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This dissertation investigates the intersections between industrial literature produced in Italy between 1955 and 1965 and the anticolonial discourse and debate which was circulating around Italy and Europe in those same years. Adopting a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, it shows how anticolonialism was far more vividly present as a discourse in Italian industrial intellectual milieux and in industrial literature than previously acknowledged, thanks to the mediation of key figures such as Giovanni Pirelli, Giovanni Giudici, and Franco Fortini, among others. It also traces a strong conceptual link that was established in those same milieux between colonial situations of occupation, exploitation and oppression, and industrialisation in Italy. Following an Introduction that provides essential contextual details and describes the aims, scope, and method of the dissertation, Part One looks at how colonial and anticolonial questions were addressed between 1955 and 1965 in a cluster of periodicals related in various ways to industry: from industrial company publications (for example, Il gatto selvatico), to militant anticapitalist journals (Quaderni piacentini and others), to literary reviews (such as Il menabò). What emerges is a sense of the awareness that Italian industrial intellectual milieux developed in relation to colonial dynamics and anticolonial movements in the contemporary world and also of the different interests that these milieux pursued in committing (or not committing) to anticolonialism. Part Two identifies and scrutinises a cluster of keywords and narrative tropes that the anticolonial and industrial discourses shared (such as 'alienation', 'paternalism', 'race') that allows us to trace key lines of affinity between the two spheres. An anticolonial reading of six Italian industrial novels by Ottiero Ottieri, Paolo Volponi, Goffredo Parise, and Giovanni Pirelli that deploy clusters of these keywords and tropes is then proposed, supported by the findings presented in previous chapters. It is argued that Italian industrial writers proved so receptive to anticolonial thought because they were obliged to tackle analogous sets of questions in industrial settings. The conclusion summarises the most significant findings of the dissertation and suggests future related lines of research.

Generic medications are those medicines manufactured by a pharmaceutical company without a license from the company that has first invented and patented the same drug, when the related patent and other exclusivity rights have expired. Only studies of bioequivalence are requested as requirements to introduce a new generic medication in clinics, making easier and financially attractive for many pharmaceutical companies to participate in this typology of market. Organised criminality is strongly attracted by this market both for the high profitability, and for the high similarity to the production and trafficking of illegal controlled substances associated to the extreme difficulties faced by the law enforcement authorities in effectively investigating the online market, because of its anonymity. A significant paradigm continuously frequented in pharmacology is the confliction between views on generic medications that can be used interchangeably with the original medicines. Several clinical studies conducted in certain medical areas have shown as the generic medications present an overlapping therapeutic equivalence to the original ones. On the contrary, for certain other generics, both pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics issue have been reported. Also, in some cases issues on the stability of generics have been raised. Despite the numerous research articles and reviews published on the matter of clinical equivalence among generic and original medications, no study to the scientific community has been presented on an analytical evaluation of the chemical composition of the different generic drugs that could shed some lights on the reason of the different clinical performances reported. The main aim of this research was to develop a non-destructive quick qualitative analytical methodology to be able to discriminate differences in the chemical composition from generic medicines that have been reported not presenting similar therapeutic equivalence in clinical comparison studies, obtained from authorised pharmacies and non-authorised online sellers. From the cardio-vascular area, digoxin (with the related cardiac glycosides digitoxin and digoxigenin) and amlodipine (in its different salts maleate, mesylate and besylate used in therapies). In the gastroenterology area, omeprazole both in its racemic and isomeric forms, have been selected as samples to be analysed. In the antihistamine area, cetirizine, in its racemic and isomeric forms, equally for the same reasons as before, have been considered. As starting analytical approaches, voltammetry, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopies and NMR have been considered and a statistical data analysis approach of the analytical data obtained based on multivariate analysis such as principal component analysis, cross validation, correlation scatter plots and factor loadings has been implemented. This work has matched the aims initially set, generating novel methods of analysis to investigate differences in the chemical composition within different groups of generic medications. This study has led to the creation and interpretation of new knowledge, through a systematic acquisition and understanding of a substantial body of scientific literature and through original research, and adjusting the project design in the light of unforeseen problems, conceptualizing, designing and implementing the research project for the generation of novel knowledge.

Current wind turbine performance codes are not yet able to predict the rotor aerodynamic behaviour with sufficient certainty. This has led to both the over-design of blades and to operational restrictions in certain wind conditions. Essentially the problem is one of aerodynamic stall. Steady 3-dimensional stall can occur near the blade root in high wind conditions and may produce more power than predicted. Dynamic stall can also be expected due to the effects of yawed operation, turbulence, tower shadow and the earth's boundary layer. The main aim of this work is to provide a coherent set of measured aerodynamic data accounting for both axial/non-axial flow and stall in high winds. These measurements are designed to highlight the effects of both steady and dynamic stall on the rotor aerodynamic performance. In addition, the data will enable current performance prediction codes to be developed and validated. A completely new turbine has been designed and built at Cranfield to make aerodynamic measurements using pressure transducers. The design has been dominated by the requirements of accommodating the transducer signal processing equipment and allowing variation of many of the rotor parameters. Three commercial glass fibre blades were installed and performance curves measured on a conventional field site at a height of 11.5m for three rotor speed settings. These measurements show the turbine to give adequate power performance. A mobile trailer has been used to tow the turbine at a height of 4m along the Cranfield runways. Mobile testing facilitates an accelerated test schedule and allows aerodynamic data to be acquired under controlled wind conditions. A fully instrumented blade, fitted with forty transducers, has been tested under these circumstances and produced a large database of pressure measurements covering operation in winds up to 25 iq/s and yaw angles between -4511 and +55°. Analysis of the data has shown it to be of good quality and allowed some of the effects of yaw and stall to be identified. The use of the data base for performance prediction code validation has also been established.