Requalification Processes Research Articles

Analysis of the MORT method applicability for risk management in supply chains

Although the Management Oversight and Risk Tree (MORT) method is considered a respected analytical procedure to investigate causes and contributing factors of accidents and incidents in different types of businesses, its application in Supply Chain Risk Management was not found in the literature (SCRM). Given this gap, the general objective of this research is to analyze the applicability of the MORT Method in SCRM. Methodologically, the research was supported by an in-depth case study in a cylinder requalification company located in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The case study included document analysis, direct observation and structured interviews based on questions previously defined by the MORT Method. As the main theoretical contribution, the research applied, in an innovative way, the MORT Method in SCRM. As the main practical contribution, sequenced, detailed and exemplified steps were developed, so that the MORT Method can be reproduced by other professionals in supply chains. As a limitation, it is observed that the case study only covers the cylinder requalification process, focusing on endogenous risks and failing to address exogenous risks in the supply chain. As a main result, it was possible to identify all the factors that contributed to the damage to cylinder valves; damage that has the potential to have severe consequences for other companies in the supply chain.

O uso de espaços públicos: o caso da requalificação da rua São Francisco e da construção da Praça de Bolso do Ciclista, Curitiba, PR

This article problematizes the process of requalification of São Francisco street and the construction of the Cyclist's Pocket Square, analyzing the transformation of the use of these public spaces after the intervention. Through participant analysis, with the approach with the subjects that use the spaces of the street and the square, the result points to the public space as fundamental in the discussion about citizenship. However, the appropriation of these spaces does not fail to generate conflicts among multiple actors with divergent interests. Despite the elaboration and execution of the project with a team of experienced professionals, the different forms of occupation of the street were not considered in the planning, which does not necessarily indicate a mistake in the requalification process. It happens that the subjects that appropriate and occupy these spaces are also transforming agents that create new uses and new perspectives according to their demands.

The Reuse of Waste Heaps from Extraction Sites: An Architectural Methodology

Nowadays, the rehabilitation of quarries is a widespread practice. It stems from the most significant environmental concern in the management of non-renewable resources. However, reusing quarry waste in the process of regeneration represents the aspect less prevalent. This procedure results from the non-commercialized material, accumulated in huge piles of waste, that constitute invasive elements of the landscape. Because of the intense industrial activity, the wastes further contribute to the degradation of the sites. The result of the waste abandonment could be reversed if this discarded material is considered as a product in the landscape requalification process. Mixing theoretical concepts with practical examples, this article proposes an application methodology to reuse the waste material in the landscape and architectural domains. This new contribution highlights the importance of considering scrap accumulations as an integral part of the architectural project, filling the existing gap in both architectural and theoretical domains. There is not any similar schematization in the literature and the idea of dealing with the mounds of wastes has been only slightly approached until now. The reached outcomes are demonstrative of the possibility of working with the waste heaps in architecture, creating a solid basis for further investigations not documented yet.

Comércio, Serviços e Cidade. Subsídios para Gestão Urbana

O presente artigo pretende contribuir para o entendimento da complexidade do setor terciário, que implica diferentes demandas locacionais, com vistas a fornecer subsídios para alimentar políticas urbanas mais consistentes. Para tanto, discorre-se, inicialmente, sobre a dificuldade de conceituação e classificação das atividades terciárias, buscando explicitar as diferenças entre manufatura, comércio e serviços. Na sequência, são apresentados e discutidos: a composição do terciário; o domínio público ou privado e sua relação com o consumidor (empresas ou indivíduos), bem como sua organização espontânea ou planejada, além de sua alta capacidade de incorporar mudanças. Essas preferências locacionais, nas sociedades capitalistas, que têm como objetivo a viabilidade dos respectivos negócios, apresentam relação direta com a dinâmica urbana (usos e fluxos) e podem, se bem compreendidas, auxiliar na implementação de políticas públicas de dinamização e requalificação urbana.

Requalification of Residential Space in Tirana - Methodologies and Intervention Strategies

The city of Tirana is subject to constant physical and spatial metamorphosis. In its urban territory, the different residential typologies are well distinguished by socio-economic conditions and the technical-constructive characteristics which have been influenced by political development of the country. The multi-family residential buildings from the post-war period up to the 1990s, in addition to the problems that accompanied them from their initial construction, are found today in front of a physical degradation derived from the years they have. Problematic residential spaces are also most of the buildings constructed in the first decade after 1990, characterized by a low technological and housing quality, derived from an uncontrolled and informal development of the building sector. The building quality in this research, is focused on the applied architectural standards, the technological solutions adopted and the energy consumption derived from them. From the analysis made it has been reached in the conclusions that a renewal and requalification process is necessary to reduce the energy waste and to increase the quality of housing within residential spaces. The main objective of this research is to contribute to the sustainable development of the residential area of Tirana, referring to both the architectural and technological scale. Sustainable development in this paper is closely linked to the quality of residential spaces, which is directly related to the quality of life of the inhabitants. Due to the complexity of the urban environment and its transformations over time, the identification of light regeneration and redevelopment strategies is fundamental, minimizing demolition works. This article includes numerous European examples and a theoretical part, from which proposals for the future development of the residential areas of the city of Tirana can be extrapolated.

A mundane infrastructure of energy poverty: The informal trading of second-hand car batteries in Madagascar

This article examines the complex interconnected chains of large- and small-scale trade that sustain the supply of second-hand car batteries as a widespread traditional solution to energy poverty. It traces the routes of goods that support the circulation of batteries from international routes upstream and downstream to urban and rural areas in Madagascar. It addresses the notion of a mundane infrastructure based on economic circuits that support the regular supply of rebuilt batteries as their repair, maintenance and recharge in the course of their second life. The analysis focuses on central nodes along this supply chain where intermediaries organize transactions over heterogeneous regimes of value and discontinuous economic spaces. It highlights the way these entrepreneurs provide solutions for disjunctions via translation and requalification processes. While the trade of second-hand car batteries is more and more subject to control to prevent lead trafficking rings, these secondary circuits of makeshift energy products raise the interweaving moral and material tensions between the contemporary global environmental politics and the survival of the mundane infrastructure of energy poverty.

HOW TO PLAN, HANDLE, ANALYSE AND INTERPRET NARRATIVES, ACCORDING TO THE QUALITATIVE-UNDERSTANDING APPROACH?

This paper derives from our PhD research in Sociology on socio-identitarian requalification processes (processos de requalificação socio-identitária, henceforth PRSI) of Portuguese women who migrated to the Basque Country (San Sebastian area). To this end, we co-composed 31 exemplary case accounts, following the question: “What are the logics of action and what identitarian strategies are adopted by women who, facing the social experience of disqualification, engage in their ‘socio-identitarian requalification’?” We focus and organize this paper on the exposition of the main procedures and specific forms of the qualitative analysis, as we applied it at the ‘the processes of socio-identitarian requalification (PRSI) - how we called, since 2008, the analytical-understanding model of social trajectories of requalification from poverty conditions. (cf. Toscano 2015, 2017, 2018). So, in this paper, we explain in depth how we organize the 4 methodological acts which compose this 'analytical-understanding model processes of socio-identitarian requalification' that we have been developing since 2008 in our analysis of trajectories for social change ('leaving' so called poverty conditions). Therefore, after a brief mention of the Tool-Problematics, which constitutes the base for our research, in point 1.1 (1st act: theoretical-conceptual-epistemological roots), we focus on specific procedures, such as: - point 2: justifying the co-composition of accounts: operationalizing principles, procedures and criteria for the selection of exemplary cases and composition of narratives (2nd act, steps 2-3); - point 3: planning and co-composing the biographical process (2nd act, Steps 4a-4b; 6 stages); - point 4 (3rd act), 1st level of theorization: writing down speech through transcription-translation (step 5; stages 7-8) and transposition-rearrangement (analysis units, operation mode, discursive levels, account axes, rules/kinds of annotation - steps 6-7, stages 9-12); - point 5 (4th act), 2nd level of theorization: interpretation and theorizing composition in emergence (steps 8-9, stages 13-14, 7 operations); and finally, point 6, brief conclusions..

Smart cities and enabling technologies: influences on urban Facility Management services

The application of innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to the field of Urban Facility Management (UFM) outlines new possibilities for optimizing existing services and for developing new services based on the key concepts of: Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, information sharing and smart applications. Such ICT-based services could potentially be able to: transform the demand for infrastructures and physical assets; participate to requalification processes; influence the sustainability of the built environment as well as the economic value of urban areas. Starting from this premise, the paper deals with the contents and the current results of an ongoing research whose aim is to propose sets of classification and coding rules and a framework for identifying, analysing and linking Smart Cities (SC) domains and sub-domains, related UFM services and the various levels of enabling ICT technologies. The application of the proposed framework to a selected representative sample made up by both European Initiatives (e.g. H2020 projects) involved with SC solutions at the urban scale and virtuous cases of cities that have implemented smart solutions, allows to collect, allocate and process information, in a unified way, in order to:• identify and describe the current main trends within each of the SC domains (e.g. mobility, energy, waste, building, governance) and sub-domains;• implement a taxonomy of UFM services, including related characterising parameters and stakeholders;• identify and analyse, according to reading keys, smart UFM services that may have meaningful impacts (accessibility, transport, land-use, etc.) on urban areas;• draw the current innovative scenarios of smart UFM services enabled by ICTs, characterized by information sharing (Big Data flows) and by the integration of physical and digital infrastructures and assets;• highlight the emerging and widespread enabling technologies for smart UFM services, related to each of the layers of the technological infrastructure (e.g. sensing, network, platform, analytics, applications);• investigate the possibility of the creation of context-aware communities through the inclusion of multiple social components.The research, which is part of the PRIN research “Metropolitan cities: economic-territorial strategies, financial constraints and circular regeneration”, aims at providing interpretive keys and structured information, useful to study, evaluate and compare possible influences and impacts of the smart UFM services on the sustainability of the urban environment and on the dynamics of property values. The scenario that emerges from the analysis is inscribed in the broader framework of the circular economy where, with the support of ICTs -based services, cities can put in place virtuous processes to reduce, recycle and reuse waste.

Circular economy and regeneration of building stock in the Italian context: policies, partnership and tools

The paper presents a part of research focused on the definition of circular economy models in the regeneration of existing building stock in the Italian context, identifying policies improvements, strategic partnership and environmental and economic life cycle assessment tools for supporting decision.Through direct-interviews to operators (investors, designers, manufacturers, etc.), the paper analyses the typical relationships and dynamics among them in the Italian building regeneration process. The operators’ opinions and requests towards circular strategies (reuse/recycling at building and material levels) are pointed out, in order to highlight the obstacles and levers of circular economy application. The paper shows the strengths and the weaknesses for the regeneration of building stock by the application of circular economy, the opportunities and the threats for circular economy by its application in the regeneration of building stock. In order to achieve circular requalification processes, avoiding waste and enabling practices of reuse and recycling, the change of relationships, policies and business models are defined. Moreover, the paper discusses on the importance of environmental evaluation of circular practices, identifying the decision steps and operators which, with the support of environmental and economic life cycle assessment tools, can select circular strategies towards sustainable requalification process.

ESGE-ESGENA technical specification for process validation and routine testing of endoscope reprocessing in washer-disinfectors according to EN ISO 15883, parts 1, 4, and ISO/TS 15883-5.

1 Prerequisites. The clinical service provider should obtain confirmation from the endoscope washer-disinfector (EWD) manufacturer that all endoscopes intended to be used can be reprocessed in the EWD. 2 Installation qualification. This can be performed by different parties but national guidelines should define who has the responsibilities, taking into account legal requirements. 3 Operational qualification. This should include parametric tests to verify that the EWD is working according to its specifications. 4 Performance qualification. Testing of cleaning performance, microbiological testing of routinely used endoscopes, and the quality of the final rinse water should be considered in all local guidelines. The extent of these tests depends on local requirements. According to the results of type testing performed during EWD development, other parameters can be tested if local regulatory authorities accept this. Chemical residues on endoscope surfaces should be searched for, if acceptable test methods are available. 5 Routine inspections. National guidelines should consider both technical and performance criteria. Individual risk analyses performed in the validation and requalification processes are helpful for defining appropriate test frequencies for routine inspections.

Projetos para museus educativos-prédio da FOP UNICAMP em Piracicaba

Este trabalho tem a proposta de requalificar o prédio central da Faculdade de Odontologia de Piracicaba, e projetar anexo um museu e laboratório que acolha uma coleção de ossos para que possam ser estudados e pesquisados em trabalhos com o corpo humano. Este museu será aberto para estudos de outras Universidade (do mundo todo) que tiverem interesse em tal assunto. Metodologia utilizada: pesquisa sobre o programa de necessidades para o projeto do museu de ossos, elaboração do diagnóstico do prédio antigo central da FOP, identificação de elementos históricos, levantamentos com medições e fotográficos, elaboração da proposta de criação do museu de ossos com projeto do edifício anexo, plantas, cortes e fachadas, levantamento da área central na cidade de Piracicaba, referências projetuais. Resultando na criação do projeto do museu de ossos e proposta da restauração do prédio central da FOP mantendo o museu da odontologia "Dra. Grace H. Alvarez". Considerações finais: Este trabalho partiu do princípio da implantação do museu de ossos e laboratório, ambos faziam parte do desejo de alguns professores, a partir daí foi iniciado o projeto de requalificação do prédio antigo. Usou-se como referência teórica para a requalificação a Carta de Veneza e o Historiador Camilo Boito. Não foram modificados os usos do prédio antigo, apenas adequados. O conceito do museu de ossos foi estabelecido através das referências projetuais estudadas, e o jardim foi criado para desfrute da população. A função para a qual ele foi desejado delineou suas formas.

Urban fire risk: Evaluation and emergency planning

Abstract The management, prevention and mitigation of urban risks are assumed as priority actions within the framework of any rehabilitation and requalification process at the urban scale, particularly in the case of the rehabilitation and refurbishment of old city centres. In the most specific domain of urban safety, seismic and fire risk, which can cause serious consequences, are part of the collective memory of several communities and must be inevitably highlighted. The severity of the resulting damages is a more than valid reason to strongly value prevention, planning and mitigation strategies, limiting their consequences and guaranteeing permanent improvement actions. In the view of the abovementioned, and in the scope of a research project carried out, a new urban fire risk assessment methodology was developed and applied to the old city centre of Seixal. This simplified methodology is based on a preestablished method designated ARICA. Over 500 buildings were assessed using this methodology, and the results were spatially analysed using an integrated geographical information system tool (GIS). It is worth noting that the integration of the risk results into a GIS platform is a valuable step towards the risk mitigation at a urban scale, allowing city councils or regional authorities to plan interventions on the basis of a global spatial view of the site under analysis leading to more accurate and comprehensive risk mitigation strategies that support the requirements of safety and emergency planning in case of urban fire.

Leaderships in Urban Contexts of Diversity and Innovation: The Porto Maravilha Case

This article investigates the role and ways of action of leaderships in urban contexts characterized by urban revitalization processes (RJ/Brazil). Adopting as its theoretical basis the bibliographical review of the literature on leadership and public area requalification processes, as well as research conducted by Jacobs (2011) on diversity and innovation, the present research may be characterized as qualitative in nature (case study). Results indicate that the Porto Maravilha project has transposed business concepts to public administration. Today, the keynote lies in the attraction of new enterprises and in the construction of urban revitalization projects for the city's makeover. With regard to the leadership, although public leadership has apparently adopted management instruments for decentralizing management and for public participation, these measures were not enough to achieve an effectively shared leadership that would reflect the multiple interests of different actors (as the theory of relational leadership presupposes). Thus, a set of contradictions and dilemmas for the leaders is apparent, among them: how to build an effectively-shared leadership, as every urban transformation project depends on the negotiation and complex interaction between different social actors?

Seasonal evolution of the zooplankton community in two riverine wetlands of the Ticino River (Lombardy, Northern Italy)

Riverine wetlands are vulnerable ecotonal environments and are often threatened by human activities. A project supported by the Cariplo Foundation, called “Ecological and hydromorphological requalification of wetlands in the Ticino area around Pavia” (South-East Lombardy, Northern Italy), was started in 2010 with the aim of improving the chemical, bio-ecological and hydrological conditions of these wetlands. In line with the aim of this project, we selected two wetlands near the main course of the Ticino River for investigation, one of which is impacted by a combined sewer overflow from the sewerage networks which is always active (San Lanfranco (SL) wetland), whereas the other (Topo (TO) oxbow lake) is less directly impacted by anthropogenic activities. In this paper, we report the ecological situation of these two wetlands before the requalification process by investigating the way the zooplankton assemblages, considered as bio-indicators, respond to anthropogenic pressure. Overall, we collected 19 taxa : 4 cladocerans, 1 copepod and 14 rotifers. In the TO oxbow lake, we found a stable community, dominated by the cladoceran Bosmina longirostris. By comparison, in the SL wetland we found a pioneer community, dominated by the juvenile stage of the copepod Thermocyclops dybowskii . The SL wetland was shown to be most urgently in need of improvement and is therefore first in line for requalification, whereas the TO oxbow lake needs less drastic measures to ensure the long-term ecological functioning of the aquatic environment. After these requalification activities, a systematic zooplankton survey will be carried out to monitor the evolution of the riverine wetlands.

The Tourist Model in the Collaborative Economy: A Modern Approach

Tourism is a complex and transversal phenomenon of huge social-economic importance that in the last fewyears has entered the phase of globalization and internationalisation. Furthermore, by virtue of the considerablereinforcement of means of communication, the diffusion of tourism has undergone an unprecedentedacceleration and therefore the means of sourcing of information and opportunities of consumption have becomenumerous. In this direction, distributed hospitality needs investigated, considering that, at the current status, it isnot fully understood in terms of inborn potentials by the local policy makers. In general, distributed hospitalityrepresents a form of hospitality that is based on relations of a collaborative nature, especially suitable to generatevirtual requalification processes on the territory of residential assets, of repositioning of the tourist destination,as well as reinforcing the attractiveness of the area. Moreover, even though different kinds of inter-companyrelations exist, the aggregation phenomenon appears to be the answer to the cognitive requirements and themeans to activate a modern differential process on the market. The theme of sustainability of tourismdevelopment will therefore be faced through the identification of current forms of experience of diffused hotelsthat exist on an Italian level; subsequently, changing from some morphological indicators deducted by theNetwork Analysis, a model was proposed in the attempt to define the governance model of diffused hotels. So,the research question is the following: can the formula of distributed hospitality lead to enhancement of a touristdestination with a view to sustainability?

Contemporary Art Firms and Value Creation in Global Cities

Culture is increasingly important in the contemporary processes of economic value creation, and cities are able to generate urban requalification processes by enhancing the level and complexity of cultural intervention. Recently, these strategies have focused increasingly on contemporary art, and specifically on contemporary artistic firms that can stimulate a significant amount of original knowledge production in global cities.

Incremental Updateable Control Systems on an FPGA

Abstract Abstract Component-based development of embedded system software has proven to be a cost effective methodology, and many general component technologies are available from both industry and academia. Often times such modular updating and upgrading can be too expensive (in cost, manpower, and down time) to execute. This is especially true for safety- and time-critical applications where rigorous requalification processes are necessary after a software change. A theoretical approach to incremental or modular certification would provide the ability to use particular subsystems in a modular fashion, but this requires both functional and time behaviour independence of the module. In this research a component-based software model was used to develop incrementally updateable multiprocessor architecture for a reconfigurable FPGA computing technology. The developed system architecture was designed in the MATLAB/Simulink environment and evaluated through a case study of an embedded home automation control system. A new functionality was added to the initial system, and later reconfigured into the FPGA-chip as a new processor-module. Different memory architectures of the multiprocessor system and their relations to the changes in temporal behaviour of the system were tested and measured. With the best memory configuration, the average change in internal temporal behaviour of the system processors of initial functionality after system upgrading was smaller than 0.5 μs.