Foresight as an innovative tool for designing tourist destinations

Foresight is a relatively new field of study which initially arose to make provisions for the future in science and technology, but nowadays it is increasingly being used in territorial issues. Although the use of foresight tools in the tourism realm has been limited, there is a growing need to manage the increasing uncertainty that surrounds tourism development. Based on these premises, this paper tries to prove the capability of foresight tools to anticipate the impacts of complex global challenges on the tourism field. This assumption is tested through a future vision exercise which explores the evolution of tourism demand segments and its implications in planning tourism destinations. Two major demand segments are visualised for the year 2020 horizon: “Niche and Innovative Demand” and “Massive and Predictable Demand”. For both segments, the tourism consumption chain value is displayed and spatial design guidelines are recommended for sun and beach destinations

Designing a high performance parallel logic programming system

Compilation techniques such as those portrayed by the Warren Abstract Machine(WAM) have greatly improved the speed of execution of logic programs. The research presented herein is geared towards providing additional performance to logic programs through the use of parallelism, while preserving the conventional semantics of logic languages. Two áreas to which special attention is given are the preservation of sequential performance and storage efficiency, and the use of low overhead mechanisms for controlling parallel execution. Accordingly, the techniques used for supporting parallelism are efficient extensions of those which have brought high inferencing speeds to sequential implementations. At a lower level, special attention is also given to design and simulation detail and to the architectural implications of the execution model behavior. This paper offers an overview of the basic concepts and techniques used in the parallel design, simulation tools used, and some of the results obtained to date.

Methodologies for Designing and Developing New Concepts in Vertical Transportation

Escalator and moving walkway are multibody systems with a design of more than a century. Developed methodology allows studying and improving any subsystem of both systems. In addition, new concepts can be developed and tested without the necessity and cost of a real construction. CITEF (Railway Technologies Research Centre) has been modelling escalators for more than four years. Several complex and innovative models has been developed to characterize static, kinematic and dynamic escalator behaviour. The high number of mechanical elements that are part of escalators complicate modelling task. In this way, methodologies and tools have been developed in order to automate these task and saving computational and time costs. Developed methodologies have been validated with the results of comparing real measurements and simulated outputs from a dynamic model.

Transpose return relation method for designing low noise oscillators

In this paper, a new linear method for optimizing compact low noise oscillators for RF/MW applications will be presented. The first part of this paper makes an overview of Leeson's model. It is pointed out, and it is demonstrates that the phase noise is always the same inside the oscillator loop. It is presented a general phase noise optimization method for reference plane oscillators. The new method uses Transpose Return Relations (RRT) as true loop gain functions for obtaining the optimum values of the elements of the oscillator, whatever scheme it has. With this method, oscillator topologies that have been designed and optimized using negative resistance, negative conductance or reflection coefficient methods, until now, can be studied like a loop gain method. Subsequently, the main disadvantage of Leeson's model is overcome, and now it is not only valid for loop gain methods, but it is valid for any oscillator topology. The last section of this paper lists the steps to be performed to use this method for proper phase noise optimization during the linear design process and before the final non-linear optimization. The power of the proposed RRT method is shown with its use for optimizing a common oscillator, which is later simulated using Harmonic Balance (HB) and manufactured. Then, the comparison of the linear, HB and measurements of the phase noise are compared.

Improving engineering students' communication competence: designing innovative learning strategies

This research presents an innovative and formal educational initiative that is aimed at enhancing the development of engineering students’ specific competencies when studying Engineering Project Management subject. The framework of the experience combines theoretical concepts, the development of a real-case project carried out by multidisciplinary groups of three different universities, the use of software web 2.0 tools, and group and individual assignments of students that play different roles (project managers and team members). Under this scenario, this paper focuses on monitoring the communication competence in the ever growing Project Management virtual environment. Factors such as corporal language, technical means, stage, and management specific vocabulary among others have been considered in order to assess the students’ performance on this issue. As a main contribution, the paper introduces an ad-hoc rubric that, based on previous investigations, has been adapted and tested to this specific context. Additionally, the research conducted has provided some interesting findings that suggest further actions to improve and better define future rubrics, oriented to communication or even other competencies. As specific Project Management subject concerns, it has been detected that students playing the role of Project Managers strengthen their competencies more than those ones that play the role of Team Members. It has also been detected that students have more difficulty assimilating concepts related to risk and quality management. However those concepts related with areas of knowledge like scope, time or cost have been better assimilated by the students.