Figli del Monte Kenya. La guerriglia anticoloniale del movimento "Mau Mau" in Kenya (1952-1960)

La mattina del 7 ottobre del 1952 Waruhiu wa Kungu, massima personalità politica dell’etnia kikuyu, posto dai britannici al vertice della gerarchia dei funzionari indigeni della Provincia Centrale del Kenya, venne assassinato a Nairobi da militanti anticolonialisti. L’episodio segnò l’inizio della ribellione del movimento “Mau Mau”, con la costituzione di un esercito di resistenza anticoloniale composto per la maggior parte da giovani delle etnie kikuyu, embu e meru, il cui scopo era ottenere, attraverso l’utilizzo di tattiche di guerriglia, l’indipendenza del paese e il recupero del controllo delle terre, da 60 anni sottratte ai nativi dagli occupanti britannici. La reazione del governo coloniale, con la proclamazione dello stato d’emergenza (cui sarà posto termine solo nel 1960) e con l’utilizzo nella regione della forza militare su larga scala fino all’annientamento del nemico, testimoniò quanto i britannici stimassero necessaria una risposta forte. Obiettivo di questa tesi è stato analizzare le dinamiche che condussero alla ribellione, un evento tra i più significativi della stagione della decolonizzazione in Africa, nonché le ragioni della sconfitta militare della guerriglia e il legame tra l’azione del movimento “Mau Mau” e il successivo processo che condusse all’indipendenza del paese. Si è perciò posto l’accento sulle condizioni economiche e sociali cui fu sottoposta la popolazione nativa negli anni precedenti all’insurrezione, tenendo particolarmente conto del tipo di regime, marcatamente razzista, edificato dai britannici in Kenya a partire dall’occupazione del paese alla fine del XIX secolo. Si è inoltre analizzata la duplice natura del conflitto, sia guerra civile all’interno della comunità indigena, con la formazione di una robusta base lealista alleata del governo coloniale, sia guerra di liberazione dall’occupante europeo, esaminando a un tempo le tattiche belliche dei “Mau Mau” e della loro ala militare, il Kenya Land Freedom Army, e dall’altra parte la strategia contro-insurrezionale dell’esercito britannico. La tesi si è poi soffermata sugli abusi commessi dall’amministrazione coloniale contro la popolazione indigena, quali la creazione di un sistema di campi di concentramento su larga scala e la deportazione di decine di migliaia di kikuyu, poi ricollocati in villaggi fortificati, sorvegliati da soldati britannici e da forze locali lealiste. Sullo sfondo, si è tratteggiato il crepuscolo dell’impero coloniale britannico e la progressiva presa di coscienza, da parte dell’ambiente dei coloni bianchi, della fine della loro egemonia sul paese. In ultimo, si è posto l’accento sull’eredità della lotta del movimento “Mau Mau”, e sul diverso approccio tenuto dai governi che si sono susseguiti alla guida del paese nel corso degli anni in relazione a tale eredità

Una representación de la crisis de la unión dinástica: los cargos diplomáticos en Roma de Francisco de Rojas y Antonio de Acuña (1501-1507)

This essay is part of a research on Spanish presence in Rome between the end of XV and the first decades of XVI century. Giving account of the interest recently arisen on the relationships among the Monarquía Católica and the Papacy in Early Modern period, it has been our intention to look at the first moments of these relationships, going back to the years past the Dinastic Union (1469) and looking for elements that could express their complexity. The presence, at the same time, of more than one “Spanish” ambassador and the participation to those relationships of a high number of individuals (with their own social and relational networks articulated in both the Spanish and Italian peninsulas) suggests the existence of various relational levels and stresses the importance of debating the interpretations currently proposed by American historians such as Thomas Dandelet and Michel Levin

Design and characterization of a fabric-based softness display

To enable a realistic tactile interaction with remote or virtual objects, softness information represents a fundamental property to be rendered via haptic devices. What is challenging is to reduce the complexity of such an information as it arises from contact mechanics and to find suitable simplifications that can lead an effective development of softness displays. A possible approach is to surrogate detailed tactile cues with information on the rate of spread of the contact area between the object and the finger as the contact force increases, i.e. force/area relation. This paradigm is called contact area spread rate. In this paper we discuss how such a paradigm has inspired the design of a tactile device (hereinafter referred to as Fabric Yielding Display, FYD-2), which exploits the elasticity of a fabric to mimic different levels of stiffness, while the contact area on the finger indenting the fabric is measured. In this manner, the FYD-2 can be controlled to reproduce force-area characteristics. In this work, we describe the FYD-2 architecture and report a psychophysical characterization. FYD-2 is shown to be able to accurately reproduce force-area curves of typical objects and to enable a reliable softness discrimination in human users

A Device for Mimicking the Contact Force/Contact Area Relationship of Different Materials with Applications to Softness Rendering

In this paper a fabric yielding softness display (FYD-2) is proposed, where the stretching state is controlled using two motors, while the contact area is measured in real-time. In previous works, authors proposed a fabric-based device, with embedded contact area measurement system, which was proved to provide subjects with a compelling and naturalistic softness perception. Compared to it, FYD-2 exhibits reduced dimensions, a more accurate sensorization scheme and an increased actuation velocity, which allows to implement fast changes in the stretching state levels. These changes are mandatory, for example, to properly track typical quadratic force/area curves of real materials. Furthermore, FYD-2 is endowed with an additional degree of freedom that can be used to convey supplementary haptic cues, such as directional cues, which can be exploited to produce more immersive haptic interactions. In this work we describe the mechanical design and the mathematical model of the device. The reliability in real-time tracking of stiffness and force-area curves of real objects is also demonstrated

Una representación de la crisis de la unión dinástica: los cargos diplomáticos en Roma de Francisco de Rojas y Antonio de Acuña (1501-1507)

This essay is part of a research on Spanish presence in Rome between the end of XV and the first decades of XVI century. Giving account of the interest recently arisen on the relationships among the Monarquía Católica and the Papacy in Early Modern period, it has been our intention to look at the first moments of these relationships, going back to the years past the Dinastic Union (1469) and looking for elements that could express their complexity. The presence, at the same time, of more than one “Spanish” ambassador and the participation to those relationships of a high number of individuals (with their own social and relational networks articulated in both the Spanish and Italian peninsulas) suggests the existence of various relational levels and stresses the importance of debating the interpretations currently proposed by American historians such as Thomas Dandelet and Michel Levin

NOVEL BIO-AWARE TECHNOLOGIES AND ALGORITHMS FOR HANDS AND HAPTICS

This thesis focuses on novel algorithms and interfaces, arising from inspection and comprehension of the human nature. In the first part I deal with new mechanical designs and concepts for building and controlling robotic hands. In particular I show how the sensorimotor synergies of the human hand can be useful not only for controlling but also for building robotic hands, suggesting novel design paradigms. Despite the synergy model is useful for designing and controlling robotic hands, it is incomplete to explain the hand behavior during grasp (both for humans and robots). To solve this problem, it is needed to consider compliant articulations introducing the "soft synergies" concept. Consequently, the compliance and the soft synergies lead to the concepts of muscle and mechanical impedance. Thus, in the second part of this thesis I present an observer for estimating the time varying mechanical impedance of a Variable Stiffness Actuator (VSA), i.e. a novel kind of actuator whose performances and capabilities are very close to the human muscles. Another important feature, both for human and robotic hands, is the sense of touch. Indeed in the third and last part of this thesis, I deal with the haptics and haptic interfaces. I show two new haptic devices with their applications on humans. Moreover, I present a tactile sensing algorithm toolbox for computing the contact point of a robotic fingertip interacting with an object