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Functional three-dimensional (3D) engineered cardiac tissue (ECT) models are essential for effective drug screening and biological studies. Application of physiological cues mimicking those typical of the native myocardium is known to promote the cardiac maturation and functionality

The paper compares potentialities and criticalities of the Italian gas market. The aim of this work is not only the creation of a competitive market, which can guarantee the security of supply, but also the ambitious perspective of turning Italy into the Southern European gas hub. These challenges have as their most important obstacle a complex scheme of relations, involving both National and European governments. In this context, the most debated evolution is certainly the complete (ownership) unbundling between Eni, the Italian gas market incumbent, and Snam Rete Gas, the Italian TSO. Another discussed issue is the efforts of infrastructural expansion, supported by new specific regulations of the Italian Authority for electricity and gas. The purpose of this expansion, apart from the security of supply and energy security, is to have a direct influence on pricing and trade, in order to revaluate Italy’s role in the European energy arena.

The objective of this paper is to assess to which extent gas market inefficiencies, such as weak competition, import dependence and lack of flexibility tools, affect operation and usage of storage services in Italy in the aftermath of the EU liberalization process. The analysis is supported by the empirical results of a Delphi survey that we have conducted to investigate storage service provision and regulation in Italy. We argue that the Italian storage sector is at a crossroads. The policy-driven phase of liberalization is ending and the market-driven phase has just begun. The former phase has granted fair access to storage, narrowed the likelihood of strategic behaviour by the incumbent and secured residential users against supply disruptions, but it has proved dynamically inefficient. Cost-reflective tariffs and low penalties for unbalances have both lowered incentives to expand the range of flexibility tools and penalized industrial customers demand. The market-driven phase has just started. The expected increase in working capacity and the entry of newcomers in the authorization process for new facilities are a progress towards the commercial use of storage. To this end, however, a further change in gas market design is needed: the creation of a well functioning spot market.

Questo Rapporto annuale dell'Osservatorio sull'innovazione energetica dell'Istituto per la Competitività I-COM (pagg. 1 - 200) ampia lo spettro d'indagine oltre l'analisi dell'innovazione lungo l'intera filiera dell'energia, e indaga le possibili innovazioni in tema di partecipazione dei cittadini ai processi decisionali pubblici, le esigenze di innovazione all'interno della Pubblica Amministrazione e le città, intese come le imprese innovative proiettate verso paradigmi sempre più smart.

Il Rapporto rientra tra i prodotti intermedi del Progetto GIA - Gestione dell'Informazione Ambientale, avviato nell'ambito dell'Accordo Operativo tra la Regione Basilicata - Osservatorio Ambientale della Val D'Agri e l'Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi - IEFE (Istituto di Economia e Politica dell'Energia e dell'Ambiente). Il Progetto GIA era caratterizzato da un focus specifico sulle attività petrolifere dell'ENI in Val D'Agri ed è stato realizzato con il contributo finanziario della Regione Basilicata . La sottoscritta ha collaborato al Progetto ricerca dello IEFE - Università L. Bocconi, in qualità di consulente, esperto in diritto internazionale dell'ambiente e dei diritti umani, con particolare riferimento ai temi attinenti alla trasparenza e al diritto di accesso alle informazioni, ai diritti ambientali procedurali, banche dati ambientali, all'e-government. Al fine del censimento delle informazioni ambientali detenute dall'amministrazione della Regione Basilicata e dagli enti locali della Val d'Agri, in relazione sia alle attività estrattive in Val d'Agri sia della regione Basilicata in generale, sono state svolte una indagine questionaria e delle interviste, sulla base di una griglia di analisi sviluppata a partire dal quadro normativo di riferimento a livello internazionale, europeo e nazionale. Tali attività sono state condotte, in parallelo alle mappature dei flussi di informazione relativi all'attività estrattiva della Val d'Agri e dell'informazione ambientale della Regione Basilicata condotte su: riferimenti normativi, documenti autorizzativi, sistemi e strumenti di controllo e monitoraggio ambientale, siti web d'interesse.

An important tool in order to carry out research for modeling and managing energy demand and supply is explaining variables with measures reflecting weather variations. For example, handlings with heating degree-days represent an easy way to account for almost 100% of natural gas consumption variations. Setting-up a linear model is a standard way to proceed but when the data under exam is other than linearly associated, that’s to say jointly Normal distributed, correlation is no longer a measure of dependence and interpreting it as such is both theoretically and practically erroneous. In this context, statistical theory proposes a powerful tool, named copula function, to model flexible multivariate distributions in order to describe alternative dependence structures with respect to standard ones. The aim of the paper is to check whether heating degree-days are a consistent linear predictor for natural gas consumptions. In this context, a case study is developed on a monthly average of heating degree-days and monthly (residential and total) natural gas consumption volumes. Estimation results on alternative Archimedean copulas confirm that there is not sufficient evidence supporting a symmetric association with respect to the range of value variables can jointly assume. The statistical model to be used in this type of analysis should be robust against deviation from joint Normality and nesting linearity as a special case.

This article explores the economic characteristics of the Italian gas storage system. Microeconomic and qualitative methods are used to shed light on past, present and forecasted trends. Notwithstanding the entrenched stagnation of the sector, the analysis highlights a break in trends. The policy-driven phase of liberalization is ending and the market-driven phase has just begun. The former phase has granted fair access to storage, thus narrowing the drawbacks of dominant players, but it has proved dynamically inefficient. Cost-reflective tariffs, capacity constraints and low penalties have both lowered incentives to expand the range of tools for balancing gas demand and penalized industrial customers in the storage service provision. The market-driven phase has just started. The expected increase in working capacity and the entry of newcomers in the authorization process for new facilities are a progress towards the commercial use of storage. To this end, however, a further change in gas market design is needed: the creation of a well functioning spot market.