1,721,138 research outputs found
Giulia Romano
No full textAssociate Fellow Chine, Climat, Environnement Après l’obtention d’un Master en Etudes européennes à la Faculté de Sciences politiques de l’Université de Turin, en Italie, Giulia Romano a obtenu un diplôme de langue et littérature chinoise à l’Université de Paris 7 – Denis Diderot. Doctorante à Sciences Po Paris depuis 2010, elle conduit actuellement des recherches sur la politique climatique de la Chine et sur sa mise en œuvre à l’échelle des villes chinoises. Assistante de recherche de Davi..
Optimization of cooking for food service: matching sensory and nutritional requirements as drivers for development of innovative tools
No full textThe first activity of the PhD thesis regards the study of the evolution of chemical and physical indicators during different cooking processes of chicken meat. In particular, modifications in terms of cooking loss, colour, humidity and texture during heating time were monitored according to three different cooking methods: forced convection, grill and sous vide. Kinetics indicators were analysed as a function of cooking time and rate constants were extrapolated and studied
I partenariati pubblico-privati di tipo “equity” nel settore idrico: costi e benefici alla luce di una comparazione tra Veneto e Toscana
No full textStarting from evidences of prior literature on PPP, the current article compares two different models of water management: the “Tuscan”, characterized by almost public-private firms, with large scale of operations, and high density; the “Venetian”, highly fragmented and made of wholly publicly owned firms, with smaller size and operating in more sparsely areas. The research aim is to measure the cost or the benefit for citizens coming from the presence of a private shareholder in a water utility. 21 mono-utilities were selected, and financial statements and physical and technical data were gathered for 5 years (2010-2014). Applying a costing tool, the article demonstrates that a private shareholder could increase tariff of approximately 58€/192m3, encouraging firms and authorities to find type of PPP alternatively to “equity” relationship (e.g. project financing)
Fattori critici di successo della buona gestione dei servizi pubblici ed elementi distintivi delle aziende pubbliche
No full textSulla base delle evidenze empiriche relative a quattro aziende pubbliche che offrono quattro diversi tipi di servizi pubblici (acqua e sistema idrico integrato, gestione rifiuti, trasporto pubblico locale e gestione di farmacie) conseguendo buoni risultati di tipo economico-finanziario, sociale e ambientale, sono emersi alcuni "fattori critici di successo" all'origine della buona gestione: in particolare, regole di corporate governance chiare ed equilibrate, un buon management stabile, preparato e autorevole, l'engagement di stakeholder-chiave, la propensione alla ricerca e all'innovazione attraverso partnership. La totale proprietà pubblica del capitale, inoltre, implica minori pressioni sui risultati di breve termine e minore richiesta di dividendi, oltre che favorire - in assenza di concorrenza di mercato - scambi di conoscenze, di informazioni e di buone pratiche fra aziende, comuni, amministratori pubblici
Solvay. Dividend policy & good management
No full textCome coniugare obiettivi di breve termine – quali la distribuzione di un dividendo non inferiore a quello distribuito l’anno precedente – con obiettivi di competitività e di redditività nel medio-lungo termine? Come può una multinazionale di origini e cultura europee cogliere le opportunità offerte dalla crescita del continente asiatico e in particolare della Cina? In che modo una multinazionale del settore chimico può fare della sostenibilità un driver del proprio sviluppo?
Un azionariato familiare stabile, una cultura permeata di valori quali il servizio al cliente, l’innovazione e la centralità della persona, una visione globale del business, la gestione accurata di processi aziendali-chiave come la definizione e la revisione della strategia e l’allocazione delle risorse ai progetti di ricerca e innovazione, la ricerca di un posizionamento competitivo forte nelle diverse aree di business in cui opera sono all’origine della capacità di Solvay di raccogliere queste sfide “tenendo la rotta” anche in tempi di crisi, in contesti difficili e di fronte a stakeholder esigenti
Exploring cost drivers for wastewater utilities: an empirical analysis
No full textObjectives of the paper: This paper investigates the potential presence of economies of scale, scope, and population density, as well as the effect of other operational variables, on three key cost items for wastewater utilities: sewage transportation, sewage treatment, and customer handling.
Methodology: The research is based on a panel dataset, including three-year data for 85 Danish wastewater utilities; for data analysis three general panel data regression models were adopted under two different assumptions: fixed and random effects.
Findings: The paper demonstrates the presence of economies of density and scope, while the impacts of size and other operational variables were not statistically relevant.
Research limits: The study analyses a single European country for a three-year period. Although Denmark provides an appealing setting in which to compare the cost drivers for wastewater utilities as it is characterized by the presence of companies of different sizes and with different strategies, cross-country studies are still needed to improve the generalization of the research findings.
Practical implications: National water authorities should include environmental variables such as population density in the benchmarking model adopted for tariff setting. Firms could then pursue policies of mergers and acquisitions regarding other wastewater utilities operating in high density areas. Furthermore, they could promote the installation of mini treatment plants in rural and isolated areas, thus reducing or eliminating the cost for wastewater transportation, which is the variable most affected by density. Finally, a vertical integration strategy must be pursued, since this reduces transportation costs via the joint provision of water and wastewater services and lightens the burden of the administrative area.
Originality of the paper: The paper investigates and discusses the important but still under-investigated issue of cost drivers for wastewater utilities
La gestione dei rifiuti urbani, tra rimunicipalizzazione e governance condivisa: il caso Contarina
No full textContarina è un'azienda che svolge attività di raccolta e gestione dei rifiuti in provincia di Treviso. Da anni si trova al vertice delle aziende del settore in termini di percentuale di raccolta differenziata dei rifiuti e la popolazione servita produce una quantità di rifiuti estremamente bassa in termini di Kg. pro capite. All'origine di tali risultati stanno, fra l'altro, la rimunicipalizzazione del 100% delle quote societarie, una governance a tre livelli (società operativa, consorzio, comuni soci), management scelto per competenza, oltre che un modello di business incentrato sul sistema "you pay as you throw"
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Economies of scale, scope, and density in the Italian water sector: A two-stage data envelopment analysis approach
No full textPublic utilities could improve their efficiency by pursuing specific strategies, such as growth, diversification of investments, or serving mainly high densely areas. For example, in the water sector, economies of scope and scale both appear possible, but extant literature does not offer clear or consensual findings. To address this lack of clarity, this article investigates
the potential for efficiency improvement in the diverse Italian water sector, which comprises utilities of various sizes, operating in areas with various population densities and organized as mono- or multi-utilities. Technical and financial data from 64 different utilities were collected and then analyzed with a two-stage data envelopment analysis approach to reveal the impacts of different operational and exogenous variables on efficiency, including firm size, the degree of investment diversification, and customer density. The results obtained confirm the existence of all three types of economies (scale, scope and density), albeit with different impacts for each DEA score
- …
