La trascrizione del certificato di nascita del figlio di coniugi \u201csame sex\u201d. Filiazione omogenitoriale, ordine pubblico internazionale e interesse del minore nella recente giurisprudenza torinese

The Court of Appeals of Turin orders the registration of the birth certificate of the son of a same-sex couple, who married in Spain (being a mother Italian, the other one Spanish). It is an unprecedented decision, because up to now LGBTIQ people could only aspire (and even that was not certain) to adopt the partner's child (step-child adoption), whilst today a son appears on a birth certificate as having two mothers. A good occasion to think of the concepts of same-sex progeny, international public order and interest of the minor and, furthermore, to observe on the one hand, the spread of what I call legal epigenetics and, on the other hand, the erection of a proper Sexuality & Gender Law

A multidisciplinary approach using LCCA and micro-simulation 10 model for the management of the urban pavements

The maintenance and the rehabilitation of the urban road pavements are not often based on systematic program and scheduling but rather on emergency or on other not identified reasons. Moreover the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA), the only peculiar procedure for the management pavement, finds its own application for highway and motorway, even if it is possible to search the best investment for the urban interstate and arterials. By the light of the quantity of the involved resources, it seems necessary to define an operative methodology for programming the maintenance and rehabilitation activities for the urban pavement. The paper is oriented towards the development of a multidisciplinary approach to make decision on management of urban pavement using the basic concepts of the LCCA and micro-simulation model to define a scheme of work zone that minimizes the delay on the traffic flow. The best rehabilitation strategy should be characterized by the lowest users\u2019 cost that depends on the time period of the work zone, which is conditioned by both own scheme and the provided treatment, and on \u201csocial cost\u201d as increased travel time for queue generation . Different scenarios for different work zone plans were developed and a micro-simulation model was used to assess increased total travel time of a traffic flow within the maintenance area. In this work an analysis by means of the above mentioned approach was carried out on real scenario in the city of Palermo in order to point out the several frames of the adopted methodology

Seismic Vulnerability of the Italian Roadway Bridge Stock

This study focuses on the seismic vulnerability evaluation of the Italian roadway bridge stock, within the framework of a Civil Protection sponsored project. A comprehensive database of existing bridges (17,000 bridges with different level of knowledge) was implemented. At the core of the study stands a procedure for automatically carrying out state-of-the-art analytical evaluation of fragility curves for two performance levels – damage and collapse – on an individual bridge basis. A webGIS was developed to handle data and results. The main outputs are maps of bridge seismic risk (from the fragilities and the hazard maps) at the national level and real-time scenario damage-probability maps (from the fragilities and the scenario shake maps). In the latter case the webGIS also performs network analysis to identify routes to be followed by rescue teams. Consistency of the fragility derivation over the entire bridge stock is regarded as a major advantage of the adopted approach

Business model scaling and growth hacking in digital entrepreneurship

Creating an innovative product and validating an innovative business model may not be enough for digital startups to be competitive. To grow fast and expand globally, digital startups need to innovate their business model during the scaling phase. A pragmatic approach has recently been proposed to support digital entrepreneurs engaging in business-model innovation during the scaling phase (i.e., business-model scaling), a strategy known as growth hacking. However, we know little about its theoretical grounding and how effective growth hacking is, as businesses lack methodologies to assess its effectiveness before committing resources and investments. To fill this gap, we developed a method for supporting business- model scaling through simulation modeling and provided an illustrative application to the PayPal case. By doing so, we contribute to the ongoing debate on scalability in digital entrepreneurship

Studying the relationships between hourly precipitation extremes and dewpoint temperature in Sicily.

According to the well-known Clausius-Clapeyron relation, the maximum moisture content of the atmosphere increases with approximately 7% per degree temperature raise (CC-scaling rate). Under the hypothesis that relative humidity does not change, an increase in the water vapor should occur at the same rate. For this reason we could expect for the coming years an increase in the intensity of extreme precipitation as a consequence of the global climate warming. Trend on precipitation extremes and possible links to changes in atmospheric temperature and moisture are investigated in different parts of the world, and a number of observational studies has exhibited scaling rates that are either higher (super-CC) or lower (sub-CC) than CC scaling rate depending on the climatic areas under analysis. One of the most common approaches consists in a regression analysis to interpret the relationships between extreme percentiles of rainfall and surface temperature, and this is often due to the lack of availability of consistent historical data series for other variables of interest, such as the relative air humidity. In some applications, combined temperature-humidity measures, such as the dew point temperature, have been used as proxy measures. In this study we investigate, at the regional scale (Sicily, Italy), the scaling rate between hourly precipitation extremes and dew point temperature. This last is then used as a measure of near surface absolute humidity and is computed for each rainfall event at the same time (T0) and, 2 (T2) and 4 (T4) hours before the event occurrence. The scaling rate is studied at both the level of entire hydrological year and the seasonal level, dividing the calendar year in a wet, colder and more rainy, season and a dry warmer season. The high-resolution dataset from the regional agency SIAS (Agro-meteorological Information Service of Sicily) has been used and it is constituted by data of 10-min rainfall, hourly temperature and maximum hourly relative air humidity, collected by 107 gauges from 2003 to 2015. The hourly temperature and maximum hourly relative air humidity data are combined to provide hourly time-series of dew-point temperature at each gauge. The samples from the different gauges are pooled together forming six different samples relative to six different sub-regions defined within the Sicilian island and at the level of entire region (unique regional sample). At the level of single sub-region a binning procedure is used, investigating the suitability of exponential regression models for interpreting the relationships between dew point temperature (median for bin) and extreme rainfall intensity (95th percentile for bin). A LOESS (LOcally-wEighted Scatter-plot Smoothing) regression analysis is considered for the study of the regional sample. Similar results are obtained from the analysis at the annual level and for the wet season, with high coefficients of determination (R2 >0.94) for all the sub-regions, demonstrating the appropriateness of the used regression models, and with sub-CC scaling rate (4-5%°C1). For the dry season, both the R2 and the rates (especially for T2 and T4) are lower; moreover, the LOESS analysis highlights a decreasing scaling rate at higher dew point temperatures

Rainfall depth-duration-frequency curves for short-duration precipitation events in Sicily (Italy)

The design criteria of the hydraulic infrastructures, including, for instance, those for flood defense, urban drainage systems, reservoirs spillways and bridges, are based on the coupled analysis of the magnitude of rainfall events for a fixed duration and their estimated annual exceedance probability. The well-known rainfall depth-duration-frequency (DDF) curves, typically derived from the analysis of long historical annual maxima data series, synthesize the relationships between rainfall depth, duration and exceedance probability which is usually expressed as a return period. The time-resolution of rainfall data typically available for the construction of DDF curves and provided by gauges having large sample size, is hourly or coarser; this has allowed the definition of statistically consistent and reliable curves, suitable for rainfall duration hourly or longer, while, for shorter duration, empirical relationships with a high degree of approximation are generally used. Small river basins and plot-size areas with short response time, as well as urban drainage systems, are expected to be particularly vulnerable to sub-hourly intense rainfall events. Many practical applications, design procedures and mathematical models indeed require a finer time-resolution (i.e. sub - hourly). Moreover, in many regions of the world, such as the Sicily (Italy), an intensification of short-duration rainfall events is observed probably in response to the ongoing climate changes. This work proposes an approach for estimating the distribution of sub-hourly extreme rainfalls and extending depth–duration–frequency (DDF) curves derived for duration over the hourly also to sub-hourly durations. The approach is applied in Sicily starting from the coupled analysis of two different databases. The former (OA-ARRA database) contains long series of annual maxima for the fixed duration of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 hours for about 250 gauges, while the latter (SIAS database), include 10-minutes rainfall data series for about 100 gauges collected during the last 15 years (from 2003 to now), form which annual maxima time-series for fixed sub-hourly duration are derived. The approach includes a procedure for pairing raingauges, provided from the two databases, according to a distance- and elevation-based criterion and consolidated inference statistical techniques for the coupled analysis of the data-series from the two gauges

Detecting precipitation trend using a multiscale approach based on quantile regression over a Mediterranean area

One of the most relevant and debated topics related to the effects of the climate change is whether intense rainfall events have become more frequent over the last decades. It is a crucial aspect, since an increase in the magnitude and frequency of occurrence of heavy rainfall events could result in a dramatic growth of floods and, in turn, human lives losses and economic damages. Because of its central position in the Mediterranean area, Sicily has been often screened with the aim to capture some trends in precipitation, potentially related to climate change. While Mann-Kendall test has been largely used for the rainfall trend detection, in this work a different procedure is considered. Precipitation trends are here investigated by processing the whole rainfall time-series, provided by the regional agency SIAS at a 10-min resolution, through the quantile regression method by aggregating precipitation across a wide spectrum of durations and considering different quantiles. Results show that many rain gauges are characterized by an increasing trend in sub-hourly precipitation intensity, especially at the highest quantiles, thus suggesting that, from 2002 to 2019, sub-hourly events have become more intense in most of the island. Moreover, by analysing some spatial patterns, it has been revealed that the south and the east of Sicily are more interested in significant increasing rainfall trends, especially at the 10-min duration. Finally, the comparison between the two procedures revealed a stronger reliability of the quantile regression in the trend analysis detection, mainly due to the possibility of investigating the temporal variation of the tails of precipitation distribution

Influence of temperature on extreme rainfall intensity in Sicily (Italy)

Some climate model experiments suggest an intensification of short-duration extreme precipitation in many parts of the world associated with a warming climate. This behavior could have a physical motivation due to the fact that warmer air has the potential to hold more atmospheric moisture and, then, to provide more water to rainfall events. The theoretical basis of the relationship that links air temperature and atmospheric humidity is provided by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, according to which, if the relative humidity remains constant, then atmospheric humidity will increase with temperature at a rate (often referred to as CC-rate) in the order of 6-7% C-1, following the saturation vapour pressure curve as a function of temperature. The study of the relationship between extreme rainfall events and surface temperature could be of capital importance for evaluating the effects of global warming on future precipitation, since it may have important impacts on society with relevant fallouts on several aspects (e.g. flooding, risk protection, etc.). Different approaches have been proposed for the study at different locations of the scaling relationship between extreme rainfall intensity and surface temperature. In some cases, it has been observed a rate consistent with the thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron relation (CC-rate). Nevertheless, in many cases, the existence of scaling rate between temperature and extreme precipitation has been demonstrated with significantly different values with respect to the theoretical CC-rate, being in some cases sensibly higher (super-CC) and in other relevantly lower (sub-CC). In this work, an analysis of the scaling relationship between sub-daily extreme rainfall and surface temperature in a semi-arid region (Sicily, Italy) is carried out, also investigating the role of different factors, such as the duration of maximum rainfall depths for fixed duration (i.e. 10, 30 and 60 minutes), the type of adopted regression models (exponential regression, two-segments piecewise regression and LOESS - Locally-weighted scatterplot smoothing - regression), and the climate seasonality (unique season for the entire hydrological year; dry season from April to September and wet season for the remaining part of the year). The original dataset is constituted by hourly temperature and 10-minutes rainfall data collected from 2003 to 2015 by the regional agency SIAS (Servizio Informativo Agrometeorologico Siciliano) through 107 weather stations spread over the region. The results demonstrate that in Sicily the scaling rates are generally lower than the CC-rate; however, the observed tendency towards sub-CC rates is smoothed by the consideration of shorter duration for rainfall maximum depths (higher rates for 10-minutes durations) and under wetter periods (higher rates considering only wet season values), demonstrating how such factors play a fundamental role

Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Healthcare Workers in Italy: Results from a National E-Survey

Italy has been the first-hit European country to face the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Aim of this survey was to assess in depth the impact of the outbreak on healthcare workers (HCW). A 40-item online survey was disseminated via social media inviting Italian HCW, with questions exploring demographics, health status and work environment of respondents. A total of 527 were invited to take part in March 2020, of whom 74% (n = 388) responded to the survey. Of these, 235 (61%) were women. HCW were mostly physicians (74%), from high-prevalence regions (52%). 25% experienced typical symptoms during the last 14 days prior to survey completion, with only 45% of them being tested for COVID-19. Among the tested population, 18 (18%) resulted positive for COVID-19, with 33% being asymptomatic. Only 22% of HCW considered personal protective equipment adequate for quality and quantity. Females and respondents working in high-risk sectors were more likely to rate psychological support as useful (OR, 1.78 [CI 95% 1.14–2.78] P = 0.012, and 2.02 [1.12–3.65] P = 0.020, respectively) and workload as increased (mean increase, 0.38 [0.06–0.69] P = 0.018; and 0.54 [0.16–0.92] P = 0.005, respectively). The insights from this survey may help authorities in countries where COVID-19 epidemic has not yet broken out. Management strategies should be promptly undertaken in order to enhance safety and optimise resource allocation