Bulk plasmon polariton-gap soliton-induced transparency in one-dimensional Kerr-metamaterial superlattices

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Concessioni di servizio in ambito interportuale, portuale e demaniale marittimo ed esercizio delle relative attività: l'impatto della disciplina comunitaria in materia di libera prestazioni di servizi.

Come si evince dal titolo della tesi, la ricerca effettuata dal presente candidato nel corso del dottorato di ricerca ha avuto ad oggetto l’analisi delle competenze che, a diverso livello, comunitario, nazionale e regionale, sono attribuite agli enti in materia di rilascio di concessioni di servizi in abito interportuale, portuale e demaniale marittimo. L’attenzione, pertanto, ha dovuto innanzitutto essere rivolta ai compiti ed alle facoltà che, in forza del trattato che istituisce la Comunità Europea, sono attribuite alla Comunità stessa. Si è provveduto, pertanto, ad analizzare l’evoluzione della normativa per giungere all’attuale sistema giuridico. Gli aspetti della disciplina delle concessioni, oggetto di ricerca, hanno dovuto ripercorrere i vari procedimenti di infrazione comminati dalla Corte Europea, per i quali il sistema giuridico nazionale si è dovuto adattare con non poche difficoltà, soprattutto per la presenza di posizioni e prassi, negli anni, divenute consolidate.

Female mating preferences and male coloration covary with water transparency in a Lake Victoria cichlid fish

Rapid speciation in Lake Victoria cichlid fish of the genus Pundamilia may be facilitated by sexual selection: female mate choice exerts sexual selection on male nuptial coloration within species and maintains reproductive isolation between species. However, declining water transparency coincides with increasingly dull coloration and increasing hybridization. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism underlying this pattern in Pundamilia nyererei, a species that interbreeds with a sister species in turbid but not in clear water. We compared measures of intraspecific sexual selection between two populations from locations that differ in water transparency. First, in laboratory mate-choice experiments, conducted in clear water and under broad-spectrum illumination, we found that females originating from turbid water have significantly weaker preferences for male coloration than females originating from clear water. Second, both the hue and body coverage of male coloration differ between populations, which is consistent with adaptation to different photic habitats. These findings suggest that the observed relationship between male coloration and water transparency is not mediated by environmental variation alone. Rather, female mating preferences are indicated to have changed in response to this variation, constituting the first evidence for intraspecific preference-trait co-evolution in cichlid fish. (C) 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 99, 398-406.

From Money Storage to Money Store: Openness and Transparency in Bank Architecture

In the middle of the twentieth century, banks changed from ‘closed’ designs signifying wealth, security, and safety to ‘open’ designs signifying hospitality, honesty, and transparency as the perception of money changed from a passive physical substance to be slowly accumulated to an active notational substance to be kept in motion. If money is saved, customers must trust that the bank is secure and their money will be there when they want it; if money is invested, customers must trust that it is being done openly and honestly and they are being well-advised. Architecture visually communicates that the institution can be trusted in the requisite way.

Species-Specific Relationships between Water Transparency and Male Coloration within and between Two Closely Related Lake Victoria Cichlid Species

Environmental variation in signalling conditions affects animal communication traits, with possible consequences for sexual selection and reproductive isolation. Using spectrophotometry, we studied how male coloration within and between populations of two closely related Lake Victoria cichlid species (Pundamilia pundamilia and P. nyererei) covaries with water transparency. Focusing on coloration patches implicated in sexual selection, we predicted that in clear waters, with broad-spectrum light, (1) colours should become more saturated and (2) shift in hue away from the dominant ambient wavelengths, compared to more turbid waters. We found support for these predictions for the red and yellow coloration of P. nyererei but not the blue coloration of P. pundamilia. This may be explained by the species difference in depth distribution, which generates a steeper gradient in visual conditions for P. nyererei compared to P. pundamilia. Alternatively, the importance of male coloration in intraspecific sexual selection may differ between the species. We also found that anal fin spots, that is, the orange spots on male haplochromine anal fins that presumably mimic eggs, covaried with water transparency in a similar way for both species. This is in contrast to the other body regions studied and suggests that, while indeed functioning as signals, these spots may not play a role in species differentiation.

Legality and Human Rights: Administrative Justice in Russia 1862-1917

The question of how far pre-revolutionary Russia was from the ideal of a lawful state has received little academic attention, particularly as relates to the legal regulation of relations between person, society and state within the state administration. Pravilova explored the methods of settling disputes between individuals and the administration, and the emergence of legal controls of the administration, analysed projects for the organisation of administrative justice and studied the particular nature of concepts from Russian administrative justice. The idea of an organisation of special bodies examining complaints by private persons against the actions of officials and state bureaucratic organs first appeared in the early 1860s. In the 1870s-1890s various projects for the reform of administrative justice (reorganisation of the Senate and local administrative institutions) were proposed by the Ministries of Justice and Finance, but none of these was put into practice, largely due to resistance from the bureaucracy. At the same time, however, the rapid development of private enterprise, the activities of the zemstvo and self-government produced new norms and mechanisms for the regulation of authorities and social relations. Despite the lack of institutional conditions, the Senate did consider complaints from private persons against illegal actions by administrative officials, playing a role similar to that of the supreme administrative courts in France and Germany. The spread of concepts of a 'lawful state' aroused support for a system of administrative justice and the establishment of administrative tribunals was seen as a condition of legality and a guarantee of human rights. The government was forced to understand that measures to maintain legality were vital to preserve the stability of the system of state power, but plans for liberal reforms were pushed into the background by constitutional reforms. The idea of guarantees of human rights in relations with the authorities was in contradiction with the idea of the monarchy and it was only when the Provisional Government took power in 1917 that the liberal programme of legal reforms had any chance of being put into practice. A law passed in June 1917 ordained the organisation of local administrative justice bodies, but its implementation was hampered by the war, the shortage of qualified judges and the existing absolute legal illiteracy, and the few administrative courts that were set up were soon abolished by the new Soviet authorities. Pravilova concluded that the establishment of a lawful state in pre-revolutionary Russia was prevented by a number of factors, particularly the autocratic nature of the supreme authority, which was incompatible with the idea of administrative justice as a guarantee of the rights of citizens in their relations with the state.