Prove accelerate per la verifica strutturale di trattrici agricole

The needs of customers to improve machinery in recent years have driven tractor manufacturers to reduce product life and development costs. The most significant efforts have concentrated on the attempt to decrease the costs of the experimental testing sector. The validation of the tractor prototypes are presently performed with a replication of a particularly unfavourable condition a defined number of times. These laboratory tests do not always faithfully reproduce the real use of the tractor. Therefore, field tests are also carried out to evaluate the prototype during real use, but it is difficult to perform such tests for a period of time long enough to reproduce tractor life usage. In this context, accelerated tests have been introduced in the automotive sector, producing a certain damage to the structure in a reduced amount of time. The goal of this paper is to define a methodology for the realization of accelerated structural tests on a tractor, through the reproduction of real customer tractor usage. A market analysis was performed on a 80 kW power tractor and a series of measures were then taken to simulate the real use of the tractor. Subsequently, the rainflow matrixes of the signals were extrapolated and used to estimate the tractor loadings for 10 years of tractor life. Finally these loadings were reproduced on testing grounds with special road pavements. The results obtained highlight the possibility of reproducing field loadings during road driving on proving grounds (PGs), but the use of two field operations is also necessary. The global acceleration factor obtained in this first step of the methodology is equal to three.

The Road to Poverty Reduction: Corporate Governance and Female Participation in MFIs

1.Microfinance Industry – Context of Analysis. This paper is an introduction to the microfinance industry. It serves as a context of analysis, for the empirical settings and basis for building the theoretical argument for the thesis. 2.Women in Microfinance Institutions: The Road to Poverty Reduction and Gender Equality? One of the unique aspects of microfinance institutions is their focus on outreach, i.e. their ability to reach the poor. This paper explores whether the presence of women in microfinance institutions is associated with improved outreach. Building on prior research that shows that women tend to improve financial performance and social responsibility, we examine an original dataset of 226 microfinance institutions. The empirical results suggest that the presence of a female CEO, female managers and female loan officers is directly related to improved outreach, while the presence of women board members is not. 3. Women in Microfinance Institutions: Is There a Trade-Off Between Outreach and Sustainability? Abstract This paper’s contribution to the understanding of microfinance is two-fold. First, while it has been shown that female CEOs in MFIs increase financial performance, it will be argued that female managers, female loan officers and female board members will do the same. Secondly, having previously shown that having a female presence in management in MFIs improves social performance the outreach, it will be argued that having females in the MFIs’ management will not lead to a trade-off between outreach and sustainability. These findings are based on an original data set of 226 MFIs. Statistical analysis demonstrates that a weak relationship between female managers and female loan officers vis-à-vis financial performance, but female board members do not. The trade-off between outreach and sustainability can be avoided with the appointment of females to the MFIs’ management positions, but the same cannot be concluded for female board members.