The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) for a Local Authority: A Case Study in Italy

The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) has been calculated for many countries, but rarely at the local level. This paper shows how the index has been calculated for the Province of Siena, Central Italy. The whole procedure is illustrated step by step, including the search for the most suitable and precise methods to obtain reliable values for each item composing the index. Application of ISEW at a very local level was found to be feasible. The most general difficulty encountered was the lack of an adequate institutionalised source of statistical information to support the construction of indicators other than purely economic or demographic ones. The availability of data depends on the interest in implementing projects of sustainable management of natural resources and land on the part of local authorities and their consequent willingness to invest money and human resources on such projects. The ISEW is a good tool for local environmental policy, because it gives a more realistic representation of the well-being of the population than GDP, since it includes environmental and social items not considered in conventional national accounting. Furthermore, in Italy, the principle of administrative decentralization has been implemented in recent years to such an extent that the central government devolved part of its power to Regions, Provinces and Municipalities. Arguably, local authorities should therefore allocate more resources to pursue their policies towards sustainability, an issue which modern electoral campaigns are often based on. The results for the Province of Siena show that there is a large gap between local GDP and ISEW (about 37% of GDP).Local level, economic welfare, sustainability, ISEW, economic policy

Building Fuzzy Elevation Maps from a Ground-based 3D Laser Scan for Outdoor Mobile Robots

Mandow, A; Cantador, T.J.; Reina, A.J.; Martínez, J.L.; Morales, J.; García-Cerezo, A. "Building Fuzzy Elevation Maps from a Ground-based 3D Laser Scan for Outdoor Mobile Robots," Robot2015: Second Iberian Robotics Conference, Advances in Robotics, (2016) Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 418. This is a self-archiving copy of the author’s accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-27149-1.The paper addresses terrain modeling for mobile robots with fuzzy elevation maps by improving computational speed and performance over previous work on fuzzy terrain identification from a three-dimensional (3D) scan. To this end, spherical sub-sampling of the raw scan is proposed to select training data that does not filter out salient obstacles. Besides, rule structure is systematically defined by considering triangular sets with an unevenly distributed standard fuzzy partition and zero order Sugeno-type consequents. This structure, which favors a faster training time and reduces the number of rule parameters, also serves to compute a fuzzy reliability mask for the continuous fuzzy surface. The paper offers a case study using a Hokuyo-based 3D rangefinder to model terrain with and without outstanding obstacles. Performance regarding error and model size is compared favorably with respect to a solution that uses quadric-based surface simplification (QSlim).This work was partially supported by the Spanish CICYT project DPI 2011-22443, the Andalusian project PE-2010 TEP-6101, and Universidad de Málaga-Andalucía Tech

Considering water and soil conservation works in Life Cycle Assessment: focus on contour ridges and erosion impacts

Soil is a rare natural resource and it is at the center of the main issues in agronomy, environment and land use planning. At global level, erosion is one of the major soil degradation processes and it is responsible for the decrease in agronomic potential of soils and in agricultural land surfaces. Water and soil conservation works (WSCW) are built to protect soil from erosion. The financial and environmental cost the WSCW construction is very high. However, the positive impacts of WSCW are not taken into account in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The objectives of this study is to intergrate the impact of WSCW on soil quality in LCA. There are different types of WSCW with different functions and they act differently on erosion process. In this study we focussed on contour ridges (CR) because they are associated to crop systems. CR are generally built in upland areas to reduce runoff and erosion, to increase on-site deposition of eroded particles and to increase local water infiltration. They modify water and soil flows at catchment scale, so it is necessary to use a model able to calculate the inventory flow at the catchment and not at the plot level. In this study we present a methodology to integrate the impact of CR on topsoil erosion at the catchment level and to compute characterization factors in presence of such WSCW. The proposed method was applied in a case study in semi-arid context in central Tunisia (Merguellil watershed) which presents the issues of over-exploitation of water resources, accelerated land degradation and a high expansion of conservation works. In order to investigate the impact of WSCW on topsoil erosion, diffrent catchment scenarios (with and without CR) and land use types were tested using soil redistribution model (LandSoil model). For life cycle impact assessment, we focussed on two midpoint impact categories of LANCA soil functions : erosion resistance and mechanical infiltration. The CFs were calculated using the two models : LANCA and LandSoil models. These CFs were then compared. The results showed how contour ridges can modify topsoil erosion process, the erosion impact depend on location of landuse and contour ridges increase mechanical infiltration of soil. However, these impacts were not considered in LANCA model. In conclusion, It is necessary to integrate the positive impacts of contour ridges in life cycle assessment. It will be also neccessary to integrate the impact of the other types of WSCW in topsoil erosion impact modelling

Progettazione e realizzazione di un prototipo di simulatore di specifiche di sistemi peer to peer

La tesi descrive la progettazione e la realizzazione (in C#) di un prototipo di simulatore in grado di visualizzare i possibili comportamenti di specifiche di sistemi peer to peer

Ambiente deposizionale del giacimento di Monte Duello (Eocene, Lessini veronesi).

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Valutazione microbiologica della colonizzazione batterica implantoprotesica: studio clinico.

I sistemi implantari dentali presenti al momento sul mercato sono costituiti principalmente da due componenti: il corpo implantare propriamente detto (inserito all’interno dell’osso alveolare) e il pilastro protesico o abutment (il quale servirà da supporto al manufatto protesico). La connessione tra queste due componenti sembra essere un punto cruciale per il successo implantare. Essenzialmente, al di là di possibili considerazioni da un punto di vista meccanico, la presenza di uno spazio seppur microscopico tra queste due parti potrebbe consentire una proliferazione batterica con conseguente infiammazione e, in ultima analisi, una possibile perimplantite con perdita di osso perimplantare. L’obiettivo del presente studio è quello di evidenziare un’eventuale colonizzazione batterica delle superfici interne di impianti protesizzati tramite protesi avvitata oppure tramite protesi cementata, e di analizzare in seguito le eventuali differenze

quantitative mapping of clay minerals using airborne imaging spectroscopy new data on mugello italy from sim ga prototypal sensor

AbstractThe possibility of using high spectral and spatial resolution remote sensing technologies is becoming increasingly important in the monitoring of soil degradation processes. A high spatial resolution hyperspectral dataset was acquired with the airborne Hyper SIM-GA sensor from Selex Galileo, simultaneously with ground soil spectral signatures and samples collection. A complete mapping procedure was developed using the 2000–2450 nm spectral region, demonstrating that the 2200 absorption band allows the obtainment of reliable maps of the clay content. The correlation achieved between the observed and the predicted values is encouraging for the extensive application of this technique in soil conservation planning and protection actions

Analisi di Vulnerabilita Sismica sulla scuola elementare "A.Ciancia" in Francavilla in Sinni (PZ)

La presente tesi si basa sulla valutazione della vulnerabilità sismica della Scuola Elementare “A.Ciancia” di Francavilla in Sinni (PZ). La struttura è in muratura portante, composta da due piani fuori terra ed è stata realizzata alla fine degli anni ’50: la sua forma è a “C” con dimensioni massime in pianta di 20X36m. Gli orizzontamenti sono realizzati in laterocemento, mentre la copertura è stata realizzata in legno. La valutazione della vulnerabilità, nel rispetto dell’attuale D.M. 14/01/2008, è stata effettuata per definire le tipologie di intervento adottabili per il miglioramento sismico della struttura. L’ analisi dinamica modale è stata attuata mediante l’utilizzo del programma Midas-Gen, per lo studio del comportamento globale. Ad ogni livello della struttura sono state effettuate le verifiche di sicurezza, sia nel piano che fuori piano. A completamento della valutazione di vulnerabilità, è stata effettuata l’analisi statica non lineare (push-over) che ha permesso di studiare l’evoluzione in campo plastico della muratura e di valutare l’indice di rischio. Le analisi statiche non lineari sono state effettuate e confrontate nell’ipotesi di diversi livelli di conoscenza della struttura, valutando come muta il comportamento globale della struttura al variare del fattore di confidenza e quindi delle caratteristiche meccaniche dei materiali. Dalle vulnerabilità emerse, sono stati studiati interventi appositi, volti ad incrementare la sicurezza dell’edificio