PRICE DISCRIMINATION IN A FORM OF DISCOUNTS: CATEGORIZATION AND IMPACT ON COMPETITION

This paper is aimed to clarify the definition and categorization of discounts as well as pro- and anticompetitive effects of discounts. The author applied qualitative methods to the research. The modern literature review unfolds the gap of proper discounts definition, which is proposed to be covered by five-dimensions approach to discounts categorization. Based on such aspects of discount scheme as time, product, threshold, distribution level and customer, the approach provides comprehensive and uniform characteristics of discount. It allows assessing effects of competition, which are classified in two groups. Pro-competitive effects include stimulation of demand, decreasing cost due to economy of scale, solving coordination problems within a supply chain. Anti-competitive effects encompass predation scheme, raising rival’s cost, exclusive dealing, leverage and exclusionary bundling. The importance of correct assessment of the discounts by antitrust authorities is high as an overenforcement in this sphere may lead to adverse effect on total welfare.

Scaling behavior of public procurement activity

Public procurement refers to the purchase by public sector entities—such as government departments or local authorities—of Services, Goods, or Works. It accounts for a significant share of OECD countries’ expenditures. However, while governments are expected to execute them as efficiently as possible, there is a lack of methodologies for an adequate comparison of procurement activity between institutions at different scales, which represents a challenge for policymakers and academics. Here, we propose using methods borrowed from urban scaling laws literature to study public procurement activity among 278 Portuguese municipalities between 2011 and 2018. We find that public procurement expenditure scales sublinearly with population size, indicating an economy of scale for public spending as cities increase their population size. Moreover, when looking at the municipal Scale-Adjusted Indicators (the deviations from the scaling law) by contract categories—Works, Goods, and Services—we are able to identify a richer local characterisation of municipalities based on the similarity of procurement activity. These results make up a framework for quantitatively studying local public expenditure by enabling policymakers a more appropriate foundation for comparative analysis.

Yellow Mealworm and Black Soldier Fly Larvae for Feed and Food Production in Europe, with Emphasis on Iceland

Insects are part of the diet of over 2 billion people worldwide; however, insects have not been popular in Europe, neither as food nor as a feed ingredient. This has been changing in recent years, due to increased knowledge regarding the nutritional benefits, the need for novel protein production and the low environmental impact of insects compared to conventional protein production. The purpose of this study is to give an overview of the most popular insects farmed in Europe, yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor, and black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens, together with the main obstacles and risks. A comprehensive literature study was carried out and 27 insect farming companies found listed in Europe were contacted directly. The results show that the insect farming industry is increasing in Europe, and the success of the frontrunners is based on large investments in technology, automation and economy of scale. The interest of venture capital firms is noticeable, covering 90% of the investment costs in some cases. It is concluded that insect farming in Europe is likely to expand rapidly in the coming years, offering new proteins and other valuable products, not only as a feed ingredient, but also for human consumption. European regulations have additionally been rapidly changing, with more freedom towards insects as food and feed. There is an increased knowledge regarding safety concerns of edible insects, and the results indicate that edible insects pose a smaller risk for zoonotic diseases than livestock. However, knowledge regarding risk posed by edible insects is still lacking, but food and feed safety is essential to put products on the European market.

Comprehensive Strategies to Maximising Value of Late Life Assets: Lessons Learned from Mahakam Block

Mahakam Block has been in operation for nearly half a century with cumulative production of approximately 20 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.5 billion barrels of oil. Mature field challenges have become more evident as portrayed by declining production, more complex surface constraints, more challenging profitability of new projects and decreasing resources of new wells, which are also exacerbated by external factors such as volatility of oil and gas prices. Despite the aforementioned challenges and complexity in terms of operating numerous fields with different characteristics, Mahakam is currently still one of the biggest producing blocks in Indonesia. The success of sustaining production and prolonging the life of Mahakam is the result of continuous innovations, improvements and optimizations on various aspects over the years. Subsurface innovative ideas by restudying and redefining geological concepts has led Pertamina Hulu Mahakam (PHM) to drill step-out wells in Handil, Tunu, South Mahakam and Sisi Nubi fields that deliver positive results and open new opportunities. In the non-subsurface aspect, Indonesia's first Plan of Development that combines higher and lower value projects across fields called OPLL (Optimasi Pengembangan Lapangan-Lapangan) was initiated in order to develop fields with marginal value and to achieve economy of scale. Moreover, Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) optimization through evolution of platform design, well architecture and sand control method is crucial for exploitation of targets with lower resources over time. PHM has also launched CLEOPATRA (Cost Effectiveness and Lean Operations in Mature Asset), later renamed to LOCOMOTIVE-8 (Low Operations Cost of Mahakam to Achieve Effectiveness and Efficiencies), to achieve Operating Expenditure (OPEX) efficiency through various initiatives driven by each entity. Due to cost of money, budget accuracy is as important as expenditures reduction meaning that more detailed and deterministic budget estimation is necessary. In addition to optimizing cost structure, PHM strives to carry out gas commercialization efforts to improve revenue streams. In this rapidly changing era, especially for Mahakam, paradigm shift becomes highly critical. Changes in the structure and size of organization is essential to adjust with business dynamics. Adaptive organization structure is performed through digitalization and competency improvement to reduce repetitive tasks and increase productivity per capita. Cooperation between neighboring companies brings mutual benefit by sharing rig, transportation means, and pipeline network systems. Mutual benefit opportunity is also available between the company and Indonesian government by amendment of fiscal terms with the aim to enable the execution of sub-economic projects. Ultimately, one effort alone may be insignificant, but the combination of all of the efforts will be the key to the continuation of Mahakam story.

Opportunities and Challenges in Wind Energy

Wind energy increasingly plays a crucial role in replacing existing systems based on fossil fuels and nuclear generators. However, skepticism about the technological feasibility, economy of scale, operational profitability prevails. Our paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing the affordability of wind energy and by exploring the optimization issue incurring during the integration process of the micro electricity grid. Focusing on Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) and Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) data between January 2014 and December 2020, we find wind power generation helps decrease the system energy price after control the effect of gas price. Further, our model captures the important seasonal and uncertain characteristics of power generation and consumption over the years. We also identify and discuss the bottleneck issues of the MISO power grids. These findings provide insights into affordability and technologic integration for long-term strategic planning on green energy including pricing, seasonality, dispatch, and reliability issues.

Opportunities and Challenges in Wind Energy

Wind energy increasingly plays a crucial role in replacing existing systems based on fossil fuels and nuclear generators. However, skepticism about the technological feasibility, economy of scale, and operational profitability prevails. The paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing the affordability of wind energy and by exploring the optimization issue incurring during the integration process of the micro electricity grid. Focusing on locational marginal pricing (LMP) and Midwest independent system operator (MISO) data between January 2014 and December 2020, the authors find wind power generation helps decrease the system energy price after control the effect of gas price. Further, the model captures the important seasonal and uncertain characteristics of power generation and consumption over the years. They also identify and discuss the bottleneck issues of the MISO power grids. These findings provide insights into affordability and technologic integration for long-term strategic planning on green energy including pricing, seasonality, dispatch, and reliability issues.

Prospective Environmental and Economic Assessment of a Sensor Network

Sustainability is becoming of vital importance in project management, and a life cycle assessment (LCA) can ensure a body of knowledge to bear in mind the environmental burdens the project involves. In this study, two different ways of supplying energy to a sensor network are analyzed. Firstly, we analyze the environmental impact of the devices connected to the public grid. Secondly, we analyze the completely full off-grid system, with the sensor connected to a photovoltaic (PV) panel. Our findings show that the off-grid option has a greater number of benefits than the grid-connected option in terms of environmental impacts, although it is less economically advantageous. In a detailed analysis of the off-grid scenario, it can be observed that the battery is the component with the highest impact, so actions to try to reduce consumption, and, therefore, the battery size and its negative impact are taken. After reducing the battery size, the break-even point was reached, providing a net economic benefit of EUR 0.23 sensor/year. However, this analysis refers to a single sensor, and although the environmental and economic benefits seem low, in an economy of scale, this could result in large savings if these types of sensors are massively installed.

The emergence of heterogeneous scaling in research institutions

Research institutions provide the infrastructure for scientific discovery, yet their role in the production of knowledge is not well characterized. To address this gap, we analyze interactions of researchers within and between institutions from millions of scientific papers. Our analysis reveals that collaborations densify as each institution grows, but at different rates (heterogeneous densification). We also find that the number of institutions scales with the number of researchers as a power law (Heaps’ law) and institution sizes approximate Zipf’s law. These patterns can be reproduced by a simple model in which researchers are preferentially hired by large institutions, while new institutions complimentarily generate more new institutions. Finally, new researchers form triadic closures with collaborators. This model reveals an economy of scale in research: larger institutions grow faster and amplify collaborations. Our work deepens the understanding of emergent behavior in research institutions and their role in facilitating collaborations.

Anti-Counterfeit Technologies for Microfluidic “Lab-on-a-Disc” Systems

Non-genuine medical products, including diagnostic devices, have become a lucrative business for fraudsters, causing significant damage to revenues and reputation of companies, as well as posing a significant risk to the health of people and societies. Along a “digital twin” representing centrifugal microfluidic flow control on exemplary “Lab-on-a-Disc” (LoaD) systems, a novel, two-pronged strategy to safeguard miniaturized point-of-care devices by means of secret features and manufacturing challenges is outlined; such “hardware encryption” is flexibly programmed for each chip during production, and deciphered from a secure, local or online database at the time of use. This way, unlicensed copying may be efficiently deterred by an unfavourable economy-of-scale, even in absence of legal prosecution.

Assessing the Cost of Biomass and Bioenergy Production in Agroindustrial Processes

This paper presents bioenergy value chain modelling to estimate the biomass and bioenergy cost of production and biomass netback in combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Modelling compares biomass cost and netback to analyse the feasibility of CHP systems, as well as the internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period (PBP). Models are implemented into the IMP Bio2Energy® software (Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, Mexico City, Mexico) for practical application and demonstrated for bioenergy generation in the agroindustrial processes of tequila production, coffee and orange processing using as biomass the agave bagasse, coffee pulp and orange peels coproducts, respectively. Results show that the CHP systems are economically feasible, i.e., biomass cost of production is lower than netback, PBP between 3 and 4 years and IRR > 20%. The cost of bioenergy is lower than the cost of fuel oil and grid electricity being replaced. The sensitivity analysis for boiler steam pressure showed that there is an optimal pressure for coffee pulp (40 bar), a threshold pressure for orange (60 bar) and agave bagasse (70 bar). Sensitivity to biomass input indicated a maximum capacity where economy of scale does not produce any improvement in the indicators. Results demonstrate the usefulness of the modelling approach and IMP Bio2Energy® in analysing biomass CHP systems.