Metropolitan MaaS and DRT Schemes: are they paving the way towards a more inclusive and resilient urban environment?

Mobility-as-a-Service and Demand-Responsive-Transport schemes are promoting progressively a user-centered approach, made of modularity, flexibility and tailor-made travel experience, and pandemic emergency has furthermore enhanced this new way of thinking, thus representing an unprecedented occasion to develop a new paradigm for a more sustainable and resilient transport system, thus ensuring a greater level of social and territorial inclusion beyond traditional urban borders and outdated distinctions of targeted services for particular users' categories. This paper discusses the main features of MaaS and DRT schemes in order to assess if they could be able to cope with Universal Design principles and to improve metropolitan accessibility accordingly to the urgent request for social and territorial inclusion as sustainable development pre-requisites, made by different stakeholders in the international and European debate (see UNO SDGs or EU Cork Declaration 2.0), and re-launched by many national initiatives (SNAI for Italy, Espana Vacìa for Spain…). To re-think metropolitan mobility as a service that can be shaped accordingly to user's needs and to redefine transport supply as a complex puzzle made by different and complementary services could represent a unique opportunity to overcome one of traditional public transport dramatic problems: low mobility demand, whether it be due to sparsely populated areas or connected with specific demands of targeted population categories. Hence this paper recalls some of the recent DRT experiences already active in Genova Metropolitan Area -the so-called DRINBUS above all- along with the on-demand mobility strategy for Ligurian internal areas in order to discuss how this new user-centered approach is acting on the marginalization of remote territories and fragile user categories. The choice to develop a MaaS scheme could re-shape metropolitan mobility as a comprehensive and global mosaic made by multiple pieces, thus making more resilient the entire system thanks to its modularity and redundancy. This allows to make more sustainable "niche" services as well, according to the systemic nature of this mobility platform, thus opposing the present unsuccessful approach of creating adhoc options, focusing indeed on the user's request to travel from point A to point B, without the need to define him as urban resident, commuter, disabled or not, towards a greater social inclusion and territorial cohesio

Known Glass Compositions in Iron Age Europe - Current Synthesis and Emerging Questions

Ancient glass has been extensively studied from a technological and raw material provenance perspective since the middle of the 20th century. With the rising applications of analytical techniques in the field of Heritage Studies, the last two decades saw an exponential increase in publications on ancient and historical glass technology from around the globe. Given the amount of works on glass chemical composition, it is surprising to note that the long-held production model for Iron Age glasses found in Europe has only recently been challenged by the publication of uncharacteristic glass compositions. Traditionally, LBA glass industries based on plant-ash fluxes/HMG (Egypt and the Levant) and mixed-alkali fluxes/LMHK (Italy) are thought to be supplanted by natron-fluxed/LMG production operating in Egypt and the Levant since around the 9th century BCE. Recently, however, arguments have been put forth for a more diversified network of glassmaking traditions, including small-scale autonomous European workshops. This article reviews the current state of research into Iron Age (1st millennium BCE) glasses in Europe by examining the available published data on glass compositions to critically assess some practical and theoretical issues stemming from this heterogenous field of research. Key questions are addressed, and future lanes of research are proposed

Building ‘implicit partnerships’? Financial long-term care entitlements in Europe

The design of public subsidies for long-term care (LTC) programmes to support frail, elderly individuals in Europe is subject to both tight budget constraints and increasing demand preassures for care. However, what helps overcoming the constraints that modify LTC entitlements? We provide a unifying explanation of the conditions that facilitate the modification of public financial entitlements to LTC. We build on the concept of ‘implicit partnerships’, an implicit (or ‘silent’) agreement, encompassing the financial co-participation of both public funders, and families either by both allocating time and/or financial resources to caregiving. Next, we provide suggestive evidence of policy reforms modifying public entitlements in seven European countries which can be classified as either ‘implicit user partnerships’ or ‘implicit caregiver partnerships’. Finally, we show that taxpayers attitudes mirror the specific type of implicit partnership each country has adopted. Hence, we conclude that the modification of long-term care entitlements require the formation of some type of ‘implicit partnership'

Why the views of middle class citizens help explain increased choice in European healthcare systems

Several countries across Europe have attempted to reform their health systems by allowing patients more choice over their healthcare provider. The typical rationale for this strategy is that by creating competition between providers, there will be an increased incentive to improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare. Joan Costa-i-Font and Valentina Zigante assess the underlying factors that have led to European countries adopting this ‘choice agenda’ in their healthcare systems. They find that one of the key drivers for this type of reform has been the role of middle class citizens in demanding greater choice over health providers

'The choice agenda' in European health systems: the role of 'middle class demands'

We examine the role of political economy drivers of the choice agenda in European health systems including middle class electoral support. Building on the reform trajectories and current institutional framework in eight western European countries where there have been significant choice reforms, we explore the preferences for choice and health system satisfaction in those countries. We find provider choice to be supported by middle class demands and health systems satisfaction, but weak evidence of other alternative political motivations for the expansion of provider choice. We conclude that in addition to efficiency improvements, provider choice is largely correlated with the demands for choice among the middle class. The provider choice agenda responds as much to political economy consideration as it does to efficiency arguments

'The choice agenda' in European health systems: the role of 'middle class demands'

We examine the role of political economy drivers of the choice agenda in European health systems including middle class electoral support. Building on the reform trajectories and current institutional framework in eight western European countries where there have been significant choice reforms, we explore the preferences for choice and health system satisfaction in those countries. We find provider choice to be supported by middle class demands and health systems satisfaction, but weak evidence of other alternative political motivations for the expansion of provider choice. We conclude that in addition to efficiency improvements, provider choice is largely correlated with the demands for choice among the middle class. The provider choice agenda responds as much to political economy consideration as it does to efficiency arguments

Sustainability and Internal Control Systems in the Food and Pharmaceutical Sectors

Sustainability in the food and the pharmaceutical industry has become a hot topic as the several cases of malpractice reported by worldwide media in recent years shows. This research aims at identifying the reasons for the diffusion of non-ethically sustainable practices in these sectors, by evaluating the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls. To achieve this aim, a content analysis was performed considering the largest European pharmaceutical and food companies, listed on one or more of the main stock exchanges. Main findings underline many internal controls’ vulnerabilities to corruption

Holography on the lattice: the string worldsheet perspective

We review the study, on the lattice, of the Green-Schwarz gauge-fixed string action describing worldsheet fluctuations about the minimal surface holographically dual to the null cusp Wilson loop, useful to evaluate the cusp anomaly of N = 4 super Yang-Mills (sYM). We comment on discretization, numerical explorations and challenges for the non-perturbative study of this benchmark model of gauge-fixed worldsheet actions.Comment: Invited review to be published on European Physics Journal - Special Topics, 24 pages, 1 figur

How Could People and Communities Contribute to the Energy Transition? Conceptual Maps to Inform, Orient, and Inspire Design Actions and Education

Energy Transition (ET) is crucial for sustainable development, impacting inclusive pros perity and social justice. Knowledge development, innovative solutions, and awareness actions become crucial as energy systems transform. ET necessitates behavioural and cultural changes involving individuals in responsible decision making. The active engagement of all societal actors, including people and communities is essential. The article is authored by a university research team specializing in Design for Sustainability, Service Design, and Design for Experience, and it addresses two central research questions: (i) how can individuals and communities contribute to ET? and (ii) how can design theories, methods, and expertise contribute to generating knowledge and solutions for ET? The research employs a multidisciplinary literature review and case study analysis. It is structured into two main sections. The first section examines ET, drawing upon European Union (EU) official documents and academic literature to outline its values, objectives, actors, initiatives, and challenges, focusing on the role of citizens and communities. The second section explores the design’s contributions, summarizing relevant philosophies and solutions aligned with ET goals, challenges, and bottlenecks. Conceptual maps were created to address the knowledge gap on ET objectives and guidelines, providing design-oriented reference knowledge and principles. The purpose of the research is to define a conceptual framework made up of maps to guide researchers, designers, and design educators in understanding the complexity of ET and to inspire their intervention proposals

Discovery of Broad Soft X-ray Absorption Lines from the Quasar Wind in PDS 456

High resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy of the prototype accretion disk wind quasar, PDS 456, is presented. Here, the XMM-Newton RGS spectra are analyzed from the large 2013-2014 XMM-Newton campaign, consisting of 5 observations of approximately 100 ks in length. During the last observation (hereafter OBS. E), the quasar is at a minimum flux level and broad absorption line profiles are revealed in the soft X-ray band, with typical velocity widths of $\sigma_{\rm v}\sim 10,000$ km s$^{-1}$. During a period of higher flux in the 3rd and 4th observations (OBS. C and D, respectively), a very broad absorption trough is also present above 1 keV. From fitting the absorption lines with models of photoionized absorption spectra, the inferred outflow velocities lie in the range $\sim 0.1-0.2c$. The absorption lines likely originate from He and H-like neon and L-shell iron at these energies. Comparison with earlier archival data of PDS 456 also reveals similar absorption structure near 1 keV in a 40 ks observation in 2001, and generally the absorption lines appear most apparent when the spectrum is more absorbed overall. The presence of the soft X-ray broad absorption lines is also independently confirmed from an analysis of the XMM-Newton EPIC spectra below 2 keV. We suggest that the soft X-ray absorption profiles could be associated with a lower ionization and possibly clumpy phase of the accretion disk wind, where the latter is known to be present in this quasar from its well studied iron K absorption profile and where the wind velocity reaches a typical value of 0.3$c$.Comment: 44 pages, including 13 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa