The use of restorative justice for environmental crimes in the European Union’s legal framework

Restorative justice is a way of responding to criminal offences by balancing the needs of the community, the victims, and the offenders. It aims to bring all these parties together to collectively resolve the consequences of crime, including the harm caused, with a view to future generations. In the European Union (EU), restorative processes have not yet been used to deal with environmental crimes, notwithstanding a growing interest in exploring their potential. Therefore, this paper seeks to demonstrate that restorative justice solutions which address environmental crimes yields benefits for the victim, offender, community, and environment. Further, that these solutions enhance the current threshold of environmental protection granted by EU Member States’ penal systems, in compliance with the EU’s overarching principle of sustainable development

A slow and cold particle beam for nanotechnological purposes

In this thesis we report the production of a Cesium atomic beam by means of laser cooling techniques and its photoionization, in order to evaluate its applicative potential for specific technological purposes. A comprehensive analysis of the atomic beam is carried out, based on a variety of diagnostics, such as fluorescence imaging at different distances from the pyramidal-MOT, absorption spectroscopy, optical time-of-flight. The results demonstrate that the atomic beam owns peculiar dynamical properties, in particular in terms of longitudinal and transverse velocity distribution. The average value of the longitudinal velocity is on the order of ten m/s, with a spread on the order of m/s, accompanied by a few mrad divergence: such features motivate the names “slow” and “cold” we have attributed to our atomic beam. Thanks to them, the beam can find applications where sources of particles with controlled and rather homogeneous dynamical properties are required. The main motivation behind photoionization of the Cesium beam was to set the basis for exploring the capabilities of the slow and cold beam in producing an ion beam. This part of the research was carried out within the frame of a European industry-oriented collaboration (FP7-MC-IAPP Project ”COLDBEAMS”) aimed at exploiting laser manipulation tools for the realization of unconventional charged particle beams with superior dynamical properties. The technology presently used for instance in FIB columns is in fact based on beams with “thermal” velocity distribution, that leads to non-monochromatic samples severely suffering chromatic aberration in the focusing stage. To this aim, a two-colour photoionization scheme has been implemented, involving resonant excitation of Cesium 6P atoms and interaction with 405 nm photons. Photoionization was demonstrated and the rate estimated on the order of about 3 · 10^6 s^(−1). The corresponding ion current is on the order of 0.5 pA. A preliminary insight into the dynamical properties of the ion beam has been given by ion time-of-flight measurements upon pulsed laser ionization. Interpretation of the results required a careful description of the electric fields in the collection region, which, while not being optimized by design for this specific purpose, were numerically simulated. The results demonstrate that, owing to the peculiar features of the neutral atom beam, the ions exhibit a rather monochromatic longitudinal energy distribution, with a monochromaticity essentially limited by the size of the ionizing laser beam and by the weak collection field. Such properties are comparable to those of the ion sources used at present

Direct interaction between EgFABP1, a fatty acid binding protein from echinococcus granulosus, and phospholipid membranes

<p>Background: Growth and maintenance of hydatid cysts produced by Echinococcus granulosus have a high requirement for host lipids for biosynthetic processes, membrane building and possibly cellular and developmental signalling. This requires a high degree of lipid trafficking facilitated by lipid transporter proteins. Members of the fatty acid binding protein (FABP) family have been identified in Echinococcus granulosus, one of which, EgFABP1 is expressed at the tegumental level in the protoscoleces, but it has also been described in both hydatid cyst fluid and secretions of protoscoleces. In spite of a considerable amount of structural and biophysical information on the FABPs in general, their specific functions remain mysterious.</p> <p>Methodology/Principal Findings: We have investigated the way in which EgFABP1 may interact with membranes using a variety of fluorescence-based techniques and artificial small unilamellar vesicles. We first found that bacterial recombinant EgFABP1 is loaded with fatty acids from the synthesising bacteria, and that fatty acid binding increases its resistance to proteinases, possibly due to subtle conformational changes induced on EgFABP1. By manipulating the composition of lipid vesicles and the ionic environment, we found that EgFABP1 interacts with membranes in a direct contact, collisional, manner to exchange ligand, involving both ionic and hydrophobic interactions. Moreover, we observed that the protein can compete with cytochrome c for association with the surface of small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs).</p> <p>Conclusions/Significance: This work constitutes a first approach to the understanding of protein-membrane interactions of EgFABP1. The results suggest that this protein may be actively involved in the exchange and transport of fatty acids between different membranes and cellular compartments within the parasite.</p&gt

Bounds for the gradient of the transition kernel for elliptic operators with unbounded diffusion, drift and potential term

We prove global Sobolev regularity and pointwise upper bounds for the gradient of transition densities associated with second order differential operators in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with unbounded diffusion, drift and potential terms.Comment: 24 pages, no figure

Il paese lontano.

Traduzion

THE 23 JULY 1930 EARTHQUAKE (MS=6.7) IN THE SOUTHERN APENNINES (ITALY): GEOLOGICAL AND HYDROLOGICAL EFFECTS

The 23 July 1930 earthquake (MS=6.7) in the Southern Apennines (Italy) was a catastrophic event that produced many effects such as surface faulting, fractures, landslides, settlements, hydrological changes, variations in chemical/ physical activity related to the volcanic and/or thermal zones and also acoustic and optical phenomena. It is the first great earthquake of the twentieth century that was studied, thanks to the hydrological monitoring network of the Italian Hydrographic Survey (IHS) set up from 1925 to 1929. For this earthquake we analysed the initial IHS hydrometric and pluviometric data, looking for significant anomalies in springs, water wells and mountain streams. Hydrological data relative to rivers, springs and water wells indicate that some changes can be correlated with the earthquake: a post-seismic excess discharge in some streams, pre- and co-seismic decreases in stream flows and water levels in wells, pre- and post-seismic increases in discharges. The pre- and co-seismic stresses and the tectonic deformations were studied in order to find a possible model of interaction between stress state and hydrological variations. The anomalies found in this work can be considered “rebound anomalies”, which are the most common precursor reported by several authors and related to increases in porosity and permeability caused by the fracturing that precedes an earthquake. An estimation of the total excess discharge (0.035 km3) caused by the Ms=6.7 Irpinia earthquake is consistent with the excess discharge of about 0.01 km3 determined for the Mw=6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake. To define the normal hydrodynamic behaviour of the considered aquifers, an analysis of the correlation between rainfalls and water levels and flow rates has been carried out. The delay of significant peaks in the correlograms of figure 7 with respect to the start of the hydrological anomaly and/or its duration, can define the space-time limits of the changes correlated with earthquake

Variazioni sul tema della prigionia: La Captive di Chantal Akerman.

Abstract not availabl