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URBAN CO-ACTION. The role of glocal climate action movements in a new adaptive co-design framework for urban resilience and ecological transition
Get PDFThe present research Thesis is part of a growing interdisciplinary field of studies concerned with finding strategies to foster ecosystem stewardship of social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems, such as cities and, in particular, of those that involve the notion of participation and collaborative design, to effectively build resilience in the context of climate change and ecological crisis. Framed within other glocal climate action movements, as part of an increasing number of “urban climate change experiments”, often emerging outside formal contexts of decision-making and led by actors other than municipal government, the object of the present research is the globally growing socio-technological phenomenon of Civic/Green Hackathons, and of Climathon® in particular, an international 24-hour collaborative design event aimed developing solutions to tackle climate change in urban settings. Through the double lenses of social-ecological resilience and of participatory processes, with the objective of helping Urban Institutions in better coordinating, integrating and consolidating bottom-up contributions towards the achievement of pressing global targets of social-ecological resilience and sustainability, the findings of the present research have been used to develop a clear set of Recommendations for improving the ability to expand social-ecological resilience under conditions of uncertainty, and to understand the role and importance of Climathon® and of the other glocal climate action movements, in a new adaptive co-design framework for urban resilience and ecological transition. The proposed new framework is an heuristic model and pragmatic tool, implementable and replicable in other regulatory contexts and decision-making processes, addressed to Urban Institutions that have undertaken a path of resilience planning and ecological transition, to assist them in planning and managing participatory resilience planning processes more adaptively, and to facilitate their recognizing windows of opportunity to address change towards sustainable development and, in prospective, to foster active (Human) ecosystem stewardship through collective action, starting from cities
Historical heritage and project in Portuguese architecture. Reflections of Italian culture in the work of Távora, Soutinho and Siza.
Get PDFRivolto al contesto portoghese, il progetto della seguente ricerca è orientato alla comprensione della pratica dell’intervento sul patrimonio nei cinque decenni successivi alla redazione della Carta di Venezia, indagando in particolare l’atteggiamento progettuale assunto in tali circostanze da Fernando Távora, Alcino Soutinho e Álvaro Siza - tre rilevanti architetti della ‘Scuola di Porto’. A tale proposito, un aspetto rilevante dell’indagine sarà quindi fornire uno ‘sguardo italiano’, inteso come lettura critica del loro operato, capace di analizzare oltre agli aspetti compositivi, questioni relative al ‘restauro’, nonché individuare possibili influenze della cultura del progetto di matrice italiana, derivate da viaggi, incontri e conferenze avvenute in Italia.
Per mantener fede alle aspettative proposte si è ritenuto imprescindibile prendere le mosse dal significato assunto dal concetto di patrimonio storico culturale, così come declinato in ambito lusitano, unitamente alla definizione delle misure di tutela dei monumenti e alla determinazione dei vari approcci progettuali sul patrimonio che si sono susseguiti negli anni. Successivamente è stata condotta un’indagine sulle eventuali influenze della cultura architettonica italiana del secondo dopoguerra, verificando quindi in che misura abbiano contribuito alla formazione culturale e professionale degli architetti in questione. L’analisi di sei casi studio, due per ogni maestro selezionato, ha costituito il principale mezzo di ricerca. Le considerazioni emerse hanno quindi permesso la definizione degli atteggiamenti progettuali assunti nei confronti dei manufatti antichi, nonché le modalità di intervento adottate di fronte ai segni del tempo su di essi sedimentati. Considerazioni che hanno inoltre condotto ad un confronto finale di più ampio raggio, richiamando altre coeve esperienze di simile natura, dislocate sull’intero territorio portoghese.Aimed at the Portuguese context, the project of the following research is oriented towards the understanding of the practice of heritage intervention in the five decades following the drafting of the Venice Charter, investigating in particular the design attitude assumed by Fernando Távora, Alcino Soutinho and Álvaro Siza - three relevant architects of the 'School of Porto'. In this regard, an important aspect of the investigation will also be to provide an 'Italian view', intended as a critical reading of their work, capable of analyzing not only the compositional aspects, but also issues related to 'restoration', as well as identifying possible influences of the Italian design culture, derived from travel, meetings and conferences that took place in Italy.
In order to keep faith with the proposed expectations, it has been considered essential to start from the meaning assumed by the concept of historical and cultural heritage, as it has been declined in the Lusitanian context, together with the definition of the measures of protection of monuments and the determination of design approaches on heritage that have followed one another in the years. Subsequently, an investigation has been carried out on the possible influences of the Italian architectural culture after the Second World War, verifying to what extent they have contributed to the cultural and professional formation of the architects in question. The considerations that emerged have therefore allowed the definition of the design attitudes taken towards ancient artifacts, as well as the methods of intervention adopted in the face of the signs of time sedimented on them. Considerations that have also led to a final comparison of wider range, recalling other contemporary experiences of similar nature, located throughout the Portuguese territory
Computing the structural and vibrational properties of polymorphic organic molecular crystals through van der Waals corrected density functional theory and the electronic properties of organic thin films through microelectrostatic calculations.
Get PDFThe present Thesis reports on the various research projects to which I have contributed during my PhD period, working with several research groups, and whose results have been communicated in a number of scientific publications.
The main focus of my research activity was to learn, test, exploit and extend the recently developed vdW-DFT (van der Waals corrected Density Functional Theory) methods for computing the structural, vibrational and electronic properties of ordered molecular crystals from first principles. A secondary, and more recent, research activity has been the analysis with microelectrostatic methods of Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of disordered molecular systems.
While only very unreliable methods based on empirical models were practically usable until a few years ago, accurate calculations of the crystal energy are now possible, thanks to very fast modern computers and to the excellent performance of the best vdW-DFT methods. Accurate energies are particularly important for describing organic molecular solids, since they often exhibit several alternative crystal structures (polymorphs), with very different packing arrangements but very small energy differences. Standard DFT methods do not describe the long-range electron correlations which give rise to the vdW interactions. Although weak, these interactions are extremely sensitive to the packing arrangement, and neglecting them used to be a problem. The calculations of reliable crystal structures and vibrational frequencies has been made possible only recently, thanks to development of some good representations of the vdW contribution to the energy (known as “vdW corrections”)
Flexible Bayesian modelling of concomitant covariate effects in mixture models
Get PDFMixture models provide a useful tool to account for unobserved heterogeneity, and are the basis of many model-based clustering methods. In order to gain additional flexibility, some model parameters can be expressed as functions of concomitant covariates. In particular, prior probabilities of latent group membership can be linked to concomitant covariates through a multinomial logistic regression model, where each of these so-called component weights is associated with a linear predictor involving one or more of these variables. In this Thesis, this approach is extended by replacing the linear predictors with additive ones, where the contributions of some/all concomitant covariates can be represented by smooth functions. An estimation procedure within the Bayesian paradigm is proposed. In particular, a data augmentation scheme based on difference random utility models is exploited, and smoothness of the covariate effects is controlled by suitable choices for the prior distributions of the spline coefficients. This methodology is then extended to include flexible covariates effects also on the component densities.
The performance of the proposed methodologies is investigated via simulation experiments and applications to real data. The content of the Thesis is organized as follows. In Chapter 1, a literature review about mixture models and mixture models with covariate effects is provided. After a brief introduction on Bayesian additive models with P-splines, the general specification for the proposed method is presented in Chapter 2, together with the associated Bayesian inference procedure. This approach is adapted to the specific case of categorical and continuous manifest variables in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, respectively.
In Chapter 5, the proposed methodology is extended to include flexible covariate effects also in the component densities. Finally, conclusions and remarks on the Thesis are collected in Chapter 6
Life Cycle Thinking for sustainability assessment and decision-making in selected food supply chains in Costa Rica
Get PDFThe Agenda 2030 contains 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 12 for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) promotes the efficient use of resources through a systemic change that decouples economic growth from environmental degradation. The Food Systems (FS) pillar in SDG 12 entails paramount relevance due to its interconnection to many other SDGs, and even when being a crucial world food supplier, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Region struggles with environmental and social externalities, low investment in agriculture, inequity, food insecurity, poverty, and migration. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) was regarded as a pertinent approach to identify hotspots and trade-offs, and support decision-making process to aid LAC Region countries as Costa Rica to diagnose sustainability and overcome certain challenges. This thesis aimed to ‘evaluate the sustainability of selected products from food supply chains in Costa Rica, to provide inputs for further sustainable decision-making, through the application of Life Cycle Thinking’. To do this, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) evaluated the sustainability of food-waste-to-energy alternatives, and the production of green coffee, raw milk and leafy vegetables, and identified environmental, social and cost hotspots. This approach also proved to be a useful component of decision-making and policy-making processes together with other methods. LCT scientific literature led by LAC or Costa Rican researchers is still scarce; therefore, this research contributed to improve capacities in the use of LCT in this context, while offering potential replicability of the developed frameworks in similar cases. Main limitations related to the representativeness and availability of primary data; however, future research and extension activities are foreseen to increase local data availability, capacity building, and the discussion of potential integration through Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA)
Protection systems and stability of distribution networks and microgrids with distributed energy resources
Get PDFThe large-scale integration of Distributed Energy Resources in distribution networks has several technical implications and consequences, which increase in complexity when energy sources are of renewable type. Renewable Energy Sources are characterized by intermittent/unpredictable availability and are connected to the grid through converters, often close to the final users, which means that they are more prone to cause instability issues and potential mis-operation of protection schemes. These effects are the objects of this thesis.
A protection system against earth faults in radial and meshed distribution networks with unearthed and compensated neutral is proposed and assessed. The faulty feeder identification algorithm is based on the angle between the zero-sequence voltage and current phasors, estimated at the dominant transient frequency inferred from the transient response of the network within the first milliseconds after the fault. The performances of the protection system algorithm are assessed through a Monte Carlo method that considers the fault resistance, incidence angle and fault location variations. The power system is simulated within the EMTP-RV environment, while the protection algorithm is developed in Matlab. Results of a real-time simulation obtained in the Opal-RT environment further support the applicability of the algorithm.
Another important aspect of the large deployment of distributed resources are the diffusion of Microgrids (MGs) which are characterized by faster dynamics than conventional distributions systems. In this context, load dynamics considerably affect the transient stability performance of MGs. The transient stability of a medium voltage MG is analyzed in two different cases: an islanding transition and a fault when the MG is standalone. The exclusion of any rotating generator is expected to heighten the load influence on the system dynamics. Modern controllable loads are also included. The system is implemented in the EMTP-RV simulation environment, in Simulink and real-time simulations are carried out in the Opal-RT environment
Form and Power - Individuality and aesthetic categories in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Get PDFZiel der Arbeit ist es, Nietzsches Verwendung ästhetischer Kategorien zur Begriffsbestimmung der Individualität zu vertiefen. Die These situiert Nietzsches Denken innerhalb einer umfassenderen Interpretation der Moderne und des modernen ästhetischen Diskurses und zeigt, wie Nietzsche gerade durch die Radikalisierung bestimmter ästhetischer Kategorien (Genie, Bildung, Tragödie etc.) eine umfassende Kritik des modernen Subjektbegriffs durchführen konnte. Diese kritische Operation ist ihm nämlich möglich, weil der moderne ästhetische Diskurs das diskursive Mittel darstellt, welches die Moderne entwickelt hat, um einige ihrer zentralen Widersprüche zu theoretisieren und zu bearbeiten. Indem Nietzsche die Autonomie des ästhetischen Diskurses selbst kritisiert und gleichzeitig seine Logik auf den moralischen und politischen Bereich ausdehnt, entwickelt er somit nicht nur eine Kritik der wichtigsten ästhetischen Institutionen, sondern auch eine radikale Kritik der Moderne.The aim of this thesis is to investigate Nietzsche's use of aesthetic categories to conceptualise individuality. The investigation situates Nietzsche's thought within a broader interpretation of modernity and modern aesthetic discourse, showing how precisely through the radicalisation of certain aesthetic categories (Genius, Bildung, Tragedy etc.) Nietzsche could undertake a comprehensive critique of the modern concept of the subject. This critical operation is possible because modern aesthetic discourse represents the discursive device that modernity has developed to theorise and address some of its central contradictions. By critiquing the autonomy of aesthetic discourse and by extending at the same time its logic to the moral and political realms, Nietzsche thus develops not only a critique of the major aesthetic institutions, but also a radical critique of modernity.Lo scopo della tesi è di indagare l'uso delle categorie estetiche da parte di Nietzsche per concettualizzare l'individualità. L'indagine situa il pensiero di Nietzsche all'interno di un'interpretazione generale della modernità e del discorso estetico moderno, mostrando come proprio attraverso una radicalizzazione di alcune categorie estetiche (Genio, Bildung, Tragedia) Nietzsche abbia avviato una critica complessiva del concetto moderno di soggetto. Questa operazione è possibile perché il discorso estetico moderno rappresenta il dispositivo discorsivo che la modernità ha sviluppato per tematizzare e risolvere alcune delle proprie contraddizioni centrali. Criticando l'autonomia del discorso estetico ed estendone al contempo la logica al campo morale e politico, Nietzsche sviluppa così non solo una critica delle maggiori istituzioni estetiche, ma anche una critica radicale della modernità
Poetry and childhood: encounters, interweaving, possibilities in the marginal land of the “magic word”
Get PDFIl presente lavoro di tesi, inscritto in un’ottica pedagogica interdisciplinare che si sviluppa attraverso il paradigma indiziario, si propone di svolgere una riflessione attorno alla «parola poetica» nell’ottica di un’educazione estetica dell’infanzia che passi anche dalla scoperta di un linguaggio polisemico, metaforico, complesso, lieve quale quello poetico.
Concetti quali la marginalità e l’alterità del dire poetico e della figura stessa del poeta, che dà voce al momento liminale della communitas, si fanno rivelatori di quella che si mostra come vera e propria “parola magica” capace di dare senso, nel mito e nel rito che costantemente lo rigenera, all’esperienza umana.
La ricerca prende quindi in esame alcuni momenti paradigmatici, nella storia dell’immaginario e nella riflessione letteraria occidentale, che hanno favorito l’incontro fra poesia e infanzia nel terreno di una parola che dà voce alla liminalità: da Rousseau a Pascoli, da Baudelaire a Stevenson, numerosi sono gli autori che conducono la riflessione fino a quel territorio di soglia proficuamente spaesante che è la poesia «autentica» per l’infanzia contemporanea.
In particolare, questa ricerca prende in esame la collana di poesia della casa editrice Topipittori significativamente denominata “Parola magica”. Ventidue titoli, riconducibili alle due tipologie testuali che C. Boutevin definisce «raccolta di poesie illustrata» e «albo-poesia», permettono un affondo nella poesia contemporanea per l’infanzia, che esprime in questa collana la propria dimensione di soglia: l’interdipendenza fra parola e immagine e la diffusa presenza di «tracce di fiaba» ne sono i principali indizi analizzati in questo lavoro.This research, conducted from an interdisciplinary pedagogical perspective and developed through the circumstantial paradigm, aims to carry out a reflection around poetry in the perspective of an aesthetic education of childhood that includes the discovery of the polysemic, metaphorical, complex language of poems.
Concepts such as the marginality and the otherness of the poetic saying and of the poet himself, which give voice to the liminal moment of the communitas, reveal the existence of a "magic word" capable of giving meaning, trough myths and rituals, to human experience. The research analyzes some relevant moments, in the history of imaginary and of Western literature, which have led to the encounter between poetry and childhood in the land of liminality: from Rousseau to Pascoli, from Baudelaire to Stevenson, many are the authors who conduct the reflection up to the «authentic» contemporary poetry for children.
This thesis examines, in particular, the twenty-two books of the poetry series “Parola Magica”, published by Topipittori and belonging to the textual categories of the «illustrated collection» and of the «album-poem» distinguished by C. Boutevin. The study shows the importance of liminal dimension in contemporary children’s poetry books, choosing to investigate the interdependence between words and images and the «traces of fairy tale» that characterize them
From stigma to brand. Touristification processes and representations of the urban space in Naples
Get PDFLa ricerca intende fare luce sulle dinamiche di rigenerazione turistica di aree urbane marginalizzate e sul ruolo di narrazioni e rappresentazioni dello spazio nell’ambito di questi processi. Un tempo esclusi dalle geografie del turismo di massa, infatti, i luoghi affetti da quella che Wacquant ha definito «stigmatizzazione territoriale» sono oggi al centro di una riscoperta da parte dell’industria del turismo che tende a tematizzarli come espressioni vernacolari di una “autentica” cultura locale. In questo contesto gli obiettivi della ricerca sono: 1) mostrare come un certa repertorio di immagini e rappresentazioni tradizionalmente ricollegate all’immaginario del degrado e del disordine urbano divengano funzionali a una strategia di “folklorizzazione” della marginalità finalizzata alla promozione turistica del territorio e, 2) comprendere se, come e con quali effetti questa rappresentazione sia “assecondata” o viceversa contestata dagli attori locali nel loro agire quotidiano. In questa prospettiva – inserendomi lungo il filone postcoloniale degli studi urbani – a partire dal caso dei Quartieri Spagnoli a Napoli, ho mostrato come un certo immaginario urbano sia stato impiegato per trasformare uno spazio relegato allo stigma in una destinazione turistica internazionale. A questo scopo, dopo aver delineato la cornice storico-politica entro cui ha preso forma il processo di turistificazione dell’area, mi sono preliminarmente focalizzato sul modo in cui un complesso di discorsi e rappresentazioni del quartiere contribuiscano a plasmare l’immaginario di turisti e visitatori e a modellare le diverse pratiche turistiche di uso e consumo del territorio. Successivamente, attraverso il ricorso a interviste semi-strutturate e all’osservazione partecipante, ho tentato di chiarire in che modo questa rappresentazione sia “messa al lavoro” da parte degli attori locali nella loro esperienza quotidiana tanto per promuovere e incentivare questi processi, quanto per rinegoziarne gli effetti e massimizzarne ove possibile gli eventuali benefici economici.The research is aimed at shedding light upon tourism-driven regeneration processes of marginalized urban areas and the role of stigmatizing discourses and representations within these processes. Once excluded from urban tourism geographies, nowadays places affected by what Wacquant has termed “territorial stigmatization” are being rediscovered by the tourism industry as authentic and exotic tourist destinations. In this context, the research is aimed at: 1) understanding how a complex repertoire of discourses and representation linked to the imaginary of urban decay and disorder may contribute to a “folklorization” strategy of poverty and social exclusion aimed at the tourist development of marginalized neighbourhoods and, 2) understanding if and how these discourses and representation are indulged or rather challenged by local actors in their everyday experience. In this perspective, drawing on the postcolonial urban theory field, starting from the case study of the Quartieri Spagnoli in Naples, I tried to show how a certain representation of the neighbourhood has been employed to transform a once stigmatized urban area in an international tourism destination. For this purpose, once outlined the socio-historical context in which the touristification of the area is taking place, I focused on the way discourses and representations of the neighbourhood shape tourist’ imaginary and spatial practices. Secondly, making use of semi-structured interviews and participant observation, I tried to shed light on the way these representations are employed by local actors in their everyday experience both to encourage and promote these processes and to renegotiate their effects to maximize their economic outcomes
Caloric Restriction Mimetics, Autophagy, and Anticancer Immunosurveillance. “The bacterial metabolite prodigiosin inhibits autophagy and suppresses antitumor immunity. Results from a fluorescent biosensor-based screening of bacterial metabolites”
Get PDFNutrition plays a crucial role in the development and progression of different types of cancer. Dietary components, as well as gut microbiota-derived factors, can exert metabolic and immunomodulatory functions on the host, both locally and systemically. Recent studies highlighted the role of specific gut microbes as predictors of response to immunotherapy. Autophagy has a key function in the elicitation of an immune in response to anticancer therapy.
Here, we conducted an automatized fluorescent biosensor-based screening to identify autophagy modulators from a chemical library of host- and bacteria-derived metabolites and found prodigiosin, a red pigment produced by Serratia marcescens, as a potent inducer of LC3 dots in GFP-LC3 biosensor cells. Further autophagic flux analysis in RFP-GFP-LC3 tandem reporter cells and a GFP-Q74 Huntington’s disease model revealed that prodigiosin acts as an
inhibitor of autophagic flux. Consistent with the described immunosuppressive role of prodigiosin, our in vivo experiment in BALB/c mice transplanted with syngeneic colon cancers suggest that prodigiosin impairs the activity of anti-PD1 immunotherapy