In latest years, the possibility to exploit the high amount of spectral information has made hyperspectral remote sensing a very promising approach to detect changes occurred in multi-temporal images. Detection of changes in images of the same area collected at different times is of crucial interest in military and civilian applications, spanning from wide area surveillance and damage assessment to geology and land cover. In military operations, the interest is in rapid location and tracking of objects of interest, people, vehicles or equipment that pose a potential threat. In civilian contexts, changes of interest may include different types of natural or manmade threats, such as the path of an impending storm or the source of a hazardous material spill. In this PhD thesis, the focus is on Anomalous Change Detection (ACD) in airborne hyperspectral images. The goal is the detection of small changes occurred in two images of the same scene, i.e. changes having size comparable with the sensor ground resolution. The objects of interest typically occupy few pixels of the image and change detection must be accomplished in a pixel-wise fashion. Moreover, since the images are in general not radiometrically comparable, because illumination, atmospheric and environmental conditions change from one acquisition to the other, pervasive and uninteresting changes must be accounted for in developing ACD strategies. ACD process can be distinguished into two main phases: a pre-processing step, which includes radiometric correction, image co-registration and noise filtering, and a detection step, where the pre-processed images are compared according to a defined criterion in order to derive a statistical ACD map highlighting the anomalous changes occurred in the scene. In the literature, ACD has been widely investigated providing valuable methods in order to cope with these problems. In this work, a general overview of ACD methods is given reviewing the most known pre-processing and detection methods proposed in the literature. The analysis has been conducted unifying different techniques in a common framework based on binary decision theory, where one has to test the two competing hypotheses H0 (change absent) and H1 (change present) on the basis of an observation vector derived from the radiance measured on each pixel of the two images. Particular emphasis has been posed on statistical approaches, where ACD is derived in the framework of Neymann Pearson theory and the decision rule is carried out on the basis of the statistical properties assumed for the two hypotheses distribution, the observation vector space and the secondary data exploited for the estimation of the unknown parameters. Typically, ACD techniques assume that the observation represents the realization of jointly Gaussian spatially stationary random process. Though such assumption is adopted because of its mathematical tractability, it may be quite simplistic to model the multimodality usually met in real data. A more appropriate model is that adopted to derive the well known RX anomaly detector which assumes the local Gaussianity of the hyperspectral data. In this framework, a new statistical ACD method has been proposed considering the local Gaussianity of the hyperspectral data. The assumption of local stationarity for the observations in the two hypotheses is taken into account by considering two different models, leading to two different detectors. In addition, when data are collected by airborne platforms, perfect co-registration between images is very difficult to achieve. As a consequence, a residual misregistration (RMR) error should be taken into account in developing ACD techniques. Different techniques have been proposed to cope with the performance degradation problem due to the RMR, embedding the a priori knowledge on the statistical properties of the RMR in the change detection scheme. In this context, a new method has been proposed for the estimation of the first and second order statistics of the RMR. The technique is based on a sequential strategy that exploits the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm cascaded with the Minimum Covariance Determinant algorithm. The proposed method adapts the SIFT procedure to hyperspectral images and improves the robustness of the outliers filtering by means of a highly robust estimator of multivariate location. Then, the attention has been focused on noise filtering techniques aimed at enforcing the consistency of the ACD process. To this purpose, a new method has been proposed to mitigate the negative effects due to random noise. In particular, this is achieved by means of a band selection technique aimed at discarding spectral channels whose useful signal content is low compared with the noise contribution. Band selection is performed on a per-pixel basis by exploiting the estimates of the noise variance accounting also for the presence of the signal dependent noise component. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed techniques has been extensively evaluated by employing different real hyperspectral datasets containing anomalous changes collected in different acquisition conditions and on different scenarios, highlighting advantages and drawbacks of each method. In summary, the main issues related to ACD in multi-temporal hyperspectral images have been examined in this PhD thesis. With reference to the pre-processing step, two original contributions have been offered: i) an unsupervised technique for the estimation of the RMR noise affecting hyperspectral images, and ii) an adaptive approach for ACD which mitigates the negative effects due to random noise. As to the detection step, a survey of the existing techniques has been carried out, highlighting the major drawbacks and disadvantages, and a novel contribution has been offered by presenting a new statistical ACD method which considers the local Gaussianity of the hyperspectral data.
- The area of the GCC is bigger than West Europe. They are one of the major poles of international economy, especially in finance and banking domains. They are the most determining factor in the oil market, not only because of mass production, but also for the reason of their rich resources. - They are newly established countries. Their social-tribal structure and their cultural behavior are not fitting the modern governance. This contrast made and makes a lot of problems that will continue. Their location is one of the most strategic. - Their developments have more external origin than internal, especially from the Arab world: Arab nationalism and Nasserism, the 67 and 73 wars, the 1960's and 70's religious and political developments in Egypt, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the military intervention of US in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait occupation, 11/9, 2003 war, and Arab Spring. And also rise of oil prices, flowage of foreign manpower, vast presence of US military, and rapid modernization. - All these factors strongly affected their cultural and religious attitude. The most Islamic sacred places lie in this region. This reality along with desert and tribal culture caused different reactions since the late 70's. Al-Uteibi and al-Qaeda are good examples, but a large number of their population became extremists and they are now enjoying a great political and financial influence. Certainly, modern communications played a big role. This reality made a new situation in the Arab and Muslim world and even on the international scene. I tried to explain briefly all these developments, including the socio-political stability. It can be done through a clear comprehension of Islamic culture and civilization, Arab peculiarities and their experiences in the modern time, and history of the Arabian Peninsula.
The dissertation focuses on EU and international environmental law since the 1990s, with particular attention to the role played by the EU in curbing emissions through market-based measures like the EU ETS and in mediating among reluctant actors on an international level. The key controversial point of the dissertation is the inclusion of international civil aviation in the EU ETS, which raised several concerns on its conformity with international treaty and customary law. In order to facilitate negotiations within ICAO, the EU decided to reduce the scope of its directive to only intra-EEA flights. An agreement on an offset carbon scheme, called CORSIA, was reached in 2016. Finally, a brief overview of the evolution from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement is provided in order to understand the evolution of international climate change policy and the EU's role during negotiations, contributing to an innovative universal treaty tackling climate change.
Este libro muestra aportaciones obtenidas en el Encuentro Europeo de Jóvenes Investigadores, organizado en abril del 2005 en la Universidad de Alicante, en el cual se reunió a investigadores de diferentes disciplinas y distintos paises del ámbito europeo alrededor del tema: transformaciones sociales en el actual contexto de integración y ampliación de la UE, con especial énfasis en los procesos de la identidad, socialización y migraciones. ; El presente libro ha sido posible gracias a la Ayuda de Grupos I+D+I: "Obets", Ref. GRUPOS03/209; y al proyecto I+D 2004: "Competencia intercultural e integración de los residentes extranjeros europeos en la Comunidad Valenciana. Un análisis diagnóstico y prospectivo de los estereotipos económicos, sociales y políticos y su efecto sobre la inmigración como pull factor" Ref. CV04B-621; ambos financiados por Consellería de Empresa, Universidad y Ciencia, Generalitat Valenciana.
Este libro muestra aportaciones obtenidas en el Encuentro Europeo de Jóvenes Investigadores, organizado en abril del 2005 en la Universidad de Alicante, en el cual se reunió a investigadores de diferentes disciplinas y distintos paises del ámbito europeo alrededor del tema: transformaciones sociales en el actual contexto de integración y ampliación de la UE, con especial énfasis en los procesos de la identidad, socialización y migraciones. ; El presente libro ha sido posible gracias a la Ayuda de Grupos I+D+I: "Obets", Ref. GRUPOS03/209 y al proyecto I+D 2004: "Competencia intercultural e integración de los residentes extranjeros europeos en la Comunidad Valenciana. Un análisis diagnóstico y prospectivo de los estereotipos económicos, sociales y políticos y su efecto sobre la inmigración como pull factor" Ref. CV04B-621 ambos financiados por Consellería de Empresa, Universidad y Ciencia, Generalitat Valenciana.
La marginalità caratterizza anche l'Appennino settentrionale, tanto da stimolare politiche attive, sostenute da finanziamenti sovralocali, che intervengono per modificarne le condizioni socio-economiche e invertire la tendenza allo spopolamento e all'abbandono. Dopo l'introduzione, che definisce il tema e le strategie d'azione presenti nel dibattito nazionale e internazionale, la prima parte descrive due politiche volte a modificare le condizioni di marginalità e di decremento demografico (il programma europeo Leader e la Strategia nazionale per le aree interne, Snai). Segue una descrizione dell'area studio relativa al territorio collinare e montano di Piacenza e Parma, e la restituzione delle due policy per come sviluppate nell'esperienza locale del Gal del Ducato (Leader) e di Appennino smart (Snai). Riflessioni su temi e direzioni di cambiamento innescate chiudono il contributo. ; Marginality also characterizes the northern Apennines, to the point of stimulating active policies, supported by supra-local funding, which intervene to change their socio-economic conditions and reverse the trend towards depopulation and abandonment. After the introduction, which defines the theme and the action strategies discussed in the national and international debate, the first part describes two policies aimed at modifying the conditions of marginalization and demographic decrease (the European program Leader and the National strategy for inner areas). Then, it is presented a description of the study-area, the hilly and mountainous territory of Piacenza and Parma, and the analysis of the two policies as developed in the local experience of Ducato LAG (Leader) and Smart Apennine (Snai). The contribution ends with some reflections on themes and directions of change triggered by the programs.
La tesi è stata intitolata "Change the System From Within". La participatory democracy e le riforme istituzionali negli Stati Uniti degli anni Sessanta e si compone di cinque capitoli. Nel primo capitolo si riprende l'idea di participatory democracy emersa in seno alla New Left e ai movimenti sociali dei lunghi anni Sessanta. In questo contesto il concetto di participatory democracy assunse due principali accezioni: da una parte rappresentava la rivendicazione politica di un maggior coinvolgimento attivo della cittadinanza nelle politiche - locali, statali e federali - frutto della crisi di legittimità che la democrazia americana stava attraversando in quegli anni; dall'altra, il concetto venne adottato come principio organizzativo all'interno dei gruppi stessi di attivisti, con la funzione di prefigurare quelle riforme politico-istituzionali cui gli stessi militanti aspiravano. Dalla stessa temperie di contestazione sorse del resto anche la critica che alcuni studiosi mossero alla teoria liberale pluralista e alla sua esemplificazione nella coeva democrazia americana. Nel primo capitolo si mostra proprio come da quelle rielaborazioni critiche degli anni Sessanta emerse anche il primo modello di participatory democracy in seno alla teoria politica, sviluppato pienamente negli anni Settanta e Ottanta da Carole Pateman, Crawford B. Macpherson e Benjamin Barber. Questa parte del lavoro di tesi si propone quindi di accostare alle pratiche partecipative introdotte dai movimenti anche la ricostruzione dello sviluppo graduale di una teoria politica della participatory democracy. Tale riflessione è completata da un'analisi storica di ampio raggio, necessaria a meglio contestualizzare il fenomeno e ad includere le nuove richieste democratiche nell'ambito di una tradizione democratico-rappresentativa già dotata di istituti partecipativi di democrazia diretta. Chiarito il quadro storico-politico degli anni Sessanta, il secondo capitolo analizza la ricezione dell'idea di participatory democracy nelle politiche federali. A questo proposito si illustra come il principio di citizen participation fosse stato recepito già con la War on Poverty promossa da Lindon B. Johnson alla metà degli anni Sessanta e fu mantenuto, con esiti istituzionali differenti, almeno fino alla fine della presidenza Carter. Si dimostra inoltre che, malgrado il dettato legislativo federale fosse spesso approssimativo sulle modalità operative, quel principio ebbe in realtà un notevole impatto sulle relazioni intergovernative. Tale principio favorì ad esempio l'intraprendenza di molti amministratori locali nel promuovere il decentramento amministrativo e politico su base di quartiere. Nel terzo capitolo l'analisi affronta le principali trasformazioni in senso partecipativo avvenute nei sistemi di governo statali e locali negli anni Settanta, mettendole in relazione anche alle dinamiche intergovernative di più lungo periodo. Il capitolo è strutturato in modo tale da evidenziare il tendenziale recupero e rafforzamento di istituti già esistenti, come l'initiative, i public hearing e gli school district come strumenti di rivendicazione del community control in alcune città di grandi dimensioni. Mentre il secondo e terzo capitolo tendono a osservare le riforme istituzionali degli anni Settanta in senso partecipativo in seno al governo federale, statale e locale, i due successivi capitoli mirano ad osservare l'impatto della participatory democracy nel confronto tra attivismo militante e pratiche amministrative tradizionali degli anni Settanta. Il quarto capitolo è infatti dedicato all'ingresso della nuova generazione di politici progressisti nelle amministrazioni locali e statali fra la fine degli anni Sessanta e la prima metà degli anni Settanta. Per analizzarlo si è deciso di analizzare come principale caso di studio la Conference on Alternative State and Local Policy (CASLP), una organizzazione e forum nazionale che mirava proprio ad unire alle istanze dei progressisti una expertise di governo. Nell'ambito della CASLP, la cosiddetta Coalizione progressista di Berkeley, CA, fornì un caso esemplare di strategia di confronto con le istituzioni locali e per questo il capitolo le dedica una attenta disanima. La pluriennale esperienza di azione collettiva dei progressisti di Berkeley nell'arena istituzionale è infatti rilevante sia per l'innovazione nella strategia istituzionale, sia per attestare una evoluzione dell'idea di participatory democracy nel tempo. Il quinto capitolo ricostruisce ed analizza la carriera politica di Tom Hayden negli anni in cui passò dall'attivismo alla politica istituzionale, con la campagna elettorale per diventare Senatore della California in Congresso (1975-1976) e la successiva Campaign for Economic Democracy (1976-1982), confermando la spiccata propensione del leader all'innovazione istituzionale in senso partecipativo. In particolare, nella campagna elettorale per il Senato del Congresso del 1976 Hayden riuscì a implementare forme di decision-making partecipato in seno allo staff. Nella gestione del personale cercò inoltre di favorire l'empowerment di volontari e cittadini senza perdere di vista i requisiti essenziali per la sopravvivenza della campagna: fundraising e propaganda. In linea con la sua battaglia contro le distorsioni economiche del big business, scelse di non accettare fondi da corporation e banche e riuscì nell'intento di essere sostenuto per gran parte da small donors. Hayden dunque introdusse pratiche di participatory democracy in seno alla campagna elettorale e continuò a rivendicare la sua fiducia nella forza dei movimenti grass-roots. L'analisi storica, ad ogni modo, evidenzia anche le criticità che derivavano dall'uso di pratiche partecipative nella governance della campagna elettorale. Atttraverso l'analisi teorica e politico-istituzionale della democrazia partecipativa americana fra gli anni Sessanta e Settanta su vari livelli istituzionali (federale, statale e locale), questo progetto di ricerca tenta quindi di colmare un vuoto storiografico e, al tempo stesso intende contribuire alla definizione storico-istituzionale della participatory democracy in seno alla democrazia rappresentativa degli Stati Uniti. Infine, la presente ricerca mira a inserirsi nel dibattito pubblico contemporaneo sulla participatory democracy, offrendo una visione storico-istituzionale importante per meglio comprendere il fenomeno e che, finora, non ha ricevuto l'attenzione che meriterebbe. ; Chapter 1 retrieves the idea of participatory democracy stemmed from the Long 1960s New Left and the following social movements. Indeed, the concept of participatory democracy mainly acquired two slightly different shapes in that historical framework. From one hand, it meant the broad political call for common citizens' greater involvement in the policy-making - at the local, state and federal level. That request was in fact a reply to the ongoing crisis of the American democracy, in terms of political legitimacy and social representation of minorities and poor people. In the other hand, participatory democracy represented the organizing principle adopted by most of the grass-roots groups of that period, with a clear prefigurative function. Indeed, making the activist groups' inner decision-making participatory was a way for the collectives to anticipate the institutional changes they aspired to. In the meantime, because of the same disaffection against the raising social and political inequalities, some political science scholars elaborated a critique to the pluralist version of the liberal democracy - then the most praised one, as well as credited as it was embodied in the American democracy. Those 1960s critiques were eventually used to conceive the first political theory of participatory democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, as Chapter 1 shows. The participatory democracy's canon was in fact mostly developed by Carole Pateman, Crawford B. Macpherson and Benjamin Barber. Beside the intellectual history of participatory democracy from 1960s to 1980s, Chapter 1 allows to contextualize ideas and practices of common citizens' participation into the wider history of the American Political Development. According to that, chapter 1 also provides a detailed analysis of the participatory political institutions that were traditionally part of the United States representative democracy. Chapter 2 verifies whether the 1960s idea of participatory democracy actually affected the federal public policies of the late 1960s and 1970s. Indeed the principle of "citizen participation" was introduced in some of the War on Poverty legislations, promoted by Lyndon B. Johnson since the mid-1960s. Although the heterogeneous institutional effects, that principle was maintained in some grant-in-aid projects until the end of the Carter administration, through the Nixon and Ford administrations. Therefore, the political meanings assumed by the idea of "citizen participation" and its institutional consequences from 1964 to 1980 are carefully analyzed in chapter 2. Moreover, chapter 2 shows that the principle of citizen participation had such a strong impact on the intergovernmental relations. It thus brought forward, for instance, the local public officers' entrepreneurship towards the local devolution, shifting the administrative and political power base from the center to the neighborhood. Chapter 3 deals with the 1970s main institutional reforms aimed at introducing the common citizens' participation in the government decision-making at the state and local levels. Those reforms are deeply related to some long-lasting intergovernmental dynamics and this relationship is also argued. The same chapter's lay-out is vowed to underline the 1970s general trend of retrieval and enhancing of traditional institutions, such as the initiative (direct democracy), the public hearings and the school districts. The school board was indeed reevaluated and reshaped as a means of community control in the biggest cities. As chapters 2 and 3 aim at exploring the implementation of participatory reforms in the federal, state and local level of government, chapters 4 and 5 aim at inquiring the participatory democracy's impact on the 1970s boundary of polity - the space where activism meets political institutions. Chapter 4 inquires the new generations of progressive politicians entering the local and state administrations from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. To frame that national phenomenon, the historical analysis use the Conference of Alternative States and Local Policies (CASLP) as a case study. CASLP was indeed a national organization born in 1975 to give voice to the progressive public officers around the country and allowed them sharing their government experiences for a more effective institutional impact. Inside CASLP, the progressive coalition of Berkeley, CA (called Berkeley Citizens' Action, BCA) was especially spotted for its exemplary strategy to confront local political institutions. The 1970s BCA's political actions are thus specifically analyzed. In fact, the institutional approach of the Berkeley progressive coalition resulted to be innovative in terms of strategy as well as successful in introducing new forms of participatory democracy into the local government, assessing the 1970s evolution of the participatory democracy political theory and practices. Chapter 5 retraces the political career of the former New Left leader Tom Hayden during the years of turning from activism to institutional politics. Especially, the analysis focuses on the 1975-1976 U.S. Senate Campaign and the following Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), a coalition project and organization led by Hayden with the goal of mobilizing activists and public officers around the issues of economic justice, environmental and economic public policies (1976-1982). That period - just before Hayden was elected representative at the California Legislature in 1982 - is thus analyzed as a testing ground to verify his long-lasting commitment towards participatory democracy. The historical and political analysis, based on original archival findings, confirms Hayden's inclination for institutional innovation in the participatory realm. In particular, during the 1975-1976 electoral campaign for the U.S. Senate in California Hayden introduced participatory forms of decision-making involving staff people, volunteers and supporting grass-roots groups. Moreover, that campaign's staff and people management was conceived in order to directly empower citizens and volunteers, without losing track of the campaigning basic requirements (e. g. fundraising and propaganda). As he stood against big business and economic inequalities, he chose to reject fundings from corporations and banks. Therefore his electoral campaign was mostly sustained by small donors. Hayden successfully made the campaigning more open, accountable and participatory and kept on sponsoring his trust in community organizing and grass-roots social movements even in his following political endeavour, CED. Eventually, the investigation casts lights on the strengths, as well as the critical issues, produced by the Hayden's participatory governance of campaigning. By the means of analysing the intellectual history and the institutional implementation of participatory democracy during late 1960s-1970s United States, this research project firstly aims at making up the lack of historiography about the topic. In the second stance, grounding the institutional and political history of participatory democracy in the United States representative democracy - where the concept was born - this research project intends to provide a first genealogy of the participatory democracy's institutional implementation. In this sense, the research projects wants also to contribute to the contemporary debate on the participatory democracy. It is indeed a compelling and popular issue in many worldwide political arenas, but it is still rarely defined by its historical and institutional terms.
Policy change is an issue ranking high in many governmental and academic agendas, especially in the old common Europe. Face to the problems of economic growth that since the 1970s affect many countries, policy change is expected to maintain, if not to improve, citizens' affluence and the availability of resources for enforcing social equity, however defined. Especially after Hall's seminal work, this implies to focus on the change of the paradigm that lies beyond public policies: Namely, as the relevant paradigms for growth‐oriented policies are economic, on the shift from demand‐sided to supply‐sided frameworks of reference. The analysis is supposed to highlight the role that different modes of accounting and evaluation play in stabilizing the paradigm shift: as a (more or less) meaningful discipline of whose players' behavior, and/or as a different arena where stakeholders, policy‐takers, administrative bodies and maybe executive bodies can clear their preferences up, align their framing, and finetune the implementation design to make it viable without losing the nature of change –i.e. fixing framing conflicts by argument and evidences, and allowing policy actors learning. The results could then link the research to the questions raised by detractors of the neoliberal paradigm when accusing it for harming democracy because of the narrower range of options it leaves to voters. This contribution could support the thesis for which the order that results from the paradigm shift is instead 'differently democratic', as it recognizes the need for a reauthorization of policy changes to come from the actors in the administrative field, in order to balance and refine the amorphous consent expressed by vote without reversing it. This would mean a different way for citizens to play political rights–not just as voters but also as those with a stake in the concrete way a "public" good is (poorly) produced and delivered here and now– and to deal with social conflict, in this way dispersed and at the same time attached to the concrete problem.
Contemporary city is mainly designed and managed in order to meet drivers' needs (and those of their vehicles!). (Alagia, Chiusaroli 2000; Viale 2007; Ward 1978) And since there is an unsolvable conflict between drivers' and pedestrians' needs (and cyclists, skaters, runners, . needs too), we can say that contemporary city is not capable of ensuring the right of pedestrians (and cyclists) to safely and freely walk (and to safely and freely cycle). (Illich 2006; Labbucci 2011; Viale 2007) Urban traffic congestion has a number of negative effects: road accidents, air pollution, noise pollution, time wastage, privatization of public spaces, limitation of the right of pedestrians (and cyclists) to walk (and to cycle). All these negative effects cause a significant reduction of everyday quality of life for everyone: both people who use car and people who cannot or does not want to. (Alagia, Chiusaroli 2000; Viale 2007) Urban planning has to guarantee the right to actually "use" the city for every and each individual, including pedestrians (and cyclists). To achieve this goal it is necessary to make policies aimed at reducing the overall number of cars. The engagement of people (voluntary, aware and responsible) is essential to make these policies work. Therefore, urban planning has to deal with this issue: how can social learning be effectively enhanced to promote a cultural change in mobility behaviour? Until now, urban planning has mainly referred to reasons of environmental sustainability. (Viale 2007) Results are not satisfactory. Most Italian cities are still hostile to pedestrians (and cyclists), especially to the most vulnerable groups: children, elderly people, disabled people, etc. Perhaps, reasons of environmental sustainability are not much effective because of their individualistic nature and since they refer especially to long term effects of actions. (Elster 1993; Illich 2006; Viale 2007) Urban planning probably should concentrate more on reasons of the right to the city. There are people who choose to be pedestrians (or cyclists) for reasons of the right to the city: they walk (or cycle) to interfere with established urban design and management, in order to claim their right to "use" the city. Their main goal is to free the streets and the public spaces from cars and to bring them back to pedestrians (and cyclists). People who promote and participate in collective initiatives like Critical Mass, Walking School Bus, Parking Day, etc. can be considered part of this category. In this paper, we will try to explain why and how referring to assumptions and characteristics of these collective initiatives of re-conquest of the streets and the spaces of the city (public on paper, but private de facto) can be useful to make more effective policies aimed at building walkable (and cyclable) cities. ; La città contemporanea è disegnata e organizzata prevalentemente per soddisfare le esigenze di chi si sposta utilizzando l'automobile, è una città a misura di automobilista. Di conseguenza, chi non vuole o (più spesso) non può usare l'automobile per effettuare i propri spostamenti vede negarsi quotidianamente la possibilità di esercitare pienamente il proprio diritto fondamentale di muoversi liberamente, autonomamente e in sicurezza e la possibilità di "usare" gli spazi della città sottratti dalle automobili all'uso pubblico e collettivo. Compito dell'urbanistica è definire e attuare progetti e politiche di promozione del diritto di mobilità e del diritto alla città per tutti e ciascuno. Progetti e politiche che devono necessariamente prevedere una riduzione del numero complessivo di automobili circolanti. Per ottenere questo importante ma difficile risultato è necessario attivare la collaborazione volontaria, consapevole e responsabile degli abitanti. L'urbanistica deve dunque porsi il problema di come attivare l'apprendimento sociale in grado di determinare un vero e proprio cambiamento culturale in materia di mobilità. In questo articolo proveremo a spiegare perché e come può essere utile fare riferimento ai presupposti e alle modalità d'azione di quell'insieme di iniziative collettive, spesso giocose, di riappropriazione, "liberazione", occupazione degli spazi e delle strade della città che, pur essendo pubblici sulla carta, sono di fatto privatizzati, perché ad uso pressoché esclusivo dalle automobili: Critical Mass, Piedibus, Parking Day, ecc.
Contemporary city is mainly designed and managed in order to meet drivers' needs (and those of their vehicles!). (Alagia, Chiusaroli 2000; Viale 2007; Ward 1978) And since there is an unsolvable conflict between drivers' and pedestrians' needs (and cyclists, skaters, runners, . needs too), we can say that contemporary city is not capable of ensuring the right of pedestrians (and cyclists) to safely and freely walk (and to safely and freely cycle). (Illich 2006; Labbucci 2011; Viale 2007) Urban traffic congestion has a number of negative effects: road accidents, air pollution, noise pollution, time wastage, privatization of public spaces, limitation of the right of pedestrians (and cyclists) to walk (and to cycle). All these negative effects cause a significant reduction of everyday quality of life for everyone: both people who use car and people who cannot or does not want to. (Alagia, Chiusaroli 2000; Viale 2007) Urban planning has to guarantee the right to actually "use" the city for every and each individual, including pedestrians (and cyclists). To achieve this goal it is necessary to make policies aimed at reducing the overall number of cars. The engagement of people (voluntary, aware and responsible) is essential to make these policies work. Therefore, urban planning has to deal with this issue: how can social learning be effectively enhanced to promote a cultural change in mobility behaviour? Until now, urban planning has mainly referred to reasons of environmental sustainability. (Viale 2007) Results are not satisfactory. Most Italian cities are still hostile to pedestrians (and cyclists), especially to the most vulnerable groups: children, elderly people, disabled people, etc. Perhaps, reasons of environmental sustainability are not much effective because of their individualistic nature and since they refer especially to long term effects of actions. (Elster 1993; Illich 2006; Viale 2007) Urban planning probably should concentrate more on reasons of the right to the city. There are people who choose to be pedestrians (or cyclists) for reasons of the right to the city: they walk (or cycle) to interfere with established urban design and management, in order to claim their right to "use" the city. Their main goal is to free the streets and the public spaces from cars and to bring them back to pedestrians (and cyclists). People who promote and participate in collective initiatives like Critical Mass, Walking School Bus, Parking Day, etc. can be considered part of this category. In this paper, we will try to explain why and how referring to assumptions and characteristics of these collective initiatives of re-conquest of the streets and the spaces of the city (public on paper, but private de facto) can be useful to make more effective policies aimed at building walkable (and cyclable) cities. ; La città contemporanea è disegnata e organizzata prevalentemente per soddisfare le esigenze di chi si sposta utilizzando l'automobile, è una città a misura di automobilista. Di conseguenza, chi non vuole o (più spesso) non può usare l'automobile per effettuare i propri spostamenti vede negarsi quotidianamente la possibilità di esercitare pienamente il proprio diritto fondamentale di muoversi liberamente, autonomamente e in sicurezza e la possibilità di "usare" gli spazi della città sottratti dalle automobili all'uso pubblico e collettivo. Compito dell'urbanistica è definire e attuare progetti e politiche di promozione del diritto di mobilità e del diritto alla città per tutti e ciascuno. Progetti e politiche che devono necessariamente prevedere una riduzione del numero complessivo di automobili circolanti. Per ottenere questo importante ma difficile risultato è necessario attivare la collaborazione volontaria, consapevole e responsabile degli abitanti. L'urbanistica deve dunque porsi il problema di come attivare l'apprendimento sociale in grado di determinare un vero e proprio cambiamento culturale in materia di mobilità. In questo articolo proveremo a spiegare perché e come può essere utile fare riferimento ai presupposti e alle modalità d'azione di quell'insieme di iniziative collettive, spesso giocose, di riappropriazione, "liberazione", occupazione degli spazi e delle strade della città che, pur essendo pubblici sulla carta, sono di fatto privatizzati, perché ad uso pressoché esclusivo dalle automobili: Critical Mass, Piedibus, Parking Day, ecc.
Future economic growth and social progress in knowledge societies rely increasingly on innovation. Innovation require skill sets such as technical skills, thinking and creativity skills, as well as social and behavioural skills. A blind spot is, figuratively speaking, the inability to recognize a fact or to think clearly about a particular subject, mainly because of prejudice. The blind spot in the innovation of the education and training system lies between the aspiration to "make" a difference and the "prejudice" towards this ambitious goal. In the last 20 years, in fact, despite the fact that an evaluation system has been implemented in practice as well as in the norms, the main stakeholders have shown an attitude of aversion and opposition both to some provisions of the legislation and to the use of the assessment results made by the school administration. The lack of engagement in the innovation process is mainly due to the perception of the different conditions of the school system, which suffers from large structural inequalities and resources, a condition that reduces its possibility of being equal rather than quality-oriented. What to do then? It is important that the different stakeholders understand each other's opinions, expectations, prerogatives, principles and values that underpin the innovation (or innovations) and above all that the activities car-ried out are actually aimed primarily at the progress of student maturity and school progress, i.e. ensuring the specific needs of the main stakeholders in addition to the demands for innovation from the labor market. ; La crescita economica futura e il progresso sociale nelle società della conoscenza dipendono sempre più dall'innovazione. Questa richiede un insieme di abilità tecniche, capacità di pensiero e creatività, nonché abilità sociali e comportamentali. Un angolo cieco rappresenta, figurativamente, l'incapacità di riconoscere un fatto o pensare chiaramente a un determinato argomento, soprattutto a causa di un pregiudizio. Il punto cieco del ...
The book edited by Katrina Hutchison e Fiona Jenkins, Women in Philosophy. What Needs to Change? (2013), aims at examining the following questions: why there are few women philosophers and what are the causes of this gender disparity in philosophy? Are there reasons, beyond those strictly ethical and political, for promoting women's participation in philosophy? To answer these questions, the articles collected in the book show how gender gap is linked to some philosophical and methodological practices that make this discipline particularly inhospitable to women. ; Il libro curato da Katrina Hutchison e Fiona Jenkins, Women in Philosophy. What Needs to Change? (2013), si propone di esaminare le seguenti questioni: perché ci sono poche donne filosofe e quale è la causa della scarsa presenza femminile nei dipartimenti di filosofia? Vi sono delle ragioni, oltre a quelle strettamente etiche e politiche, per promuovere una maggiore partecipazione femminile in filosofia? Per dare una risposta a queste domande, gli articoli raccolti nel volume mostrano come il gender gap sia connesso a certe pratiche e a metodologie filosofiche che rendono questo settore del sapere particolarmente inospitale alle donne.
In the last few years, unprecedented challenges and new social risks are testing the capacity of welfare policies implemented by many European countries to provide responses to emerging needs. The general economical and social crisis brings to the unyielding need for a recalibration mechanism between long-term care policies and public spending, as well as the recovery of different and new parameters of efficiency, sustainability and inclusion of interventions and welfare benefits. In recent years, the experiences of new care technologies based on ICTs have become increasingly widespread throughout Europe. Indeed, many studies document that the sustainability of the welfare services also goes through the promotion and implementation of specific technological devices and tools (which fall within the so called new care technologies – NCTs – or welfare technology – WT –) in the healthcare field. The aim of the research is to investigate the field of the wefare technology, studying in particular the changes at institutional level, including services' organization through the experiences in the norwegian municipality of Grimstad.
The purpose of the present work is to widen the debate and encourage future research about the contribution that companies can make to alleviate social problems that have never been as pressing as today. This is the essence of Creating Shared Value (CSV), a new and ground-breaking concept coined by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer (2011) who sparked a global movement to redefine the role of business in society around a simple but powerful idea: business success and social progress are interdependent. My research has been divided into three chapters. The first one is about a brief literature review about the long and diverse history of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the primordial notion from which CSV started, going through the major contributors who have progressively drawn companies' attention to their moral duty to society. However, CSR falls foul of an intrinsic philanthropic motif that is conventionally at odds with the generation of profit or any financial gain. Therefore, in order to overcome this strong criticism, CSV is presented as a new and flawless approach overcoming all the various limitations of CSR, in which finally social issues represent new business opportunities, not as costly problems to solve. The second chapter is entirely dedicated to the Novartis case study to describe a practical application of the CSV model within a large corporation. Specifically, I analyse the project that Novartis embarked upon, called Arogya Parivar, a social program that offers effective, low-cost medications against infectious and chronic diseases that are prevalent in rural India. By the means of some strategic tools like the Pestle analysis, it might result quite arguable to embark upon an initiative like the one at consideration, as it targets a market that is going through a critical economic juncture and that is affected by political instability. However, it turns out to be a very strategic move when it comes to 'democratizing healthcare' at a profit, an objective that could significantly contribute to the prosperity of that social context and simultaneously lead the entire company to obtain a sustained competitive advantage. In the light of this, Novartis is presented as a starling example of a business implementing a CSV strategy that has been successfully co-creating sustainable financial and social value in India. In the end, I conclude with a forward-looking vision on the future of businesses, which to me is based on the democratization of commerce through an 'inclusive capitalism' that makes sure that globalization will benefit all. There is an incredible value lying right at 'the bottom of the pyramid', which requires though a paradigm shift in the thinking process of the private sector: the poor need no longer to be seen as an intractable problem of capitalism, but as a viable market, a source of innovation and significant market capitalization. In this view, Creating Shared Value represents the only opportunity to bring on the same track the success of a business and the welfare of the community. A company is a such a systemic entity in the context in which it takes action that pursuing adversarial objectives is something that does not benefit any of the parts involved. The business world does not only represent a source of labour supply or of provision of products and services, but also the fundamental engine for innovation and economic development that will unleash an enormous wave of growth for the entire planet.
The invasion of Ukraine will change the economic and political scenarios. Together with the sanctions, it will accelerate the 'de-globalization' process already triggered by the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. In this paper, we analyze the effects that economic sanctions will have, in particular, on the international monetary system. In recent years, the dominance of the dollar as the default international currency has weakened albeit slowly. However, in the new scenario, alternative systems to SWIFT (particularly the Chinese one) will receive a strong boost as will the use of payments in currencies other than the dollar. As has already happened in other historical periods, the change in the dominant international currency is linked to epochal events and to a change in the technological paradigm: the war and the development of a digital currency in China and then in other countries could form the basis of this turning point. ; L'invasione dell'Ucraina cambierà profondamente gli scenari economici e politici. Assieme alle sanzioni, accelererà il processo di 'de-globalizzazione' innescato dalla crisi finanziaria del 2008 e dalla pandemia. In questo lavoro analizziamo gli effetti che le sanzioni avranno su questi processi, in particolare sul sistema monetario internazionale. Negli ultimi anni il dominio del dollaro come valuta dei pagamenti internazionali è declinato ma lentamente, e i tentativi soprattutto della Cina e della Russia di emarginarlo non hanno avuto grande successo. Tuttavia, nel nuovo scenario i sistemi alternativi a SWIFT, particolarmente quello cinese, riceveranno un forte impulso così come l'utilizzo di pagamenti in valute diverse dal dollaro. Come già successo in altre epoche storiche, il cambiamento della valuta di riferimento degli scambi internazionali è legato a eventi epocali e a un cambio di paradigma tecnologico: la guerra e la valuta digitale cinese e poi di altri paesi potrebbero costituire le basi di questa svolta.
