Impacts of Climate Change on European Critical Infrastructures: The Case of the Power Sector

23 p.

The impacts of leadership in the quality of municipal public services: case study of a portuguese municipal council

[EN]The present research work, based on some of the components of the Common Assessment Framework, sets to analyse the influence held by leadership in specific factors that constitute the organisational climate, and also the impact that these factors have on the quality of municipal public services. For the purposes of this study, we propose Likert’s exploitative autocratic and participative leadership styles to explain the genesis, structure and workflow. As far as the organisational climate is concerned, the variables used are motivation, satisfaction, empowerment, conflict and stress. The main conclusions that arose was that a participative leader confers higher relevance to the quality of service, through motivation, satisfaction, empowerment and human resources positive results, than an exploitative autocratic leader. Performed contributions are based on the empiric research hereby presented, and new research guidelines are proposed. The research methodology used was qualitative, based on the case study.

Design, Construction and Testing of a Hydraulic Power Take-Off for Wave Energy Converters

This paper presents the construction, mathematical modeling and testing of a scaled universal hydraulic Power Take-Off (PTO) device for Wave Energy Converters (WECs). A specific prototype and test bench were designed and built to carry out the tests. The results obtained from these tests were used to adjust an in-house mathematical model. The PTO was initially designed to be coupled to a scaled wave energy capture device with a low speed and high torque oscillating motion and high power fluctuations. Any Energy Capture Device (ECD) that fulfils these requirements can be coupled to this PTO, provided that its scale is adequately defined depending on the rated power of the full scale prototype. The initial calibration included estimation of the pressure drops in the different components, the pressurization time of the oil inside the hydraulic cylinders and the volumetric efficiency of the complete circuit. Since the overall efficiency measured during the tests ranged from 0.69 to 0.8 and the dynamic performance of the PTO was satisfactory, the results are really promising and it is believed that this solution might prove effective in real devices.

Socioeconomic impacts of National Parks: a case study from the North-east of England

[EN] Enforcement of rural policy measures within National Parks may have a particular importance as they may contribute to reach socioeconomic objectives devised for such areas. So this paper approaches as case study the application of a relevant rural development measure in the Northumberland National Park (NNP) –England, North East— over the period 2000-2008 in order to explore whether NNP makes any difference in terms of enforcing rural policy measures. The main research findings indicate that NNP may have some sort of positive impact on rural development, but support relying on tourism monoculture may be a background reason for undesired negative consequences.

The basque ecological debt: global socioecological impacts of a small open economy

4 p.

Linking Reduced Deforestation and a Global Carbon Market: Impacts on Costs, Financial Flows, and Technological Innovation

25 p.

The Health Impacts of Climate Change: A Study of Cholera in Tanzania

27 p.

The Uniform World Model: A Methodology for Predicting the Health Impacts of Air Pollution

47 p.

The Economic Impacts of Biodiversity Policy for Improving the Climate Regulating Services Provided by EU Natura 2000 Habitats

22 p.

Climate change impacts on the water services in Costa Rica: a production function for the hydroenergy sector

23 p.

Modeling Innovative Power Take-Off Based on Double-Acting Hydraulic Cylinders Array for Wave Energy Conversion

One of the key systems of a Wave Energy Converter for extraction of wave energy is the Power Take-Off (PTO) device. This device transforms the mechanical energy of a moving body into electrical energy. This paper describes the model of an innovative PTO based on independently activated double-acting hydraulic cylinders array. The model has been developed using a simulation tool, based on a port-based approach to model hydraulics systems. The components and subsystems used in the model have been parameterized as real components and their values experimentally obtained from an existing prototype. In fact, the model takes into account most of the hydraulic losses of each component. The simulations show the flexibility to apply different restraining torques to the input movement depending on the geometrical configuration and the hydraulic cylinders on duty, easily modified by a control law. The combination of these two actions allows suitable flexibility to adapt the device to different sea states whilst optimizing the energy extraction. The model has been validated using a real test bench showing good correlations between simulation and experimental tests.