City Of Bologna Research Articles

Effectiveness of different strategies in the retrofit of Italian school buildings: Influence of thermal inertia and solar control

Most of the Italian school buildings were built before the 1973 energy crisis, so they need a retrofit to reduce their primary energy demand and improve indoor environment quality. These buildings are equipped with large windows, therefore it is necessary a solar control strategy to ensure thermal and visual comfort and contain energy demand. Furthermore the older buildings have heavy masonry, in these cases the problem is where it is more convenient to place an additional layer of insulation: inside or outside the buildings opaque envelope elements. This work is aimed to explore, by means of computer simulations, the effects of various retrofit strategies on primary energy demand and general comfort conditions. The examined strategies are characterized by different positions of the additional insulation and various solar control devices. At present, the case studies consist in two school buildings in the city of Bologna in the North of Italy. In order to assess the influence of internal gains and time profile of use, other possible intended uses for the same buildings, such as offices or dwellings, were simulated.

Multipath and Doppler Characterization of an Electromagnetic Environment by Massive MDT Measurements From 3G and 4G Mobile Terminals

This paper describes an innovative approach to radio channel characterization in UMTS and LTE mobile networks. In place of traditional drive tests (DT), which employ a single test mobile, a massive collection of georeferenced radio measurements is made from a wide population of user equipment (UE). This is possible with new 3GPP features, called “minimization of DTs” (MDT), which are implemented in the last generation UEs and enable the reporting of additional periodical measurements, including GPS position and estimated UE distance (i.e. delay) over the radio path. This opens to new fields of investigation in the mobile radio channel, unreachable with the legacy DT approach, such as multipath and Doppler analysis. The UE MDT data of UMTS and LTE RAN of Telecom Italia Mobile, in the Italian midsized city of Bologna, have been statistically analyzed. The big data elaboration has been performed with the Nokia proprietary system “GeoSynthesis.” The results give a high-resolution geographical view of the above-mentioned channel phenomena affecting the quality and user experience. They are in good accordance with network performance indicators: the higher the multipath time, the worse the decoding performance of radio blocks (block error rate). The estimated Doppler shift also fits the known mobility patterns in the urban environment.

Structure from Motion for aerial thermal imagery at city scale: Pre-processing, camera calibration, accuracy assessment

Airborne thermal cameras are a valuable source of information for energy analyses at city scale. The generation of accurate high-resolution thermal orthomosaics is a necessary but still challenging task, especially when a thermal camera is the only imaging sensor on-board, because of the peculiar characteristics of thermal imagery (i.e. low dynamic range and poor detail definition), large geometric distortions induced by the optical system and weak acquisition geometry. This paper discusses potentials and limitations of Structure from Motion approach for the automated generation of thermal orthomosaics, with the aim to define the best practices and assess the achievable accuracy. After processing with different strategies two thermal flights over a 10 km2 area in Bologna city (Italy), it can be concluded that the absolute planimetric accuracy can be in the order of 3–4 pixels and the best results are obtained when computing camera calibration on a smaller subset of images, with a limited number of ground control points and an adaptive fitting algorithm. The analysis of generated point clouds (compared with reference LiDAR data) and calibration reports, in addition to check point residuals, proved to be crucial for a proper accuracy assessment.

Social acceptance and perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in Southern Europe: The case of Bologna, Italy.

Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens’ perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies.

The urban lounge and a green view. A temporary art installation in Bologna during the Art City White Night

‘The urban lounge and a green view’ was a temporary art installation promoted by City Space Architecture in collaboration with bAQ, Bottega Azioni Quotidiane, a young group of Architecture students from the University of Florence. It was part of the ‘Arte Fiera. International Fair of Modern and Contemporary Art’ in Bologna, Italy, and took place during the ‘Art City White Night’ on January 25, 2014. It was intended to transform two parking spots in the core of the historic city of Bologna into places of social interaction. It was inspired by the worldwide famous Park(ing) Day, started in 2005 by Rebar in San Francisco.

The post-political meaning of the concept of commons: the regulation of the urban commons in Bologna

ABSTRACTWhile the concept of Commons has acquired politicized meanings, it has also acquired some de-politicized ones. This article analyses a case of de-politicization of this concept, occurring in the city of Bologna, where the City Council has recently adopted the ‘Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons’. Through an interpretative approach that uses critical discourse analysis, the article illustrates a form of post-politicization of the concept that aims to suture the social space without fully succeeding. The article concludes by stressing the necessity and urgency of the struggle for the politicized meaning of the concept of Commons.

Bologna resilient city: from the adaptation plan to local actions

The possible effects of climate change in urbanized areas – evidenced by several studies – led the City of Bologna to adopt a Climate Change Adaptation Plan to assess potential risks and vulnerabilities as a basis for adaptation actions prioritizing interventions through a coordinated local strategy. This paper summarizes some measures implemented at local level in collaboration with the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna and, in particular, the pilot actions for urban greening developed within the European project H2020 - ROCK and the proposals for intervention included made during the “Design for Adaptation” project. Resilient Urban Communities” PhD Climate KIC summer school.

La tutela collettiva del lavoro nelle piattaforme digitali: gli inizi di un percorso difficile

The introduction aims at giving an overview of some elements concerning work and the digital economy and recapitulates the complex ongoing debate about this issue. The latter concerns not only the various attempts aimed at guaranteeing a minimum level of protection, but also the fact that the recent labour trends in the field of the digital economy give rise to a variety of different working arrangements.In such a context, some issues about collective bargaining arise and have to be taken into consideration. The creation of autonomous forms of coalition among workers is traditionally the first answer to their need of protection; this has led to the most relevant forms of coalition, in Italy as well as in other countries. Among other examples, the paper focuses on a trilateral agreement, signed in May 2018 by workers’ organizations (some of them newly formed), the Bologna City Council and some enterprises whose market presence relies on the use of digital platforms.However, collective bargaining does not satisfactorily (actually, by far) impact on workers’ conditions in the field of the digital economy. On one hand, it comprehends only those activities that are realized within a certain territory. On the other, the newest workers’ organizations and their collective actions seem to be weak in terms of stability and representation, whilst the historical workers’ association – due to the need to face also all those difficulties that come along with the globalization process – tend to pay little attention to the changings related to the digital economy. In the end, the paper analyses the fact that State legal orders traditionally guarantee freedom of association and trade unions’ activity only in respect of employees and not with regard to all other workers.

Revisiting the Sustainability Concept of Urban Food Production from a Stakeholders’ Perspective

Urban Food Production (UFP) initiatives are expanding worldwide to enhance urban food production while contributing to the development of sustainable cities in a three-bottom perspective (environment, society, economy). Although the sustainability aspects of UFS have been addressed in the literature, there is a need to set a sustainability framework for UFP based on the concepts and the understanding of the stakeholders as a basis for quantifying their sustainability and for developing effective policy-making. This paper evaluates the concepts of the UFP sustainability from a stakeholders’ perspective through participatory methods and network analyses. Two different workshops were organized in the city of Bologna (Italy), where mind-mapping exercises to define the environmental, economic and social sustainability elements of UFP were performed. This bottom-up approach unveiled a comprehensive and complex vision of sustainable UFP, the relevance of certain sustainability elements and key aspects to take into consideration for the development of UFP and effective policy-making. The existence of bidimensional and tridimensional concepts indicated priorities, synergies and trade-offs among the dimensions of sustainability. The multi-scalar nature of UFP suggested that specific policies can be supported by global schemes (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals) and that UFP can be a local tool for democracy and equity at lower scales.

The “Metropolitan City” in Italy: New Spaces for Dialogue and Interaction Between the City and the Mountain

The mountain areas live a period of new dynamism, in which the connection with the urban context has an important role in terms of cultural redesign of values, physical and functional connections with the local areas and creation of urban-mountain interactions. The article focuses on Italian mountain system, comprising experimentation and excellence, but even rupture and depopulation perspectives, in which the city and mountain are no longer simply the borders of an entre-deux (“between two”, Bourdeau 2015) relationship.The article taking into consideration the current direction of Metropolitan Cities, the newborn institutions established as an intermediate level in local governance. The new Metropolitan Cities were officially born in 2014, following the approval of Law n° 56 “Disposizioni sulle citta metropolitane, sulle province, sulle unioni e fusioni di comuni” (Provisions concerning metropolitan cities, provinces, and unions/fusions between townships). Metropolitan Cities are defined as wide-scale local entities and they are institutional body with task of planning and local development government, in many cases regarding urban and mountain territories.The article proposes a wide range of situations in which forms of strategic planning for the systemization of city-mountain relationships has been adopted. At first level, it has been considered Strategic plans that give formal indication about the exchange between urban and mountain areas. Three significant cases: the Piano Strategico della citta e del territorio di Cuneo 2020 (2020 Strategic plan for the city of Cuneo and its surroundings mountain areas); the Piano Strategico territoriale della Provincia di Belluno (Strategic plan for the mountain-urban area of Belluno); and the Piano Strategico Metropolitano di Bologna 2020 (2020 Strategic plan for the metropolitan city of Bologna and its surroundings mountain area ).At second level the analysis regards the initiatives carried out by the Aosta Valley region (the Strategic Plan for Aosta) and the experience of the “Piano Strategico dei Comuni dell’Alto Canavese” (Strategic Plan for the townships in the Alpine upper Canavese area, within the Metropolitan City of Turin). Wide areas in which the actors have experimented a strategic planning in order to create strong interactions between urban and mountain context through a process of local governance.The results of the analysis permit to highlight some issues: the definition of mutual benefit between city and mountain context; the construction of a strategic polycentric vision inside the urban-mountain territories; concerns inter-territoriality as a tool to build metropolitan identity.

Cooperative Vehicular Traffic Monitoring in Realistic Low Penetration Scenarios: The COLOMBO Experience.

The relevance of effective and efficient solutions for vehicle traffic surveillance is widely recognized in order to enable advanced strategies for traffic management, e.g., based on dynamically adaptive and decentralized traffic light management. However, most related solutions in the literature, based on the powerful enabler of cooperative vehicular communications, assume the complete penetration rate of connectivity/communication technologies (and willingness to participate in the collaborative surveillance service) over the targeted vehicle population, thus making them not applicable nowadays. The paper originally proposes an innovative solution for cooperative traffic surveillance based on vehicular communications capable of: (i) working with low penetration rates of the proposed technology and (ii) of collecting a large set of monitoring data about vehicle mobility in targeted areas of interest. The paper presents insights and lessons learnt from the design and implementation work of the proposed solution. Moreover, it reports extensive performance evaluation results collected on realistic simulation scenarios based on the usage of iTETRIS with real traces of vehicular traffic of the city of Bologna. The reported results show the capability of our proposal to consistently estimate the real vehicular traffic even with low penetration rates of our solution (only 10%).

Veterinary parasitology teaching – Ten years of experience with the Vetsuisse curriculum

Pursuant to the Joint Declaration by 29 European education ministers in June 1999 in the city of Bologna, Italy, the so-called ‘Bologna Process’ was officially introduced at the Vetsuisse Faculty (Universities of Zurich and Berne) in Switzerland in 2007. The long-term goal of restructuring the study programmes was to create a common European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with uniform and clearly defined standards for degrees (“diplomas”). Accordingly, the Vetsuisse curriculum was organised as a 3-year Bachelor and a 2-year Master study program. For the final Federal examination in veterinary medicine, both programs and a master thesis have to be completed. Parasitology, as a subject, is introduced with selected examples in the ecology course during the first academic year. The second and third years of the Bachelor program comprise non-organ-centred (NOC) and integrated organ-centred (OC) course modules, respectively. In the NOC modules, parasitology is taught in consecutive courses, focussing on topics including occurrence, biology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnostics and the strategic principles of therapeutic and prophylactic interventions against major veterinary and zoonotic parasites. This syllabus is complemented with live demonstrations as well as practical laboratory exercises. Lecture notes, with defined learning objectives, are based on the textbook “Parasitology in Veterinary Medicine” which is available free of charge to students as an on-line edition in German. Furthermore, students review relevant parasitoses in the diagnostic context of OC case presentations. In another module, immunological aspects of parasitic diseases are elaborated on group sessions, supported through the use of specialist literature. The two-year Master program is divided into a core syllabus for all students, and elective subjects are chosen from six areas of specialisation (three each with clinical or non-clinical focus). Within the clinically focused specialisations, interactive teaching of control strategies against parasitoses of companion and farm animals is the focus. Students specialising in ‘Pathobiology’ experience a deep immersion in parasitology. Learning objectives are verified in different test formats. E-learning tools, including a learning management on-line platform, allow interactive student training in coproscopic diagnostic techniques and in arachno-entomology and provide case-oriented teaching. Since an aptitude test limits the number of first-year students in veterinary medicine in Switzerland (80 in Zürich, 70 in Berne), the conditions for students and teachers are similar each year. The fragmentation of teaching in veterinary parasitology, the reduction of the number of diagnostic exercises and clinically oriented day-1-skills pertaining to the control of parasitoses are critically commented upon.

生态视角下的“城市之城”： 来自“博洛尼亚七城”结构规划的思考

生态视角下的“城市之城”： 来自“博洛尼亚七城”结构规划的思考

Travelling with the UniOn App: Itineraries of Language and Culture Through the City of Bologna

UniOn is an application for smartphone and tablets developed within ILOCALAPP (www.ilocalapp.eu), a European project coordinated by the University of Bologna. UniOn exists in four versions, one for each city involved in the project (Bologna, Coimbra, Poznan and Rovaniemi), and it is meant to foster the incidental learning of the language and the culture related to the city (respectively, Italian, Portuguese, Polish and Finnish). The fruition and the understanding of the contents (reading, listening, etc.) directly in the places let the users get in touch with aspects of language and culture in an implicit, non intentional way. UniOn has been created to cope with the specific needs of international students living a mobility experience, but it has become soon an interesting tool also for other typologies of travellers (high-school students, university students coming from other cities, tourists, migrants). In this article we will illustrate the main app features and its development based on a user-centred design approach. We will focus upon the Bologna version of the app to show how the app is being used, and how both the city and the users’ experience of the city play a crucial role.

Governance and the stakeholders’ engagement in city logistics: the SULPiTER methodology and the Bologna application

Abstract Many actors are involved in the urban freight delivery system. They hold different visions, perceptions, goals. However, city logistics affects a well-defined set of subjects: their acceptance of (and even positive contribution to) policy can be enhanced by continuing consultation. This evidence stresses the need for the stakeholders’ engagement as a strategic factor of any decision-making process. The paper presents the guidelines of the EU-funded project SULPiTER (Interreg Central Europe Programme) for the stakeholders’ involvement (both public and private) in the definition of city logistics policies. In particular, the FQP (Freight Quality Partnership) tool is analyzed and discussed. After an overview of the institutional references and the implemented experiences, a methodological approach is presented, describing the steps for an effective FQP implementation. The case of the Metropolitan city of Bologna is presented as the local application of the SULPiTER methodology, considering two aspects: the way of defining the governance for combining horizontally different public authorities, and the tool for engaging the private stakeholders in the definition of Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans (SULPs).

Consumer’s Preference and Willingness to Pay for Apple Attributes: A Choice Experiment in Large Retail Outlets in Bologna (Italy)

ABSTRACTWe analyze the relevant quality attributes of apples which drive and influence consumer choice in the city of Bologna (Italy). A hypothetical choice experiment was conducted to elicit Italian consumer’s willingness to pay for apple attributes and was included as a part of a questionnaire survey. A group of 301 consumers were surveyed in Bologna in July and August 2016. Data were analyzed using a multinomial logit model. Results suggest Italian consumers are willing to pay more for yellow apples and for apples harvested in Trentino-Alto Adige region, compared with other Italian areas. Furthermore, results highlight a preference for locally produced apples, whereas organic apples are only slightly preferred to the not organic alternative. Results of this study could be used to develop marketing strategies for apple differentiation or for a new product development and target the right product to the right consumer.

Adaptive technologies and co-design strategies for historic spaces rehabilitation

The renewed interest for under used sites of historical city centres is addressing a change in design paradigms on existing buildings involving local communities in the process from the very beginning. The paper reports a recent cooperation, named “Anteprima Lab”, between the Department of Architecture (DA) of University of Bologna, the City of Bologna and Urban Center. The action is intended as an enabler of initiatives aimed at enhancing those places assumed as common goods by local communities. The pilot defined the functional and spatial features of an innovative participated environment that follows the socio-political trends characterizing the modern age of Bologna.

Excess mortality in Italy: Should we care about low influenza vaccine uptake?

The aims of this study were to explore 2015 mortality data further and to assess excess deaths' determinants. We analysed data from a large metropolitan area in the north of Italy, the city of Bologna. We took advantage of a comprehensive local-level database and merged three different data sources to analitically explore reported 2014-2015 excess mortality and its determinants. Effect estimates were derived from multivariable Poisson regression analysis, according to vaccination status and frailty index. We report 9.8% excess mortality in 2015 compared to 2014, with seasonal and age distribution patterns in line with national figures. All-cause mortality in the elderly population is 36% higher (risk ratio [RR]=1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.27-1.45) in subjects not vaccinated against seasonal flu compared to vaccinated subjects, with risk of death for influenza or pneumonia being 43% higher (RR=1.43, 95% CI 1.02-2.00) in unvaccinated subjects. Reported excess mortality's determinants in Italy should be further explored. Elderly subjects not vaccinated against the flu appear to have increased risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality compared to vaccinated subjects after accounting for possible confounders. Our findings raise awareness of the need to promote immunisation against the flu among elder populations and offer insights to plan and implement effective public-health interventions.

The void and the memory. Ludovico Quaroni’s competition project for the Tobacco Manufacturing and the Navile Park in Bologna (1984). An urban figurative regeneration

<p>The Ludovico Quaroni's competition winner project for the urban park of the Tobacco Manufacturing and the Navile dockyard, although unrealised, still represents a sort of conclusive point of the search path (he died in 1987) of one of the most prominent characters of the Italian architectural scene – and not only - of the 20th century. Furthermore, the high number of contenders to the competition’s first stage (139) made the contest itself an extraordinary occasion of rethinking an important part of the city of Bologna, a somewhat hybrid part located on the verge of town historic centre and its first expansion and offered the chance of challenge for the mostly Italian architects. The Quaroni’s group was composed by many others architects including important authors of the reconstruction projects of Bologna in the years following World War II; their proposal aimed at bringing order in a non-connected urban context filled with many fragments of historical memories of the site. The process of spaces redefinition, as in the beginning projects of the architect’s career, is conducted with the tools of the “design” (as used by Manfredo Tafuri, 1964), as an instrument of territorial and urban areas re-composition, undertook through the conservation of trails, overlapped by a new system of episodes, keeping the idea of fragments, responding to the competition requirements. In fact, the project balances the new parts in strict relation with the pre-existing elements of the historic town centre, considering the tangible and material dimensions of the city. Such a new system is governed by a clear scheme of structured elements based on the project of void, provided with a clear formal image, whose final outcome is a figurative regeneration. In this idea and formal organism Quaroni developing many of his design principles, gives a personal interpretation to the contemporary issue of regeneration empowered by those reflections that had just entered in the much wider debate in the mid-eighties, about conservation and sustainability of historic centres and the natural environment. Notably, this issue is dealt with in a cultural environment such as the one of Bologna, a city that gave much to the debate on conservation of old towns (see the Cervellati plan); a discussion founding the Italian experience of the 20th century and particularly of its second half. From this point of view, the contribution of architects from Bologna at Quaroni’s project has therefore probably accounted for the special sensibility shown by the project on those matters. After giving up on Quaroni’s plan Aldo Rossi was chosen by the Municipality to develop the project; his ideas confirm, although with different outcomes, an approach based on the value of the conservation of memory and the use of clear forms as means of urban regeneration.</p>

THE BOLOGNESE UNIVERSITAS, A UNIVERSITY FOUNDED BY ALIENS

This treatise is an attempt to shed some light on the origins of the University of Bologna. The Bolognese University did not appear as a result of someone’s deliberate founding act to improve medieval education, but as a result of quite specific cultural, economic and political circumstances. The founding of the university had something to do with the interests and privileges of its students. The City of Bologna was not only a formal framework and just a particular place for the university. The city and the university developed together and influenced and changed each other. At the same time, there was a deep gap between them. Since the majority of the Bolognese students were not from Bologna, but from various Italian and European cities, we can say that the majority of the law students in Bologna were alliens. Since most of the students found themselves in a precarious legal situation, being a Bolognese student had its disadvantages. In order to protect themselves against all of the disadvantages, the students first banded together in “nations” according to their ethnic and geographical origins, and later on into two universitates. In the simplest terms, we can argue that universities were originally the guilds of aliens, i.e. the corporations of foreign students. United in such a way, they could bargain more effectively with the city government, they could negotiate better rents and books prices. From the very beginning of its history, the European university was not only exposed to the political context of the cities and states, but to the economic circumstances too. The outcome of this strong collision was a long history of alien secession and migration to other cities, where they founded new universities. It was a way to spread the idea of the university and education in the Middle Ages.