1,721,012 research outputs found
Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) applied to Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) in low and middle-income contexts: a case studies analysis.
No full textIn industrialized contexts Sustainable Product-Service Systems (S.PSS) have been studied since the end of the 90’s as business models with the potential to decouple the creation of value from the consumption of materials and energy, and thus significantly reducing the environmental load of the life-cycles of current product systems.
In the framework of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative (United Nations, SE4All decade 2014-2024), the EU funded, LeNSes project - the Learning Network for Sustainable energy systems (Edulink II programme, 2013-2016) has formulated the following Research Hypothesis: “The S.PSS offer model applied to Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) is a win-win approach to diffuse them (DRE) in low and middle-income (all) contexts, because it reduces/cuts both the initial investment cost of hardware purchasing and the life-cycle costs of maintenance, repair, upgrade, etc. while improving local skills and rising local employment, resulting in a key leverage for a sustainable development process aiming at democratizing the access to resources, goods and services.”
The paper describes the Research Hypothesis, the method adopted for the case studies analysis and the achieved results. The case studies analysis validate the hypothesis and shows various ways in which initial investment costs and life-cycle costs are reduced/cut when a S.PSS model is applied to DRE. These reductions/cuts are present both for Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumers (B2C) offers, as well as when the offer is the DRE system alone or when it is coupled with related Energy Using Products (EUP) or Equipment (EUE)
Key Research Priorities for Factories of the Future—Part II: Pilot Plants and Funding Mechanisms
No full textMission-oriented policies have been proposed for research and innovation in the European manufacturing industry to address grand challenges while fostering economic growth and employment. A mission is required to have clear goals that can be demonstrated also to a wide public, therefore research and innovation infrastructures play a key role to create the necessary conditions. Given the fundamental importance of public investment to promote innovation, possible funding mechanisms for industrial research and innovation are discussed. Furthermore, taking advantage of the experience gained during the Italian Flagship Project Factories of the Future, this chapter identifies three types of industrial research and innovation infrastructure that can support mission-oriented policies: lab-scale pilot plants, industrial-scale pilot plants, and lighthouse plants
Robust design of fixture configuration
Full text linkThe paper deals with robust design of fixture configuration. It aims to investigate how fixture element deviations and machine tool volumetric errors affect machining operations quality. The locator position configuration is then designed to minimize the deviation of machined features with respect to the applied geometric tolerances. The proposed approach represents a design step that goes further the deterministic positioning of the part based on the screw theory, and may be used to look for simple and general rules easily applicable in an industrial context
Evaluation of the shear properties of long and short fiber composites using state-of-the art characterization techniques
No full textAs the use of short fiber and textile thermoplastic composites is expanding in many industrial fields, particularly the automotive, it is necessary for each manufacturer in every sector to assess the mechanical characteristics and behavior of these materials in various loading and environmental conditions. Among the most difficult mechanical tests are those for calculating the shear properties and behavior of these materials. As a result, a variety of standards have been developed throughout the years. Among these, the most promising one may be considered the V-notched rail shear test as it incorporates the unique features of two different mechanical tests, i.e. the Iosipescu and rail shear test. In the present work, this state-of-the-art mechanical test, originally designed for unidirectional composites, was implemented in different material architectures and its apparatus was modified and used for mainly two purposes; the investigation of the effect of the infusion direction on the mechanical properties of short and the warp-weft direction of the woven textile thermoplastic composites, as well as producing reliable data regarding the mechanical characteristics and the behavior of these materials for simulating the manufacturing process. The testing device was developed in a way to produce robust and accurate results, ensuring the alignment of its components as well as the stress uniformity in the section gauge. The results revealed a dependency of the infusion direction of the short fiber thermoplastics and the textile direction of the woven composites. To this end, this mechanical testing technique may be considered as a benchmark on the material characterization in shear deformation
Multi-sensor multi-resolution data fusion modeling
Full text linkInspection analysis of 3D objects has progressed significantly due to the evolution of advanced sensors. Current sensors facilitate surface scanning at high or low resolution levels. In the inspection field, data from multi-resolution sensors have significant advantages over single-scale data. However, most data fusion methods are single-scale and are not suitable in their current form for multi-resolution sensors. Currently the main challenge is to integrate the diverse scanned information into a single geometric hierarchical model. In this work, a new approach for data fusion from multi-resolution sensors is presented. In addition, a correction function for data fusion, based on statistic models, for processing highly dense data (low accuracy) with respect to sparse data (high accuracy) is described. The feasibility of the methods is demonstrated on synthetic data that imitates CMM and laser measurements
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
Multi-robot spot-welding cell design: Problem formalization and proposed architecture
Full text linkThe multi-robot cell design for car-body spot welding is faced by industry as a sequence of tasks, where researches are focused on issues of the
problem as a whole. In authors’ knowledge, none work in literature have suggested any formalization for the complete process. This paper tries
to bridges the gap proposing coherent process formalization, and presenting a corresponding innovative architecture for the automatic optimal
cell design. Specifically, the formalization involves the identification and allocation of the resources in terms of a set of decisional variables (e.g.
robot model/positioning/number, welding gun models/allocation/number, welding point allocation etc.); then, the design optimization process
minimizes the investment costs granting the cycle time. The multi-loop optimization architecture integrates both new algorithms and existent
procedures from different fields. Test-bed showing its feasibility is reported
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
- …
