La migrazione genera spesso nei soggetti migranti forme di spaesamento, poiché lo spostamento fisico condiziona la sfera emotiva: in loro può emergere il senso di nostalgia verso la patria e il desiderio del ritorno, oppure la volontà di annullare le proprie radici e di conformarsi ai modelli della società ricevente. Spesso tali sensazioni di spaesamento possono essere superate grazie alla pratica creativa della scrittura; è per questo che nelle varie realtà di immigrazione ha preso campo la pratica della scrittura migrante, dove si dà spazio all’altro che cerca di far sentire la propria voce, ricorrendo alla lingua del Paese d’arrivo, senza rinunciare ai tratti distintivi della sfera culturale d’origine, creando testi ibridi, che disegnano un ponte tra le culture. Focus della ricerca è la scrittura della migrazione africana in Spagna, studiata sia in prospettiva generale che specifica, mediante quattro autori e le relative opere selezionate: Laila (2010) della marocchina Laila Karrouch, Las tres vírgenes de Santo Tomás (2008) dell’equatoguineana Guillermina Mekuy, Una vida de cuento (2006) del camerunese Boniface Ofogo, Amina (2006) del senegalese Sidi Seck. L’analisi dei testi è effettuata sulla base di due filoni tematici, la famiglia e il rapporto con la società d’arrivo, ed è corredata dallo studio del lessico relativo ai due temi di riferimento. Leggere fra le righe il microcosmo della famiglia significa porre l’attenzione sulle diverse dinamiche affettive che stanno dietro alla parola “migrazione” e sulle particolari dimensioni familiari che caratterizzano la vita odierna, dove spesso avviene il contatto fra più culture. Un contatto che si riflette nel macrocontesto della realtà ospite dove si ha modo di avviare un dialogo fra nativi e stranieri, poiché spesso le iniziali forme di contrasto si tramutano in sete di conoscenza e volontà di avvicinarsi, facendo emergere l’idea che la diversità non separa ma arricchisce. / Migration is a complex and circumstantial phenomenon generating somehow forms of disorientation on the migrants, since the physical relocation influences also the emotional sphere. On one hand, migrants might feel the raising of homesickness and the desire to go back home, but, on the other hand, the willingness to cancel their roots and to broadly adapt themselves to the new society. These feelings of disorientation might be positively overcome through the practice of the creative writing, giving the chance to everybody to express themselves in hybrid texts through the host country language, shaping, in this way, a unique cross-cultural bridge thanks to distinctive cultural and literary features of their homeland. The research framework is focusing, from both a general and specific perspective, on the African migrant writing in Spain through the selected works of four authors: Laila (2010) by the Moroccan writer Laila Karrouch, Las tres vírgenes de Santo Tomás (2008) by Guillermina Mekuy from Equatorial Guinea, Una vida de cuento (2006) by the Cameroonian Boniface Ofogo and Amina (2006) written by the Senegalese Sidi Seck. The analysis of these texts is well-framed within two main flows: the family and the relationship with the host society, linked to the study of the vocabulary related to the above mentioned themes. The reader can feel emotional dynamics and domestic dimensions inside the family microcosm which are beyond the mere concept of “migration”, but where most of cultural pattern contacts arise. The host reality reflects this contact through the dialogue between natives and foreigners, whereas initial conflicts become afterwards opportunities to get closer and to better know each other, leading to the concept that diversity does not divide but connects and improve.

The latter part of the 20th century was a period characterized by a fundamental demographic transition of western society. This substantial and structural demographic change proposes several challenges to contemporary society and fosters the emergence of new issues and challenges. Among these, none is more crucial than the comprehension of the mechanisms and the processes that lead people to positive aging. Rowe and Kahn’s model of successful aging highlights the interplay between social engagement with life, health, and functioning for a positive aging experience. Other systemic models of successful aging (Kahana et al., 1996; 2003; Stevernik et al., 2006) emphasize the role of internal and external resources for attaining positive aging. Among these, the proactive coping strategies are indicated as important active strategies for avoiding the depletion of resources, counterbalancing the declines and maintaining social and civic involvement. The study has analyzed the role of proactive coping strategies for two facets of positive aging, the experience of a high social well-being and the presence of personal projects in fundamental life domains. As expected, the proactive coping strategies, referred to as the active management of the environment, the accumulation of resources and the actualization of human potentials are confirmed as positive predictors of high level of social well-being and of many personal projects focused on family, culture, leisure time, civic and social participation. Perceived health status give a significant contribution only to the possession of many personal projects. Gender and level of school education give also a significant contribution to these two dimensions of positive aging, highlighting how positive aging is rooted not only in the possession of personal resources, but also in historical models of education and in positive longitudinal chains related to early development.

People tend to automatically mimic facial expressions of others. If clear evidence exists on the effect of non-verbal behavior (emotion faces) on automatic facial mimicry, little is known about the role of verbal behavior (emotion language) in triggering such effects. Whereas it is well-established that political affiliation modulates facial mimicry, no evidence exists on whether this modulation passes also through verbal means. This research addressed the role of verbal behavior in triggering automatic facial effects depending on whether verbal stimuli are attributed to leaders of different political parties. Study 1 investigated the role of interpersonal verbs, referring to positive and negative emotion expressions and encoding them at different levels of abstraction, in triggering corresponding facial muscle activation in a reader. Study 2 examined the role of verbs expressing positive and negative emotional behaviors of political leaders in modulating automatic facial effects depending on the matched or mismatched political affiliation of participants and politicians of left-and right-wing. Study 3 examined whether verbs expressing happiness displays of ingroup politicians induce a more sincere smile (Duchenne) pattern among readers of same political affiliation relative to happiness expressions of outgroup politicians. Results showed that verbs encoding facial actions at different levels of abstraction elicited differential facial muscle activity (Study 1). Furthermore, political affiliation significantly modulated facial activation triggered by emotion verbs as participants showed more congruent and enhanced facial activity towards ingroup politicians’ smiles and frowns compared to those of outgroup politicians (Study 2). Participants facially responded with a more sincere smile pattern towards verbs expressing smiles of ingroup compared to outgroup politicians (Study 3). Altogether, results showed that the role of political affiliation in modulating automatic facial effects passes also through verbal channels and is revealed at a fine-grained level by inducing quantitative and qualitative differences in automatic facial reactions of readers.

La tesi analizza la rappresentazione del maquis nella letteratura spagnola contemporanea, scritti in castigliano e pubblicati dal 1985 ad oggi. La tesi si articola in tre capitoli: il primo presenta a livello teorico la metodologia e gli strumenti utilizzati nello svolgimento dello studio, ed è incentrato innanzitutto sul tentativo di definizione e catalogazione dei romanzi del maquis, con una particolare attenzione alla temperie culturale cui fanno riferimento, presentando le estetiche postmoderna e neomoderna e cercando di situare le opere narrative facenti parte del corpus della ricerca. Nel secondo capitolo è centrale in cambio l’analisi dei rapporti tra Storia e narrazione: oltre a concentrarsi sul dibattito interdisciplinare circa le connessioni tra la Storia e la narrativa, si cerca di dar conto dei riflessi di questa riflessione contemporanea all’interno delle opere facenti parte del corpus. Infine, il terzo capitolo riguarda l’analisi delle metafore animali rintracciabili nei romanzi sul maquis scelti, concentrandosi principalmente su Luna de lobos di Julio Llamazares e La agonía del búho chico di Justo Vila. L’impiego di questa figura retorica, che si ritrova in vari gradi in tutte le opere narrative scelte, risponde tanto ad una ricerca di verosimiglianza quanto alle modalità di rappresentazione della realtà empirica, riportando l’attenzione sui metodi atti alla figurazione e all’accesso alla conoscenza del mondo. La proposta di un cambio di paradigma estetico e narrativo in atto nella letteratura contemporanea spagnola cerca quindi una conferma nel momento dell’analisi, attraverso la quale si cerca di indagare se, e in che misura, il romanzo sul maquis si inserisce nel dibattito letterario odierno, e quanto contribuisce allo sviluppo del medesimo paradigma estetico in via di definizione – quello neomoderno –, cercando una conferma che si basa sulla presenza di quelle tematiche segnalate nel momento della discussione teorica e metodologica come tratti basilari e strutturanti le opere. / This thesis analyzes the representation of the maquis in contemporary Spanish literature, written in Castilian and published from 1985 to present. The thesis is divided into three chapters: the first presents the methodology and theoretical tools used in the course of the study, and primarily focuses on trying to define and classify the maquis’ novels, focusing on the cultural background to which they refer, presenting the neomodern and postmodern aesthetics and trying to situate the narrative works which are included in the research corpus. The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the relationship between history and narrative: while it is centered on the interdisciplinary debate about the connections between history and fiction, the analysis tries to register the contemporary debate about it in the novels chosen as part of the corpus. Finally, the third chapter deals with the analysis of animal metaphors in novels such as Julio Llamazares’s Luna de lobos and Justo Vila’s La agonía del búho chico. The use of this figure of speech answers both to a research of verisimilitude and to the representation of empirical reality, bringing their attention to the different ways of figuration and access to the knowledge of the world. The proposal of a paradigm shift in aesthetic and narrative taking place in contemporary Spanish literature is the main focus of the analysis, which central postulate is the research for a confirmation to the hypothesis that asserts that maquis’ novels fits into the coeval debate, and contribute to the development of neomodern aesthetic paradigm being defined nowadays, looking for a confirmation that relies on the presence of those issues which are basic traits of these novels and which were reported in the methodological discussion proposed in the first chapters.

The theme “Belongingness” has a central role in the current debate on Community Psychology and in daily life. To try to understand the consequences of these changes, the research focuses on the concept of Sense of Community. In fact, Sense of Community has always been a central tool (Sarason, 1974; MacMillan & Chavis, 1986) to study communities (McMillan, 2011; Nowell & Boyd, 2011) and for a long time has represented positive values and something to aspire to. However, current debates indicate that Sense of Community is an outmoded concept and underline the problematic issue of “promotion of Sense of Community” in contexts of multi culture. The aim of the present research is to analyze Sense of Community in context of multi culture, as we consider that it can still be a fundamental tool to study and understand communities. In particular we are interested in understanding the role of Multiple Sense of Community (Brodsky, 2009) on Identity and Wellbeing (and its dimensions). We focused on a specific context, the Station Zone in Reggio Emilia, that is characterized by high levels of cultural diversity and different social problems (Giovannini & Vezzali, 2011). The research is developed and divided into two parts. The first part consists of an exploratory qualitative study that analyzes meanings of community among leaders of different ethnic groups living in the Station Zone. The second part consists of a “General Model” study and four parallel studies to analyze Multiple Sense of Community in different ethnic groups (Albanians, Moroccans, Chinese and Italians. The results indicate the different role of Multiple SOC in the relation between Identity and Wellbeing, in particular the relevance of Relational SOC and its different implications. Moreover, the factor “culture” represents an significant element in order to consider differences among ethnic groups.

This work aims at presenting different approaches to epidemics modelling. It consists of two main topics, which cover both theoretical and computational approaches to the development and analysis of mathematical models of infectious diseases. The first half regards the formulation and the analysis of SAIRS (Susceptible - Asyptomatics infected - Infected symptomatic - Recovered - Susceptible) epidemic models, including the possibility of vaccination. The model is formulated as a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs), for which we provided a complete global stability analysis, combining two different approaches: the classical Lyapunov stability theorem, and a geometric approach, which generalises the Poincaré-Bendixon theorem. Afterwards, the model has been generalised using heterogeneous networks, which may describe different groups of individuals or different cities. For this model, the global stability analysis has been developed using the graph-theoretic approach to find Lyapunov functions. The second part of the thesis covers simulations based approaches to modelling heterogeneous humans interactions in epidemics. The first example we provide is an application with synthetic data. We investigate a stochastic SIR (Susceptible - Infected symptomatic - Recovered) dynamics on a network, by using a specialised version of the Gillespie algorithm. The other two examples we show consist of real data applications. Both regard the cost-benefit analysis of the introduction of new influenza vaccines. Both analyses have been performed using a multi-group SEIR (Susceptible - Exposed - Infected - Recovered) epidemiological model divided by age classes.

Mathematical models represent a powerful tool for investigating the dynamics of human infection diseases, providing useful predictions about the spread of a disease and the effectiveness of possible control measures. One of the central aspects to understand the dynamics of human infection is the heterogeneity in behavioral patters adopted by the host population. Beyond control measures imposed by public authorities, human behavioral changes can be triggered by uncoordinated responses driven by the diffusion of fear in the general population or by the risk perception. In order to assess how and when behavioral changes can affect the spread of an epidemic, spontaneous social distancing - e.g. produced by avoiding crowded environments, using face masks or limiting travels - is investigated. Moreover, in order to assess whether vaccine preventable diseases can be eliminated through not compulsory vaccination programs, vaccination choices are investigated as well. The proposed models are based on an evolutionary game theory framework. Considering dynamical games allows explicitly modeling the coupled dynamics of disease transmission and human behavioral changes. Specifically, the information diffusion is modeled through an imitation process in which the convenience of different behaviors depends on the perceived risk of infection and vaccine side effects. The proposed models allow the investigation of the effects of misperception of risks induced by partial, delayed or incorrect information (either concerning the state of the epidemic or vaccine side effects) as well. The performed investigation highlights that a small reduction in the number of potentially infectious contacts in response to an epidemic and an initial misperception of the risk of infection can remarkably affect the spread of infection. On the other hand, the analysis of vaccination choices showed that concerns about proclaimed risks of vaccine side effects can result in widespread refusal of vaccination which in turn leads to drops in vaccine uptake and suboptimal vaccination coverage.

The main object of our research is the notion of "intrinsic regular surfaces" introduced and studied by Franchi, Serapioni, Serra Cassano in a Carnot group G. More precisely, an intrinsic regular hypersurface (i.e. a topological codimension 1 surface) S is a subset of G which is locally defined as a non critical level set of a C^1 intrinsic function. In a similar way, a k-codimensional intrinsic regular surface is locally defined as a non critical level set of a C^1 intrinsic vector function. Through Implicit Function Theorem, S can be locally represented as an intrinsic graph by a function phi. Here the intrinsic graph is defined as follows: let V and W be complementary subgroups of G, then the intrinsic graph of phi defined from W to V is the set { A \cdot phi(A) | A belongs to W}, where \cdot indicates the group operation in G. A fine characterization of intrinsic regular surfaces in Heisenberg groups (examples of Carnot groups) as suitable 1-codimensional intrinsic graphs has been established in [1]. We extend this result in a general Carnot group introducing an appropriate notion of differentiability, denoted uniformly intrinsic differentiability, for maps acting between complementary subgroups of G. Finally we provide a characterization of intrinsic regular surfaces in terms of existence and continuity of suitable "derivatives" of phi introduced by Serra Cassano et al. in the context of Heisenberg groups. All the results have been obtained in collaboration with Serapioni. [1] L.Ambrosio, F. Serra Cassano, D. Vittone, \emph{Intrinsic regular hypersurfaces in Heisenberg groups}, J. Geom. Anal. 16, (2006), 187-232.

In this thesis we study intrinsic Lipschitz functions. In particular we provide a regular approximation result and a Poincarè type inequality for this class of functions. Moreover we study the obstacle problem in the Heisenberg group and we prove a geometric Poincarè inequality for a class of semilinear equations in the Engel group.

This dissertation consists of an introduction and four papers. The papers deal with several problems of non-Riemannian metric spaces, such as sub-Riemannian Carnot groups and homogeneous metric spaces. The research has been carried out between the University of Trento (Italy) and the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) under the supervision of prof. F. Serra Cassano and E. Le Donne, respectively. In the following we present the abstracts of the four papers. 1) REGULARITY PROPERTIES OF SPHERES IN HOMOGENEOUS GROUPS E. Le Donne AND S. Nicolussi Golo We study left-invariant distances on Lie groups for which there exists a one-parameter family of homothetic automorphisms. The main examples are Carnot groups, in particular the Heisenberg group with the standard dilations. We are interested in criteria implying that, locally and away from the diagonal, the distance is Euclidean Lipschitz and, consequently, that the metric spheres are boundaries of Lipschitz domains in the Euclidean sense. In the first part of the paper, we consider geodesic distances. In this case, we actually prove the regularity of the distance in the more general context of sub-Finsler manifolds with no abnormal geodesics. Secondly, for general groups we identify an algebraic criterium in terms of the dilating automorphisms, which for example makes us conclude the regularity of every homogeneous distance on the Heisenberg group. In such a group, we analyze in more details the geometry of metric spheres. We also provide examples of homogeneous groups where spheres present cusps. 2) ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIOR OF THE RIEMANNIAN HEISENBERG GROUP AND ITS HOROBOUNDARY E. Le Donne, S. Nicolussi Golo, AND A. Sambusetti The paper is devoted to the large scale geometry of the Heisenberg group H equipped with left-invariant Riemannian metrics. We prove that two such metrics have bounded difference if and only if they are asymptotic, i.e., their ratio goes to one, at infinity. Moreover, we show that for every left-invariant Riemannian metric d on H there is a unique sub-Riemanniann metric d' for which d − d' goes to zero at infinity, and we estimate the rate of convergence. As a first immediate consequence we get that the Riemannian Heisenberg group is at bounded distance from its asymptotic cone. The second consequence, which was our aim, is the explicit description of the horoboundary of the Riemannian Heisenberg group. 3) FROM HOMOGENEOUS METRIC SPACES TO LIE GROUPS M. G. Cowling, V. Kivioja, E. Le Donne, S. Nicolussi Golo, AND A. Ottazzi We study connected, locally compact metric spaces with transitive isometry groups. For all $\epsilon\in R_+$, each such space is $(1,\epsilon)$- quasi-isometric to a Lie group equipped with a left-invariant metric. Further, every metric Lie group is $(1,C)$-quasi-isometric to a solvable Lie group, and every simply connected metric Lie group is $(1,C)$-quasi-isometrically homeomorphic to a solvable-by-compact metric Lie group. While any contractible Lie group may be made isometric to a solvable group, only those that are solvable and of type (R) may be made isometric to a nilpotent Lie group, in which case the nilpotent group is the nilshadow of the group. Finally, we give a complete metric characterisation of metric Lie groups for which there exists an automorphic dilation. These coincide with the metric spaces that are locally compact, connected, homogeneous, and admit a metric dilation. 4) SOME REMARKS ON CONTACT VARIATIONS IN THE FIRST HEISENBERG GROUP S. Nicolussi Golo We show that in the first sub-Riemannian Heisenberg group there are intrinsic graphs of smooth functions that are both critical and stable points of the sub-Riemannian perimeter under compactly supported variations of contact diffeomorphisms, despite the fact that they are not area-minimizing surfaces. In particular, we show that if $f : R^2 \rightarrow R^2$ is a $C^1$-intrinsic function, and $\nabla^f\nabla^ff = 0$, then the first contact variation of the sub-Riemannian area of its intrinsic graph is zero and the second contact variation is positive.