Tourism and hospitality sector electricity use: evidences from 12 EU countries

At the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP21) in 2015, 195 countries agreed to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change. Along this line, the EU is committed to a 40% reduction in their domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This new target represents a significant progression beyond its existing 20% emission reduction commitment by 2020. Thus, greater efforts will be needed affecting all productive sectors in order to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption. In order to reach this ambitious target, new measures affecting all economic sectors would be needed. This paper focuses on the tourism sector. This aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between tourist overnight stays and the hospitality sector electricity consumption. These relationships are studied for 12 EU countries during the period 2005-2012, accordingly with the available data. With this aim, econometric panel data techniques are used in order to estimate an electricity consumption function for the hospitality sector which depends on tourism, income, price and climate variables. The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is also tested. An Energy-tourism Kuznets Curve would show that increasing earnings from tourism will bring about reduced electricity consumption from a threshold point, which could be related to the fact that more earnings could imply undertaking more energy efficiency measures

New Life Flats - El plan de negocio

Este trabajo de fin de grado está basado en la creación del plan de negocio de una nueva empresa del sector inmobiliario. New Life Flats, es una empresa cuya principal actividad económica se basa en la compra de inmuebles viejos y anticuados, que puedan ser potencialmente reformados para su posterior venta en el mercado. New Life Flats prestará sus servicios a inversores interesados en desarrollar un proyecto en la industria inmobiliaria, y actuará de intermediaria llevando a cabo el proceso completo desde la búsqueda de propiedades hasta la venta final, gracias a la financiación aportada por estosinversores. Tras la venta final, los beneficios obtenidos se repartirán entre ambas partessegún lo acordado.A lo largo de este trabajo, se han desarrollado los diferentes puntos requeridos para analizar si la empresa que se quiere crear es rentable o no, y en caso afirmativo, cuales serían los diferentes aspectos y requisitos necesarios para llevar a cabo esta idea de negocio. <br /

An RVE-based multiscale theory of solids with micro-scale inertia and body force effects

A multiscale theory of solids based on the concept of representative volume element (RVE) and accounting for micro-scale inertia and body forces is proposed. A simple extension of the classical Hill–Mandel Principle together with suitable kinematical constraints on the micro-scale displacements provide the variational framework within which the theory is devised. In this context, the micro-scale equilibrium equation and the homogenisation relations among the relevant macro- and micro-scale quantities are rigorously derived by means of straightforward variational arguments. In particular, it is shown that only the fluctuations of micro-scale inertia and body forces about their RVE volume averages may affect the micro-scale equilibrium problem and the resulting homogenised stress. The volume average themselves are mechanically relevant only to the macro-scale

A bibliometric study of the research area of videogames using Dimensions.ai database

Videogames are a very interesting area of research for fields as diverse as computer science, health, psychology or even social sciences. Every year a growing number of articles are published in different topics inside this field, so it is very convenient to study the different bibliometric data in order to consolidate the research efforts. Thus, the aim of this work is to conduct a study on the distribution of articles related to videogames in the different fields of research, as well as to measure their interest over time, to identify the sources, countries and authors with the highest scientific production. In order to carry out this analysis, the information system Dimensions.ai has been considered, since it covers a large number of documents and allows for easy downloading and analysis of datasets. According to the study, three countries are the most prolific in this area: USA, Canada and UK. The obtained results also indicate that the fields with the highest number of publications are Information and Computer Sciences, Medical and Health Sciences, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, in this order. With regard to the impact of the publications, differences between the number of citations, and the number of Altmetric Attention Score, have been found

An approximation to household overcrowding: evidence from Ecuador

This paper addresses the household overcrowding problem. To do so, a binary choice model with logit specification is constructed. The cross section data used in the empirical analysis comes from Ecuador which is a developing South American country. Although, household overcrowding has more incidence in developing countries, it also takes place in developed economies. The findings of the research suggest that a set of variables related to the head of the household like his/her gender, age, and level of education affect the probability of being under overcrowding situation in the household. Furthermore, the regime of tenancy under which the household is living in the dwelling also influences the probability of being in overcrowding situation

Short CFD simulation activities in the context of fluid-mechanical learning in a multidisciplinary student body

17 p.Simulation activities are a useful tool to improve competence in industrial engineering bachelors. Specifically, fluid simulation allows students to acquire important skills to strengthen their theoretical knowledge and improve their future professional career. However, these tools usually require long training times and they are usually not available in the subjects of B.Sc. degrees. In this article, a new methodology based on short lessons is raised and evaluated in the fluid-mechanical subject for students enrolled in three different bachelor degree groups: B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and B.Sc. in Electronic and Automatic Engineering. Statistical results show a good acceptance in terms of usability, learning, motivation, thinking over, satisfaction and scalability. Additionally, a machine-learning based approach was applied to find group peculiarities and differences among them in order to identify the need for further personalization of the learning activity.S

Reproduetive biology aud conservation of Petrocoptis grandiflora in the NW of the Iberian Península

GulríÁN. J., SÁNCHEZ, 1. M. &amp; GuITIÁN. P. 1993. Biología y Conservación de Prírocoptis grandilora cocí Noroeste Ibérico. flor. Ccmplutcnsis 18: 123-128 Se dan a conocer algunos datos básicos sobre la situación actual de las poblaciones de Petrocoptis g,-and,jlcra en el NW Ibérico y sobre su Biología (Fenología, Polinización, Fructificación y Dispersión). Finalmenle se señala la necesidad de profundizar en el conocimiento de la Biología Reproductiva de los endemismos ibéricos como paso previo al establecimiento de medidas de protección eficaces

Damage-driven strain localisation in networks of fibres: A computational homogenisation approach

In many applications, such as textiles, fibreglass, paper and several kinds of biological fibrous tissues, the main load-bearing constituents at the micro-scale are arranged as a fibre network. In these materials, rupture is usually driven by micro-mechanical failure mechanisms, and strain localisation due to progressive damage evolution in the fibres is the main cause of macro-scale instability. We propose a strain-driven computational homogenisation formulationbased on Representative Volume Element (RVE), within a framework in which micro-scale fibre damage can lead to macro-scale localisation phenomena. The mechanical stiffness considered here for the fibrous structure system is due to: i) an intra-fibre mechanism in which each fibre is axially stretched, and as a result, it can suffer damage; ii) an inter-fibre mechanism in which the stiffness results from the variation of the relative angle between pairs of fibres. The homogenised tangent tensor, which comes from the contribution of these two mechanisms, is required to detect the so-called bifurcation point at the macro-scale, through the spectral analysis of the acoustic tensor. This analysis can precisely determine the instant at which the macro-scale problem becomes ill-posed. At such a point, the spectral analysis provides information about the macro-scale failure pattern (unit normal and crack-opening vectors). Special attention is devoted to present the theoretical fundamentals rigorously in the light of variational formulations for multi-scale models. Also, the impact of a recent derived more general boundary condition for fibre networks is assessed in the context of materials undergoing softening. Numerical examples showing the suitability of the present methodology are also shown and discussed