Public Accounts in Italy, 2000-2009: stability and growth , a mission impossible

The paper discusses the ecvolution of public budget situation in Italy since the year 2000 to day. Moreover, the paper focuses on a forecast at medium-term of public finance's equilibrium in Italy. The conclusion emerges that it will be very difficult to combine budget sustainability with the fiscal stance which is requested to promote a recovery from the 2008-2009 crisis. Some suggestions however are formulated.Bilancio pubblico; Italia; anni 2000-2015

Assessing the influence of ESG washing on bank reputational exposure: A cross‐country analysis

The study investigates the effects of ESG washing on banks' reputational exposure. We define ESG washing as a disparity between a bank's environmental and social disclosure level and the practical implementation of the relative measures. The analysis involves an international sample of 120 banks operating across 35 countries from 2014 to 2020. The results evidence a different effect based on the pillar considered: the higher the inconsistency on environmental issues, the higher a bank's reputational exposure. Conversely, higher levels of disclosure compared to performance on social issues appear to reduce reputational exposure. In addition, citizen movements and the country's legal system play a significant role in amplifying or mitigating a bank's reputational exposure. Our findings offer insight into the phenomenon of ESG washing in the banking industry, supporting the need for more verified information across countries and all economic sectors

Role of Neurotrophins in Neuropathic Pain

Neurotrophins (NTs) belong to a family of structurally and functionally related proteins, they are the subsets of neurotrophic factors. Neurotrophins are responsible for diverse actions in the developing peripheral and central nervous systems. They are important regulators of neuronal function, affecting neuronal survival and growth. They are able to regulate cell death and survival in development as well as in pathophysiologic states. NTs and their receptors are expressed in areas of the brain that undergo plasticity, indicating that they are able to modulate synaptic plasticity

I conti pubblici in Italia, 2000-2009: stabilità e crescita, una missione impossibile

The paper discusses the ecvolution of public budget situation in Italy since the year 2000 to day. Moreover, the paper focuses on a forecast at medium-term of public finance's equilibrium in Italy. The conclusion emerges that it will be very difficult to combine budget sustainability with the fiscal stance which is requested to promote a recovery from the 2008-2009 crisis. Some suggestions however are formulated

A common source for the destructive earthquakes in the volcanic island of Ischia (Southern Italy): insights from historical and recent seismicity

AbstractThe island of Ischia, located in the Gulf of Naples, represents an unusual case of resurgent caldera where small-to-moderate magnitude volcano-tectonic earthquakes generate large damage and catastrophic effects, as in the case of 4 March 1881 (Imax-VIII-IXMCS) and 28 July 1883 (Imax X-XI MCS) historical earthquakes, and of the recent 21 August 2017 MW = 3.9, event. All these earthquakes struck the northern area of the island. With about 65,000 inhabitants, Ischia is a popular touristic destination for thermals baths, hosting more than 3,000,000 visitors per year, thus representing a high seismic risk area. Assessing its seismic potential appears a fundamental goal and, to this end, the estimate of the magnitude of significant historical events and the characterization of their source are crucial. We report here a reassessment of historical data of damage of 1881 and 1883 earthquakes to evaluate the main source parameters of these events (obtained with the BOXER and EXISM software) and quantitatively compare, for the first time, the results with the source characteristics, obtained from instrumental data, of the recent 2017 earthquake. The results allowed us to assess the location, as well as the possible dimension and the related maximum magnitude, of the seismogenic structure responsible for such damaging earthquakes. Our results also provide an additional framework to define the mechanisms leading to earthquakes associated with the dynamics of calderas

InSAR full-resolution analysis of the 2017–2018 M>6 earthquakes in Mexico

Abstract The present study analyzes the sequence of 4 important earthquakes occurred in Mexico from September 2017 to February 2018, exploiting the large availability of InSAR data and analytical models, with a twofold goal: to privede new solutions for seismogenic sources, completely independent from seismological data, and to discuss methodological aspects related to the non-linear and linear inverse problem. We review and update an earlier study, focused on the concept of resolution, showing the level of detail achievable in the investigation of the slip distribution based on geodetic observations, according to data availability, fault locations and event magnitudes. We further give new insights into the relationship between fault resolution and parameter uncertainty, demonstrating that a realistic assessment is strictly related to a proper fault subdivision. We eventually discourage the use of qualitative approaches, such as the checkerboard test, to evaluate the data resolving power and suggest the adoption of quantitative indicators, like the Dirichlet Spread Function, normalized, easy to calculate and mathematically robust

Mechanical Hybrid KERS Based on Toroidal Traction Drives: An Example of Smart Tribological Design to Improve Terrestrial Vehicle Performance

We analyse in terms of efficiency and traction capabilities a recently patented traction drive, referred to as the double roller full-toroidal variator (DFTV). We compare its performance with the single roller full-toroidal variator (SFTV) and the single roller half-toroidal variator (SHTV). Modeling of these variators involves challenging tribological issues; the traction and efficiency performances depend on tribological phenomena occurring at the interface between rollers and disks, where the lubricant undergoes very severe elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes. Interestingly, the DFTV shows an improvement of the mechanical efficiency over a wide range of transmission ratios and in particular at the unit speed ratio as in such conditions in which the DFTV allows for zero-spin, thus strongly enhancing its traction capabilities. The very high mechanical efficiency and traction performances of the DFTV are exploited to investigate the performance of a flywheel-based Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), where the efficiency of the variator plays an important role in determining the overall energy recovery performance. The energy boost capabilities and the round-trip efficiency are calculated for the three different variators considered in this study. The results suggest that the energy recovery potential of the mechanical KERS can be improved with a proper choice of the variator

Ground deformation and source geometry of the 30 October 2016 Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake (Central Italy) investigated through seismological data, DInSAR measurements, and numerical modelling

We investigate the Mw 6.5 Norcia (Central Italy) earthquake by exploiting seismological data, DInSAR measurements, and a numerical modelling approach. In particular, we first retrieve the vertical component (uplift and subsidence) of the displacements affecting the hangingwall and the footwall blocks of the seismogenic faults identified, at depth, through the hypocenters distribution analysis. To do this, we combine the DInSAR measurements obtained from coseismic SAR data pairs collected by the ALOS-2 sensor from ascending and descending orbits. The achieved vertical deformation map displays three main deformation patterns: (i) a major subsidence that reaches the maximum value of about 98 cm near the epicentral zones nearby the town of Norcia; (ii) two smaller uplift lobes that affect both the hangingwall (reaching maximum values of about 14 cm) and the footwall blocks (reaching maximum values of about 10 cm). Starting from this evidence, we compute the rock volumes affected by uplift and subsidence phenomena, highlighting that those involved by the retrieved subsidence are characterized by significantly higher deformation values than those affected by uplift (about 14 times). In order to provide a possible interpretation of this volumetric asymmetry, we extend our analysis by applying a 2D numerical modelling approach based on the finite element method, implemented in a structural-mechanic framework, and exploiting the available geological and seismological data, and the ground deformation measurements retrieved from the multi-orbit ALOS-2 DInSAR analysis. In this case, we consider two different scenarios: the first one based on a single SW-dipping fault, the latter on a main SW-dipping fault and an antithetic zone. In this context, the model characterized by the occurrence of an antithetic zone presents the retrieved best fit coseismic surface deformation pattern. This result allows us to interpret the subsidence and uplift phenomena caused by the Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake as the result of the gravitational sliding of the hangingwall along the main fault plane and the frictional force acting in the opposite direction, consistently with the double couple fault plane mechanism

Torque vectoring for electric vehicles with individually controlled motors: state-of-the-art and future developments

This paper deals with the description of current and future vehicle technology related to yaw moment control, anti-lock braking and traction control through the employment of effective torque vectoring strategies for electric vehicles. In particular, the adoption of individually controlled electric powertrains with the aim of tuning the vehicle dynamic characteristics in steady-state and transient conditions is discussed. This subject is currently investigated within the European Union (EU) funded Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) consortium E-VECTOORC, focused on the development and experimental testing of novel control strategies. Through a comprehensive literature review, the article outlines the stateof- the-art of torque vectoring control for fully electric vehicles and presents the philosophy and the potential impact of the E-VECTOORC control structure from the viewpoint of torque vectoring for vehicle dynamics enhancement