Untangling hotel industry’s inefficiency: An SFA approach applied to a renowned Portuguese hotel chain

The present paper explores the technical efficiency of four hotels from Teixeira Duarte Group - a renowned Portuguese hotel chain. An efficiency ranking is established from these four hotel units located in Portugal using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. This methodology allows to discriminate between measurement error and systematic inefficiencies in the estimation process enabling to investigate the main inefficiency causes. Several suggestions concerning efficiency improvement are undertaken for each hotel studied.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Resolving the organic carbon budget of a humic, oligotrophic lake in the west of Ireland

Waters draining peatland catchments are generally coloured due to high levels of dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC). This flux represents a key link between soil and ocean carbon pools and fuels the aquatic food-web. Knowledge about these carbon fluxes is crucial to broaden our understanding of global C cycling. In three interconnected studies, the dynamics of aquatic carbon cycling were explored in the Burrishoole catchment (Ireland) and its main lake, Lough Feeagh. In the first study, changes in river water colour (a DOC proxy) were analysed in three streams feeding Lough Feeagh. Statistical analysis revealed that three variables, soil temperature, soil moisture deficit, and the North Atlantic Oscillation, explained 66% of colour variance. In the second study, high-frequency measurements of CO2, in the surface waters of Lough Feeagh, were examined along with a set of environmental variables. CO2 concentrations ranged between 491 and 1169 µatm, and the lake was a constant source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Statistical analysis revealed that inflow DOC concentration explained 68% of the CO2 variability. An organic carbon (OC) budget for Lough Feeagh during 2017 was estimated in the third study. The total OC load to the lake was 2544 t C (equivalent to 817 g m2 yr-1 of lake area), of which 51% was transported as DOC, and 41% as POC, 4% in ground water, 3% as net ecosystem production, and 1% in rainwater. The total OC fate was estimated to be 2689 t C (equivalent to 864 g m2 yr-1 of lake area) of which 49% and 12% were exported as DOC and POC respectively, 28% was deposited as sediment and 11% was emitted as CO2 to the atmosphere. These studies provided an improved understanding of the quantity of OC in flux and insights into the mechanisms driving these fluxe

Proceedings of the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the SMC2010 - 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference, July 21st - July 24th 2010

Proceedings of the 19th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the 19th Sound and Music Computing Conference - June 5-12, 2022 - Saint-Étienne (France). https://smc22.grame.f

Ways and Capacity in Archaeological Data Management in Serbia

Over the past year and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire world has witnessed inequalities across borders and societies. They also include access to archaeological resources, both physical and digital. Both archaeological data creators and users spent a lot of time working from their homes, away from artefact collections and research data. However, this was the perfect moment to understand the importance of making data freely and openly available, both nationally and internationally. This is why the authors of this paper chose to make a selection of data bases from various institutions responsible for preservation and protection of cultural heritage, in order to understand their policies regarding accessibility and usage of the data they keep. This will be done by simple visits to various web-sites or data bases. They intend to check on the volume and content, but also importance of the offered archaeological heritage. In addition, the authors will estimate whether the heritage has adequately been classified and described and also check whether data is available in foreign languages. It needs to be seen whether it is possible to access digital objects (documents and the accompanying metadata), whether access is opened for all users or it requires a certain hierarchy access, what is the policy of usage, reusage and distribution etc. It remains to be seen whether there are public API or whether it is possible to collect data through API. In case that there is a public API, one needs to check whether datasets are interoperable or messy, requiring data cleaning. After having visited a certain number of web-sites, the authors expect to collect enough data to make a satisfactory conclusion about accessibility and usage of Serbian archaeological data web bases