Topological Field Theories and Duality

Topologically non trivial effects appearing in the discussion of duality transformations in higher genus manifolds are discussed in a simple example, and their relation with the properties of Topological Field Theories is established.Comment: 7 pages, Late

Illegal pedestrian crossing at a traffic light: a study on tourist behaviour

Illegal pedestrian crossing situations at signalized intersections are observed worldwide. The main goal of this study was to observe attributes and determine the proportion and type of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossing situations at a traffic light located in a recreational tourist urban environment, i.e. the beach town of Viareggio on the coast of Tuscany, Italy. A large signalized intersection placed close to the beach was observed for some days in Summer 2015, for several hours, both in the morning and in the afternoon, to collect data. The main aim was to identify the illegal pedestrian crossing behaviour with red traffic light. Pedestrian crossing data were recorded with a video camera. Then, the video data were processed using a semi-automated software self-written in MATLAB to extract information on different pedestrian factors. Some factors, identified in the current literature as having an influence on the proportion of violations, such as age, sex and group size, were analysed. Furthermore, the impact of the amber length time on the proportion of dangerous performed crossings was studied. The obtained results highlight that pedestrians in a recreational tourist environment are generally more in compliance with traffic light than those in a weekday urban context. It is also important to pay particular attention to pedestrian yellow time (amber steady man) in order to avoid dangerous legal crossings. In fact it was often observed that pedestrians start to cross on the green walking man but end under the red light

The supply of deep-sea containerised shipping services in the northern italian port systems

In this paper, a review of deep-sea liner shipping services to/from Northern Italian ports is performed.The first section focuses on the analysis of statistical data regarding Italian foreing trade: with special reference to incoming and outcoming freight volumes transported by sea. The Italian import and export volumes with the rest of the world, during the years 2000 – 2010, are reported; in particular the trade by sea between Italy and Asia, in the years 2000 – 2010, is analysed. The development of containerised traffic at Italian ports, which represents the vast majority of global non-bulk freight flows, is shown. The statistics analysed show that the effects of the economic crisis are still in force, and the overall Italian maritime trade decreased in 2009, the year following the onset of the crisis, and rose again in 2010. In the second part of the paper deep-sea services in the northern Italian port systems have been considered. The list of deep-sea services and the values of the total DWT (deadweight tonnage, in thousands of tons) of the containerships departed (in the period of analysis: January 2011) from the North-Western Italian multiport gateway system are reported. The list of deep-sea services and the values of total DWT at the North-Easter Italian multiport gateway system is considered. The routes of containerships departed from North-Western Italian ports and the routes of containerships departed from North-Eastern Italian ports (North Adriatic Italian ports), in January 2011, are shown. The performed survey shows clearly that the main international routes connect Italian ports to the Red Sea and East Asia as well as to US ports. Other routes which connect Italian ports to South America, to Africa and to Oceania are only minor routes. North-western ports have several deep-sea departures, whereas Adriatic ports still play a minor role; the majority of the containerships directed to the Adriatic Sea refer to the Short Sea Shipping network. But it must be pointed out that the economic development of Central and Eastern EU countries and the extension of the Trans-European Transport Network towards the East could contribute to add and/or shift towards the Adriatic Sea some deep-sea services