The article goes through the critical analysis of the rawlsian concept of origi- nal position, expressed by Habermas in 1995. Habermasian remarks on the original posi- tion aims to undermine the justifiability of such a concept as fundamental to the whole political theory. In fact, it is supposed to substitute the procedures of democratic de- liberation with a well thought-out construction belonging uniquely to the theoretician. According to Habermas, substantive outcomes of procedures must be left out from po- litical theory, whose task is to set a standard for the best possible procedures, meaning a democratic framework in which all opinions and beliefs take part to the decision. Rawls approves the critique since from his point of view, no procedure is able to avoid the in- clusion of some substantive contents. On such assumption he twists to habermasian the- ory the same remarks, observing that it avoids substantive assumptions at political level, embodying them at the epistemic one. As a result, the article raises some issues about the desirability and feasibility of both theories, even considering which interpretation of the role of political philosophy they imply.
In the wake of Brexit and the mounting Eurosceptiscism in mainstream political culture, the prospect of "Italexit" no longer appears unthinkable. It is therefore due time for legal scholars to discuss its feasibility and its possible legal regime. From a legal standpoint, the prospect of leaving the EU or the Euro raises several problems that the Brexit precedent helps to address only to a limited extent. With regard to the most radical form of exit, i.e. withdrawal from the Union, whether and how a Member State may decide to leave is a matter left to the domestic law of the Member State concerned. Based on this premise, the article inquires whether the Italian Constitution would allow withdrawal from the EU and what procedure would have to be followed in order to take such decision. After discussing the legal regime of withdrawal in the light of domestic constitutional law of and the EU Treaties, the last part of the article turns to the question of whether a less comprehensive form of "Italexit", i.e. withdrawal from the Euro, would be admissible.
The research aspires to realize the first monographic study of political and administrative activity of the Earl Vittorio Lodovico d'Hallot Des Hayes, Viceroy of Savoy in Sardinia from 1767 to 1771. This was the crucial moment in the policy of reformation for the Island, starting with Gian Battista Lorenzo Bogino, the Minister for Sardinian Affairs (1759-1773), intent upon increasing bureaucracy on the Island and realizing an administrative centralization. Reconstructing the political activity of Des Hayes allows the controversial studies of this reform politics of the Savoy household to be revised. This required new investigation of the documents regarding these years, correspondence, reports and essays, to realize an efficient wider framework. Des Hayes participated in debates in Cagliari and Turin about reform projects for the Island, disclosing their real efficiency, the modality of their application, and also class involvement, namely nobility and clergy (diocesan and regular) and their feelings about this. First of all, analysis of discussions within the councils reveals that Cagliari was less marginal than what has often considered by historians: Sardinian bureaucrats took an active part in these open discussions, suggesting many concrete and solid state interventions to face political, administrative, economic, feudal, ecclesiastical and cultural problems. Secondly, it results that the viceroy pursued a clear intent of reformation, but with extreme prudence. He found it essential to reconstitute warily, not upset drastically. Therefore, his approach was pragmatic: every reform had to be based on field work, the only way to remove preconceptions and to avoid intervention resulting from rash determination. For this reason, Des Hayes seem to be viceroy who had political freedom, supporting or declining the proposals developed in Cagliari and in Turin after an accurate analysis of their feasibility.
This paper examines Steiner's theory of the 'threefold social order', with the aim of evaluating its relevance and feasibility today. After describing Steiner's attitude and positions towards the economic, political and cultural problems of European society in his time, the analysis focuses on his proposals for the reorganization of the respective sectors, with an interpretative effort aimed at grasping his lines of argumentation. The system proposed by Steiner es-sentially provides for autonomous management of the economic, politicallegal and school sectors. His proposals highlight the benefits that would derive from such a new social order. Greater effectiveness of the education system, safeguarding the dignity of the worker, and promoting individual capabilities are some of the advantages that he claims would derive from this new structure. Finally, the study attempts to make an overall assessment of the theses defended by Steiner in relation to our current era, although with an awareness that the debate remains open. ; Il presente lavoro di ricerca prende in esame la teoria steineriana della triar-ticolazione dell'organismo sociale con l'intento di valutarne attualità e realizzabilità. Dopo uno sguardo all'atteggiamento assunto da Rudolf Steiner di fronte ai problemi economici, politici e culturali della società europea a lui contemporanea e alle sue prese di posizione, l'analisi si sofferma sulle sue proposte di riorganizzazione dei rispettivi settori, con uno sforzo interpretativo volto a coglierne i termini esatti. Il sistema proposto da Steiner prevede sostanzialmente una gestione autonoma del settore economico, di quello politico-giuridico e di quello scolastico, e nel far questo mette in risalto i benefici che deriverebbero da un simile nuovo assetto sociale. Maggiore efficacia del sistema di istruzione, salvaguardia della dignità del lavoratore, valorizzazione delle attitudini individuali sono alcuni dei vantaggi che deriverebbero da quel nuovo assetto. L'indagine svolta tenta infine di fare un ...
[EN] Massafra Castle's restoration project aims to preserve and enhance the monument, redeeming it from the current state of partial abandonment, with the scope to return it to the community. First, an in-depth study of an historical research was carried out together with the analysis of the monument' superficial and structural degradation to identify the adequate remedies. It was clear that "restoring only the stones" would have not been efficient and therefore finding a new purpose was necessary and essential. Finding a new scope for those kinds of architectures is a matter of great interest, because more than any other type of monuments, those are completely out of their historical context that gave them political, military and economic reason to be built. Therefore, following a sociological investigation, it emerged that the best solution would be create a connection between Massafra and cinematography: there are many cultural organizations in this area and most of them need more dedicated space. Massafra has already been chosen several times as a movie set by famous authors: Il Vangelo secondo Matteo by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Il Paese delle spose infelici by Pippo Mezzapesa and Amiche da morire by Giorgia Farina. This is how the MOVIE (Massafra Omni Vision between Innovation and Cultural Heritage) idea was born, a 360° cinema setting which is unique at a national level and that it would become part of larger cinematographic circuit already flourishing in the Apulia region. The project's feasibility was then evaluated from a logistic-economic point of view. Furthermore, given the Castle's location, the project proposes the reopening of ancient paths that connect the monument to the historical town centre and to the Ravine. The project also supports the restoration of rock settlements with its cave houses (currently completely collapsed) that surround the castle's foundation to divulge hospitality ; De Gennaro, T.; De Leo, D. (2020). Il restauro del castello di Massafra (TA). Editorial Universitat Politècnica ...
In recent years the need to reduce global energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the environment, has been involved even in the railways sector, aimed at the highly competitive concept of new vehicles/transportation systems. The requirements hoped by the operating companies, particularly as concerns tramway and metro-train systems, are increasingly focused on products with so far advanced features in terms of energy and environmental impact. In order to accomplish this possible scenario, this could be put into effects in technological subsystems and critical components, which are able to fulfill not only functional and performance requirements, but also regarding the new canons of energy saving. On the other hand, the regional and national energetic political strategies impose a continuous effort in the eco-sustainability and energy saving direction both for the vehicles and for the infrastructure management. In this scenario, the thesis aims to fill the gap in the technical literature and deals with improving the energy efficiency of urban rail transport systems by proposing both design methodologies and effective control strategies for supercapacitor-based energy storage systems, to be installed on-board urban rail vehicles or along the rail track. Firstly, a deep, rigorous and comprehensive study on the factors which affect energy issues in a DC-electrified urban transit railway system is carried out. Then a widespread overview of the currently available strategies and technologies for recovery and management of braking energy in urban rail is presented, also by providing an assessment of their main advantages and disadvantages alongside a list of the most relevant scientific studies and well established commercial solutions. Afterwards, some effective control strategies for the optimal energy management of the supercapacitor-based energy storage system have been studied. Extensive simulations have been performed with the aim of validating the proposed techniques by employing a methodology which is based on tests carried out by means of scale models of the real systems. A wide range of experimental tests has been developed and carried out on a laboratory-scale simulator for a typical urban service railway vehicle, in order to fully confirm the theoretical performances, validity, and feasibility of the studied controls, and quantify the technical and economic advantages obtained in terms of global energy saving, voltage regulation, power compensation and infrastructure power loss reduction. The overall goal of this study is to gain an understanding of the methods and approaches for assessing the use of supercapacitor storage systems in urban rail transit oriented to the optimization of the energy saving and the reduction of the vehicle energy consumption, for whatever technological solutions are adopted.
Before considering the new concepts in cataloguing which are likely to govern bibliographic control in the future, it is important to look back at the way in which the migration of the card catalogue to a networked environment has affected the organization of libraries. In many ways, the implementation of the National Library Service (SBN) has played a decisive role in "the slow and painstaking process of standardising the catalogues, with respect to cataloguing rules and record formats", which is among the main concerns of the Italian library authorities and therefore marked as one of the objectives of a national action plan as early as 1959. The production of the tapes containing the National Bibliography records in 1975 is the first episode of some importance in the history of library automation in Italy. Used for the photomechanical processing of the bibliography in its printed version, those tapes provided data in machine readable form which could be exchanged within the framework of the Universal Bibliographic Control programme strongly endorsed by IFLA. These records were given the ANNAMARC format structure, a local variant of the MARC format in use at the Library of Congress at the time. It was Maltese who recommended the adoption of MARC on the assumption that this would facilitate the integration of the Italian agency in the international bibliographic circuit. For several years only a few libraries, if any, could benefit from the availability of the national bibliography records. Copy cataloguing was in fact not a traditional procedure in Italian libraries the way it had been since the beginning of the 20th century in North-American libraries. The success of bibliographic utilities such as OCLC, RLG, WLN and UTLAS as well as the adoption of MARC and AACR2 as standards can easily be explained with the practice of importing the records produced at the Library of Congress into the various local catalogues. Most Italian developed cataloguing systems, instead, did not even include an import-export module, making it therefore impossible for Italian librarians to consider copy cataloguing as a promising, cost-effective option. Technology is not the only explanation for such a scarcity of cooperative efforts. Other factors include the non existence of library schools and the absence of an overall coordination policy at a national level. The first task to be undertaken by the National Library Service was therefore of an educational nature: the systematic training of librarians towards the use of standard cataloguing criteria. This required the adoption of a closed, centralised architecture, which replaced the distributed model initially envisaged by Vinay and Boisset. In joining the network each library or group of libraries added its existing records to the union catalogue through successive migrations of data. As a consequence of such a process, the quality of the records became rather uneven, forcing the national library as a routine to merge the duplicates and clean up the indexes. Most important, the project led to the creation of a database consisting of over 4.5 million records, contributed day by day by a thousand libraries of all shapes and sizes. The sense of cooperation, resulting in a general refinement of the acquisitions strategies as well as in the improvement of the exploitation of existing bibliographic resources, is particularly important in view of the development of the Italian digital library, as was emphasized during the 3rd National conference of libraries held at Padua last February. Descriptive cataloguing should become a minor concern for libraries as a consequence of the improved coverage offered by the various bibliographic utilities, in conjunction with the increasing number of digital documents. This has nothing to do with the idea that digital entities will catalogue themselves and that cataloguing standards are becoming unimportant since they do not apply to web sites and the rest. Such views, according to Gorman, are "not only wrong but also noxious because, though masquerading as progressive, they are impeding progress". Instead cataloguers should aim at developing linking devices to connect packages of recorded knowledge and information, using their titles, edition statements, issuers, dates and any other known data, and adding formalized names and titles to those descriptions and to those digital entities that allow library users to retrieve and collocate those documents, and relating them to a location either physical or virtual. However, it proves difficult for most librarians to abandon a system of bibliographic control that has been so successful and to adopt an entirely new set of concepts that will take full advantage of the new digital environment. The professional debate at an international level seemed so far more concerned with improvements needed within the established framework and hardly looked in any great depth at new concepts in cataloguing which are required if one wants to benefit from the intrinsic feature of a computer which resides in the ability to "establish, coordinate and connect syntaxes of signs", as suggested by Serrai. The need for a reassessment of the foundations on which cataloguing is based appeared with great evidence in the theoretical activities leading to the publication of the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records in 1998. On the one hand it was felt that many inconsistencies were caused by bibliographic representations heavily relying on ISBD, a standard which uses principles having little relevance in an electronic environment, having been defined with a concern for the printed versions of the national bibliography and the exchange of bibliographic record at an international level, rather than as a data model for the needs of the individual library catalogue. On the other hand, it is evident that because of the large size of many databases and the number of hits that most searches produce, users tend to be frustrated in attempting to use a catalogue and sometimes wonder if the complexity is really necessary, especially if compared to the apparent user-friendliness of the general web search engine. The difference, according to Ayres, is a conceptual one which is already to be found in information retrieval where two basic types of searching have become established. These are pre-coordinate and post-coordinate. Cataloguing has so far always been a pre-coordinate operation and is based on what cataloguers do at the input phase, both as regards the description and the access terms. In particular, authority control (or "entry point control" as Gorman termed it already in 1977) in its present form is expensive to set up, to maintain and to use. Nevertheless, it is the foundation stone of sound cataloguing and a key factor in information retrieval and digital resources management. Again Ayres suggests that authority control be used to provide the link rather than the preferred heading, bearing in mind that from the user's viewpoint the preferred heading is the heading that he/she searches by and that in searching he/she wants the heading that he/she has thought about to be linked to the headings that he/she has not thought about. This means that the present authority control files will become linking files and that the entire procedure will implicitly be a post-coordinate operation. A fully developed electronic catalogue should be able to function in two ways, according to the specific needs of the user, providing "intellectual" (that is, access to the contents of library resources) as well as "bibliographic" control (that is, access to the physical packages in which content appears). Eventually, catalogues should give access to cultural heritage information, not just of a bibliographic nature, which is now under distributed control, bridging the barriers to access that have been created by specific traditions of custody and documentation. The feasibility of such a vision largely depends on the capability of the system within which they are stored to interoperate with those around them, but above all it relies on the intellectual effort dedicated to build up some kind of semantic, political, human and legal interoperability, both nationally and internationally.
The twentieth century (characterized by the gruesome and haze of horror of two World Wars, the Cold Wars-CW, dictatorships, civil wars, genocides, etc.) has seen a great transformation in warfare but to the expense of the innocent civilians and yet in the full view of regulatory internationally recognized war-laws. So, if at one point in history, civilian populations hardly suffered war directly, the order of the state of affairs has now changed. Many civilians perish simply because warlords so desire; extremes of violence, killings and destruction of property is predominantly preferred. As if that is not enough, the indifference of the majority of the public in tranquil zones of the world towards the fate of the civilians in zones under by fire kind of provide implicit licenses to violence planners to do whatever it takes to "win". Consequently, great numbers of survivors are seen trying to escape from situations of assured death to that of probable death. It is against this background that we feel moved to take on this dissertation. Bearing in mind the generally complex and challenging contemporary conflicts that acutely breeds volatile security environments (for civilians), our thesis is that there needed to be an increased, noteworthy and continued applicable innovation of approaches to civilian protection. To be precise, as a strategy to sustainable peace, we have aspired after a world where the United Nations Peacekeeping Department (UNPKD) is not singly considered the sole custodian of the concept of civilian protection but (based on contexts and cases) as one but a leader among other stakeholders (local and foreign) able and ready to contribute to the common-pool of operational arenas. Thinking about these other stake holders, we have in this work stood by those that: firstly, move towards more civilian-centered operations that are; secondly, carried out by (a mixture of grassroots and international) unarmed civilians by means of; thirdly, engages nonviolent approaches and practices that in themselves anticipate the basic constituents of successive bottom-up Peacemaking (PK) and Peacebuilding (PB) in the hic et nunc of their Peacekeeping (PK) initiatives and applications. All these basics, in our view, do not just add up to drawing a continuous line that intersects the just mentioned Three Approaches to Peace (PK, PM, PB) coined by Johan Galtung way back in 1975; they also open avenues to sustainability. The thesis is taken on through three different parts; each subdivided into two chapters. With due attention to intrastate contemporary violent conflicts, the first part tries to demonstrate the reason why in PK there has been indeed need for rethinking the protection of civilians (PoC) and/or for enriching the methods until now employed in bringing it about. In the first chapter of the part, we kind of gave a sketchy attention to the historical journey that the patterns of violent conflicts in relation to the fate of non-combatants have made. It emerges that, unlike in the past, the pattern of contemporary violent conflict, especially with reference to the CW (especially in third-world countries) and post-CW periods, have become severely complex to handle. Wars have continued and proved to be very hot especially on the populations on the periphery; on those who are minimally directly concerned with and honestly ignorant of its objectives. In the period in question, these innocent men, women and children are more than ever struck hard not just by its direct consequences but also the indirect ones and their hopes are constantly put at the brink of mere survival and of the grave. Mores so the lucky ones who manage to escape these snares, continue to unwaveringly hope for bread, freedom, justice and peace, instead of iron that kills and destroys. In chapter II of the same part, looking at the commitments borne by the UN right from its early years in keeping, initially, the interstate and successively also the intrastate peace (of those tormented by reign of violence and terror), we acknowledge the strides gradually taken along the years. These strides has better late than never embraced a multidimensional point in time where civilian protection counts as a primacy. Accordingly, we recognize that the UN military PK is certainly capable of reducing the level of tension in conflicts but we also negated that, by so doing, it is able to guarantee a durable peace not only because of the application of the non-peaceful means which is limited to separating the conflicting parties but also because it lacks the strategic concern of fostering an active citizenship which is a basic ingredient to democratic populace. In Part Two, we have concentrated on the vision and the peculiar picture of the practitioners of the alternative way, particularly; the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) which operates on a benchmark of bottom-up strategic empowerment of local civilian unarmed and nonviolent efforts by international unarmed and nonviolent civilians to protect civilians, prevent, reduce and stop violent conflicts. The first chapter of this second part begins by singling out some of the nuts and bolts (Like: The centrality of sustainability; strategic, local and multilevel capacity and relational empowerment and mediation for peace; conflict transformation as the adequate language; nonviolence and nonpartisanship as a philosophy) that make Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP) stands out faithfully to the above stated aspirations. Without giving importance to the chronological specifics and with a particular reference to the assessment of the practicality of the project that, on a later date, would organizationally become the NP, an extensive attention is paid to the vicissitudes that surrounded the founding of this UCP protection agency and especially to the foundations of the formative elements entailed. Chapter II does not only build on the findings and stimuli of Chapter I, it supersedes it and makes real a new and distinct reality. Herein, a unique place is devoted to the formative components reserved to the practitioners as a strategy for guaranteeing the competencies and high professionalism needed for the successful execution of field strategies attached to the NP UCP objectives, principles, key methods and practices. Through the analysis of the UCP Training Course entitled "Strengthening Civilian Capacities to Protect Civilians; A joint UNITAR- Nonviolent Peaceforce online Course" the chapter tries to show how the activities of the organization intrinsically flow from its very being; from elements which define it. And this is illustrated in how the very life of the NP UCP is blended with its formative spirit and content; a sort of transformative training that seeks to promote transformative operational frameworks that applicable to situations and contexts. The third part of the work is an applied one. It is dedicated to our chosen case study, namely, NP's intervention in the longtime violence-stricken Republic of South Sudan; in a country which (Thomas Hobbes would say) has once again reverted to its natural state; a harsh reality of hand to mouth living and a never ending search for sustenance in an ambiance virtually challenging to change. In chapter I, the pragmatic implementation of NP UCP in strengthening the local civilians' capacity, security and sense of safety in situation of violent conflict is marked out. Here, some concrete instances of this intervention are presented to exemplify the claim that a multiple base of actors (UCPs, the inviting civil society and/or local NGOs of an UCP presence and local partners) can sustainably and strategically provide the PoC work that for a long time was and is still largely entrusted to the military. And at the end of the day PK, PM, PB resources are considered to consist in not only financial and material supports, but also, and (in the same way) importantly, the socio-cultural resources of the affected people. And in this way people in conflict settings are seen as resources rather than recipients. Even though we evidently confirmed that the alternative way counts exceptionally big in strategically promoting, developing, and implementing sustainable unarmed civilian PK as a tool for preventing, reducing and stopping violence and protecting civilians in situations of violent conflict, we also acknowledge that it is not without challenges. These are actually what chapter two of the part extensively dwells on. The second chapter is instead dedicated (at length) to looking at the challenges that NP faces not only with regard to its missions lands but also in general. We have gone about this in the form of a comprehensive assessment and in some humble recommendations are advanced. Among these challenges we have particularly paid attention to issues like: The meager UCP funding and the dominant top-down mentality; the violent bully character of some major world power wielders; the need for more practitioners to carry out UCP; the dynamicity and complexity of conflict nature as a challenge; conflict prevention challenges like delays in capturing the signs of time so as to effectively intervene; the presence of spoilers as a challenge; the challenge of effective sustainable credibility. Recommendations proposed include among others: Investing in systematic reflections on the extent of the progress and failures so far registered in efforts to involve the UN, regional bodies and other donor agencies or individuals in the cause of NP (UCP) and reflecting on the philosophy that underpins the reasons why financial assistance to UCP and NP in particular is founded; more emphasis on the already existing engagement with political leaders and other influential people and embarking on popular campaigns to propagate a concretely evidenced knowledge of the feasibility of the alternative way, instituting and investing in "School Project" (dedicated to preferably to high schools) within the NP Advocacy and Outreach office and insisting on the positives of volunteers' contribution; enriching a little more the content of the just elaborated online UCP training course; etc. Hereafter, the general conclusion of our dissertation will be drawn. A profound acknowledgement of the UNPK pivotal role with its actual multidimensional fronts in PK basically intended as PoC specifically in the contemporary intrastate violent conflicts. It is also observed that, thanks to the appropriate blending of local and international capacities giving priority to the former, UCP's strategic approach to PK (which is not limited to the PoCs but is also anchored to preventing, reducing and ending not just those that are already on but also lays for standing up to the future possible ones) could be counted on. Thus far, it is on one hand, admissible that, despite all the challenges that there may be, NP (UCP) mechanisms is already proffering a great deal to this end, and on the other, it is evident that it can and should still do more. The ability of its interventions to stand the test of time and to stand up to the future conflicts (i.e. its sustainability) resides in a time which is not yet at hand and in the continuous involvement and inventiveness of many. As per now, if the Italian proverb "Il buongiorno si vede dal mattino" (Meaning: You can tell how something will go by how it begins) holds, then it is, up till now, realistic to count on NP as one of the most outstanding Bottom-up UCP organizations in the PoC in (selected) contemporary violent conflict situations. All that is needed is the building and the consolidation of international interest and support for UCP that presents the hope and reality of alternatives to over dependence on armed intervention; alternatives that chances the revitalization of local communities and the restoration of the social fabrics and capital of the affected people.
