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It is well documented that incarcerated individuals in the U.S. prisons and jails pay an exorbitant fee for phone calling services. Regulatory agencies have suggested the monopoly power and contract structure of phone providers in jails and prisons as the reason for these high per-minute phone calling rates. In this thesis, I will analyze the effect of price cap regulation (PCR) imposed by the Federal Communications Commission on per-minute phone calling rates for incarcerated individuals on phone calls that are made between two states. To identify the impact of this rulemaking, I conduct a difference-in-difference approach to self-reported data submitted to the FCC from 2016-2021. I use this provider reporting data to examine if the rulemaking resulted in a decrease in the total cost of a phone call. I demonstrate that regulation did not significantly decrease the total cost of a standard interstate phone call. Rather, cost shifted up to a slight degree or stayed roughly the same. I hypothesize that this effect could be due to ancillary fees increasing along with the mandated per-minute rate decrease.

We present a combination of three dimensional (3D) solid elements and rotation-free beam elements for non-linear analysis of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) of rebars. The matrix material is modelled by 3D solid elements while the fibers are modelled with rotation-free beam elements. The absence of rotation variables in the beam elements allows the straightforward coupling of 3D solid and beam elements using a formulation with displacement nodal degrees of freedom only. Both solid and beam elements are formulated in an updated Lagrangian description. The behavior of the matrix and the fiber material are modelled with an elastic-damage model. The efficiency and accuracy of the combined 3D-beam element formulation are verified in examples of application to the analysis of FRP rebars up to fracture in axial, bending and shear tests for which experimental results are available.

Aquest projecte final de carrera estudia com el tanc de combustible d’una motocicleta de competició i la seva càrrega, que és variable en el temps, modifica la seva dinàmica. Aquest fenomen ve donat perquè quan es consumeix combustible, el tanc es va buidant i el combustible restant en mantenir la mateixa pressió atmosfèrica queda amb més llibertat de mobilitat i redueix l’estabilitat del conjunt. L’objectiu és estudiar i quantificar l’efecte que aquest fenomen té i intentar reduir-lo modificant el tanc. Així a la pràctica, poder obtenir una motocicleta més estable en totes les fases d’una cursa, o el que ve a ser el mateix, aconseguir una millor estabilitat amb qualsevol càrrega de combustible. Les dades s’han creat des de zero amb models dissenyats personalment seguint la normativa de la Federació Internacional de Motociclisme, més concretament en el seu apartat de MotoGPTM. Per al tractament del model i obtenció de dades s’ha utilitzat el software SolidWorks, més concretament Flow Simulation, per poder analitzar les dades amb CFD. Este proyecto final de carrera estudia cómo el tanque de combustible de una motocicleta de competición y su carga, que es variable en el tiempo, modifica su dinámica. Este fenómeno viene dado porque cuando se consume combustible, el tanque se va vaciando y el combustible restante al mantener la misma presión atmosférica queda con mayor libertad de movilidad y reduce la estabilidad del conjunto. Su objetivo es estudiar y cuantificar el efecto que este fenómeno tiene e intentar reducirlo modificando el tanque. Así en la práctica, poder obtener una motocicleta más estable en todas las fases de una carrera, o lo que viene a ser lo mismo, conseguir una mejor estabilidad con cualquier carga de combustible. Los datos se han creado desde cero con modelos diseñados personalmente siguiendo la normativa de la Federación Internacional de Motociclismo, más concretamente en su apartado de MotoGPTM. Para el tratamiento del modelo y la obtención de datos se ha utilizado el software SolidWorks, más concretamente Flow Simulation, para poder analizar los datos con CFD. This final project examines how the fuel tank of a racing motorcycle and its load, which varies over time, changes its dynamics. This phenomenon is due to the fact that when fuel is consumed, the tank is emptied and the remaining fuel while maintaining the same atmospheric pressure is left with more freedom of mobility and reduces the stability of the whole.The aim is to study and quantify the effect of this phenomenon and try to reduce it by modifying the tank. In practice, to be able to get a more stable motorcycle in all phases of a race, or what is the same, to achieve better stability with any load of fuel. The data has been created from scratch with models designed personally in accordance with the regulations of the International Motorcycle Federation, more specifically in its MotoGPTM section. SolidWorks software, more specifically Flow Simulation, has been used to process the model and obtain data to analyze the data with CFDs.

FIBRE4YARDS project aims to improve the competitiveness of small and medium European shipyards working with Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP). To this extent, the project expects to bring new automated cost-efficient production technologies to the shipyard (adaptive moulds, ATP/AFP, 3D printing, curved pultrusion profiles, hot stamping, innovative composite connections) from other competitive industrial sectors, and to transfer, adapt and combine them to improve FRP shipyards’ production and maintenance. In order to incorporate all new manufacturing technologies into the ship design, FIBRE4YARDS will develop new advanced computational tools and numerical formulations specially developed to characterize the new procedures. Ship design will also take into account the environmental impact of the materials and manufacturing technologies used, based on a Life Cycle Assessment. All new production procedures will be implemented in a new Shipyard 4.0 environment which, among other features, will be interconnected thanks to IoT technologies, and will be continuously monitored to ensure high quality processes using a digital twin of the shipyard. Special care will be taken to ensure that all technologies proposed by FIBRE4YARDS project comply with the actual standards, writing new guidelines when those do not exist, and that can be implemented in European Shipyards smoothly and straightforward. With the proposed approach, shipyards will improve their production capacity and the quality of the ships manufactured, making them more safe and efficient.

Public services are increasingly being transformed into smart public services, also known as digital public services or eGovernment. In several cases, access to specific services is personal and non-transferable, thus requiring secure and trustful identification as well as management of the so called “digital identities”. In this context, it is obvious that citizens and public services in particular would benefit greatly from digital identity management technology, as new and emerging technologies have strong potential to empower existing eID systems. Yet, while opportunities enabled by these technologies are undeniable, challenges also exist, including technological and social implications, as well as barriers, risks and limitations. In addition, the establishment of standards for these ecosystems and compliance with framework conditions, including national and European regulations are essential points that must be considered. Based on these observations, the IMPULSE (Identity Management in PUblic SErvices) project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme, was launched in early 2020. IMPULSE aims to perform a multidisciplinary evaluation of the disruptive transformation of electronic identity (eID) management in public services enabled by Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Artificial Inteligence (AI). Overall, this paper will present the research pathway set up to answer the question of how a single adaptive eID solution can be useful to the whole city ecosystem, from the micro-citizen level to the macro-governmental perspective, by focusing on the main achievements of the IMPULSE project so far., Mobility, Knowledge and Innovation Hubs in Urban and Regional Development. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2022, 27th International Conference on Urban Development and Regional Planning in the Information Society, 953-959

The main objective of the FIBRE4YARDS project is to maintain European global leadership in ship building and ship maintenance, through implementation of the Shipyard 4.0 concept in which advanced and innovative FRP manufacturing technologies are successfully introduced. This project has received funding from European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n°101006860.

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