Thomas Jefferson on Private Property

 Thomas Jefferson is sometimes presented as a radical egalitarian—the same figure uponwhich early nineteenth-century American socialists built their theories. But he did not condemn privateproperty. By the same token, he did not advocate redistribution. In the Declaration of Independence,Jefferson omitted to list property among inalienable rights because he had good reasons to do so. Forhim, property neither fostered a society of self-seekers, nor promoted a purely instrumental and ad-versarial relationship between individuals and the political community. Jefferson was no utopian,either in the sense that he wanted redistribution, or in the sense the he was nostalgic about the “simpler”societies of the past. Rather, Jefferson’s sole “utopianism” was enticed by the thought that in America,after the Revolution, there was no urgent need of further redistribution

A smart financial advisory system exploiting Case-Based Reasoning

In the financial advisory context, knowledge-based recommendations based on Case-Based Reasoning are an emerging trend. They usually exploit knowledge about past experiences and about the characterization of both customers and financial products. In the present paper, we report the experience related to the development of a case-based recommendation module in a project called SmartFasi. We present a solution aimed at personalizing the asset picking phase, by taking into consideration choices made by customers who have a financial and personal data profile "similar" to the current one. We discuss the notion of distance-based similarity adopted in our system and how to actually implement an asset recommendation strategy integrated with the other software modules of SmartFasi. We finally discuss the impact such a strategy may have both from the point of view of private investors and professional users

Avian community structure in sweet chestnut coppiced woods facing natural restoration

In Italy the spread of Castanea sativa is largely dependent upon humans, who first protected and then cultivated it for about 3000 years. Recently, however, chestnut cultivation has steadily declined, due mainly to social and economic factors. In this paper we analysed the dynamics of the bird community in chestnut stands that represent a gradient from woods impacted by domestic firewood collecting to abandoned and derelict coppice interspersed with mature fruiting cultivars. Bird diversity, density, species richness and the abundance of six out of the sixteen commonest species were positively affected by the occurrence of mature fruiting sweet chestnuts in the study stands. These old trees (> 100 years) are rich in cavities and support many dead branches and thus can take the place of dead standing wood for birds, offering food, nesting and roosting sites. We also found a significant trend of increasing bird abundance, species richness and diversity with increasing stand age; heterogeneity in vegetation structure and composition following natural regeneration possibly created more forest-like conditions than uniform younger woods, thus supporting a richer bird community. The present findings are discussed in terms of conservation of bird diversity in old coppiced woodsEn Italie, la répartition de Castanea saliva dépend largement de l'homme qui le protégea et ensuite le cultiva pendant quelque 3 000 ans. Toutefois, récemment la culture du châtaignier a régulièrement régressé, essentiellement pour des raisons sociales et économiques. Nous analysons ici la dynamique du peuplement avien qui caractérise un gradient allant des boisements soumis à la collecte du bois de chauffe aux bosquets relictuels abandonnés, avec des cultivars adultes et fructifères parsemés. La diversité avienne, la densité, la richesse spécifique ainsi que l'abondance de six des seize espèces d'oiseaux les plus communes se sont avérées positivement affectées par l'occurrence de châtaigniers matures dans les peuplements étudiés. Ces vieux arbres (> 100 ans) sont riches en cavités et portent beaucoup de branches mortes et, pour les oiseaux, peuvent remplacer les bois morts sur pied, offrant nourriture, emplacements de reproduction et dortoirs. Nous avons aussi trouvé une tendance significative de l'abondance, la richesse spécifique et la diversité aviennes à augmenter avec l'âge des peuplements végétaux. L'hétérogénéité de la structure et de la composition de la végétation après régénération naturelle crée vraisemblablement des conditions plus réellement forestières que les jeunes boisements uniformes, supportant ainsi une communauté avienne plus riche. Les résultats sont discutés en termes de conservation de la diversité avienne dans les vieux bosquets

Interaction of nanodiamonds with water: Impact of surface chemistry on hydrophilicity, aggregation and electrical properties

In recent decades, nanodiamonds (NDs) have earned increasing interest in a wide variety of research fields, thanks to their excellent mechanical, chemical, and optical properties, together with the possibility of easily tuning their surface chemistry for the desired purpose. According to the application context, it is essential to acquire an extensive understanding of their interaction with water in terms of hydrophilicity, environmental adsorption, stability in solution, and impact on electrical properties. In this paper, we report on a systematic study of the effects of reducing and oxidizing thermal processes on ND surface water adsorption. Both detonation and milled NDs were analyzed by combining different techniques. Temperature-dependent infrared spectroscopy was employed to study ND surface chemistry and water adsorption, while dynamic light scattering allowed the evaluation of their behavior in solution. The influence of water adsorption on their electrical properties was also investigated and correlated with structural and optical information obtained via Raman/photoluminescence spectroscopy. In general, higher oxygen-containing surfaces exhibited higher hydrophilicity, better stability in solution, and higher electrical conduction, although for the latter the surface graphitic contribution was also crucial. Our results provide in-depth information on the hydrophilicity of NDs in relation to their surface chemical and physical properties, by also evaluating the impacts on their aggregation and electrical conductance

Characterization of the evolution of noble metal particles in a commercial three‐way catalyst: Correlation between real and simulated ageing

Ageing of automotive catalysts is associated to a loss of their functionality and ultimately to a waste of precious resources. For this reason, understanding catalyst ageing phenomena is necessary for the design of long lasting efficient catalysts. The present work has the purpose of studying in depth all the phenomena that occur during ageing, in terms of morphological modification and deactivation of the active materials: precious metal particles and oxidic support. The topic was deeply investigated using specific methodologies (FT‐IR, CO chemisorption, FE‐ SEM) in order to understand the behavior of metals and support, in terms of their surface properties, morphology and dispersion in the washcoat material. A series of commercial catalysts, aged in different conditions, have been analyzed, in order to find correlations between real and simulated ageing conditions. The characterization highlights a series of phenomena linked to the deactivation of the catalysts. Pd nanoparticles undergo a rapid agglomeration, exhibiting a quick loss of dispersion and of active sites with an increase of particles size. The evolution of the support allows highlighting also the contribution of chemical ageing effects. These results were also correlated with performance tests executed on synthetic gas bench, underlining a good correspondence between vehicle and laboratory aged samples and the contribution of chemical poisoning to vehicle aged ones. The collected data are crucial for the development of accelerated laboratory ageing protocols, which are instrumental for the development and testing of long lasting abatement systems