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Cuori di tenebra. I Signori della guerra che volevano farsi re
No full textWith the First World War and the Russian Revolution, the four great empires—Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian, and Ottoman—disappeared. The multietnic political systems that had managed to ensure peace and stability from Central Europe to the Baltic, from the Upper Adriatic to the Balkans, from the Danube to Siberia, and from the Caucasus to Central and North-Eastern Asia as far as the borders of China, vanished into nothingness. Between 1918 and 1922, these territories became the hunting ground of warlords, who turned them into a shattered conglomerate of “bloodlands.” It is of these adventurers—heroes, dreamers, executioners, yet ultimately “children of a lesser god”—that this book tells the desperate, at times noble and at times infamous, epic, evoking the grim deeds of Kurtz, the protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
There are figures such as Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Supreme Commander of the White Army, fighting against the Bolshevik Red Army, who transformed Crimea into an autonomous state. Or Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen, a member of the ruling house that had dominated the oldest European empire, who aspired to become sovereign of Ukraine. And Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, another White general who, in February 1921, occupied part of Mongolia. There is also İsmail Enver, Minister of War of the Ottoman Empire, who cherished the mirage of raising the banner of the Crescent Moon over a hypothetical Emirate of Turkestan. Finally, there is Gabriele D’Annunzio, who, after wresting Fiume from Slavic encroachment, decided to create a Duchy independent of the Kingdom of the much-despised House of Savoy
La città della miseria nel cinema senza tetto né legge di Agnès Varda
No full textIl contributo intende esplorare attraverso il dispositivo cinematografico lo
spazio e la società di chi è espulso e disancorato, situandosi nel paradossale e problematico
interstizio tra rappresentato e rappresentazione, tra reale e realtà (Cimatti
2021, p. 124). Se la miseria è un impensato e un irrappresentabile, il primo
e fondamentale movimento per rapportarsi con le sue presenze nella città è quello
semantico legato agli strumenti con i quali pensiamo e raccontiamo. Per fare in modo
che “i segni della povertà non siano aggravati dalla povertà dei segni” (Holmes,
Paris-Clavel, Pataut 1999, citato in Pataut 2018, pp. 5-8). Il cinema utilizzato
nella sua dimensione etimologica di kinema, ovvero “as a means of psychic travel-
dwelling, cinema designs cultural voyages” (Bruno 2011, p. 32), può tracciare
una diagonale progettuale tra lo spazio, la società e le storie che li sorreggono, costruendo
un gemellaggio con i mondi e i modi dell’architettura. La sovraesposizione
e l’estetizzazione mediatica della miseria hanno come effetto quello di pietrificare il
discorso in una retorica monodirezionale di salvataggio: chi è “fuori” dalla società va
fatto rientrare o deve esserne censurato. Forse per agire davvero dentro il problema
è urgente costruire relazioni intersezionali, sviluppando “tattiche capaci di creare
consenso e mobilitazione in occasioni specifiche, [che] formano poveri e senza tetto
a divenire produttori di informazioni, non solo offrendo una lettura diversa della povertà,
ma ridefinendo i confini stessi di ciò che viene inteso come povertà e mettendo
in crisi il link tra povertà economica e impossibilità di partecipare alla produzione di
narrazioni e immaginari” (Pierini 2024, p. 124)
Duodenal Biopsy Gone Bad: Hematoma, Obstruction, Hemoperitoneum, and Everything Else You Don't Want
No full textIntroduction: We report a case of a 25-year-old man that was admitted to emergency department for mild abdominal pain and vomiting episodes. The first imaging, with abdominal ultrasound, showed a > 10 cm space-occupying lesion (SOL) in epigastrium. The CT-scan diagnosed an intramural duodenal hematoma. Areas covered: Since massive intramural duodenal hematoma (m-IDH) is a rare entity due to trauma, spontaneous causes, post-procedural complications, or underlying medical conditions, therapy can vary. In our case report, conservative treatment was conducted with success. EXPERT COMMENTARY: m-IDH is an infrequent clinical and radiological finding and surgery should be performed as less as possible
Per un’economia politica della crisi abitativa in Italia
No full textLa crisi abitativa che colpisce molte città italiane ha specificità che devono essere attentamente contestualizzate al fine di predisporre adeguate strategie di risposta.
La crisi riguarda in particolare il mercato degli affitti in tutte le sue componenti - pubbliche e private, a lungo, medio e breve termine - e si riflette in una carenza ormai drammatica di offerta a canoni sostenibili. Le ragioni di tale crisi sono allo stesso tempo strutturali e congiunturali, sociali e politiche. Esse chiamano in causa la particolarità degli assetti proprietari, l’acuirsi di disuguaglianze ormai molto ampie di natura patrimoniale, reddituale e relative all’accesso alla casa, la progressiva riduzione dello stock immobiliare destinato all'affitto a lungo termine e il potere di interdizione che una vasta coalizione di interessi tra piccoli e grandi proprietari esercita su qualsiasi ipotesi di limitazione della rendita e di regolazione della sua estrazione, a danno del numero crescente di chi da tali diritti di proprietà è escluso
Application of Sustainable Infrastructure Criteria in Railway Projects with the Input–Process–Output–Outcome Approach
No full textPresent-day societies face unprecedented dependence on built infrastructure amid escalating sustainability challenges including climate change and social inequality. Railway infrastructure, positioned as the most environmentally sustainable transport mode, presents a critical paradox: while essential for sustainable mobility, much of the existing network was built when environmental awareness, accessibility and innovation-driven technologies were not design priorities. This creates a significant research gap in how railway infrastructure can be systematically aligned with current sustainability frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Paris Agreement and regional policy initiatives. This study addresses this gap by developing a comprehensive decision-making model that integrates railway-specific sustainability criteria defined in the previous study within an input-process-output-outcome (IPOO) framework. The approach enables infrastructure management organisations to evaluate investment projects beyond immediate operational efficiency, incorporating medium- and long-term impacts that strengthen system resilience. The framework was validated through application to Latvian railway infrastructure investment scenario. Results demonstrate that the IPOO methodology enables infrastructure managers to trace causality from resource allocation decisions through transformation processes to both immediate outputs and long-term societal impacts. Expert panel validation confirmed practical applicability while identifying critical enhancement requirements across all IPOO components. These findings contribute to sustainable infrastructure assessment theory by providing 64 railway sector-specific indicators aligned with broader SDG frameworks. Practically, the model enables railway infrastructure management companies to systematically assess investment projects for medium- and long-term transformative potential, while offering policymakers a structured approach for developing targeted resilience strategies. This research advances the integration of sustainability science with infrastructure decision-making
The past that does not want to pass away? A few remarks on the debate surrounding the project to establish a museum of fascism in Predappio
No full textThis chapter dives into salient yet conflicting narratives on the project to establish a museum of fascism in Predappio, taking into account both the historiographical debates and political disputes surrounding the assessment of Benito Mussolini’s rule. In the period between 2014 and 2019, leading Italian and international historians, together with public intellectuals, journalists, and politicians, were involved in a dispute concerning the character of the project itself and its consequences. To understand the complexity of this debate, it is essential to explain the meaning of the Predappio museum in the political culture of Italian fascism and neo-fascism, as well as the impact of the policy of local governments, primarily centre-left ones, which aimed at remaking the image of the city, which Giorgio Frassinetti –the former mayor and main spiritus movens of the project – described as its ‘“Chernobyl” history’
Before Rome. Salt, settlement, and human–environment dynamics at the Early Iron Age site of Piscina Torta (Tyrrhenian coast)
No full textThrough an integrated geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental approach, we explored the origin, evolution, and anthropogenic modification of the Piscina Torta, a palaeochannel running across a beach ridge complex in the southern Tiber delta, from the inland Ostia palaeolagoon towards the sea. This channel was assumed to have played an important role in the activities at the connected Early Iron Age archaeological site of Piscina Torta, known for its salt production by briquetage. The research combines a range of methods and techniques: transect corings, high-resolution LiDAR mapping, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), sedimentological and granulometric analyses, microfossil and plant macroremain studies, and AMS radiocarbon dating. These revealed that the base of the channel is in marine sands that form part of the early beach ridges in this area. Its fill consists of 1) highly calcareous marls that were deposited in a fresh water lake/lagoon, with a water level that ultimately reached to at least 1 m a.s.l. and dates from before the period in which the site was occupied (late 8th BCE); 2) peats formed over a long period (5th century BCE till modern times) and in an increasingly aquatic environment after the site was abandoned; 3) anthropogenically reworked sediments of modern age, containing abundant ancient ceramic fragments, likely consisting of surface materials, dumped to improve the drainage and trafficability of the area. During the late 8th to 6th century BCE, the marls in the central part of the channel were excavated, creating an anthropogenic channel (canal), which potentially had a connection with the sea in its lower, most seaward section of which the stratigraphy remained obscure, probably due to later coastal erosion. In the more inland section, which is situated within the large archaeological site, its base was distinctly above the contemporary sea level, implying that the channel/canal did not function as an open hydrological connection between the inland lagoon and the sea during the site’s occupation and more recent times. The period in which the site was occupied corresponds to significant socio-economic transformations in Central Italy and the emergence of Rome as a regional power. The study provides new insights into the interplay between coastal geomorphology, resource exploitation, and early state formation, emphasizing the role of environmental engineering in sustaining specialized production activities in dynamic coastal landscapes
Cross-Layer Adaptive Random Access Protocols for Massive IoT Systems
No full textAs 5G and beyond networks evolve, enabling scalable and energy efficient connectivity for massive numbers of devices has become a fundamental challenge. In massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC) scenarios, where billions of low power devices generate sporadic traffic, conventional coordinated scheduling becomes impractical. Random access, empowered by Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC)-enabled receivers, offers a promising solution by allowing multiple devices to transmit simultaneously without coordination. However, maintaining reliability, spectral efficiency, and information freshness under dynamic load conditions remains a critical open problem.
This research develops a unified analytical and asymptotic framework to characterize the performance of SIC-enabled random access systems. The framework captures the interaction between the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and the Physical (PHY) layer, quantifying how the joint adaptation of transmission probability and target Signal-to-Noise-plus-Interference Ratio (SNIR) influences key performance metrics such as spectral efficiency, energy consumption, access delay, and Age of Information (AoI). The analysis demonstrates that traditional random access schemes, such as Slotted ALOHA (SA) and Carrier-Sense Multiple Access (CSMA), operate sub-optimally under dense conditions, as they fail to exploit the Multi-Packet Reception (MPR) capability offered by SIC.
Building on these foundations, the study introduces adaptive access control strategies that link optimal transmission probability and decoding threshold to the instantaneous network load. These adaptive scalings enable stable and efficient operation across both contention limited and interference limited regimes. Contrary to conventional design intuition, the analysis reveals that operating in the low SNIR regime can achieve higher spectral efficiency when combined with interference cancellation, effectively enabling grant-free operation in dense networks. Power control is also shown to play a critical role: the Equal Average Received Power (EARP) scheme minimizes energy consumption, while the Maximum transmission Power (MaxP) approach improves decoding performance through power diversity.
To extend these results to realistic, non-saturated conditions, the thesis proposes the Multi-packet reception Adaptive Slotted Access (MASA) algorithm, which jointly adapts the transmission probability and decoding threshold as functions of the instantaneous backlog. Analytical modeling and extensive simulations demonstrate that MASA achieves high reliability, low latency, and improved timeliness, outperforming state-of-the-art adaptive schemes such as Age-Independent Random Access (AIRA)-SIC. The study also identifies a distinct energy-AoI trade-off curve with a clear operating knee, representing the optimal balance between freshness and energy efficiency in massive access networks.
The findings of this research provide critical insights for the design of next generation grant-free access protocols. By establishing a theoretical and algorithmic foundation for cross layer adaptation, this work advances the scalability, timeliness, and energy efficiency of random access in dense Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. These results contribute to the evolution of 6G communication systems, paving the way toward more intelligent, resilient, and energy aware network architectures for the IoT
Four issues on the goal and scope definition of a BIM-based LCA study for existing buildings
No full textLife Cycle Assessment is a standardised method for assessing the environmental impacts of products and services. With the European standard EN 15643 and the related EN 15978 regarding the environmental sustainability of buildings, LCA is also used in the construction field to assess the environmental impact of the buildings. In the literature, while simplifications of this methodology caused by the complexity of buildings are under research, especially in the early design stage, BIM-based LCA methodologies have emerged to support the simplification process and to gain applications automatism. Nevertheless, LCA's key aspects that guarantee the comparability and reliability of the applications are often underrated. This research investigates the issues in defining those key aspects with a review that combines technical standards, literature founding and international guidelines, giving also suggestions on what to consider when defining those aspects for the existing buildings’ refurbishment
Deciphering the role of LiBr as a redox mediator in Li–O2 aprotic batteries
No full textLithium–oxygen batteries (Li–O2) represent a highly promising category of energy storage systems, primarily owing to their elevated theoretical energy density. Nevertheless, their effective deployment is significantly impeded by challenges such as inadequate reversibility and the presence of undesirable parasitic reactions. Recent investigations have turned to redox mediators, specifically lithium bromide (LiBr), as a potential solution to improve reaction kinetics and minimize overpotentials in these systems. This research presents a comprehensive analysis of the effects of three distinct solvents – dimethoxyethane (DME), tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether (TEGDME), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) – on both the electrochemical performance and reaction mechanisms of LiBr-mediated lithium–oxygen cells. The findings indicate that singlet oxygen (1O2), which contributes to cell degradation through secondary reactions, is generated only in the presence of TEGDME as the electrolyte solvent. In contrast, while both DME and DMSO enable oxygen evolution without forming singlet oxygen, only DME exhibits chemical stability under the operating conditions of LiBr-mediated Li–O2 cells. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the redox mediation effects arising from lithium iodide (LiI) and LiBr across various solvent environments reveals that the activation of the singlet oxygen release pathway occurs when the Lewis acidity and basicity of the oxidized redox mediator and the solvent are aligned—for example, when both behave as weak acids/bases or as strong acids/bases. This study elucidates the nuanced interactions between solvents and redox mediators, thereby contributing to the advancement of more efficient lithium–oxygen battery systems