L'evoluzione delle politiche culturali in Italia tra centro e periferia con uno sguardo alla Francia (1959-1975)

L’obiettivo di questo studio è comprendere come si sia evoluto il concetto di bene culturale in Italia nella seconda metà del Novecento. Pertanto si ritiene rilevante l’analisi delle vicende storiche e politiche sulla gestione, valorizzazione e tutela del patrimonio culturale. In particolare si focalizza l’attenzione sullo sviluppo delle politiche pubbliche in Italia tra la fine degli anni Sessanta e la prima metà degli anni Settanta. Un momento che si definisce come un punto cardine del dibattito e delle azioni politiche che prendono avvio, in Italia, nel periodo post-unitario. Passaggi centrali di questo processo si considerano l’istituzione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali e le prime iniziative regionali nel campo della cultura. Ed è proprio nel rapporto tra centro e periferia che emerge una nuova attenzione ai beni culturali e all’elaborazione di politiche in questo campo. Al fine di uno sguardo europeo, nell’evoluzione delle politiche culturali, si considera peculiare il caso francese, con la creazione del Ministero degli Affari Culturali, alla fine degli anni Cinquanta.

Development of advanced tools and methods for the assessment and management of risk due to atypical major accident scenarios

Proper hazard identification has become progressively more difficult to achieve, as witnessed by several major accidents that took place in Europe, such as the Ammonium Nitrate explosion at Toulouse (2001) and the vapour cloud explosion at Buncefield (2005), whose accident scenarios were not considered by their site safety case. Furthermore, the rapid renewal in the industrial technology has brought about the need to upgrade hazard identification methodologies. Accident scenarios of emerging technologies, which are not still properly identified, may remain unidentified until they take place for the first time. The consideration of atypical scenarios deviating from normal expectations of unwanted events or worst case reference scenarios is thus extremely challenging. A specific method named Dynamic Procedure for Atypical Scenarios Identification (DyPASI) was developed as a complementary tool to bow-tie identification techniques. The main aim of the methodology is to provide an easier but comprehensive hazard identification of the industrial process analysed, by systematizing information from early signals of risk related to past events, near misses and inherent studies. DyPASI was validated on the two examples of new and emerging technologies: Liquefied Natural Gas regasification and Carbon Capture and Storage. The study broadened the knowledge on the related emerging risks and, at the same time, demonstrated that DyPASI is a valuable tool to obtain a complete and updated overview of potential hazards. Moreover, in order to tackle underlying accident causes of atypical events, three methods for the development of early warning indicators were assessed: the Resilience-based Early Warning Indicator (REWI) method, the Dual Assurance method and the Emerging Risk Key Performance Indicator method. REWI was found to be the most complementary and effective of the three, demonstrating that its synergy with DyPASI would be an adequate strategy to improve hazard identification methodologies towards the capture of atypical accident scenarios.

The school environment as a teacher. The role of space and place in enhancing ecological literacy and social competence development in children and young people

Can space and place foster child development, and in particular social competence and ecological literacy? If yes, how can space and place do that? This study shows that the answer to the first question is positive and then tries to explain the way space and place can make a difference. The thesis begins with the review of literature from different disciplines – child development and child psychology, education, environmental psychology, architecture and landscape architecture. Some bridges among such disciplines are created and in some cases the ideas from the different areas of research merge: thus, this is an interdisciplinary study. The interdisciplinary knowledge from these disciplines is translated into a range of design suggestions that can foster the development of social competence and ecological literacy. Using scientific knowledge from different disciplines is a way of introducing forms of evidence into the development of design criteria. However, the definition of design criteria also has to pass through the study of a series of school buildings and un-built projects: case studies can give a positive contribution to the criteria because examples and good practices can help “translating” the theoretical knowledge into design ideas and illustrations. To do that, the different case studies have to be assessed in relation to the various themes that emerged in the literature review. Finally, research by design can be used to help define the illustrated design criteria: based on all the background knowledge that has been built, the role of the architect is to provide a series of different design solutions that can give answers to the different “questions” emerged in the literature review.

Development Aid to Water Management in Mali: The Actors, ‘Global’ Paradigms, and ‘Local’ Translations

Development aid involves a complex network of numerous and extremely heterogeneous actors. Nevertheless, all actors seem to speak the same ‘development jargon’ and to display a congruence that extends from the donor over the professional consultant to the village chief. And although the ideas about what counts as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aid have constantly changed over time —with new paradigms and policies sprouting every few years— the apparent congruence between actors more or less remains unchanged. How can this be explained? Is it a strategy of all actors to get into the pocket of the donor, or are the social dynamics in development aid more complex? When a new development paradigm appears, where does it come from and how does it gain support? Is this support really homogeneous? To answer the questions, a multi-sited ethnography was conducted in the sector of water-related development aid, with a focus on 3 paradigms that are currently hegemonic in this sector: Integrated Water Resources Management, Capacity Building, and Adaptation to Climate Change. The sites of inquiry were: the headquarters of a multilateral organization, the headquarters of a development NGO, and the Inner Niger Delta in Mali. The research shows that paradigm shifts do not happen overnight but that new paradigms have long lines of descent. Moreover, they require a lot of work from actors in order to become hegemonic; the actors need to create a tight network of support. Each actor, however, interprets the paradigms in a slightly different way, depending on the position in the network. They implant their own interests in their interpretation of the paradigm (the actors ‘translate’ their interests), regardless of whether they constitute the donor, a mediator, or the aid recipient. These translations are necessary to cement and reproduce the network.

Development and Validation of a Model-Based Combustion Controller for Water Injection Management

This manuscript reports the overall development of a Ph.D. research project during the “Mechanics and advanced engineering sciences” course at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. The project is focused on the development of a combustion control system for an innovative Spark Ignited engine layout. In details, the controller is oriented to manage a prototypal engine equipped with a Port Water Injection system. The water injection technology allows an increment of combustion efficiency due to the knock mitigation effect that permits to keep the combustion phasing closer to the optimal position with respect to the traditional layout. At the beginning of the project, the effects and the possible benefits achievable by water injection have been investigated by a focused experimental campaign. Then the data obtained by combustion analysis have been processed to design a control-oriented combustion model. The model identifies the correlation between Spark Advance, combustion phasing and injected water mass, and two different strategies are presented, both based on an analytic and semi-empirical approach and therefore compatible with a real-time application. The model has been implemented in a combustion controller that manages water injection to reach the best achievable combustion efficiency while keeping knock levels under a pre-established threshold. Three different versions of the algorithm are described in detail. This controller has been designed and pre-calibrated in a software-in-the-loop environment and later an experimental validation has been performed with a rapid control prototyping approach to highlight the performance of the system on real set-up. To further make the strategy implementable on an onboard application, an estimation algorithm of combustion phasing, necessary for the controller, has been developed during the last phase of the PhD Course, based on accelerometric signals.

The role of Proteasome in the development, maintenance and management of Chronic Pain

In chronic pain, opioids represent the gold standard analgesics, but their use is hampered by the development of several side effects, as development of analgesic tolerance and opioid-induced hyperalgesia. Evidence showed that many molecular mechanisms (changes in opioid receptors, neurotransmitter release, and glia/microglia activation) are involved in their appearance, as well as in chronic pain. Recently, a crucial role has been proposed for oxidative stress and proteasome in chronic pain and in treatment-related side effects. To better elucidate these aspects, the aim of this PhD thesis was to investigate the effects of opioids on cell oxidative stress, antioxidant enzymatic machinery and proteasome expression and activity in vitro. Also, the involvement of proteasome in the development of chronic pain conditions was investigated utilizing an experimental model of oxaliplatin-induced neuropathy (OXAIN), in vivo. Data showed that morphine, fentanyl, buprenorphine and tapentadol alter differently ROS production. The ROS increasing effect of morphine is not shared by the other opioids, suggesting that the different pharmacological profile could influence this parameter. Moreover, these drugs produced different alterations of β2trypsin-like and β5chymotrypsin-like activities. In fact, while morphine and fentanyl increased the proteolytic activity after prolonged exposure, a different picture was observed for buprenorphine and tapentadol, suggesting that the level of MOR agonism could be strongly related with proteasome activation. In vivo studies revealed that rats treated with oxaliplatin showed a significant increase in β5, in the thalamus (TH) and somatosensory cortex (SSCx). Moreover, a selective up-regulation of β5 and LMP7 subunit gene expression was assessed in the SSCx. Furthermore, our study revealed that oprozomib, a selective β5 inhibitor normalized the spinal prodynorphin gene expression upregulation induced by oxaliplatin, and reverted mechanical/thermal allodynia and mechanical hyperalgesia in oxaliplatin-treated rats. These results underline the role of proteasome in the OXAIN and suggest new pharmacological targets to counteract it.

Development of predictive energy management strategies for hybrid electric vehicles supported by connectivity

Nowadays, the spreading of the air pollution crisis enhanced by greenhouse gases emission is leading to the worsening of the global warming. In this context, the transportation sector plays a vital role, since it is responsible for a large part of carbon dioxide production. In order to address these issues, the present thesis deals with the development of advanced control strategies for the energy efficiency optimization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), supported by the prediction of future working conditions of the powertrain. In particular, a Dynamic Programming algorithm has been developed for the combined optimization of vehicle energy and battery thermal management. At this aim, the battery temperature and the battery cooling circuit control signal have been considered as an additional state and control variables, respectively. Moreover, an adaptive equivalent consumption minimization strategy (A-ECMS) has been modified to handle zero-emission zones, where engine propulsion is not allowed. Navigation data represent an essential element in the achievement of these tasks. With this aim, a novel simulation and testing environment has been developed during the PhD research activity, as an effective tool to retrieve routing information from map service providers via vehicle-to-everything connectivity. Comparisons between the developed and the reference strategies are made, as well, in order to assess their impact on the vehicle energy consumption. All the activities presented in this doctoral dissertation have been carried out at the Green Mobility Research Lab} (GMRL), a research center resulting from the partnership between the University of Bologna and FEV Italia s.r.l., which represents the industrial partner of the research project.