Direct interface circuits for resistive sensors affected by lead wire resistances

This article proposes two novel circuits for the digital readout of resistive sensors with parasitic series resistances caused by the lead wire needed to connect remote sensors. Both circuits are based on so-called direct interface circuits (DICs). These circuits perform a resistance-to-time-to-digital conversion by adding some external components to a digital processors (DP). The new circuits are very simple since they only use a capacitor and two or three resistors, depending on the proposal. A single discharging of the capacitor provides two or three time measurements to estimate the resistance of the sensor, eliminating the influence of lead wire resistances. Using a single discharging process simultaneously reduces error sources, measurement time, and energy consumption. A circuit that uses an FPGA as DP to estimate resistances corresponding to several thermal sensors presents systematic errors below 0.15% or 0.12%, depending on the proposal, for a maximum measurement time of 1.09 ms.This work was supported by the Spanish Government under contract PID2021-125091OB-I00. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA

A simple interface circuit for digital readout of lossy capacitive sensors

Direct Interface Circuits (DICs) allow straightforward digital reading from a range of sensors. Their architecture consists of a few passive components that help a digital processor (DP) perform a series of charge and discharge processes that provide time measurements to determine the sensor's resistive, capacitive, or inductive magnitudes. This article presents a new DIC that only requires two resistors for the digital readout of a group of sensors with a wide range of applications, namely lossy capacitive sensors. The DP does not need any analog element in its architecture, and the arithmetic operations involved are simple additions and multiplications. Apart from its simplicity, the new circuit brings significant improvements compared to other DICs proposed in the literature for the same type of sensors. Thus, the systematic errors in the capacitance estimates are only 0.30% for a wider range (100 pF − 95.92 nF), and the measurement time is 34% shorter.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU

Drivers and Impacts of R&D Adoption on Transport and Logistics Services

Actually, technologies and applications in industries are changing via business restructuring, new business models, new knowledge and supply chains. So R&D is not focused primarily on manufacturing industry as it used to be, but on different kinds of industries as logistics and transport (TLS). Nevertheless, the characteristics of the TLS industry determine the introduction of specific R&D solutions accordingly to sectors operations. The objective of this paper is to describe the R&D opportunities in the TLS industry and how managers use them to make their businesses more innovative and efficient. Using the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) model the paper identifies the links between R&D adoption and innovation dynamics. Relating the findings, on the driver’s side there are three points that are worth mentioning: increasing market competition, the relationships of firms interacting with each other and the availability and quality of complementary assets such as employee skills and IT know-how. On the impacts’ side, firms advanced in terms of implementing R&D solutions are more likely to implement organizational changes. Finally, a set of recommendations on how to further improve the continuous innovation in the TLS industry is presented

The mobbing in the journalistic profession: Empirical analysis of the psychological harassment in the work and his influence in the journalist and in the informative company

Los casos de mobbing o acoso psicológico en el trabajo son frecuentes dentro de la profesión periodística, donde las amenazas, las presiones y las conductas hostigadoras se han convertido en compañeras de viaje de sus profesionales. El objetivo de este artículo científico es teorizar sobre esta práctica que se gesta, cada vez con mayor asiduidad, dentro de las redacciones informativas. La revisión crítica de la bibliografía existente, el análisis descriptivo de casos representativos, las entrevistas a los afectados y un estudio de caso aplicado a los profesionales de la prensa escrita de Almería, evidencian cómo el fenómeno afecta de forma insidiosa al bienestar físico y psicológico de los periodistas que lo padecen, suponiendo, al mismo tiempo, importantes costes económicos para las empresas informativas.The cases of mobbing or psychological harassment are frequent inside the journalistic profession at work, where the threats, the pressures and the harsh behavior have turned into partners for his professionals. The aim of this scientific article is to theorize on this practice that is happening, every time with major assiduity, inside the informative drafts. The critical review of the existing bibliography, the descriptive analysis of representative cases, the interviews to the affected ones and a study of case applied to the professionals of the written press of Almeria, demonstrate how the phenomenon concerns, in an alarming way, to the physical and psychological wellness of the journalists who suffer it, and at the same time, it assumes important economic costs to the informative companies

El mobbing en la profesión periodística: Análisis empírico del acoso psicológico en el trabajo y su influencia en el periodista y en la empresa informativa

The cases of mobbing or psychological harassment are frequent inside the journalistic profession at work, where the threats, the pressures and the harsh behavior have turned into partners for his professionals. The aim of this scientific article is to theorize on this practice that is happening, every time with major assiduity, inside the informative drafts. The critical review of the existing bibliography, the descriptive analysis of representative cases, the interviews to the affected ones and a study of case applied to the professionals of the written press of Almeria, demonstrate how the phenomenon concerns, in an alarming way, to the physical and psychological wellness of the journalists who suffer it, and at the same time, it assumes important economic costs to the informative companies.Los casos de mobbing o acoso psicológico en el trabajo son frecuentes dentro de la profesión periodística, donde las amenazas, las presiones y las conductas hostigadoras se han convertido en compañeras de viaje de sus profesionales. El objetivo de este artículo científico es teorizar sobre esta práctica que se gesta, cada vez con mayor asiduidad, dentro de las redacciones informativas. La revisión crítica de la bibliografía existente, el análisis descriptivo de casos representativos, las entrevistas a los afectados y un estudio de caso aplicado a los profesionales de la prensa escrita de Almería, evidencian cómo el fenómeno afecta de forma insidiosa al bienestar físico y psicológico de los periodistas que lo padecen, suponiendo, al mismo tiempo, importantes costes económicos para las empresas informativas

Two proposals to simplify resistive sensor readout based on Resistance-to-Time-to-Digital conversion

Direct Interface Circuits (DICs) are simple circuits used in readouts for all types of sensors. For resistive sensors, all DICs perform a resistance-to-time-to-digital conversion using just the sensor, some calibration resistors, one or two capacitors, and a Digital Processor. These circuits require a variable number of charging and discharging cycles of a capacitor to estimate the sensor resistance, Rx, increasing both acquisition time and power consumption. This paper presents two resistive DICs capable of estimating Rx by means of a single charging-discharging process, simplifying the readout process. Furthermore, this is achieved without increasing hardware requirements. Only two time measurements are used to obtain Rx. Despite the simplicity of the new circuits, the experimental results show that relative errors of estimating Rx can be below 0.8 %, and this in a wide range of resistances of over 40 dB. Moreover, acquisition time and energy consumption can be reduced by up to 75 %.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA. This work was supported by the Spanish Government under contract PID2021-125091OB-I0

Fitting Rasch Model using Appropriateness Measure Statistics

El objetivo de este trabajo fue estudiar la potencia y propiedades distribucionales de tres estadísticos de medida de la adecuación cuando se utilizan como estadísticos de ajuste de los ítems. Los estadísticos sometidos a comparación fueron: Lz, Eci2z y Eci4z. Los resultados obtenidos se compararon con los estadísticos T-outfit y T-infit. Se seleccionaron cuatro tamaños muestrales: 100, 250, 500 y 1000 sujetos. Se sometieron a estudio distintas distribuciones de habilidad: uniforme y normal, con media 0 y desviación típica 1, y uniforme y normal con media –1 y desviación típica 1. El parámetro de pseudo-azar fue fijado en .25. Para los parámetros de dificultad se utilizaron dos distribuciones uniformes de ±1 logits y ±2 logits. Por ultimo, se consideraron dos longitudes de tests: 15 y 30 ítems. Los resultados mostraron que los estadísticos Lz, T-outfit y T-infit no tienden a los valores esperados cuando se calculan con parámetros estimados, mientras que los estadísticos Eci2z y Eci4z mantuvieron mejor las propiedades de sus distribuciones teóricas. Además, la potencia de estos dos últimos estadísticos para detectar ítems no ajustados al modelo de Rasch estuvo entre un 5% y un 10% más que la potencia de los estadísticos Lz, T-outfit y T-infitIn this paper, the distributional properties and power rates of the Lz, Eci2z, and Eci4z statistics when they are used as item fit statistics were explored. The results were compare to t-transformation of Outfit and Infit mean square. Four sample sizes were selected: 100, 250, 500, and 1000 examinees. The abilities were uniform and normal with mean 0 and standard deviation 1, and uniform and normal with mean –1 and standard deviation 1. The pseudo-guessing parameter was fixed at .25. Two ranges of difficulty parameters were selected: ±1 logits and ±2 logits. Two test lengths were selected: 15 and 30 items. The results showed important differences between the T-infit, T-outfit, Lz, Eci2z, and Eci4z statistics. The T-oufit, T-infit, and Lz statistics showed poor standardization with estimated parameters because their distributional properties were not close to the expected values. However, the Eci2z and Eci4z statistics showed satisfactory standardization on all conditions. Further, the power rates of Eci2z and Eci4z were 5% to 10% higher than the power rates of Lz, T-outfit, and T-infit to detect items that do not fit Rasch model

R&D Management challenges for the desing and development of an E2E-DRM content business integration platform

Current studies on Digital Rights Management (DRM) have focused on controlling access to and copies of contents, centered exclusively on the end of the value chain (end users). This focus has been oriented towards security and encryption as a means of solving the issue of illegal copying by purchasers. In this paper, we propose End-toEnd Digital Rights Management (E2E DRM) that involves the protection of the content throughout the entire value chain. This concept is given form in the new technologies for representing intellectual property (IP) which, in a secure and unequivocal manner, identify the content at each point in the value chain: from the author to the end user, the content is identifiable in any of the transactions and statuses through which it passes. The key concept which E2E DRM must provide is not only the governability of access and copying, but also that of all the processes associated with the content business. We establish an E2E DRM model and architecture, and propose the R&D management of its design and implementation that makes it possible to protect content from content creator to purchaser. Finally, the paper also analyzes their impact from a global perspective. The research was financed by the Autonomous Region of Madrid through the program “Aid to Promote Technological Innovation in the ICT sector

Drivers and Impacts of ICT Adoption on Transport and Logistics Services. An European Perspective.

The availability of high quality transport and logistics services (TLS) is of paramount importance for growth and competitiveness of an economy. The objective of this paper is to describe how companies in this industry use ICT for conducting business and to assess the impact of this development for firms and for the industry as a whole. Using the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) model and the bi-directional relationships of its elements, the paper identifies the links between ICT adoption and market structure, innovation dynamics and firm performance. A set of recommendations on how to further improve the actual scenario of e-business in the TLS industry is also presented