Theodicy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Throughout all of Rousseau’s works there is tension between argumentation and feeling, speculation and intuition, reason and conscience. Reason binds men when they think correctly, but divides them and opposes one to the other when they place it at the service of self-interest, of ambition and of the will to prevail. Conversely, the universality of conscience is immediate and transparent: it transmits the truth of the existence of God, of the freedom of men, of the distinction between good and evil, as well as of the universal principles that are at the roots of human action and of the virtues honoured by all human societies, despite the differences of particular legislations. Mankind possesses an innate and intuitive conscience of the fundamental principles by which its conduct must be inspired. Were we to consider human actions only according to the criterion of physical need, of causality and of movement, vices and virtues would disappear and terms like morality and honesty would have no meaning. But each one of us perceives from within that this is not the case. We feel that moral good and evil are more real than anything else, without any need whatsoever to prove it. To obey the conscience one has of good and of evil without human mediation means to reject the dogmatic formalism of religions as well as the vanity of philosophical disputes. Every human being, however, is inserted into a national community. What should the state’s attitude be vis-à-vis religion? Rousseau indicates two paths. The first consists in establishing a purely civil religion that admits only those dogmas that are truly useful to society. Rousseau highlights the contradiction of a Christian religion that, although it is the religion of peace par excellence, fuels continuing bloody clashes among men due to a dogmatic theology that is totally alien to the essence of the Gospel and extremely hazardous for the life of the State. The second path consists in allowing Christianity to retain its authentic spirit, its freedom from any material constraint, without any obligations other than those of individual conscience. The Christian religion has such a pure and noble moral that it cannot but benefit the State, as long as one does not expect to make it part of the constitution

Translating Popular Science: Professional Translators vs Field Experts

ope

Bioetica scienza diritto: la legge italiana sulla procreazione medicalmente.

La legge italiana sulla procreazione medicalmente assistita (19 febbraio 2004, n.40) ha suscitato fin dal suo apparire ampie polemiche e vivaci dibattiti in Italia, tanto da promuovere un referendum popolare per abrogarla. Il paper intende affrontare i nodi salienti di tale legge, che riguardano non solo il contesto italiano, ma anche più in generale la posizione dell’Italia rispetto alle decisioni europee assunte in materia. Tali nodi attengono a problemi di varia natura ma connessi, che concernono la sfera scientifica (dalle conoscenze acquisite e condivise dalla scienza ufficiale alla libertà di ricerca), quella bioetica (atteggiamenti morali sull’uso delle biotecnologie), quella giuridica (come formulare una legge che cerchi di conciliare le possibilità di sviluppo della scienza con le esigenze e le libertà dei singoli individui in uno stato democratico e laico). Il paper segue la metodologia che caratterizza il dottorato di Bioetica, attivato a Bologna dal 2001, ossia, sospendendo inizialmente ogni pregiudizio aprioristico, affronta il tema su tre livelli: scientifico, bioetico, giuridico. Si conclude con alcune proposte, all’insegna di un’etica della responsabilità e di un diritto leggero, assunti come capaci di salvaguardare esigenze apparentemente divergenti come la libertà di ricerca, le autonome decisioni individuali sulla propria persona e la nuova società pluriculturale e multietnica che si sta delineando sia in Italia sia in Europa.La legge italiana sulla procreazione medicalmente assistita (19 febbraio 2004, n.40) ha suscitato fin dal suo apparire ampie polemiche e vivaci dibattiti in Italia, tanto da promuovere un referendum popolare per abrogarla. Il paper intende affrontare i nodi salienti di tale legge, che riguardano non solo il contesto italiano, ma anche più in generale la posizione dell’Italia rispetto alle decisioni europee assunte in materia. Tali nodi attengono a problemi di varia natura ma connessi, che concernono la sfera scientifica (dalle conoscenze acquisite e condivise dalla scienza ufficiale alla libertà di ricerca), quella bioetica (atteggiamenti morali sull’uso delle biotecnologie), quella giuridica (come formulare una legge che cerchi di conciliare le possibilità di sviluppo della scienza con le esigenze e le libertà dei singoli individui in uno stato democratico e laico). Il paper segue la metodologia che caratterizza il dottorato di Bioetica, attivato a Bologna dal 2001, ossia, sospendendo inizialmente ogni pregiudizio aprioristico, affronta il tema su tre livelli: scientifico, bioetico, giuridico. Si conclude con alcune proposte, all’insegna di un’etica della responsabilità e di un diritto leggero, assunti come capaci di salvaguardare esigenze apparentemente divergenti come la libertà di ricerca, le autonome decisioni individuali sulla propria persona e la nuova società pluriculturale e multietnica che si sta delineando sia in Italia sia in Europa

Report on LPG infrastructure impact at the WUI microscale

Preprin

A Bow-Tie Approach for the Identification of Scenarios Induced by Physical Intentional Attacks to Chemical and Process Plants

The possibility of inducing major accident scenarios by physical intentional attacks (e.g. terrorist attacks) to chemical and process plants processing and storing hazardous substances, has been increasingly recognized in the last decades. The identification of the credible security scenarios (chain from attack scenarios to major accident scenarios) is required by Security Vulnerability/Risk Assessment (SVA/SRA) methodologies, but an evident lack of supporting tools is present in the literature. The present study proposes a Bow-Tie approach for the identification of reference security scenarios to support hazard identification phase in SVA/SRA. The potential use of the results is demonstrated on a test case (industrial atmospheric tank storing a flammable liquid)

Process hazard and operability analysis of BPCS and SIS malicious manipulations by POROS 2.0

The increasing interconnectivity with external networks and the higher reliance on digital systems make the facilities of the chemical, process, and Oil&Gas industry more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. These attacks have the potential of causing events with severe consequences on property, people, and the surrounding environment such as major event scenarios. The application of the currently available methodologies for cyber risk identification to complex plants with a large number of units may be demanding and cumbersome. The present study proposes an updated methodology, named POROS 2.0, that allows reducing time and effort in application by limiting the scope of the analysis to relevant cybersecurity scenarios. The latter are identified by investigating the potential escalation of consequences propagating among process and/or utility nodes of the manipulations of BPCS and SIS, similar to what is done in the HazOp technique in the safety domain. POROS 2.0 was demonstrated by the application to a case study addressing a fixed offshore platform for gas exploitation

Key Performance Indicators for Implementing Sustainability and Environmental Protection in Early Process Design Activities

The adoption of a sustainability perspective in chemical industry shall start from the early phases of process design (e.g. conceptual design, technology selection, process development) where the key drivers in the environmental, economical, and hazard fingerprint of a process are defined. These phases also allow the opportunities for the lower cost of design change. A sound support of design activities requires quantitative tools, allowing for the assessment of the sustainability profile of a process, the identification of possible improvements and supporting informed tradeoffs. Though several tools for process development were proposed in last decades, application is still limited in the current practice because of issues on data requirement, indicator definition and customization to specific application needs (e.g. PFD definition in design of polypropylene production plants). This study focuses on the application to the early process design of environmental and exergy Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to support sustainability-oriented design activities. It was tailored on the specific industrial application of polypropylene production plants. The choice of a specific sector allowed customization of the method, promoting ease of application and allowing the assessment of multiple scenarios (e.g. sensitivity on material and energy supply strategies, comparison of different technologies). Results obtained draw up sustainable guidelines to improve design activities within the scope in a lifecycle perspective

Sviluppi presenti e futuri di Nilde

Il presente articolo illustra i più recenti sviluppi del sistema NILDE, le prospettive di evoluzione futura e le ricadute positive di un modello di lavoro cooperativo e di condivisione delle esperienze e delle professionalità per la comunità delle biblioteche aderenti. La collaborazione con DoGi e l’integrazione di NILDE con questa importante banca dati, nasce in risposta alle esigenze evidenziate dai bibliotecari dei settori disciplinari umanistico, sociale e giuridico di lingua italiana. La collaborazione tra NILDE e Kronosdoc (biblioteche spagnole) e tra NILDE e ITALE (biblioteche che usano Aleph e Alma) nasce per migliorare i flussi di lavoro di chi utilizza sia NILDE che altri sistemi per la gestione del document delivery, e per evitare la duplicazione manuale di inserimento degli stessi dati in software diversi. Il progetto ALPE per la creazione di un archivio condiviso di licenze dei periodici elettronici relativi alle clausole di document delivery intende supportare i bibliotecari nella corretta applicazione degli usi consentiti e favorire la diffusione delle conoscenze su questi aspetti.This paper presents recent developments of the NILDE system, future plans and positive follow-up for the community of users. The collaboration with DoGi and the integration with NILDE was born to answer librarians needs in the human, social and law sectors. The collaboration between NILDE and Kronosdoc (Spanish libraries) and between NILDE and ITALE was born for improving the workflow of whom uses NILDE and these other systems for document delivery and to avoid duplication of data entry in the two software. ALPE (Archivio Licenze Periodici Elettronici – e-journal licenses database) is a pilot project aiming at building a shared national database of ILL permitted uses about e-resources and to support librarians in the implementation of the correct policies and the understanding of the issues raised by e-licenses

A ciascuno il suo: come fornire un articolo all\u27utente nel rispetto del contratto. Il nuovo progetto di NILDE per la verifica delle licenze online

This paper describes the state of the art of the ALPE-DD project which aims to improve the understanding of the issues raised by license agreements of electronic resources in the Inter-Library Loan Service and to support librarians in the implementation of the right policies