Falegnami e muratori a Bologna nel Medioevo: statuti e matricole (1248-1377)

La finalità della tesi è stata quella d'improntare una riflessione sulle società legate all'edilizia nel momento di apice politico ed economico di una città, attiva e importante nel basso Medioevo, come Bologna. Questo tipo di studio, già intrapreso per alcune città dell'Italia centro settentrionale, risulta necessario per comprendere alcune dinamiche politiche, economiche e produttive della realtà cittadina. In particolare, gli obiettivi sono stati quelli di coniugare la vita corporativa dell'arte all'organizzazione lavorativa, individuando gli aspetti legati all'ambito produttivo e valutando, l'evoluzione della società nel passaggio dal Duecento al Trecento. Gli statuti e le matricole, principali fonti compilate dalle due società delle arti e giunte ai nostri giorni, salvo rare eccezioni, completamente inedite sono stati il principale punto di partenza dello studio. Il risultato è la sintesi di alcuni spunti di riflessione emersi dai documenti, quali la mentalità degli uomini che si approcciavano alle arti, le gerarchie nate all'interno delle stesse società, il loro cambiamento e quello legato alla percezione di comunità nel corso dei secoli oltre agli aspetti più prettamente lavorativi e artigianali.

4H silicon carbide particle detectors: study of the defects induced by high energy neutron irradiation

During the last decade advances in the field of sensor design and improved base materials have pushed the radiation hardness of the current silicon detector technology to impressive performance. It should allow operation of the tracking systems of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at nominal luminosity (1034 cm-2s-1) for about 10 years. The current silicon detectors are unable to cope with such an environment. Silicon carbide (SiC), which has recently been recognized as potentially radiation hard, is now studied. In this work it was analyzed the effect of high energy neutron irradiation on 4H-SiC particle detectors. Schottky and junction particle detectors were irradiated with 1 MeV neutrons up to fluence of 1016 cm-2. It is well known that the degradation of the detectors with irradiation, independently of the structure used for their realization, is caused by lattice defects, like creation of point-like defect, dopant deactivation and dead layer formation and that a crucial aspect for the understanding of the defect kinetics at a microscopic level is the correct identification of the crystal defects in terms of their electrical activity. In order to clarify the defect kinetic it were carried out a thermal transient spectroscopy (DLTS and PICTS) analysis of different samples irradiated at increasing fluences. The defect evolution was correlated with the transport properties of the irradiated detector, always comparing with the un-irradiated one. The charge collection efficiency degradation of Schottky detectors induced by neutron irradiation was related to the increasing concentration of defects as function of the neutron fluence.

Marinetti ultimo mitografo

La ricognizione delle opere composte da Filippo Tommaso Marinetti tra il 1909 e il 1912 è sostenuta da una tesi paradossale: il futurismo di Marinetti non sarebbe un'espressione della modernità, bensì una reazione anti-moderna, che dietro a una superficiale ed entusiastica adesione ad alcune parole d'ordine della seconda rivoluzione industriale nasconderebbe un pessimismo di fondo nei confronti dell'uomo e della storia. In questo senso il futurismo diventa un emblema del ritardo culturale e del gattopardismo italiano, e anticipa l’analoga operazione svolta in politica da Mussolini: dietro un’adesione formale ad alcune istanze della modernità, la preservazione dello Status Quo. Marinetti è descritto come un corpo estraneo rispetto alla cultura scientifica del Novecento: un futurista senza futuro (rarissime in Marinetti sono le proiezioni fantascientifiche). Questo aspetto è particolarmente evidente nelle opere prodotte del triennio 1908-1911, che non solo sono molto diverse dalle opere futuriste successive, ma per alcuni aspetti rappresentano una vera e propria antitesi di ciò che diventerà il futurismo letterario a partire dal 1912, con la pubblicazione del Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista e l'invenzione delle parole in libertà. Nelle opere precedenti, a un sostanziale disinteresse per il progressismo tecnologico corrispondeva un'attenzione ossessiva per la corporeità e un ricorso continuo all'allegoria, con effetti particolarmente grotteschi (soprattutto nel romanzo Mafarka le futuriste) nei quali si rilevano tracce di una concezione del mondo di sapore ancora medioevo-rinascimentale. Questa componente regressiva del futurismo marinettiano viene platealmente abbandonata a partire dal 1912, con Zang Tumb Tumb, salvo riaffiorare ciclicamente, come una corrente sotterranea, in altre fasi della sua carriera: nel 1922, ad esempio, con la pubblicazione de Gli indomabili (un’altra opera allegorica, ricca di reminiscenze letterarie). Quella del 1912 è una vera e propria frattura, che nel primo capitolo è indagata sia da un punto di vista storico (attraverso la documentazione epistolare e giornalistica vengono portate alla luce le tensioni che portarono gran parte dei poeti futuristi ad abbandonare il movimento proprio in quell'anno) che da un punto di vista linguistico: sono sottolineate le differenze sostanziali tra la produzione parolibera e quella precedente, e si arrischia anche una spiegazione psicologica della brusca svolta impressa da Marinetti al suo movimento. Nel secondo capitolo viene proposta un'analisi formale e contenutistica della ‘funzione grottesca’ nelle opere di Marinetti. Nel terzo capitolo un'analisi comparata delle incarnazioni della macchine ritratte nelle opere di Marinetti ci svela che quasi sempre in questo autore la macchina è associata al pensiero della morte e a una pulsione masochistica (dominante, quest'ultima, ne Gli indomabili); il che porta ad arrischiare l'ipotesi che l'esperienza futurista, e in particolare il futurismo parolibero posteriore al 1912, sia la rielaborazione di un trauma. Esso può essere interpretato metaforicamente come lo choc del giovane Marinetti, balzato in pochi anni dalle sabbie d'Alessandria d'Egitto alle brume industriali di Milano, ma anche come una reale esperienza traumatica (l'incidente automobilistico del 1908, “mitologizzato” nel primo manifesto, ma che in realtà fu vissuto dall'autore come esperienza realmente perturbante).

Competitività in sostenibilità urbana e territoriale. L’Emilia Romagna, regione d’Europa

The thesis in Urban and Regional Geography titled “URBAN AND TERRITORIAL COMPETITIVENESS IN SUSTAINABILITY. EMILIA-ROMAGNA, REGION OF EUROPE” is divided into two sections. Section one is additionally composed by two chapters (chap. 1 and 2) and deals with theoretical and gnosiological issues. Section two, of two more chapters (chap. 3 and 4), provides practical contributions: these issues give explanatory patterns to interpret the performances of emiliano-romagnoli urban systems. Chapter one is an introductory chapter. It analyzes globalization that involves a larger and larger number of cities, rich or poor. It also considers the so called “digital divide” either as one of the major phenomena of this unhomogeneous development or as an interesting gnosiological and practical challenge of geography. Globalization is now involving all the cities, large or small, but the small ones have higher risks of exclusion: it depends on their more fragile socio-economic, cultural, and environmental urban structure. That’s why European Union (chapter two) promotes policies and endows politics to sustain cities, because urban systems are the basis for the territorial development. So, European, national and local Institutions are firmly interested in promoting urban and local interventions and projects. Section two deals with economic-geography methods, which consists on collecting indicators and the benchmarking methodology. It also specifically analyzes the urban systems of Emilia-Romagna. Consequences of the globalization on the cities are interpreted with a study of their local resources, intended as potentials for their development. The STeMA approach, proposed by Professor Maria Prezioso (University of Roma, “Tor Vergata”) and used by the ESPON (European Spatial Program Observation Network) project, describes the main “determinants” of the territorial and urban development. These are easily comparable to one another (similar or better performing). This approach achieves two goals. On one hand, it is possible to analyze every urban system in its all main characteristics and to preserve its historical and cultural factors. On another hand, each city is “knowable” and “understandable” by all scholars, as it is objectively comparable. So, urban planners can propose specific “multi-level” and “multi-varied” programs of governance. These will face globalization by exalting local empowerment.

Rex prudens et sapiens. Semantica della regalità negli specula principum d'epoca tardomedievale (secoli XII-XV)

La ricerca di Roberta Frigeni, svolta ad ampio spettro diacronico, è condotta su di una campionatura di specula principum - editi ed inediti - elaborati tra XII e XV secolo, e ne indaga il linguaggio quale referente privilegiato, rilevandone persistenze terminologiche e nuclei sintagmatici ricorrenti, al fine di individuare concetti utili a delineare un lessico politico proprio di questa testualità, in corrispondenza al sorgere dell’entità statale europea nel XIII secolo (con particolare riguardo all’area francese, ai regni di Luigi IX e Filippo il Bello). A partire da un’analisi critica delle tesi di Quentin Skinner circa la ‘ridefinizione paradiastolica’ del sistema delle virtù classiche entro il trattato De principatibus, lo studio innesca un percorso di indagine à rebours che - sondando il linguaggio - rintraccia nella trattatistica delle institutiones regum del XV secolo (Pontano, Patrizi, Carafa, Platina) e degli specula principum medievali (Elinando di Froidmont, Gilberto di Tournai, Vincenzo di Beauvais, Guglielmo Peraldo, Egidio Romano, Guido Vernani) una consonanza di motivi nella sintassi e nell’immaginario preposti ad illustrare le potenzialità semantiche del nome di prudentia, individuata quale unica virtù sopravvissuta alla ‘ridescrizione’ del codice etico operata da Machiavelli. Indagando i progressivi ampliamenti del campo semantico sorto attorno al nome della virtù di prudenza entro la letteratura speculare, la ricerca mostra come il dialettico rapporto con i lessemi di sapientia, astutia, fides ed experientia abbia avuto un ruolo determinante per il sorgere di un’immagine del principe emancipata dalla figura biblica del “rex sapiens”, e per la formazione di un lessico ospitale delle manifestazioni concrete del vivere politico ed economico. I processi di dilatazione e rarefazione del bacino semantico di prudentia sono, infatti, funzionali ad illustrare come il linguaggio della testualità speculare registri l’acquisizione di nuove strumentazioni teoriche grazie al rinnovamento delle fonti a disposizione lungo il secolo XIII, che - sostituendo progressivamente il più recente dossier aristotelico al solo apparato veterotestamentario - permettono di integrare la concezione delle virtù in senso operativo, adattandola alle esigenze politico-economiche dei nuovi contesti istituzionali monarchici.

The port-Hamiltonian framework as a comprehensive approach to model and simulate complex systems

This thesis describes modelling tools and methods suited for complex systems (systems that typically are represented by a plurality of models). The basic idea is that all models representing the system should be linked by well-defined model operations in order to build a structured repository of information, a hierarchy of models. The port-Hamiltonian framework is a good candidate to solve this kind of problems as it supports the most important model operations natively. The thesis in particular addresses the problem of integrating distributed parameter systems in a model hierarchy, and shows two possible mechanisms to do that: a finite-element discretization in port-Hamiltonian form, and a structure-preserving model order reduction for discretized models obtainable from commercial finite-element packages.

Application-oriented Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming

In the most recent years there is a renovate interest for Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) problems. This can be explained for different reasons: (i) the performance of solvers handling non-linear constraints was largely improved; (ii) the awareness that most of the applications from the real-world can be modeled as an MINLP problem; (iii) the challenging nature of this very general class of problems. It is well-known that MINLP problems are NP-hard because they are the generalization of MILP problems, which are NP-hard themselves. However, MINLPs are, in general, also hard to solve in practice. We address to non-convex MINLPs, i.e. having non-convex continuous relaxations: the presence of non-convexities in the model makes these problems usually even harder to solve. The aim of this Ph.D. thesis is to give a flavor of different possible approaches that one can study to attack MINLP problems with non-convexities, with a special attention to real-world problems. In Part 1 of the thesis we introduce the problem and present three special cases of general MINLPs and the most common methods used to solve them. These techniques play a fundamental role in the resolution of general MINLP problems. Then we describe algorithms addressing general MINLPs. Parts 2 and 3 contain the main contributions of the Ph.D. thesis. In particular, in Part 2 four different methods aimed at solving different classes of MINLP problems are presented. Part 3 of the thesis is devoted to real-world applications: two different problems and approaches to MINLPs are presented, namely Scheduling and Unit Commitment for Hydro-Plants and Water Network Design problems. The results show that each of these different methods has advantages and disadvantages. Thus, typically the method to be adopted to solve a real-world problem should be tailored on the characteristics, structure and size of the problem. Part 4 of the thesis consists of a brief review on tools commonly used for general MINLP problems, constituted an integral part of the development of this Ph.D. thesis (especially the use and development of open-source software). We present the main characteristics of solvers for each special case of MINLP.

The changing politics of preference formation in international trade negotiations: the European Union in the Doha Round

This research seeks to provide an explanation for variations of “politics” of preference formation in international trade negotiations. Building on the ‘policy determines politics’ argument, I hypothesize the existence of a causal relationship between issue-characteristics and their variations with politics dynamics and their variations. More specifically, this study seeks to integrate into a single analytical framework two dimensions along which variations in the “politics of preference formation” can be organized: configurations of power relationships among the relevant actors in the structures within which they interact as well as the logic and the motivations of the actors involved in the policy making process. To do so, I first construct a four-cell typology of ‘politics of preference formation’ and, then, I proceed by specifying that the type of state-society configurations as well as the type of actors’ motivations in the “politics of preference formation” depend, respectively, on the degree to which a policy issue is perceived as politically salient and on the extent to which the distributional implications of such an issue can be calculated by the relevant stakeholders in the policy making process. The empirical yardstick against which the validity of the theoretical argument proposed is tested is drawn from evidence concerning the European Union’s negotiating strategy in four negotiating areas in the context of the so-called WTO’s Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations: agriculture, competition, environment and technical assistance and capacity building.

Hardware and software development of a multichannel readout board named CARLOSrx for the ALICE experiment

ALICE, that is an experiment held at CERN using the LHC, is specialized in analyzing lead-ion collisions. ALICE will study the properties of quarkgluon plasma, a state of matter where quarks and gluons, under conditions of very high temperatures and densities, are no longer confined inside hadrons. Such a state of matter probably existed just after the Big Bang, before particles such as protons and neutrons were formed. The SDD detector, one of the ALICE subdetectors, is part of the ITS that is composed by 6 cylindrical layers with the innermost one attached to the beam pipe. The ITS tracks and identifies particles near the interaction point, it also aligns the tracks of the articles detected by more external detectors. The two ITS middle layers contain the whole 260 SDD detectors. A multichannel readout board, called CARLOSrx, receives at the same time the data coming from 12 SDD detectors. In total there are 24 CARLOSrx boards needed to read data coming from all the SDD modules (detector plus front end electronics). CARLOSrx packs data coming from the front end electronics through optical link connections, it stores them in a large data FIFO and then it sends them to the DAQ system. Each CARLOSrx is composed by two boards. One is called CARLOSrx data, that reads data coming from the SDD detectors and configures the FEE; the other one is called CARLOSrx clock, that sends the clock signal to all the FEE. This thesis contains a description of the hardware design and firmware features of both CARLOSrx data and CARLOSrx clock boards, which deal with all the SDD readout chain. A description of the software tools necessary to test and configure the front end electronics will be presented at the end of the thesis.

Applications of High Speed Configurable Logic Devices in Modern Particle Physics Experiments

Several activities were conducted during my PhD activity. For the NEMO experiment a collaboration between the INFN/University groups of Catania and Bologna led to the development and production of a mixed signal acquisition board for the Nemo Km3 telescope. The research concerned the feasibility study for a different acquisition technique quite far from that adopted in the NEMO Phase 1 telescope. The DAQ board that we realized exploits the LIRA06 front-end chip for the analog acquisition of anodic an dynodic sources of a PMT (Photo-Multiplier Tube). The low-power analog acquisition allows to sample contemporaneously multiple channels of the PMT at different gain factors in order to increase the signal response linearity over a wider dynamic range. Also the auto triggering and self-event-classification features help to improve the acquisition performance and the knowledge on the neutrino event. A fully functional interface towards the first level data concentrator, the Floor Control Module, has been integrated as well on the board, and a specific firmware has been realized to comply with the present communication protocols. This stage of the project foresees the use of an FPGA, a high speed configurable device, to provide the board with a flexible digital logic control core. After the validation of the whole front-end architecture this feature would be probably integrated in a common mixed-signal ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). The volatile nature of the configuration memory of the FPGA implied the integration of a flash ISP (In System Programming) memory and a smart architecture for a safe remote reconfiguration of it. All the integrated features of the board have been tested. At the Catania laboratory the behavior of the LIRA chip has been investigated in the digital environment of the DAQ board and we succeeded in driving the acquisition with the FPGA. The PMT pulses generated with an arbitrary waveform generator were correctly triggered and acquired by the analog chip, and successively they were digitized by the on board ADC under the supervision of the FPGA. For the communication towards the data concentrator a test bench has been realized in Bologna where, thanks to a lending of the Roma University and INFN, a full readout chain equivalent to that present in the NEMO phase-1 was installed. These tests showed a good behavior of the digital electronic that was able to receive and to execute command imparted by the PC console and to answer back with a reply. The remotely configurable logic behaved well too and demonstrated, at least in principle, the validity of this technique. A new prototype board is now under development at the Catania laboratory as an evolution of the one described above. This board is going to be deployed within the NEMO Phase-2 tower in one of its floors dedicated to new front-end proposals. This board will integrate a new analog acquisition chip called SAS (Smart Auto-triggering Sampler) introducing thus a new analog front-end but inheriting most of the digital logic present in the current DAQ board discussed in this thesis. For what concern the activity on high-resolution vertex detectors, I worked within the SLIM5 collaboration for the characterization of a MAPS (Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor) device called APSEL-4D. The mentioned chip is a matrix of 4096 active pixel sensors with deep N-well implantations meant for charge collection and to shield the analog electronics from digital noise. The chip integrates the full-custom sensors matrix and the sparsifification/readout logic realized with standard-cells in STM CMOS technology 130 nm. For the chip characterization a test-beam has been set up on the 12 GeV PS (Proton Synchrotron) line facility at CERN of Geneva (CH). The collaboration prepared a silicon strip telescope and a DAQ system (hardware and software) for data acquisition and control of the telescope that allowed to store about 90 million events in 7 equivalent days of live-time of the beam. My activities concerned basically the realization of a firmware interface towards and from the MAPS chip in order to integrate it on the general DAQ system. Thereafter I worked on the DAQ software to implement on it a proper Slow Control interface of the APSEL4D. Several APSEL4D chips with different thinning have been tested during the test beam. Those with 100 and 300 um presented an overall efficiency of about 90% imparting a threshold of 450 electrons. The test-beam allowed to estimate also the resolution of the pixel sensor providing good results consistent with the pitch/sqrt(12) formula. The MAPS intrinsic resolution has been extracted from the width of the residual plot taking into account the multiple scattering effect.