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Constitutional foundations and limits of punitive power within the integrated legal system
Get PDFLa ricerca affronta la questione della punizione nella prospettiva del diritto costituzionale nazionale integrata con quella del diritto europeo dei diritti dell’uomo. Nella Parte I è sostenuta la tesi secondo cui la trasformazione della Costituzione penale avviata sotto l’influsso della giurisprudenza CEDU rappresenta complessivamente un avanzamento nel processo di costituzionalizzazione del potere punitivo. Questa conclusione è supportata attraverso un confronto della filosofia costituzionale classica sulla punizione con i diversi approcci interpretativi alla Costituzione penale sviluppati durante il XX secolo (approcci tradizionale, costituzionalistico ed EDU). Nella Parte II è invece sostenuta la tesi secondo cui, nonostante gli effetti positivi dell’armonizzazione sovranazionale, lo statuto costituzionale della punizione dovrebbe comunque rimanere formalmente autonomo dal diritto EDU. Non solo, infatti, nessun paradigma dei rapporti interordinamentali finora sviluppato può giustificarne un’integrazione totale, ma essa rischierebbe anche di diminuire la normatività dell’aspetto sociale della Costituzione penale, già ipocostituzionalizzato rispetto a quello liberale. Nella Conclusione sono quindi sviluppati gli elementi fondamentali di un approccio interpretativo alternativo alla Costituzione penale che risponda meglio di quelli esistenti alle esigenze sia di garantire la massima costituzionalizzazione della punizione sia di facilitare l’integrazione sovranazionale. In base a un simile approccio costituzionalmente fondato, sostanzialista, rights-based e inclusivo di tutte le ideologie costituenti, la Costituzione potrebbe essere letta nel senso di prevedere un modello di disciplina unitario per tutte le forme di esercizio del potere punitivo (salvo quello disciplinare, distinguibile sotto l’aspetto istituzionale) caratterizzato da: una riserva di legge a intensità variabile; uno scrutinio stretto della Corte sulla giustificabilità costituzionale della pena; l’estensione dell’ambito di applicazione dei principi di colpevolezza e rieducazione; un pieno sviluppo degli aspetti di garanzia collettiva dei classici principi costituzionalpenalistici (obblighi di tutela penale e garanzia dell’effettiva collocazione della pena in capo al soggetto colpevole), nonché derivabili dall’art. 3 Cost. (proporzionalità della pena alle condizioni materiali del soggetto punito).This research addresses the issue of punishment from the perspective of national constitutional law integrated with European human rights law. Part I argues that the transformation of criminal constitutional law, under the influence of ECtHR jurisprudence, represents progress in the historical process of the constitutionalization of punitive power. This conclusion is supported through a comparison of classical constitutional philosophy on punishment with the different interpretive approaches to criminal constitutional law developed during the 20th century (traditional, constitutionalist, and EHR approaches). Part II argues that, despite the positive effects of supranational harmonization, the constitutional status of punishment should remain formally autonomous from ECHR law. Not only is no existing theory of relations between legal orders suitable to justify total integration, but such integration would also risk reducing the normativity of the "social aspects" of criminal constitutional law, which are already underdeveloped compared to the "liberal aspects". In the Conclusion, the fundamental elements of an alternative interpretive approach to criminal constitutional law, which better meet the needs of both ensuring maximum constitutionalization of punishment and facilitating supranational integration, are developed. Based on a constitutionally grounded, substantive, rights-based, and inclusive approach to all constituent ideologies, the Constitution could be interpreted as providing a unified model of discipline for all forms of exercise of punitive power (except disciplinary sanctions, distinguishable from an institutional perspective). This model is characterized by a reserve of law of varying intensity, strict scrutiny of the Court on the constitutional justifiability of punishment, the extension of the scope of application of the principles of guilt and re-education, and full development of collective guarantee aspects of classic constitutional criminal law principles (positive obligations to punish and guarantees for non-transferability of punishment), as well as those derived from Art. 3 Const. (proportionality of punishment to the material conditions of the offender)
R-loops and G4-structures: from DNA damage to innate immune response gene activation
Get PDFNon-B DNA structures like R-loops and G-quadruplexes play a pivotal role in several cellular vital processes like DNA transcription regulation. Misregulation of said non-canonical DNA structures can often lead to genome instability, DNA damage, and, eventually, to the activation of an innate immune response. For such reasons they have been studied as adjuvants in anticancer therapies. Here we studied drugs targeting R-loops (Top1 poisons) and G4s (hydrazone derivatives) in order to observe their effects in terms of DNA damage induction and, subsequently, activation of innate immune response. We studied how non-cytotoxic doses of ampthotecin and LMP-776 impact on genome instability, are capable to induce DNA damage and micronuclei, and, eventually lead to an innate immune gene response via the cGAS/STING pathway. G-quadruplexes are another ubiquitous, non-canonical DNA structure, more abundant in telomeric regions, demonstrating a marked relation with the impairment of telomerase and the regulation of DNA replication and transcription.
Furthermore, we investigated the properties of new-synthesized molecules belonging to the highly promising class of hydrazone derivatives, in terms of cytotoxicity, ability to stabilize G4-structures, induce DNA damage, and activate interferon-B production. Both Top1 poisons and G4-stabilizers possess several features that can be very useful in clinical applications, in light of their ability to stimulate innate immune response factors and exert a certain cell-killing power, plus they offer a broad and diverse range of treatment options in order to face a variety of patient treatment needs. It is for these very reasons that it is of uttermost importance that further studies are conducted on these compounds, in order to synthesize new and increasingly powerful and flexible ones, with fewer side effects to customize therapies on specific cancers’ and patients’ features
Teaching informatics to novices: big ideas and the necessity of optimal guidance
Get PDFThis thesis reports on the two main areas of our research: introductory programming as the traditional way of accessing informatics and cultural teaching informatics through unconventional pathways.
The research on introductory programming aims to overcome challenges in traditional programming education, thus increasing participation in informatics. Improving access to informatics enables individuals to pursue more and better professional opportunities and contribute to informatics advancements. We aimed to balance active, student-centered activities and provide optimal support to novices at their level. Inspired by Productive Failure and exploring the concept of notional machine, our work focused on developing Necessity Learning Design, a design to help novices tackle new programming concepts. Using this design, we implemented a learning sequence to introduce arrays and evaluated it in a real high-school context. The subsequent chapters discuss our experiences teaching CS1 in a remote-only scenario during the COVID-19 pandemic and our collaborative effort with primary school teachers to develop a learning module for teaching iteration using a visual programming environment.
The research on teaching informatics principles through unconventional pathways, such as cryptography, aims to introduce informatics to a broader audience, particularly younger individuals that are less technical and professional-oriented. It emphasizes the importance of understanding informatics's cultural and scientific aspects to focus on the informatics societal value and its principles for active citizenship. After reflecting on computational thinking and inspired by the big ideas of science and informatics, we describe our hands-on approach to teaching cryptography in high school, which leverages its key scientific elements to emphasize its social aspects. Additionally, we present an activity for teaching public-key cryptography using graphs to explore fundamental concepts and methods in informatics and mathematics and their interdisciplinarity. In broadening the understanding of informatics, these research initiatives also aim to foster motivation and prime for more professional learning of informatics
Implementation of the 3D Information System: development of a codified vocabulary for functional and productive data comparison
Get PDFIl progetto del dottorato di ricerca ha permesso di estendere il lavoro svolto sul Sistema Informativo 3D del Cantiere della Fontana del Nettuno al fine di definire la struttura concettuale e i relativi contenuti tematici di una piattaforma open source in grado di sviluppare la documentazione di restauro, sia per opere complesse caratterizzate dalla presenza di molti materiali costitutivi, sia per interventi più semplici nel quale preservare memoria e fornire libero accesso ai dati.
Il confronto tra il SI del Cantiere della Fontana del Nettuno con le attuali metodologie utilizzate in campo nazionale ed internazionale ha permesso di ampliare i lessici necessari per la documentazione grafica e testuale da effettuare su diverse classi di materiali, creando delle cartelle integrate da combinare in base ai materiali costitutivi delle opere da restaurare. Il lavoro ha permesso la redazione di un lessico specifico per i diversi materiali costitutivi fornendo una banca dati informatizzata di facile consultazione.The PhD project made it possible to extend the work carried out on the 3D Information System of the Neptune Fountain in order to define the conceptual structure and related thematic content of an open-source platform capable of developing the restoration documentation.
The comparison of the IS of the Neptune Fountain with the current methodologies used in the national and international fields made it possible to expand the lexicons useful for graphic and textual documentation based on different classes of materials, creating integrated folders to be combined according to the constituent materials. The result made it possible to develop a specific lexicon for the different constituent materials, providing a user-friendly computerized database
Supervised and weakly supervised counting-by-segmentation: the fluorescent microscopy use case
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on automating the time-consuming task of manually counting activated neurons in fluorescent microscopy images, which is used to study the mechanisms underlying torpor. The traditional method of manual annotation can introduce bias and delay the outcome of experiments, so the author investigates a deep-learning-based procedure to automatize this task. The author explores two of the main convolutional-neural-network (CNNs) state-of-the-art architectures: UNet and ResUnet family model, and uses a counting-by-segmentation strategy to provide a justification of the objects considered during the counting process. The author also explores a weakly-supervised learning strategy that exploits only dot annotations. The author quantifies the advantages in terms of data reduction and counting performance boost obtainable with a transfer-learning approach and, specifically, a fine-tuning procedure. The author released the dataset used for the supervised use case and all the pre-training models, and designed a web application to share both the counting process pipeline developed in this work and the models pre-trained on the dataset analyzed in this work
The new European health eGovernance: toward a full integration of digitization in member states' health systems
Get PDFL’elaborato approfondisce il diritto alla salute nell’ordinamento dell’Unione europea, con la consapevolezza che il settore della sanità, nella complessità di una tensione perdurante tra la sua matrice sociale e l’applicazione di logiche europee di mercato, rappresenta un ambito da sempre sottratto all’intervento diretto e vincolante delle istituzioni. Contemporaneamente, prende spunto dall’osservazione della transizione digitale dei sistemi sanitari nazionali per proporre una rilettura dei tradizionali equilibri istituzionali tra ordinamenti e constatare il grado di influenza dell’Unione oltre la dimensione transfrontaliera.
Infatti, per le attuali esigenze di sostenibilità dei sistemi di tutela della salute e per il valore aggiunto riconosciuto alle azioni europee nel corso della gestione della pandemia da Covid-19, l’eHealth ha rappresentato l’occasione per una vigorosa intrusione delle istituzioni europee entro prerogative tipicamente statuali, fino all’emersione di una eGovernance sanitaria europea.
Pertanto, la trattazione compie un percorso evolutivo che muove dalla Direttiva 2011/24 sull’assistenza transfrontaliera e l’assistenza sanitaria online, in combinato disposto con il complesso degli atti di soft law connessi, per verificarne l’esiguo impatto sui sistemi sanitari degli Stati membri e, alla luce dei recenti investimenti strategici ed interventi normativi rilevanti in tema di tecnologie applicate alla sanità, riconoscerne il sostanziale superamento.
In particolare, il confronto tra l’insufficiente livello di digitalizzazione raggiunto finora nei sistemi sanitari degli Stati membri ed il tenore della Proposta di regolamento sullo European Health Data Space suggerisce l’evoluzione dell’impianto di governo dei dati sanitari stabilito nella Direttiva, a partire dalla previsione di una disciplina comune sulla cartella sanitaria. A questo proposito, l’interoperabilità tra tecnologie diviene un presupposto operativo indefettibile, che corrobora la natura ‘tecnologicamente condizionata’ del diritto alla salute e propone l’idea che la sanità digitale rappresenti un passo in avanti verso un’assistenza europea uniforme.The paper explores the right to health in the European Union legal system, with the awareness that the health sector, in the complexity of an enduring tension between its social roots and the application of European market rationale, represents an area which has always been taken away from the direct and binding intervention of institutions. It takes the observation of the digital transition of national health systems as a starting point to propose a reinterpretation of the traditional institutional balances between legal systems and ascertain the extent to which the Union has influence beyond the cross-border dimension.
Indeed, due to the current needs for sustainability of health protection systems and the added value recognized to European actions during the management of the pandemic by Covid-19, eHealth has provided an opportunity for a vigorous intrusion of European institutions within typically state prerogatives, up to the emergence of a European health eGovernance.
Therefore, the discussion takes an evolving path that moves from Directive 2011/24 on cross-border care and online health care, in conjunction with the set of related soft-law acts, to ascertain its meager impact on member states' health systems and, in light of recent strategic investments and relevant regulatory interventions in health technologies, to acknowledge its substantial overcoming.
The comparison between the insufficient level of digitization achieved so far in the health systems of the member states and the content of the Proposal for a Regulation on the European Health Data Space suggests the evolution of the health data governance framework established in the Directive, starting with the provision of a common discipline on medical records. In this regard, interoperability between technologies becomes an unfailing operational prerequisite, underpinning the 'technologically conditioned' nature of the right to health and proposing the idea that digital health represents a step toward uniform European care
The book of Qohelet. A digital scholarly edition of the hebrew text
Get PDFThe objective of the present dissertation is a born-digital critical edition of the Hebrew Old Testament book of Qohelet. The edition is based on an extensive collation of variant readings from indirect sources – the Septuagint, the Peshitta, the works of St. Jerome (the Vulgate and the Commentary), and the Targum – as well as from direct sources such as the Qumran fragments and Hebrew medieval manuscripts.
The ultimate goal of the edition is (a) to reproduce the earliest textual form, the Archetype, that can be reconstructed on the basis of the available evidence; and (b) to propose a rehabilitation of the Original of the Author by resorting, when necessary, to conjectural emendation. We date the Archetype to the II century BCE, corresponding to the date of Hebrew fragments from Qumran, while we place the Original between the V and III centuries BCE.
Unlike previous critical editions of Qohelet, ours follows the so-called eclectic model, which involves the reconstitution of a critical text and the preparation of an apparatus of secondary variants. Our edition includes, moreover, new data, taken both from primary literature, such as the recently published Göttingen Septuagint, and from up-to-date studies and critical commentaries on the text of Qohelet.
The work is made up of five main parts: an introduction, which sets forth the rationale of the edition and the methodology adopted; the collation, where the variants are listed in their original language; the commentary, where they are extensively discussed; the critical text accompanied by the apparatus, which presents a selection of authentic Hebrew variants taken from the collation; and finally, a translation of the critical text.
The edition uses the mark-up language of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). It is realized in pdf, via LaTeX, and will be available in digital form, via the TEI-Publisher editor
Joint value at risk: a new conditional risk measure
Get PDFIn this PhD thesis a new firm level conditional risk measure is developed. It is named Joint Value at Risk (JVaR) and is defined as a quantile of a conditional distribution of interest, where the conditioning event is a latent upper tail event. It addresses the problem of how risk changes under extreme volatility scenarios.
The properties of JVaR are studied based on a stochastic volatility representation of the underlying process.
We prove that JVaR is leverage consistent, i.e. it is an increasing function of the dependence parameter in the stochastic representation.
A feasible class of nonparametric M-estimators is introduced
by exploiting the elicitability of quantiles and the stochastic ordering theory.
Consistency and asymptotic normality of the two stage M-estimator are derived, and a simulation study is reported to illustrate its finite-sample properties.
Parametric estimation methods are also discussed.
The relation with the VaR is exploited to introduce a volatility contribution measure, and a tail risk measure is also proposed.
The analysis of the dynamic JVaR is presented based on asymmetric stochastic volatility models.
Empirical results with S&P500 data show that accounting for extreme volatility levels is relevant to better characterize the evolution of risk.
The work is complemented by a review of the literature, where we provide an overview on quantile risk measures, elicitable functionals and several stochastic orderings
Childhood obesity: families' eating habits and lifestyles. A sociological analysis in Rimini area
Get PDFL'obesità infantile può essere considerata una delle maggiori sfide sanitarie del XXI secolo.
In Italia, la fascia d'età più colpita è quella tra i 6 e gli 11 anni.
L'infanzia e l'adolescenza non solo influenzano lo sviluppo fisico, cognitivo e sociale dell'adulto, ma anche l'aspettativa di vita.
Inoltre, l'interruzione dell'insegnamento in classe e le misure di contenimento di Covid-19 hanno aumentato il comfort food, la sedentarietà e la vulnerabilità socio-economica delle famiglie.
Lo scopo del lavoro di ricerca è stato quello di studiare i fattori sociali che hanno influenzato le abitudini alimentari e gli stili di vita delle famiglie con bambini di età compresa tra i 6 e gli 11 anni, all'interno dell'ambiente di socializzazione primario (famiglia) e secondario (scuola e altre istituzioni) anche durante la pandemia di COVID-19. La ricerca è stata condotta in Emilia-Romagna nella città di Rimini e poi estesa al contesto europeo contemporaneo.
Per indagare questo punto, è stata utilizzata una metodologia in parte qualitativa e in parte quantitativa. L'approccio mosaico composto da 15 interviste semi-strutturate; 8 focus group e 5 etnografie ha permesso di costruire un questionario, online e cartaceo, somministrato a 361 genitori.
I principali risultati rivelano che (1) i bambini sono ingrassati durante il periodo di Covid; (2) esiste una correlazione tra il peso della madre e il peso del bambino; (3) le madri sottovalutano l'obesità dei figli.Childhood obesity can be considered one of the greatest health challenges of the 21st century.
In Italy, the 6-11 age group is the most affected.
Childhood and adolescence not only influence the physical, cognitive and social development of the adult, but also life expectancy.
In addition, the interruption of classroom teaching and the Covid-19 containment measures have increased comfort food, sedentariness and socio-economic vulnerability of families.
The aim of the research work was to study the social factors that influenced the eating habits and lifestyles of families with children aged 6-11 years, within the primary (family) and secondary (school and other institutions) socialisation environment, also during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted in Emilia-Romagna in the city of Rimini and then extended to the contemporary European context.
To investigate this point, a partly qualitative and partly quantitative methodology was used. A mosaic approach composed of 15 semi-structured interviews; 8 focus groups and 5 ethnographies made it possible to construct a questionnaire, online and on paper, submitted to 361 parents.
Main results reveal that (1) children gained weight during the Covid period; (2) there is a correlation between mother's weight and child's weight; (3) mothers underestimate their children's obesity
Taxonomy, phylogeography and myrmecophily of the spider genus Mastigusa (Araneae, Cybaeidae)
Get PDFThe genus Mastigusa Menge, 1854 includes small entelegyne spiders represented by extant and fossil species presenting characteristic features in male and female genitalia. The genus has a palearctic distribution, being present in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and shows ecological plasticity, with free-living, cave- dwelling and myrmecophile populations. The taxonomic history of the genus has been problematic, both regarding its phylogenetic placement and the delimitation of the species it includes. Three extant species are currently recognized, but the characters used to discriminate them have been inconsistent, leading to confusion about their identification and distribution. In the present thesis we addressed the taxonomic issues regarding Mastigusa by combining molecular and morphological data in an integrative taxonomy approach. For the first time, we included the genus in a molecular phylogenetic matrix solving a long going debate regarding its familiar placement, obtaining a well-supported placement in the family Cybaeidae. We used multi-locus molecular phylogenetic and DNA barcoding techniques as a starting point for identifying divergent lineages within the genus and revise the taxonomic status of the three known Mastigusa species, identifying a new species from the Iberian Peninsula, Algeria and the United Kingdom: M. raimondi sp. n. This taxonomic revision allowed a phylogeographic and ecological study of Mastigusa across its distribution range, carried out using phylogenetics and ecological niche modelling techniques, aiming at a comparison of the lifestyles and ecological requirements of the different species on a geographic scale. The Italian Alps were finally used as a testing ground for investigating the ecology and host preference of myrmecophile Mastigusa arietina populations living in association with ant species belonging to the Formica rufa species group. Spiders were found in association with five different Formica species, demonstrating little specificity and the tendency of associating with the locally present host species