4,206 research outputs found
Circular economy, the transition of an incumbent focal firm: How to successfully reconcile environmental and economic sustainability?
Get PDFCircular economy (CE) has garnered increasing attention in political circles and practitioner literature thanks to its potential to overcome the harmful consequences of linear patterns of growth. Nonetheless, the adoption of sustainable practices entails a holistic approach requiring businesses to make significant changes to their production, technologies and stakeholder management. These challenges resulted in limited progress in terms of the practical implementation of CE. This paper addresses the need for more literature focused on the pragmatic aspects of applying this paradigm to incumbent firms. The author presents the journey that Lucart Spa, a major European tissue paper manufacturer, has undertaken between 2014 and 2020 to apply CE principles to its practices. Insights from the transformation process, reconstructed through interviews with the firm’s management and environmental impact data, suggest that to succeed it takes innovating (plants, products and marketing strategies) and setting up supply chains that reconcile environmental and economic sustainability
Niobides en marbre dans la villa attribuée à Valerius Messalla Corvinus à Ciampino, Rome
No full textLupi Aurélia, Betori Alessandro, Calandra Elena. Niobides en marbre dans la villa attribuée à Valerius Messalla Corvinus à Ciampino, Rome . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 159e année, N. 1, 2015. pp. 491-521
Black holes in galactic nuclei: seed formation from stellar mass black holes and massive black hole pairing in galaxy mergers.
Get PDFBlack holes (BHs) are a very important class of astrophysical objects. They are the most compact objects in the Universe, hence they represent the most extreme sources of gravity. BHs come in two flavours: the stellar mass BHs (SBHs) relic of young massive stars (1−20M⊙) and the massive BHs (MBHs), with masses of 106−109M⊙, dwelling in the nuclei of the most massive galaxies. While the formation mechanisms of SBHs are well understood, no clear consensus exists about MBH formation. According to the Soltan arguments (Soltan, 1982), MBHs gain the largest fraction of their mass via radiative efficient accretion of gas. As a consequence, we expect that MBH formed early in the Universe as smaller mass seeds. Recently, observations of high redshift quasars (e.g.; Mortlock et al., 2011; Fan et al., 2006) showed that MBHs with masses above 109M⊙ were already in place when the Universe was less than 1 Gyr old and posed tight constraints on the models for the formation and growth of MBHs. Two main scenarios have been developed for MBH seed formation: the light seed scenario, where seeds formed as relic of the first generation of stars with masses of up to few hundred solar masses (Madau & Rees, 2001), and the heavy seed scenarios, where seeds formed from the direct collapse of massive gas clouds in primordial haloes with masses of up to few 105M⊙ (Haehnelt & Rees, 1993). Despite the large number of studies about MBH formation models, each model still has its own caveats, which make the study of MBH formation worth of further investigations.
According to the -CDM cosmology, galaxies form when gas cools down within dark matter haloes, which assembly in a hierarchical fashion from small density perturbations. Galaxies grow via accretion and mergers, and the central MBHs evolve in the same way. So, when a galaxy merger occur, the MBHs hosted in the nucleus of the galaxy progenitors can sink towards the centre of the merger remnant, forming a MBH binary (MBHB). Despite galaxy mergers are usually observed, no clear detections of MBHBs exist to date. The formation and evolution of MBHBs is a complex process, since it occurs in a rapidly varying environment where gas, star formation and SNa feedback play a pivotal role. Several studies have been performed to date, but a clear understanding of the whole process is still far from being reached.
In this thesis I cover both aspects of MBH formation and evolution. In the first study I consider an alternative route for seed BH formation. Using two different codes, the AMR code RAMSES (Teyssier, 2002) and the meshfree code GIZMO (Hopkins, 2015), I studied the evolution of a single massive circum-nuclear gaseous disc embedding a population of SBHs. The disc was subject to radiative cooling, star formation and supernova feedback and becomes unstable to fragmentation, which led to the formation of clumps as massive as 104 − 105M⊙. My simulations showed that during the disc evolution, some SBHs can be gravitationally captured by a clump. Within the clumps, such BHs can experience episodes of super-critical accretion, which make them grow up to 103 − 104M⊙ in few Myr. Thanks to the very low radiative efficiency associated to the slim accretion disc (Abramowicz et al., 1988), the energy released to the surrounding gas is too small to halt the accretion flow, hence BHs can accrete almost unimpeded until one of these events occur: the clump is totally accreted by the BH, the clump is consumed by star formation or the clump is destroyed by supernova explosions.
In the second study, instead, I consider the intermediate stages of a galaxy merger, when the MBHs originally dwelling in the centre of their own progenitor galaxies reach few hundred separations in the nucleus of the merger remnant. I assumed that each MBH was embedded in a self-gravitating circumnuclear gaseous disc. With the code RAMSES I studied the evolution of the MBHs and their surrounding discs, including physical processes like radiative cooling, star formation and supernova feedback, which are implemented in the code as sub-grid recipes. First, I implemented a new refinement prescription aimed at improving the orbital evolution of massive particles, an already known major issue in AMR codes, like observed by Gabor & Bournaud (2013); Dubois et al. (2014). Secondly, I evolved the discs assuming different sub-grid recipes to study how the MBH and gas dynamics could be affected by the different choices. I found that the MBH dynamics is almost independent of the physical modelling, if one assumes that no previous star formation occurred in the discs, while the gas evolution and its final distribution can be significantly affected. On the other side, if one assumes that star formation was already ongoing, even the BH dynamics can be modified, if supernovae are powerful enough to disrupt gas clumps forming in the discs.
A general introduction to the work is reported in Chapter 1. In Chapter 3 I discuss the first study about an alternative model for seed BH formation. In Chapter 4, instead, I describe the second study concerning the evolution of the MBH pair in the intermediate stages of a galaxy merger. The reader interested in the main results of the work can directly move to Chapters 3 and 4. Finally, Chapter 5 reports my conclusions
A imagem de Alessandro Baricco no Brasil
Get PDFDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução, Florianópolis, 2013.Com a intenção de delinear o modo pelo qual o escritor italiano Alessandro Baricco se inseriu no sistema literário brasileiro e os caminhos percorridos pelos seus livros traduzidos, esta dissertação dá voz às experiências tradutórias de seus tradutores. A inserção de Bariccono Brasil tem seu início em 1997, através de uma proposição da Profa. Dra. Roberta Barni à editora Iluminuras da tradução de Oceano Mare. A partir daí, outras sete obras foram publicadas no Brasil, sendo três delas traduzidas por Roberta Barni e as outras quatro por quatro tradutores diferentes. De um lado, considera-se o tradutor como figura principal namediação entre culturas, e, de outro, se analisa a realidade desta figuradentro do sistema literário, sua invisibilidade, seus limites e o exercíciode sua profissão. A pesquisa conta, ainda, com críticas e resenhas referentes ao autor italiano publicadas em jornais consagrados no Brasil, considerando estas como parte constituinte da imagem de Baricco refletida em território nacional. Abstract : Intending to delineate the way the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco has been inserted in the Brazilian literary system and the paths his translated books have followed, this thesis gives voice to the translating experiences of his translators. Baricco's insertion in Brazil began in 1997, through a personal project of Dr. Roberta Barni, with her translation of Oceano Mare. Since then, seven other of his works have been published in Brazil, three of which were translated by Roberta Barni and the other four by four different translators. On the one hand,the translator is considered as the main figure in mediation betweencultures and, on the other, this figure's reality is analyzed within theliterary system: its invisibility, its limits and its professional practice. Criticisms and reviews of this Italian author published in well established Brazilian newspapers are also considered, with the understanding that they are part of Baricco's image reflected here
Motorways of the Sea as an alternative to all-road transport: An application to an Italian case study [Le autostrade del mare come alternativa al "tutto strada": Una applicazione ad un caso Italiano]
No full textIn this paper, a quantitative study is performed on the competitiveness of MoS against road transport, in the modal split between Italian mainland and Sicily. The alternatives considered are: the “nearly all-road” transport, where the only maritime part is the crossing of the strait of Messina; and the intermodal transport: road + MoS, accompained and unaccompained. The results of the analysis point out that the intermodal unaccompanied transport is almost always the most convenient mode if generalized costs are considered. Moreover, the results of the analysis clearly show that the chosen paths (of minimum cost), in the case of intermodal transport, are highly influenced by the availability of MoS services. The results of this work could help decision makers and maritime operators, to better invest on MoS routes in order to improve the competitiveness of intermodal transport against all road transport
The motorways of the sea: a study on the development of the ro-ro network to/from Italian ports in the years 2008-2012
Get PDFIn this paper, the development of the ro-ro Short Sea Shipping (SSS) services offered at Italian ports in the last five years is analyzed. In particular, a detailed research on all the ro-ro SSS routes departing from and arriving to Italian ports, in the years 2008, 2010 and 2012, is performed. All routes regarding these three years are extensively reported. The study highlights two main aspects. The first aspect is that domestic ro-ro routes cannot constitute, by now, an alternative to domestic road freight transport: as no routes connect together two ports in the mainland, but they only connect the Italian mainland with the Italian islands. The second aspect is a general modification of the routes in recent years, particularly between 2010 and 2012: they tend to increase in number, decrease their frequency but increase their length, in particular with reference to the number of ports involved. This fact is a result of the economic crisis: on one hand the transport demand is decreased, and therefore the routes’ frequencies; on the other hand, the shipping companies look for new markets in order to face the reduction in traffic
Social Network Branding: la politica di marca nell’era delle reti sociali digitali
No full textThanks to social media companies have a new digital and interactive tool to reach for public. Customers use social media to share contents of different kinds on the web: personal experiences, opinions and suggestions about brands and products. It is not surprising that the use of social media in the brand policy is growing exponentially. Yet, the vehicle through which multiple aspects of social media (blogs, forums, and social networks) contribute to the success of emerging brands and reinforce well-established marks still needs to be fully understood. This manuscript, after a preliminary analysis of the social media’s role in brand policy, highlights and analyses the results obtained by a Tuscan footwear company that combines traditional commercial tools with Facebook to promote its brands and new products
La vendita è una questione interpersonale
No full textQuesto testo tratta dei principi della vendita e si rivolge sia ai professionisti che operano in questo ambito, sia agli studenti che affrontano lo studio di questa importante attività e in generale a chiunque sia consapevole che in quanto esseri comunicanti siamo tutti venditori dei frutti della nostra attività professionale. Il libro contiene numerosi aneddoti, esempi, test, quesiti e strumenti di pianificazione per supportare il lettore nella contestualizzazione dei principi proposti. Questo lavoro è il frutto di un concentrato di esperienza maturata sul campo codificata e strutturata per essere immediatamente spendibile per lo studioso e lo studente motivato ad un percorso di crescita in questo importante ambito professionale
L'Unione Sovietica di Italo Calvino
No full textNel 1951 Italo Calvino si recò per la prima volta in vita sua in Unione Sovietica. Durante la sua permanenza ebbe modo di dar vita a un diario di viaggio, pubblicato l'anno seguente su «l'Unità», in cui annotava le esperienze vissute. In questo libro, oltre a ripercorrere le osservazioni annotate dallo scrittore sanremese, i due autori analizzano luoghi, personaggi e avvenimenti entrati in relazione con Calvino nel corso del suo soggiorno in URRS
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