1,720,988 research outputs found
Greener cities and territories: Brief notes on socio-economic acceptance to renewable energy sources
No full textOver the last two decades the use of renewable energy sources
has rapidly increased due to energy safety and/or economic
issues (i.e. dependence from energy producer countries, energy
price volatility). Also, at international level, recent EU and US
regulations have helped the adoption of renewable energies
across countries and the re-shaping of the energy sector. No
doubts that this scenario has favoured the development of
greener cities and economies. Nonetheless, it has caused several
challenges on the landscape. The installation of large scale solar
photovoltaic (PV) panels, for example, implies, among other
things, land use change against the production of agricultural
commodities. Similarly, the establishment of wind farms affects
land use change and impacts wildlife preservation and aesthetic
views.
The existence of these landscape changes poses several questions
on the sustainability of cities and territories. The present paper
discusses the existence of socio-economic dilemmas in view of
renewable energy projects for the growth of greener cities and
territories. To respond to the research question above, this work
aims at investigating: i. How the use of renewable energies (e.g.
wind and solar PVs energy) affects social acceptance across
consumers and the economy of a territory; and ii. What
implications exist at policy level to close the gap between
effective and perceived use of renewable energy sources
Social acceptance of on-shore wind energy in Apulia Region (Southern Italy)
No full textOver the last decades, the increase in energy production from renewable sources has grown rapidly. In Italy, about 30% of the national energy production uses renewable sources. Wind energy, in particular, is one of the most promising clean energy markets. The presence of a favourable climatic condition for wind power in the Apulia Region in Southern Italy has pushed towards the development of one of the greatest on-shore areas in the country and Europe. Nonetheless, the high concentration of on-shore wind farms on the territory of the Apulia Region has posed serious problems over time. Despite the undoubted advantages of wind energy in terms of carbon and fossil fuel savings, there has been an increasing public awareness for landscape preservation. The majority of people living nearby on-shore wind farms seem to suffer from the change of 'their' landscape. This paper contributes to an understanding of the public awareness for the existing trade-off between landscape conservation and wind energy. With the use of a choice experiment approach, we infer on the social acceptance of on-shore wind energy in Apulia Region. Main results enable us: (i) to analyse consumers' willingness to pay for a hypothetical re-development of on-shore wind farms; (ii) to determine the potential trade-offs between on-shore wind farms, landscape conservation and socio-economic issues; (iii) to discuss the existence and overcome the problems of an asymmetric information between producers, consumers and policy makers on the implementation of on-shore wind farms on the territory
On Null Space-Based Inverse Kinematics Techniques for Fleet Management: Toward Time-Varying Task Activation
Full text linkMultirobot fleets play an important role in industrial logistics, surveillance, and exploration applications. A wide literature exists on the topic, both resorting to reactive (i.e. collision avoidance) and to deliberative (i.e. motion planning) techniques. In this work, null space-based inverse kinematics (NSB-IK) methods are applied to the problem of fleet management. Several NSB-IK approaches existing in the literature are reviewed, and compared with a reverse priority approach, which originated in manipulator control, and is here applied for the first time to the considered problem. All NSB-IK approaches are here described in a unified formalism, which allows (i) to encode the property of each controller into a set of seven main key features, (ii) to study possible new control laws with an opportune choice of these parameters. Furthermore, motivated by the envisioned application scenario, we tackle the problem of task-switching activation. Leveraging on the iCAT TPC technique Simetti and Casalino, 2016, in this article, we propose a method to obtain continuity in the control in face of activation or deactivation of tasks, and subtasks by defining suitable damped projection operators. The proposed approaches are evaluated formally, and via simulations. Performances with respect to standard methods are compared considering a specific case study for multivehicles management
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
LiDAR-based GNSS denied localization for autonomous racing cars
Full text linkSelf driving vehicles promise to bring one of the greatest technological and social revolutions of the next decade for their potential to drastically change human mobility and goods transportation, in particular regarding efficiency and safety. Autonomous racing provides very similar technological issues while allowing for more extreme conditions in a safe human environment. While the software stack driving the racing car consists of several modules, in this paper we focus on the localization problem, which provides as output the estimated pose of the vehicle needed by the planning and control modules. When driving near the friction limits, localization accuracy is critical as small errors can induce large errors in control due to the nonlinearities of the vehicle’s dynamic model. In this paper, we present a localization architecture for a racing car that does not rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). It consists of two multi-rate Extended Kalman Filters and an extension of a state-of-the-art laser-based Monte Carlo localization approach that exploits some a priori knowledge of the environment and context. We first compare the proposed method with a solution based on a widely employed state-of-the-art implementation, outlining its strengths and limitations within our experimental scenario. The architecture is then tested both in simulation and experimentally on a full-scale autonomous electric racing car during an event of Roborace Season Alpha. The results show its robustness in avoiding the robot kidnapping problem typical of particle filters localization methods, while providing a smooth and high rate pose estimate. The pose error distribution depends on the car velocity, and spans on average from 0.1 m (at 60 km/h) to 1.48 m (at 200 km/h) laterally and from 1.9 m (at 100 km/h) to 4.92 m (at 200 km/h) longitudinally
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Extended reality-based choice experiment to assess the impact of offshore wind turbines in historic center: the case of Manfredonia
Full text linkThis paper proposes a novel four-step methodology to achieve an extended-reality-based choice experiment in historic and touristic centers. The study exploits the case of Manfredonia (a seaside town in southern Italy) to apply the new approach and investigates public attitudes and preferences towards the installation of offshore wind turbines in the area. The novelty of the proposed work is twofold: i) for the first time, a structured methodological approach is defined for the development of a hybrid extended-reality-based choice experiment; ii) the perception of the visual impact of offshore wind turbines is assessed in a touristic and historic city in southern Italy exploiting the proposed approach. Our findings underscore the importance of continuously monitoring public perceptions to maintain and promote support for sustainable energy solutions, particularly in relation to the perception of wind energy's visual impact. In particular, 65% of respondents express their worries about wind power plants impact on the landscape. Moreover, the positive coefficient of the visual impact (0.011) suggests a positive utility of respondents from a higher off-shore turbines' density and a marginal willingness to accept a compensation of about 13€ for the visual impact and of about 33€ for the distance from the shore. In this context the use of extended reality technology in choice experiment scenarios significantly improves the results and enhances the understanding of the landscape impact of offshore wind farm
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