Digital tourism gaze and mega events

Tourism and photography have been always strongly interlinked. With the rise of smartphones and social network travellers’ photography exit the boundaries of friends and family and is now available to a wider audience. This is challenging the tourism gaze theory, which postulate that tourists photography is industry-driven and socially constructed. This exploratory research studied a visual social network to understand travellers digital mediated gaze during a mega event. Particularly the study shades lights on iconic places/attractions portrayed and on the ideal self represented by the event goers highlighting the presence of iconic places and staged personal pictures

Enhancing Connectivity, improving Green Infrastructure. Cost-benefit solutions for forest and agri-environment. A pilot study in Lombardy

This pilot study over Lombardy addresses the cost-effective spatial development of a well-connected Green Infrastructure (GI) relevant to the integration of forest, agri-environment and regional development policies. The structural continuity and functional connectivity of semi-natural vegetation, as recommended component of the GI, are assessed. Corridors most favourable to species dispersal are mapped and gaps in connectivity are identified. Spatially explicit solutions are then proposed to prioritise improvement actions based on their monetary cost through payments of ‘greening’ subsidies and their benefit for connectivity. This is demonstrated at micro-scale to benefit pollinators and pest predators and at regional scale to benefit ‘connectivity sensitive’ terrestrial species

Indicators of biodiversity in agroecosystems: insights from Article 17 of the Habitat Directive and IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

In the current decade, the main goals for biodiversity conservation and environmental protection at the level of the European Union are set in the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020: halting biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystem services. A key requirement for the implementation of the Strategy in terms of targeting measures and funds, and monitoring trends is the construction of a biodiversity knowledge base, including spatially explicit information on biodiversity distribution and ecosystem condition. The work presented in this report is based on the analysis of two primary datasets on biodiversity and habitat status. The first one is the Habitats assessment carried out by EU Members States under Art.17 of the Habitats and Birds Directive. Information reported by Member States is analysed to derive the links between pressures and conservation status, showing that agriculture-related habitats have, on average, a worse conservation status when compared to other habitats. Consequently, threats and pressures having most influenced the status of the agricultural-related habitats can be identified. The second one is the global dataset on species threat status elaborated by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Spatially explicit representations of species distribution, status and richness across the EU 28 are provided, and most importantly the identification of wide geographic variables linked to ecological theory is presented, that explain to a large extent the continental trend in species richness. Finally, an example is presented of how the two exploited datasets can be jointly used by cross-tabulating data on habitats assessments and species threat status in a spatially explicit way at 10 km resolution, aiming at identifying hotspots were policy intervention is needed

Evaluation and the environmental democracy of cities: Strategic Environmental Assessment of urban plans in Italy.

Cities stand up as a major concern for environmental governance and democracy, and an ideal target for theoretical investigations and practical innovations alike. Our work is concerned with reconstructing the links between democracy and the environment, by targeting urban governance and tapping into the institutional practices of Urban Planning and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). SEA is a major policy tool, and its interplay with planning unravels key issues in both urban governance and environmental democracy, including coping with fundamental risks, voicing non-human agents, managing commons, addressing environmental justice. The observations we present in this paper rest on two parallel approaches. First, we carried out a content review of 12 SEA reports concerning urban plans in Italy. Second, we were involved in two case studies concerning urban planning and SEA in the towns of Monopoli and Magenta. We point to some key reflections with the aim of opening up the discussion. Participation often languishes in institutional arenas, yet it thrives in other forms that affect decision-making. Negotiation around individual planning processes should be framed in the general governance arrangements that are constantly reshaped through interactions among fluid trans-organizational networks. Legally binding measures have an ambivalent relation with environmental governance strategies, and they are handled with difficulty by deliberative planning approaches. In mainstreaming new policy tools (such as SEA), procedural aspects are usually stressed, whereas a focus on process and desired outcomes could foster, respectively, capacity building and salience

Evaluation and the environmental democracy of cities: Strategic Environmental Assessment of urban plans in Italy.

Cities stand up as a major concern for environmental governance and democracy, and an ideal target for theoretical investigations and practical innovations alike. Our work is concerned with reconstructing the links between democracy and the environment, by targeting urban governance and tapping into the institutional practices of Urban Planning and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). SEA is a major policy tool, and its interplay with planning unravels key issues in both urban governance and environmental democracy, including coping with fundamental risks, voicing non-human agents, managing commons, addressing environmental justice. The observations we present in this paper rest on two parallel approaches. First, we carried out a content review of 12 SEA reports concerning urban plans in Italy. Second, we were involved in two case studies concerning urban planning and SEA in the towns of Monopoli and Magenta. We point to some key reflections with the aim of opening up the discussion. Participation often languishes in institutional arenas, yet it thrives in other forms that affect decision-making. Negotiation around individual planning processes should be framed in the general governance arrangements that are constantly reshaped through interactions among fluid trans-organizational networks. Legally binding measures have an ambivalent relation with environmental governance strategies, and they are handled with difficulty by deliberative planning approaches. In mainstreaming new policy tools (such as SEA), procedural aspects are usually stressed, whereas a focus on process and desired outcomes could foster, respectively, capacity building and salience

Challenges in Acquiring Clinical Simultaneous SPECT-MRI on a PET-MRI Scanner

The INSERT is the world’s first clinical SPECTMRI brain imaging system based on scintillation detectors with a SiPM readout. Here we demonstrate its use within a clinical MRI environment for the first time. Using a standard transmit-receive head coil, and with an appropriate selection of a custom MRI sequence (GRE), we overcome mutual interference. The INSERT and its bulky 50 kg tungsten collimator introduce magnetic field inhomogeneity. Due to the specific MRI-compatible collimator design, inhomogeneity is compensated by shimming, leading to simultaneous acquisition. We process the SPECT data acquired alongside the MRI sequence to evaluate the SPECT system performance and the impact of the MRI. Finally, we present a set of simultaneous SPECT-MRI acquisitions, demonstrating multimodal imaging capabilities, albeit with a limited MRI sequence