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This paper describes a new motion analysis protocol for race-walking. The protocol has been tested under laboratory conditions on a real athlete of the Italian national race-walking team. The experimental setup included a motion capture system and a force platform to record both kinematic and dynamic aspects of the athletic action. Thus, any infringement of the rules can be detected, based on the measure of knee flexion-extension and the loss of ground contact. The biomechanical efficiency can be determined from the joint angles and the temporal components of gait. The results of experiments show that the protocol can be a valuable tool to assist athletes and trainers in improving race-walking technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper introduces a methodology to describe and compare the economic relative performance of the hospitality sector of the Italian regions during the period 2000–2004. Dynamics of the hospitality sector of each region is represented by the evolution of its economic efficiency. The investigation involves the following steps: a static Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the pure economic efficiency; two different notions of distances between time series and hierarchical clustering techniques are used to classify the economies in the sample. By using a correlation-based distance, three main clusters are detected, while two clusters are identified when the average distance is used. The trend patterns, identified by employing the correlation distance, can be interpreted in terms of exogenous factors that influence the economic efficiency of the group of regions, causing shocks picked up by the high volatility as well as structural breaks. By employing the average distance, one infers information on the cluster that have had similar efficiency values over the period under analysis. This efficiency can be also interpreted in terms of a particular type of hospitality management as well as the firm structure. Following the analysis, some policy and management implications are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The seismic analysis of a large monument subjected to strong earthquakes is the object of the present paper. As a case study, the response of the “Maniace Castle” of Syracuse has been investigated by a multi-level approach which adopts traditional finite element modelling as well as a specific mechanistic computational model for the final non-linear seismic analyses. At first, the linear behaviour of the monument was studied by means of two 3D FE models in order to understand the global response of the building, its points of weakness, and the kinematics of the corresponding collapse mechanisms. Then, these results were used to calibrate a mechanistic 2D plane rigid body and spring model, RBSM, specifically formulated with the aim of approximating the macroscopic behaviour of masonry walls with reduced degrees of freedom, and taking into account the influence of the masonry texture and energy dissipation capacity of the material. Given the uncertainties and the variability of the material characteristics, an extensive parametric non-linear static analysis and the dynamic analyses, with artificial and natural accelerograms, were made in accord with the EC8 seismic code, and compared together. These results were then used to formulate and verify a simple proposal for the restoration design. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Disinfectant demand and microbial inactivation rate are essential issues for assessing disinfection performance and proper design of disinfecting systems. In the United Kingdom and Italy, peracetic acid (PAA) has recently become an accepted disinfectant for treating wastewaters prior to reuse in agriculture, and its use is likely to spread worldwide due to its efficacy as well as the benign nature of the by-products produced. In this paper, overall PAA demand during the advanced disinfection of municipal wastewater for agricultural reuse was evaluated under different experimental conditions. Batch tests were carried out using primary and secondary settled effluents sampled at the City of Taranto municipal wastewater treatment plant. PAA dosages ranged from 1.5 to 8.5 mg/L and from 21 to 40 mg/L for the secondary and primary settled effluents, respectively. Residual PAA was measured after contact times ranging from 1 to 60 min. Results showed that after a strong and almost instantaneous initial disinfectant consumption, the PAA consumption followed first-order kinetics with both effluents. The effluent characteristics affected the values of the parameters in the consumption model. PAA disinfection efficacy was assessed in terms of total coliform and Escherichia coli indicator organism reduction; better results were achieved with the latter. The approximate solution of Hom's model established by Haas and Joffe was used to model inactivation kinetics of both microbial targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the evolution of the size distribution of young firms within some selected industries in Italy. Comparison of empirical evidence with predictions of complementary views of industry dynamics; Application of the kernel density estimator to the data; Speeds of convergence toward the limit distribution.

This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing. We used a stochastic frontier input distance function with four error components—heterogeneity, statistical noise, persistent and transient inefficiency—and a four-step estimation procedure with a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator in the first step to address the endogeneity problem. The results reveal significant differences in the productivity and efficiency of tomato production and processing. Moreover, there are considerable differences among the different sizes of tomato producers, with the main variations observed for scale efficiency. While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers. These results thus suggest that there is significant opportunity for technical efficiency improvements at both stages of the value chain. Finally, due to improvements made to scale efficiency, extensive productivity growth was observed for the group of small tomato producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]