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La Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite contro il cybercrime e lo sviluppo delle suppression conventions sui crimini transnazionali : Rilievi teorici e implicazioni pratico-operative
No full textQuesto saggio esamina la Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite contro il cybercrime adottata dall’Assemblea generale nel dicembre del 2024. Lo studio della disciplina giuridica ivi contenuta si articola secondo una triplice prospettiva d’indagine. La prima, di carattere teorico, mira ad approfondire l’impatto di questo strumento giuridico nello sviluppo delle convenzioni in materia penale delle Nazioni Unite che disciplinano il contrasto ai crimini transnazionali (suppression conventions). La seconda parte si concentra sui profili repressivi e sulle potenzialità pratico-operative della Convenzione nel contrasto ai cybercrimes, e mira a stabilire se questo trattato realizza un adeguato bilanciamento tra la previsione di misure tese a garantire la sicurezza digitale degli stati da un lato e il rispetto dei diritti umani dall’altro. Lo studio si propone infine di indagare alcune questioni potenzialmente problematiche collegate alla futura entrata in vigore della Convenzione, nella convinzione che soltanto un approccio ‘human rights oriented’ nell’interpretazione e nell’applicazione della Convenzione consentirebbe di evitare abusi nel suo utilizzo concreto, nonché di rafforzare gli ordinamenti interni e la cooperazione internazionale nel contrasto ai crimini informatici.This essay examines the United Nations Convention on Cybercrime, which was adopted by the General Assembly in December 2024. The legal framework contained within is examined from three different perspectives. The first perspective is theoretical in nature and aims to explore the impact of this legal instrument on the development of United Nations criminal law conventions that govern the fight against
transnational crimes ('suppression conventions'). The second part focuses on the Convention's repressive aspects, as well as its practical and operational potential in combating cybercrime. This section aims to establish whether the treaty adequately balances measures to ensure the digital security of states with respect for human rights. Finally, the study aims to investigate some potentially problematic issues related to the future entry into force of the Convention. It supports the thesis that taking a 'human rights-oriented' approach to interpreting and applying the Convention would prevent abuses in its practical implementation, while also strengthening domestic legal systems and international cooperation in the fight against cybercrime
DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE IN ITALIAN MUNICIPALITIES: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND EXPLORING NEW FORMS OF HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL COORDINATION TO COUNTERACT DEPOPULATION
No full textItaly’s demographic decline represents today the most evident reflection of a profound institutional crisis. Depopulation is not a purely demographic or economic phenomenon, but the result of a structural fragility within the governance system, unable to coherently coordinate the different levels of government, resources, and public policy instruments. The research proposes a systemic interpretation of this interdependence, showing how the capacity of local institutions to respond to decline depends on the degree of vertical and horizontal coordination and on the strategic use of digitalization. On these foundations, two original instruments have been theorized: the Municipal Fragility Index (MFI) and the Digital Fragility Index (DFI), designed to measure the demographic, administrative, and technological vulnerability of Italian municipalities. The study shows that institutional fragmentation, exacerbated by the 2014 Delrio Reform, has widened the gap between dynamic and peripheral areas, reducing planning capacity and the overall cohesion of the system. The weakness of the intermediate level of government has increased territorial inequality and made the relationship between citizens and institutions more fragile. From this diagnosis emerges a proposal based on multilevel governance as the key to demographic resilience. Vertical coordination among the State, Regions, and Municipalities, horizontal cooperation among local administrations, and inclusive digitalization constitute the pillars of a new architecture for territorial development. Integrating within this perspective the objectives of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the 2030 Agenda means transforming decline from a threat into an opportunity, from a symptom of backwardness into a driver of institutional innovation and community renewal. Population is not merely a variable to be managed, but the very measure of democratic vitality and of the collective capacity to build a shared future
Do risk, time, and social preferences predict sustainable behavior? Evidence from a qualitative synthesis and meta-analysis
No full textDespite the urgency of addressing environmental challenges, from the overuse of natural resources to climate change, action is grossly lacking. Environmental challenges often unfold over long time horizons, involve risk and uncertainty, and pit self-interest against collective outcomes. This has led some scholars to explain inaction and the persistence of environmental challenges by appealing to social and psychological factors such as temporal discounting, risk aversion, and self-interest—preferences commonly assumed in microeconomic models of decision-making. If this is the case, it has implications for the design of interventions, policies, and institutions to promote sustainable actions. Yet, empirical evidence relating these preferences to sustainable behavior is mixed. We conduct a systematic literature review (75 papers; 426 effect sizes) and meta-analysis (39 papers; 299 effect sizes) of studies from 29 countries that elicit time, risk, and social preferences and correlate these with real-world environmentally-relevant behaviors. Overall, we find limited evidence that economic preferences assessed in the lab are strong predictors of sustainable behaviors—the relationship is only significant when preferences are elicited in the field setting (“lab-in-field”). In subgroup analyses, we find that prosocial preferences are a significant predictor of environmental behaviors, and the effect is stronger for studies where preferences are elicited using protocols that are framed in terms of real world impacts or conducted in the field. We also find that time, risk and social preferences predict monetary donations to environmental causes. These findings suggest a nuanced and modest relationship between economic preferences assessed in the lab and sustainable behaviors
A Deep Learning Framework for Predicting Business Process Violations
No full textExtracting knowledge from business process logs to prevent violations of business rules can protect companies from major
losses. Most of the existing approaches toward this goal focus on compliance verification with respect to a target business
model and are purely reactive: they detect violations ex post. The few existing approaches that try to prevent violations
beforehand require substantial manual intervention, don’t consider fine-grained logs, ordinarily found in real-world business scenarios, and are based on memoryless techniques. To fill these gaps, we propose an integrated end-to-end framework to predict business model violations from a stream of low-level event logs. We use a Bidirectional Long-Short-Term
Memory (BiLSTM) model, integrated with an attention mechanism to capture discriminating features and enable training
on long sequences. This framework, whose setup requires minimal human intervention, can forecast not only the type but
also the relative location of the upcoming violations in the event sequence. This information is useful in determining the
type of countermeasures that need to be taken. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework using a real-life event
log and achieve a prediction accuracy of 99.74%
È tempo di chiusura nei giardini d'Occidente» : Il Giappone nell'opera di Alighiero Boetti
No full textLa passione per il viaggio, l'esotico e l'incontro con culture altre costituiscono i tratti distintivi della vasta e articolata produzione di Alighiero Boetti. Accanto al noto e ampiamente documentato rapporto con l'Afghanistan che, a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta, rappresenta un luogo imprescindibile per il suo immaginario e la sua produzione artistica-merita di essere considerato, seppur in termini differenti, anche l'interesse per il Giappone. Meno conosciuto e non ancora oggetto di studi, questo legame nasce come una precoce fascinazione per la cultura nipponica, destinata a riaffiorare e consolidarsi in seguito a due viaggi compiuti dall'artista in Giappone negli anni Ottanta, da cui assimila suggestioni iconografiche e concettuali che si riflettono in numerose opere del decennio. L'incontro con l'estetica giapponese non va dunque relegato a episodio marginale, ma inteso piuttosto come una possibile chiave di lettura ulteriore per comprendere due momenti della sua ricerca: i primi anni Sessanta, segnati dall'interesse giovanile per la gestualità pittorica, e la produzione degli anni Ottanta, fase di piena maturità artistica caratterizzata da una rielaborazione delle strutture e delle logiche visive
Empowering regulatory T cells to restore immune tolerance and reduce inflammation-driven atherosclerosis
No full textDecision optimization for inorganic contaminants in water systems using ecological informatics for sustainable management
No full textUrbanization, industrial activity, and climate change are accelerating the accumulation of inorganic contaminants, such as heavy metals, metalloids, radionuclides, nitrates, and phosphates, in global water systems, posing persistent risks to human health and aquatic ecosystems. This review systematically synthesizes evidence from 244 peer-reviewed studies, integrating contaminant sources, exposure pathways, ecological and human-health impacts, monitoring technologies, and remediation strpeer-reviewedategies. In addition, it incorporates decision-optimization frameworks to support the prioritization of monitoring efforts, the selection of cost-effective treatment technologies, and improved resource allocation in settings with limited capacity.
By combining analytical advancements (AAS, ICP-MS, biosensors, IoT and remote-sensing systems), emerging remediation approaches, and ecological informatics, the review provides an interdisciplinary assessment of inorganic contaminant dynamics and management options. Decision-optimization methods add value by enabling transparent trade-off evaluation, targeted mitigation, and scenario-based planning under uncertainty. Key takeaways demonstrate that: (i) current regulatory and monitoring capacities remain insufficient in many regions; (ii) scalable, context-appropriate remediation technologies are essential for reducing long-term exposure; and (iii) integration of real-time monitoring, ecological informatics, and optimization-based decision tools can substantially strengthen progress toward SDG-aligned water security
Concentration-dependent effect of DMSO on lipid vesicle structure under physiological conditions
No full textDimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) is widely used for drug delivery and in biology as a cryoprotectant because of its ability to dissolve drugs and biomolecules and due to its membrane permeating properties. Despite its extensive use, it is still unclear how this solvent affects the membrane structure and whether its effect is strongly dependent on membrane lipid composition. We employed vesicles of different complexity, from the simplest membrane model (DOPC) up to more complex ones (polar lipid extract of yeast and E. coli) in physiological conditions and under osmotic stress. A wide range of DMSO content was studied, from 0 % to
40 %, using dynamic light scattering, small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering techniques. Our results show that vesicles in PBS maintain their integrity and structure up to 20 % DMSO, but only at higher DMSO concentrations (
40 %) a drastic alteration of vesicle structure will occur. The main effect of DMSO appears to be a reduction in inter-membrane distances, linked to dehydration, and therefore an increase in stacking of membranes. We also demonstrated that DMSO’s effects on lipid vesicles generated in PBS are dependent on lipid composition, with more complex multi-component membranes, such as lipid polar extracts, demonstrating a higher resilience towards dehydration. Our findings highlight the importance of defining a DMSO threshold concentration that would allow stable and defined vesicle formation for any given lipid composition
Polymer conformational entropy as the driver of complex coacervation
No full textUnderstanding the mechanisms leading to complex coacervation is a fundamental challenge in biomolecular sciences. Here, we explored the condensation transition and pretransitional behavior of an archetypal system consisting of polyuridylic acid chains (PolyU) and short cationic peptides in buffered aqueous solutions. By combining static and dynamic light scattering with confocal microscopy, we determined the location of the transition and the partitioning of PolyU and peptides between the coexisting phases as a function of the total peptides/PolyU ratio. We find that upon adding peptides in the system, the size of PolyU coils in the single-phase region is progressively reduced by peptide-mediated intrachain bonds. Such conformational constraints become less severe in the dense phase, where part of the bonds become interchain as indicated by the sticky-reptation-type kinetics observed by dynamic light scattering. We propose a phenomenological model in which we include the loss in PolyU conformational entropy induced by peptide decoration and show that this quantity is large enough to be the main driver of the condensation transition. The model well reproduces the observed molecular partitioning between phases. We argue that the role of coil conformational relaxation, here demonstrated for a specific system, might be of general relevance in complex coacervation