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Stormwater runoff from highways is a source of pollution to surface water bodies and groundwater. This project develops a bio-detention treatment and harvesting system that is incorporated into roadside swales. The bio-detention system uses Bold & Gold™, a type of biosorption activated media (BAM), to remove nutrients from simulated highway runoff and then store the water in underground vaults for infiltration, controlled discharge, and/or irrigation and other non-potable applications. In order to design a bio-detention system, media characteristics and media/water quality relationships are required. Media characteristics determined through testing include: specific gravity, permeability, infiltration, maximum dry density, moisture content of maximum dry density, and particle-size distribution. One of the goals of this experiment is to compare the nitrogen and phosphorous species concentrations in the effluent of BAM to sandy soil for simulated highway runoff. Field scale experiments are done on an elevated test bed that simulates a typical roadway with a swale. The swale portion of the test bed is split into halves using BAM and sandy soil. The simulated stormwater flows over a concrete section, which simulates a roadway, and then over either sod covered sandy soil or BAM. One, one and a half, and three inch storms are each simulated three times with a duration of 30 minutes each. During the simulated storm event, initial samples of the runoff (influent) are taken. The test bed is allowed to drain for two hours after the rainfall event and then samples of each of the net effluents are taken. In addition to the field scale water quality testing, column tests are also preformed on the sandy soil and Bold & Gold™ without sod present. Sod farms typically use fertilizer to increase production, thus it is reasonable to assume that the sod will leach nutrients into the soils on the iv test bed, especially during the initial test runs. The purpose of the column tests is to obtain a general idea of what percentage removals of total phosphorus and total nitrogen are obtained by the sandy soil and Bold & Gold™. It is shown that the Bold & Gold™ media effluent has significantly lower concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus compared to the effluent of the sandy soil based on an 80% confidence level. The Bold & Gold™ has a 41% lower average effluent concentration of total nitrogen than the sandy soil. The Bold & Gold™ media has a 78% lower average effluent concentration of total phosphorus than the sandy soil. Using both the column test data in combination with the field scale data, it is determined that the Bold & Gold™ BAM system has a total phosphorus removal efficiency of 71%. The removal efficiency is increased when stormwater harvesting is considered. A total phosphorus reduction of 94% is achieved in the bio-detention & harvesting swale system sample design problem

Il presente lavoro, riconoscendo la rilevanza che le aziende familiari detengono all’interno del contesto internazionale, con particolare riferimento a quello italiano, si propone di analizzare la loro propensione verso l’implementazione della strategia di acquisizione. In particolare lo studio, composto da tre paper tra loro connessi, è volto a delineare una “fotografia” del tessuto imprenditoriale italiano rilevando le caratteristiche delle aziende familiari e della tipologia delle operazioni di crescita per via esterna da queste conseguite. Inoltre, la ricerca fornisce delle comparazioni con le operazioni svolte dalle imprese non familiari così da comprenderne similitudini e differenze evidenziando come la partecipazione della famiglia proprietaria, sia in termini di proprietà che di gestione, incida sulla predisposizione ad acquisire. Il primo paper indaga l’attitudine delle imprese familiari e non familiari ad acquisire, mostrando tipologie e caratteristiche delle operazioni di crescita per via esterna da queste conseguite nel periodo 2000 – 2014. Il secondo lavoro, approfondito il ruolo della distanza culturale ed economica tra acquirente ed acquisita, verifica se le aziende familiari hanno economicamente beneficiato dell’implementazione della strategia di crescita per via esterna. Il terzo contributo analizza come le differenti modalità e livelli di coinvolgimento diretto della famiglia alla vita d’impresa incida sulla predisposizione ad acquisire. / The aim of this work, which recognizes the importance of family-owned firms in the international environment – focusing in particular on the Italian context – is to analyze their propensity to implement the acquisition strategy. The study, composed of three interrelated papers, is intended to “take a picture” of the Italian entrepreneurial fabric, by detecting the features of family firms and the type of growth operations through acquisitions. Furthermore, this research outlines comparisons with the operations led by non family firms, in order to understand similarities and differences by highlighting how the role of family owner, both in terms of property and management, influences the propensity to acquire.  The first paper examines the propensity of family and non family firms to acquire, showing the types and features of the growth operations through acquisitions in the timeframe 2000 - 2014. The second paper, after studying in depth the role of the cultural and economic distance between the acquirer and target, checks whether family firms benefitted from the implementation of acquisition. The third paper analyses the influence of the several implementation procedures and the level of direct involvement of the family in the life of the firms on the propensity to acquire.

Fires following earthquake (FFE) have historically produced enormous post-earthquake damage and losses in terms of lives, buildings and economic costs, like the San Francisco earthquake (1906), the Kobe earthquake (1995), the Turkey earthquake (2011), the Tohoku earthquake (2011) and the Christchurch earthquakes (2011). The structural fire performance can worsen significantly because the fire acts on a structure damaged by the seismic event. On these premises, the purpose of this work is the investigation of the experimental and numerical response of structural and non-structural components of steel structures subjected to fire following earthquake (FFE) to increase the knowledge and provide a robust framework for hybrid fire testing and hybrid fire following earthquake testing. A partitioned algorithm to test a real case study with substructuring techniques was developed. The framework is developed in MATLAB and it is also based on the implementation of nonlinear finite elements to model the effects of earthquake forces and post-earthquake effects such as fire and thermal loads on structures. These elements should be able to capture geometrical and mechanical non-linearities to deal with large displacements. Two numerical validation procedures of the partitioned algorithm simulating two virtual hybrid fire testing and one virtual hybrid seismic testing were carried out. Two sets of experimental tests in two different laboratories were performed to provide valuable data for the calibration and comparison of numerical finite element case studies reproducing the conditions used in the tests. Another goal of this thesis is to develop a fire following earthquake numerical framework based on a modified version of the OpenSees software and several scripts developed in MATLAB to perform probabilistic analyses of structures subjected to FFE. A new material class, namely SteelFFEThermal, was implemented to simulate the steel behaviour subjected to FFE events.