenced by market trends. Environmental constraints seem to have a larger impact than changes in prices: irrigation constraints stimulate the land allocation to extensive crops, while nitrogen constraints are very sensitive to the number of livestock. The case study illustrate that the methodology proposed can provide a set of scenarios that closely account for the peculiarities of local agricultural systems within a target area. The resulting construction of a geo-referred database is also a useful tool to gather in-depth knowledge of the area
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