The challenges of a social enterprise with a broker model: The case of Plugged-in

The existing sources on the creation of new business are limited in providing assistance when it comes to specific challenges that the foundation team of an enterprise may face. Likewise, in the case of the social enterprise Plugged-in, there are key challenges with regard to the business model. In this work project, a benchmarking approach was chosen to address these challenges and to derive implications from the practices established by successful sample enterprises. Besides several best practices, potential approaches to solutions were identified and suggestions for further examination were given.

Financial Statement Analysis for Enterprise Network Design

Part 8: Business Strategies Alignment

Modelos, lenguajes y abstracción (ING)

Every construction process (whatever buildings, machines, software, etc.) requires first to make a model of the artifact that is going to be built. This model should be based on a paradigm or meta-model, which defines the basic modeling elements: which real world concepts can be represented, which relationships can be established among them, and son on. There also should be a language to represent, manipulate and think about that model. Usually this model should be redefined at various levels of abstraction. So both, the paradigm an the language, must have abstraction capacity. In this paper I characterize the relationships that exist between these concepts: model, language and abstraction. I also analyze some historical models, like the relational model for databases, the imperative programming model and the object oriented model. Finally, I remark the need to teach that model-driven approach to students, and even go further to higher level models, like component models o business models.

Development and Validation of a Model-Based Combustion Controller for Water Injection Management

This manuscript reports the overall development of a Ph.D. research project during the “Mechanics and advanced engineering sciences” course at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. The project is focused on the development of a combustion control system for an innovative Spark Ignited engine layout. In details, the controller is oriented to manage a prototypal engine equipped with a Port Water Injection system. The water injection technology allows an increment of combustion efficiency due to the knock mitigation effect that permits to keep the combustion phasing closer to the optimal position with respect to the traditional layout. At the beginning of the project, the effects and the possible benefits achievable by water injection have been investigated by a focused experimental campaign. Then the data obtained by combustion analysis have been processed to design a control-oriented combustion model. The model identifies the correlation between Spark Advance, combustion phasing and injected water mass, and two different strategies are presented, both based on an analytic and semi-empirical approach and therefore compatible with a real-time application. The model has been implemented in a combustion controller that manages water injection to reach the best achievable combustion efficiency while keeping knock levels under a pre-established threshold. Three different versions of the algorithm are described in detail. This controller has been designed and pre-calibrated in a software-in-the-loop environment and later an experimental validation has been performed with a rapid control prototyping approach to highlight the performance of the system on real set-up. To further make the strategy implementable on an onboard application, an estimation algorithm of combustion phasing, necessary for the controller, has been developed during the last phase of the PhD Course, based on accelerometric signals.

Nuovi modelli di business nel Web 3.0

Il Web 3.0 è un'estensione del web come lo conosciamo oggi basata sulla blockchain e che ha permesso negli ultimi anni lo sviluppo della Token Economy. I token e gli smart contract sono gli strumenti che permettono di creare nuovi modelli di business tokenizzati. Questa tesi ha lo scopo di capire quale sia il legame tra lo sviluppo delle tecnologie del Web 3.0 e i modelli di business che ne derivano, andando a individuare i modelli imprenditoriali più noti, la loro value proposition e le complicazioni ad essi associate.

Programação esportiva na TV Brasil : a influência da ideologia e indústria cultural

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Experimental and theoretical study of transport properties in uniaxially pressed (Bi, Pb)(2)Sr(2)Ca(2)Cu(3)O(10+delta) ceramic samples

Experimental and theoretical studies on the magnetic field dependence of the electrical resistance R(B(a)) and the transport noise (TN) in polycrystalline high-T(c) superconductors subjected to different uniaxial compacting pressures were conducted. X-ray diffraction rocking curves were performed in different surfaces of the samples in order to investigated the degree of texture The results indicated an improvement of the degree of texture with increasing the uniaxial compacting pressure In theoretical simulations of the data, the polycrystalline superconductors were described as a series-parallel array of Josephson devices The intergranular magnetic field is described within the framework of the intragranular flux-trapping model and the distribution of the grain-boundary angles is assumed to follow the Rayleigh statistical function The proposed model describes well the experimental magnetoresistance R(B(a)) data We have found that the behavior of the R(B(a)) curves changes appreciably when different uniaxially compacting pressures are applied to the sample and such a changes are reproduced by the model when different grain-boundary angles distributions are used In addition, changes in the R(B(a)) dependence have their counterparts in the experimental transport noise signals (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Ambient assisted living technology: comparative perspectives of users and caregivers

Developed societies are currently facing severe demographic changes: the world population is ageing at an unprecedented rate. This demographic trend will be also followed by an increase of people with physical limitations. New challenges are being raised to the traditional health care systems, not only in Portugal, but also in all other European states. There is an urgent need to find solutions that allow extending the time people can live in their preferred environment by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility. AAL4ALL is a project currently being developed in cooperation with 34 Portuguese interdisciplinary partners, from industry to academia, R&D and social disciplines, which employs a novel conceptual approach through the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) associated to a business model and validated through large scale trial. This paper presents a comparative perspective of the needs and attitudes towards technology of the AAL users and caregivers identified in the analysis of a set of three different surveys: a users survey targeted at the Portuguese seniors and pre-seniors; an informal caregivers survey targeted at the family, friends and neighbours who provide care without any financial compensation; and a formal caregivers survey targeted at physicians, nurses,psychologists, social workers, and direct-care workers providing care to elders. The first results indicate that AAL solutions must be affordable,user friendly and have a true perceived benefit to their users.

An ecosystem of products and systems for ambient intelligence – the AAL4ALL users perspective

Developed societies are currently facing severe demographic changes: the world is getting older at an unprecedented rate. In 2000, about 420 million people, or approximately 7 percent of the world population, were aged 65 or older. By 2050, that number will be nearly 1.5 billion people, about 16 percent of the world population. This demographic trend will be also followed by an increase of people with physical limitations. New challenges will be raised to the traditional health care systems, not only in Portugal, but also in all other European states. There is an urgent need to find solutions that allow extending the time people can live in their preferred environment by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility. AAL4ALL presents an idea for an answer through the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) associated to a business model and validated through large scale trial. This paper presents the results of the first survey developed within the AAL4ALL project: the users’ survey targeted at the Portuguese seniors and pre-seniors. This paper is, thus, about the lives of the Portuguese population aged 50 and over.

Inovação no modelo de negócio: o caso do setor grossista alimentar em Portugal

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Empreendedorismo e Internacionalização Orientada por Professor Doutor José de Freitas Santos

A data-mining-based methodology for transmission expansion planning

In recent decades, all over the world, competition in the electric power sector has deeply changed the way this sector’s agents play their roles. In most countries, electric process deregulation was conducted in stages, beginning with the clients of higher voltage levels and with larger electricity consumption, and later extended to all electrical consumers. The sector liberalization and the operation of competitive electricity markets were expected to lower prices and improve quality of service, leading to greater consumer satisfaction. Transmission and distribution remain noncompetitive business areas, due to the large infrastructure investments required. However, the industry has yet to clearly establish the best business model for transmission in a competitive environment. After generation, the electricity needs to be delivered to the electrical system nodes where demand requires it, taking into consideration transmission constraints and electrical losses. If the amount of power flowing through a certain line is close to or surpasses the safety limits, then cheap but distant generation might have to be replaced by more expensive closer generation to reduce the exceeded power flows. In a congested area, the optimal price of electricity rises to the marginal cost of the local generation or to the level needed to ration demand to the amount of available electricity. Even without congestion, some power will be lost in the transmission system through heat dissipation, so prices reflect that it is more expensive to supply electricity at the far end of a heavily loaded line than close to an electric power generation. Locational marginal pricing (LMP), resulting from bidding competition, represents electrical and economical values at nodes or in areas that may provide economical indicator signals to the market agents. This article proposes a data-mining-based methodology that helps characterize zonal prices in real power transmission networks. To test our methodology, we used an LMP database from the California Independent System Operator for 2009 to identify economical zones. (CAISO is a nonprofit public benefit corporation charged with operating the majority of California’s high-voltage wholesale power grid.) To group the buses into typical classes that represent a set of buses with the approximate LMP value, we used two-step and k-means clustering algorithms. By analyzing the various LMP components, our goal was to extract knowledge to support the ISO in investment and network-expansion planning.

Commercial agents portfolio optimization in electricity markets

As it is well known, competitive electricity markets require new computing tools for power companies that operate in retail markets in order to enhance the management of its energy resources. During the last years there has been an increase of the renewable penetration into the micro-generation which begins to co-exist with the other existing power generation, giving rise to a new type of consumers. This paper develops a methodology to be applied to the management of the all the aggregators. The aggregator establishes bilateral contracts with its clients where the energy purchased and selling conditions are negotiated not only in terms of prices but also for other conditions that allow more flexibility in the way generation and consumption is addressed. The aggregator agent needs a tool to support the decision making in order to compose and select its customers' portfolio in an optimal way, for a given level of profitability and risk.

Desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de pré-selecção de recursos para empresas ágeis/virtuais

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Mental imagery in interpreting – a neurocognitive perspective

The paper discusses mental imagery as an important part of information processing performed during interpreting. Mental imagery is examined to see if visual processing used to remember the source text or to facilitate its understanding helps to ‗off-load‘ other cognitive (mainly linguistic) resources in interpreting. The discussion is based on a neurocognitively-oriented depictivist model by Kosslyn (1994). The overview of mental imagery processes and systems is followed by the discussion of imagery used in interpreting. First, imagery development in student interpreters is described on the basis of a note-taking course for would-be consecutive interpreters organized by the author at AMU. The initial part of the course devoted to imagery involves visualizations of geographical, descriptive and narrative texts. The description abounds in authentic examples and presents conclusions for interpreting trainers. Later, imagery as employed by professional interpreters is discussed on the basis of a qualitative survey. General implications of the use of mental imagery for cognitive processing limitations in interpreting are presented in the concluding section.

Integração de informação entre Sistemas Geracionais distintos: uma experiência e sistematização na ITV

A natural evolução dos sistemas de informação nas organizações envolve por um lado a instalação de equipamentos actualizados, e por outro a adopção de novas aplicações de suporte ao negócio, acompanhando o desenvolvimento dos mercados, as mudanças no modelo de negócio e a maturação da organização num novo contexto. Muitas vezes esta evolução implica a preservação dos dados existentes e de funcionalidades não cobertas pelas novas aplicações. Este facto leva ao desenvolvimento e execução de processos de migração de dados, de aplicações, e de integração de sistemas legados. Estes processos estão condicionados ao meio tecnológico disponível e ao conhecimento existente sobre os sistemas legados, sendo sensíveis ao contexto em que se desenrolam. Esta dissertação apresenta um estado da arte das abordagens à migração e integração, descreve as diversas alternativas, e ilustra de uma forma sistematizada e comparativa os exercícios realizados usando diferentes abordagens, num ambiente real de migração e integração em mudança.