The inter-related roles of the regional and local government in developing local partnerships in Italy

Building partnerships is becoming an important issue at the local level of government in many countries. Different experiences can be traced throughout Europe, as well as in other OECD countries. This is because partnerships, especially when the size of the single local government is small, can help to manage services in a more efficient and effective way.Nevertheless, building a relation is difficult, nor is it always successful, as many scholars emphasise. For a number of reasons, higher levels of government may then play a significant role in supporting partnerships between different stakeholders.Given the shortage of empirical studies on this subject, this chapter combines conceptual and empirical analysis, and is based upon:- the direct observation of a number of partnerships in Italy, with particular reference to those Regions in which the birth and the development of partnerships has been positively influenced by the regional level of government;- surveys of other partnerships which have been formalised in Italy;- literature review and analysis of official documents.The issues analysed most carefully in the chapter are the critical aspects of partnership building, and the role played by higher levels of government in activating or facilitating partnerships. It is in fact clear that higher levels of government may gain considerable benefit from the development of partnerships at the local level.Finally, the chapter deals with comparative aspects, and investigates the existence of common patterns and trends in the different regional experiences examined

First spaceborne observation of sea surface height using GPS-reflectometry

An analysis of spaceborne Global Positioning System reflectometry (GPS-R) data from the TechDemoSat-1 (TDS-1) satellite is carried out to image the ocean sea surface height (SSH). An SSH estimation algorithm is applied to GPS-R delay waveforms over two regions in the South Atlantic and the North Pacific. Estimates made from TDS-1 overpasses during a 6 month period are aggregated to produce SSH maps of the two regions. The maps generally agree with the global DTU10 mean sea surface height. The GPS-R instrument is designed to make bistatic measurements of radar cross section for ocean wind observations, and its altimetric performance is not optimized. The differences observed between measured and DTU10 SSH can be attributed to limitations with the GPS-R instrument and the lack of precision orbit determination by the TDS-1 platform. These results represent the first observations of SSH by a spaceborne GPS-R instrument

The GNSS-R Eddy Experiment II: L-band and Optical Speculometry for Directional Sea-Roughness Retrieval from Low Altitude Aircraft

We report on the retrieval of directional sea-roughness (the full directional mean square slope, including MSS, direction and isotropy) through inversion of Global Navigation Satellite System Reflections (GNSS-R) and SOlar REflectance Speculometry (SORES)data collected during an experimental flight at 1000 m. The emphasis is on the utilization of the entire Delay-Doppler Map (for GNSS-R) or Tilt Azimuth Map (for SORES) in order to infer these directional parameters. Obtained estimations are analyzed and compared to Jason-1 measurements and the ECMWF numerical weather model.Comment: Proceedings from the 2003 Workshop on Oceanography with GNSS Reflections, Barcelona, Spain, 200

La Corte di cassazione ritorna sull'art. 416-ter c.p. : una nuova effettività per il reato di ''scambio elettorale politico mafioso''?

Con la sentenza in commento, la Corte di Cassazione affronta i punti pi\uf9 controversi del novellato reato di "scambio elettorale politico mafioso", proponendo una nuova ricostruzione ermeneutica che, entro i limiti scolpiti dal principio di legalit\ue0, garantisce alla norma una maggiore effettivit\ue0. In particolare,\ua0con riferimento all'oggetto della promessa, i giudici di legittimit\ue0 hanno stabilito che, per la prova del patto, non \ue8 necessaria l'esplicita pattuizione del metodo mafioso, ben potendo questo rimanere sullo sfondo dell'accordo. Inoltre, per quanto attiene al dolo del promissario, la Cassazione ha affermato che, quando l'interlocutore \ue8 una cosca mafiosa, la parte dell'accordo relativa alle modalit\ue0 di procacciamento dei voti deve ritenersi presunta; quando, invece, la promessa proviene da altri soggetti, la prova del dolo diviene pi\uf9 rigorosa, chiedendosi in questo caso\ua0una chiara dimostrazione della consapevolezza del metodo mafioso