Aspects of Early Rural Settlement in West Cornwall, UK

The investigation of issues concerning early rural settlement and landscape organisation in Europe is a task fraught with difficulty. The lack of contemporary documentation, together with the misinterpretation of the sources that there are has led to some misguided interpretations. This study seeks to explore familiar themes of early medieval landscape organisation through using a range of often later sources that are interpreted with regard to theories of territoriality and evolving territorialisation. A detailed local study in Cornwall may then be placed in the context of wider developments in terrns of settlement, society, economy and polity

The interrelatedness of organizational ambidexterity, dynamic capabilities and open innovation : a conceptual model towards a competitive advantage

Purpose – Establishing a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic environment involves optimizing an organization’s exploration and exploitation strategy. This paper aims to explore how an open innovation strategy complements the organization’s ambidextrous strategy in attaining a competitive advantage. Organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capability theories are also explored to investigate the impact of open innovation on the organization’s ambidextrous strategy and competitive advantage – especially inbound and outbound open innovation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a systematic literature review using Boolean search techniques, which was focused on the research fields of the sub-areas of general management, strategy, innovation, organization studies, information management, entrepreneurship, international business, marketing, and economics, supplemented by the snowball technique. Findings – Organizations that combine their ambidextrous strategy with open innovation attributes achieve a competitive advantage through developing their dynamic capabilities by which organizations change their value proposition. This study also shows that an ambidextrous strategy should no longer be viewed as a structural solution implemented by management, but also as a bottom-up intervention. Additionally, the authors found that the organization’s dynamic capabilities establish a feedback loop, which changes the organization’s ambidextrous strategy to resolve the efficiency–agility paradox. Originality/value – Previous research has focused on strategic orientation; however, hardly any research has investigated how the interrelatedness of open innovation, organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities support a competitive advantage. The authors present a conceptual model that inspires new research avenuesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Environmental ethics of the future

In future we shall have to enrich our impoverished and endangered world by substituting our claims on pleasure, comfort and power with a claim for responsibility and stewardship. By doing this we ought to transform nature from being the refuse-heap of technology into a breath of culture. The world was created for man to live on it and not to be mutilated and reduced to irredeemable chaos. As a criterion for our association with nature we must remember that everything that we are technologically capable of, is not necessarily morally desirable. We should not live and work at the expense of our environment but for the benefit of the environment. The tradition of man's dominion over nature should be replaced by a tradition of stewardship. This new approach to environmental ethics must constitute an inalienable part of a multi-disciplinary approach

European Marine Sand and Gravel Resources: Evaluation and environmental impacts of extraction - an introduction

Marine aggregates (sand and gravel) have emerged as a strategic mineral resource; this is due to an increasing general demand and to stricter regulations on the exploitation of landwon aggregates, in EU Member States. Annually, approx. 40 million m3 of marine sand and gravel are extracted, alone, from the North European inner (<60m water depth) continental shelf (www.sandandgravel.com/extraction). In the near future, the extraction will increase significantly, to provide vast quantities of material needed for the realisation of large-scale infrastructure projects, planned for Europe’s coastal areas; this is combined with the burgeoning general urbanisation of the coastal zone. At the same time, European coastal zones are under increasing pressure from coastal erosion. Thus, beach replenishment and other coastal defence schemes, requiring large quantities of suitable aggregate material, are necessary to manage such coastal retreat and accommodate the development (SELBY and OOMS, 1996; HUMPHREYS et al., 1996).Such increasing demand, together with the conservation of coastal ecosystems and diverse stakeholders’ interests, require that resource sustainability, environmental prudence and careful management are crucial components of the practice and regulation of marine aggregate operations. There is an urgent need for integrated and coherent approaches to the effective prospecting of commercially-viable marine sand and gravel deposits, the development of a science-based approach to their sustainable management, together with an environmental impact assessment of their exploitation. Such objectives require an interdisciplinary approach, to develop a thorough understanding of the sedimentary, hydrodynamic and ecological conditions of the inner continental shelf and adjacent coasts. Likewise, the use of ‘state-of-the-art’ approaches and instrumentation is needed.The main objectives of the RTN project EUMARSAND were: (a) to train young European researchers in individual research approaches; and (b) to provide them with an integrated and balanced view of the diverse and complex issues involved, through the application of a wide range of scientific approaches. As such, close co-operation between marine geologists, biologists, hydrodynamic and morphodynamic modellers and coastal engineers was established. The task of such a grouping was to integrate the research approaches involved in marine aggregate prospecting. Likewise, the undertaking of the assessment of the environmental impacts of offshore mining activities, using ‘state-of-the-art’ approaches and instrumentation.Nine Partners, from 8 countries, have been involved in the project, as listed in Table 1

Resource-saving technologies for the production of elastic leather materials

This monograph contains a collection of recent research papers focusing on advancing existing technologies and developing new technologies to improve the environmentally friendliness and save resources during the production of elastic leather materials. The papers are organized based on the type of technological process used to preserve raw hides. A lot of attention is devoted to mathematical planning, simulations, and multicriteria optimization of the technological processes using newly developed chemical reagents. The monograph contains a complex study of physicochemical properties and characteristics of the resulting leather materials. The developed technologies were tested by the private joint-stock company Chinbar (Kyiv, Ukraine) and implemented at Ukrainian tanneries. Total number of figures – 58, tables – 95, and references – 491

Metrics for Decision-Making in Energy Justice

Energy equity and justice have become priority considerations for policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars alike. To ensure that energy equity is incorporated into actual decisions and analysis, it is necessary to design, use, and continually improve energy equity metrics. In this article, we review the literature and practices surrounding such metrics. We present a working definition for energy justice and equity, and connect them to both criteria for and frameworks of metrics. We then present a large sampling of energy equity metrics, including those focused on vulnerability, wealth creation, energy poverty, life cycle, and comparative country-level dynamics.We conclude with a discussion of the limitations, gaps, and trade-offs associated with these various metrics and their interactions thereof

TEI (Twitter Exploitational Interaction): creación de una aplicación web de visualización de Twitter

Existe una gran cantidad de información muy valiosa que fluye a través de las redes sociales. Esta información llega a servir para detectar epidemias, realizar estudios de mercado, análisis de comportamientos, predicción de ataques cibernéticos e incluso sirve como sensor para detectar desastres medioambientales. El realizar un análisis de este tipo de datos, suele ser una tarea muy compleja, además de requerir un largo tiempo. Por ello, se requieren herramientas que permitan obtener conclusiones de forma más rápida y directa. Con este proyecto se pretende aportar una herramienta de bajo coste que permita al usuario realizar análisis de manera ágil y sencilla, para que, una vez que se ha detectado un evento, se pueda realizar una investigación más exhaustiva. En esta aplicación se analizan ciertas variables como son los mapas, ya que son una forma de ofrecer una amplia información de forma rápida. A su vez, el grado de los usuarios a lo largo del tiempo, es una forma de utilizar a los usuarios como sensores, de forma que en muchos casos se llegan a predecir eventos futuros. Otra metodología utilizada para la interpretación de grandes cantidades de datos, es el estudio estadístico, el cual tiene una importante labor de reducción de dimensiones, a la vez que ofrece datos concretos y concisos. Asimismo, la visualización de las mismas permite identificar distintas clases o firmas que caracterizan determinados eventos. Por último, las variables más populares pueden utilizarse como sistema de recomendación, de forma que se le aporte al usuario una visión más amplia de búsqueda.In the last years online social networks have been acquiring a place of its own in people's daily lives, witnessing an enormous increase in their number of users, the amount of data that is moved through them or the variety of topics they cover. This impressive and steady growth have transformed them in a fundamental tool for people to engage in social activities and keep connected to the world and for scientist to study, understand and predict many di erent phenomena, from social distress (such as the Arab Spring) to natural catastrophes (such as earthquakes), movie box revenues, behavioral dynamics or disease epidemics, among others. Twitter, in particular, due to its public policy and its simple structure has gained special attention both among users and scientists as an invaluable tool through which to curate and discover data, opinions and trends. Nevertheless, performing an analysis of this amount of data is a very complex and time consuming task involving data gathering, processing and analysis. This process, in science, is still done mostly manually and therefore, specially when scouting for new interesting topics and phenomena to deeply analyze later, it could greatly bene t from tools through which easily and rapidly cover several topics. That is, an Interactive Visualization tool for Twitter. Focusing in the variables that have been used the most in Twitter's scienti c literature, this projects presents a web based application whith which to scout, compare, or characterize di erent Twitter eventsin a simple and easy way. The application handles the data gathering process, allowing the user to query Twitter directly, requesting old events or new ones as needed. With a strong focus on geolocation and text matching as the most informative variables, the application also compiles and simpli es other information, inspired in Twitterbased scienti c analysis, to provide a comprehensive and powerful tool for discovery, along with a Top list of related users/hashtags/urls to enable a continuous exploration. Among the most interesting variables, the application includes the temporal evolution of number of users, used in the literature both to characterize events as well as to measure the size of information epidemics; of users degree, used to di erentiate exogenous from endogenous events as well as to predict the future spread of epidemics; or a glyph based representation of terms, inspired in interactive visualization techniques to detect IP attacks, to visually characterize the nature of an event. Despite being a functional tool in its own, this project is designed for scalability to serve as an open platform in which to integrate new research, from network analysis to recommender systems, to gather data (or upload existing data) for new analysis, and to showcase and bring to the public its results

Probabilistic Analysis of Transportation Systems for Oil and Natural Gas

In this chapter, the need of probabilistic modeling for design, construction, and operation of oil and gas pipelines is justified. Such modeling should use information and databases on deterministic and statistical dependencies related to deformation, damage accumulation, failure, fracture accidents, and catastrophes. The probabilistic design equations and their parameters for the characteristics of strength, durability, fracture toughness, risks of accidents, and manmade catastrophes are given. The economic efficiency of pipeline management based on controlling probabilistic characteristics through conducting diagnostic, repair-and-renewal operations while ensuring the acceptable levels of reliability and safety parameters is substantiated. The results of studies in the field of statistics and probabilities of emergency situations during manufacturing, construction, and operation conducted by Russian and foreign specialists are presented