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Abstract: Urban neighborhoods could represent an optimal scale for the implementation of innovative energy strategies. However, barriers at the economic, regulatory and administrative level are still present. In this framework, it is important to operate on three levels of the energy system: by reducing energy demand; by optimizing generation and management system, and by integrating local renewable energy sources. In recent years, as a result of an important agreement with the Italian Ministry of Environment, Lombardy Region has supported numerous measures for energy efficiency and renewable resources integration among its territory. The funding supported different actions such as improvements of the buildings envelope, substitution of old gas boilers for heat generation with more efficient components, integration of solar thermal systems in buildings, hydrogen and more sustainable mobility, and district heating plants, which present contribution concerns. About district heating the incentives were provided within two different calls: one aimed at the creation of plants and district heating networks and another for the extension of existing systems. Main aim of the research is to evaluate effects, effectiveness, pros and cons of the several calls for funding; to that end a methodology was developed in order to collect the data and elaborate representative energy, environmental and economic indicators. The most important characteristics, conditions and technical features of the considered plants are described in the present paper trying to provide information on the effectiveness of the supporting measures taken in order to orient future choices and to identify the most promising strategies and technologies for improving energy and environmental performances of communities. In particular present paper is related to 10 district heating plants: 6 are based on biomass and located in mountain areas, 3 are based on natural gas and located in urban areas, while the last is connected to the urban waste to energy plant. One of the important lesson is learned is that district heating (fuelled by biomass, fossil, waste and CHP or not) represents an innovative field of knowledge far from standard: in general each plant has to be evaluated on the basis of specify characteristics and it is very hard to find out average performances from the environmental and economic point of view. The results obtained during the monitoring campaign could help in providing information on the effectiveness of the supporting measures adopted and also to orient future choices by Lombardy Region and, in particular, to identify the most promising technologies for improving energy and environmental performances of communities and to develop a model for the optimization of energy use in the built environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: An understanding of the energy performance in buildings in an entire municipality or an entire district is important for sustainable energy planning strategies that accelerate the energy renovation process in existing buildings that are not energy efficient. The methodology described in this paper is largely based on information that is already available on building stock (i.e., cartographic documentation, thematic maps, geometric data and others). Data regarding the energy performance of buildings are collected using energy audits on sample buildings, which are selected using a statistical approach. Using the tools in a GIS platform, the integration of two data sources allows for a low cost, comprehensive framework of the energy performance of buildings. This methodology was tested in a medium sized town in the Lombardy region (Italy), and the results are discussed in this paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the context of new tools suitable for making local authorities more pro-active in terms of effectiveness in environmental management, this paper analyzes the case of the application of EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) to local authorities in Italy. EMAS is a European tool that was revised in 2009 with Regulation (EC) N. 1221/2009, named EMAS III. This paper has two goals. The first goal is to analyze how the local authorities, with an environmental management system registered under EMAS, evaluate the environmental aspects related to their activities. The second goal is to propose a set of specific indicators to be monitored, which would fulfill the EMAS III compulsory core-set of indicators. To do this all the EMAS registered public authorities in Italy have been contacted to obtain a copy of their most recent validated environmental statements. Then, for each environmental aspect considered, a matrix has been processed, reporting on related activities, environmental significance, indicators, and environmental targets to improve the performance of the EMS. The analysed environmental statements (75% response rate) deal with a high number of environmental aspects and refer to a wide range of activities carried out by the local authorities. The set of indicators demonstrates that registered local authorities have already enough information for the purpose of complying with the new EMAS III core indicators. On the contrary, EMAS III does not properly cover the several environmental issues and impacts faced by local authorities, so that a different, wider and more specific framework is needed for their environmental performance evaluation. As a result of this study, a set of 13 indicators has been proposed, based on those already in use by local authorities and on those used by the European Environment Agency for environmental assessments. Therefore, this paper can represent a first step towards the definition of sectorial reference guidelines that will be developed at the European level by the European Commission. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years determinants of students’ achievement has received much attention. Empirical studies have found that students’ characteristics, family background, school attended, and regional residence are major factors affecting student performance. In this paper, we analyze the 2009 OECD-PISA (spell PISA) survey to examine individual background characteristics influencing the reading achievement of Italian 15 years-old students using the quantile regression (QR) approach. The QR approach allows researchers to analyze changes in size and direction of predictor estimates on student performance across the entire distribution of reading achievement scores. Results indicate significant effects of predictors on reading achievement operating differently across quantiles, suggesting different pathways to achievement for low and high performing readers. In particular, some family background predictors (parental education, computer availability at home, and availability of a desk for homework at home), the school program attended and, the region of student residence play important but differing role for low and high performing readers. For example, parental education shows a positive effect on student reading, academic (general) programs perform better than vocational or technical, and Northern regions perform better than Center-Southern ones, with differentiated effects along the distribution of students’ reading scores. These findings should be carefully considered by policymakers when outlining strategies to enhance student performance at all levels along the reading continuum of low and high scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] This paper analyses the productivity of 20 Italian airport management companies. [•] We directly assess the impact of quality of services on productive performance. [•] Italian airports have experienced a progressive decline in their productivities. [•] Decline in productivity can be attributed to a low level of quality of services. [•] They should invest more resources in an effort to reduce passenger waiting time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Including runoff in USLE-type empirical models is expected to improve plot soil loss prediction at the event temporal scale and literature yields encouraging signs of the possibility to simply estimate runoff at these spatial and temporal scales. The objective of this paper was to develop an estimating procedure of event soil loss from bare plots (length=11–44m, slope steepness=14.9–16.0%) at two Italian sites, i.e. Masse, in Umbria, and Sparacia, in Sicily, having a similar sand content (5–7%) but different silt (33% at Sparacia, 59% at Masse) and clay (62% and 34%, respectively) contents. A test of alternative erosivity indices for the Masse station showed that the best performances were obtained by the USLE-MM, originally developed at the Sparacia station. This model includes an erosivity index equal to a power (exponent>1) of the runoff ratio, QR , times the single-storm erosion index, EI 30. The fitted models at the two stations were found to coincide for highly erosive events (i.e., QREI 30 >6MJmmha−1 h−1). A parallelism of the two models was detected for low erosivity events. In conclusion, runoff was an important predictor of soil erosion, and local soil characteristics had a more noticeable effect on soil loss for events with a relatively low soil detachment and transport ability. A wider applicability of the USLE-MM scheme can be suggested than for the Sparacia station alone. Additional testing of the model in other environments and development of accurate procedures to estimate plot runoff coefficient at the event temporal scale are required. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The study is focused on the monitoring of the performances of a photovoltaic system, influenced of climatic characteristics of a particular geographical area, in which the PV system is installed. This paper presents the results obtained by monitoring, from March to October 2012, a 960kWp photovoltaic system installed on the parking lots in the campus of the University of Salento, Italy and divided in two subfields with different tilt angle (3–15°) and different nominal powers (353.3kWp and 606.6kWp). The values of energy and power generated, final yield, reference yield, photovoltaic system efficiency, performance ratio and cell temperature losses are analyzed and linked to the climatic characteristics of the site, such as insolation (for the two distinct subfield), ambient temperature and wind speed. This study is part of the European Project “Buildings Energy Advanced Management System, BEAMS”, and its aim is to develop an advanced, integrated management system for buildings and special infrastructures of public use. This work offers a tool to estimate the performances of plants to be installed in sites with climatic characteristics similar to South-eastern Italy, and it is also useful as comparison to investigate the productivity of plants placed in different areas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Experimental research carried out on two types of buildings that are the examples of vernacular architecture in Southern Italy, namely the Sassi of Matera and the Trulli of Alberobello are outlined in this paper. Experimental measurements on thermal properties, energy performance and hygrothermal indoor comfort were carried out to validate the numerical code provided by DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus that was used to investigate the buildings on a yearly basis. The very high thermal mass of the building structures give rise to a quasi-constant seasonal indoor temperature with no need for air conditioning in the mid- and peak-summer seasons. The seasonal thermal storage can almost guarantee near the comfort levels using simple heating systems during the cold season. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The availability of solar radiation in phase with the seasonal as well as hourly cooling load profiles in most of the office buildings in the Mediterranean region, in addition to the large share of primary energy consumed for air- conditioning applications in office buildings create a high motivation for the utilization of solar cooling technology for such type of buildings. A solar heating and cooling system for an office building in Italy has been designed, installed and monitored within the framework of the EC co-funded project SOLERA aiming at developing highly integrated solar thermal heating and cooling system that is able to achieve a high solar fraction both for the heating and cooling seasons. The analysis of the system performance during 2011 is presented in this paper, with main focus on electricity consumption during summer. The analysis has been carried out according to the monitoring procedure developed within the frame of the IEA SHC Task 38. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Regional airports have received great attention in the last decades due to the opportunity of using their spare capacity in order to reduce congestion at main hubs. This paper illustrates the application of the Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods to a regional multi-airport system (MAS) so as to verify the role/position of each airport within the MAS. The test case refers to a regional MAS located in the North East of Italy. The analysis has been carried out on a reference time period so as to study the airports'' performance variations over several years. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper introduces a methodology to describe and compare the economic relative performance of the hospitality sector of the Italian regions during the period 2000–2004. Dynamics of the hospitality sector of each region is represented by the evolution of its economic efficiency. The investigation involves the following steps: a static Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the pure economic efficiency; two different notions of distances between time series and hierarchical clustering techniques are used to classify the economies in the sample. By using a correlation-based distance, three main clusters are detected, while two clusters are identified when the average distance is used. The trend patterns, identified by employing the correlation distance, can be interpreted in terms of exogenous factors that influence the economic efficiency of the group of regions, causing shocks picked up by the high volatility as well as structural breaks. By employing the average distance, one infers information on the cluster that have had similar efficiency values over the period under analysis. This efficiency can be also interpreted in terms of a particular type of hospitality management as well as the firm structure. Following the analysis, some policy and management implications are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The energy policy about energy performance of buildings, including minimum energy requirements and energy performance certificate (EPC), is applied to new and existing buildings, especially in the case of energy retrofit. Among existing buildings, heritage buildings are a special case. Another problem is finding an evaluation and measurement tool for town energy consumption which is related to the age and the characteristics of existing buildings. This problem concerns both urban planning discipline and heritage buildings discipline. The introduction of EPC database in Emilia-Romagna legislation (a region located in the North-East of Italy) is an opportunity to perform studies and simulation, in addition to GIS networking elaboration. This paper deals with the case of Ferrara, an old town, in order to debate: [-] number and energy incidence of heritage buildings; [-] influence of typology factor for energy saving in heritage buildings; [-] use of GIS tools to refer EPC, energy class in order to suggest a zone energy indicator (ZEI) for measuring the city and the old town. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Given that public opinion about a company''s performance during a crisis is highly influenced by the way news media cover crisis events, studies that look at news media''s choice of crisis issues, tones and frames are extremely valuable. This paper presents the main findings of a study on how the Italian and international press framed the Italian national airline Alitalia and its crisis in 2008 before its privatization. This study is based on content analysis of news articles published in 2008 in two Italian and two international newspapers. Comparisons of crisis issues, tones and frames between the Italian and international press are made. Implications and recommendations for crisis managers are discussed as well as directions for further research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Growing of PV for electricity generation is one of the highest in the field of the renewable energies and this tendency is expected to continue in the next years. Due to the various seasonal, hourly and daily changes in climate, it is relatively difficult to find a suitable analytic model for predicting the performance of a grid-connected photovoltaic (GCPV) plant. In this paper, an artificial neural network is used for modelling and predicting the power produced by a 20kWp GCPV plant installed on the roof top of the municipality of Trieste (latitude 45°40′N, longitude 13°46′E), Italy. An experimental database of climate (irradiance and air temperature) and electrical (power delivered to the grid) data from January 29th to May 25th 2009 has been used. Two ANN models have been developed and implemented on experimental climate and electrical data. The first one is a multivariate model based on the solar irradiance and the air temperature, while the second one is an univariate model which uses as input parameter only the solar irradiance. A database of 3437 patterns has been divided into two sets: the first (2989 patterns) is used for training the different ANN models, while the second (459 patterns) is used for testing and validating the proposed ANN models. Prediction performance measures such as correlation coefficient (r) and mean bias error (MBE) are presented. The results show that good effectiveness is obtained between the measured and predicted power produced by the 20kWp GCPV plant. In fact, the found correlation coefficient is in the range 98–99%, while the mean bias error varies between 3.1% and 5.4%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A prototype of a laser in vessel viewing and ranging system was developed at ENEA laboratories in Frascati, it uses the amplitude modulated laser radar concept and it is conceived to withstand the severe ITER conditions. The in vessel viewing system (IVVS) probe has been designed and built to perform sub-millimetric three-dimensional images inside ITER; it is based on an intrinsically radiation resistant concept and architecture. A first characterization of the IVVS probe under room conditions was made at Frascati Labs on a full-scale mock-up of the ITER first wall panel (FWP) and of the divertor vertical target. The first characterization demonstrated that an upgrade of the IVVS performances was necessary especially to cope with divertor surfaces made of carbon material, which is highly absorbent from optical point of view. The paper describes the new developments of IVVS prototype to increase range measurement performances that was obtained increasing the modulation frequency, the optical efficiency of the probe optics and the laser power. A new test campaign has been carried out on the upgraded IVVS and a compact characteristic curve describing its performances has been found both in mathematical and graphical form. As far as viewing is concerned, the system has confirmed the sub-millimetric viewing resolution, reaching in the worst cases ∼1mm of resolution. The image quality was excellent in almost all the cases. The range measurement performance of IVVS system has been strongly upgraded reducing the standard deviation of range measure of a factor varying from 6 to 12. The increased performance allows measuring surface shapes and erosion on first wall tiles and divertor also for inclination angles completely outside the previous IVVS characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Natural materials, such as straw bale and earth, have substantially less embodied energy than processed materials, so that their use in building construction can give a valuable contribution to sustainability. This paper presents a natural multi-sheet wall package (named straw wall, SW) consisting of straw bale layer and innovative natural plasters, giving a rational evaluation of its potential of use in the sustainable building construction. The new building component was investigated by analyzing its environmental impact through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) from "Cradle to Gate" and its energy performance using dynamic simulation of a building case study; the energy saving potential of SW was assessed in different climate conditions in Italy. The innovative package highlighted excellent energy performance with respect to the NZEB reference, as prescribed by the Italian regulation, for all climates. Considering only the production and construction phases, the Embodied Energy associated to the innovative wall system is about the half of the value related to a traditional wall package and the CO 2 equivalent emissions differ by more than 40%(Pescara site). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]