4,328 research outputs found
Whistleblowing in Italy : rights and protections for employees
No full textThis paper examines the whistleblowing in the Italian legal system. In the lack ofproper rules on such a phenomenon (quite uncommon in the Italian social reality, also due to cultural reasons) except for the civil servants, the paper goes on analysing, on the one hand, the provision applicable to the civil servants (i.e. art. 54 of the Legislative Decree no. 165/2001), and on the other hand, the instruments provided for by the Italian legal system as general principles, which can be applied by the judge in order to protect the whistleblowers in the private sector (in particular the rules against retaliatory and discriminatory acts and mobbing). The Author stresses that the recalled protection, although effective (also after the so-called 'Monti's reform', id est the Law No. 92/2012), could be not sufficient both because of the allocation of the burden of proof, and because it is applicable to the employees and only partially (as the Author explains in the last paragraph) to the whistleblowing in the context of self-employment. Then the paper analyses the balancing performed by the Italian caselaw between the right to information and the right of criticism, on one side, and the right to secrecy set forth by law in respect of business facts and information, and the personality rights granted to the employer by the Constitution,on the other side. Finally the paper deals with the applicable procedures, introduced by disciplinary codes, also according to the Legislative Decree No. 231/2001, and the problems related to internal reporting systems, in particular the balancing between the needs for the whistleblower's protection and the positive law in the matter of protection of the privacy of the person to whom the complaint relates according to the Legislative Decree No. 196/2003
L'obbligo di ripescaggio nel licenziamento per giustificato motivo oggettivo di tipo economico alla luce del Jobs Act
No full textIl contributo si interroga sul ruolo che, in seguito alle ultime riforme del lavoro, ha assunto il cd. ripescaggio all’interno del licenziamento per giustificato motivo oggettivo di tipo economico. Nella prima parte del saggio, l’esame dei più recenti orientamenti della giurisprudenza, in particolare di quella sull’onere della prova, conduce alla conclusione che il ripescaggio è parte integrante del gmo posto dall’art. 3, l. 604/1966 inteso quale limite interno (o causale) dell’atto di licenziamento, in quanto costituisce il nesso causale negativofra riorganizzazione disposta dal datore e mansioni del lavoratore. Il significato così assunto dal gmo, pur costituendo certo un limite “minimale” dell’atto di licenziamento, risulta comunque conforme ai principi costituzionali, eurounitari e internazionali, secondo l’interpretazione consolidatasi fino ad oggi. La seconda parte del lavoro analizza come la nuova disciplina dello ius variandi (art. 2103 c.c. come modificato dall’art. 3, d.lgs. 81/2015) impatta sulla struttura e sull’ampiezza del ripescaggio. Partendo dal presupposto che il nuovo testo dell’art. 2103 c.c. amplia il debito del lavoratore, includendovi tutte le mansioni appartenenti al medesimo livello di inquadramento rispetto alle mansioni di assunzione (1 co.) e le mansioni del livello immediatamente inferiore (co. 2) – l’A. giunge alla conclusione che il ripescaggio costituisce oggi oggetto di un vero e proprio onere e si estende a tutte le mansioni che integrano il debito di lavoro. Il datore di lavoro infatti ha l’onere, a pena di ingiustificatezza del licenziamento, di cooperare all’adempimento del lavoratore e, dunque, di adibire il lavoratore, nell’esercizio del proprio potere direttivo, ad una delle mansioni dovute, dello stesso livello o del livello immediatamente inferiore rispetto alle mansioni di assunzione. Il mancato rispetto del ripescaggio, così trasformato dall’art. 2103 nuovo testo c.c., è poi corredato da un successivo ed autonomo obbligo di formazione, che grava sul datore di lavoro. Infine, a corollario del ragionamento, l’A. ritiene che il “fatto giuridico” la cui “manifesta insussistenza” dà luogo, ai sensi dell’art. 18, co. 5, St. lav. alla tutela reintegratoria attenuata includa anche il mancato rispetto del ripescaggio, nell’accezione risultante dal combinato disposto dell’art. 3 l. 604/1966 e art. 2103 nuovo testo c.cTHE DUTY OF «REPECHAGE» IN THE DISMISSAL FOR OBJECTIVE ECONOMIC REASONS IN THE LIGHT OF THE JOBS ACT REFORM.
The essay focuses on the role of repêchage in the definition of the dismissal for objective economic reasons after the recent Italian labour law reforms. In the first part of the essay, moving from the analysis of the case-law, especially the one concerning the burden of proof, the author highlights that repêchage is part of the definition of dismissal for objective economic reasons as provided for by Art. 3 Law no. 604/1966, as it represents the causal link between the reorganization of the firm and the workers’ skills. This is in line with both the Italian Constitution and the principles at supranational and international level. In the second part of the essay, the author analyses how the new text of Art. no. 2103 c.c. (as reformed by delegated decree no. 81/2015) affects the duty of repêchage. According to the author, the new art. 2103, broadening the range of tasks the employee can be assigned to in the workplace, has also broadened the notion of repêchage. In her conclusive remarks, she argues that an employer’s failure to fulfil the duty of repêchage, should lead to the reinstatement of the employee under art. 18, co. 5, St. la
Fuzzy model based predictive control of chemical processes.
No full textThe past few years have witnessed a rapid growth in the use of fuzzy logic
controllers for the control of processes which are complex and ill-defined. These
control systems, inspired by the approximate reasoning capabilities of humans
under conditions of uncertainty and imprecision, consist of linguistic 'if-then' rules
which depend on fuzzy set theory for representation and evaluation using
computers. Even though the fuzzy rules can be built from purely heuristic
knowledge such as a human operator's control strategy, a number of difficulties
face the designer of such systems. For any reasonably complex chemical process,
the number of rules required to ensure adequate control in all operating regions
may be extremely large. Eliciting all of these rules and ensuring their consistency
and completeness can be a daunting task.
An alternative to modelling the operator's response is to model the process
and then to incorporate the process model into some sort of model-based control
scheme. The concept of Model Based Predictive Control (MB PC) has been
heralded as one of the most significant control developments in recent years. It is
now widely used in the chemical and petrochemical industry and it continues to
attract a considerable amount of research. Its popularity can be attributed to its
many remarkable features and its open methodology. The wide range of choice of
model structures, prediction horizon and optimisation criteria allows the control
designer to easily tailor MBPC to his application. Features sought from such
controllers include better performance, ease of tuning, greater robustness, ability
to handle process constraints, dead time compensation and the ability to control
nonminimum phase and open loop unstable processes. The concept of MBPC is
not restricted to single-input single-output (SISO) processes. Feedforward action
can be introduced easily for compensation of measurable disturbances and the use
of state-space model formulation allows the approach to be generalised easily to
multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. Although many different MBPC schemes have emerged, linear process models derived from input-output data are
often used either explicitly to predict future process behaviour and/or implicitly to
calculate the control action even though many chemical processes exhibit
nonlinear process behaviour. It is well-recognised that the inherent nonlinearity of
many chemical processes presents a challenging control problem, especially where
quality and/or economic performance are important demands.
In this thesis, MBPC is incorporated into a nonlinear fuzzy modelling
framework. Even though a control algorithm based on a 1-step ahead predictive
control strategy has initially been examined, subsequent studies focus on
determining the optimal controller output using a long-range predictive control
strategy. The fuzzy modelling method proposed by Takagi and Sugeno has been
used throughout the thesis. This modelling method uses fuzzy inference to
combine the outputs of a number of auto-regressive linear sub-models to construct
an overall nonlinear process model. The method provides a more compact model
(hence requiring less computations) than fuzzy modelling methods using relational
arrays. It also provides an improvement in modelling accuracy and effectively
overcomes the problems arising from incomplete models that characterise
relational fuzzy models.
Difficulties in using traditional cost function and optimisation techniques
with fuzzy models have led other researchers to use numerical search techniques
for determining the controller output. The emphasis in this thesis has been on
computationally efficient analytically derived control algorithms. The performance
of the proposed control system is examined using simulations of the liquid level in
a tank, a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) system, a binary distillation
column and a forced circulation evaporator system. The results demonstrate the
ability of the proposed system to outperform more traditional control systems. The
results also show that inspite of the greatly reduced computational requirement of
our proposed controller, it is possible to equal or better the performance of some
of the other fuzzy model based control systems that have been proposed in the
literature.
It is also shown in this thesis that the proposed control algorithm can be
easily extended to address the requirements of time-varying processes and
processes requiring compensation for disturbance inputs and dead times. The
application of the control system to multivariable processes and the ability to
incorporate explicit constraints in the optimisation process are also demonstrated
Il controllo a distanza dell’attività dei lavoratori dopo il “Jobs Act” (art. 23 D.Lgs. 151/2015) : spunti per un dibattito
No full textL’introduzione mira a offrire una panoramica del nuovo art. 4 St.lav., in materia di potere di controllo del datore di lavoro, recentemente modificato dall’ultima riforma del lavoro (c.d. Jobs Act).
In particolare, dopo una sommaria esposizione delle ragioni sottostanti la nuova norma, volte ad adeguare il potere di controllo del datore di lavoro all’evoluzione dei dispositivi tecnologici presenti sul luogo di lavoro, l’Autrice individua e si sofferma, in una prospettiva critica, sulle eterogenee e complesse questioni interpretative poste dalla novella.The introduction aims at giving an overview of the new article 4 of the
Worker’s Statute (Law no. 300/1970), concerning the employer’s monitoring
powers, as recently reformed by the latest Italian Labour Reform (the so called
Jobs Act).
In particular, after a brief explanation of the rationale underlying the new
rule, in order to make the employer’s control power compatible with the
improvement of technological tools in the workplace, the Author critically lists
and takes into consideration the heterogeneous and complicated interpretative
issues raised by the brand new reform
Ayaanella M.T. Khan & Anis 2017, gen. nov.
No full textAyaanella M.T. Khan & Anis gen. nov. (Figs 1–10) Type species. Ayaanella globugaster M.T. Khan & Anis sp. nov. Description. Female. Head (Fig. 1); antennal torulus placed slightly above lower margin of eye; malar space dark, as long as or shorter than eye width; ocelli arranged in obtuse triangle; mandible (Fig. 2) 4-dentate, third tooth shorter, and a concavity between third and fourth teeth; maxillary palp (Fig. 3) unsegmented, swollen basally, with one seta at apex. Antennal formula 1, 1, (2), 2, 3; antenna (Figs 5–8) with 2 anelli (Figs 7, 8: A1 and A2); funicle 2 segmented, segments asymmetrical, with PLS, F2 broader than long; clava 3-segmented with very long setae and PLS. Mesosoma with pronotum medially divided into two plates; mid lobe of mesoscutum and scutellum each with 2 pairs (2+2) setae; side lobe of mesoscutum with 1 seta along anterolateral corner and axilla; propodeal margin almost straight posteriorly and about as long as metanotum medially; posterior two-thirds of mesoscutum, and scutellum with longitudinally cellulate sculpture, anterior one-third of mesoscutum with polygonal cells. Fore wing hyaline with venation extending to slightly less than half wing length; costal cell very narrow; marginal vein longer than premarginal or stigmal veins; premarginal vein broader than marginal vein; RS1 absent [except two or three setae below stigmal vein]; disc moderately densely setose with setae arranged in rows. Legs with tarsal formula 3-3-3. Metasoma longer than mesosoma; ovipositor short, extending from TV of gaster and hardly exserted. Male. Unknown. Etymology. The genus is named after the son of the second author (SBA), Ayaan + ‘-ella’ Latin suffix added to generic name.Published as part of Khan, Mohd Talib & Anis, Shoeba Binte, 2017, A new genus of Trichogrammatidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) from India, pp. 165-168 in Zootaxa 4344 (1) on pages 165-166, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4344.1.9, http://zenodo.org/record/104236
Il licenziamento nullo perchè discriminatorio, intimato in violazione di disposizioni di legge o in forma orale
No full textL’articolo esamina le varie forme di licenziamento nulle ai sensi del Jobs Act (licenziamento discriminatorio; licenziamento per ritorsione; licenziamento per violazione di legge; licenziamento per disabilità fisica e psichica; licenziamento per mancato superamento del periodo di comporto; licenziamento intimato in forma orale) sia al fine di definire i confini delle varie figure – anche rispetto alla nozione di licenziamento ingiustificato – sia per dipanare la questione delle tutele applicabili. Tale secondo problema è rilevante perché il Jobs Act a fronte delle varie ipotesi di licenziamento nullo non sempre esplicita la forma di tutela applicabile. Nel contributo l’A. sostiene l’idea che – benchè sia indubbio che in via generale il Jobs Act ha elevato a regola la tutela indennitaria e ha relegato ad eccezione la tutela reintegratoria – tuttavia con specifico riferimento all’area del licenziamento nullo esso ha riconfermato la centralità della tutela reintegratoria in considerazione dei particolari interessi della persona del lavoratore che entrano in gioco. Ne deriva che le varie ipotesi di licenziamento nullo – anche ove la legge non contempli una previsione specifica; sono soggette alla tutela reintegratoria ex art. 18 St.lav. o alla tutela reintegratoria “di diritto comune”.The article examines the various forms of dismissal void under the Jobs Act (discriminatory dismissal, dismissal for retaliation, dismissal for violation of the law, dismissal for physical and mental disability, dismissal for failure to exceed the period of compensation, dismissal announced orally) in order to define the boundaries of the various figures; also with respect to the notion of unfair dismissal; and to solve the problem of the applicable protections. This second problem is relevant because the Jobs Act in the face of the various hypotheses of invalid dismissal does not always explicitly the form of protection applicable. In the contribution, the Author supports the idea that; although it is undoubted that in general the Jobs Act has elevated to rule the indemnity protection and has relegated to exception the reinstatement protection; however, with specific reference to the area of invalid dismissal it has reconfirmed the centrality of the reinstatement protection in view of the particular interests of the person of the worker who come into play. It follows that the various hypotheses of invalid dismissal; even where the law does not provide for a specific provision; are subject to the reintegration protection pursuant to art. 18 of Statuto dei Lavoratori or to the reintegration protection "under common law
The development of computational FE system for creep damage analysis of weldment
No full textA Finite Element Analysis (FEA) system was designed for the analysis of creep deformation and damage evolution in weldment. This project essentially consists of three parts which involves 1) transfer programme development, 2) numerical integration subroutine development, and 3) validation of complete FEA system. Firstly, the development of a user-friendly pre- and post- processing transfer programme and its assembly with the numerical solver was reported; its primary development was published before. This part includes file format understanding, specific parameter adding, and transfer algorithm design. Secondly, a numerical integration subroutine which developed for specific creep constitutive equations was introduced. This part includes the numerical method selection, accuracy control in finite element method, and its validation. Thirdly, because this project has not finished yet, a demonstration how this system works was assumed in future work. For this part, a circumferentially notched bar with low Cr alloy material case was purposed to prove the capability of transfer programme and integration subroutine
Factors Associated to Purchase of Quality-Labelled Beef
No full textThe aim of the present study is to identify the factors associated to purchase of quality-labelled beef. For this purpose a total of 364 surveys were carried out on buyers of beef in three Spanish cities. The sample was divided into three groups of buyers according to the beef purchasing habits with a quality label. A logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the differences between groups. The results show the importance of the production region as a quality aspect. Income level, association of quality-labelled beef with “guarantee and tradition” aspects, purchasing frequency, place of purchase, production systems and lifestyles are all variables that enabled us to establish differences between groups.beef quality, quality label, consumer perception, Demand and Price Analysis,
Quantum Properties in Hybrid Nanowire Devices
No full textQuantum computing is a flourishing field of scientific and technological research. The development of quantum computing in the past decades is the so-called second quantum revolution, where various aspects of quantum physics, such as entanglement and superposition, are used to form the main building block of computation — the quantum bit, or qubit. With quantum technologies rapidly growing, people have been paying attention to a few promising implementation schemes for quantum computing, including schemes based on topological protection.Majorana bound states (MBSs) are predicted to be non-Abelian anyons that enable topological quantum computing, which uses the topological phase of matter to protect quantum information against noise from the environment. The search for MBSs has drawn enormous interests in condensed matter physics community, where hybrid semiconductor-superconductor nanowire systems are currently the most promising candidates. Great advances have been achieved in this field over the last decade, due to efforts ranging from material growth, to transport experiments and to theoretical understanding.When a hybrid nanowire undergoes a transition to a topologically nontrivial phase, two MBSs appear at the ends of the hybrid region. As a result, zero-bias peaks (ZBPs) should appear in tunneling spectroscopy performed on normal-conductor - semiconductor-nanowire - superconductor (N-nanowire-S) junctions. In this thesis, we firstly demonstrate large ZBPs in vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) InSb nanowires with epitaxial Al with heights on the order of 2e2/h. Besides the original Majorana interpretation of these ZBPs, we discuss alternative explanations such as quasi-Majoranas due to a smooth potential and random disorder. (Chapter 4)In the same system, we then demonstrate that the induced superconducting gap, the effective Landé g-factor and the spin-orbit coupling strength can be tuned by the electrostatic environment, i.e. applied gate voltage. The change of these quantities is dominated by the coupling between the semiconductor and the superconductor. (Chapter 5)The remaining part of the thesis focuses on selective area growth (SAG) InSb nanowires with epitaxial Al. Quantum transport results on these nanowires show high-quality phase-coherence, hard superconducting gap and 2e-Coulomb blockaded transport. We then study the properties on induced superconductivity as well as phase coherence in SAG nanowire networks. We establish a fitting model to extract the phase coherence length based on the temperature dependence of the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect. The SAG platform will allow scalable experiments for more complicated quantum transport, paving the way towards Majorana braiding. (Chapters 6-8)QRD/Kouwenhoven La
The uniform application of european competition law: a non-negotiable value
No full textCompetition enforcement is facing an increasing need for international cooperation.
Such phenomena would require that all the subjects involved in ensuring
the respect of the competition principle (either competition authorities, or courts
depending on the national peculiarities of each national/regional enforcement
system) communicate, co-operate, and interact one another constantly, on a daily
basis. This is the case both at global as much as at European level.
Notwithstanding international co-operation has registered a positive trend during
the last decade, the outcomes achieved so far are not satisfying. The inability of
regional and national legal systems to provide effective answers to the need of
greater co-operation in competition law enforcement is undermining the
constitutional structure of the major western, capitalistic, liberal democracies. The
credibility and the utility of competition enforcement regimes are also under
attack. Individuals and companies have always less fate in the fairness and
effectiveness of competition enforcement proceedings. This has led to calls for a
fundamental rethink of the principles and purpose of competition law and policy. Due to the increased national markets’ integration and firms’ interaction on a global
scale, international co-operation has become one of the most crucial challenge to
be solved by competition enforcers. The incapability (and sometimes
unwillingness) of competition enforcers to effectively and fully co-operate has led
to conflicting (and embarrassing) results. The victim of competition enforcers’
international co-operation shortages has been the principle of uniform application
of competition law. A given conduct X has been deemed anticompetitive in Country
Y, and lawful in Country Z. While such situation might be tolerable at global level,
it is not within the European Union (‘EU’) due to the existence of the EU Single
Market, which does not offer room for the existence of different EU competition
rules across European Member States (‘MS’).
Within the EU infrastructure, indeed, the existence of inconsistencies in the
enforcement of EU competition law may (i) compromise the internal market, (ii)
increase the cost of international trade, (iii) raise the threat of externalities and races
to the bottom, (iv) set back the progress of a unified body of case law and, most
importantly, (v) weaken the legal certainty and predictability of EU competition
law, thus undermining the credibility of the all EU competition enforcement
regime.In other words, inconsistencies in the enforcement of EU competition law
may compromise the entire EU infrastructure.From this emerges that the uniform
application of EU Competition Law is an essential and non-negotiable value.
Preserving the uniform application of EU Competition Law, however, requires coordination
and collaboration among different sets of subjects. Due to the complexity of the EU competition enforcement system, the EU Commission (‘Commission’ or
‘EC’), the National Competition Authorities (NCAs), the National as well as the
EU Courts are all called to play a role in carrying out the heavy task of ensuring
and protecting the uniform application of EU Competition Law. At EU level,
therefore, the uniform application of EU Competition Law requires a co-ordination
between both Public and Private Enforcement.
Based on this premises, this thesis’s relevance lies in its questioning who should
produce EU competition law’s substantive policy, mainly focusing on digital
markets. It focuses on new policy-making methods; and renegotiating Member
States’ roles, vis-à-vis the Commission. In EU competition law, for example, there
is conflict regarding aims and methods. Should the Commission suppress this as
damaging fragmentation, imposing its regulatory vision; or, celebrate this debate in
areas of doubt? This thesis turns the spotlight on these crucial issues.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the thesis will be structured as
follow:
(i) Chapter 1, as introductory chapter, will set the stage for the reforms to be
suggested in Chapters 2 and 3. Specifically, it will show the main factors driving
up the demand for international co-operation among competition enforcers. It will
also offer a picture of the status and forms of international co-operation in the
competition enforcement world as well as describing its current risk, and problems.
Such representation will be also done through a collection of multijurisdictional
cases. Finally, it will analyse how the demand for international co-operation has
been dealt with at regional level, with a particular focus on the EU;
(ii) Chapter 2 will analyse how the principle of uniform application of EU
Competition Law is protected within the EU Public enforcement framework as
represented by the European Competition Network (‘ECN’). Particularly, Chapter
2, will firstly retrace the ECN’s history, showing the reasons behind its current
configuration, and introduce the ECN’s operating mechanism. Secondly, it will
analyse which are the problematic aspects of the current EU Public enforcement
system in terms of ensuring the respect of the principle of uniform application of
EU competition law. Finally, it will present a reform of the EU Public enforcement
system that the author of this thesis believes needed both: (i) to ensure the uniform
application of EU Competition Law within the EU Single Market; (ii) to allow the
ECN to be able to cope with the challenges presented by the digitalisation of the
economy.
(iii) Chapter 3 will analyse how the principle of uniform application of EU
Competition Law is protected within the EU Private Enforcement framework. Since
such complex task within the EU system is left to Article 16(1), Regulation n.
1/2003 (‘Art. 16(1)’), Chapter 3, will firstly present the contents of Art. 16 (1) and
its predominantly accepted interpretation. Subsequently, Chapter 3 will analyse the
historical and legal reasons that led to the adoption of Art. 16 (1) and then it will
suggest a new interpretation of Art. 16(1) that is most consistent with its historical
purposes and background. According to the author of this thesis, while it is not
strictly necessary to modify the literal datum of Art. 16(1), a change in its
interpretation is needed to ensure the uniform application of EU competition law
within the EU Private Enforcement ecosystem. Finally, Chapter 3 will evaluate the
boundaries of the binding effects of Commission’s decisions ex Art. 16 (1), and it
will investigate the relationship existing between those effects and the principles of
‘res judicata’ and ‘nemo iudex in causa sua’.
(iv) Chapter 4 will offer some conclusions
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