Nel VII [i.e. settimo] centenario della Indulgenza della Porziuncola.

Special issue to L'Oriente serafico, anno 27-28, ottobre-agosto 1916-17.

Religious diplomacy and socialism. The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Church of England, 1956-1959

This article analyzes the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the communist regime during one of the most intense periods of religious persecution in the Romanian People's Republic from 1956 to 1959. The church hierarchy demonstrated its support for the socialist construction of the country, while, at the same time, the regime began a campaign against religion by arresting clergy and reducing the number of religious people in monasteries; rumours even circulated that in 1958 Patriarch Justinian was under house arrest. Seeking closer contact with Western Europe, the regime allowed the hierarchy to meet foreign clergymen, especially from the Church of England. These diplomatic religious encounters played a double role. The regime realised that it could benefit from international ecclesiastical relations, while the image of Justinian in the West changed from that of "red patriarch" to that of a leader who was genuinely interested in his church's survival.

Women’s Entrepreneurship: closing the gender gap in access to financial and other services and in social entrepreneurship

This study explores differences between men and women entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. It explores the barriers and discriminatory effects that hinder women’s entrepreneurship, including access to finance in the European Union. The study includes four case studies covering the situation in the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Teaching English to young learners in Europe:teachers' attitudes and perspectives

The introduction of languages into the primary curriculum has been the major development in language-in-education policy around the world over the last 20-25 years. In the vast majority of countries the language taught is English and it is being taught at an ever-earlier age. A relatively large amount of research has been carried out in Asia into teaching English to young learners (TEYL) from the point of view of language policy and planning and of policy implementation, especially in terms of the gap between policy and practice caused by the introduction of new methodologies such as communicative language teaching. However, to date far less research has been carried out into the situation in Europe, particularly concerning the attitudes of those most closely involved in policy implementation - the teachers themselves. This chapter examines the attitudes of teachers in six European countries (Italy, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Ukraine), uncovering the challenges they face and the changes they would like to see enacted to improve English language learning and teaching in their countries. The implications for policy, planning and teacher education are also discussed.

Enhancing Cloud Security and Privacy: The Cloud Audit Problem

Postprint

Enhancing Cloud Security and Privacy: The Power and the Weakness of the Audit Trail

Winner of best paper award.

Estimate of the (R)USLE rainfall erosivity factor from monthly precipitation data in mainland Spain

The need for continuous recording rain gauges makes it difficult to determine the rainfall erosivity factor (R-factor) of the (R)USLE model in areas without good temporal data coverage. In mainland Spain, the Nature Conservation Institute (ICONA) determined the R-factor at few selected pluviographs, so simple estimates of the R-factor are definitely of great interest. The objectives of this study were: (1) to identify a readily available estimate of the R-factor for mainland Spain; (2) to discuss the applicability of a single (global) estimate based on analysis of regional results; (3) to evaluate the effect of record length on estimate precision and accuracy; and (4) to validate an available regression model developed by ICONA. Four estimators based on monthly precipitation were computed at 74 rainfall stations throughout mainland Spain. The regression analysis conducted at a global level clearly showed that modified Fournier index (MFI) ranked first among all assessed indexes. Applicability of this preliminary global model across mainland Spain was evaluated by analyzing regression results obtained at a regional level. It was found that three contiguous regions of eastern Spain (Catalonia, Valencian Community and Murcia) could have a different rainfall erosivity pattern, so a new regression analysis was conducted by dividing mainland Spain into two areas: Eastern Spain and plateau-lowland area. A comparative analysis concluded that the bi-areal regression model based on MFI for a 10-year record length provided a simple, precise and accurate estimate of the R-factor in mainland Spain. Finally, validation of the regression model proposed by ICONA showed that R-ICONA index overpredicted the R-factor by approximately 19%.

Bailando con Dioniso: el mito de Leucipo y Daphne de Richard Strauss y Joseph Gregor

Primera parte de un artículo dividido en dos que analiza la profunda reinterpretación que del mito de Dafne llevaron a cabo, a partir del relato alternativo de Partenio de Nicea más que del célebre relato de Ovidio, Richard Strauss y su libretista Joseph Gregor en su versión operística Daphne (1938). El objetivo final es someter a examen la declaración expresa de Strauss sobre el significado de su nueva ópera y si a través de la manipulación del argumento mítico los autores lograron alcanzar su objetivo.

Energy, emergy, and the city

In his book “Environment, Power, and Society” (1971) H.T. Odum introduced a picture of the energy metabolism of a city based on Wolman's paper from 1965 (Sci. Am., 213: 179-190). With the development of the emergy analysis--a branch of energy systems accounting--several authors have contributed to develop quantitative measures of HT Odum’s picture, which from many perspectives are diverging from traditional energy studies. In this paper, studies using emergy analysis to study cities are reviewed. The research regarding emergy and cities had during the period 1975-1995 its focus on cities in the United States, e.g. Miami, Jacksonville, San Francisco and Chicago. The research during 1995-2005 was almost exclusively focused on Taipei. From approximately 2006 up till 2015 the research focus has been on Chinese cities; Macao, Beijing and 37 other Chinese cities have been investigated. But there are resent also studies made on Rome (Italy) and Montreal (Canada). Studies up to about 2007/2008 were generally concerned with understanding spatial aspects of the cities investigated. After that, evaluating the sustainability of cities has become a main research focus.

Dynamic fluid-structure interactions using finite volume unstructured mesh procedures

A three-dimensional finite volume, unstructured mesh (FV-UM) method for dynamic fluid–structure interaction (DFSI) is described. Fluid structure interaction, as applied to flexible structures, has wide application in diverse areas such as flutter in aircraft, wind response of buildings, flows in elastic pipes and blood vessels. It involves the coupling of fluid flow and structural mechanics, two fields that are conventionally modelled using two dissimilar methods, thus a single comprehensive computational model of both phenomena is a considerable challenge. Until recently work in this area focused on one phenomenon and represented the behaviour of the other more simply. More recently, strategies for solving the full coupling between the fluid and solid mechanics behaviour have been developed. A key contribution has been made by Farhat et al. [Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 21 (1995) 807] employing FV-UM methods for solving the Euler flow equations and a conventional finite element method for the elastic solid mechanics and the spring based mesh procedure of Batina [AIAA paper 0115, 1989] for mesh movement. In this paper, we describe an approach which broadly exploits the three field strategy described by Farhat for fluid flow, structural dynamics and mesh movement but, in the context of DFSI, contains a number of novel features: a single mesh covering the entire domain, a Navier–Stokes flow, a single FV-UM discretisation approach for both the flow and solid mechanics procedures, an implicit predictor–corrector version of the Newmark algorithm, a single code embedding the whole strategy.

Resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation

In 2014, the Third International Conference on the resilience of social-ecological systems chose the theme “resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation.” The conference aimed specifically at fostering an encounter between the experiences and thinking focused on the issue of resilience through a social and ecological system perspective, and the experiences focused on the issue of resilience through a development perspective. In this perspectives piece, we reflect on the outcomes of the meeting and document the differences and similarities between the two perspectives as discussed during the conference, and identify bridging questions designed to guide future interactions. After the conference, we read the documents (abstracts, PowerPoints) that were prepared and left in the conference database by the participants (about 600 contributions), and searched the web for associated items, such as videos, blogs, and tweets from the conference participants. All of these documents were assessed through one lens: what do they say about resilience and development? Once the perspectives were established, we examined different themes that were significantly addressed during the conference. Our analysis paves the way for new collective developments on a set of issues: (1) Who declares/assign/cares for the resilience of what, of whom? (2) What are the models of transformations and how do they combine the respective role of agency and structure? (3) What are the combinations of measurement and assessment processes? (4) At what scale should resilience be studied? Social transformations and scientific approaches are coconstructed. For the last decades, development has been conceived as a modernization process supported by scientific rationality and technical expertise. The definition of a new perspective on development goes with a negotiation on a new scientific approach. Resilience is presently at the center of this negotiation on a new science for development.

Implementing the European quality assurance in vocational education and training (EQAVET) at national level: Some insights from the PEN Leonardo project

EQAVET, the quality assurance tool in vocational and educational training, was developed in response to the need for a supply of a trained workforce for labour market needs. Implementation of EQAVET at national level, however, remains a challenge. The research reported here focused on the implementation of QA processes by VET providers in 4 countries: Malta, Italy, Turkey, and Sweden. Data was collected through a questionnaire with 62 VET providers. Responses showed that there is an overall commitment to quality. There is, however, little knowledge of EQAVET across the countries, with the exception of Malta. None the less, all VET providers have implemented some aspects of EQAVET, even if not always intentionally. The situation is, however, far from EQAVET being fully implemented. Reflections are made on whether the EQAVET model specifically or qualification assurance principles assurances should be promoted across Europe. (DIPF/Orig.)

A new distributed MIKEY mode to secure e-health applications.

Securing e-health applications in the context of Internet of Things (IoT) is challenging. Indeed, resources scarcity in such environment hinders the implementation of existing standard based protocols. Among these protocols, MIKEY (Multimedia Internet KEYing) aims at establishing security credentials between two communicating entities. However, the existing MIKEY modes fail to meet IoT specificities. In particular, the pre-shared key mode is energy efficient, but suffers from severe scalability issues. On the other hand, asymmetric modes such as the public key mode are scalable, but are highly resource consuming. To address this issue, we combine two previously proposed approaches to introduce a new hybrid MIKEY mode. Indeed, relying on a cooperative approach, a set of third parties is used to discharge the constrained nodes from heavy computational operations. Doing so, the pre-shared mode is used in the constrained part of the network, while the public key mode is used in the unconstrained part of the network. Preliminary results show that our proposed mode is energy preserving whereas its security properties are kept safe.

La gestione del portafoglio brevettuale del Dipartimento Energia e Trasporti

Prima della presente riforma del CNR, esisteva all’interno dell’Ente un Ufficio Brevetti, che supportava i propri ricercatori, a livello nazionale, nelle fasi di primo deposito, estensione all’estero, nella stipula di contratti di cessione e di licenza. Dal momento in cui è entrato in vigore il decreto di riordino dell’Ente (D.L. 4 giugno 2003, n. 127) e si sono creati e avviati gli 11 Dipartimenti, l’ufficio brevetti è stato soppresso e il portafoglio brevettuale è stato affidato ai Dipartimenti, ognuno con la propria macro area di competenza.