Causality and effects “beyond” strategy reinforcing organization: The process of decoupling decisions-actions towards ecologies

The "juxtaposition" between strategy and organization has seen in the last few decades a weakening of the former, while observing an increasing complexity and management of change as a modus operandi that has evolved the latter also to compensate for those weaknesses. A dynamic counter-balance process that therefore seems to improve the way people take decisions as well as their way of acting, decoupling them, to put them back together in better and more suitable organizational models (in terms of appropriateness and stability). Because they are able to cope with the complexities of permanent change and innovation to which (as in case of digital world) present and future organizations seem to be condemned. And yet also (but not only) as a substitute for an increasingly weaker concept of strategy and an alternative question to avoid being swallowed up by the logic of pure calculation of consequences (deterministic rationalism) or simple reactivity - more or less Pavlovian - (bound by external resources), or enclosed in the narrow spaces of a contingent intuitionism of the Bergsonian type (subjectivism and dependence on the constraints of internal resources). Which brings us back to the seminal contribution of Warren Weaver (1948) \u201cComplexity and Science\u201d, in which it deals with \u201cproblems of disorganized and organized complexity\u201d, claiming that the latter ones, \u201care all problems which involve dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole\u201d

Cultural Economy for the Environmental Preservation of the Landscape as a Key Resource in Historic Territories

Sustainable production besides economic, energetic, and environmental aspects should consider social and cultural features of the territory in which it relies. This occurs above all for agriculture that is intrinsically related to the territory. Today, the territory as a landscape represents a complex eco-system (subjects, communities, traditions, cultures, and specific agricultural systems) and a valuable vehicle for art and history and it is also a strategic asset to defend and promote with environmental policies. The topic of urban preservation and regeneration has been increasing by opening up to other factors such as the engagement of local communities and the contribution they can give toward the development of the identity and the symbolic universe of every community especially for historic territories. The main research question of this study is: Can historic territories be described as the landscape of a complex eco-system able to support a new cultural policy? In addition, which type of connections between physical resources and the virtual-cultural ones of that landscape are strategic assets for promoting historic territories? This theoretical manuscript is oriented toward improving territorial policies. In more details, it tries to develop a new model to reach a \u201cglobal community of creativity\u201d as a bridge between the networks of historic territories, which is meant as roots of variety to transfer to future generations, and between local and global quality in an emergent landscape. In order to reach this new model, the local community and ecosystem capabilities require a multi-level connection among both art, science, and culture as well as nature, technology, and civic capability. The result is that the new model is able to share common goods, which are both internal and external. Following this path, it is urgent to develop policies in an emergent perspective that are able to combine artistic, ecological, environmental, and cultural assets. In particular, the goals are to: (i) explore the complex value of territorial contexts that develop/evolve from both a medium-term and long-term point of view that is not described by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standard indicators, (ii) reach the suggestion of a continuous re-articulation of sectors of knowledge proposed by cultural resources, and (iii) highlight that cultural marketing is involved in the interpretation and transmission within a large network of participants, users, institutions, markets, virtual, and territorial places. The starting point is identified as the landscape of historic territory, but an important achievement will be to transfer the main results to other territories by studying specific case histories of urban and non-urban landscapes

Study of tributary inflows in Lake Iseo with a rotating physical model

The influence of Coriolis force on the currents of large lakes is well acknowledged; very few contributions, however, investigate this aspect in medium-size lakes where its relevance could be questionable. In order to study the area of influence of the two major tributary rivers in Lake Iseo, a rotating vertically distorted physical model of the northern part of this lake was prepared and used, respecting both Froude and Rossby similarity. The model has a horizontal length scale factor of 8000 and a vertical scale factor of 500 and was used both in homogeneous and in thermally stratified conditions. We explored the pattern of water circulation in front of the entrance mouth for dif- ferent hydrologic scenarios at the beginning of spring and in summer. We neglected the influence of winds. The primary purposes of the model were twofold: i) to increase our level of knowledge of the hydrodynamics of Lake Iseo by verifying the occurrence of dynamical effects related to the Earth’s rotation on the plume of the two tributaries that enter the northern part of the lake and ii) to identify the areas of the lake that can be directly influenced by the tributaries’ waters, in order to provide guidance on water quality monitoring in zones of relevant environmental and touristic value. The results of the physical model confirm the relevant role played by the Coriolis force in the northern part of the lake. Under ordinary flow conditions, the model shows a systematic deflection of the inflowing waters towards the western shore of the lake. The inflow triggers a clockwise gyre within the Lovere bay, to the West of the inflow, and a slow counter-clockwise gyre, to the East of the inflow, that returns water towards the river mouth along the eastern shore. For discharges with higher return period, when only the contribution by Oglio River is relevant, the effect of the Earth’s rotation weakens in the entrance zone and the plume has a more rectilinear pattern, whilst in the far field the current driven by the inflows keeps moving along the western shore. On the basis of these results one could expect that the north-western part of the lake between Castro and Lovere, although not aligned with the tributaries’ axes, is more sensitive to accumulation effects related to river-borne pollution. The results obtained with the physical model are critically compared with data obtained from different sources: the trajectory of a lagrangian drogue; a map of reflectivity data from the lake floor; a map of water turbidity at the intrusion depth. The findings are also confirmed by the results of a 3D numerical model of the lake

Hydraulic hazard mapping in alpine dam break prone areas: the Cancano dam case

Dam-break hazard assessment is of great importance in the Italian Alps, where a large number of medium and large reservoirs are present in valleys that are characterized by widespread urbanized zones on alluvial fans and along valley floors. Accordingly, there is the need to identify specific operative approaches in order to quantify hydraulic hazard which in mountain regions inevitably differ from the ones typically used in flat flood-prone areas. These approaches take advantage of: 1) specific numerical algorithms to pre-process the massive topographic information generally needed to describe very irregular bathymetries; 2) an appropriate mathematical model coupled with a robust numerical method which can deal in an effective way with variable geometries like the ones typical of natural alpine rivers; 3) suitable criteria for the hydraulic hazard assessment; 4) representative test cases to verify the accuracy of the overall procedure. This contribution presents some preliminary results obtained in the development of this complex toolkit, showing its application to the test case of the Cancano dam-break, for which the results from a physical model are available. This case was studied in 1943 by De Marchi, who investigated the consequences of the potential collapse of the Cancano dam in Northern Italy as a possible war target during the World War II. Although dated, the resulting report (De Marchi, 1945) is very interesting, since it mixes in a synergistic way theoretical, experimental and numerical considerations. In particular, the laboratory data set concerning the dam-break wave propagation along the valley between the Cancano dam and the village of Cepina provides an useful benchmark for testing the predictive effectiveness of mathematical and numerical models in mountain applications. Here we suggest an overall approach based on the 1D shallow water equations that proved particularly effective for studying dam-break wave propagation in alpine valleys, although this kind of problems is naturally subject to "substantial uncertainties and unavoidable arbitrarinesses" (translation from De Marchi, 1945). The equations are solved by means of a shock-capturing finite volume method involving the Pavia Flux Predictor (PFP) scheme proposed by Braschi and Gallati (1992). The comparison between numerical results and experimental data confirms that the mathematical model adopted is capable of capturing the main engineering aspects of the phenomenon modeled by De Marchi

Exaptation as source of creativity and innovation

In this paper we investigate exaptation as source of creativity and innovation. This term addresses natural features that enhance fitness, but were not built up by natural selection for that purpose. In the management literature this term has been used to address the exploitation of an existing body of knowledge to enter an emerging technological trajectory and gain a competitive advantage in a relative industry. So far, however, little attention has been devoted to the evolutionary dynamics underling and generated by this process. Therefore, in this paper we deepen our understanding of those aspects. Our main contribution is to highlight the discontinuous nature of those changes. Exaptation, differentlyfrom adaptations, are not selected for their contribution to the optimization of an existing function, but for their availability to perform an emerging function. Therefore, exaptations are not selected, but select and contribute to build up the environment valorising their potentia

A dual defensive role of CIITA against retroviral infections

We describe how CIITA exerts a dual role against retroviral infection. The first, classical role is the upregulation of MHC class II expression and thus the capacity to present viral antigens to CD4+ T cells. The other, evolutionary new and fundamental role is to inhibit viral replication by blocking specifically the function of the viral transactivators. HIV-1 Tat is inhibited through the competition for cyclin T1 of the P-TEFb complex, whereas HTLV-2 Tax-2 is inhibited through a concerted action which may increase the binding affinity of the CIITA-NFY complex for Tax-2, displacing it from the viral LTR promoter. As expected, two distint sequences in the N-term region of CIITA mediate the inhibitory action on Tat and Tax-2, respectively. Of note, Tax-1 from HTLV-1 seems also to be inhibited by the same sequence that inhibits HTLV-2 Tax-2. Interestingly, only those CIITA fragments containing the minimal inhibitory domains that localize into the nucleus could exert an effective suppressive action. Taken together, our results indicate that CIITA is an extant molecular tool endowed with distinct evolving functions against retroviruses. These distinct properties of CIITA will shed new light on the molecular mechanisms of adaptive coevolution of hosts and pathogens and may be exploited to envisage novel therapeutic strategies aimed at counteracting retroviral infections

Nutrient delivery efficiency of a combined sewer along a lake challenged by incipient eutrophication

Although sewage diversion outside of a lake's watershed is now ordinary practice in the restoration of eutrophic lakes, often the observed recovery is slower than expected and the internal load from the lake anoxic sediments is identified as a possible reason. However, in the case of combined sewer, the quantification of the residual nutrient load discharged from sewer spillways must also be questioned. In this paper, the diversion efficiency of the sewer system along the east coast of Lake Iseo, a prealpine Italian lake where eutrophication effects are still severe, is investigated. To this purpose, a representative part of the sewer system was modelled by PCSWMM and calibrated by using an extensive series of discharge measurements. Water quality monitoring during wet weather periods reveals that the first flush is common in tributary sewers, whereas it is absent along the main collector. Moreover, flow discharges are strongly affected by infiltration waters, which are controlled by the lake water level. The calibrated model, including infiltration modeling, was used to assess the annual overflow volumes and the nutrient load through a continuous 10-year simulation. Simulations were conducted both with regard to the current conditions and to a climate change scenario. Results show that the discharged residual load is at least 7 times larger than the design value, with the water infiltration contributing to 17% to the overflow volume and that non-structural practices could considerably reduce the overall impact of the sewer. This research thus provides important insight into the potential impact of combined sewer overflows on lacustrine environments and addresses effective mitigation measures in similar contexts

Rileggere il marketing. Strategie informative e Gestione della Conoscenza

Il libro analizza alcuni temi emergenti nel campo del marketing legati al trattamento dell'informazione, allo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie, alla comunicazione sociale e all'etica. Il quadro teorico di riferimento è quelle delle ecologie del valore ovvero sistemi emergenti che producono valore attraverso l'interazione in rete estese di imprese e/o di persone