•The paper examines the role of demand-pull and technology-push policies in explaining innovation performance in the biofuels sector.•In mature technologies demand-pull policies have a greater impact ...on innovation dynamics than technology-push instruments.•In less mature technologies innovation is spurred by both demand-pull and technology-push instruments.•In less mature technologies price-based instruments are more effective in fostering innovation activities than quantity-based instruments.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the differentiated impact of demand-pull and technology-push policies in shaping technological patterns in the biofuels sector. The empirical analysis is based on a novel and original database (BioPat) containing patents in the field of biofuels selected using appropriate keywords and classified according to the technological content of the invention. Our results generally show that technological capabilities and environmental regulation spur innovative activities in the biofuels sector. Both demand-pull and technology-push factors are found to be important drivers of innovation in the biofuels sector. However, technology exploitation activities in first generation technologies are found to be mainly driven by quantity and price-based demand-pull policies. On the contrary, the pace of technology exploration efforts in advanced generation biofuels is shown to react positively to price-based demand-pull incentives but also to technology-push policy. The clear diversity in the impact of different public support instruments provides new insights which fuel discussion on the optimal policy mix debate and offers new elements for the design of future policy strategies.
The increasing attention given to global energy issues and the international policies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have given a renewed stimulus to research interest in the linkages ...between the energy sector and economic performance at country level. In this paper, we analyse the causal relationship between economy and energy by adopting a Vector Error Correction Model for non-stationary and cointegrated panel data with a large sample of developed and developing countries and four distinct energy sectors. The results show that alternative country samples hardly affect the causality relations, particularly in a multivariate multi-sector framework.
The Special Issue “Industry and Tertiary Sectors towards Clean Energy Transition” is focused on technical, financial and policy-related aspects linked to the transition of industrial and services ...sectors towards energy saving and decarbonisation. These different aspects are interrelated, and as such, they have been analysed with an interdisciplinary approach combining economic and technical information. Collecting and analysing quantitative data would allow researchers to better understand the clean energy transition process, and how the international and national regulatory and policy framework are contributing to it. The papers within this Special Issue focus on energy efficiency and clean energy key technologies, renewable sources, energy management and monitoring systems, energy policies and regulations, and economic and financial aspects.
In recent years, next to conventional rehabilitation's techniques, new technologies have been applied in stroke rehabilitation. In this context, fully immersive virtual reality (FIVR) has showed ...interesting results thanks to the level of immersion of the subject in the illusional world, with the feeling of being a real part of the virtual environment. This study aims to investigate the efficacy of FIVR in stroke rehabilitation. PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus were screened up to November 2022 to identify eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Out of 4623, we included 12 RCTs involving post-acute and chronic stroke survivors, with a total of 350 patients (234 men and 115 women; mean age 58.36 years). High heterogeneity of the outcomes considered, the results showed that FIVR provides additional benefits, in comparison with standard rehabilitation. In particular, results showed an improvement in upper limb dexterity, gait performance and dynamic balance, influencing patient independence. Therefore, FIVR represents an adaptable, multi-faceted rehabilitation tool that can be considered in post-stroke rehabilitation, improving the compliance of the patients to the treatment and increasing the level of functioning and quality of life of stroke survivors.
The objective of this work is the energy characterisation and evaluation of the energy efficiency potential of the rubber manufacturing industry in Italy, exploiting the detailed data included in ...energy audits by large and energy-intensive companies. This sector is divided into two sub-activities: the manufacture of rubber products and the production of tyres. Existing studies are focused mainly on tyre production, and there is a lack of quantitative evaluation of energy indicators that can provide guidance for improving process efficiency. In this work, updated global and specific energy performance indicators (EnPIs) related to the production process and to the auxiliary and general services are defined and evaluated. At the same time, targeted actions and interventions to improve the energy efficiency of the sector are analysed, showing the role of different intervention areas and their cost-effectiveness. The analysis is based on 100 Italian mandatory energy audits of the sector collected according to Art.8 EU Directive 27/2012. The applied methodology made it possible to calculate specific energy performance indicators by considering the overall and sub-process energy consumption of different production sites. Based on a detailed database containing real data from recent energy audits, this study provides an up-to-date and reliable benchmark for the rubber industry sector. In addition, the analysis of energy audits allows the identification of the most effective energy efficiency interventions for the rubber industry in terms of cost-effectiveness and payback time.
The implementation of monitoring tools and energy management systems (EnMSs) supports companies in their long-term energy efficiency strategies, and they are essential to analyse the effectiveness of ...energy performance improvement actions (EPIAs). The first fundamental step towards increasing energy efficiency is the development of energy audits (EAs). EAs provide comprehensive information about the energy usage in a specific facility, identifying and quantifying cost-effective EPIAs. The crucial role of these tools in clean energy transition is remarked by the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), which promotes the implementation of EAs and EnMS programmes. The purpose of this work is to better understand the link between EnMSs (specifically ISO 50001) and EAs in the EED Article 8 implementation in two industrial and two tertiary sectors in Italy. Moreover, the impact of company size, energy monitoring systems, and EnMSs on planned and/or implemented EPIAs is analysed. Our findings show that, albeit the complexity of the variables involved in energy efficiency gap, the “energy savings/company” and “EPIA/site” ratios are higher in enterprises with an EnMS and monitoring system. Thus, a correct energy audit must always be accompanied by a specific monitoring plan if it is to be effective and useful to the company decision maker.
Petroleum products account for the 32.3% of worldwide primary energy. There are more than 100 oil refineries in Europe that directly employ 119,000 people with a turnover of EUR 600 billion and ...around 1.2% to the total value added in manufacturing. Therefore, the petroleum refining sector is very important in the European economy, and its decarbonization is crucial in the energy transition. Refineries present a high degree of complexity and integration, and the continuous increase of their energy efficiency is a key topic for the sector. In this work an analysis of the energy efficiency in ten Italian refineries based on mandatory energy audits and public data is presented. The primary (0.0963 ± 0.0341 toe/t), thermal (3421.71 ± 1316.84 MJ/t), and electrical (68.20 ± 19.34 kWh/t) specific energy consumptions have been evaluated. Some insights about the impact of refined products mix (mainly driven by production of diesel fuel) and Nelson Complexity Index in energy consumption are presented. Lastly, an overview of energy performance improvement actions (EPIAs) information extracted from energy audits is presented. This work presents a first step for the benchmark of Italian refineries that should be subsequently improved.
Opinion statement
The clinical scenario of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (GEP-NENs) is continuously changing due to significant improvements in the definition of their molecular ...landscapes and the introduction of innovative therapeutic approaches. Many efforts are currently employed in the integration of the genetics/epigenetics and clinical information. This is leading to an improvement of tumor classification, prognostic stratification and ameliorating the management of patients based on a personalized approach.
Background The pericoronary fat attenuation index (pFAI) has emerged as a marker of coronary inflammation, which is measurable from standard coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). It ...compares well with gold-standard methods for the assessment of coronary inflammation and can predict future cardiovascular events. pFAI could prove invaluable to differentiate an inflammatory from a noninflammatory coronary artery status, helping unravel the mechanisms subtending an event classified as myocardial infarction with nonobstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA) or Tako-Tsubo syndrome (TTS). Methods and Results Patients admitted with MINOCA and TTS between 2011 and 2018, who had both CCTA and cardiac magnetic resonance during or shortly after the acute phase, were selected and pFAI measured in their CCTA; pFAI was also measured in control subjects who had CCTA for atypical chest pain workup, no obstructive coronary artery disease found in their CCTA, and no cardiac events at 2-year follow-up. In the n=106 MINOCA/TTS patients, mean pFAI was -68.37±8.29 versus -78.03±6.20 in the n=106 controls (P<0.0001), and the difference was confirmed also when comparing mean pFAI in each coronary artery between MINOCA/TTS and controls (P<0.0001). Nonobstructive coronary plaques at CCTA, high-risk plaques in particular, were more frequently found (P<0.01) in the MINOCA/TTS group compared with controls. Conclusions In MINOCA and TTS patients, CCTA is not only able to detect angiographically invisible atherosclerotic plaques, but its diagnostic yield can be expanded using the simple measurement of pFAI to characterize pericoronary fat tissue; in MINOCA/TTS mean pFAI demonstrates higher values compared with controls, a finding that has been associated with coronary artery inflammation.
In a scenario characterised by mitigation concerns and calls for greater resilience in the energy sector, energy audits (EAs) emerge as an essential mean for enhancing end-use energy consumption ...awareness and efficiency. Such a tool allows us to assess the different energy carriers consumed in a productive sector, offering insight into existing energy efficiency improvement opportunities. This opens avenues for research to devise an econometrics-based methodology that encapsulate production sites and their environmental essentials. This paper contributes to the literature by exploiting the EAs received by the Italian National agency for New technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) in 2019 from the Italian plastics manufacturing sector, matched with Italian firm-based data extracted from the Analisi Informatizzata delle Aziende Italiane (Italian company information and business intelligence) (AIDA) database. In particular, we investigate how the implementation of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) is influenced by a set of contextual factors, as well as features relating to the companies and EEMs themselves. The empirical investigation focuses on the EAs submitted to ENEA in 2019, which was strategically chosen due to its unique data availability and adequacy for extensive analysis. The selection of 2019 is justified as it constitutes the second mandatory reporting period for energy audits, in contrast to the 2022 data, which are currently undergoing detailed refinement. In line with the literature, the adopted empirical approach involves the use of both the OLS and logistic regression models. Empirical results confirm the relevance of economic and financial factors in guiding the decisions surrounding the sector’s energy performance, alongside the analogous influence of the technical characteristics of the measures themselves and of the firms’ strategies. In particular, the OLS model with no fixed effects shows that a one-percent variation in investments is associated with an increase in savings performance equal to 0.63%. As for the OLS model, including fixed effects, the elasticity among the two variables concerned reaches 0.87%, while in the logistic regression, if the investment carried out by the production sites increases, the expected percentage change in the probability that the energy-saving performance is above its average is about 187.77%. Contextual factors that prove to be equally influential include the incentive mechanism considered and the traits of the geographical area in which the companies are located. Relevant policy implications derived from this analysis include the importance of reducing informational barriers about EEMs and increasing technical assistance, which can be crucial for identifying and implementing effective energy solutions.
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