Consumers’ Acceptance of a Bio-circular Automotive Economy: Explanatory Model and Influence Factors

Sustainability in the automotive sector and appropriate end-of-life (EOL) management options for car tyres are important and constitute global issues. There is currently an oversupply of EOL tyres and the potential of circular economy (CE) tyres and for bio-based (BB) tyres warrants further investigation. Likewise, BB and CE tyres might be an interesting approach to improve the overall sustainability of the tyre life cycle. Research on drivers for the acceptance of CE and BB tyres is currently missing. In 1989, a socio-economy model was created to understand the acceptance of various products. This model is still popular in many areas but does not address sustainability questions of the 21st century appropriately. This article aims to provide a better understanding of the factors which drive acceptance of sustainable tyres. It presents an acceptance model and related influence factors in three areas: variables related to the consumers, perceived product characteristics and stimulating moderator variables. The third aspect refers in particular to labels and certification influencing consumer views on existing product characteristics. This article ends by discussing how availability of such labels could be promoted through eco-labelling of tyres and related standardization, addressing the industry and policy makers to make the automotive sector more sustainable.BMBF, 033R236E, ReziProK - Verbundvorhaben: ConCirMy - Entwicklung eines stufen- und kreislaufübergreifend vernetzten Konfigurators zur Gewährleistung geschlossener Material- und Komponentenflüsse im Rahmen der zirkulären Ökonomie, Teilvorhaben 4: Sozioökonomische Analysen und GeschäftsmodelleDFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

Socially Constrained Structural Learning for Groups Detection in Crowd

Modern crowd theories agree that collective behavior is the result of the underlying interactions among small groups of individuals. In this work, we propose a novel algorithm for detecting social groups in crowds by means of a Correlation Clustering procedure on people trajectories. The affinity between crowd members is learned through an online formulation of the Structural SVM framework and a set of specifically designed features characterizing both their physical and social identity, inspired by Proxemic theory, Granger causality, DTW and Heat-maps. To adhere to sociological observations, we introduce a loss function (G-MITRE) able to deal with the complexity of evaluating group detection performances. We show our algorithm achieves state-of-the-art results when relying on both ground truth trajectories and tracklets previously extracted by available detector/tracker systems

Learning to Divide and Conquer for Online Multi-Target Tracking

Online Multiple Target Tracking (MTT) is often addressed within the tracking-by-detection paradigm. Detections are previously extracted independently in each frame and then objects trajectories are built by maximizing specifically designed coherence functions. Nevertheless, ambiguities arise in presence of occlusions or detection errors. In this paper we claim that the ambiguities in tracking could be solved by a selective use of the features, by working with more reliable features if possible and exploiting a deeper representation of the target only if necessary. To this end, we propose an online divide and conquer tracker for static camera scenes, which partitions the assignment problem in local subproblems and solves them by selectively choosing and combining the best features. The complete framework is cast as a structural learning task that unifies these phases and learns tracker parameters from examples. Experiments on two different datasets highlights a significant improvement of tracking performances (MOTA +10%) over the state of the art

The relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and dysfunctional technology use among adolescents

Objectives Since two decades scientific research is studying excessive and dysfunctional new technologies use and its influences on people’s lives, in terms of personal, relational, scholastic and work functioning impairment. The objectives of the present study are to investigate gender differences in problematic new technologies use as well as to examine the relationship between problematic new technologies use, emotional regulation and its specific dimensions. Methods 280 italian adolescents (51.1% males) aged 11 to 18 years (mean age = 13.31; SD = 2.33) were recruited from two italian secondary public schools and involved in this study. Data were collected using the Internet Addiction Test, the Video Game Dependency Scale, the Brief Multicultural Version of the Test of Mobile-Phone Dependence and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Results Results indicate significant association between emotion dysregulation and problematic internet (r = .504; p < .001), videogame (r = .372; p < .001), mobile-phone (r = .424; p < .001) use. These results support hypothesis that adolescents with greater emotion dysregulation are more likely to experience problematic new technologies use. Additionally, stepwise multiple regression analysis pointed out that the lack of effective emotion regulation strategies is a common risk factors between the problematic new technologies use, but regression analysis highlighted specific risk factors for some of the investigated dependent behaviors. Conclusions Findings of this study highlight a link between problematic new technologies use, emotion dysregulation and its specific dimensions. The results are discussed considering scientific advances and the role of emotional dysregulation in determining problematic new technologies use in adolescence. Further research with larger sample sizes is needed to confirm our data

House and Mobility: Portuguese Hindus and Brazilians in Lisbon in face of housing constraints

This paper explores analytically the relation between experiences of vulnerability, regarding housing processes for people in different kinds of mobility in urban settings. Drawing reflections from two ethnographic contexts in which we have been working, the Hindu-Gujarati and the Brazilian populations in Lisbon, we reflect upon the contours of their experiences, recounting their migration process, and different ways of being under housing vulnerability, as well as their responses to excluding urban politics. The lack of places to inhabit, drives people to different housing solutions, and to a constant mobility, through migration and remigration. These conditions are experienced differently according to the temporality of the mobility paths and projects, and to the type of relation/confrontation with housing policies. Hence, the aim is to understand: what are the strategies of settling within a dynamic of constant mobility? How vulnerability is expressed and qualified in these different settings?info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Toward Reverse Engineering of VBA Based Excel Spreadsheet Applications

Modern spreadsheet systems can be used to implement complex spreadsheet applications including data sheets, customized user forms and executable procedures written in a scripting language. These applications are often developed by practitioners that do not follow any software engineering practice and do not produce any design documentation. Thus, spreadsheet applications may be very difficult to be maintained or restructured. In this position paper we present in a nutshell two reverse engineering techniques and a tool that we are currently realizing for the abstraction of conceptual data models and business logic models.Comment: In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Software Engineering Methods in Spreadsheets (http://spreadsheetlab.org/sems15/

NEW BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC AND LITHOLOGICAL DATA ON THE NEOGENE AND QUATERNARY OF THE LIVORNO AREA (TUSCANY, CENTRAL ITALY)

Lithofacies analyses and datings using calcareous nannofossils, proved to be an excellent opportunity to understand the palaeoenvironmental evolution of the area of the Tuscan coast, washed up by the Ligurian Sea. A multidisciplinary approach, through lithological and micropaleontological data, collected from fifteen boreholes and one outcrop, permitted the characterization of ten stratigraphic units in the subsurface of the Livorno area. The correlations of these units depicted a stratigraphic architecture chronologically constrained. This study detected early Pliocene (Zanclean) and early Pleistocene (Gelasian) marine deposits, referable to the outer neritic zone that were dated to the calcareous nannofossil biozones MNN13, MNN14-15 and MNN18. In addition, early Pleistocene (Calabrian) marine deposits, dated to the calcareous nannofossil biozones MNN19b, MNN19d, MNN19e, which may be attributed to different bathymetric depths on the basis of benthic foraminifers and ostracods, highlighted sea level changes. Finally, the areal distribution and the stratigraphic architecture of these units permitted the recognition and the better constraining of the sedimentary dynamics impacted by major eustatic and tectonic changes. &nbsp

Restauração na hotelaria rural e urbana : projeções e perceções

Dissertação de Mestrado, Gestão de Empresas (MBA), 22 de abril de 2022, Universidade dos Açores.Turismo e hotelaria, bem como restauração, apresentaram um significativo crescimento até 2020. Deste este ano até ao presente, as fases passaram da resiliência ao início, sendo necessário a mudança dos sistemas. Com a mais recente pandemia Covid-19, a indústria sente-se obrigada a rever as suas produções e vendas, com os impactos que este vírus proporciona. Deste modo, o objetivo deste projeto é verificar como e de que forma estas alterações afetaram o turismo e, consequentemente, a restauração na hoteleira nos Açores, mais propriamente em São Miguel. Deste modo procurou-se perceber se existe uma diferenciação na imagem de marca, na essência bem como na oferta do serviço a ser prestado por restaurantes situados nos hotéis, tanto a nível rural e urbano. Atendendo a que se pretendia aferir o diferencial entre o rural e urbano, foram escolhidos como caso de estudo dois grupos de hotelaria predominantes nos Açores: Bensaude e Discovery Hotel Management - DHM, mais concretamente as suas unidades rurais - Terra Nostra Garden Hotel e Furnas Boutique Hotel - e as suas unidades citadinas - Hotel Marina Atlântico e Azor Hotel, respetivamente. Para compreender esta realidade de forma mais completa, o trabalho contou com entrevistas aos respetivos responsáveis do departamento da restauração hoteleira e com inquéritos a clientes procuram este tipo de serviços. Como se trata de um estudo feito entre o ano de 2020/2021, foi importante dar enfase à perceção do impacto da pandemia, COVID-19, nesta área de mercado. Em suma, verificou-se que os grupos supracitados se diferenciam significativamente a nível de oferta, essência e imagem de marca. É também de referir que em ambos são predominantes os turistas, embora que com a pandemia os residentes tenham sentido mais necessidade de procurar este tido de serviços. Estes últimos são clientes residentes, com hábitos de frequentar restaurantes e com poder económico mais elevado. As conclusões deste trabalho permitem aferir que ainda existe espaço para uma maior diferenciação da oferta.ABSTRACT: Tourism and hospitality presented an unprecedented growth until 2020. From them-on, it passes from resilience to a reignition phase, changing supply and demand systems. The well-known reality pre-Covid needs to be revisited to understand the present situation and the long-lasting impacts of the pandemic. Therefore, this work aims to understand and check how these changes affected tourism, hospitality, and the foodservice industry. Moreover, getting to know and to see which projections they have at this specific sector, because the main goal is to understand if there’s any difference between Rural and Civic environment as far as brand image, essence and service provided. For this purpose, the Azores, more specifically São Miguel, was chosen as a study field. Two major Azorean hospitality groups - Bensaude and Discovery Hotel Management - DHM - were picked and within two hotels from each one, both rural and city, namely, Terra Nostra Garden Hotel; Hotel Marina Atlântico and Furnas Boutique Hotel; Azor Hotel. Data was gathered using interviews with the general managers, and the online survey addressed hotel-restaurant clients, who use these types of services. Yet, was important to understand the Covid-19 impacts because this work was made during the years 2020 to 2021. The work's outcome establishes that regardless of their close physical location, these two groups couldn’t be more apart since they are significantly different in terms of the service offered, essence, and brand image. Another aspect highlighted by the results is that residents felt the necessity of this type of service, increasing the domestic/local tourism demand. Yet, not everyone can afford it; it's more likely middle/high population class. The outcome of this study allows inferring that there is still space for hotel restaurants to invest in differentiation and tailor-made services based on the uniqueness of their location