1,721,256 research outputs found
Introduzione. L'anno del podestà forestiero
No full textIl 2012 è stato l’anno di Monti, il «podestà forestiero» al quale il presidente Giorgio Napolitano aveva affidato il compito di salvare l’Italia dal baratro finanziario e di restituire credibilità al paese nell’arena internazionale. Misurato sull’arco dell’intero anno, il bilancio del governo tecnico presenta luci e ombre: allontanato il pericolo del default, sono mancati invece risultati concreti sul versante della crescita economica. La «strana maggioranza» che ha sostenuto il governo Monti in Parlamento – Pdl, Pd e Udc – non ha fatto meglio. Nonostante la moral suasion di Napolitano, i partiti hanno perso un’altra occasione – l’ultima? – per attuare riforme istituzionali improrogabili e per mettere mano seriamente ai costi e ai privilegi della politica. Chi ha beneficiato di questa situazione è stato il Movimento 5 stelle, che mira a un rovesciamento di tutti gli equilibri politici. A fine 2012 le condizioni dell’Italia restano difficili. Lo sforzo di risanamento avviato a caro prezzo dal governo Monti può essere vanificato in poco tempo e il rischio che l’orologio del paese torni alle drammatiche settimane dell’autunno 2011 non è scongiurato
Introduction: the year of the external Podestà
No full textIn 2012, the spotlight was on Prime Minister Monti and his government of non-elected ministers. Early in the year, the new government’s economic policy was effective in stopping the international downgrading of the country’s credit rating. However, in terms of the entire year, the success of the Monti government appears less definitive. There were no clear achievements in terms of growth, and the structural features of the economy remained weak. Monti successfully initiated some reforms and policy changes, but there were failures as well. Furthermore, the “odd majority” (made up of the PdL, PD, and UdC) that supported Monti in Parliament performed more weakly than the government. The parties were to change the electoral law, reform the parliamentary institutions, cut costs, and reduce the privileges of the political class, but failed. Their inaction was accompanied by a series of scandals and crimes, all of which facilitated the emergence of new political forces, such as the Five Star Movement. When Monti eventually resigned in December 2012, President Napolitano called for new elections, and the parties redefined their proposals and lists. At the end of the year, the political and economic conditions of the country remained fragile
Self-healing cell wall particles hydrogels: a rheological investigation
No full textPlant and fruit cells encase themselves within a complex polysaccharide wall which are complex and highly sophisticated composite material made of cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin and which form a scaffold matrix with intertwined structure. In this work the viscoelastic properties of cell wall particles dispersions, which were extracted from fresh and aged apple flesh with selective solvents precipitation method, or alternatively with water as a solvent, were studied by means of steady and oscillatory measurements. The solid-like dispersions showed a shear thinning behaviour, and immediately recovered back into their original elastic character upon removal of the shear strain. This means that the cell wall particle dispersions have self-healing capabilities. They can be easily processed as low viscosity materials and subsequently form an elastic gel. Interestingly, the nonlinear mechanical response characterized by single step stress relaxation experiments, and re-plotted
as isochrones of stress vs strain, revealed an early nonlinearity of the response and subsequent yield, as well as a clear time-dependent behavior. This behavior of the cell wall dispersions resembles closely that of colloidal gels, which also display shear-thinning rheological behavior and interesting aging response. We are therefore facing some structural properties, which can be of interest for new additives/ingredients to be used in food formulation technology. Cell wall materials, or some selected constitutive components, might hence play a key role as adaptable thickening agent in food formulations, due to their well-known ability to bind a large amount of wate
Technocrats in Office. Italian Politics 2012
No full textIn 2012, the spotlight was on Prime Minister Monti and his government of non-elected ministers. Early in the year, the new government’s economic policy was effective in stopping the international downgrading of the country’s credit rating. However, in terms of the entire year, the success of the Monti government appears less definitive. There were no clear achievements in terms of growth, and the structural features of the economy remained weak. Monti successfully initiated some reforms and policy changes, but there were failures as well. Furthermore, the “odd majority” (made up of the PdL, PD, and UdC) that supported Monti in Parliament performed more weakly than the government. The parties were to change the electoral law, reform the parliamentary institutions, cut costs, and reduce the privileges of the political class, but failed. Their inaction was accompanied by a series of scandals and crimes, all of which facilitated the emergence of new political forces, such as the Five Star Movement. When Monti eventually resigned in December 2012, President Napolitano called for new elections, and the parties redefined their proposals and lists. At the end of the year, the political and economic conditions of the country remained fragile
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
La sfida del Movimento 5 stelle
No full textThe chapter describes the main events in the recent history of the Five Star Movement (M5S). The first sections deals with the party's success in municipal elections in May 2012 and hyphothesizes that up to now M5S voters are mainly former supporters of center-left parties anhd that the success of the M5S was influenced by previous leftist movements. The second section is about the first steps taken by the new M5S mayor of Parma, Federico Pizzarotti, while the following covers the rise of the party in opinion polls and its success in Sicily's regional elections. The next section deals with the organizational problems and dilemmas of the M5S, and the final section sketches a profile of the movement - a party in which there are both populist and hyper-democratic traits, civism and anti-politics sentiments
The challenge of the 5 Star Movement
No full textThe chapter describes the main events in the recent history of the Five Star Movement (M5S). The first sections deals with the party's success in municipal elections in May 2012 and hyphothesizes that up to now M5S voters are mainly former supporters of center-left parties anhd that the success of the M5S was influenced by previous leftist movements. The second section is about the first steps taken by the new M5S mayor of Parma, Federico Pizzarotti, while the following covers the rise of the party in opinion polls and its success in Sicily's regional elections. The next section deals with the organizational problems and dilemmas of the M5S, and the final section sketches a profile of the movement - a party in which there are both populist and hyper-democratic traits, civism and anti-politics sentiments
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