"Sulla pelle della terra"

La versione integrale del documentario \ue8 visionabile online nel "Portfolio di Marco Rossitti": http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkEedI6y36rF4B0_THVxA-wElJUXhdwK - "Sulla pelle della terra" \ue8 un film documentario, della durata di 60 minuti, sul terremoto del Friuli del 1976 e quello che ne \ue8 seguito: l'impatto e la prima emergenza, i soccorsi, il ruolo dei media, le tendopoli, i fermenti sociali, la ricostruzione, il recupero del patrimonio artistico, la riscoperta dell'identit\ue0 friulana, la nascita dell'Universit\ue0 di Udine, il volontariato, l'origine della Protezione civile. Una tragica vicenda raccontata attraverso rari e inediti documenti filmati, ricostruzioni in realta' virtuale, con le testimonianze di quanti ebbero un ruolo di rilievo in campo politico, amministrativo, sociale e culturale. Con interviste a Giulio Andreotti, Arnaldo Baracetti, Mons. Alfredo Battisti, Ivano Benvenuti, Adriano Biasutti, Remo Cacitti, Don Duilio Corgnali, Don Luigi Nervo, Giuseppe Zamberletti, e gli interventi critici dell\u2019antropologo Gianpaolo Gri, dello scrittore Carlo Sgorlon, dei poeti Leonardo Zanier e Pierluigi Cappello, dell'ex rettore dell\u2019Universit\ue0 di Udine Cristiana Compagno, del sociologo Bruno Tellia, dello storico dell\u2019arte Giuseppe Bergamini, del geologo Marcello Riuscetti, dei responsabili della Protezione Civile regionale, Guglielmo Berlasso, e nazionale, Guido Bertolaso, del Presidente della Regione Renzo Tondo, dei giornalisti Mauro Tosoni, Piero Villotta e Gianpaolo Carbonetto, e di rappresentanti delle associazioni di volontariato

Essays in applied microeconomics

This thesis is composed of three essays. The first two look at the effect of location on ability sorting in political and judicial institutions, while the third essay focuses on the relationship between religion and innovation. In chapter 1 I exploit a novel and rich data-set with biographical information of US state legislators to investigate their sorting based on remoteness and attractiveness of the state capital. The main finding of the chapter is that in more remote US state capitals legislators are on average less educated and experienced. The results hold true for several measures of legislators' human capital and are robust to using different indicators of remoteness, based on the spatial distribution of the population, and controlling for other characteristics of the legislatures. The empirical strategy relies on the combination of a within-state analysis with an instrumental variables approach that relies on the proximity of capitals to the state centroids to identify the causal effect of capitals' remoteness across states. Finally, I also find that legislators' level of education and experience affects public good provision and corruption. Chapter 2 focuses on the spatial variation in the UK criminal courts' performance across the country. I use the differences in real salary generated by a country-wide fixed wage for the category of criminal courts judges as a source of exogenous variation. The main finding of the chapter is that there is a negative relationship between performance, measured as the number of non-overturned trial sentences, and the real salary. In particular, London courts perform better on average than those in the rest of the country. I interpret the results as evidence of the willingness of highly paid professionals, such as judges, to accept a negative wage premium to sort in locations with a higher level of amenities. This evidence aligns with that provided by chapter 1 in showing that the location of institutions - in this case courts - affects their composition and in turn outcomes. Chapter 3 studies the relationship between innovation, measured using patent filings per capita, and different indicators of religiousness, both cross-country and at US state-level. I use instrumental variables to attempt to pin down the effect of innovation on religiousness. In the cross-country analysis I use patent protection and property rights protection to instrument innovation, whilst in the US state-level analysis I build an instrument based on the clustering of academic institutions. I show the existence of a negative relationship robust to different specifications and using a different measure of innovation based on scientific articles per capita

The THEMA tool to support heritage-based development strategies for marginal areas: Evidence from an Italian inner area in Campania Region

The ongoing forced reflection on the leading urbanization models' crisis has led to greater attention to marginal areas. In Italy, the scientific and media debate has focused on inner areas that, since 2014, have represented the target of an innovative national cohesion policy aimed at tackling their shrinking dynamics: the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI). Indeed, Italian inner areas are endowed with extraordinary natural capital and settlement models far from urban density. Thus, they seem to respond perfectly to the new raised living needs. However, leaving aside the optimistic rhetoric, strong political and administrative choices are necessary to trigger a 'return process' based on this broader attention toward inner areas, thus countering humankind's natural tendency to concentrate on urban realities. In this light, the paper proposes a tool to support SNAI in designing and implementing heritage-based local development strategies to address inner areas' real needs. After a critical reading of the new challenges for planning posed by the pandemic and SNAI's role within them, the contribution moves to frame the THEMA (Tool for Heritage-based Enhancement of Marginal Areas) tool, focusing on specificities of the inner areas as cultural heritage. Finally, the tool's application to a case study, an inner area in Campania Region, allows to outline and discuss its possible benefits for SNAI implementation and its limits

The THEMA tool to support heritage-based development strategies for marginal areas: Evidence from an Italian inner area in Campania Region

The ongoing forced reflection on the leading urbanization models’ crisis has led to greater attention to marginal areas. In Italy, the scientific and media debate has focused on inner areas that, since 2014, have represented the target of an innovative national cohesion policy aimed at tackling their shrinking dynamics: the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI). Indeed, Italian inner areas are endowed with extraordinary natural capital and settlement models far from urban density. Thus, they seem to respond perfectly to the new raised living needs. However, leaving aside the optimistic rhetoric, strong political and administrative choices are necessary to trigger a ‘return process’ based on this broader attention toward inner areas, thus countering humankind’s natural tendency to concentrate on urban realities. In this light, the paper proposes a tool to support SNAI in designing and implementing heritage-based local development strategies to address inner areas’ real needs. After a critical reading of the new challenges for planning posed by the pandemic and SNAI’s role within them, the contribution moves to frame the THEMA (Tool for Heritage-based Enhancement of Marginal Areas) tool, focusing on specificities of the inner areas as cultural heritage. Finally, the tool’s application to a case study, an inner area in Campania Region, allows to outline and discuss its possible benefits for SNAI implementation and its limits

"Carnia 1944. Un'estate di libert\ue0"

La versione integrale del film \ue8 visionabile online nel "Portfolio di Marco Rossitti": http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkEedI6y36rF4B0_THVxA-wElJUXhdwK - "Carnia 1944. Un\u2019estate di libert\ue0" \ue8 un film di finzione a base documentaria (docu-fiction) dedicato alla straordinaria, misconosciuta storia della Repubblica della Carnia e dell\u2019Alto Friuli: nel 1944, per alcuni mesi, una quarantina di comuni friulani e veneti vennero liberati dall\u2019occupazione nazi-fascista. Vi si costitu\uec una Repubblica partigiana comprendente tutte le forze politiche democratiche, nella quale si speriment\uf2 un eccezionale spazio di libert\ue0 e partecipazione popolare che anticip\uf2 alcune delle conquiste dell\u2019Italia repubblicana. Nel film una scolaresca delle superiori, dopo aver ascoltato in classe, per bocca di un vecchio partigiano, il racconto di un fatto drammatico della Resistenza in Carnia (l\u2019incendio di Forni di Sotto da parte delle truppe tedesche nel 1944) viene condotta, con la guida dell\u2019insegnante di lettere, sui luoghi della Repubblica della Carnia e dell\u2019Alto Friuli. Durante il viaggio, che attraversa alcuni dei paesaggi pi\uf9 suggestivi della Carnia, i ragazzi hanno la possibilit\ue0 di conoscere i luoghi e le storie di quella esaltante e tragica esperienza. Attraverso le spiegazioni del professore essi si immedesimano a tal punto nei fatti narrati da ritrovarsi, al confine tra realt\ue0 e immaginazione, immersi in essi. Al termine della giornata, la visita alla casa del medico Aulo Magrini, morto in combattimento, e l\u2019incontro con il figlio Giulio che ricorda l\u2019ultimo saluto dato al padre, permettono ai ragazzi di comprendere l\u2019attualit\ue0 civile di questa eccezionale vicenda storica. Un anno di ricerche storiche e documentarie, tre mesi di stesura della sceneggiatura (scritta "a sei mani" da Carlo Tolazzi con Marco Rossitti e Riccardo Maranzana), due settimane di sopralluoghi, tre settimane di riprese, un mese di montaggio ed edizione per una produzione voluta dall'allora Rettore dell'Universit\ue0 di Udine Cristiana Compagno e dall'allora Presidente della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia Renzo Tondo

Action research for the conservation of architectural heritage in marginal areas: The role of evaluation

The recognition of the key role of architectural heritage for sustainable territorial development has pushed the scientific community to give more importance to the involvement of local communities in conservation choices and practices. However, despite the recognition of the benefits deriving from the active participation of local communities in the field of conservation, in practice, this involvement is still marginal and linked to experiences without institutional support. This phenomenon is due to different causes, such as the lack of a participatory culture in conservation. It finds its roots in a conventional approach to architectural heritage conservation merely based on an “expert knowledge”. Consequently, there is an urgent need for approaches and tools to manage the complexity of decisions about conservation, which require close collaboration between local communities, research, and institutions. In this context, the paper aims to investigate the role of the action-research approach in fostering the participation of local communities in conservation processes, especially in marginal areas, where the demographic shrinking dynamics make even more necessary both the institutions’ intervention and the communities’ engagement. Based on these premises, starting from an analysis of recent experiences, the contribution dwells on the need to support the implementation of action-research approaches for the conservation of architectural heritage in marginal areas, paying particular attention to the role of evaluation. More in detail, in the first part of the paper, a reflection on the importance of community involvement for heritage conservation is proposed based on the main documents on the topic. In the second part, the main features of the action-research approach and its strengths and weaknesses have been analyzed through a literature review of action-research experiences applied to architectural heritage at a global level. The analyses have highlighted how most of these experiences are born from spontaneous initiatives, without institutional and methodological support, in which the role of evaluation is still marginal. Therefore, in the final part, the paper proposes a first methodological framework based on integrating action research with the main evaluation tools developed in the scientific literature to support the different phases of the decision-making process. This framework, suitably declined according to the specificities of the case study treated, can represent a valid support for implementing and transposing the research-action approach for heritage conservation in an institutional context

Damage assessment for architectural heritage: The Cavallerizza Reale complex in Turin

Damage assessment for architectural heritage stands as a relevant issue from an appraisal perspective due to heritage properties’ peculiar technological and building techniques and their complex social values. The specificity of Italian cultural heritage, widespread on the national territory, even in high environmental risk (landslides, earthquakes, and floods) areas, calls for dealing with the damage assessment theme by considering tangible and intangible features. Indeed, architectural heritage value is not limited only to its market or use value but must be expressed as a Total Economic Value, in its tangible and intangible components, that can be destroyed or affected by damages. In this context, the paper provides a relevant case study concerning the assessment of fire, lack of maintenance, and occupation damages for the ‘Pagliere’ buildings, located within the building complex ‘Cavallerizza Reale’ in Turin, which is included in the Unesco World Heritage list. Thanks to the specificities and the historical-architectural significance of the properties under analysis, this case study provided an interesting reflection on the methodological approach for the total damage assessment, given by the sum of its three different components: Fire damage, lack of maintenance damage, and abandonment damage. Based on the discussion of the results, the paper proposes some possible insights for future research focusing on assessing architectural heritage damages

Carbon-Fiber-Recycling Strategies: A Secondary Waste Stream Used for PA6,6 Thermoplastic Composite Applications

With a view to achieving sustainable development and a circular economy, this work focused on the possibility to valorize a secondary waste stream of recycled carbon fiber (rCF) to produce a 3D printing usable material with a PA6,6 polymer matrix. The reinforcing fibers implemented in the research are the result of a double-recovery action: starting with pyrolysis, long fibers are obtained, which are used to produce non-woven fabrics, and subsequently, fiber agglomerate wastes obtained from this last process are ground in a ball mill. The effect of different amounts of reinforcement at 5% and 10% by weight on the mechanical properties of 3D-printed thermoplastic composites was investigated. Although the recycled fraction was successfully integrated in the production of filaments for 3D printing and therefore in the production of specimens via the fused deposition modeling technique, the results showed that fibers did not improve the mechanical properties as expected, due to an unsuitable average size distribution and the presence of a predominant dusty fraction ascribed to the non-optimized ball milling process. PA6,6 + 10 wt.% rCF composites exhibited a tensile strength of 59.53 MPa and a tensile modulus of 2.24 GPa, which correspond to an improvement in mechanical behavior of 5% and 21% compared to the neat PA6,6 specimens, respectively. The printed composite specimens loaded with the lowest content of rCF provided the greatest improvement in strength (+9% over the neat sample). Next, a prediction of the "optimum" critical length of carbon fibers was proposed that could be used for future optimization of recycled fiber processing