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Le risorse naturali ed i mezzi di pagamento nelle matrici di contabilità sociale: rappresentazione analitica e riferimenti storici.\ud
No full textPresupponendo che ciascuna economia è rappresentabile come un sistema aperto, l’analisi input-output e le matrici di contabilità sociale (SAM) permettono di tenere in considerazione i flussi che valicano il confine del sistema economico, tanto in entrata (risorse naturali non prodotte) quanto in uscita (prodotti di scarto ed emissioni). Tali relazioni con l’ecosistema vengono qui analizzate col metro monetario dei prezzi formatisi sul mercato, anche se in via teorica è possibile affiancare al consueto sistema contabile una rappresentazione di tipo energetico-materiale. \ud
Sempre adottando l’impostazione delle SAM, si analizza la natura giuridica, informazionale e fiduciaria della moneta, termine qui sostituito da mezzi di pagamento. La contabilità nazionale non tiene conto di tutti i passaggi intermedi di detti mezzi, sottostimando la quantità e occultando in parte la struttura degli scambi intercorrenti in un sistema economico in un dato lasso di tempo. Non è perciò determinante pervenire a degli indicatori sintetici (PIL o quantità di moneta), quanto piuttosto analizzare dettagliatamente la circolazione dei mezzi di pagamento.\ud
Ognuno di questi due aspetti – relazioni con l’ambiente naturale e studio della circolazione dei mezzi di pagamento – è completato con dei riferimenti storici spesso dimenticati, ma recentemente rivalutati dagli studiosi del pensiero economico.\ud
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The Role of Higher Education in the Creation of a Regional Umbrella-Brand: The Case of Le Marche.
No full textThe idea of a research project about the role of Higher Education Institutions’ (HEIs) in favoring local economic development started from a recognition of the changing roles of tertiary education institutions, as expressed both by academic literature and policy-makers’ documents. International policymakers, such as OECD and the European Union, put forward the necessity for universities to connect with their regions and help the knowledge flow. Networks between universities, businesses, and governments seem to be the way for regions to grow and deal with globalization. The importance of HEIs in the development of the territory where they are embedded is becoming a fundamental issue of growing importance in the knowledge economy. If it is true that universities have been founded principally on the activities of teaching and research (first mission and second mission, respectively), on the other hand, universities have always made contributions, both directly and indirectly, to decision-making in the wider society; this aspect has been called third mission. \ud
Globalization does not dis-embed economic activities from territory; rather, the sub-national level becomes essential in building economic competitiveness and in the development of the knowledge economy. This aspect provides a territorial focus for universities’ new role in the knowledge economy and network-building between universities and regional stakeholders becomes essential, particularly in rural regions, where the economy is driven by myriad of SMEs with low levels of knowledge. Universities are called to play a greater role as stimulators and facilitators of knowledge transfer within business and society.\ud
The University of Macerata is the scientific partner for “Marche d’Eccellenza,” a project aimed at constituting a territorial umbrella-brand. The goal is to create a unique brand for the Marche region, by recollecting all its unique aspects (destinations, agro-food products, and manufacture products). This research aims at understanding what roles the University of Macerata could assume in the “Marche d’Eccellenza” project.\ud
The OECD report “Entrepreneurship, SMEs and local development in the Marche region, Italy” analyses reasons why it is considered worthwhile to enhance connections between HEIs and the stakeholders of the territory are explored, especially in a context of place branding. Place branding is not about using the qualities of the place to promote local products in the markets, but about using the qualities of local products to ascribe meanings and associations to the place (Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005). Place branding is a complex operation because it implies different actors, with often competing interests. These actors must work together to create a coherent identity for the place to be promoted, within the context of global competition.\ud
The main goal of this research is to understand how the involvement of the University of Macerata can help the setup of a stakeholder-inclusive network aimed at building a territorial umbrella-brand, through the analysis of the “Marche d’Eccellenza” case study. In order to achieve this overarching objective, this work will try to answer the following questions:\ud
What are the main values and working hypothesis emerging from local stakeholders’ discussion and interaction? What is the knowledge gap connected with some of them and what constitutes the brand essence? \ud
How is the image of a place perceived by foreigners?\ud
Which factors can determine place branding success?\ud
In order to answer these questions, this work investigates the network-building process in reference to an umbrella-brand, and the issues connected to it. It will also strive to make explicit the functions that should be ascribed to the University of Macerata, for this particular case and in this specific context.\ud
The case study as methodology has been chosen in this thesis because it allows us to understand complex social phenomena “in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2009: 18). \ud
The first chapter of this thesis deals with the content analysis of three different workshops, structured as brainstorming sessions, held during the First “Marche d’Eccellenza” Forum, organized by the University of Macerata, on November 10, 2010. The analysis of the brainstorming sessions showed that there are many common themes, each of which arose independently from the workshop’s specific activity. This research demonstrated that there are transversal issues, as well as values common to all stakeholders, which need to be made explicit. Another fundamental issue coming out from the analysis is that many concepts, essential for the success of a place branding initiative, are often confused or unclear to stakeholders; that is, there is a knowledge gap. Issues concerning the institution of a territorial umbrella-brand, the implications of a globalized market, and the difference between the image people have of certain place (brand image) and the image marketers want to promote (brand identity) are often misunderstood concepts, making it hard for the development of an umbrella-brand to take place. \ud
The second chapter of this thesis tries to analyze the perception of the Marche region by non-residents, by using a questionnaire that investigates the perception of brand image, that is, the image held by consumers towards a certain product or place. Research on the image of a place allows us to understand how a certain place is perceived by outsiders and allows marketers to work on a strategy for brand identity that represents the image they desire to promote. The study of image formation is essential because it represents the first step, prior to any branding effort. Once there is awareness of the perceived image people have of a place, then it is possible to aim at seeking the right strategies to setup an efficient brand identity campaign. The need for such an operation is consistent with the findings that emerged from the brainstorming sessions, where stakeholders lamented the lack of coherent and consistent outward-facing communication for the Marche brand. The lack of a before and after analysis of the branding effort made it impossible to measure if communication and advertising did work. Moreover, the questionnaire can show whether the values attributed to the Marche region by non-residents coincide with the ones emerging from the brainstorming sessions, offering several indications on the assets that contribute to local economic development.\ud
The third chapter analyzes the “Tourism Victoria Jigsaw Campaign” case study. An opportunity for the author of this thesis to spend three months at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, allowed this case study to be carried out. The subsequent results can be considered as an example of best practice in place branding. In fact, the study represents an example of practical success in place branding that has received little academic attention. A literature review on success factors in place branding has allowed the emergence of a theoretical model, which was subsequently tested during the case study. The opportunity of testing place branding theories in a practical success case showed that the theoretical model has a practical application. The place branding success factors scheme offers a great help in understanding the support that a university can offer to stakeholders, making them aware of a lot of determinant issues that need to be taken into account when dealing with a place branding operation. \ud
The final chapter analyzes the implications resulting from the “Marche d’Eccellenza” case study: in the first half of the chapter, the roles of the University of Macerata in this network will be discussed, and in the second half of the chapter suggestions for local policy-makers will be put forward
Il posto degli intermedi nella struttura dei contrari: contributi delle ricerche linguistico-cognitive e della fenomenologia sperimentale della percezione
No full textL'oggetto di studio della tesi è costituito dalle qualità intermedie cioè da quegli stati dell’esperienza percettiva che stanno tra due proprietà contrarie senza corrispondere né all’una né all'altra.\ud
Tra le varie tipologie di esperienze intermedie che costituiscono possibili oggetti di studio, ci siamo indirizzati verso l'osservazione di alcune proprietà visive dello spazio. La ricerca ha cercato conferma della loro percepibilità e descrivibilità e della diversa struttura di intermedietà che caratterizzerebbe diverse tipologie di contrari.\ud
Più in particolare, si è inteso verificare l’ipotesi che gli intermedi abbiano la stessa evidenza percettiva delle proprietà contrarie tra le quali si situano. Questa evidenza percettiva si sarebbe dovuta rendere visibile attraverso due fenomeni: i valori massimi di evidenza degli stati intermedi, per soggetti adulti, non sarebbero dovuti risultare significativamente inferiori rispetto a quelli delle relative proprietà contrarie; inoltre, in condizioni di pari evidenza, il tempo richiesto per identificare e quantificare il grado di presenza delle proprietà intermedie non sarebbe dovuto risultare maggiore di quello richiesto per identificare e quantificare l’evidenza delle rispettive proprietà contrarie. Si intendeva inoltre verificare quale fosse la struttura delle componenti estreme (o polarità) e della componente intermedia di ciascuna coppia rispetto alla caratteristica della graduabilità. \ud
Due gli studi condotti. Nel primo ai soggetti sono state presentate alcune serie di immagini, ognuna delle quali mostrava le variazioni da un estremo all'estremo contrario di una dimensione spaziale (ad esempio completo-incompleto; davanti-dietro; vicino-lontano). Per le stesse serie di immagini i soggetti fornivano, in base alla loro percezione immediata, tre valutazioni: una relativa al polo A (ad esempio la proprietà “completo”), una relativa al polo B (la proprietà “incompleto”), ed una relativa all'intermedio (la proprietà “né completo né incompleto”); quindi i soggetti vedevano per tre volte, non consecutive, le stesse serie randomizzate di immagini. Sono stati registrati i punteggi di evidenza attribuiti dai soggetti su una scala min-max e i relativi tempi di risposta.\ud
I risultati di questo primo esperimento hanno confermato che i tempi necessari a descrivere l’evidenza delle proprietà intermedie non sono statisticamente diversi da quelli necessari a descrivere almeno uno dei due poli (e in alcuni casi entrambi i poli). In termini di evidenza massima, è accaduto anche che per alcuni stimoli i soggetti hanno identificato gradi elevati di evidenza della proprietà intermedia, così come, per altri stimoli, accadeva rispetto ai due poli. E’ stato possibile identificare per ciascuna serie di immagini alcuni stati significativamente più caratterizzati per l’evidenza del polo A (che non degli intermedi o del polo B), del polo B (che non degli intermedi o del polo A) e degli intermedi (che non di uno dei due poli). Dall’analisi del numero di immagini della serie che possedevano queste caratteristiche sono emerse diverse tipologie di contrari, confrontabili con le tipologie emerse dagli esperimenti già condotti in letteratura ma usando un diverso metodo (Savardi e Bianchi, 2000; Bianchi, Savardi, Kubovy, 2011). A questo proposito, rispetto a tali lavori, la presente ricerca ha evidenziato una maggior graduabilità nella caratterizzazione della struttura percettiva delle dimensioni. Il dato è da riportare verosimilmente al tipo di compito che ha indotto i soggetti ad essere più disponibili ad ammettere gradualità (il dato andrà comunque approfondito in ricerche future). \ud
Nel secondo studio ci siamo concentrati sull’analisi strutturale dei soli intermedi, per verificare la corrispondenza tra morfologia degli intermedi attesa (e connessa alla struttura percettiva complessiva delle tre componenti: Puntuale-Nessuno-Gamma, Puntuale-Gamma-Puntuale, Gamma-Puntuale-Gamma, Gamma-Gamma-Gamma) e quella descritta dai soggetti in un compito di quantificazione. Nel secondo esperimento, a differenza del primo, la procedura sperimentale vincolava la descrizione della percezione dei due poli all’esclusione di intermedietà. Questo secondo esperimento ha confermato la corrispondenza tra la morfologia degli intermedi attesa e la forma descritta dai soggetti per tre tipologie di dimensioni (Puntuale-Gamma-Puntuale, Gamma-Puntuale-Gamma, Gamma-Gamma-Gamma), continuando a mostrare la criticità della quarta tipologia (Puntuale-Nessuno-Gamma) .\ud
In generale, i risultati hanno dato conferma 1) dell’esistenza di diverse strutture di intermedietà, più o meno estese a coprire la gamma delle variazioni che conducono da un estremo all’estremo contrario e 2) della percepibilità delle esperienze intermedie, che sono risultate descrivibili con tempi e gradi di evidenza paragonabili a quelli delle esperienze polarizzate
Umanesimo / Ricerca / Europa: Cerimonia inaugurale Anno Accademico 2011/2012, DCCXXII dalla fondazione.
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Amino Alcohols and Diamines: Novel Syntheses of Enantiopure Molecules useful in Catalysis
No full textThe subject of this PhD thesis is in the synthesis of new chiral amino alcohols and diamines using several\ud
strategies. In the first part has been reported the syntheses, the attribution of absolute configuration and\ud
the spectroscopic characterization of new chiral diamines, amino alcohols and polyfunctionalized ligands based on monoterpenes backbone, in particular (-)-limonene and (+)-3-carene. In the second part of this thesis were reported new synthetic strategies to obtain several functionality through Betti type reactions, using different starting materials and reaction’s conditions. Thank to these new synthetic variants it was possible to obtain chiral arylglycinates, a class of unnatural amino acids, aminocicloalyl naphthols and phenols, used as chiral ligands in asymmetric synthesis, chiral bifunctionalized (thio)ureas, largely applied as organocatalysts, benzochromenes, a class of biologically active compounds with a wide spectrum of activities and widely employed as cosmetics, pigments and potential biodegradable agrochemicals, and diamino alkyl naphthols, potentially useful as catalyst in asymmetric synthesis. Moreover, have been applied some Betti’s bases as catalysts in the enantioselective addition of diethyl zinc on α,β-unsaturated\ud
carbonyl compounds and in the reduction of prochiral ketones with borane, both with good yields but with\ud
moderate enantiomeric excesses. Finally, in the last part of this thesis has been proposed a new synthetic route to obtain 4-fluorothreonine, a fluorinated natural amino acid, through a greener and simpler way than that known in the literature
Preparation and characterization of Keggin type matrices CsxH(3+n)-xPMo12-nVnO40 for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells\ud (PEMFC)
No full textThe purpose of this thesis is the Preparation and characterization of Keggin type matrices CsxH(3+n)-xPMo12-nVnO40, used by our research group as co-catalysts for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC).\ud
The matrices we have developed are based on cesium salts of phosphovanadomolybdic acids that are large cluster anions containing transition metals. The salts, made in various stoichiometric ratios, between the cation and anion are insoluble in water. The prepared salts have been characterized morphologically and electrochemically. They have a high surface area and good proton conductivity. Rotating disk electrode measurements and cyclic voltammetry indicate an increase in the catalytic activity for matrices mixed both with platinum nanoparticles and non-precious\ud
catalysts. It can be concluded that all the results presented are consistent in suggesting that the cesium phosphovanadomolybdic salts are good matrices for anode and cathode catalysts in low temperature fuel cells (PEMFC, DEFC). It is reasonable to expect that the amounts of precious Pt can be somewhat diminished during practical applications and that the performance of the nonprecious\ud
catalyst can be improve
