1,721,204 research outputs found
Localization of emerging leakages in water distribution systems: A complex networks approach
Full text linkWater distribution networks are infrastructural systems designed for providing potable water to consumers. In these last decades, the importance of assessing and identifying emerging leakages has become a primary issue, because of the high level of water loss characterizing such systems worldwide. In this paper, a new approach aimed at the prompt localization of leakages occurring in water distribution systems is introduced. The methodology relies on the analysis of real-time pressure measurements and on Complex Networks Theory. Starting from a collection of nodes representing the locations of pressure sensors, links of a virtual, complex network are created on the basis of the values assumed by correlation coefficients between pressure measurements: if such values are above a given threshold, relevant nodes are considered to be connected to each other. In this way, information about the structure and topology of the complex network is easily derived. In particular, the degree centrality of the nodes is a key parameter allowing to identify the position of a leakage. The paper first analyzes a well-known literature example, and then proves the high reliability of the methodology for a real water distribution system
Law, the Humanities and Political Incertitude in a Time of Climate Change
No full textThis article addresses how climate change triggers relevant transformations in the realm of the law and affects our politico-legal paradigms. To this end, it delivers cross-disciplinary research by focusing on a non-fictional literary genre, i.e. climate-change pop-science, which has arisen very recently. The article also explores the concept of ‘strategic formalism’, i.e. a strategic legal device unable to govern societal concerns. On the one hand, it shapes our approach to climate change and migration; on the other, it adapts ecological issues to the ‘traditional’ legal framework. Against this background, the article argues that non-fictional texts also reflect the ideas of the most active forces within society, and fuel dynamism when tackling the ecological crisis. In a time of climate change, these forces stir strategic formalism, and make the law act as a bridge linking our troubled reality to an inclusive future
La governance dell’emergenza sanitaria in Africa Subsahariana: modelli “piramidali” e “frattalici” di conformazione dei diritti individuali
Full text linkLike the rest of the globalised world, Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing the acceleration of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Comparative legal scholars, however, tackle it as ‘business as usual.’ The article reappraises the patterns whereby the pandemic may be addressed. The first pattern is ‘fractalic’ and echoes the features of African politico-legal traditions; the second one is consistent with the Western-oriented WHO health policies and may be termed the ‘pyramids’. The article argues that the fractalic response favours inclusive policies, which reflect not an abstract commitment to human rights and development, but the desired futures of African societies
Methodological Rebellions: How to Do Global Comparative Law in a Time of Climate Change
Full text linkThis paper examines how globalisation impacts on legal scholarship. To this end, it draws a connection between two types of impoverished habitats, i.e. legal variety and fragile environments. In so doing, it reappraises the role of comparative legal scholarship within the global-law conversation in a time of climate change. It proposes a scholarly paradigm whereby comparative law might contribute to the legal examination of the ecological concerns shared by the whole of humanity. It challenges the legal universalistic approach, through which mainstream comparative law turns out to be servient to the purposes of global law in climate-change-related issues. This means being subversive and running counter to the idea of normalisation of ecological and climate concerns in global legal studies. Being subversive also entails reframing our methodological attitude in a time of climate change, revitalising its empirical, and problembased, approach to transnational concerns, and developing an even more crossdisciplinary attire
I governi legislatori*
Full text linkThe essay examines governmental legislative powers from a comparative legal perspective. The analysis gives rises to several methodological issues, which revolve around the difficulties to define what the expression ‘governments as legislators’ means. To sidestep such inconveniences, it suggests governmental legislative powers be examined through an alternative methodological angle, which applies fuzzy taxonomies. It thus proposes a renovated classification that focuses on how governments-as-legislators are operationally located within their politico-constitutional frameworks
Geographies of Law
No full textThe expression “geographies of law” has three connotations. Firstly, it denotes a cross-disciplinary field of research bringing together discrete perspectives to examine the legal-geographical nexus. Secondly, the expression points to the interdisciplinary project known as “legal geography” to assess how political power percolates geographical contexts and codes them through the law. Finally, it refers to the so-called normative spatialities (or “nomic settings”); social constructs like territory, place, and space become legally meaningful “by way of inscription or assignment of legal meanings”. This third denotation is consonant with the “spatial turn” that occurred in cultural geography in the late twentieth century
Litigating Regionalism in Italy: the Constitutional Court and the Dynamics of the Territorial Constitution
No full textThe article focuses on how constitutional adjudication has unceasingly shaped the dynamics of the Italian territorial constitution. The Italian Constitutional Court has indeed favoured them through constitutional interpretation, thus allowing the regional framework to both evolve over time and adapt to changing (political, societal, economic, historic) circumstances. The article argues that the Court’s contribution to the dynamics of the territorial constitution is both substantive and procedural. Not only is it related to the distribution of powers on regional grounds, but it is also referred to how the access to the Court has been adapted so as to extend its judicial intervention in the dynamics of the Italian territorial constitution. Therefore, the article will consider three variables that have some bearing on such dynamics: how the black-letter constitution allots power between the orders of government; what rules regulate the access to the Court; the construction of both procedural and substantive rules related to judicial adjudication on federal grounds
Fractal Dimension of Braided Rivers from Detailed Two-Dimensional Hydrodynamic Simulations
No full textAs opposed to meandering or channelized fluvial beds, braided rivers are characterized by a morphological activity starting at very low flows, since fluxes are concentrated in a limited number of small channels. With increasing discharge, more channels are involved, up to the situation in which the complete alluvial plain is flooded. As a consequence, there is an intermediate range of flows for which pattern complexity is maximum and braided indices are highest, representing essential conditions for the coexistence of a large variety of habitats and for ecosystems prosperity. In this paper, a new methodology for a quantitative assessment of the complexity of braided rivers at a reach scale is introduced. It is based on the application of the box-counting algorithm to flooded areas identified through a two-dimensional (shallow water) hydrodynamic simulation model, in order to derive an estimate of the fractal dimension with varying flow rate. The identification of the range of discharges for which the fractal dimension is highest is of particular importance in river restoration projects. An application to the River Tagliamento (North-East Italy) is illustrated
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