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Conclusions
No full textThis concluding chapter synthesizes the volume’s findings to assert the enduring relevance of social capital for Italian democracy. It confirms the persistence of the traditional North-South divide while revealing a significant internal reorganization: a relative decline in major metropolitan areas and the former “red regions,” now overtaken by the Northern special-statute regions and the rest of the North-East. To better capture this complex shift of civic engagement, where political disaffection does not necessarily equate to a decline of civicness, the volume introduces a key methodological innovation: the construction of two distinct indices: a “classical” one and a “critical” one excluding electoral turnout. While social capital remains positively linked to economic development and public service quality, these correlations have weakened. The analysis depicts social capital as a foundational element for social cohesion and sustainability, demonstrating its significant impact, both theoretical and empirical, in reducing social isolation and fostering inclusion. While grounded in territorial data, the chapter opens new avenues for research into the interplay betweenbridging, bonding, and network forms of social capital with social inequality and societal well-being. Ultimately, this is a call to action: investing in social capital is indispensable for building cohesive and sustainable communities
Social Capital, GDP and Quality of Services
No full textThis chapter examines the interrelationships between social capital, GDP per capita, and a multi-dimensional index of quality of public services in Italian provinces from 2008 to 2022. The analysis confirms that these three dimensions are positively correlated, suggesting a mutually reinforcing “virtuous circle”, a finding already highlighted in the literature.
However, the strength of these associations has declined compared to previous studies, exhibiting a further slight decrease in the period we analyse. The link between social capital and GDP, while positive, has weakened and shows signs of a curvilinear relationship, possibly indicating a “defensive growth” dynamic where economic gains in wealthy areas may come at the expense of social cohesion. Similarly, the correlation between social capital and quality of services has decreased over time. The analysis extends beyond these core relationships, adopting preliminary regression models to demonstrate the significant role of these three factors in promoting social sustainability and cohesion, evidenced by their impact on reducing gambling, improving women’s quality of life, and encouraging donations toward municipality governments. The findings suggest that investing in social capital and promoting integrated policies that consider its interlinkages with economic development and quality of services are crucial for building more cohesive and sustainable communities
A Multisensor-Based Measurement Procedure for Seismic Damage Identification in Buildings
No full textEffectively and precisely identifying damages after a seismic event is fundamental to ensuring timely intervention and optimizing the building life cycle. The combination of multisensor inspection and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is powerful in this context. This work presents the results of the development of a multisensor measurement procedure relying on drone-embedded visible and thermal cameras and a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) to acquire data on a masonry church damaged by an earthquake. These data were carefully aligned into a unified reference system and enabled the reconstruction of high-resolution 3-D models of the building, from which multichannel orthophotos were extracted, with visible, thermal, and depth data, to identify surface lesions. The analysis procedure involved three main stages: 1) preprocessing using principal component analysis (PCAs) to improve feature separability and reduce redundancy between channels; 2) lesion detection using a deep learning U-Net segmentation model trained to identify surface cracks; and 3) morphological postprocessing to refine the predicted masks and eliminate (or reduce) false positives predictions. The combination of multimodal data improves lesion detection, highlighting cracks that are not immediately visible, particularly when thermal gradients or geometric discontinuities provided complementary evidence. The results are promising and demonstrate both the feasibility of lesion identification and the validity of the proposed approach in the context of structural health monitoring. The use of sensors that can acquire data remotely and without contact offers significant advantages in terms of safety in a postearthquake context
Towards continuous water stress classification in tomato plants via fuzzy Hoeffding trees and in-vivo biosensors
No full textWater stress and drought have a critical impact on plant growth and health, influencing and compromising agricultural productivity. Tools that can predict water stress in crops through quantifiable indicators provide valuable information and facilitate timely interventions aimed at maintaining and/or restoring optimal growth conditions before visible and difficult-to-recover symptoms appear. This study introduces an explainable Plant Health Monitoring System (PHMS), based on the continuous monitoring of water stress parameters in tomato plants using a novel in-vivo biosensor called "Bioristor". Our system integrates an explainable incremental classifier by design, specifically experimenting with the traditional Hoeffding decision tree and its fuzzy variant. By analyzing data from the Bioristor, the system evaluates plant health and classifies it into two distinct categories. Additionally, it employs an incremental learning approach, allowing the model to adapt and update during the monitoring period to maintain high classification performance. This continuous monitoring ensures the early detection of water stress, enabling prompt corrective actions. We present results based on a real-world dataset, leveraging four features derived from ionic currents within the plant sap, as measured by the Bioristor. The system performance was evaluated in terms of classification accuracy and model complexity, yielding promising outcomes. Moreover, the extracted decision rules offer valuable insights for implementing effective countermeasures to sustain plant health for extended periods
Dose to cornea in Ruthenium-106 ocular interventional radiotherapy (modern brachytherapy)
No full textEvaluating the sustainability and productivity of conventional, organic, and regenerative agriculture in maize-soybean rotations: a modelling LCA study
No full text: The escalating global demand for food, coupled with agriculture's significant environmental burdens, presents a fundamental challenge: feeding a growing population without compromising planetary health. Quantifying the comparative environmental performance of various food production systems is essential to guiding this transition, particularly across staple crops. This article addresses this by presenting a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of maize and soybean cultivation under Conventional, Organic, and Regenerative Agriculture (respectively CA, OA and RA), based on a rigorously modelled crop rotation derived from literature-based data. The LCA utilized the ReCiPe 2016 (H) method at both the Midpoint (problem-oriented) and disaggregated Endpoint (damage-oriented) levels, as well as the IPCC 2013 GWP 100a methodology. RA consistently demonstrated the lowest average total environmental impact per hectare across all indicators, affirming its potential for reduced local burden. For example, RA's total damage score per hectare (136.18 Pt) for maize was significantly lower than both CA (149.86 Pt) and OA (167.87 Pt). However, when impacts were normalized per metric tonne of product, this advantage narrowed or reversed due to yield differences. For instance, while RA's Global-Warming Potential (GWP) per tonne for maize (285.66 kg CO2eq) still outperformed CA (328.93 kg CO2eq), CA achieved the minimum impact in other key efficiency-driven categories, such as Endpoint Total Damage (15.77 Pt) and Land Use (146.66 m2a crop eq). Ultimately, these findings demonstrate no singular 'optimal' system, but rather a critical trade-off between mitigating local environmental burden (per-hectare) and maximizing production efficiency (per-tonne)
Harmony or disarray: Italy’s environmental (im)mobility in the precautionary conundrum
No full textThis chapter will not delve into the individual agency within mobility processes, as this
subject requires thorough examination in its own right (Harvey, 1982), involving considera-
tions such as the loss of land capital and shifts in the labour force. For the scope of this
text, we define climatic and environmental (im)mobility to include both gradual degradation
(like desertification) and sudden disasters (such as landslides). Even in cases of seismic and
volcanic disasters, not strictly ‘climatic’ in nature, we acknowledge the relevance of mobil-
ity concepts, leading us to ponder the broader implications of the ‘civil protection model’
and the utility of mobility as a preventive or post-catastrophe strategy. After introducing the
concept of the precautionary principle, we will analyse some of the preventive and post-event
measures mandated by civil protection in Italy, commenting on certain contradictory aspects
through the lens of the ‘mobility paradigm’ via a thematic review encompassing diverse cata-
strophic events in Italy
Governare la devianza tra pari. Bullismo, cyberbullismo e razionalità preventiva dopo la l. 70/2024
No full textThe article examines the transition from Law 71/2017 to Law 70/2024, showing how the
Italian legislator has shifted from a reactive model focused on the removal of harmful
digital content to a preventive-relational paradigm that interprets bullying and cyberbullying as ecological and interdependent phenomena. Integrating perspectives from the sociology of law and deviance, the paper highlights how the reform redefines the roles and responsibilities of school actors, strengthens educational governance, and reshapes hierarchies of visibility, ultimately proposing a reading of the school as a Bourdieusian field
