Conservation and modern architecture. Fortune and misfortune of the School of Mathematics at Rome University (G. Ponti, 1932-1935)

The framework of the Italian restoration doctrine is based on the reception and transmission of the memory of the past. However, interventions in modern architecture represent a radical drift in the sense that they mostly consist of reconstructions, refurbishments, and renovations. Such work disregards the sense of value acknowledgment that is implicit in architectural conservation and neglects the importance of material conservation. The un even fortune of the School of Mathematics at Rome's University Campus illustrates this situation. This predicament is similar to that of many other modern buildings that have been declared “monuments” by mouth but are actually bent to listless and insensible use, mistreated, and hardly maintained. The recent work carried out at the School of Mathematics proves that interventions on modern buildings are mostly insensitive to their true significance and are often carried out in extreme urgency for mere practical reasons, if not for political opportunities. Modern buildings can be true architectural monuments that express great esthetic potentials and retain notable historical weight in the history of architecture; therefore, they should be regarded as highly representative of our recent past and maintained as such

“SOCIAL AGRICULTURE”: A PATTERN BETWEEN FARM INNOVATION, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND MULTIFUNCTIONALITY

Rural context and agricultural process are assuming growing credibility as a mean to promote well being and social inclusion in the population as a whole. Fattoria solidale del Circeo” constitutes one of the many examples of social agriculture that have risen in the recent years in Italy. Differently from the general case, it is a large farm which is moving from a conventional an intensive farming system to another model, without abandoning its entrepreneurial nature. Even if it is not easy to assign a theoretic paradigm, it could be useful both in order to understand it and to give correct instruments to policy makers. So we can try to put the Fattoria Solidale del Circeo’s experience in a theoretic context. It seems to us that at least three different models can be applied: the well-established Schumpeterian model of innovation; the Corporate Social Responsibility, the Multifunctionality of agriculture.Social agriculture, Innovation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Multifunctionality of Agriculture, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital,

HEALTH CHECK AND LABOUR MARKET: CRITICAL EVIDENCES AND POLITICAL NEEDS

Rural employment is one of the most important item of the Common Agricultural Policy reform. Attractiveness and development of rural areas are strictly linked to quality of job opportunities in rural areas. In addiction role of migrant workforce in primary sector viability is not enough considered. So it’s necessary to build a conceptual framework to analyse the interaction existing between immigration and agricultural labour market. Therefore the first aim of the paper is to build such framework considering the several approaches which can be used to face the issue. This framework is used to analyse the Italian case; Italy has become an important destination for migrations, and in this country a migrant workforce plays an important role in the agricultural activities. In Italy the employ of migrants in primary sector seems to agree with two different patterns: in some cases it seems to cope the mismatch of preference between Italian workers desires and actual opportunities; in other cases it seems to defer a necessary renewal process towards quality productions and more sustainable (both environmentally and socially) processes. Italian evidence gives the opportunity to reflect on the necessity to support the actual reform of the CAP with a migration policy which is able to take in account heterogeneity of territorial contexts. At the same time, stand the increasing importance of subordinate employment, CAP should start to involve policies aiming to improve working condition as it has already stated in occasion of the Fishler Reform (European Commission (2002).Health Check, Labour Markets, Agricultural and Food Policy, Political Economy, Q10, Q12,

Cross-diffusion driven instability in a predator-prey system with cross-diffusion

In this work we investigate the process of pattern formation induced by nonlinear diffusion in a reaction-diffusion system with Lotka-Volterra predator-prey kinetics. We show that the cross-diffusion term is responsible of the destabilizing mechanism that leads to the emergence of spatial patterns. Near marginal stability we perform a weakly nonlinear analysis to predict the amplitude and the form of the pattern, deriving the Stuart-Landau amplitude equations. Moreover, in a large portion of the subcritical zone, numerical simulations show the emergence of oscillating patterns, which cannot be predicted by the weakly nonlinear analysis. Finally when the pattern invades the domain as a travelling wavefront, we derive the Ginzburg-Landau amplitude equation which is able to describe the shape and the speed of the wave.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Issues of energy retrofitting of a modern public housing estates. The ‘Giorgio Morandi’ complex at Tor Sapienza, Rome, 1975-1979

Energy retrofitting of historical residential buildings represents today an interesting challenge of the building sector. This is true especially in Italy where great part of the national buildingstock dates back to pre-modern and modern times and, especially, to the decades between the 1960s and the 1980s. Most of these buildings, in fact, offerthermal performances that are inadequate to current requirements in terms of energy efficiency, human comfort as well as to seismic safety. This study focuses on the energy retrofitting of public housing estatessuch as the“Giorgio Morandi” complex at Tor Sapienza in Rome. The upgrading of this complex is outlined, taking into account issues of energy saving but, also, constraints related to the historical values of the buildings. Intervention options able to improve energy efficiency are therefore foreseeable only in strict observance of cultural heritage values, which entails a deep analysis and survey of the existence in order to identify respectful, correct and feasiblesolutions

L'estrazione dei dati dalla rete: una nota introduttiva

La sfida principale posta dalle fonti accessibili attraverso data, web e text mining viene individuata, nel testo, nella capacità di recuperare significato sociologico a quei dati, riconducendoli all'agire di cui sono "traccia" e superando l'autoreferenzialità dei singoli sistemi di riferimento da cui quelle fonti perlopiù originano. Si tratta di basi di dati che sollecitano la collaborazione interdisciplinare tra sociologi, metodologi ed informatici e che diventano sempre più informative quanto più ormai l'agire è immerso nel cosiddetto web degli oggetti, insieme di di dispositivi (dai sistemi SGM delle auto, ai cellulari e ai tabs che ci collegano alla rete, ai meccanismi di controllo dei centri commerciali, alle carte di credito e tutte le altre smart cards che accompagnano le nostre transazioni economiche e non) che memorizzano e rendono tracciabile il nostro agire. Le problematiche connesse non sono solo quelle classiche, di difesa della privacy, ma anche di difesa del senso - sociologico - che può essere attribuito a quei dati, al di là degli scopi per cui essi vengono registrati e conservati

The Risky In-betweenness of Performing Audiences

The paper focuses on the powerful interrogation of the audience’s agency as staged in two very different works that, despite their distance in terms of genre and cultural milieu, both call into question essentially normative notions of gender and nation: Between the Acts (1941) by Virginia Woolf and England (2007) by Tim Crouch. In Woolf’s last novel, the process of writing and reading ambiguously frames the fragmentary staging of an eccentric village pageant on Englishness and its literary heritage. Indeed, the equivocal mise en scène of characters as readers/actors/spectators in the crucial ‘interval’ between the two world wars lends itself well to an inter-disciplinary investigation of the critical predicament underlying those slippery and delusive participatory claims. Crouch’s acclaimed piece England is instead strategically positioned at the intersection of multiple ‘ways of seeing’ and multiple ‘ways of doing things with words’ by conflating the ‘site specifics’ of visual arts with the ‘empty space’ of theatrical experience. As such it urges the audience to ‘see’ the dubious ties between local, ‘g/local’, and globalised spaces and thus to face the invisible national, sexual and socio-normative ‘scripts’ that condition their responses at large

Analytic solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations

We consider the time dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on an half plane. For analytic initial data, existence and uniqueness of the solution are proved using the Abstract Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem in Banach spaces. The time interval of existence is proved to be independent of the viscosit

La regolamentazione delle unioni civili tra persone dello stesso sesso e delle convivenze in italia

El presente trabajo analiza la ley sobre el tema de las uniones civiles entre individuos del mismo sexo y las uniones de hecho aprobada por el Parlamento italiano. Con esta disciplina el Estado italiano colma un vacío de tutela hacia las parejas del mismo sexo y las uniones de hechoThis study analyses the same-sex registered partnership and cohabiting couples Act recently approved by the Italian Parliament. Thanks to this, Italy should resolve the legal vacuum that has had as a result a lack of protection for the same-sex couples and the cohabiting couples

Correlation between retinal function and microstructural foveal changes in intermediate age related macular degeneration

Purpose: To assess foveal microstructural changes influencing retinal sensitivity (RS) and fixation stability using microperimeter MP-1 in intermediate age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 22 eyes of 22 patients (mean age: 75 ± 9.02 years) with intermediate AMD were enrolled. Retinal sensitivity and bivariate contour ellipse area (BCEA) were obtained by microperimetry MP-1 (Humphrey 10-2 68-loci grid) under mesopic conditions. Drusen type, drusenoid pigment epithelial detachment, hyperreflective foci (HF), integrity of external limiting membrane (ELM), inner ellipsoid zone (ISel), RPE/Bruch’s mem- brane complex (RPE/B) and subfoveal choroidal thickness were analyzed in the foveal region and compared with RS and BCEA. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the relationship between variables. Logistic regression analysis was also used to assess morphological predictor influencing RS or BCEA. Results: RS was strongly and inversely related with the presence of HF (r = −0.66, P = 0.001), integrity of ELM (r = −0.70, P < 0.001), ellipsoid zone (r = −0.45, P = 0.03). Instead, BCEA is positively related to the ellipsoid zone integrity (r = 0.45, P = 0.03). Logistic regression analysis confirmed that disruption of ISel influenced fixation stability (ExpB: 9.69, P = 0.04) but not RS. Instead, the presence of HF and disruption of ELM predicted RS reduction (ExpB: 0.55, P = 0.02 and ExpB: 0.29, P = 0.04, respectively). Conclusions: The integrity of ELM and the presence of HF are both predictors of RS. The ELM status may be con- sidered a new biomarker of retinal function together with HF. Instead, the integrity of ISel band seems to be a more selective predictor of BCEA than RS