Search results for "Frontier"
showing 10 items of 145 documents
Optimization study of acid-base flow battery stacks with monopolar and bipolar membranes
2021
The Acid-Base Flow Battery (AB-FB) is a novel technology for energy storage. It is based on reversible electrodialytic techniques with ion-exchange membranes. The kye elements are the bipolar membranes, which convert electrical energy in the form of pH gradients and vice versa. Despite the promising results of few experimental studies, the AB-FB potential has been poorly explored so far. This work presents an optimization study of the AB-FB. It was performed by a multi-scale process model previously developed (gPROMS Model Builder® environment) and experimentally validated. A two-objective optimization was conducted by maximizing the Net Round Trip Efficiency and the Net Power Density in th…
The Luenberger productivity indicator in the water industry: An empirical analysis for England and Wales
2014
Abstract We innovate in the field of water companies' performance with an application of the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator (LPI) to the assessment of water companies' productivity growth. The advantage of our approach is that it takes into account both input contractions and output expansions. The analysis covered 22 water companies from England and Wales using data over the period 2001–2008. To the best of our knowledge, there are no prior studies applying the Luenberger productivity indicator to the water industry in England and Wales or other countries. For the sake of comparison, the traditional Malmquist productivity index (MPI) was also estima…
Local vs. National Environmental Spending: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis
2012
This work studies the impact of public environmental spending in a fiscal federalist framework. The main question is studying when the centralization of this public economic function is welfare improving. Applying the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) on Italian, Portuguese and Slovakian data, the paper tries to test this issue. Our results highlight the superiority of centralized environmental spending with respect to the decentralization of this particular public good.
Climate variability and agricultural production efficiency: evidence from Ethiopian farmers
2020
It is known that climate and weather variability have negative impacts on agricultural production efficiency. The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of climatic variables on farms’ efficiency in Ethiopia making use of nationally representative datasets from Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) 2011/2012. By using the Stochastic Frontier Approach, we estimate simultaneously the farmers’ optimal production function and technical inefficiency equations, taking into account unobserved heterogeneity of farmers. Our main findings show that climate change variables have a positive effect on households’ efficiency but the impact depends on the diff…
A pragmatic high modernism? rural development and state building in the Ethiopian lowlands, c. 1960–2019.
2022
Large scale agricultural projects driven by a high modernist ideology have been closely interlinked with the process of state building at the Ethiopian lowland frontier since the second half of the twentieth century. This paper provides a diachronic analysis of the political economy of agricultural development and the associated frontier effect in the western and north-eastern lowlands of the country across three different political regimes. A comparative assessment of these patterns suggests that the high modernist paradigm should be applied with some qualification to the agenda of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the coalition that ruled Ethiopia from 1994 to…
Sicurezza e populismo. I migranti alla frontiera del diritto penale
2023
Il presente lavoro di ricerca ha ad oggetto la criminalizzazione delle migrazioni nell'èra del cosiddetto populismo, e in particolare del populismo penale. Invero, negli ultimi anni si è assistito ad una espansione incontrollata del potere punitivo che, sotto la pressione di un bisogno collettivo di sicurezza, ha condotto ad una vera e propria disumanizzazione del diritto penale (e punitivo-amministrativo), nel duplice significato che quest’ultima espressione rivestiva secondo la giurispoeta Mireille Delmas-Marty: "quello di un diritto penale che si sta deumanizzando, e quindi deumanizzato, in quanto sempre più distante dai principi dell'umanesimo giuridico; e quello di un diritto penale de…
Analisi di clorobenzeni in campione di sedimento mediante purificazione fotochimica: nuove frontiere nella Green Analytical Chemistry
2014
Surveillance politique et militaire de la frontiere sicilienne (1647-1648). Reduire au silence, controler l'linformation, eviter la contagion insurre…
2014
Il contributo, frutto delle ricerche relative al FIRB 2012, fa riferimento al severo controllo politico e militare del periodo 1647-1648 nel territorio siciliano.
Regulation and efficiency: the case of European railways
2001
Abstract During the long period of regulation of the railway system in Europe (1950s–1990s) the companies notably improved their levels of productivity. However, parallel to this, the state of their financial accounts also significantly worsened. In order to explain this fact we have estimated both cost and revenue frontier functions, calculating the losses associated with both cost and revenue inefficiencies as well as inefficiencies on the cost side. The results obtained show the existence of significant potential losses of revenue, which can be explained above all by the strong policy of regulation and intervention reigning in this period. A better commercial policy and a supply adapted …