Seismic vulnerability assessment of heritage-protected school buildings: experimental and numerical modeling approaches

The safety assessment of existing structures constitutes a quantitative process aimed at evaluating a structure's load-bearing capacity while ensuring compliance with current regulatory safety standards. Enhancing structural safety typically requires targeted interventions, ranging from localized modifications to comprehensive system upgrades. In the case of protected historical buildings serving social or strategic functions, this assessment was conducted through a systematic approach involving three key phases: first, a detailed geometric survey of all structural elements; second, comprehensive material investigations to characterize construction properties; and third, numerical modeling to evaluate seismic vulnerability and identify necessary performance improvements. This rigorous methodology generates substantial technical data requiring careful analysis and integration, often resulting in intervention strategies that demand extended planning and implementation periods due to the complex nature of historical structures. The work, through the methodology described above, applied to a historic complex in Vicenza, representative of many similar examples in Italy, highlights the need to explore all possible ways to satisfy many requests including make these buildings still useful to the community and at the same time make them safe from the point of view of seismic risk

Emigration between the 19 and 20 centuries

At a time when common attitudes — especially among younger generations — seem increasingly marked by a kind of historical amnesia, reconstructing the past becomes, for a university, not only a scholarly task but also a civic responsibility. This is true not simply because of the familiar historians' adage that “the past helps us understand the present,” but above all because a community's civic identity is formed through an awareness of its own history. This book is the product of a collaboration between experienced historians and younger researchers trained at the University of San Marino's Advanced School of Historical Studies. The exchange between different generations and sensibilities has proved especially valuable in bringing into focus the many dimensions of so distinctive a reality as the Republic of San Marino

Seismic Strengthening of RC Exterior Beam-Column Joints Using Local Confinement and 45° Steel Haunches: A Comparative FE Study

This study investigates the influence of local confinement and the introduction of metallic haunches on the mechanical and seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete beam–column joints. A numerical comparative approach is adopted to assess the performance of several strengthening configurations relative to a reference unstrengthen joint. Three confinement configurations are examined notably the confinement of the column in the joint region, confinement of the beam, and simultaneous confinement of both the beam and the column. A fourth configuration incorporates two metallic haunches inclined at 45°, acting as an external strengthening system applied to the unconfined reference configuration. The results indicate that confinement generally enhances the strength, ductility, and energy dissipation capacity of beam-column joints under seismic loading. Among the confined configurations, simultaneous confinement of the beam and the column provides the best overall performance. This is followed by confinement of the column alone, while confinement of the beam alone exhibits comparable load-bearing capacity but slightly inferior performance due to less favourable failure mechanisms. In contrast, the introduction of metallic haunches inclined at 45° leads to a very significant increase in mechanical and seismic performance, clearly exceeding the improvements achieved through conventional confinement. These findings highlight the critical role of external strengthening devices in enhancing the seismic behaviour of beam– column joints and emphasize the strong potential of metallic haunches for the seismic design and retrofitting of reinforced concrete structures

The 20th century and the present time

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, San Marino’s economy remained predominantly agricultural, closely resembling that of the surrounding Italian regions. It was a poor, subsistence-based system characterized by highly fragmented land ownership, widespread sharecropping, and a dense network of smallholdings – conditions that severely hindered modernization

Displacement during the Second world war

At a time when common attitudes — especially among younger generations — seem increasingly marked by a kind of historical amnesia, reconstructing the past becomes, for a university, not only a scholarly task but also a civic responsibility. This is true not simply because of the familiar historians' adage that “the past helps us understand the present,” but above all because a community's civic identity is formed through an awareness of its own history. This book is the product of a collaboration between experienced historians and younger researchers trained at the University of San Marino's Advanced School of Historical Studies. The exchange between different generations and sensibilities has proved especially valuable in bringing into focus the many dimensions of so distinctive a reality as the Republic of San Marino

Assessment of shear lag effects on cable-stayed composite bridges under ultimate and service conditions

The growing complexity and scale of modern bridges increasingly subject decks to combined axial forces and bending moments, creating critical design challenges. For steel-concrete composite cable-stayed bridges, achieving long spans requires careful consideration of these forces, particularly axial forces from cable inclination, alongside bending effects to ensure structural rigidity. Current design codes, such as Eurocode, inadequately address this interaction, omitting axial forces and associated shear lag effects while focusing exclusively on bending. This gap often forces designers to rely on computationally intensive finite element (FE) models (e.g., shell/brick elements) for accurate analysis. To address this limitation, this study proposes a novel methodology for the design and verification of twin-girder composite decks under combined axial and bending actions at both Ultimate (ULS) and Serviceability (SLS) Limit States. The paper incorporates the influence of steel-concrete connector deformability and introduces a novel non-dimensional Aspect Ratio parameter, enabling generalization across different cross-sectional geometries. The developed simplified approach is derived from a parametric FE study of generic twin-girder decks, enabling efficient stress distribution assessments by integrating results from universal beam models. The proposed procedure is more accurate than current regulations, as Eurocode provisions overestimate concrete stress under compression and combined loading compared to the reference shell model. Demonstrated through an application to an existing cable-stayed bridge, the methodology offers a practical alternative to complex linear and non-linear FE analyses and is readily adaptable to similar composite deck systems

Migrazioni femminili contemporanee a San Marino

Il saggio offre uno sguardo approfondito e inedito sulle esperienze migratorie delle donne con cittadinanza straniera nella Repubblica di San Marino. A partire da una fotografia del fenomeno dal punto di vista quantitativo e dall’analisi dei dati storici e del contesto giuridico e sociale, la ricerca restituisce la complessità dei percorsi di vita che caratterizzano la migrazione femminile contemporanea. Ne emerge un racconto plurale che evidenzia il contributo delle donne migranti allo sviluppo del Paese, ma anche le criticità e contraddizioni dell’esperienza migratoria a San Marino, rendendo il processo di inclusione ancora fragile

Design per spazi informativi interattivi

Il design degli spazi informativi interattivi è oggi un ambito strategico per la progettazione culturale, educativa e professionale. Qui si incontrano competenze diverse – dalla comunicazione visiva alla psicologia cognitiva, dalla museografia alle tecnologie digitali potenziate, dall’uso delle intelligenze artificiali alle pratiche di regia e scenografia – per dare forma a esperienze coinvolgenti, accessibili e significative. Gli spazi informativi non sono semplici contenitori di storie e informazioni, ma sistemi esperienziali complessi in cui le persone interagiscono con oggetti, linguaggi e ambienti secondo logiche percettive e narrative integrate. Progettarli significa saper orchestrare storie, interfacce e comportamenti, trasformando l’informazione in esperienza. Frutto di un lavoro corale, il volume offre al lettore una visione interdisciplinare e articolata del tema, unendo riflessioni teoriche, casi operativi e prospettive progettuali. Le schede applicative propongono configurazioni e suggerimenti utili per professionisti, designer e curatori che intendono sviluppare o ripensare un progetto di allestimento interattivo. Un riferimento essenziale per chi vuole comprendere e progettare gli spazi informativi del futuro