International migration and the rise of the ‘civil’ nation

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 2 March 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1155980Scholars largely agree that immigration policies in Western Europe have switched to a liberal, civic model. Labelled as ‘civic turn’, ‘civic integration’ or ‘liberal convergence’, this model is not identically applied across countries, since national institutions, traditions and identifications still matter. Even so, the main focus is on processes which allow or prevent migrants to be incorporated into nations usually taken for granted in their meanings. Moving from policies to discourses, this article aims to interrogate what kind of nation is behind these policies as a way to further scrutinise the ‘civic turn’. Exploring how the term ‘civility’ and its adjectivisations are discursively deployed in Italian parliamentary debates on immigration and integration issues, the article points to two opposite narratives of nation. While one mobilises civility in order to rewrite the nation in terms of a common, inclusive, civic ‘we’, the other uses civility to reaffirm the conflation between national identity and the identity of the ethno-cultural majority. These findings suggest the importance of exploring the ‘civic turn’ not only across countries, but also across political parties within the same country to capture the ways in which a liberal, civic convergence in political discourses might hide divergent national boundary mechanisms

A MEMS reconfigurable quad-band Class-E Power Amplifier for GSM standard

In this paper we present a reconfigurable Class-E Power Amplifier (PA) whose operation frequency covers all uplink bands of GSM standard. We describe the circuit design strategy to reconfigure PA operation frequency maximizing the efficiency. Two dies, manufactured using CMOS and MEMS technologies, are assembled through bondwires in a SiP fashion. Prototypes deliver 20dBm output power with 38% and 26% drain efficiencies at lower and upper bands, respectively. MEMS technological issues degrading performance are also discussed.In this paper we present a reconfigurable Class-E Power Amplifier (PA) whose operation frequency covers all uplink bands of GSM standard. We describe the circuit design strategy to reconfigure PA operation frequency maximizing the efficiency. Two dies, manufactured using CMOS and MEMS technologies, are assembled through bondwires in a SiP fashion. Prototypes deliver 20dBm output power with 38% and 26% drain efficiencies at lower and upper bands, respectively. MEMS technological issues degrading performance are also discussed. © 2009 EDAA

A MEMS Reconfigurable QUAD-Band Class-E Power Amplifier for GSM Standard

In this work we present a reconfigurable mid-power Class-E Power Amplifier (PA) [1,2] operating at ~900MHz and ~1800MHz (GSM standard [3]) realized hybridizing one chip manufactured in AMS 0.35μm CMOS technology and one MEMS sub-network. The CMOS chip realizes the active part of the circuit, whereas the MEMS block (realized in FBK technology) implements a reconfigurable impedance Matching Network (MN) that transforms the 50Ω antenna load to the 12Ω impedance required by the PA in order to deliver 20dBm output power in both the GSM operating frequency bands. The prototype of the MEMS/CMOS PA we realized delivers 20dBm with 38% and 26% drain efficiencies at 900MHz and 1800MHz, respectively, demonstrating to be a feasible option compared to standard commercial solutions

State-Society Relationships, Social Trust and the Development of Labour Market Policies in Italy and Sweden

The first decade of the twenty-first century may be remembered for the rebirth of consensus on labour market policy. After three decades of bitter political and ideological controversy between a neo-liberal and a traditional social democratic approach, a new model, often labelled flexicurity, has emerged. This model is promoted by numerous political organisations since it promises to put an end to the old trade-off between equality and efficiency. Several countries are embracing the flexicurity model as a blueprint for labour market reform, but others, mostly belonging to the 'Mediterranean Rim', are clearly lagging behind. Why is it so difficult for these countries to implement the flexicurity model? This paper argues that the application of a flexicurity strategy in these countries is complicated by the lack of social trust between social partners and the state as well as political economy traditions that highlight the role of labour market regulation as a source of social protection