Is there room for shared cars in Italy? Considerations from some recent experiences

Car sharing is increasing its role worldwide as an alternative transport mode, that could contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility by reducing congestion and pollution. The paper focuses on the understanding of which are the main characteristics of this service starting from the literature on this topic both in terms of user profile and impact of the service; in the second part of the paper, the Italian context will be presented starting from the analysis of four Italian experiences with a particular focus on Milan’s car sharing. Summarizing the conclusion, it emerges that to date, the overall impact on transport is still quite low, in part due to a scarce integration and coordination with other transport modes and in part because car is still perceived primarily as a status symbol and a “good” rather than as a “service”. Therefore, car sharing can perform as a significant complementary and sustainable solution to mobility needs only in a context of cultural change and inside a transport policy aimed at changing transport behavior.car sharing; sustainable mobility; transport policy; urban mobility; peer to peer car sharing;

Financing transport infrastrucure projects in Italy: a critical analysis of the main approaches

This paper aims at analysing the methodology used for financing large infrastructure projects in Italy. In particular, it focuses on the Italian highway sector, where in the last years many projects have been launched using new financial instruments. The paper discusses three of these “instruments”. The first one is the Project Financing, discussed starting from a general review, analyzing also the different typologies used, the risks involved and their allocation among the various subjects that take part in the PF mechanism. A special case concerns the recently introduced model used for the Italian highways, known as “PF with takeover compensation”. There are two other important mechanisms used for financing infrastructure projects in Italy: the exploitation of road demand rigidity and the spreading of the investment over the entire network, favouring larger concessions. We conclude that all these three mechanisms present deep flaws in terms of transparency and of contradiction with economic feasibility criteria (that have to dominate the public investment rationale).transport; investment; infrastructure; project financing; highway.

WP 6: MODELLING STAKEHOLDER INTERPLAY AND POLICY SCENARIOS FOR BIOREFINERY AND BIODIESEL PRODUCTION. D 6.6: Detailed specification of the questionnaire to be delivered to various stakeholders

In this deliverable we first present a technical note on how to identify the key agro-energy stakeholders involved (or potentially involved) in the production of biodiesel in the province of Foggia (Capitanata). Subsequently, we present the questionnaire which will be distributed to these stakeholders.

Las pymes de gestión de actividades de los gimnasios y de gestión de instalaciones deportivas en españa

Las microempresas, pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYME) son un eslabón decisivo de la actividad y el empleo en toda economía, también en la economía española. Las PYMEs pueden tener formas y tamaños muy variados. La Comisión de la Comunidad Europea hizo una recomendación en el 2003 para definirlas, teniendo en cuenta el volumen de negocios anual, el balance general anual y las unidades de trabajo anual, separando e identificándolas según su tamaño en mediana, pequeña y microempresa. Para la realización del estudio empírico, se obtuvo la información contable y financiera de la base de datos SABI para las empresas de gestión de actividades de los gimnasios (EGAG) y de empresas de gestión de instalaciones deportivas (EGID) registradas en la clasificación nacional de actividades económicas (CNAE) entre los años 2004-2012. Se plantearon dos objetivos, clasificación de las EGAG y EGID según su forma jurídica, localización geográfica y tamaño, y analizar la evolución del total de activos, ingresos de explotación y número de personas empleadas de las PYMEs estudiadas. En cuando a las EGID hay que destacar la presencia de microempresas y pequeñas empresas, con un 59,5% y un 35,9% respectivamente, que trabajan sobre todo como Sociedades Limitadas (SL). En el caso de las EGAG, se destaca la presencia de todos los tamaños de PYME en las comunidades de Cataluña y de la Comunidad de Madrid, siendo la mayoría microempresas que trabajan como SL. Se puede concluir, que las EGID y las EGAG españolas son mayoritariamente de reducido tamaño, operando bajo la personalidad jurídica de SL, observado como el tamaño tiene una relación directa en las variables económicas estudiadas, siendo las PYMEs de menor tamaño las que presentan un menor cambio después de la crisis.Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a decisive link of activity and employment in every economy, also in the Spanish economy. SMEs can have very varied shapes and sizes. The Commission of the European Community made a recommendation in 2003 to define them, taking into account annual turnover, annual balance sheet and annual work units, separating and identifying them according to their size medium, small and microenterprise. In order to carry out the empirical study, we obtained the financial and accounting information from the SABI database for the activity management companies of the gyms (MCG) and of companies of management of sports facilities (MSF) registered in the national classification of activities (CNAE) between the years 2004-2012. We had two research objectives. They were firstly to classify these organizations by their legal form, geographic location and size, and secondly to explore the evolution of the total assets, operating revenue and number of employees for the organizations as a whole. As for MSF, the presence of microenterprises and small enterprises, with 59.5% and 35.9%, respectively, mainly working as Limited Companies (SL), should be highlighted. In the case of MCG, the presence of all sizes of SMEs in the communities of Catalonia and the Community of Madrid stands out. Most are microenterprises and work as SL. It can be concluded that the MSF and the Spanish MCG are mostly of small size, operating under the legal personality of SL, observed as the size has a direct relation in the studied economic variables, being the smaller SMEs the ones that present a smaller change after the crisis

Evolution in financial profitability and debt according to size of organizations of management of sports facilities of non-competitive leisure

El tamaño y estructura en las organizaciones deportivas son variables determinantes para la supervivencia, siendo estas variables fundamentales para la rentabilidad financiera y tasa de endeudamiento ante un escenario adverso de crisis económica. Por este motivo el objetivo del presente estudio fue conocer la evolución en la pasada crisis económica entre tamaño, rentabilidad financiera y endeudamiento, de las empresas que favorecen el ocio deportivo no competitivo en organizaciones de gestión de instalaciones deportivas españolas. Para la selección de la muestra se llevó a cabo una búsqueda sistemática en el sistema de análisis de balances ibéricos sobre un total de 1.760 empresas de gestión de instalaciones deportivas, registradas en el Código Nacional de Actividades Económicas (CNAE) 9311 entre los años 2005-2012. Después de la crisis económica la rentabilidad financiera y endeudamiento afectó en mayor medida a las grandes organizaciones y en menor medida a las pequeñas y medianas. Podemos ver como después de la crisis y como era previsible, se produce una disminución en los porcentajes de signo negativo en grandes y microempresas, y reducción pero de signo positivo en las pequeñas y medianas.Size and structure in sports organizations are determining variables for survival, these variables being fundamental for financial profitability and debt rate in the face of an adverse economic crisis. For this reason, the objective of the present study was to know the evolution in the past economic crisis between size, financial profitability and indebtedness, of the companies that favor non-competitive sports leisure in organizations of management of Spanish sports facilities. For the selection of the sample a systematic search was carried out in the system of analysis of Iberian balances on a total of 1,760 companies of management of sports facilities, registered in the National Code of Economic Activities (CNAE) 9311 between the years 2005-2012. After the economic crisis, financial profitability and indebtedness affected larger organizations and, to a lesser extent, small and mediumsized enterprises. We can see how after the crisis and as was foreseeable, there is a decrease in the percentages of negative sign in large and microenterprises, and reduction but of positive sign in the small and medium

Dynamic ConvNets on Tiny Devices via Nested Sparsity

This work introduces a new training and compression pipeline to build nested sparse convolutional neural networks (ConvNets), a class of dynamic ConvNets suited for inference tasks deployed on resource-constrained devices at the edge of the Internet of Things. A nested sparse ConvNet consists of a single ConvNet architecture, containing N sparse subnetworks with nested weights subsets, like a Matryoshka doll, and can trade accuracy for latency at runtime, using the model sparsity as a dynamic knob. To attain high accuracy at training time, we propose a gradient masking technique that optimally routes the learning signals across the nested weight subsets. To minimize the storage footprint and efficiently process the obtained models at inference time, we introduce a new sparse matrix compression format with dedicated compute kernels that fruitfully exploit the characteristic of the nested weights subsets. Tested on image classification and object detection tasks on an off-the-shelf ARM-M7 microcontroller unit (MCU), nested sparse ConvNets outperform variable-latency solutions naively built assembling single sparse models trained as stand-alone instances, achieving 1) comparable accuracy; 2) remarkable storage savings; and 3) high performance. Moreover, when compared to state-of-the-art dynamic strategies, such as dynamic pruning and layer width scaling, nested sparse ConvNets turn out to be Pareto optimal in the accuracy versus latency space