111,809 research outputs found
Out of the spotlight: Four years of Italian coach market prices
No full textAnalogous to Germany and France, Italian coach market radically changed after liberalisation (2014). Liberalisation led to new routes, increased frequencies, mergers, and withdrawals. The paper analyses market trends from four years of real ticket prices collected through collaboration with www.checkmybus.it. The dataset, consisting of monthly average prices and the number of clicks by company and by city-pair, is enriched with spatial information, including the separation of airport routes. Results show that sub-national markets had different trends, with the growth of offer on routes linked to network expansion of the early liberalisation slowing down. Contrarily, the historical routes to the Centre and South remain stable. Interestingly, larger (Top-5) companies' prices are below market average up to 5–10% less. Smaller companies operate often on niche routes, with fewer economies of scale and thus maintain higher prices. This trend switched during the COVID pandemic. A further comparison with rail prices showed that coaches were able to reduce the price gap at least with conventional trains, from −50% (average for 2017–2020) to −20% for the second semester of 2020. This is a sign of the ability of the coach sector to adapt to the shock, by reducing capacity and concentrating on more competitive routes
Long-distance rail in Europe: Comparing the forms of head-on competition across Europe
No full textEurope is finally entering a season of liberalisation in the long-distance rail passenger market, which takes the form of on-track competition among public and private operators. The paper provides a broad-scope comparison of relevant European markets, belonging to liberalised and non-liberalised countries, aiming to point out the patterns in terms of supply, competition model and prices. The paper is based on a sample of heterogeneous 69 city-pairs, analysed in two fourteen days periods in 2019 (May/June and November). All available modes are observed, collecting info on companies, frequency of services, and cheapest price. The analysis starts from a schematisation of different business models, based on literature. Then, using the database, we study the country's supply structure, size, and level of intermodal and intra-modal competition through HHIs. Prices are analysed in two steps: the average prices and the price dispersion, searching for their main determinants, including but not limited to competition. Results show that a higher competition level is not always corresponding to low prices, which are instead determined by many other factors such as size of market, demand, socio-economic characteristics, subsidies, production costs, speed advantage, strength of the incumbent, etc. The competition level, instead, directly influences the quality, the supplied capacity, and the price dispersion
Evaluating the interaction between engineered materials and aircraft tyres as arresting systems in landing overrun events
No full textAccording to the registered databases of air accidents around the world, landing overruns are the most probable accidents among all runway excursion events. Although new aircraft are enhanced with the latest technologies that improve the maneuvers safety, the frequency of landing overruns are bound to increase because of the ascending growth rate of annual traffic. The principal scope of this paper is to evaluate the functionality of Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) as a mitigation strategy to reduce the possible consequences of landing overrun events and in particular to determine if installing an EMAS can help land-locked airports to meet Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommendations in order to upgrade their Runway End Safety Areas (RESAs). In the previous studies, not enough investigations are dedicated to predicting the behavior of the aircraft and its deceleration rate after interfering EMAS and how different materials as arrestor beds would modify aircraft braking distance in RESA. Therefore, secondary objective of this paper is to determine the most optimum height of EMAS slabs, in function of execution costs and accident severity reduction rate. In this regard, a MATLAB®-based numerical code, which simulate the tire-pavement interface, is developed in order to evaluate the functionality of EMAS for aircraft ground maneuvers. Although this code is developed for both dry and wet runway conditions, dry runway's surface is selected as the boundary condition of this study. It simulates aircraft arresting distance by calculating a dynamic skid resistance between aircraft main gear and runway pavement with a fix time step. The results are plotted as risk contour intervals on the layout of EMAS that is installed at the RESA. In addition, this numerical code is adopted in order to perform a sensitivity analysis on five arresting bed materials, which consist of three low-density concretes with maximum crushing stress thresholds of 172500, 345000 and 930000 Pa, one gravel-based material and one foam aggregate-based mixture. Among all, low-density concrete with the highest crushing strength causes shorter aircraft arresting distance
Non-Linear Characterisation of Kevlar and Silicon Carbide Fibres for Structural Health Monitoring Applications
No full textUncertainties about the long term bearing capacity of aramid fibres have made designers reluctant to utilize them for external pre-stressing for cable-stayed bridges. Recent research carried out on cable-stayed bridges has found that the steel cables, although well protected from the external environment, are subject to corrosion, resulting in a risk of structural defects and malfunctions. The question that prompted this study is whether simple and non-destructive non-linearity tests can be used for assessing structural damage in aramid fibres or elements. The concept is to detect weak non-linearities in the dynamic response measured on fibres and ropes and to use the level of non-linearity as an indicator for evaluating the residual life span of aramid elements, cables and ropes. In perspective, a non-linearity test may be easily integrated in structural health monitoring protocols to be employed on aramid cables and elements to collect timely notifications about possible anomalies in the structural behaviour. In order to investigate the sensitivity of such an approach to structural health monitoring, non-linearity characterisation tests were conducted on aramid fibres by applying controlled sweep-sine excitations at different loading levels. In order to have a comparative term and to test the setup machine, a similar characterisation procedure was also applied to a novel material, the silicon carbide, which is known to exhibit a purely brittle behaviour, with no appreciable plastic deformatio
author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 – Supplemental material for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct
No full textSupplemental material, author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct by George Wood, Daria Roithmayr and Andrew V. Papachristos in Socius</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Variations on the Author
No full text“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
Využití sociálních médií v B2B prodeji
No full textTato diplomová práce se zabývá tím, jak mohou B2B obchodníci využívat sociální média v prodeji. Na základě systematické rešerše literatury, autor zjistil, že akademici, zkoumající danou problematiku, navrhují další výzkum, a to: v kterých konkrétních krocích se dají využít sociální média v prodeji (Salo, 2017). Autor se na základě toho rozhodl zjistit, jaké sociální sítě, různé technologie a pluginy se dají využít v B2B prodeji - tzv. social sellingu. Social selling se v této práci týká primárně procesu akvizice a okrajově péčí o stávající zákazníky. Autor si vybral kvalitativní průzkum pomocí 10 hloubkových polo-strukturovaných rozhovorů, aby odhalil jak, která sociální média to jsou, tak i motivaci prodejců, proč tato média používat/nepoužívat. Aby autor dodržel správnost vyhodnocení výsledků, data byla analyzována pomocí Tématické analýzy, která v této studii vykrystalizovala 2 hlavní strategické přístupy v social sellingu. Tyto přístupy (tzv. Push a Pull strategie) obsahují praktické příklady a konkrétní aktivity, které mohou prodejci využívat v každodenní praxi. Tyto výsledky jsou prezentovány s důrazem na praktičnost a jednoduchost implementace. Tvoří proto hlavní přínos autorovo výzkumu. V poslední části autor zmiňuje výzvy a manažerská doporučení, které mohou obchodníci využít v každodenním pracovním životě.This diploma thesis focuses on social media usage in B2B sales. Based on the systematic literature review conducted by the author, he has found out that recent researchers (Salo, 2017) suggest further research in the area of how and in which sales phase should various social networking sites, technologies and plugins used. To further fill this research gap, author decided to identify these social media and their usage among B2B salespeople in the so-called social selling process. The social selling process in this thesis applies mainly to acquiring new prospects and tangentially to taking care of existing clients (follow-up step). Author has chosen a qualitative research method via conducting 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews to reveal these instruments as well as motivation of a sales person on why to use social media in the selling process. The collected data was analyzed using Thematic analysis to ensure the right procedure and to identify main themes which crystalized into 2 main strategic approaches in social selling. These approaches (Push and Pull) include practical examples of concrete activities which sales people can use in their daily jobs and are presented with focus on practicality and ease of implementation. These also form the main contribution of author`s research. In the last part, author mentions challenges in social selling and recommended managerial implications for salesforce
TeX v jednoduchém unixovém prostředí
No full textsummary:Při ladění TeXového dokumentu potřebujeme mnohokrát opakovaně pouštět TeX, podívat se, jak dopadl výsledek v prohlížeči DVI nebo PDF souboru, mrknout na výpis TeXu na terminálu, podívat se případně do logu a celou činnost opakovat. V tomto článku je ukázáno, jak tuto práci dělá autor článku. Proces "editor-TeX-kuk" je zde podporován jednoduchými unixovými nástroji: bashovým skriptem texloop, který si autor pro tyto účely vytvořil, dále terminálem Xterm a jednoduchým editorem, který umí navázat na klávesovou zkratku spuštění příkazu v systému. Čtenář se zde může inspirovat a přizpůsobit tyto nástroje svým vlastním potřebám. V článku je popsána funkce skriptu texloop, dále je neformálně rozveden dlouholetý vývoj autorova vztahu k textovým editorům a konečně je zde uvedena konfigurace terminálu Xterm, aby vyhovoval českému prostředí jak v kódování ISO-8859-2, tak v kódování UTF-8. Pro kódování UTF-8 si v závěru článku vygenerujeme TeXový formát csplain.summary:By debugging a TeX document it is necessary many times repeatedly to run TeX, to look for the result in DVI or PDF file, to gander the TeX output on the terminal, or eventually to have a look in the log-file, and all that action to repeat. In the paper it is show, how this work is made by author. The process '‘'editor-TeX-look' is supported by simple Unix tools: bash script texloop, created by author for these purposes, Xterm terminal and a simple editor, which is able to link to the shortcut key the activation of a system command. The reader could be inspired with the solution and to adapt these tools to his/her own needs. In the paper the function of the texloop script is described, and further the longstanding evolution of the author's relation to text editors is informal elaborated and finally a configuration of Xterm terminal, suitable for the czech environment with both ISO-8859-2 and UTF-8 encoding is introduced. For UTF-8 encoding the TeX format csplain is generated at the end of the paper
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