Suchergebnisse

Edizione dei quattro testamenti di Matteo Sclafani (1333, 1345, 1348, 1354). La lettura dei quattro testamenti permette di delineare la parabola della vita del conte di Adernò, dall'ascesa ai vertici della società siciliana del Trecento, all'espulsione da Palermo e al sequestro dei beni. La comparazione dei testamenti permette, inoltre, di ricostruire il ruolo politico- economico e militare dello Sclafani e i suoi rapporti familiari.

Post-earthquake (re)settlements are too often the results of political decisions, driven by the urgency of housing survivors in emergency. There is very limited evidence of strategic decisions made for the long-term wellbeing of the displaced communities. This has certainly been the case, for the post-earthquake reconstructions developed in the aftermath of the 2016 Muisne earthquake in Ecuador. Previous research has indeed demonstrated, through qualitative empirical research, the failure of the developed resettlements from both a technical and a social perspective. This paper aims to re-think the way to conceive (re)settlements with the aim to co-produce with local experts and inhabitants possible future scenarios. A first pilot case, that adopts design solutions at the urban and housing unit level, which are strongly connected to the local geographic and cultural context, is discussed. This paper presents and discusses the design evolution of the proposed pilot case, posing the attention to the urban development and the housing design, articulated imagining the (re)settlement as a new neighbourhood of the city, with a combination of private and public spaces, that will grow and be fully integrated to the consolidated city as population grow.

An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovators is: what kind of innovation networks should be supported, if the policy objective is not just to sponsor successful innovation projects, but also to encourage the participants to form networks with desirable characteristics? Focusing on a set of policy programmes implemented by the regional government of Tuscany, in Italy, between 2002 and 2008, aimed at funding networks of collaborating organisations, we investigate whether the imposition of requirements on the composition of the networks that would be eligible for funding – in particular, the demand that networks should comply with minimum size and heterogeneity thresholds – influenced the participants' networking behaviour in the context of successive policy interventions. Our results show that these requirements immediately affected the size and composition of the project networks that applied for funding, although not always in the intended direction. However, these effects did not extend to the successive periods, when those requirements were no longer in force. This suggests that the imposition of policy requirements, per se, is unlikely to induce persistent changes in organizations' networking behaviour. Other approaches such as implementing outreach actions in order to encourage new organisations to participate in existing innovation networks and to form new ones, and additional measures designed to foster learning opportunities for the participants, might be more effective tools to influence the networking behaviour of participating organisations.

Each year, all Member States (MS) have to deliver their national emissions inventory to the European Union for all activity sectors, following the requirements of the CLRTAP programme. Recently, the specifications of this emissions report changed, MS emissions data had to be reported in grid cells with a resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°, and now, from 2015 forward, they must use a higher resolution grid (0.1° × 0.1°). The purpose of this study is to investigate the main differences found between these two emissions inventories for Europe, focusing on Portugal as a case study, using their available common year (2015). Differences on emissions values and their spatial distribution were analysed per sector and pollutant. Additionally, to evaluate and compare the accuracy of both datasets, air quality modelling simulations were performed, and the resulting pollutant concentrations were validated using data from observations. The results found indicated major differences in several MS (e.g. France, Italy, Germany and Spain). Portugal was not one of the delta hotspots but significant differences were still found, mainly for NOx emissions for the transport sectors, both emissions and concentrations in urban areas, as well as NO2 concentrations throughout the study domain. The analysis of the air quality modelling outputs indicates that the EMEP0.1 inventory does not improve model performance, which suggests that the methodology to build EMEP0.1 was not adequate. This work highlights the importance of accurately estimating emissions data and confirms what other studies already indicated regarding uncertainties: solely improving the emissions inventory resolution does not necessarily imply higher accuracy in the results. ; published

Childhood aggression is significant for children, their families, and the society because aggressive children often become violent adolescents. This article examines the relationship between maltreatment and early childhood aggression. Data are from a longitudinal study of maltreated and nonmaltreated children assessed as preschoolers and again at school age. The dependent variable is the child's teacher's rating of aggression at school age. The independent variables are from preschool and school age observations of the mother-child interaction and the mother's report of physical discipline practices. Using structural equation modeling, harshness of interaction at preschool age but not school age and severity of physical discipline at school age but not preschool age, relate to aggression at school age. Results suggest a difference in the developmental stage at which different features of harsh child rearing exert their influence. Strategies for intervening to prevent the development of childhood aggression are suggested.

In several countries, governments have assigned to public innovation intermediaries (PIIs) the mandate to support the digital transition, by facilitating the development and adoption of new digital technologies on the part of firms and other organisations. This new mandate requires PIIs to upgrade their business models, moving beyond their traditional involvement in firms' technology upgrading and university-industry knowledge transfer, toward supporting the creation of new innovation systems around the emerging digital technologies. To understand how PIIs are reconfiguring their business models to support the digital transition, we study four cases of PIIs operating in the United Kingdom and France, whose mandates include providing support for firms and other organisations in the implementation of new digital technologies, focusing in particular on the Internet of Things (IoT). We show that, despite their differences, all four PIIs have substantially reconfigured their business models in similar ways in order to fulfil these mandates. Both the formal legitimacy arising from their policy mandate, and the knowledge resources and informal legitimacy they have developed, have played a decisive role in their ability to orchestrate the development of innovation systems around IoT.

The air quality standards defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), and updated in 2005, continue to be much more exigent than current EU legislation, namely regarding the most critical pollutants over Europe: ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). This work intends to evaluate the fulfilment of these WHO standards in the present and in the future, including climate change effects. This study will be focused on Portugal, where each year, the O3 and PM10 concentrations exceed the legislated limit values. For this, regional air quality simulations for present and future periods were conducted, with CAMx version 6.0, to investigate the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic emission projections on air quality over Portugal in 2050. The climate and emission projections for 2050 were derived from the Representative Concentrations Pathway 8.5 scenario. Modelling results show that, over Portugal, the WHO standards are already not being fulfilled and will continue to be surpassed in the future. When considering climate change and projected anthropogenic emissions and comparing them to the actual scenario, a reduction in the maximum 8-h daily O3 concentration is expected. For PM, the results indicate serious problems regarding the health impact expected for both long-term and short-term exposure. The annual averages for both PM10 and PM2.5 exceed the AQG over the country. The PM short-term exposure is already very high for current conditions and higher impacts are expected for future scenario, in particular regarding the PM10 values. This air quality degradation is caused by the warmer and dryer conditions and the increase of background concentrations of pollutants expected for the 2050 climate. The results evidence that human health protection will be even more critical in the future, particularly for particulate matter. Furthermore, urgent air quality management strategies need to be designed, with transboundary cooperation and implementation. ; The authors wish to thank the financial support of ...