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Cultural Heritage Re-exchange Using Extended Reality (XR): Communicating the Italian Influence on Egyptian Architecture
No full textThe late 19th century marked a significant period in Cairo's architectural landscape, driven by the influx of Italian migrants who established a diverse community. This paper emphasizes the importance of digitizing and communicating Italian-influenced buildings in Egypt through advanced technologies such as Extended Reality (XR), besides the Egyptian obelisk in Rome as those two elements are proof of the cultural heritage exchange happened between Italy and Egypt. These technologies aim to foster cultural heritage re-exchange, enhancing awareness of the architectural significance within both Egyptian and Italian contexts.
By utilizing XR, this research highlights how the cultural and humanistic values of these structures can be preserved and communicated, promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage. The study proposes the creation of virtual trails and a virtual bridge connecting Cairo and Rome, facilitating enhanced engagement and mutual understanding among users from diverse backgrounds, targeting cultural re-exchange. Through rich contextual information communication in these virtual experiences and creating a virtual bridge, the research advocates for cultural interpretation of the historical exchanges between Italy and Egypt.
The methodology encompasses three phases: online inquiry and 1D, 2D, and 3D documentation for gathering the data needed to enrich the data elaboration phase through XR experiences. This structured approach aims to raise awareness regarding the importance of these architectural influences, ultimately contributing to a broader understanding of the intertwined cultural heritages of both nations
Indagini archeometriche e monitoraggio ambientale per la conoscenza, la conservazione e la diagnostica del patrimonio culturale mediante lo sviluppo di nuove metodologie analitiche
No full textIl presente lavoro di ricerca ha avuto come obiettivo principale lo sviluppo di un protocollo di analisi applicabile allo studio diagnostico di beni culturali di diversa natura. È stata non solo considerata ed esaminata la composizione del bene, ma anche l’ambiente in cui si trova o potrebbe essere conservato. Le indagini diagnostiche spesso possono infatti essere affiancate al monitoraggio ambientale e questo rappresenta un aspetto fondamentale a supporto del restauro. Infatti, solo attraverso un'accurata analisi dell'opera e della sua collocazione è possibile garantirne una conservazione ottimale.
Per poter perseguire lo scopo del lavoro è stata dimostrata l'affidabilità di un approccio multidisciplinare attraverso l’applicazione di un protocollo multi-analitico che utilizza tecniche elementari, spettroscopiche, microscopiche e cromatografiche, oltre a dispositivi per il monitoraggio dei parametri ambientali.
Il lavoro di tesi si è concentrato da una parte sullo studio di reperti archeologici di diversa natura e dall’altra ha preso in considerazione un particolare sito di interesse culturale per effettuare monitoraggio ambientale. Quest’ultimo risulta propedeutico per future campagne di monitoraggio da eseguire anche in siti archeologici.
Nel primo caso, si sono scelti volontariamente beni molto diversi tra di loro e tale scelta è stata dettata dall’esigenza di poter dimostrare che il protocollo d’analisi sviluppato può essere applicato in diversi contesti. Nel secondo caso si è scelto un caso studio complesso e quindi un sito di interesse storico-artistico che ha l’esigenza di essere monitorato per essere tutelato.
L’affidabilità e la versatilità del protocollo sono state validate quindi attraverso tre casi studio specifici: l’analisi diagnostica di reperti di malacofauna marina; lo studio non invasivo di manufatti egizi; il monitoraggio ambientale indoor presso il Santuario della Beata Vergine dei Miracoli di Saronno.
I risultati ottenuti dimostrano l’efficacia e la complementarità delle tecniche impiegate, confermando la validità del protocollo proposto in contesti diversi e complessi. L’originalità del lavoro risiede anche nella possibilità di analizzare oggetti e siti finora mai studiati, contribuendo così in maniera significativa all’avanzamento delle conoscenze nel campo della diagnostica applicata ai beni culturali
Terahertz/Infrared radiation: from the production with accelerator based sources to the use in material characterization for accelerator cavities
No full textTerahertz/IR radiation and technologies have found incredible development in the last few decades due to their applications in many different fields, ranging from indoor and outdoor communication, security, environmental monitoring, biological research, medical applications and finally as a spectroscopic investigation tool in condensed matter. However, many of these applications requires increasingly high power sources and demands for the possibility to manipulate radiation features such as pulse time duration, frequency spectrum and polarization. One of the most efficient ways of generating THz/IR radiation fulfilling these requirements is to use relativistic electrons accelerated in storage rings, where synchrotron radiation can be generated by means of bending magnets or specific Insertion Devices (IDs), or by accelerating electrons in LINACs, where the development of FEL
technologies allows for coherent and monochromatic radiation to be produced. This thesis project presents a dual approach to the design and use of accelerators as radiation sources. The first and the second part of this work are dedicated to the study of the emission of THz/IR radiation from both Synchrotrons and Linacs, starting from the simulation of the interaction of electron beams with magnetic optics and IDs, moving to the characterization of the
emitted radiation and finally arriving at the design of extraction beamlines to guarantee the use of the produced radiation in external user facilities. The third part of the project represents a bridge between materials science and THz/IR optics with accelerator physics by proposing the study of new materials suitable for the development of accelerator technologies and necessary to overcome accelerators limitations and costs
Incompatibilità e inconferibilità
No full textIl contributo analizza le discipline delle incompatibilità e delle inconferibilità di incarichi nel lavoro pubblico. Sono trattate dapprima la disciplina generale contenuta nel d.lgs. n. 165/2001, quindi le discipline speciali e infine la normativa che disciplina le incompatibilità e le inconferibilità nel contesto della legislazione “anticorruzione”.The contribution analyzes the rules on incompatibility and ineligibility for appointments in public employment. It first examines the general provision contained in Legislative Decree No. 165/2001, then the special regulations, and finally the legislation governing incompatibility and ineligibility within the framework of anti-corruption laws
Spaceborne GNSS Reflectometry for Soil Moisture: From Physics-Based Modeling to Hybrid Deep Learning
No full textSoil moisture is an Essential Climate Variable (ECV) that plays a critical role in the global water and energy cycles. While L-band radiometry has established a standard for monitoring soil water content, current missions are limited by coarse spatial resolution. Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has emerged as a disruptive remote sensing technique capable of bridging this gap by providing high-spatiotemporal resolution data using signals of opportunity. However, the operational retrieval of soil moisture from GNSS-R data currently faces a fundamental dilemma: physics-based models offer interpretability but struggle with surface heterogeneity, while data-driven approaches provide high accuracy but lack physical domain knowledge consistency.
This thesis addresses this challenge by developing a unified benchmarking framework that systematically evaluates and bridges the gap between physics-based and data-driven retrieval strategies. The research begins by establishing a rigorous comparison between a semi-empirical (SE) inversion model and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach within the context of the European Space Agency’s upcoming HydroGNSS mission. To ensure robust validation, a stratified sampling scheme is implemented across diverse climate zones and land-cover types, leveraging data from the NASA’s Cyclone GNSS (CYGNSS) constellation alongside auxiliary inputs from multiple sources. Building upon this benchmark, the thesis proposes an advanced Hybrid Deep Learning (HDL) architecture. This novel model integrates the feature-extraction power of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) with the regression capabilities of standard neural networks, leveraging physical domain knowledge to guide the learning process.
The results demonstrate a clear hierarchy in performance. The ANN-based approach achieves an overall Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE) of approximately 0.047 m3/m3 (correlation R ≈ 0.90), significantly outperforming the semi-empirical model across most regimes, particularly under relaxed data-quality filtering. The proposed HDL model yields the highest accuracy, reducing the RMSE to 0.038 m3/m3 (R ≈ 0.93). Notably, the inclusion of climate-specific stratification and ancillary inputs results in error reductions of 44–47% in complex scattering environments. These findings indicate that while semi-empirical models remain valuable for their interpretability in data-sparse regions, deep learning architectures offer the flexibility and precision required for next-generation Earth observation. Consequently, a hybrid retrieval strategy is recommended to maximize the exploitation of future datasets. This work provides a foundational roadmap for the HydroGNSS mission, suggesting that future improvements should focus on expanding training coverage in underrepresented high-latitude regions to fully realize the potential of spaceborne GNSS-R hydrology
Between tradition and change: the gendered fertility of men in Italy
No full textItaly’s “low and late” fertility regime has intensified over recent decades, with first births postponed and progression beyond parity one weak. While this picture is well known for women, men’s fertility remains comparatively under-examined despite growing evidence that male timing and intentions are central to period and cohort outcomes. Men typically enter parenthood later, face wider age spans of potential reproduction, and translate employment, partnership and identity transitions into births under gendered constraints. Framing the men’s fertility within Gender as Social Structure (GSS) and Data Feminism (DF), men are situated as reproductive agents embedded in mutually constitutive levels, i.e., individual identities, interactional couple dynamics and institutional rules, while also foregrounding DF principle that what gets counted counts. In this view, explanation and measurement are inseparable: improving male statistics (paternal ages, leave use, couple time arrangements) is essential to identify the mechanisms through which identities, negotiations and organisational time regimes shape the feasibility and timing of fatherhood in contemporary Italy. In this context, the thesis pursues three objectives, each addressed in a dedicated chapter. First, it maps a population portrait of “three-dimensional gender” among Italian men, addressing gender attitudes, gender models, and power/decision-making, and documenting cohort and life-course gradients and linking these configurations to reproductive profiles. Second, it analyses the drivers of men’s fertility intentions in 2003 and 2016, distinguishing childless men from fathers, and estimates how gender attitudes and parental gender models operate directly and indirectly through education, employment, and partnership within a Structural Equation Modelling framework. Third, it examines the organisational conditions under which intentions become actionable by studying time regimes and recognition systems in Italy’s largest research-performing organisation, clarifying how boundaryless work, coordination burdens and care responsibilities structure work–life conflict (WLC) and, indirectly, reproductive planning. Methodologically, the thesis applies a suite of demographic and statistical tools to nationally representative surveys and original organisational data. The three-dimensional gender portrait uses cross-sectional data from Istat Families and Social Subjects 2016 to describe clustering of traditional versus egalitarian configurations across cohorts. The intentions chapters draw on Istat Families and Social Subjects 2003 and 2016, estimating ordinal models for near-term and longer-term intentions embedded in multivariate SEMs (cumulative probit), with gender models (parental education/occupation symmetries) shaping sons’ educational attainment, labour-market position and union status. Model comparison and predicted probabilities quantify both direct and mediated paths by parity and year. The organisational study combines a staff survey to build an index of WLC, conditional inference trees and variable-importance analyses to reveal segmentations by time load, family responsibilities and recognition regimes, and semi-structured interviews to interpret mechanisms and lived constraints. Findings are consistent across levels. Italy’s men display clear cohort polarisation between traditional and more egalitarian gender configurations. Among older men, traditional role divisions are associated with higher parity accumulated earlier; among younger cohorts, egalitarian orientations are more prevalent but their translation into realised fertility is contingent on institutional position and the timing of stable unions. In the intentions models, rejecting traditional female-role norms increases near-term fertility intentions among childless men, while strongly deinstitutionalised views of partnership depress near-term plans and push intentions outward in time. Among fathers, penalties linked to such “private” views attenuate by 2016, suggesting adaptation in family contexts after first birth. Parental gender models operate mainly indirectly: sons from more symmetric parental backgrounds attain higher education, more secure employment and more stable partnership contexts, which raise the probability that intentions are feasible. Composition changes between 2003 and 2016 (older ages, higher schooling, more precarious male employment, and more diverse unions) help explain stable headline intention levels alongside continued postponement. The organisational case adds the institutional layer. WLC is primarily a function of cumulative temporal pressure (night work, sustained overtime and ≥10-hour days) within recognition systems that award visible outputs while undervaluing coordination and compliance work. “Flexibility” often materialises as continuous availability, especially in junior roles. Exposure is gender-differentiated: when schedules are held constant, uneven childcare intensifies WLC among women, whereas for men segmentation is driven more by schedule intensity and peak-driven demands. These routines condition whether “caring masculinities” can be enacted without career penalties and help explain why similar attitudes yield different fertility trajectories across workplaces and cohorts. Taken together, the evidence supports a mutually constitutive, cross-level architecture of men’s fertility in Italy. At the individual level, identities and attitudes shift intention thresholds; at the interactional level, couple bargaining and domestic time use translate thresholds into plans; at the institutional level, organisational rules and policy frameworks determine whether plans are feasible and resilient. The thesis thus reframes men’s fertility not as a residual of women’s behaviour but as an outcome of gendered structures operating across levels, aligning with the call to count men properly in official statistics and to link measurement improvements to mechanism-based explanation
The Modern Finishes at “Principi di Piemonte” Marine Colony in Venice-Lido Towards their Conservation
No full textThe Venetian lagoon, and particularly its historic centre, is a context of significant complexity for the insertion of modern architectural interventions, due to its typological characteristics and deeply rooted building traditions. Despite this comprehensible resistance to change, notable examples of 20th-century architecture have emerged, including the Marine Colony of Padua “Principi di Piemonte”, designed in the mid-1930s by Daniele Calabi with the engineering collaboration of Antonio Salce. Located in the Alberoni area of the Venice-Lido, the Colony is connoted by a distinctly stereometric design – two parallel volumes connected by an iconic vaulted portico – and by its innovative use of materials, ranging from thin stone slabs to glass, grès ceramic tiles, and “petrifying” plasters. These materials, applied in both traditional and modern ways, reflect the architectural experimentation of the period and emphasise the building’s significance as a landmark in the evolution of construction techniques during a transformative era. Abandoned for decades, the structure is now the subject of renewed interest, prompted by the local community and scholarly initiatives, which have spurred proposals for its restoration and re-functionalization. This study, developed through a collaboration between the University of Brescia and the Superintendency of Venice, integrates an in-depth historical analysis with advanced chemical-physical investigations of its construction materials, conducted using techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and elemental chemical analysis (SEM-EDX). The research not only provides essential insights to guide future conservation and restoration efforts but also contributes to the broader understanding of modern architectural materials, a critical issue in the ongoing debates on the preservation of 20th-century architectural heritage
L'amministrazione nell'era dei dati digitali
No full textLa tesi cerca di rispondere al seguente quesito di indagine: è possibile ascrivere in capo all’amministrazione una funzione di valorizzazione dei dati digitali? A tal fine si ricostruisce il quadro giuridico e normativo relativo alle diverse attività di cui la funzione si compone: raccolta, conservazione, gestione anche in relazione agli obblighi di accesso e di riutilizzo, e da ultimo elaborazione a fini conoscitivi e decisionali. Vengono altresì affrontati gli aspetti relativi all’organizzazione dell’amministrazione nell’era dei dati digitali e della data governance. Infine, si dedica ampio spazio alla comparazione delle esperienze normative e dottrinali di Portogallo, Spagna, Germania e Francia con riferimento alla decisione automatizzata. La ricerca, condotta tra Italia e Portogallo, si avvale di fonti dottrinali, giurisprudenziali e dell’esperienza diretta presso CONSOB e l’Università di Coimbra. L’approccio giuridico e comparato consente di delineare un quadro critico e propositivo sull’amministrazione pubblica nell’era dei dati digitali.The thesis aims to answer the following research question: can public administration perform a digital data valorisation function? It reconstructs the legal and regulatory framework governing the various activities that constitute this function: data collection, storage, management (including obligations related to access and reuse), and processing for knowledge and decision-making purposes. The thesis also explores organisational aspects of public administration in the era of digital data, with a focus on data governance. Particular attention is given to comparing regulatory and doctrinal approaches in Portugal, Spain, Germany, and France regarding automated decision-making. The research is conducted between Italy and Portugal — at the University of Coimbra — and is based on doctrinal and jurisprudential sources, as well as direct experience at CONSOB. The legal and comparative approach enables the development of a critical and forward-looking framework for public administration in the digital data era
Morfologie della città turistica in prospettiva storica: Roma 1870-2025
No full textLo scopo di questo contributo è presentare una mappatura dettagliata della distribuzione della ricettività a Roma dal 1870 ai tempi più recenti e riflettere, da questo punto di vista, sulle trasformazioni della città turistica. L’analisi si concentrerà, in particolare, sulla distribuzione spaziale delle strutture ricettive all’interno del tessuto urbano, presentata sotto forma di mappe di densità, nel contesto dell’impetuoso processo di espansione e trasformazione della città a partire dalla sua elezione a capitale nel 1870
Innovative services for asset management based on satellite data elaboration
No full textOver the past decades, many countries have heavily invested in the development of space infrastructure, creating a solid foundation for the sector. Since 2012, the emergence of the “space economy”, defined by the OECD as all activities that generate value and benefits for humanity through the use of space, has marked a new era.
Recently, attention has shifted to space-based services, meaning value-added operational services delivered to end users through satellite systems. In Europe, the ESA and national space agencies have funded numerous projects, most of which have resulted in successful demonstrations of applications but not yet in fully operational services. The current challenge is to transform existing infrastructure into concrete services that can support decision-making and drive economic growth.
The EU acknowledges the increasing role of space-based services across multiple sectors (agriculture, transport, security, maritime policy, etc.), emphasizing the importance of user involvement to ensure that services are relevant and tailored to real needs. However, there is still limited understanding of the practical potential of these services.
To enable broader adoption, sustainable governance and funding must be established, along with secure access to space data and services. Moreover, a paradigm shift is needed — from a technology-push approach (driven by technological capability) to a demand-driven one, where services are developed in response to the actual needs and requirements of end users and the market.
The thesis is articulated in several steps. The first have concentrated around the analysis of the satellites in orbit through the last years: the UCS satellites database has been analysed, leading to the consciousness of the always raising interest in launching EO satellites with commercial scope, useful for the providing of data to the enterprises that employ this kind of data for the creation of value-added services for businesses on Earth. From a total of 53 EO satellites orbiting in 2012, this number has risen to 1263 in 2023.
The successive step has been focused on the analysis of a sample of enterprises using EO satellites data for the creation of space value-added services, used as basin for the research: the results have shown a growing interest in using satellite data for monitoring and change detection types of application and mainly in agriculture, disaster monitoring, environment and management application fields, leading the market of global satellite data services at an estimated value of 14.44 billion dollars in year 2025.
Among the several application domains, the two of interest investigated in my work of thesis, have been the ones of management of asset, especially for what regards the monitoring and management of the railway infrastructure and the one of safety & security services, linked to disasters monitoring and prediction and target identification for national surveillance.
Thereafter, the body of the work has focused on the activities I‘ve conducted on two projects (still on-going) during the doctoral period: MERCURIO, for the creation of a DSS for the railway operators and AXIS 3, a platform for enhancing Greek Government tools and capabilities in natural disasters monitoring and prediction.
For what regards the MERCURIO project, the activities of requirements analysis, architecture design and risk management are shown, leading to consolidated results for these activities and some other preliminary and still to be updated results with reference to the service and deliverables for the final users of the project.
As for AXIS 3, the activities conducted have been focused on the study and creation of some managerial documents of the project related to the logistics (procurement and inventory) of the items to be acquired for the project progress, risk management of the managerial identified risks for the project, service management plan and system user/operating manual; some other results related to the preliminary ones of the service, are also illustrated.
In conclusion, the study highlights the increasing importance of satellite data in developing value-added space solutions that improve business performance across various sectors on Earth. With growing investments from both public and private actors and a rapidly expanding market for satellite data services, interest in space continues to rise. This trend is expected to drive further innovation, enabling wider use of satellite technologies in areas such as asset management, emergency response and new applications yet to be explored