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structural and geophysical 3D model of central Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy) for numerical simulation of earthquake ground motion

The study of deformation signals associated with seismicity in alluvial plain areas is a challenging topic that, however, is increasingly studied thanks to the great aid given by remote sensing techniques that exploit Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. This study focuses on the determination of the deformation field within the Emilia-Romagna Region (northern Italy), in the area comprising Modena, Reggio Emilia, and Parma cities. SAR data acquired along both orbits during the Sentinel-1 and Cosmo-SkyMed satellite missions were processed with the Small Baseline Subset interferometric technique from June 2012, after the serious seismic swarm of May 2012, to January 2022, just before the two earthquakes occurred in February 2022. The results, validated with Global Navigation Satellite System measurements, do not highlight displacements correlated with the seismicity but, thanks to their high spatial resolution, it was possible to discriminate areas affected by noticeable subsidence phenomena: (i) the highly industrialized areas located north of the municipalities of Reggio Emilia and Modena cities and (ii) a sector of the high-speed railway sited north of the Reggio Emilia city centre, close to the Reggio Emilia AV Mediopadana station. Here we show that, at least since 2012, the latter area is affected by subsidence which can be related to the secondary consolidation process of the fine soils loaded by the railway embankment. The piezometric level analysis also suggests that the lowering of the groundwater table could accelerate the subsidence rate, affecting the stability of infrastructures in highly populated and industrialized areas.

In 2015, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government implemented a plan to reduce waiting times for elective outpatient procedures. The objective set by the regional government establishes that at least 90 per cent of specialist services are to be provided within the following maximum waiting times: 30 days for the first specialist consultation, and 60 days for diagnostic tests. The plan adopted by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government is of particular interest because it encompasses a combined strategy. Some of the interventions envisaged in the plan aim at increasing the supply of specialist services. Others address the demand side, seeking to reduce inadequate requests and discourage no-shows by patients. And others focus on combining supply and demand and neutralizing the effects of some perverse incentives. The Emilia-Romagna plan appears to have had a successful outcome. In the first 4 years of implementation, the 90 per cent target has not only been achieved but also widely exceeded.

The knowledge of the so-called geoid undulation, which represents the height of the geoid above a reference ellipsoid, is a fundamental step to link ellipsoidal heights measured using satellite systems and orthometric heights. Several geoid models are available at the time both at the national or global scale, which can be used for the purpose. Another way to define the geoid undulation is to perform joint measures with GNSS and spirit levelling over common benchmarks. This requires onerous measurements that is seldom possible to perform due to their cost. In this work, we evaluated the possibility to define a local model of the geoid undulation using already available spirit levelling orthometric heights and GNSS ellipsoidal heights measured about 13 years later. The test area is the Emilia-Romagna Adriatic coastline, an area of great interest both from the environmental and economic point of view, which is also undergoing consistent subsidence phenomena.Test results show that the available measurements allow defining a geoid undulation that is coherent with the shape defined by the gravimetric models and also allows to transform ellipsoidal heights into orthometric ones more consistent with the height reference available on the surveyed area. A 7 cm overall bias with respect to the ITALGEO05 was found, whereas ITG2009 and EGM2008 have higher differences. The use of subsidence models to align over time the coordinates used to define the geoid undulation has proven to be a fundamental step. The analysis on the a-priori uncertainty in the geoid height definition shown that the combined use of much more precise GNSS coordinates and contemporary spirit levelling campaign is necessary to significantly improve the resulting geoid height.

A huge knowledge gap exists on riverine pioneer herbaceous vegetation. Despite its relevance in regulating the C metabolism at the catchment scale, and the triggering role in shrubs and trees establishment along riverbanks, little data is available on its environmental determinants. Indeed, most existing knowledge in this field refers to woody species or aquatic macrophytes neglecting the ecosystem relevance of ephemeral herbaceous vegetation. Focusing on three gravel bed rivers located in northern Italy (Baganza, Nure and Parma streams), the present study is aimed to evaluate the riverine ephemeral plant richness, considering both native and alien taxa, and the role of hydrogeomorphological disturbance and sediment quality in the observed richness patterns. At higher disturbance rates (e.g., larger river sizes), our data indicates a progressive decrease in overall plant richness, but also an increase in the coverage-abundance rates mainly due to alien species. This evidence confirms that variations in hydrology imply changes in pioneer plant species richness at in-stream periodically exposed sediments. More attention must be given to the vulnerability of pioneer vegetation to climate change and direct human impacts to fully understand the functioning of lotic ecosystems, especially the non-perennial ones.

Industry 4.0 is not only a bundle of linked innovations, but a wide-ranging revolution that also affects the organizational aspects of the company and its value chain. This work focuses on the relationship between the tacit knowledge inherent in human resources and the codified knowledge built within the machinery and the whole production process 4.0. Human resources have returned to the center of the production process. Companies face a trade-off between the need to invest more and more resources towards internal training and the increased need to "retain" their employees. The Corporate Academy can be an interesting tool to achieve these two goals simultaneously. This work analyzes and compares 29 Italian Corporate Academies in the manufacturing sector based on a research and survey Nomisma. The study helped to understand the motivations that led these companies to adopt this tool, in addition to understand the different methods that they undertook in the process and the relative actual and expected benefits.

This chapter analyses decision-making in a multi-level governance (MLG) framework in the case of emergency and recovery from an earthquake arising the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy in 2012. While the literature has pointed to the importance of two levels of government in resilience from disasters, namely the national and the local one, this study shows the role of intermediate levels of government, particularly the regional level. This Italian region has been affected by various shocks, mainly the 2008 financial crisis, which was very close to the earthquake. Nevertheless, the region has been resilient, thanks to a specific governance, attention to social cohesion, taking all the parts of the regional system into account, and learning capacity.

Dopo poco più di un anno dalla prima stesura, viene pubblicata la terza edizione, riveduta ed aggiornata, della Check List delle Briofite dell’Emilia-Romagna. Nuove esplorazioni di campo, continui aggiornamenti tassonomici e nomenclaturali, nuovi dati bibliografici, fanno di queste opere delle vere e proprie “work in progress” per antonomasia. La pubblicazione in oggetto può venire considerata come un riferimento cui guardare per la redazione di analoghe Check List regionali e nazionali. Per quanto detto in precedenza, tuttavia, questo volume non si può ritenere un punto di arrivo, ma una tappa e un riferimento indispensabili per nuove ricerche e acquisizioni.

Cities are key players in the reduction of CO2 emissions and in the fight against climate change because they consume around 80% of energy production worldwide. Since new urban developments have become residual among the overall city interventions, existing buildings need to be deeply renovated in terms of energy performance or demolished and substituted by high performance buildings to fulfil the CO2 reduction goals assumed by the EU. Existing buildings and urban fabrics need also to achieve higher performances in terms of statics and functional requisites and open spaces quality, thus increasing energy efficiency and the sustainability of the city as a whole. Urban densification, which become possible thanks to the adoption of density bonus rights or incentives, emerges as a credible response able to address energy saving issues at building scale and to help financing the interventions, but the overall sustainability and effectiveness of these measures risk to be neutralized if they are implemented without a clear strategy at urban scale. By analysing the experiences of two medium-sized cities in Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy, the article supports the thesis that energy-sensitive densification processes, to be effective in achieving deep energy reduction targets, should be conceived as a part of an integrated and broader urban strategy fostering a wider urban regeneration of the existing city.

Several published studies on beach management have defined sustainable strategies for the maintenance of their recreational capacity. However, coastal geomorphology and evolution have rarely been taken into consideration. To complete these studies, we analyzed the geomorphological characteristics, the users' perception and beach carrying capacity of two coastal stretches. Geomorphological characteristics were obtained from aerial photos and field survey data; beach perception was assessed through questionnaires and interviews while the beach carrying capacity was calculated using two distinct methods. Our results suggest that the physical carrying capacity can be defined using geomorphological analyses, while the effective carrying capacity can be evaluated using the users' perception analysis.

Viene presentata una sintesi delle conoscenze in merito alla distribuzione delle briofite in Emilia-Romagna sulla base dei dati disponibili nei lavori pubblicati fino al 2017. Si è costruito un database di oltre 7300 record di cui 6900 effettivamente utilizzati nella compilazione della Check List. Vengono qui riportati gli elenchi delle specie segnalate (epatiche e muschi) suddivise secondo le diverse provincie. All’interno degli elenchi, per ogni segnalazione si indica la località di rinvenimento. Sulla base dei dati disponibili sono presenti in Emilia-Romagna 546 taxa (comprendenti specie, sottospecie e varietà) di cui 87 epatiche e 459 muschi.

Airborne particulate matter (PM) containing fungal spores and pollen grains was sampled within a monitoring campaign of wheat threshing, plowing and sowing agricultural operations. Fungal spores and pollen grains were detected and identified on morphological basis. No studies were previously available about fungal spore and pollen content in agricultural PM in the Po Valley. Sampling was conducted in a Po Valley farmland in Mezzano (Ferrara, Italy). The organic particles collected were examined by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer. Fungal spores and pollen grains were identified when possible at the level of species. The most frequent components of the organic particles sampled were spores of Aspergillus sp., which could represent a risk of developing allergies and aspergillosis for crop farmers.

Several specimens of anomuran and brachyuran decapods are reported from the late Pliocene clays (Argille Azzurre Fm.) at localities nearby Faenza (Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna), located in the foothills of Romagna Apennines (NE Italy). The specimens were assigned to species already reported from the Pliocene of Italy, but never previously recorded in this area. This new report enlarges our knowledge on the composition and distribution of the brachyuran decapods along the Pliocene coastline of the Adriatic Gulf of the paleo- Mediterranean Sea.

A collection of 3069 human sera collected in the area of the municipality of Modena, Emilia Romagna, Italy, was retrospectively investigated for specific antibodies against Usutu (USUV) and West Nile viruses (WNV). All the samples resulting positive using a preliminary screening test were analyzed with the plaque reduction neutralization test. Overall, 24 sera were confirmed as positive for USUV (0.78%) and 13 for WNV (0.42%). The results suggest that in 2012, USUV was circulating more than WNV in North-eastern Italy.

Les praticiens du marketing territorial cherchent à influer sur les représentations mentales associées à un territoire donné, à construire ou à modifier son image au travers d’une activité de promotion. Dans le cadre de la promotion touristique ce sont souvent des documents iconographiques qui sont utilisés pour ériger un territoire en destination et susciter le désir de visite chez le touriste potentiel. Cet article montre comment l’imagerie ainsi constituée varie dans le temps et en fonction de quels facteurs. Il s’appuie sur une analyse iconographique (contenu des images et géolocalisation) à partir des photographies diffusées sur le site internet et le compte Facebook dédiés à la promotion touristique d’une région administrative italienne : l’Émilie-Romagne. À deux pas de temps différents, la cartographie des lieux représentés et le contenu des images choisies pour incarner la région varient sensiblement, ce qui s’explique par une évolution des stratégies de développement local, une évolution des supports de la communication qui donnent un rôle actif à la population locale et des dynamiques territoriales, comme la métropolisation, qui dépassent le cadre touristique. The pictures provided by official touristic offices are supposed to have an effect on social representations and the relationship between a region and people who wants to visit it. This paper presents the evolution of communication strategies chosen by the regional authority of Emilia-Romagna (Italy) to promote the entire region and enhance its attractiveness to tourists. The study relies on an image analysis which takes into account both the content of the pictures and the geographical location of the places which have been chosen to embody the region. Those pictures come from sources representative of the place with two different promotion practice periods: the regional internet site dedicated to tourism promotion, and the official Facebook account of the Emilia-Romagna Region Tourism Board. The outcomes highlight a new way to present the region, much more focused on urban areas and local ways of life. This change can be explained by many factors: the evolution of the communication medias which give an active role to the local population, but also the evolution of local development strategies or the broader territorial dynamics such as metropolization. Gli adetti al marketing territoriale cercano di influenzare l’immaginario collettivo associato ad un territorio, costruendo e modificando la sua immagine mediante le attività di promozione. Per quanto riguarda la promozione turistica vengono spesso utilizzate immagini e fotografie per trasformare un luogo o un territorio in modo che sia attrattivo per i turisti. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è di mettere in evidenza cosa ha cambiato l’uso dei social networks nella rappresentazione ufficiale del territorio della regione Emilia-Romagna. La metodologia adottata si è basata su un’analisi delle immagini utilizzate dall’ente regionale di promozione turistica durante due periodi diversi: prima sul suo sito internet ufficiale e poi sulla sua pagina Facebook. L’analisi tiene conto sia del contenuto delle immagini (il soggetto principale e gli elementi presenti nella foto) sia della localizzazione geografica del luogo raffigurato e ciò permette di costruire delle mappe che possono essere messe a confronto tra loro. I risultati mettono in evidenza un modo nuovo di presentare la regione, molto più attento alle aree urbane e allo stile di vita locale. Diversi elementi permettono di spiegare questi cambiamenti, tra cui l’evoluzione dei mezzi di comunicazione che rende la popolazione locale più attiva nel processo di promozione, l’evoluzione delle strategie politiche di sviluppo economico del territorio regionale e l’impatto del fenomeno di metropolizzazione intorno a Bologna, la capitale regionale. 官方旅游中心提供的图片应该对某一地区的社会形象以及地区和游客之间的关系产生影响。本文介绍了艾米利亚 - 罗马涅（意大利）地区当局为促进整个地区的形象建设和提高对游客的吸引力所选择的传播策略的演变。该研究依赖于图像分析，该图像分析考虑了图片的内容和被选择用于代表该区域的景点的地理位置。推广所使用图片来自能代表各景点的来源，而该地区的推广实践分为两个阶段：第一阶段使用了致力于旅游推广的地区官方网站，第二阶段使用了艾米利亚 - 罗马涅地区旅游局的官方Facebook帐户。研究结果显示了宣传该地区的新方法，这种新方法更加关注城市地区及当地生活方式。这种变化可以由许多因素来解释：传播媒介的演变使当地人能够积极地参与其中，其次地区发展策略的演变以及其他的地区动态如大都市化也非常重要。

This article presents the results of a study on the bryological flora of the historic Park of Monte Sole, in the Bologna Apennines (Emilia-Romagna region). A total of 129 taxa were identified, including 9 new findings for the region. The study makes use of the regional cartographic grid, a methodology already used in the description of the vascular flora of the region, applied here for the first time to the bryological flora. If used in future studies, this method will allow a standardization of our knowledge on the distribution of the bryological flora in the region.

In the presented work, daily observations of minimum and maximum temperatures and precipitation-spatially interpolated in a high-resolution grid (5 x 5 km)-were used to detect climate shifts in the viticultural appellation areas of the Emilia-Romagna (ER) region, in the periods 1961-1990 and 1986-2015. The growing season (April to October) minimum, mean, and maximum temperatures were significantly increased in the second period compared to the first over the majority of the ER. Precipitation did not differ significantly, with the exception of certain small northeastern areas of the ER. The detected changes affected the ER viticultural environment in several ways: (1) an increase in the number of days with maximum temperature exceeding 30 degrees C, which can induce plant stress; (2) changes in starting and ending dates of the climatologically defined growing season, dates of the first fall frost and the last spring frost, and length of the frost-free period; (3) shifts of most vineyard areas from 'Region 2/Region 3' to 'Region 3/Region 4' (according to the Winkler Index); (4) shifts of the majority of the grape-producing zones from 'temperate/warm temperate' to 'warm temperate/warm' (according to the Huglin Index); (5) de creased availability of soil water, which is necessary for grapevine development.

I temi legati al cibo e all’alimentazione sono, da qualche anno, al centro di un’attenzione quasi ossessionante. A fronte di una sorta di bulimia, pochi sono i contributi che indicano le strade per l’analisi o la lettura dei processi storici che hanno portato alla configurazione di questo presente. Raccogliendo la sfida i curatori del nuovo dossier 2016 presentano i contenuti e le chiavi interpretative di un lavoro che, attraverso un focus sulla realtà emiliano-romagnola, permette di isolare l’intreccio fra economia del territorio, interessi agrari e modalità di diffusione dell’industria alimentare nel periodo di transizione fra anni Trenta e primissimo dopoguerra. Alcuni contributi dedicati a realtà territoriali diverse – la Francia, una città di vocazione industriale come Torino – arricchiscono l’analisi e i contenuti introducendo ipotesi di comparazione e una disamina su fonti differenti che impongono riflessioni non scontate sul metodo.

The objective of this paper is to identify and analyse the role of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in affecting the spatial location of agricultural activities in an area of Northern Italy. The analysis is based on survey information (300 observations) regarding stated intentions of farm-households in two CAP scenarios, treated through statistical analysis intended to identify the potential determinants of different farm reactions, and using explicit spatial information (altitude, LFA, agrarian regions). Altogether, the study demonstrates the relevance of explicitly addressing the differentiated spatial effect of the CAP on different dimensions of agricultural activities. However, the work also highlights the limitations of the location-based representation of the spatial dimension compared with both non-spatial variables and more “functional” spatial variables.

In the national planning context, Emilia Romagna government policy leans quite heavily toward a participatory approach to urban development. At first public participation has been promoted for creating place and community identities and for conceiving a more effective and democratic assessment of the territory, with the aim to turn people from passive consumers of urbanity to creative re-shapers of cities. But since the 1990s onwards, the quest for sustainable development reinforced the role of people's commitment in the long-term transformation of the city environment, linking community participation with the need to act for a more sustainable urban environment. Nevertheless, these planning policies are still not sufficiently working and more efforts are needed for becoming more effective and for making the development of the regional urban environment more sustainable.

This paper argues that the institutional framework of industrial policies derives from the analysis of industries as systems. Industries are embedded in specific institutional frameworks with which they co-evolve. However, industrial systems are primarily organised at local level: industries may be global but in the sense that they constitute global networks of local systems. The institutional framework of industrial policy derives from this result: industrial policy acts at different levels, primarily the local one with regional policies, but also national and supranational. The paper argues that regional industrial policies are key policies to favour industrial development, and performing regions are those that combine dynamic capabilities (pool of resources: raw materials, infrastructure, competencies and knowledge, human capital) and an institutional system characterised by governance and leadership. This is illustrated with the case of the Emilia Romagna region in Italy. Dynamic capabilities both favour the development of local firms and attract firms and resources (financial, human) from outside the region. Governance is taken in the sense of Stoker (1998) of a collective decision-making process, involving all stakeholders. We add that leadership is also essential in such a framework. Finally, the success of industrial policy depends not only on the local institutions but also on their relationship with the wider institutional framework.

A study of the bryophyte flora of the gypsum outcrops in six sites of the Nature 2000 Network of the Emilia-Romagna Region was conducted in order to contribute to the conservation of the biodiversity of these sites. Subsequently, the main ecological and chorological aspects of the areas were analyzed, and with this information a series of target species was identified as indicators of the conditions of naturality or of progressive anthropization and deterioration of the areas.

Soil sealing is the permanent covering of the land surface by buildings, infrastructures or any impermeable artificial material. Beside the loss of fertile soils with a direct impact on food security, soil sealing modifies the hydrological cycle. This can cause an increased flooding risk, due to urban development in potential risk areas and to the increased volumes of runoff. This work estimates the increase of runoff due to sealing following urbanization and land take in the plain of Emilia Romagna (Italy), using the Green and Ampt infiltration model for two rainfall return periods (20 and 200 years) in two different years, 1976 and 2008. To this goal a hydropedological approach was adopted in order to characterize soil hydraulic properties via locally calibrated pedotransfer functions (PTF). PTF inputs were estimated via sequential Gaussian simulations coupled with a simple kriging with varying local means, taking into account soil type and dominant land use. Results show that in the study area an average increment of 8.4% in sealed areas due to urbanization and sprawl induces an average increment in surface runoff equal to 3.5 and 2.7% respectively for 20 and 200-years return periods, with a maximum > 20% for highly sealed coast areas.

The roman amphitheatre of Rimini, built in the mid second century A.D., was reused at the middle of the following one in the construction of the city wall. The area in which today still stand its monumental remains became in brief peripheral and deteriorated, used as cultivable soil and site for the installation of a lazaretto at the end of the fifteenth century. The inner structures of the building were covered by the ground and its memory was handed on only by the memoirs of the scholars. Starting from these, the article intends to focus the attention on the forms of the realization of the wall in the area of the amphitheatre, from the third century to the medieval and post-medieval renovations. In particular, this work checks a nearly unknown report of Jano Planco (Latin name of Giovanni Bianchi), doctor and scholar from Rimini in the eighteenth century, which tells with many details the status quo at his days. One part of the amphitheatre was dug in 1843-1844 by the historian Luigi Tonini, using very advanced archeological techniques. He restored the dignity of the amphitheatre as an important civic monument and inaugurated a long series of scientific studies about it.

The article investigates changes in the interaction between business organisations, local governments and public technology intermediaries resulting from business organisations’ shifts towards higher-value product segment opportunities. Specifically, we analyse how local governments can (or not) align their industrial policies to the industrial transformations—both technological and organisational—underpinning firms’ value creation–capture dynamics. The concept of structural cycle is introduced here to study the two interdependent processes of ‘technology transition’ and ‘organisational reconfiguration’ characterising those firms shifting towards higher-value product segments. This private–public nexus is investigated in the Emilian Packaging Valley context. The mixed-method study focuses on the case of IMA Spa, its shifts from the food to the pharmaceutical value product segment of the packaging machine industry and its changing relationships with regional public policies and institutions. A number of industrial policy implications for sustainable value creation dynamics in local production systems are finally derived.

The Emilia-Romagna region is an exemplary case of industrial development based on systems of small and medium-sized enterprises. Since the 1980s it has become a common reference in the international debate on Post-Fordism. This paper analyzes the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in the development of region’s economy. After presenting a short profile of the dynamics and structural features of the region’s industrialization, the paper reconstructs the debate among economists and politicians about the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Emilian economy: from the dominant positions in the mid-20th century economic theory that saw them as unavoidably backward and inefficient, to Togliatti’s innovative proposal for a strategic alliance between the working class and the small entrepreneurs, the debate on productive decentralization, the discovery of industrial districts up to the more recent analysis on the rise of district lead firms and medium-sized firms of the «forth capitalism»

Trabajo presentado a la XXXVIII Reunión de Estudios Regionales: "The Challenge of Regional Development in a World of Changing Hegemonies: Knowledge, Competitiveness and Austerity" celebrada en Bilbao (España) del 22 al 23 de Noviembre de 2012., This paper examines the evolution of regional innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna, and Valencia, regions with similar economic features that implemented similar innovation policies in the 1970s and 1980s. We investigate whether their similarities have led to similar targets, policy tools and governance developments. We show that innovation policy in both regions suffered from the effects of privatization, budget constraints and changes to manufacturing during the 1990s and highlight the consequences. Although Emilia-Romagna experienced deeper change to its innovation policy, privatizations and/or the replacement of public funds promoted commercial approaches and induced market failures in both regions. The worst effects of these policies were the implementation of less risky innovation projects, the shift towards extra-regional projects and markets, and the favouring of large firms.

Background After a rapid increase in malignant melanoma (MM) incidence in the last decades, trends of the melanoma epidemic in the recent years seemed not homogeneous. Objective This study aimed at the monitoring of some epidemiological data referring to melanoma in a region of the Northern Italy during the past 8-year period. Methods All cases of melanoma, including also in situ lesions, diagnosed in Emilia-Romagna and San Marino State, with the exclusion of Cesena province, from 1997 to 2004 were recorded and the incidence of melanoma, adjusted for the European standard population by the direct method, was calculated. Results Mean standardized incidence was 9.7 for invasive MMs and 11.9, considering also in situ ones, showing an ascending trend with an increment of 3.3 new incident cases in 2004 compared with 1997. No differences in age distribution, gender and site were reported. Concerning tumour thickness, although a general ascending trend in all subtypes, only thin melanoma incidence significantly increased over the study period. Conclusions Contrary to data from Northern European countries, melanoma incidence still showed an ascending trend in the Italian population of Emilia Romagna.

Aims and background This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of midterm epidemiological trends for the major cancer sites in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy (population 4,400,000). Methods The MIAMOD method, a back-calculation approach to estimate and project the incidence of chronic diseases from mortality and patient survival, was used for the estimation of incidence and prevalence by calendar year (from 1970 to 2015) and age (from 0 to 99). Survival estimates were taken from cancer registries of northeastern Italy. Results The estimated incidence of stomach cancer decreased by approximately 75% for both sexes. Trends in incidence of colorectal cancer differed between males and females. For females, the rate increased moderately until the year 2000 with a slow decrease thereafter, whereas the male colorectal cancer incidence showed a regular increase until 2010 followed by a substantial leveling off. Among males the lung cancer incidence and mortality rates showed a steep increase until the late 1980s and a rapid decrease thereafter. Among females, the trends were increasing over the entire study period. The estimated incidence of female breast cancer rose sharply between 1970 and 2001, but from that year onwards a slightly decreasing trend was observed. Mortality peaked in 1988 and has fallen since. The incidence of prostate cancer showed a 3-fold increase. After 2005, the rate is expected to stabilize. Among females, the estimated prevalence increased for breast cancer (52,700 cases expected in 2015), colorectal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma, while decreasing for stomach cancer and cervical cancer. Among males, the estimates showed an upward trend for prostate cancer (32,100 cases expected in 2015) and colorectal cancer, and a leveling off for lung cancer after 2010. Conclusion The estimates were fairly consistent with previous data from several epidemiological sources. The MIAMOD method provided a picture of the impressive increase in the prevalence of breast cancer and prostate cancer over the 45-year period studied.

The paper describes a large dimension case study in subsidence monitoring, i.e. the survey of the entire portion of the Po River valley contained in Emilia Romagna Region (Italy). In 2005–2007, an update of the geometric knowledge of the subsidence phenomenon in the Emilia-Romagna was conducted using the PSInSAR satellite radar interferometric analysis technique, supported by high precision levelling. A report of the overall activity is presented, together with a summary of the main results achieved.

Le projet s'inscrit dans la continuité d'un thème propre à l'architecture, celui du rapport entre l'ancien et le nouveau. Le tremblement de terre qui a touché, il y a un an, plusieurs villes de l'Emilia Romagna, dont Mirandola, impose une confrontation à l'architecture du passé, nous mettant face à une responsabilité de notre métier. Le projet propose donc deux objectifs: d'une part, la consolidation des structures existantes et d'autre part, la reconstruction des parties nécessaires à une restitution claire de “l'espace architectural”. L'église de San Francesco, un des premiers exemples d'architecture franciscaine en Italie et panthéon de la famille Pico, a subi plusieurs dommages: l'écroulement du système de voûtes à croix qui recouvrait les trois nefs de la grande charpente en bois et une partie du mur latéral. Le projet prévoit la reconstruction d'une nouvelle charpente, ainsi que celle de la partie du mur, privée de ses ornements. En ce qui concerne le cloître, la volonté de conserver la même typologie entraîne la construction d'un deuxième cloître, conservant la même logique de circulation “en anneau”, autour duquel sont distribuées les salles de classe et qui, au premier étage, permet la construction d'une bibliothèque à trois nefs.

The ability to predict the imminent arrival of coastal storm risks is a valuable tool for civil protection agencies in order to prepare themselves and, if needs be, execute the appropriate hazard-reduction measures. In this study we present a prototype Early Warning System (EWS) for coastal storm risk on the Emilia-Romagna coastline in Northern Italy. This EWS is run by executing a chain of numerical models (SWAN, ROMS and XBeach) daily, with the final output transformed into a format suitable for decision making by end-users. The storm impact indicator selected for this site is the Safe Corridor Width (SCW), which is a measure of how much dry beach width is available for safe passage by beach users. A three-day time-series of the predicted SCW is generated daily by the prototype EWS. If the minimum SCW exceeds a certain threshold, a warning is issued to end-users via an automated email service. All available prediction information is also updated daily on-line. Over the one year that the EWS has been operating (June 2011 until June 2012), 13 “code red” and 16 “code orange” warnings have been issued, with the remaining 305 predictions indicating low hazard in terms of the SCW. The reliability of the predictions from the perspective of the end-user has meant that the EWS is currently being expanded to include the entire Emilia-Romagna coastline.