How does the search for knowledge drive firms’ eco-innovation? Evidence from the wine industry

The importance of eco-innovations to food manufacturing has risen exponentially in recent years. In this paper we investigate the drivers of different types of eco-innovation in the Italian wine industry, a particularly relevant sector both in terms of its economic performance and its use of natural resources. We focus on the internal knowledge sourcing of firms and on the ‘breadth’ and ‘depth’ of their engagement with external agents when performing eco-innovation activity. We test our research hypotheses in the context of cleaner processes, end-of-pipe technologies and the use of organic input factors. The empirical evidence is based on a questionnaire survey administered to 334 Italian wine producers. The econometric exercise provides mixed results: both internal R&D and engagement with external agents have a significant effect on eco-innovations depending on the type of eco-innovation taken into account. Moreover, we find a non-linear relationship between external knowledge sourcing and eco-innovation activity.     

A new software architecture for developing and testing algorithms for space exploration missions

In recent years, planet exploration has received an increasing interest due to the possibility of exploiting planet resources and assuring a human–robotic colonized presence on suitable planetary surfaces. These goals can be reached through the development of smart robots, which are able to work on their own and without requiring a constant human supervision but, at the same time, assuring a great level of safety and reliability. To this aim, the development of effective architectures, concerning both software and hardware issues, could represent a great improvement toward this ambitious objective. This paper presents a novel modular architecture called Test Bench for Robotics and Autonomy (TBRA), the main objective of which is to create a test bench for rover autonomy missions where different implementations of a particular subsystem can be easily tested, while keeping the rest of the system unchanged. Thus, it allows the developers to be able to compare the results of tests and understand which version works better. Such architecture has been built on top of the Workframe, a generic middleware for real-time robotics. This two-layered approach allows the final user to deal only with the TBRA interface, which is designed to be extremely simple to use and takes care of most real-time programming problems, while allowing flexibility in the development, maintenance and future extension of the TBRA itself.     

Integrated production scheduling and batch delivery with fixed departure times and inventory holding costs

In this paper, we address a model for supply chain coordination. There are m manufacturers modelled as single machines, each of which processes a specific set of jobs (products). After processing is completed, jobs are batched, and batches are shipped to a customer by means of vehicles. The problem consists in concurrently finding a production schedule of the jobs, a partition of jobs into delivery batches and an assignment of delivery batches to vehicles, so that jobs are delivered within their deadlines and total costs are minimised. We focus on a scenario characterised by fixed departure times and inventory holding costs. For each departure time there is a given number of vehicles, possibly having limited capacity. Each job incurs a cost proportional to the time from job completion to delivery departure. In this paper, we show that the problem is NP-hard even for a very restricted case, and report various polynomiality results for two scenarios, namely: (i) when the production sequence of each manufacturer is fixed in advance, and (ii) when there is a single manufacturer and processing times are all equal to 1. We also point out several open problems.     

Laser surface hardening of large cylindrical components utilizing ring spot geometry

A new process, based on ring spot geometry, is presented for laser surface hardening of large cylindrical components. The proposed technique leads to a very hard, deep and uniform hardened layer along the entire work piece surface without introducing a tempered zone, making the process very attractive compared to conventional induction hardening that exhibits both low energy efficiency and poor flexibility. A complete physical model is presented for the process, together with a study of the influence of process parameters on the final outcome. The results of an extensive validation campaign, carried out on AISI 1040 specimens, are also reported.     

Theoretical and Experimental Study of the Shape Memory Effect of Beams in Bending Conditions

In this study, the shape memory effect of SMA beams under complex stress conditions is studied by means of a finite element model. The 1D version of a well-established SMA constitutive model is utilized in the numerical computations and the required parameters are obtained experimentally starting from thermal cycling tests in tension under different constant loads. After being calibrated, the model is used to compute the deformation of beams loaded in bending and undergoing thermal cycling; three-point bending and cantilever configurations are considered in this stage. Finally, the response predicted by the model is compared to experimental results and model capabilities are discussed. In particular, insight of the stress and strain evolution in bending is provided.