Minimum wage

A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Because minimum wages increase the cost of labor, companies often try to avoid minimum wage laws by using gig workers, by moving labor to locations with lower or nonexistent minimum wages, or by automating job functions. Minimum wage policies can vary significantly between countries or even within a country, with different regions, sectors, or age groups having their own minimum wage rates. These variations are often influenced by factors such as the cost of living, regional economic conditions, and industry-specific factors. The movement for minimum wages was first motivated as a way to stop the exploitation of workers in sweatshops, by employers who were thought to have unfair bargaining power over them. Over time, minimum wages came to be seen a

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A solution method for predictive simulations in a stochastic environment

Anne Daniëlle Koelewijn

Predictive gait simulations currently do not account for environmental or internal noise. We describe a method to solve predictive simulations of human movements in a stochastic environment using a collocation method. The optimization is performed over multiple noisy episodes of the trajectory, instead of a single episode in a deterministic environment. Each episode used the same control parameters. The method was verified on a torque-driven pendulum swing-up problem. A different optimal trajectory was found in a stochastic environment than in the deterministic environment. Next, it was applied to gait to show its application in predictive simulation of human movement. We show that, unlike in a deterministic model, a nonzero minimum foot clearance during swing is predicted by a minimum-effort criterion in a stochastic environment. The predicted amount of foot clearance increased with the noise amplitude. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2020

Multi-objective optimization of rainfed and irrigated agricultural areas considering production and environmental criteria: a case study of wheat production in Spain

Pavel Vaskan

Meeting the growing food demand with minimum impact on the environment is a major challenge to face for ensuring a more sustainable food production. To tackle this problem, in this article we present a novel systematic method for agriculture planning that optimally allocates rainfed and irrigated cropping areas, thereby enhancing food availability and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. The allocation problem is mathematically formulated as a multi-objective linear programming problem that simultaneously accounts for the maximisation of the crop production and the minimisation of the environmental impact caused by water consumption. To quantify the environmental damage, life cycle assessment principles and water footprint concepts are integrated into the model. The capabilities of our tool are illustrated through its application to a real case study that considers wheat production in Spain. The results show that the current allocation of rainfed and irrigated wheat areas in Spain is sub-optimal. Our tool provides a set of alternatives for optimally reallocating these wheat areas that ultimately achieve significant reductions in environmental impact while maintaining or even increasing the production level. The analysis clearly demonstrates that the optimal allocation of rainfed and irrigated cropping areas is a potential pathway to minimise the environmental impact of water consumption in food production. Our systematic decision-support tool aims to assist famers and policy-makers in the transition towards a more sustainable agricultural sector. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2017

Modular vs. non-modular preconditioners for fluid-structure systems with large added-mass effect

Annalisa Quaini, Alfio Quarteroni

In this article we address the numerical simulation of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems featuring large added-mass effect. We analyze different preconditioners for the coupled system matrix obtained after space- time discretization and linearization of the FSI problem. The classical Dirichlet-Neumann preconditioner has the advantage of ``modularity'' because it allows to reuse existing fluid and structure codes with minimum effort (simple interface communication). Unfortunately, its performance is very poor in case of large added-mass effects. Alternatively, we consider two non-modular approaches. The first one consists in preconditioning the coupled system with a suitable diagonal scaling combined with an ILUT preconditioner. The system is then solved by a Krylov method. The drawback of this procedure is that the combination of fluid and structure codes to solve the coupled system is not straightforward. The second non-modular approach we consider is a splitting technique based on an inexact block-LU factorization of the linear FSI system. The resulting algorithm computes the fluid velocity separately from the coupled pressure-structure system at each iteration, reducing the computational cost. Independently of the preconditioner, the efficiency of semi-implicit algorithms (i.e., those that treat geometric and fluid nonlinearities in an explicit way) is highlighted and their performance compared to the one of implicit algorithms. All the methods are tested on three-dimensional blood-vessel systems. The algorithm combining the non-modular ILUT preconditioner with Krylov methods proved to be the fastest.

2008

Employment

Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party, also known as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. It emerged as the main political rival of the Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Founded in 1828, it was predominantly built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled politicians in every state

MGT-454: Principles of microeconomics

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CIVIL-312: Hydraulic structures and schemes

Les aménagements hydrauliques sont indispensable pour garantir l'approvisionnement en énergie écophile et renouvelable, de même que l'approvisionnement en eau de bonne qualité et en quantité suffisante pour lutter contre la faim, la pauvreté et les maladies dans le monde.

MICRO-426: Laser fundamentals and applications for engineers

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