Immigrant entrepreneurs,diasporas, and exports

This paper demonstrates the positive effect of immigrant entrepreneurs on manufacturing exports over and above that of diasporas. Using small-scale regional administrative data, our instrumental variable estimates of export gravity models imply that ceteris paribus, that is, holding constant the total number of immigrants, the expected protrade effect of a migrant becoming an entrepreneur amounts to an average increase of US$5,946 in the export flows toward her country of origin. Besides these dyadic effects, immigrant entrepreneurs unlike nonentrepreneurial immigrants raise a region's overall competitiveness and export flows toward other destinations as well.     

The Ruini system and ‘Berlusconismo’: synergy and transformation between the Catholic Church and Italian politics in the ‘Second Republic’

This article aims to correlate the political rather than the pastoral action of Cardinal Camillo Ruini with the rise and consolidation of the politician Silvio Berlusconi from 1994 to 2007, set in the context of the major changes that occurred in the Catholic Church and in Italian republican politics during the 1980s and 1990s. The main theme is an ‘instrumental interaction’ between the two systems, Ruinismo and Berlusconismo, which only coincided at the level of political opportunity and gave rise to important synergies between two men who otherwise had nothing in common.     

Prefiguring a future city: urban growth,spatial planning and the economic local context in Catalonia

This study undertook a quantitative analysis of town master plans to define future urban growth. Spatial direction and intensity of urban expansion were analysed in relation to local contexts using land zoning and a comprehensive database of socio-economic indicators at the municipal scale in Catalonia, Spain. Our results illustrate a progressive shift towards discontinuous settlements consolidating urban centres in most accessible rural areas. Contrary to what was hypothesized (and partly observed) in recent decades, settlement expansion will modestly contribute to a balanced urban spatial structure. Future urban development in Catalonia will not follow a polycentric model, fuelling instead the growth of medium and small urban centres. This process may consolidate the incipient divide in rural areas with high accessibility and a dynamic economic base with remote inland areas experiencing land abandonment and depopulation. The use of indicators derived from town master plans in the assessment of (scattered or polycentric) future urbanization in Europe is finally discussed.     

Schooling the Quantum Generations: Textbooks and Quantum Cultures from the 1910s to the 1930s

Ever since Thomas Kuhn's influential The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), textbooks have suffered a bad reputation. They have been accused of distorting—at times purportedly—history and of feeding students with an unacceptably simplified and optimistic view of science. This attitude started to change only in recent times. With the increase of attention paid not only to how theories are conceived, but also how they are practiced, disseminated, and appropriated, historians have rehabilitated textbooks as a legitimate site of knowledge production. In this paper, I adopt textbooks as an instrument to unfold multiple facets of the culture that allowed quantum physics to flourish between 1900 and the early 1930s. I organize the article around two stories about two major textbooks, i.e., Sommerfeld′s Atombau und Spektrallinien and Dirac′s Principles of Quantum Mechanics. I explore the complex pedagogical cultures underlying these two masterpieces and how they intersect local agendas.     

Numerical Assessment of Frictional Heating in Sliding Bearings for Seismic Isolation

This article proposes a numerical investigation of the frictional heating developed in sliding bearings under high velocities and the influence of the relevant temperature rise on the mechanical characteristics of the device. A three-dimensional finite element model of the bearing is created and frictional heat generation is modelled through a thermal source inserted at the sliding surface of the bearing, with intensity dependent on the coefficient of friction, the contact pressure and the velocity. The friction value is adjusted step-by-step on surface temperature and velocity and used to update the thermal flux and the resisting force developed by the bearing. The numerical predictions of temperature histories and force–displacement loops are compared with the results of laboratory tests to validate the numerical approach. The procedure can help in preliminary studies for the selection of bearing materials accounting for their thermal stability and for the estimation of change of design properties of sliding isolation bearings due to frictional heating.     

Protection Versus Public Access: Two Concepts Compared within the Italian Underwater Cultural Heritage Management System

The concepts of protection and public access relating to underwater cultural heritage are often taken as two contrasting notions in the Italian underwater cultural heritage management panorama. This contribution aims to review these concepts with the objective of emphasizing the possibility of sound and scientifically compelling public access to the underwater cultural heritage, keeping protection principles intact. With the support of in-the-field examples successfully produced worldwide, this paper will attempt to underline how scientifically sound public access activities in the field of underwater cultural heritage management can benefit the protection of such heritage.     

Robust Design of a Single Tuned Mass Damper for Controlling Torsional Response of Asymmetric-Plan Systems

A new robust design methodology to control the seismic performance of asymmetric structures equipped with a Single Tuned Mass Damper (STMD) is presented in this article. This design approach aims to control the seismic response of such systems by reducing both flexible-and stiff-edge maximum displacement. The dynamic problem has been investigated in the state space representation showing that the TMD works as a closed-loop feedback control action. A synthetic index to estimate the seismic performance of the main system has been defined by using H_∞ norm. Wide-ranging parametric numerical experimentation has been carried out to obtain design formulae for the STMD in order to minimize such a performance index. These formulae allow for a simple design of STMD position and stiffness to optimally control both translational and rotational motion components, whereas two mass devices are generally considered to improve the seismic performance of asymmetric structural systems The effectiveness and efficiency of the obtained design formulae have been tested by investigating the dynamic behavior of the asymmetric structure after being subjected to different recorded seismic inputs.     

The face of the poet Dante Alighieri reconstructed by virtual modelling and forensic anthropology techniques

This paper describes the multi-disciplinary approach to reconstruct the face of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). Since Dante's sepulchre will be opened in 2021, the reconstructive process is based on morphological and metric data collected on the poet's cranium during the formal identification of his remains in 1921 by the anthropologist Fabio Frassetto, as well as on the resulting plaster model. Starting from this plaster model and a morphologically compatible reference mandible, since the original mandible was never found, a 3D digital model of the complete skull was obtained by reverse engineering and virtual modelling techniques. The most important aspect in this work was the method of virtual modelling proposed for the ex novo generation of the mandible. The physical model of the skull (cranium + mandible) was then produced by means of a rapid prototyping system. This model was finally used to recreate Dante's face via traditional facial reconstruction techniques currently used in forensic anthropology.     

Traces of a computational mind

The image of writing is singularly frequent in cognitivistic explanations of the functioning of mind, not only as a metaphor but also as a conceptual paradigm: the Turing machine, particularly, displays a complete structural isomorphism with the use of alphabetical writing. The Turing machine performs exactly the same operations carried out by a man writing with pen and paper and this depends on two reasons: 1. it has been conceived in image and likeness of the human concrete practice of writing; 2. it is the typical product of the western rationality, whose development has been made possible only by the specific features of the alphabetical treatment of information. This is useful to understand why the mind started being depicted as a writing machine just when the alphabet began spreading: a genealogical investigation will show how in mnemotechnics treatises and in Plato's and Aristotle's metaphysics we can find the very first foundation of every logico-symbolical model of mind.     

The Wreck of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pettu</Emphasis> as an Example for Nineteenth Century Rural Shipbuilding in South-Western Finland

Although the design and construction of wooden merchant vessels in the nineteenth century is generally considered to be well understood, the excavation and subsequent analysis of the wreck of the wooden Finnish topsail schooner Pettu (1865) revealed a number of unexpected features, which prompted the authors to take a closer look at the ship. In the following study, it will be attempted to gain an insight into the society that produced and used the merchant vessel through a detailed analysis of its construction and an investigation into the concept behind its design. The wreck of the Pettu, which, considering its loss in 1893, is barely covered by the 100 year rule in Danish heritage legislation, is a good example for the archaeological potential of even relatively ‘modern’ wreck sites, adding to their significance.