Sender variables

A possible interpretation of sender variables is that they could be treated as policy measures aimed at fostering the development of the biorefinery industry. 

A brief description of this procedure is abstracted from the fuller treatment of Henley and Sender (1981). The MESH equations (13.182)-(13.186) in terms of mol fractions are transformed into equations with molal flow rates of individual components in the liquid phase Ay and vapor phase as the primary variables. The relations between the transformed variables are in this list ... 

On the bases of their in and out degree, it is possible to distinguish three types of variables in a map, which are sender, receiver, and transmitter [44] (Figure 7.1). 

Figure 7.1 Types of variables. Abbreviations S senders, T transmitters, R receivers.

Network Indices Table 7.2 describes the system features. The whole network is made of 27 variables, which are classified into 5 senders, 11 receivers, and 11 transmitters. The low density of the network (0.048) can be explained by the fact that stakeholders identified only a small part of the possible connections. This means that, according to their perception, only some paths of interaction are activated among sender, receiver, and transmitter variables. The hierarchy index (0.12) denotes a wide democratic system with few hierarchical relations. This partly depends on the high proportion of transmitters that makes the whole system much more adaptable to context changes by means of their interactions. The insight is that local stakeholders perceive the situation to be easily changable, and may be affected by several variables. 

Table 7.3 shows the specific features of each variable. Among the 5 senders, three of them belong to the economic dimension (subsidies to hiorefinety, competition between food/nonfood crops, availability of biomass from spontaneous species), while the others belong to the territorial dimension (public information, geographic dispersion of biomass sources). The most important variable in terms of centrality is public information (centrality 6). subsidies for biorefineiy, competition between food/nonfood crops and geographic dispersion of biomass sources are equally important (centrality ... 

Regarding transmitter variables, 6 belong to the economic dimension, while 3 belong to the territorial dimension, 1 to the research dimension, and 1 to the environmental domain. The most central transmitter is development of the biorefinery industry, which is also the most central in absolute. Its cormections are many and carry heavy weights. This variable acts as a pulse amplifier. In fact, it receives inputs from two senders and three other transmitters for a total in-degree of 11,... 

In general, economic variables seem to play the most relevant roles in the cogni-Hon of interviewees. Indeed, they are the most present in all three types of variables (Figure 7.1). Specifically, in the economic variables we have three senders, six transmitters, and five receivers. Also the territory elements are present in the three groups of variables but their role as transmitters and receivers seems to be less important FinaUy, concerning, the environmental and research variables, these are only present in the group of transmitters and receivers but not in the group of senders. 

The technical classificaHon of the variables into senders, transmitters, and receivers is the basis for the economic interpretation of the variables reported in the cognitive map, helpful in generalizing the findings of the case study to other rural... 

---