2,359 research outputs found

    An indigenous perspective on institutions for sustainable business in China

    Get PDF

    An indigenous perspective on institutions for sustainable business in China

    Get PDF

    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volume

    Get PDF
    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volum

    A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution

    Get PDF
    Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners

    Generative AI-empowered Simulation for Autonomous Driving in Vehicular Mixed Reality Metaverses

    Full text link
    In the vehicular mixed reality (MR) Metaverse, the distance between physical and virtual entities can be overcome by fusing the physical and virtual environments with multi-dimensional communications in autonomous driving systems. Assisted by digital twin (DT) technologies, connected autonomous vehicles (AVs), roadside units (RSU), and virtual simulators can maintain the vehicular MR Metaverse via digital simulations for sharing data and making driving decisions collaboratively. However, large-scale traffic and driving simulation via realistic data collection and fusion from the physical world for online prediction and offline training in autonomous driving systems are difficult and costly. In this paper, we propose an autonomous driving architecture, where generative AI is leveraged to synthesize unlimited conditioned traffic and driving data in simulations for improving driving safety and traffic efficiency. First, we propose a multi-task DT offloading model for the reliable execution of heterogeneous DT tasks with different requirements at RSUs. Then, based on the preferences of AV's DTs and collected realistic data, virtual simulators can synthesize unlimited conditioned driving and traffic datasets to further improve robustness. Finally, we propose a multi-task enhanced auction-based mechanism to provide fine-grained incentives for RSUs in providing resources for autonomous driving. The property analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed mechanism and architecture are strategy-proof and effective, respectively

    Effective Strategies for Midsized Nonprofit Human Service Organizations in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area to Maintain Financial Sustainability

    Get PDF
    This qualitative multiple case study explored the perspectives of nonprofits on factors impacting and challenges associated with utilizing revenue diversification and structured spending in midsized nonprofit human service organizations (NHSO) in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The researcher conducted semi-structured one-on-one interviews with eight nonprofit officials in Washington, D.C., to gain insight into their perspectives on revenue and spending strategies. The researcher also used document review to compare and verify the information from the semi-structured interviews and add more nuances to what the interviews provided. The findings of the study demonstrated that NHSOs could implement revenue diversification and structured spending through community engagement, partnerships, and optimal resource utilization. The results also revealed that revenue and expense strategies allow nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to achieve financial stability and flexibility in terms of organizational viability. Moreover, the results unveil the need for financial independence is a substantial barrier for NHSOs to implement financial strategies. The study\u27s findings proposed some practical recommendations to help nonprofits and financial advisors improve their services and avoid economic unsustainability

    Modelação e Negociação de Flexibilidade em Comunidades de Energia Renovável

    Get PDF
    The progressive replacement of traditional generation resources with intermittent resources has reduced the available supply-side flexibility and increased the need to unlock flexibility on the demand-side. At the same time, the rising electricity consumption in residential buildings requires an analysis of the potential flexibility of the loads within them to contribute to the operation needs of electrical grids. Lastly, regulations governing self consumption have allowed end consumers to form energy communities based on local electricity markets. This is an additional incentive to define strategies for trading available flexibility at local level, in separate but simultaneously integrated structures within wholesale electricity markets. The proposed dissertation work focuses on studying the flexibility of energy production and consumption by prosumers within a Renewable Energy Community (REC). The objective is to investigate how residential flexibility can be determined, modeled, and aggregated for trading in a local market created for this purpose. The work to be developed will present a two-stage model that determines residential technical flexibility and establishes a local market only for its transaction. In the first stage, the optimal scheduling of domestic devices (flexible units or FUs) for each prosumer is determined, serving as a baseline for comparison, along with the technical limits of flexibility (maximum and minimum possible consumption profiles) for each FU. In the second stage, a market model is established only for flexibility exchanges. The technical flexibility determined in the first stage is offered to the Community Manager (CM) as flexibility offer, with an associated price. This entity acts as an aggregator and simultaneously as the operator of the local market. At this level, the Distribution System Operator (DSO) submits its flexibility requirements for the next day to the CM, who is responsible for executing the clearing process. The pricing of the flexibility offered by prosumers in the market is based on the base energy tariff they are subject to, which corresponds to the cost of their optimal scheduling obtained in the first stage, without considering this flexibility. Therefore, offering flexibility becomes an incentive to reduce prosumers energy costs or increase their utility, complementing their mere participation in energy markets. A case study based on a renewable energy community with a strong penetration of emerging technologies is used to validate and demonstrate the relevance of the proposed approach in terms of determining and activating residential FU flexibility. The obtained results show that participation in the local flexibility market leads to a reduction in prosumers energy costs, around 4.5%, in average. It can be an incentive for prosumers to join RECs that would not only have local energy trading structures but also mechanisms for negotiating and sharing flexibility. In addition, it was evidenced that the impact of electric vehicle chargers and battery energy storage systems on the total flexibility offered and accepted in the market is much greater than that the impact of other small loads studied. This not only constitutes an incentive for the study of the operational flexibility of these resources but also for investments in these emerging technologies.A substituição progressiva dos recursos de geração tradicionais por recursos intermitentes tem reduzido a flexibilidade disponível do lado da oferta e aumentado a necessidade de desbloqueá-la do lado da procura. Ao mesmo tempo, o aumento do consumo de eletricidade nos edifícios residenciais obriga a que seja analisada a flexibilidade potencial das cargas que o constituem, de modo a contribuir para as necessidades de operação das redes elétricas. Por último, a regulamentação do autoconsumo, tem permitido aos consumidores finais constituir comunidades energéticas baseadas em mercados locais de eletricidade. Isto torna ainda mais importante a definição de estratégias para comercializar a flexibilidade disponível a esse nível, em estruturas de mercado local separadas, mas simultaneamente integradas nos mercados grossistas de eletricidade. O trabalho proposto para dissertação assenta no estudo da flexibilidade da produção e consumo de energia por parte dos prosumidores de uma Comunidade de Energia Renovável. O objetivo é estudar como a flexibilidade residencial pode ser determinada, modelada e agregada de modo a ser transacionada num mercado local criado para esse fim. Assim, o trabalho a ser desenvolvido apresentará um modelo de dois estágios que determina a flexibilidade técnica residencial e cria um mercado local exclusivo para transaciona-la. Numa primeira fase, determina-se o escalonamento óptimo dos dispositivos domésticos (unidades flexíveis ou UF) de cada prosumidor, o que constitui uma baseline de comparação, bem como os limites técnicos de flexibilidade (perfis de consumo máximos e mínimos possíveis) de cada UF. Num segundo estágio, é estabelecido um modelo de mercado apenas para trocas de flexibilidade. A flexibilidade técnica determinada no primeiro estágio é disponibilizada ao Gestor de Comunidade (CM), enquanto oferta de flexibilidade, com um preço associado. Esta entidade desempenha as funções de agregador e simultaneamente de operador do mercado local. A este nível, o Operador do Sistema de Distribuição (ORD) submete os seus requisitos de flexibilidade, para o dia seguinte, ao CM, que é responsável pelo executar o clearing. A precificação da flexibilidade oferecida pelos prosumidores em mercado é feita com base no valor da tarifa base de energia a que estão sujeitos, que corresponde ao custo do seu escalonamento ótimo, obtido no primeiro estágio, que não considera essa mesma flexibilidade. Portanto, oferecer flexibilidade torna-se um incentivo para reduzir os custos energéticos dos prosumidores ou aumentar a sua utilidade, o que complementa a sua mera participação nos mercados de energia. Um caso de estudo baseado numa comunidade de energia com forte penetração de tecnologias emergentes é utilizado e valida a metodologia desenvolvida. Para além disso é evidenciada a relevância da abordagem proposta em termos de determinação e ativação da flexibilidade de UFs residenciais os impactos das mesmas no fecho de mercado. Os resultados evidenciam que participação no mercado local de flexibilidade induz uma redução dos custos energéticos dos prosumidores, na casa 4.5%, em média. O impacto dos carregadores de veículos elétricos e dos sistemas de armazenamento de energia em baterias na flexibilidade total oferecida e aceite em mercado é muito superior ao de outras pequenas cargas estudadas. Tudo isto pode vir a resultar num incentivo ao investimento nos recursos referidos, bem como à associação de prosumidores em comunidades de energia renovável, onde para além de estruturas locais de comercialização de energia, existam outras que permitam a negociação e partilha de flexibilidade

    Assessing prioritization measures for a private land conservation program in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

    Get PDF
    Private land conservation has become an important tool for protecting biodiversity and habitat, but methods for prioritizing and scheduling conservation on private land are still being developed. While return on investment methods have been suggested as a potential path forward, the different processes linking private landscapes to the socioeconomic systems in which they are embedded create unique challenges for scheduling conservation with this approach. We investigated a range of scheduling approaches within a return on investment framework for breeding waterfowl and broods in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Current conservation targeting for waterfowl in the region focuses mostly on the distribution and abundance of breeding waterfowl. We tested whether MaxGain approaches for waterfowl conservation differed from MinLoss approaches in terms of return on investment and which approach performed best in avoiding loss of waterfowl and broods separately. We also examined variation in results based upon the temporal scale of the abundance layers used for input and compared the region's current scheduling approach with results from our simulations. Our results suggested that MinLoss was the most efficient scheduling approach for both breeding waterfowl and broods and that using just breeding waterfowl to target areas for conservation programs might cause organizations to overlook important areas for broods, particularly over shorter timespans. The higher efficiency of MinLoss approaches in our simulations also indicated that incorporating probability of wetland drainage into decision-making improved the overall return on investment. We recommend that future conservation scheduling for easements in the region and for private land conservation in general include some form of return on investment or cost-effective analysis to make conservation more transparent

    Current issues of the management of socio-economic systems in terms of globalization challenges

    Get PDF
    The authors of the scientific monograph have come to the conclusion that the management of socio-economic systems in the terms of global challenges requires the use of mechanisms to ensure security, optimise the use of resource potential, increase competitiveness, and provide state support to economic entities. Basic research focuses on assessment of economic entities in the terms of global challenges, analysis of the financial system, migration flows, logistics and product exports, territorial development. The research results have been implemented in the different decision-making models in the context of global challenges, strategic planning, financial and food security, education management, information technology and innovation. The results of the study can be used in the developing of directions, programmes and strategies for sustainable development of economic entities and regions, increasing the competitiveness of products and services, decision-making at the level of ministries and agencies that regulate the processes of managing socio-economic systems. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in the educational process and conducting scientific research on the management of socio-economic systems in the terms of global challenges
    corecore