Description: Transforming mature tourism resorts has evolved toward a greater involvement of public authorities and away from the mere renovation of public spaces. Authorities today are required to lead the reorganization of tourism activities through the development of co-operative networks between all stakeholders involved. In this paper, a participatory integrated approach has been designed and implemented in collaboration with Spanish authorities and the tourism sector to propose a strategy to achieve the renovation of tourism resorts. This methodology was applied to Puerto de la Cruz, the oldest tourism destination in the Canary Islands and a clear paradigm of a consolidated resort. The objective is to define and implement policies to transform Puerto de la Cruz into a more sustainable tourism destination.

Description: Although much research has taken place in WiFi indoor localization systems, their accuracy can still be improved. When designing this kind of system, fingerprint-based methods are a common choice. The problem with fingerprint-based methods comes with the need of site surveying the environment, which is effort consuming. In this work, we propose an approach, based on support vector regression, to estimate the received signal strength at non-site-surveyed positions of the environment. Experiments, performed in a real environment, show that the proposed method could be used to improve the resolution of fingerprint-based indoor WiFi localization systems without increasing the site survey effort.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1346: Cultural Heritage and Urban Tourism: Historic City Centres under Pressure Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su9081346 Authors: María García-Hernández Manuel de la Calle-Vaquero Claudia Yubero Historic city centres of European cities are one of the most important elements of the European cultural heritage. They are places that attract many visitors due to their relevance in terms of heritage, but the recent growth of tourist flows constitutes a threat to the conservation of their values. In some European cities, such as Venice or Barcelona, the debate has taken to the streets, and there is significant social mobilization taking place, with very belligerent positions against tourism (anti-tourism, tourismphobia). The mass media also generates discourse on the topic and places the debate on urban tourism sustainability at the forefront of the public debate. In this context, this article reviews the state of the art on tourism impact and identifies, describes and evaluates the different dimensions of tourist pressure based on a case study: the historic centre of the city of Donostia-San Sebastián (Basque Country, Spain). The main goal of the research is to help determine how tourist pressure affects the safeguarding of “historic urban landscapes” and the desirable or desired models of city and tourist destination.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 291: Solar Ray Tracing Analysis to Determine Energy Availability in a CPC Designed for Use as a Residential Water Heater Energies doi: 10.3390/en11020291 Authors: Miguel Terrón-Hernández Manuel Peña-Cruz Jose Carrillo Ulises Diego-Ayala Vicente Flores Compound parabolic concentrators are relevant systems used in solar thermal technology. With adequate tailoring, they can be used as an efficient and low-cost alternative in residential water heating applications. This work presents a simulation study using a ray tracing analysis. With this technique, we simulate the interaction between solar rays and solar concentrator to quantify the amount of energy that impinges on the receiver at a particular time. Energy availability is evaluated in a comparison of two configurations throughout the year: static setup at 21° and multi-position setup; tilted with respect to the horizontal, depending on three seasonal positions: 0° for summer, 16° for spring/autumn, and 32° for winter, with the aim to evaluate the amount of available energy in each season. The fact that a tracking system can be dispensed with also represents an economical option for the proposed application. The results showed that at 21°, the proposed solar Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) works satisfactorily; however, by carrying out the selected angular adjustments, the overall energy availability increased by 22%, resulting in a more efficient option. The most effective design was also built and analyzed outdoors. The obtained thermal efficiency was of ~43%. The optical design and its evaluation developed herein proved to be a valuable tool for prototype design and performance evaluation.