An approach to digitalise activities of combine harvesters through CANBUS

The increase in the efficiency of agricultural machinery is a theme that attracted the attention and investments of the industrial and research community. In addition, in a global market, where the prices of agricultural commodities are so volatile and the prices of the inputs increase, farmers and agricultural contractors struggle to obtain at the end of the agricultural season a consolidated profit. For these reasons, it is important to carefully plan the usage of combine harvesters, to reduce the unproductive time and the input usage such as the fuel, that at the end of the harvesting season could increase costs. This study aims to develop an algorithm able to automatically identify and evaluate the time spent by the combines in each of the identified activities, identify the field boundaries of the harvested fields and perform a performance evaluation. To be able to develop the algorithm, during the harvesting seasons of 2020 and 2022, two combine harvesters operating in real-world conditions in Bologna’s Province were monitored. The data necessary to perform the analysis were acquired as CANBUS data and processed by using the MATLAB ® suite. The results obtained from this analysis show that the monitored combines have spent over 60% of the time performing harvesting activities, 13% of the time idling at the field, 10% performing headland turn, the 3% and 4% of the time respectively in transport on the field and road and 2% of the time in unloading. In addition, the performance of the monitored combines resulted similarly to the performance reported in other studies.

The firm. Techno-organizational changes, industrial relations and performances. An enquiry on Reggio Emilia local industrial system

It is not unknown that the evolution of firm theories has been developed along a path paved by an increasing awareness of the organizational structure importance. From the early “neoclassical” conceptualizations that intended the firm as a rational actor whose aim is to produce that amount of output, given the inputs at its disposal and in accordance to technological or environmental constraints, which maximizes the revenue (see Boulding, 1942 for a past mid century state of the art discussion) to the knowledge based theory of the firm (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2005), which recognizes in the firm a knnowledge creating entity, with specific organizational capabilities (Teece, 1996; Teece & Pisano, 1998) that allow to sustaine competitive advantages. Tracing back a map of the theory of the firm evolution, taking into account the several perspectives adopted in the history of thought, would take the length of many books. Because of that a more fruitful strategy is circumscribing the focus of the description of the literature evolution to one flow connected to a crucial question about the nature of firm’s behaviour and about the determinants of competitive advantages. In so doing I adopt a perspective that allows me to consider the organizational structure of the firm as an element according to which the different theories can be discriminated. The approach adopted starts by considering the drawbacks of the standard neoclassical theory of the firm. Discussing the most influential theoretical approaches I end up with a close examination of the knowledge based perspective of the firm. Within this perspective the firm is considered as a knowledge creating entity that produce and mange knowledge (Nonaka, Toyama, & Nagata, 2000; Nonaka & Toyama, 2005). In a knowledge intensive organization, knowledge is clearly embedded for the most part in the human capital of the individuals that compose such an organization. In a knowledge based organization, the management, in order to cope with knowledge intensive productions, ought to develop and accumulate capabilities that shape the organizational forms in a way that relies on “cross-functional processes, extensive delayering and empowerment” (Foss 2005, p.12). This mechanism contributes to determine the absorptive capacity of the firm towards specific technologies and, in so doing, it also shape the technological trajectories along which the firm moves. After having recognized the growing importance of the firm’s organizational structure in the theoretical literature concerning the firm theory, the subsequent point of the analysis is that of providing an overview of the changes that have been occurred at micro level to the firm’s organization of production. The economic actors have to deal with challenges posed by processes of internationalisation and globalization, increased and increasing competitive pressure of less developed countries on low value added production activities, changes in technologies and increased environmental turbulence and volatility. As a consequence, it has been widely recognized that the main organizational models of production that fitted well in the 20th century are now partially inadequate and processes aiming to reorganize production activities have been widespread across several economies in recent years. Recently, the emergence of a “new” form of production organization has been proposed both by scholars, practitioners and institutions: the most prominent characteristic of such a model is its recognition of the importance of employees commitment and involvement. As a consequence it is characterized by a strong accent on the human resource management and on those practices that aim to widen the autonomy and responsibility of the workers as well as increasing their commitment to the organization (Osterman, 1994; 2000; Lynch, 2007). This “model” of production organization is by many defined as High Performance Work System (HPWS). Despite the increasing diffusion of workplace practices that may be inscribed within the concept of HPWS in western countries’ companies, it is an hazard, to some extent, to speak about the emergence of a “new organizational paradigm”. The discussion about organizational changes and the diffusion of HPWP the focus cannot abstract from a discussion about the industrial relations systems, with a particular accent on the employment relationships, because of their relevance, in the same way as production organization, in determining two major outcomes of the firm: innovation and economic performances. The argument is treated starting from the issue of the Social Dialogue at macro level, both in an European perspective and Italian perspective. The model of interaction between the social parties has repercussions, at micro level, on the employment relationships, that is to say on the relations between union delegates and management or workers and management. Finding economic and social policies capable of sustaining growth and employment within a knowledge based scenario is likely to constitute the major challenge for the next generation of social pacts, which are the main social dialogue outcomes. As Acocella and Leoni (2007) put forward the social pacts may constitute an instrument to trade wage moderation for high intensity in ICT, organizational and human capital investments. Empirical evidence, especially focused on the micro level, about the positive relation between economic growth and new organizational designs coupled with ICT adoption and non adversarial industrial relations is growing. Partnership among social parties may become an instrument to enhance firm competitiveness. The outcome of the discussion is the integration of organizational changes and industrial relations elements within a unified framework: the HPWS. Such a choice may help in disentangling the potential existence of complementarities between these two aspects of the firm internal structure on economic and innovative performance. With the third chapter starts the more original part of the thesis. The data utilized in order to disentangle the relations between HPWS practices, innovation and economic performance refer to the manufacturing firms of the Reggio Emilia province with more than 50 employees. The data have been collected through face to face interviews both to management (199 respondents) and to union representatives (181 respondents). Coupled with the cross section datasets a further data source is constituted by longitudinal balance sheets (1994-2004). Collecting reliable data that in turn provide reliable results needs always a great effort to which are connected uncertain results. Data at micro level are often subjected to a trade off: the wider is the geographical context to which the population surveyed belong the lesser is the amount of information usually collected (low level of resolution); the narrower is the focus on specific geographical context, the higher is the amount of information usually collected (high level of resolution). For the Italian case the evidence about the diffusion of HPWP and their effects on firm performances is still scanty and usually limited to local level studies (Cristini, et al., 2003). The thesis is also devoted to the deepening of an argument of particular interest: the existence of complementarities between the HPWS practices. It has been widely shown by empirical evidence that when HPWP are adopted in bundles they are more likely to impact on firm’s performances than when adopted in isolation (Ichniowski, Prennushi, Shaw, 1997). Is it true also for the local production system of Reggio Emilia? The empirical analysis has the precise aim of providing evidence on the relations between the HPWS dimensions and the innovative and economic performances of the firm. As far as the first line of analysis is concerned it must to be stressed the fundamental role that innovation plays in the economy (Geroski & Machin, 1993; Stoneman & Kwoon 1994, 1996; OECD, 2005; EC, 2002). On this point the evidence goes from the traditional innovations, usually approximated by R&D investment expenditure or number of patents, to the introduction and adoption of ICT, in the recent years (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). If innovation is important then it is critical to analyse its determinants. In this work it is hypothesised that organizational changes and firm level industrial relations/employment relations aspects that can be put under the heading of HPWS, influence the propensity to innovate in product, process and quality of the firm. The general argument may goes as follow: changes in production management and work organization reconfigure the absorptive capacity of the firm towards specific technologies and, in so doing, they shape the technological trajectories along which the firm moves; cooperative industrial relations may lead to smother adoption of innovations, because not contrasted by unions. From the first empirical chapter emerges that the different types of innovations seem to respond in different ways to the HPWS variables. The underlying processes of product, process and quality innovations are likely to answer to different firm’s strategies and needs. Nevertheless, it is possible to extract some general results in terms of the most influencing HPWS factors on innovative performance. The main three aspects are training coverage, employees involvement and the diffusion of bonuses. These variables show persistent and significant relations with all the three innovation types. The same do the components having such variables at their inside. In sum the aspects of the HPWS influence the propensity to innovate of the firm. At the same time, emerges a quite neat (although not always strong) evidence of complementarities presence between HPWS practices. In terns of the complementarity issue it can be said that some specific complementarities exist. Training activities, when adopted and managed in bundles, are related to the propensity to innovate. Having a sound skill base may be an element that enhances the firm’s capacity to innovate. It may enhance both the capacity to absorbe exogenous innovation and the capacity to endogenously develop innovations. The presence and diffusion of bonuses and the employees involvement also spur innovative propensity. The former because of their incentive nature and the latter because direct workers participation may increase workers commitment to the organizationa and thus their willingness to support and suggest inovations. The other line of analysis provides results on the relation between HPWS and economic performances of the firm. There have been a bulk of international empirical studies on the relation between organizational changes and economic performance (Black & Lynch 2001; Zwick 2004; Janod & Saint-Martin 2004; Huselid 1995; Huselid & Becker 1996; Cappelli & Neumark 2001), while the works aiming to capture the relations between economic performance and unions or industrial relations aspects are quite scant (Addison & Belfield, 2001; Pencavel, 2003; Machin & Stewart, 1990; Addison, 2005). In the empirical analysis the integration of the two main areas of the HPWS represent a scarcely exploited approach in the panorama of both national and international empirical studies. As remarked by Addison “although most analysis of workers representation and employee involvement/high performance work practices have been conducted in isolation – while sometimes including the other as controls – research is beginning to consider their interactions” (Addison, 2005, p.407). The analysis conducted exploiting temporal lags between dependent and covariates, possibility given by the merger of cross section and panel data, provides evidence in favour of the existence of HPWS practices impact on firm’s economic performance, differently measured. Although it does not seem to emerge robust evidence on the existence of complementarities among HPWS aspects on performances there is evidence of a general positive influence of the single practices. The results are quite sensible to the time lags, inducing to hypothesize that time varying heterogeneity is an important factor in determining the impact of organizational changes on economic performance. The implications of the analysis can be of help both to management and local level policy makers. Although the results are not simply extendible to other local production systems it may be argued that for contexts similar to the Reggio Emilia province, characterized by the presence of small and medium enterprises organized in districts and by a deep rooted unionism, with strong supporting institutions, the results and the implications here obtained can also fit well. However, a hope for future researches on the subject treated in the present work is that of collecting good quality information over wider geographical areas, possibly at national level, and repeated in time. Only in this way it is possible to solve the Gordian knot about the linkages between innovation, performance, high performance work practices and industrial relations.

Effetti degli accordi Euro-Mediterrani sul comparto dell'ortofrutta fresca

In 1995, the European Union (EU) Member States and 12 Mediterranean countries launched in Barcelona a liberalization process that aims at establishing a free trade area (to be realized by 2010) and at promoting a sustainable and balanced economic development by the adoption of a new generation of Agreements: the Euro-Mediterranean Agreements (EMA). For the Mediterranean partner countries, the main concern is a better access for their fruit and vegetable exports to the European market. These products represent the main exports of these countries, and the EU is their first trading partner. On the other side, for the EU the main issue is not only the promotion of its products, but also the protection of its fruit and vegetables producers. Moreover, the trade with third countries is the key element of the Common Market Organization of the sector. Fruit and vegetables represent a very sensitive sector since their high seasonality, high perishability, and especially since the production of the Mediterranean countries is often similar to the European Mediterranean’s countries one. In fact, the agreements define preferences at the entrance of the EU market providing limited concessions for each partner, for specific products, limited quantities and calendars. This research tries to analyze the bilateral trade volume for fresh fruit and vegetables in the European and Italian markets in order to assess the effects of Mediterranean liberalization on this sector. Free trade of agricultural products represents a very actual topic in international trade and the Mediterranean countries, recognised as big producers of fruit and vegetables, as big exporters of their crops and actually significantly present on the European market, could be high competitors with the inward production because the outlet could be the same. The goal of this study is to provide some considerations about the competitiveness of mediterranean fruit and vegetables productions after Barcelona Process, in a first step for the European market and then also for the Italian one. The aim is to discuss the influence of the euro-mediterranean agreements on the fruit and vegetables trade between 10 foreign Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, and Turkey) and 15 EU countries in the period 1995-2007, by means of a gravity model, which is a widespread methodology in international trade analysis. The basic idea of gravity models is that bilateral trade from one country to another (as the dependent variable) can be explained by a set of factors: - factors that capture the potential of a country to export goods and services; - factors that capture the propensity of a country to imports goods and services; - any other forces that either attract or inhibit bilateral trade. This analysis compares only imports’ flows by Europe and by Italy (in volumes) from Mediterranean countries, since the exports’ flows toward those foreign countries are not significant, especially for Italy. The market of fruit and vegetables appears as a high heterogeneous group so it is very difficult to show a synthesis of the analysis performed and the related results. In fact, this sector includes the so called “poor products” (such as potatoes and legumes), and the “rich product”, such as nuts or exotic fruit, and there are a lot of different goods that arouse a dissimilar consumer demand which directly influence the import requirements. Fruit and vegetables sector includes products with extremely different biological cycles, leading to a very unlike seasonality. Moreover, the Mediterranean area appears as a highly heterogeneous bloc, including countries which differ from the others for economic size, production potential, capability to export and for the relationships with the EU. The econometric estimation includes 68 analyses, 34 of which considering the European import and 34 the Italian import and the products are examined in their aggregated form and in their disaggregated level. The analysis obtains a very high R2 coefficient, which means that the methodology is able to assess the import effects on fruit and vegetables associated to the Association Agreements, preferential tariffs, regional integration, and others information involved in the equation. The empirical analysis suggests that fruits and vegetables trade flows are well explained by some parameters: size of the involved countries (especially GDP and population of the Mediterranean countries); distances; prices of imported products; local production for the aggregated products; preferential expressed tariffs like duty free; sub-regional agreements that enforce the export capability. The euro-mediterranean agreements are significant in some of the performed analysis, confirming the slow and gradual evolution of euro- Mediterranean liberalization. The euro-mediterranean liberalization provides opportunities from one side, and imposes a new important challenge from the other side. For the EU the chance is that fruit and vegetables imported from the mediterranean area represent a support for local supply and a possibility to increase the range of products existing on the market. The challenge regards the competition of foreign products with the local ones since the types of productions are similar and markets coincide, especially in the Italian issue. We need to apply a strategy based not on a trade antagonism, but on the realization of a common plane market with the Mediterranean countries. This goal could be achieved enhancing the industrial cooperation in addition to commercial relationships, and increasing investments’ flows in the Mediterranean countries aiming at transforming those countries from potential competitors to trade partners and creating new commercial policies to export towards extra European countries.

The market manipulation regime in the European Union

Market manipulation is an illegal practice that enables a person can profit from practices that artificially raise or lower the prices of an instrument in the financial markets. Its prohibition is based on the 2003 Market Abuse Directive in the EU. The current market manipulation regime was broadly considered as a big success except for enforcement and supervisory inconsistencies in the Member States at the initial. A review of the market manipulation regime began at the end of 2007, which became quickly incorporated into the wider EU crisis-era reform program. A number of weaknesses of current regime have been identified, which include regulatory gaps caused by the development of trading venues and financial products, regulatory gaps concerning cross-border and cross-markets manipulation (particular commodity markets), legal uncertainty as a result of various implementation, and inefficient supervision and enforcement. On 12 June 2014, a new regulatory package of market abuse, Market Abuse Regulation and Directive on criminal sanctions for market abuse, has been adopted. And several changes will be made concerning the EU market manipulation regime. A wider scope of the regime and a new prohibition of attempted market manipulation will ensure the prevention of market manipulation at large. The AMPs will be subject to strict scrutiny of ESMA to reduce divergences in implementation. In order to enhance efficiency of supervision and enforcement, powers of national competent authorities will be strengthened, ESMA is imposed more power to settle disagreement between national regulators, and the administrative and criminal sanctioning regimes are both further harmonized. In addition, the protection of fundamental rights is stressed by the new market manipulation regime, and some measures are provided to guarantee its realization. Further, the success EU market manipulation regime could be of significant reference to China, helping China to refine its immature regime.

A Multilevel Model with Time Series Components for the Analysis of Tribal Art Prices

In the present work we perform an econometric analysis of the Tribal art market. To this aim, we use a unique and original database that includes information on Tribal art market auctions worldwide from 1998 to 2011. In Literature, art prices are modelled through the hedonic regression model, a classic fixed-effect model. The main drawback of the hedonic approach is the large number of parameters, since, in general, art data include many categorical variables. In this work, we propose a multilevel model for the analysis of Tribal art prices that takes into account the influence of time on artwork prices. In fact, it is natural to assume that time exerts an influence over the price dynamics in various ways. Nevertheless, since the set of objects change at every auction date, we do not have repeated measurements of the same items over time. Hence, the dataset does not constitute a proper panel; rather, it has a two-level structure in that items, level-1 units, are grouped in time points, level-2 units. The main theoretical contribution is the extension of classical multilevel models to cope with the case described above. In particular, we introduce a model with time dependent random effects at the second level. We propose a novel specification of the model, derive the maximum likelihood estimators and implement them through the E-M algorithm. We test the finite sample properties of the estimators and the validity of the own-written R-code by means of a simulation study. Finally, we show that the new model improves considerably the fit of the Tribal art data with respect to both the hedonic regression model and the classic multilevel model.

A new global wheat marketmodel (GLOWMM) for the analysis of wheat export prices

Food commodity prices fluctuations have important impacts on poverty and food insecurity across the world. Conventional models have not provided a complete picture of recent price spikes in agricultural commodity markets, while there is an urgent need for appropriate policy responses. Perhaps new approaches are needed in order to better understand international spill-overs, the feedback between the real and the financial sectors and also the link between food and energy prices. In this paper, we present results from a new worldwide dynamic model that provides short and long-run impulse responses of wheat international prices to various real shocks.

The Bible in Medieval Love Lyrics: A Fundamental Element of European Poetry Books

The focus of this study is the relationship among three different manuscripts (Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS α.R.4.4; Firenze, Bibl. Laurenziana MS Rediano 9; and London, BL, MS Harley, 2253) and the poetry they transmit. The aim of this research is to show the ways that the Bible was used in the transmission of the lyric poetry in the three literatures that they represent: Occitan (primarily through Marcabru’s songs), Italian (through the love poetry of Guittone d’Arezzo), and Middle English (through the Harley love lyrics and the MS.’s primary scribe), in a medieval European context.