Frequently, deep foundations extend through potentially liquefiable soils. When liquefaction occurs in cohesionless soils surrounding a deep foundation, the skin-friction in the liquefied layer is compromised. After cyclical forces suspend and pore pressures dissipate, effective stress rebuilds and the liquefied soil consolidates. When the settlement of the soil exceeds the downward movement of the foundation, downdrag develops. To investigate the loss and redevelopment of skin-friction, strain was measured on an instrumented micropile during a blast-induced liquefaction test in Mirabello, Italy. The soil profile where the micropile was installed consisted of clay to a depth of 6m underlain by a medium to dense sand. The 25cm diameter steel reinforced concrete micropile was bored to a depth of 17m. Pore pressure transducers were placed around the pile at various depths to observe excess pore pressure generation and dissipation. Soil strain was monitored with profilometers in a linear arrangement from the center of the 10m diameter ring of buried explosives out to a 12m radius. Immediately following the blast, liquefaction developed between 6m and 12m below ground. The liquefied layer settled 14cm (~2.4% volumetric strain) while the pile toe settled 1.24cm under elastic displacement. The static neutral plane in the pile occurred at a depth of 12m. From 6m to 12m below ground, the incremental skin-friction was 50% compared to pre-liquefaction measurements. The decrease in residual skin-friction is consistent with measurements observed by Dr. Kyle Rollins from previous full-scale tests in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Christchurch, New Zealand, and Turrel, Arkansas.

La “Scuola per la preparazione del personale insegnante ed assistente degli anormali”, avviata da padre Agostino Gemelli nel 1926 presso l’Università Cattolica di Milano, fu uno dei primi tentativi italiani di formazione degli insegnanti dei fanciulli deficienti. La Scuola, oltre a rappresentare il percorso italiano verso l’inclusione scolastica dei fanciulli disabili, testimonia il lavoro di Gemelli nel campo dell’educazione speciale. L’attenzione al tema della disabilità da parte del frate francescano riflette l’interesse del mondo cattolico a lui contemporaneo per la formulazione di interventi guidati non solo da sentimenti caritatevoli, ma basati su solide fondamenta scientifiche. Inoltre, il lavoro evidenzia come la formazione dei docenti degli anormali sia cambiata dagli anni Venti agli anni Settanta del Secolo scorso, parallelamente al processo di progressivo abbandono delle scuole speciali in favore dell’inclusione scolastica dei disabili. La ricerca, che contribuisce a incrementare gli ancora scarsi studi italiani di storia della pedagogia speciale, è stata condotta attraverso un’approfondita indagine archivistica, con lo scopo di far luce su docenti, studenti, materiali e libri di testo della Scuola, dalle sue origini fino agli anni Settanta. / The “School for the special aids and assistants for disabled children”, opened in 1926 at the Catholic University of Milan by father Agostino Gemelli, was one of the very first in Italy to set up about disabled children teacher training. This School gives evidence of Gemelli’s work in the special education area and also represents the Italian path toward scholastic inclusion for disabled persons. The interest of Gemelli, one of the most famous psychologists in the XX Century Italian framework, towards disability reflects how the contemporary Catholic world cared about interventions for the weakest not only driven by a charity feeling but based on scientific studies. Moreover, the study highlights how teacher training has changed from the Twenties to the Seventies of the last Century, following the different way of looking at disabled children, from isolation in special schools to inclusion in common classes. The thesis contributes to improve Italian studies in the field of the history of special education, a subject that has, for the most part, to be written. The research is carried out through archival investigations with the purpose of shedding light on teachers, users, materials and textbooks of the School, since its origin until the Seventies.

La tesi si propone di illustrare quella peculiare forma di interpretazione del cartesianesimo elaborata dal lorenese dom Robert Desgabets (1610-1678). In costante dialogo con i dibattiti teologici, filosofici, epistemologici e scritturali del secondo Seicento, il lavoro si concentra in maniera particolare sull’analisi di alcuni manoscritti teologici del benedettino, conservati nella Biblioteca municipale di Epinal, in Francia. Il serrato confronto con questi inediti permette di dare voce ad una lettura del pensiero di Cartesio assai lontana da quella veicolata dalla storiografia tradizionale, che enfatizza, viceversa, gli stretti legami tra le premesse cartesiane e le conclusioni di Spinoza. La produzione gabetiana, infatti, preferisce piuttosto ricondurre il cartesianesimo a quella secolare “philosophia christiana”, che ebbe in Agostino, Anselmo, Bernardo e nei migliori esponenti della Scolastica i suoi più illustri rappresentanti. Fulcro di questa interpretazione è, in particolare, l’esaltazione della collaborazione e della reciprocità di ragione e fede, in un continuo slancio apologetico in favore della ragionevolezza della religione cristiana. / The doctor degree thesis investigates Desgabets’s peculiar form of Cartesianism, particularly focusing on theological manuscripts conserved in the Municipal Library of Epinal, France. In constant dialogue with theological, philosophical, epistemological and scriptural debates of the second half of the 17th century, the perspective of the Benedictine illustrates an interpretation of Cartesian thought far from those transmitted from the traditional philosophical historiography, which emphasizes, on the contrary, the bond between Descartes’s premises and Spinoza’s conclusions. Desgabets’s works, in fact, prefer to lead back Cartesianism to that secular Christian philosophy, which had in Augustin of Hippo, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, and the best authors of Scholasticism as well, its most illustrious representatives. The main element of this interpretation, in particular, is the emphasis on the fecund relationships between faith and reason, united to a continuous apologetic tension in favour of the reasonableness of the Christian religion.