A case study, Bagnoli: a difficult transition

Bagnoli, a neighbourhood on the west outskirts of Naples, has been a typical industrial and working class area for more than eighty years, having put up an important factory district in a wide territory belonging to its seaside zone, where the Ilva-Italsider building, third steel industry centre in Italy, dominated. Since 1993 this huge factory has been definitely closed and its facilities have been phased out. So the large territory has become object of an important conversion and urban requalification project. Between 1995, when the variant Regulation Plan of Naples Municipality was introduced, and 2005, when the Executive Urban Plan was approved, this project has been developing and completing, defining the future of the ex industrial area, according some privileged lines: enhancement of natural and landscape aspects inside the heart of Pozzuoli gulf; recovery and development of the original touristic vocation through the thermal system and bathing restoration. This project opens towards great expectations of transformation and improvement of life and environment quality both for the inhabitants who live there in the neighbourhood and for the whole city. At the same time it has happened a speculation phenomenon through the sale contract concerning buildings and flats by the realties, together with the transfer of many historical inhabitants and the arrival of new people in the neighbourhood. They are attracted by the changing prospective of the area, but they have no relation with the zone and its history. So, during the last twenty years, the neighbourhood identity has been modified. Contemporarily, the soils draining proceeds slowly and among thousands difficulties, while the sea bottom draining isn’t active yet. Today, most of the area is under seizure by judiciary, that found irregularities and defaults in the draining works, realized only for the 65%. The future imagined in the conversion project results, in this way, largely compromised. In this research work we intend to verify how a particular physical-spatial dimension has influenced the social relations and the same identities of the people and their “community”, how we can delineate the perception and the performance of a urban transformation largely failed, and which contribution the citizens of Bagnoli can give to the urban design through their own imaginary and meanings they ascribe to their environment (Lynch 1960). In this sense, the study aim at giving a contribution to the participative practice, that up to now is out of the transition dynamics

Improving Stress Management of a Nursing Staff in a Post-Anesthesia Care Unit

Healthcare workers, especially nurses, experience high levels of stress every day due to the high demands of their jobs. Persistently high levels of stress can negatively impact an individual’s physical, mental, and psychological well-being while also effecting their job satisfaction and work performance. These conditions can eventually lead to high employee turnover and poor patient outcomes. Educating nurses about the importance of developing healthy stress management skills can help to prevent the development of negative coping habits, improve overall well-being, and improve patient care. Stress management interventions were implemented in the high stress environment of a post-anesthesia care unit. The nursing staff was familiarized with mindfulness-based practices. A stress management education session was presented at their staff meeting. The staff received weekly emails containing stress reduction strategies and they were encouraged to practice these strategies daily. Nurses were also challenged to perform a 1-minute daily meditation prior to beginning each shift. The interventions were evaluated using a pre and post-implementation survey containing items from the Perceived Stress Scale and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Demonstrated by data comparison, the perceived level of stress within the unit was reduced after the implementation period and the states of mindfulness, attention, and awareness were increased among the nurses. The effectiveness, feasibility, and low budget of this project made it easily replicable throughout other departments and institutions.D.N.P

From Welfare to Well-being: new approaches for a good life

In this paper we reflect on some analysis conducted by researchers as Laura Balbo, Mary Catherine Bateson and Martha Nussbaum who, although having not had direct relations among them or specific partnerships, have greatly contributed to elaborate concepts and categories regarding our new vision of the well-being. This concept, so dear to the economist Amartya Sen, draws nourishment from thoughts and lived belonging to women’s life experience, particularly as concerning their capacity to organize their daily and family life, taking care of others, shouldering the vulnerabilities and building their biographical paths with creativity and adaptation. So we can understand what is a good life through the realization of our abilities, that is of each person, and not using a utility calculation. This involves a new approach to life quality and human development, that is exactly the capabilities approach described by Sen, rehashed by Nussbaum but, for some aspects, it was already present into the studies which characterize the gender prospective

From urchins to sailors: an educative and civic experiment in Naples (1913-1928) - The story of “Caracciolo”, between poverty, social solidarity and education challenges.

This paper proposes to examine Giulia Civita Franceschi’s work in the city of Naples, in favour of abandoned childhood. Between 1913 and 1928, she obtained by the Ministry of Navy and steered the training ship Caracciolo, which became for many urchins their home and family. So, they had the occasion to be saved from misery and delinquency. While before it they crowded streets, squares and arcades of the city, searching charity and ready to steel for surviving, on board ship they became little sailors, living a laborious and restrained life. Civita, inspiring to the concept of the sea as an educator, showed that thanks to her method, edged children and boys could become citizens, conscious of their rights and duties. The ship was site of visits by Italian and foreign delegations, which went to observe closer an educative experiment, considered as a pattern to imitate. The ship was a «second birth» for the Neapolitan urchins, offering them a new starting point, not an arrival point or a temporary protective recovery. The orientation impressed by Giulia Civita, in fact, marked the “Caracciolo” among other similar experiences as a unique educative pattern

Ornella Labriola: the loneliness of an irreducible memory

This paper aims at analyzing the particular case concerning Ornella Labriola (1908-1991), who lived between Italy and Soviet Union. She was a guest of the famous hotel “Lux” in Moscow, the dwelling place of international Communism during the years of Stalinism. In that place, happened her love story with Giuseppe Rimola (1905-1938), delegate of Italian young communists in the Kjm (the Young Communist International). He was arrested and condemned to death as ”people’s enemy” in the gyre concerning he terror of Stalinism. During all her life, Ornella Labriola only desired to show people the truth about the death of her own partner, also to rescue the sense of her own existence and choices. The biographical approach of our research permits to emphasize witness’s feelings, believes, values and auto-reflexivity. Labriola was interviewed a year before her death. Her narration is focused on her relationship with ideology, with the revolutionary time when she grew, with the political treat as it was perceived during the thirties and forties; but also she talked about her love relation with her partner in a cultural context in which it was normal to sacrifice own private life on the altar of revolutionary necessities

Junior Recital: Marcelle L. Selvaggio, Soprano Karen Oeste, Piano

Kemp Recital Hall Saturday Afternoon October 26, 1991 3:00 p.m

Trade’s Hidden Costs: Worker Rights in a Changing World Economy

[Excerpt] For decades, the U.S. foreign assistance program has sought with limited results to further economic development and growth in Third World countries. We have witnessed some countries making real progress toward development through industrialization, only to find more of their people trapped in hunger and poverty. Hopefully, it is apparent that for development to be effective, it must benefit the broadest sectors of the population within any society. Why are worker rights crucial to the development process? The capacity to form unions and to bargain collectively to achieve higher wages and safer working conditions is essential to the overall struggle of working people everywhere to achieve minimally decent living standards and to overcome hunger and poverty. The denial of worker rights, especially in Third World countries, tends to perpetuate poverty, to limit the benefits of economic development and growth to narrow, privileged elites and to sow the seeds of social instability and political rebellion

Nonprehensile Object Transportation with a Legged Manipulator

This paper tackles the problem of nonprehensile object transportation through a legged manipulator. A whole- body control architecture is devised to prevent sliding of the object placed on the tray at the manipulator’s end-effector and retain the legged robot balance during walking. The controller solves a quadratic optimization problem to realize the sought transportation task while maintaining the contact forces between the tray and the object and between the legs and the ground within their respective friction cones, also considering limits on the input torques. An extensive simulation campaign confirmed the feasibility of the approach and evaluated the control performance through a thorough statistical analysis conducted varying mass, friction, and the dimension of the transported object