The legacy of Vattel's Droit des gens: contexts, concepts, reception, translation and diffusion

This chapter provides an outline of the various dimensions of Vattel’s influence on different topics, through different channels, in geographical and linguistic areas and on academic disciplines. The name Vattel has been a byword for different doctrinal positions in international law, political thought as well as in International Relations and this is how his legacy has so far tended to be understood. This chapter proposes a historical and methodological reassessment of the most common associations and the, at times, opposed (mis)understandings of Vattel’s ideas. Starting from a biographical sketch of Vattel’s own contexts, his early publications and diplomatic career, it explains how some of his central concepts became carriers of other notions in the complex and enduring reception history of the Droit des gens. This introductory chapter also sets the scene and provides a framework within which the contributions to the topic of Vattel’s legacy provided in the other chapters of the book are placed

Il "commercio epistolare" di un "ammasso di sogni". Le "Lettere americane" di Gianrinaldo Carli

Le "Lettere americane" di Gianrinaldo Crali (1780) risultarono da subito come un’iniziativa non facilmente inquadrabile nel contesto editoriale italiano e nella produzione intellettuale del loro autore. E queste caratteristiche hanno condizionato in un certo modo il destino dell’opera, che ebbe sì numerose edizioni e traduzioni nell’ultimo scorcio del Settecento (in tedesco, in francese, in spagnolo), ma che rimase destinata a un lungo oblìo – salvo pochi recuperi di rilievo – sino ai nostri giorni. Il saggio ricostruisce la genesi dell'opera e analizza alcuni problemi di interpretazione del testo e le difficoltà nell’inserirlo coerentemente all’interno dellaparabola carliana, che hanno influenzato poi non poco le sue letture e rilettur

The star identification, pointing and tracking system of UVSTAR, an attached payload instrument system for the Shuttle Hitchhiker-M platform

We describe an algorithm for star identification and pointing/tracking of a spaceborne electro-optical system and simulation analyses to test the algorithm. The algorithm will be implemented in the guiding system of UVSTAR, a spectrographic telescope for observations of astronomical and planetary sources operating in the 500-1250 A waveband at approximately 1 A resolution. The experiment is an attached payload and will fly as a Hitchhiker-M payload on the Shuttle. UVSTAR includes capabilities for independent target acquisition and tracking. The spectrograph package has internal gimbals that allow angular movement of plus or minus 3 deg from the central position. Rotation about the azimuth axis (parallel to the Shuttle z axis) and elevation axis (parallel to the Shuttle x axis) will actively position the field of view to center the target of interest in the fields of the spectrographs. The algorithm is based on an on-board catalog of stars. To identify star fields, the algorithm compares the positions of stars recorded by the guiding imager to positions computed from the on-board catalog. When the field has been identified, its position within the guiding imager field of view can be used to compute the pointing corrections necessary to point to a target of interest. In tracking mode, the software uses the past history to predict the quasi-periodic attitude control motions of the shuttle and sends pointing commands to cancel the motion and stabilize UVSTAR on the target. The guiding imager (guider) will have an 80-mm focal length and f/1.4 optics giving a field of view of 6 deg x 4.5 deg using a 385 x 288 pixel intensified CCD. It will be capable of providing high accuracy (better than 2 arc-sec) attitude determination from coarse (6 deg x 4.5 deg) initial knowledge of the pointing direction; and of pointing toward the target. It will also be capable of tracking at the same high accuracy with a processing time of less than a few hundredths of a second

Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays (EECR) Observation Capabilities of an "Airwatch from Space'' Mission

The longitudinal development and other characteristics of the EECR induced atmospheric showers can be studied from space by detecting the fluorescence light induced in the atmospheric nitrogen. According to the Airwatch concept a single fast detector can be used for measuring both intensity and time development of the streak of fluorescence light produced by the atmospheric shower induced by an EECR. In the present communication the detection capabilities for the EECR observation from space are discussed.Comment: 3 pages (LaTeX). To appear in the Proceedings of TAUP'9

Paesaggio e memoria: la Sicilia nella cultura olandese tra Seicento e primo Ottocento

The images of Sicily in Dutch culture and political thought during 17th and 19th centur