Recycling the city: a sustainable planning framework to reduce, reuse and recycle urban residual spaces

Cities are key locations where Sustainability needs to be addressed at all levels, as land is a finite resource. However, not all urban spaces are exploited at best, and land developers often evaluate unused, misused, or poorly-designed urban portions as impracticable constraints. Further, public authorities lose the challenge to enable and turn these urban spaces into valuable opportunities where Sustainable Urban Development may flourish. Arguing that these spatial elements are at the centre of SUD, the paper elaborates a prototype in the form of a conceptual strategic planning framework, committed to an effective recycling of the city spaces using a flexible and multidisciplinary approach. Firstly, the research focuses upon a broad review of Sustainability literature, highlighting established principles and guidelines, building a sound theoretical base for the new concept. Hence, it investigates origins, identifies and congruently suggests a definition, characterisation and classification for urban “R-Spaces”. Secondly, formal, informal and temporary fitting functions are analysed and inserted into a portfolio meant to enhance adaptability and enlarge the choices for the on-site interventions. Thirdly, the study outlines ideal quality requirements for a sustainable planning process. Then, findings are condensed in the proposal, which is articulated in the individuation of tools, actors, plans, processes and strategies. Afterwards, the prototype is tested upon case studies: Solar Community (Casalecchio di Reno, Bologna) and Hyllie Sustainable City Project, the latter developed via an international workshop (ACSI-Camp, Malmö, Sweden). Besides, the qualitative results suggest, inter alia, the need to right-size spatial interventions, separate structural and operative actors, involve synergies’ multipliers and intermediaries (e.g. entrepreneurial HUBs, innovation agencies, cluster organisations…), maintain stakeholders’ diversity and create a circular process open for new participants. Finally, the paper speculates upon a transfer of the Swedish case study to Italy, and then indicates desirable future researches to favour the prototype implementation.

Study of recycled Rap and Ra as alternative aggregates for pavements' sub-base and base

Nowadays, an important world’s population growth forecast establish that an increase of 2 billion people is expected by 2050. (UN,2019). This increment of people worldwide involves more humans, as well as growth of the demand for the construction of new residential, institutional, industrial, and infrastructural areas, prompting to a higher consumption of natural resources as required for construction materials. In addition, an effect of this population growth is the production and accumulation of waste causing a serious environmental and economic issue around the world. As an alternative to just producing more waste at the final stage of a building, house, road, among other concrete-based structures, adequate techniques must be applied for recycling and reusing these potential materials. The main priority of the thesis is to foment and evaluate the sustainable construction work leading to environmental-friendly actions that promote the reuse and recycling of construction waste, focusing on the use of construction recycled construction materials as an alternative for sub-base and base of road structure application. This thesis is committed to the analysis of the several laboratory tests carried out for achieving the physical-mechanical properties of the studied materials (recycled concrete aggregates + reclaimed asphalt pavement (RCA+RAP) and stabilized crushed sleepers). All these tests have been carried out in the Laboratory of Roads from the University of Bologna and in the experimental site in CAR srl., at Imola. The results are reported in tables, graphs, and are discussed. The mechanical properties values obtained from the laboratory tests are analysed and compared with standard values declared in the Italian and European normative for roads construction and to the results obtained from in-situ tests in the experimentation field (CAR srl in Imola) with the same materials. This to analyse the performance of them under natural conditions.

Analysis of the introduction of a business process mapping system in Rosetti Marino spa

After a first theoric introduction about Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), are considered in particular the possible options found in literature regarding the following three macro-elements: the methodologies, the modelling notations and the tools employed for process mapping. The theoric section is the base for the analysis of the same elements into the specific case of Rosetti Marino S.p.A., an EPC contractor, operating in the Oil&Gas industry. Rosetti Marino implemented a tool developped internally in order to satisfy its needs in the most suitable way possible and buit a Map of all business processes,navigable on the Company Intranet. Moreover it adopted a methodology based upon participation, interfunctional communication and sharing. The GIGA introduction is analysed from a structural, human resources, political and symbolic point of view.

Reuse Mechanisms and Concurrency: From Actors to Agent-Oriented Programming

La presente tesi è dedicata al riuso nel software. Eccettuata un'introduzione organica al tema, l'analisi è a livello dei meccanismi offerti dai linguaggi di programmazione e delle tecniche di sviluppo, con speciale attenzione rivolta al tema della concorrenza. Il primo capitolo fornisce un quadro generale nel quale il riuso del software è descritto, assieme alle ragioni che ne determinano l'importanza e ai punti cruciali relativi alla sua attuazione. Si individuano diversi livelli di riuso sulla base dell'astrazione e degli artefatti in gioco, e si sottolinea come i linguaggi contribuiscano alla riusabilità e alla realizzazione del riuso. In seguito, viene esplorato, con esempi di codice, il supporto al riuso da parte del paradigma ad oggetti, in termini di incapsulamento, ereditarietà, polimorfismo, composizione. La trattazione prosegue analizzando differenti feature – tipizzazione, interfacce, mixin, generics – offerte da vari linguaggi di programmazione, mostrando come esse intervengano sulla riusabilità dei componenti software. A chiudere il capitolo, qualche parola contestualizzata sull'inversione di controllo, la programmazione orientata agli aspetti, e il meccanismo della delega. Il secondo capitolo abbraccia il tema della concorrenza. Dopo aver introdotto l'argomento, vengono approfonditi alcuni significativi modelli di concorrenza: programmazione multi-threaded, task nel linguaggio Ada, SCOOP, modello ad Attori. Essi vengono descritti negli elementi fondamentali e ne vengono evidenziati gli aspetti cruciali in termini di contributo al riuso, con esempi di codice. Relativamente al modello ad Attori, viene presentata la sua implementazione in Scala/Akka come caso studio. Infine, viene esaminato il problema dell'inheritance anomaly, sulla base di esempi e delle tre classi principali di anomalia, e si analizza la suscettibilità del supporto di concorrenza di Scala/Akka a riscontrare tali problemi. Inoltre, in questo capitolo si nota come alcuni aspetti relativi al binomio riuso/concorrenza, tra cui il significato profondo dello stesso, non siano ancora stati adeguatamente affrontati dalla comunità informatica. Il terzo e ultimo capitolo esordisce con una panoramica dell'agent-oriented programming, prendendo il linguaggio simpAL come riferimento. In seguito, si prova ad estendere al caso degli agenti la nozione di riuso approfondita nei capitoli precedenti.