This study investigates what’s known as the world’s largest human migration from rural to urban areas. It examines both the destinations and the origins of the mobility trajectories of Chinese internal migrant workers which is somewhat neglected by current literature. Based on a multi-sited ethnography of the daily life of migrant workers in arrays of social setting (sheds in construction sites, urban villages, factories, restaurants) in their urban stay as well as the well-known left behind population in a rural village, the thesis explores the social and economic changes that this mass regional mobility brought to both rural and urban China. The implication of this work lies in a comprehensive and thorough examination on the regional rural-urban migration. It contributes to a dynamic assess, which deserves to study further, by providing an analysis on all the agents involved in the context of Chinese rural-urban migration: the left behind population in villages, the migrant workers and the urban citizens in cities.

The new wave of global immigration to Europe has increased the urgency to discern which aspects of school context and of social interactions within the educational system need to be strengthened in order to create an environment where both immigrant and native students can perform at their best. Looking at educational ambitions allows studying educational performance, in order to estimate the gap between students of migrant backgrounds and natives, and to measure the social integration of immigrants’ children. My presentation aims to identify which resources and interactions within the school environment need to be strengthened with the purpose of improving educational expectations and aspirations of immigrants’ children and natives. First, I explore to what extent school resources, parental involvement in school and family environment shape educational expectations of migrants and natives in two European countries: Belgium and Italy. After delineating this international perspective, I deepen the analysis of the Italian case. I investigate to what extent the expectations and aspirations of the children of immigrants are influenced by the educational expectations of their native schoolmates using data on children of immigrants living in Italy and attending their final year of middle school (8th grade). In the final part of my presentation, I tackle the challenging issue of the impact of the presence of immigrants’ children on the educational aspirations of natives.

he aim of this dissertation is to assess if and how institutional features are likely to shape fields of study differentials in the overeducation risk. This issue is addressed with two different perspectives. First it is comparatively analysed how the differential incidence of overeducation among graduates from different fields of study is affected by labour market institutions. Then the effect of the university reform dictated by the guidelines of the Bologna Process on tertiary graduates’ risk of overeducation is evaluated. Italy is selected as a relevant case study for these analyses since, in comparison with other developed countries, it displays both low graduation rates and modest returns to tertiary education.

The study focuses on artists who adopt performance art as a form of creative expression within the world of contemporary visual art. Some performances are extreme exhibitions which often assume violent and aggressive forms; others are quasi-visible events like communication misunderstandings or reiterated behaviors which make the flow of ordinary interaction unusual and sometimes create a feeling of anxiety in the audience. There are of course basic differences between these kinds of performance; nevertheless, in the case of both the most spectacular events and «minimal performances», the artist acts at the borderline of what is explainable, and his/her artistic practices highlight the need to traverse the frontiers between traditional genres, mixing them up or forsaking them. A performance essentially consists in the creation of an interactive event, and artists manage the central elements of the interactive order: the dimension which, according to Erving Goffman, represents a reality in itself, possesses its own logic, and cannot be reduced either to macro-structural dimensions or to individual psychology. The topic of the research reported here can be summarized in the following question: how is it possible to turn a «social interaction» into an «artistic object»? The answer can be articulated on different dimensions: how a performance is projected, arranged and carried out; what happens during performance events; how such events can be recorded and conserved. A performance results from cooperation among a group of people which cannot be defined as a «system»: there are no formal roles, there are no fixed positions, there are no decisional centers. Nevertheless, the basic elements are in place for it to be possible to talk of the existence of an interactional unit: different social actors act together in an intentional, reiterated and settled manner. It is possible to find a great number of events which take place on specific sites and during which artists, venue managers, critics, collectors and performance audiences meet, work together, and share their interests. It is thus possible to use the term «sphere» to refer to a place to which admittance is granted only after an initiation process and rite of passage. In such «spheres» people follow careers based on internal, formal and informal hierarchical ladders. Moreover, there are subjects who act as gatekeepers, and myths and symbols are shared. The research was conducted in Northern Italy, where several towns were selected as central nodes in the Italian contemporary art field. I conducted in-depth interviews with subjects occupying the three main roles in the artistic field: artists, venue managers and curators, and art critics. The selection of the interviewees was based on their strategic position in the field. My purpose was to investigate the node that they occupied in the art world by combining two criteria: first, the spatial position of the environment in which they lived and worked (marginal, peripheral, central); second, the stage of their professional career (beginning, emerging, established).

La ricerca mira a ricostruire la definizione della situazione politica che alcuni elettori italiani hanno prodotto per maturare la propria scelta di voto in occasione delle Elezioni Europee del 2014. Per poter agire infatti, gli individui hanno prima bisogno di comprendere la situazione nella quale agiscono. I risultati mostrano che, a seguito dei cambiamenti avvenuti nel panorama politico italiano l'anno precedente, elettori, partiti e leader si sono mossi a velocità diverse, faticando nel condividere una medesima definizione. Rilevare questa situazione di disallineamento aiuta a comprendere, in generale, gli effetti della valence politics sul voto e, nello specifico, il percorso politico dei partiti italiani.

The dissertation explores the intricate interplay between wealth and family dynamics across human life courses, motivated by recent shifts in wealth distribution and demographic trends in Western countries. A comprehensive framework is introduced, delineating the examination of wealth accumulation and distribution within and across families. Via conceptual, theoretical, and empirical work, this dissertation seeks to advance the understanding of the wealth-family nexus from a comparative and historical perspective, with a focus on post-war European countries. To achieve this, cross-sectional (GESIS Panel) as well as prospective (SHARE) and retrospective (SHARELIFE) longitudinal large-scale survey data are analyzed. The first chapter explores the heterogeneity of wealth accumulation trajectories across ten European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland), adopting a categorical approach to wealth ownership. The second chapter examines the context-specificity of the relationship between family life course trajectories and subsequent wealth accumulation across Scandinavian (Denmark and Sweden), Continental (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland), and Southern (Greece, Italy, Spain) European countries, situating it within the broader discourse on family change. The third chapter delves into population heterogeneity in norms concerning family estate division among siblings in Germany.

In the search to understand the interaction between cells and their underlying substrates, life sciences are beginning to incorporate micro and nano-technology based tools to probe, measure and improve cellular behavior. In this frame, patterned surfaces provide a platform for highly defined cellular interactions and, in perspective, they offer unique advantages for artificial implants. For these reasons, functionalized materials have recently become a central topic in tissue engineering. Nanotechnology, with its rich toolbox of techniques, can be the leading actor in the materials patterning field. Laser assisted methods, conventional and un-conventional lithography and other patterning techniques, allow the fabrication of functional supports with tunable properties, either physically, or topographically and chemically. Among them, soft lithography provides an effective (and low cost) strategy for manufacturing micro and nanostructures. The main focus of this work is the use of different fabrication approaches aiming at a precise control of cell behavior, adhesion, proliferation and differentiation, through chemically and spatially designed surfaces.

Organic electronics is an emerging field with a vast number of applications having high potential for commercial success. Although an enormous progress has been made in this research area, many organic electronic applications such as organic opto-electronic devices, organic field effect transistors and organic bioelectronic devices still require further optimization to fulfill the requirements for successful commercialization. The main bottle neck that hinders large scale production of these devices is their performances and stability. The performance of the organic devices largely depends on the charge transport processes occurring at the interfaces of various material that it is composed of. As a result, the key ingredient needed for a successful improvement in the performance and stability of organic electronic devices is an in-depth knowledge of the interfacial interactions and the charge transport phenomena taking place at different interfaces. The aim of this thesis is to address the role of the various interfaces between different material in determining the charge transport properties of organic devices. In this framework, I chose an Organic Field Effect Transistor (OFET) as a model system to carry out this study as it An OFET offers various interfaces that can be investigated as it is made up of stacked layers of various material. In order to probe the intrinsic properties that governs the charge transport, we have to be able to carry out thorough investigation of the interactions taking place down at the accumulation layer thickness. However, since organic materials are highly instable in ambient conditions, it becomes quite impossible to investigate the intrinsic properties of the material without the influence of extrinsic factors like air, moisture and light. For this reason, I have employed a technique called the in situ real-time electrical characterization technique which enables electrical characterization of the OFET during the growth of the semiconductor.

Le tre raccolte di salmi da vespro a otto voci nello stile pieno di Giovanni Paolo Colonna (Bologna 1637-1695), pubblicate rispettivamente nel 1681, nel 1686 e nel 1694 (opp.I, VII e XI), costituiscono un oggetto di studio privilegiato nell’ambito della ricca produzione a stampa dell’autore: in primo luogo, esse ebbero ampia e favorevole recezione, come testimoniano la diffusione degli esemplari, le ristampe, le copie manoscritte ricavate dalle edizioni; in secondo luogo, la fortuna postuma del compositore fu legata in buona parte alla sua musica sacra a doppio coro e, in particolare, al favore riscosso dai suoi libri di salmi; infine, l’analisi delle tre raccolte consente di confrontare le risorse tecniche e stilistiche messe in opera da Colonna in composizioni afferenti a uno stesso genere ma risalenti a periodi diversi. La dissertazione è articolata in tre parti: nella prima sono presi in esame gli ordinamenti liturgici secenteschi relativi alla celebrazione dei vespri, onde illustrare la cornice rituale alla quale i salmi di Colonna erano destinati, e si passano in rassegna alcune definizioni di stile pieno e di contrappunto a otto voci desunte dalla trattatistica coeva. La seconda parte è dedicata alla lettura storico-critica delle opp. I, VII e XI nel contesto generale della produzione dell’autore. La terza parte contiene l’edizione integrale dell’opera VII e XI, nonché una scelta di brani tratti dall’op. I. / The three collections of psalms for vespers for eight voices in the stile pieno by Giovanni Paolo Colonna (Bologna 1637-1695), published in 1681, in 1686 and in 1694 (op. nos. I, VII and XI) respectively, are a favourite topic of study within the vast printed output of the composer. First, they were well received everywhere, as shown by the circulation of the copies, the reprints and the handwritten copies taken from the editions. Secondly, the composer's posthumous fame was linked for the most part to his sacred music for double choir and, in particular, to the success of his books of psalms. Finally, the analysis of the three collections allows the comparison of the technical and stylistic resources used by Colonna in compositions belonging to the same genre but dating back to different periods. The dissertation is divided into three parts: the first considers the seventeenth century liturgical regulations concerning the celebration of vespers, in order to illustrate the liturgical context for which Colonna’s psalms were intended, and some definitions of stile pieno and counterpoint for eight voices taken from contemporary treatises are reviewed. The second part is devoted to the historical-critical examination of op. nos. I, VII and XI in the general context of the composer’s output. The third part contains the complete edition of op. nos. VII and XI, as well as a selection of pieces from op. I.

La definizione di «scrittura dell’interpretazione» comprime in una sola locuzione la descrizione dell’oggetto principale del nostro studio, ovvero il problema della trascrizione musicale, descritta, non tanto come un determinato genere musicale, quanto come una ragione di osmosi e interferenze tra il fatto compositivo e quello interpretativo. Ad una traversata di quel territorio ci si appresta incentrando la trattazione intorno alla figura e all’opera del giovane compositore e direttore Bruno Maderna, autore di diverse trascrizioni della cosiddetta musica antica (dall’Odhecaton A, Monteverdi, Viadana, Frescobaldi, Legrenzi, ed altri ancora). Attraverso gli esempi presentati si intende mostrare come l’approccio maderniano alla trascrizione musicale si giustifichi a partire dalla sua stessa teoria e pratica dell’interpretazione musicale, più che in base a concetti forti definiti sul versante della scrittura, quali ad esempio quelli di analisi e parodia. Pari attenzione si offre al contesto storico degli anni in cui egli gravita, opera e si afferma come musicista (1946-1952 circa), dedicando ampio spazio alle figure di Gian Francesco Malipiero, Angelo Ephrikian e Luigi Nono, autori a loro volta di trascrizioni e revisioni di opere del Cinquecento, del Seicento e del Settecento. Intorno ai loro rapporti viene fornita una documentazione significativa, in buona parte inedita o poco conosciuta dagli studiosi, resa disponibile grazie alle ricerche d’archivio di cui si avvantaggia la nostra trattazione. / The definition of “writing of the interpretation” summarises in one expression the main object of our study, namely the problem of the musical transcription. Here it described as a process of osmosis and interference between the processes of composition and interpretation, rather than as a musical genre on its own. This issue is addressed to focusing the discussion around the figure and the work of the young composer and orchestra leader Bruno Maderna, who produced several transcriptions of pieces from the so-called early music. Through the examples presented , this thesis aims to show how the approach of Maderna to musical transcription stems from his own theory and practice of the musical interpretation, rather than from other concepts, i.e. analysis and parody, typical of the concept of writing. In addition, we carefully examine the historical background between the years of 1946 and 1952, where he worked and established himself as a musician. To this end, a great space is dedicated to the figures of Gian Francesco Malipiero, Angelo Ephrikian and Luigi Nono, who themselves are authors of transcriptions and revisions of the works of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By means of archive research, this thesis provides a significant documentation on the relationships between these authors, largely unpublished or little known by scholars.