ABSTRACT

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Hotels are forms of businesses connected to the entire system of production and distribution of tourist products. Essentially, they provide hospitality goods and services to travelers, individuals with different profiles and interests, and thus play a very important role in the tourism sector. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to point out the theoretical approach of innovation in the context of its utilization in hotels for individuals with disabilities. We have reviewed the existing theoretical approaches to innovation and then analysed their applicability in the tourism sector. Based on the findings, we developed theoretical approaches, such as the coupling theory and the innovation diffusion theory, that can be applied to the target sectors and provide valuable insights to the relevant actors. Research shows that innovation, whether it concerns technological applications or processes, affects the enrichment of hotel services provided for people with disabilities and influences the technical-functional and organizational processes of hospitality. On this basis, innovation is a key factor of growth for any hotel, as it increases its competitiveness and sustainability through the utilization of the potential provided by the use of new innovative technological applications or processes for people with disabilities.JEL Classification: L83, O30. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2022-03-01-010 Full Text: PDF

In this paper, we present the results of a performance evaluation and optimization process of an indoor positioning system (IPS) designed to operate on portable as well as miniaturized embedded systems. The proposed method uses the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) values from multiple Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) beacons scattered around interior spaces. The beacon signals were received from the user devices and processed through an RSSI filter and a group of machine learning (ML) models, in an arrangement of one model per detected node. Finally, a multilateration problem was solved using as an input the inferred distances from the advertising nodes and returning the final position approximation. In this work, we first presented the evaluation of different ML models for inferring the distance between the devices and the installed beacons by applying different optimization algorithms. Then, we presented model reduction methods to implement the optimized algorithm on the embedded system by appropriately adapting it to its constraint resources and compared the results, demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed method.

Wastes contain large quantities of energy that can be extracted using a variety of methods. European Union has established a waste-to-energy initiative to minimize waste and increase recovery. Τhe EU Landfill Directive promotes more environmental friendly waste management options. Accordingly, EU member states are adopting mechanicalbiological treatment processes, bio-methanization and waste-derived fuels. Furthermore, EU is energy-dependent, as its resources are insufficient to meet rising energy demands, and fossil fuels must be imported in large quantities. Wastes are increasingly produced and have a non-negligible lower calorific value that are considered as a power source. Findings highlight the role of waste-to-energy facilities in meeting a portion of the European Union's energy needs and contributing to the achievement of renewable energy targets. The untapped potential, through specific actions, can increase capacity in EU without threatening the goals for recycling. This work presents the current status of energy recovery in EU and investigates the unutilized potential energy recovery from wastes, considering the currently landfilled quantities. The results showed that even in the worst scenario, the energy recovery and the renewable content are too high to be neglected, supporting the decarbonization efforts and enhance circular economy, in line with EU's Energy Strategy and Paris agreement.

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In the last few years Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) based on wireless vehicular networks have been attracting interest, since they can contribute towards improving road transport safety and efficiency and ameliorate environmental conditions and life quality. In order to widely spread these technologies, standardization at each layer of the networking protocol stacks has to be done. Therefore, a suite of protocols along with the architecture for the wireless environments with vehicles has been developed and standardized. Both in the US as well as in Europe the selected wireless communication protocol has been the 802.11p protocol developed by the IEEE. In this chapter, we discuss the potential impact of ITS towards achieving the above targets of improving road safety and traffic control. We review the overall architecture and the protocol functionality and present in detail a number of applications that have been developed demonstrating selected use-cases on an 802.11p compliant system prototype. Specifically, we discuss the implementation of selected applications on the NEC's Linkbird-MX platform, which supports IEEE 802.11p based communications, showing how its functionality can be exploited to build efficient road safety and traffic management applications, and evaluate the performance of the system using an experimental testbed.

European counties continue to receive an increasing number of migrants and refugees from an also increasing number of both European and non-European countries. This results in a huge societal challenge which is societal inclusion of people speaking different languages and of diverse backgrounds. Key for their inclusion is job finding which comes with hurdles like the language, the difficulty in assessing and certifying their skills and many more. In this paper, we present the architecture of a novel platform that aspires to provide migrants with a) assistance in discovering and assessing their hard and soft skills by employing Artificial Intelligence technologies, b) recommendations of appropriate job sectors and positions based on their profile, c) recommendations about training that would allow them to find jobs in the country/region they are located and d) practical information regarding the integration process. Furthermore, the proposed platform aims at assisting host authorities, non-governmental organizations and companies in detecting the needs of the target populations (migrants and refugees) through data analytics and supports them in reaching them. Apart from the technical architecture, we provide the results from the initial testing of the platform in real-life pilots in two countries.