Exploring the Dynamics of Delegation Over Time: Insights from Italian Anti-Corruption Agencies (2003–2016)

According to classical literature on delegation in the regulatory state, independent regulators are established to enhance the credibility of regulatory policies. In that regard, anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are peculiar not only because they deal with extremely salient issues, but also because they receive delegated competencies from the government as the “principal” while, at the same time, the government is their regulatory target. How do governments manage regulatory reforms to strike a balance between gaining credibility as “principals” and possibly losing credibility as targets? Drawing from insights on historical institutionalism, this article undertakes a qualitative longitudinal analysis of organizational change regarding ACAs in Italy, where these kinds of agencies are particularly relevant to political leaders. The findings shed light on delegation as a dynamic process for which multiple factors intersect over time.     

3D reality-based artefact models for the management of archaeological sites using 3D Gis: a framework starting from the case study of the Pompeii Archaeological area

This work describes the procedures, the different techniques and the pipeline used for creating a digital framework that should assist the Superintendence of Pompeii in the digital reconstruction, classification, management and visualisation of archaeological finds inside an advanced 3D web-based repository of reality-based data. Specific topics have been focused on the quality assessment procedures adopted to ensure consistency and reliability of data throughout the whole 3D models acquisition and pipeline creation, as well as on the particular semantic reality-based structure adopted to develop an information system into a knowledge one. The main purposes of our framework have been the usage of 3D digital models as a restitution of the real object and as a metaphor for navigating through the data; 3D models were used as archaeological cognitive systems and developed as a collection of structured objects, identified through a precise terminology that allows to easily extend the concept of 2D GIS to 3D GIS. In addition, the system was developed as a scalable application that allows the use of the same database by different users, simply filtering the data according to the specific requirements, and can operate both as standalone and web-based application.     

In the footsteps of George Orwell: Patrick McCarthy as Italian correspondent for Tribune, 1978–1980

Abstract

This paper examines Italy's contribution to the United Nations (UN) and how effective this has been in protecting Italian interests. The first part outlines the areas where Italy's input to the UN has been most relevant in terms of ideas, policies and participation, such as for example the campaign to ban the death penalty and its participation in collective security through participation in UN peacekeeping missions. This paper also highlights the critical role that Italy's long-standing positions on UN reform and the enlargement of the Security Council have played in defining Italy's status in the international community, and asks whether there have been significant changes in the traditional Italian position and its loyalty to the UN and, more generally, to the multilateral system. The second part analyzes the origin and rationale of Italy's policies toward the UN and their effectiveness in defining and defending the national interest. It explores the idea that these policies have been determined by the ‘institutional multilateralism’ of the Italian Constitution, the ‘genetic multilateralism’ of the Italian society and the ‘forced multilateralism’ of Italy as a middle-range power. Italy's positions on the UN and its reform are examined in the light of claims that Italy's foreign policy reflects its ‘complex of exclusion’ and presumed lack of influence in the ‘major stakes’ in world diplomacy.     

The use of white marbles for sculpture in Roman Gortyn (Crete) as revealed by archaeometric analyses

Gortyn was an important Cretan town from the late Archaic to the Hellenistic period and then became one of the provincial capitals of the Roman Empire. It controlled the whole of Crete and Cyrenaica and was a flourishing centre of trade and agricultural products in the first centuries of our era. In more than 100 years, many portions of the Greek and Roman town were unearthed under the supervision of the Italian Archaeological School of Athens and a considerable number of stone artefacts found, many of them made of imported marble since the local variety was grey and of poor quality. Statuary and other prestigious marble sculpted artefacts found in Gortyn were sampled and subjected to archaeometric examination (by way of optical microscopy in thin section, powder X-Ray diffraction and mass spectometry for the determination of the C and O isotopic ratio) in order to identify the quarries they came from. The results obtained from the analysis of several dozen white marble objects have indicated the use of a quite wide variety of species including Parian (from Lakkoi), Pentelic, Thasian (dolomitic and calcitic) and (occasionally) Proconnesian marbles. The first three, especially Pentelic, were used for most of the statuary.     

Representative archaeological finds of <Emphasis Type="Italic">pietra ollare</Emphasis> from Comacchio (Italy): identifying provenance and high-T mineral breakdown reactions hindering lithotype classification

Three different lithotype groups have been recognized in representative fragments of pietra ollare artefacts found in the mediaeval archaeological excavations of Comacchio (Italy). Petrographic, mineralogical and chemical compositions clearly show that Valchiavenna and Valmalenco, in the Central Alps, represent the provenance areas of two of the pietra ollare groups, i.e. grey carbonate talc schist (also known as soapstone) and green chlorite schist, respectively. The third representative pietra ollare group consists of whitish-yellowish rocks inferred to be Alpine talc schists that have suffered some artificial pyrometamorphic transformation hindering their classification in the framework of pietra ollare lithotype categories and source localities reported in literature. A distinguishing feature of these high temperature-fired (HT-fired) talc schist samples is the occurrence of talc and chlorite dehydroxylation and subsolidus reaction products, mainly protoenstatite/enstatite + forsterite, together with relatively low loss on ignition values. These talc schists might have been exposed to temperatures >900 °C (with the resulting talc dehydroxylation producing a void-rich texture), but never reaching 1200 °C, which is the sintering temperature for soapstones. The whitish-yellowish artefacts were definitely not used as containers for cooking food at temperatures below or around 500–600 °C (as instead shown by the preservation of the original physical features of the grey pietra ollare lithotypes), but in some kind of higher-T pyrotechnological processes.     

Rapid Diagnosis of Crack Patterns of Masonry Buildings Subjected to Landslide-Induced Settlements by Using the Load Path Method

One of the main difficulties, when dealing with landslide structural vulnerability, is the diagnosis of the causes of the crack pattern. This is also due to the excessive complexity of models based on classical structural mechanics that makes them inappropriate especially when there is the necessity to perform a rapid vulnerability assessment at the territorial scale. This is why in this article a new approach for the rapid diagnosis of crack patterns of masonry buildings subjected to landslide-induced settlements is proposed. This approach is based on the Load Path Method, recently applied to the interpretation of the behavior of masonry buildings subjected to landslide-induced settlements.     

Modeling and Seismic Response Analysis of Italian Code-Conforming Single-Storey Steel Buildings

ABSTRACT

This article describes the structural design, nonlinear modeling, and seismic analysis of prototype single-storey non-residential steel buildings made of moment-resisting portal frames in the transverse direction and concentric braces in the longitudinal direction. Various design parameters (building geometry, seismic hazard, foundation soil category) and different modeling assumptions (bare frame model, model including cladding elements, ground motions including vertical accelerations, and modeling uncertainties) were considered to investigate their effects on the simulated seismic performance.     

Classification and provenance of soapstones and garnet chlorite schist artifacts from Medieval sites of Tuscany (Central Italy): insights into the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic trade

Soapstones (talc-bearing schists) and garnet chlorite schist artifacts found in Medieval archaeological sites of Tuscany (Central Italy) were classified, in order to define provenance of the different lithotypes. In Italy and throughout the Central Europe, these greenschist facies metamorphic rocks are generally known, among the archaeologists, as the pietra ollare from the Alps. The investigated Tuscan archaeological sites are between 6 and 13th century AD and were strictly linked, in that period, to the well defined network trade running along Tyrrhenian coast. Samples come from little containers used for cooking and preserving food and showing traces of lathe manufacturing at their sidewalls. According to modal mineralogy, petrographic texture, XRD, SEM-EDS and whole rock chemistry we recognised, among the 18 studied findings, three different petrographic groups of the Alpine pietra ollare. (i) Fine grained magnesite talc schists (i.e. soapstones) from outcrops of the Central Alps located in the Valchiavenna area. (ii) Garnet chlorite schists from the Valle d'Aosta region. (iii) Amphibole talc schists (i.e. soapstones) with a provenance in the Ticino area. It is worth noting that artifacts of pietra ollare lithotypes from the Western Alps (i.e. garnet chlorite schists and amphibole talc schists) were not detected in the archaeological sites of the Middle Adriatic coast of the Central Italy, belonging to the same Medieval time interval. This emphasises that the petrographic groups of pietra ollare from the Alps spread to the south of the Po Plain according to Western and Eastern trade along the Italian Peninsula, using respectively, the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic Sea commercial routes.     

Mediterranean trade of the most widespread Roman volcanic millstones from Italy and petrochemical markers of their raw materials

The petrochemical study of millstones can contribute to improve the archaeological research into reconstruction of ancient communication routes and trade networks. Volcanic rocks are geographically restricted and rather rare in the Mediterranean regions, and during the Roman period Italian volcanoes were important sources of raw materials for millstones, so the task of determining their geological origin is relatively straightforward. The Italian vesicular volcanics most frequently employed for this purpose were: trachytes from Euganean Hills (Veneto), leucite-bearing lavas from the Vulsini Volcanic District (Latium), basic-intermediate leucite-bearing lavas from Somma-Vesuvius (Campania), silica undersaturated lavas from Monte Vulture Volcano (Basilicata), a rhyolitic ignimbrite from Sardinia and basic products from Mount Etna and the island of Pantelleria (Sicily). This paper contains a general outline of the trade network for each volcanic typology used for millstones during the Roman period – updated with data concerning the leucite-bearing lavic items discovered in the archaeological sites of the ancient Cuicul (now Djemila, Algeria) – together with a summary of their petrographic and geochemical features.