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Starting from an interpretation of “sustainable mobility”, this study describes a possible taxonomy of the modalities of urban travels related to sustainability and it suggests an inclusive approach to implement urban policies for “soft mobility” inside the urban contexts. These policies aim at improving the levels of urban liveability, reducing the polluting emissions and promoting the recovery of a sober moral behaviour in acting and reacting inside the city. The underway photovoltaic bikesharing project “Bene Bike” in Benevento shows how the bike station plays an innovative role. It represents a multifunctional element able of managing material and immaterial “flows of urban travels” (people, energy, information).

Climate change is an issue that cuts across several policy domains, from the environment to transport, industry, agriculture, and health, among others. It follows that responses to climate change need to cut across the various policy fields also. The phenomenon of incorporating or mainstreaming climate policy into other policy fields is often termed “climate policy integration”, and it is a policy requirement that has not yet been extensively explored, especially at EU level. With the agreement on the EU’s integrated climate and energy package in December 2008, it is clear that climate policy integration is considered important for the Union’s strategy to combat climate change. Can it be said that climate policy integration is already in place in the EU? How can we identify climate policy integration? How can we ensure that climate policy integration is effective? The aim of this paper is to examine the extensive research already carried out on environmental policy integration (EPI) in order to draw out lessons that could help, firstly, to conceptualize climate policy integration, and, secondly, to identify a framework for analysis or a set of criteria that could aid the analysis of climate policy integration at EU level. EPI is an area of literature that rarely deals with climate policy in particular. However, its focus on policy processes, administrative structures and communication channels, for example, can provide lessons for the study and implementation of climate policy integration. This paper contributes to the development of an analytical framework for assessing and studying climate policy integration at EU level, and concludes by highlighting some areas for further research.

The analysis of a passive damper employing smart materials is carried out through the description of a concept device loaded by a vibrating mass. Such a device is able to damp vibration and to produce electric energy (energy harvesting). Its basic properties are described in detail and the relationships between damping features and its physical parameters are shown. The analysis is carried out by a linear modeling at first, while the comparison to its actual behaviour is exploited to justify a more careful study where the material non-linearity is considered. Analytical results on the linear model and the spice numerical analysis of a non-linear model are presented.

European cities are essential actors for transition to a low carbon society on a 2050 horizon. Urban activities account for 80 % of energy consumption in Europe as well as most GHG emissions. The need for a new paradigm based on energy efficiency and saving thus represents both a challenge and an opportunity to local authorities who have to deal with the complexity of urban systems and energy issues. In light of this realization, the Smart Energy Master project conducted by the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II aims to develop a model of governance for local energy saving and efficiency. One of the results of this research project is the Urban Saving Energy Model aimed at integrating the different subsystems in which a city can be structured with energy consumption at a neighborhood scale. This paper describes the model in question and some of the results achieved by applying the UrbanSEM to three Naples neighborhoods.

This paper discusses the themes of optimal design and management strategies of hybrid energy storage system (HESS) for marine applications. This design and related strategy are aimed to improve battery pack durability, ensuring a smooth profile of the required current, through the complementary action of super-capacitors. A DC/ DC bidirectional power converter allows for the integration of these devices and control of on-board power fluxes. The proposed methodology is based upon the solution of a constrained optimization problem. In order to overcome computational issues, proper formulation of the mathematical problem is based upon the Ritz method, which is one of the direct methods for solving problems related to calculus of variations. The solution of the optimization procedure, which is the key finding in this paper, permits to obtain battery voltage and current profile, which enables the designer to determine battery and super-capacitor sizes and also provides battery/ super-capacitor reference current profiles to be tracked by the DC/DC bidirectional power converter. The procedure is evaluated with reference to the case study of a water-bus operating in the Venetian lagoon, whose operative cycle has been acquired during proper measurement campaigns. Then, the performance of energy management strategies are verified by means of laboratory experimentations on the hybrid energy storage system, which have been carried out by scaling operative cycles at single storage cell level. The obtained results show the potential advantages of proper design and energy management obtained through this new methodology, in terms of investment and maintenance costs for sustainable maritime transport.

In the era of “everything at once” the main objective seems to look for a standard, an adaptable prototype compliant with requirements on each situation. The architectural designing process has been affected by this phenomenon too, with the purpose of reaching the new european guidelines of high energy-efficient buildings, reducing energetic consumption and CO2 emissions and not taking into account the most important guideline ever: the environmental context. With this background, where even nature is under these rules, architects and designers should try to deconstruct the concept of standard itself, finding different solutions considering both the energetic and environmental issue, for specific locations. In order to fulfill this objective, the ancient teachings about solar energy and orientation have become the first steps to follow in the design process of a sustainable building. The aim of this study is to plan a scholastic building that respects EU limits in two different European countries, Italy and Germany, that present distinct climate conditions, history, formal solutions and aesthetic values, and to show how to compare its design if envisioned in the south of Italy or in Germany, both complying with the same energetic standard. Passivhaus, the German voluntary energetic protocol chosen, is characterized by strict requirements, achieved through a reasoned diversification in technological solutions, materials and plant design, all declined to the needs of the location where it is applied. This way, it is possible to develop further guidelines, within the standard, which make “creative” and suitable to every climate the entire process. Starting from considerations about orientation and shape, following Vitruvio’s statements, the building envelope becomes then the complex multi-functional filter between internal and external environment, and responds to structural and performance targets but also to energy efficiency. This way, the Passivhaus building, wherever conceived, is developed as a “producer” of energy and not just as a “consumer” anymore, in order to be active in the leading process to sustainability.

A promising approach to Smart Energy Grids is to empower communities of consumers with a novel role in the management of their electricity by sharing excess electricity and therefore becoming energy producers (prosumers). We achieve it using a framework to connect dynamic, context-aware, heterogeneous virtual and real entities on the Internet of Smart Meters (IoSM). We transform the smart electricity meters into fully-fledged intelligent computers on the IoSM and enable them to securely collect data from heterogeneous meters and sensors, detect smart meters with similar goals, exchange and aggregate data from multiple autonomous physical or virtual meters, and manage the actual energy demand and ensure the achievement of demand response for the community involved. Domain ontologies are used to store the semantics of the collected data from IoSM. A problem we have encountered is how our framework can use ontologies for community-grounded decision rules, which need to be consistent based on aggregation of collected data and contexts. We use Semantic Decision Table (SDT), which is a decision table enhanced with ontology technologies, to tackle the problem. This paper records our efforts in 1) the general design of the framework; 2) decision support models, namely SDTs, for fulfilling this requirement; 3) an algorithm of creating invocational SDTs; 4) the implementation of visualizing invocational SDTs.

The laminar burning velocities of hydrogen-methane/air mixtures at NTP conditions were calculated using the CHEMKIN PREMIX code with the GRI kinetic mechanism. The equivalence ratio and the fuel composition were varied from lean to rich and from pure methane to pure hydrogen, respectively. The results show that the values of the blends laminar burning velocities are always smaller than those obtained by averaging the laminar burning velocities of the pure fuels according to their molar proportions. Moreover, in lean mixtures the hydrogen addition enhances the methane reactivity slightly, while a strong inhibiting effect of the hydrogen substitution by methane is observed at rich conditions. These findings are attributed to changes of both, the H radicals concentration and the reactions involving such atoms. It was attempted to correlate the calculated laminar burning velocities by means of a Le Chatelier's Rule-like formula. A good prediction is obtained, except for rich mixtures With high hydrogen contents. With this limitation, the proposed formula is Successfully applied also to mixtures at higher than normal values of initial pressure (up to 10 atm) and temperature (up to 400 K).

In the paper we present a securitized bond set in the macrocosm of sustainable finance. The product is generated by a securitization scheme that involves three actors: firms, issuing insurance contracts to protect the health of workers; insurers; investors, betting on the good health management of workers. The product is a derivative linked to an underlying representing the trend of the pandemic, specifically the present COVID-19 number of infected persons compared to its expected value. Aim of the paper is to frame the product in specific categories recognized within the ESG criteria. In particular, two specific categories are identified within the Principles Responsible Investments, which integrate the bond within the ESG products. Moreover, from an insurance point of view, the product can be considered within the most innovative asset categorization for impact finance, recent for the insurance sector. This area encompasses a limited number of recently developed tools aimed to sustainability and impact.