High costs for aeration, greenhouse-gas emissions and excess sludge disposal have entailed a paradigm shift in the wastewater treatment. Microalgal-bacterial-based wastewater treatments have gained increasing attention because of their potential in energy demand reduction and biomass resource recovery. In particular, photosynthetic oxygenation is combined with bacterial activity to treat wastewater avoiding external artificial aeration. To optimize the technology in order to become more competitive than activated sludge, an in-depth investigation about the treatment performance and the microbiology interactions under real operational condition is needed. This work focused on the study of wastewater-borne microalgal-bacterial consortia treating real municipal wastewater. The main objectives were to: (i) Understand the removal mechanisms and the influence of operational conditions to optimize the process; (ii) Analyze the microbial community. At first, a photo-sequencing batch reactor (PSBR), called Pilot, was started up and continuously monitored for two years to analyze the evolution of the treatment performance and of the biomass composition. At the same time, other two lab-scale PSBRs were installed to evaluate if microalgal inoculation is essential to start up a consortium. Samples of these consortia were collected over a period of one year and analyzed through microscopic observations, flow cytometry and metagenomics, to investigate the microbial structure and diversity.A second part of the research focused on the optimization of the Pilot to explore its limit in view of the scale-up of the system. In addition, respirometry was adapted to test microalgal-bacterial consortia to estimate the removal kinetic parameters for future modelling. To conclude, the research project addressed many aspects and lay the foundation to apply a methodological research approach to scale-up this promising technology.

Undulatory locomotion is a common and powerful strategy used in nature at different biological scales by a broad range of living organisms, from flagellated bacteria to prehistoric snakes, which have overcome the complexity of living in ”flowable” media. By taking inspiration from this evolution-induced strategy, we aim at modelling the locomotion in a granular and viscous environment with the objective to provide more insights for designing robots for soil-like media exploration. Moreover, in contrast to common types of movement, the granular locomotion is still not well understood and is an open and challenging field. We approached this phenomenon with several tools: (i.) numerically, via coupling the Finite Element Method (FEM) with the Discrete Element Method (DEM) using ABAQUS; (ii.) analytically, by employing the Lagrangian formalism to derive the equations of motion of a discrete and continuous system subject to non-conservative forces, and (iii.) experimentally, by creating an ad-hoc set up in order to observe the migration of microfibres used for the treatment of spinal cord injuries. The computational attempts to model the motion in a granular medium involved the simulation of the dynamics of an elastic beam (FEM) surrounded by rigid spherical particles (DEM). A propulsion mechanism was introduced by sinusoidally forcing the beam’s tip normally to the longitudinal axis, while the performance of the locomotion was evaluated by means of a parametric study. Depending on the parameters of the external excitation, after a transient phase, the slender body reached a steady-state with a constant translational velocity. In order to gain physical insights, we studied a simplified version of the previous continuous beam by introducing a discrete multi-bar system. The dynamics of the latter was analytically derived, by taking into account the forces exchanged between the locomotor and the environment, according to the Resistive Force Theory. By numerically solving the equations of motion and evaluating the input energy and dissipations, we were able to define the efficiency and thus provide an effective tool to optimise the locomotion. It is worth mentioning that the two approaches, despite the different physical hypothesis, show a qualitatively and quantitatively good accordance. The numerical and analytical models previously analysed have shown promising results for the interpretation of "ad-hoc" experiments that demonstrate the migration of a microfibre embedded in a spinal cord-like matrix. This migration needs to be avoided, once the regenerative microfibre is implanted in the lesioned spinal cord, for the sake of the patients health.

Smart energy city (SEC) development is a component of the urban development initiative smart city, which has been a popular response to the global energy challenge in Europe during the past two decades. SEC development aims to increase the sustainability of urban energy systems and services. Since 2011, SEC development has been supported by the European Commission as part of the Strategic Energy Technology plan (SET-Plan) and through the European Union Programmes for Research and Technological Development (specifically FP7 and Horizon 2020). This, along with the promising vision of SEC development and considerable financial support by the private sector, has encouraged numerous European cities to initiate SEC projects. Successful implementation of these projects at the urban scale is crucial to achievement of urban energy objectives and sustainability of future urban development. The here presented thesis aims to support urban decision-makers towards successful implementation of urban scale smart energy city development in Europe. The study includes three stages. The first stage is dedicated to conceptual analysis. Within this stage, I conceptualized smart city through a keyword analysis of existing literature on the concept. Then, within the context of the smart city concept, I defined SEC development through literature review and expert knowledge elicitation. The second stage is dedicated to empirical investigation. Using the definition of SEC development, I distinguished and investigated 43 previously implemented SEC projects to identify common barriers that hinder successful implementation of SEC development. In addition, I proposed a new multi-dimensional methodology that allows a simultaneous prioritization of barriers against their probability, the level of impact, scale, origin, and relationship with other barriers. The third stage of the thesis is dedicated to learning methodologies that allow efficient transfer of knowledge from the past SEC experiences to the new SEC developments. I introduced the application of two learning methodologies that support decision-makers to predict barriers to the implementation of a new SEC project: case-based learning and decision tree learning. The former predicts barriers based on internal similarities between the new SEC project and the past projects. The latter uses the past projects and creates a predictive model for each barrier based on internal and external project characteristics. These models are later used to predict barriers to a new SEC project. Both methodologies were tested in a new SEC project, named SINFONIA. The conceptual analysis revealed that application of information and communication technologies, the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, integration of multiple urban domains, and sustainability evaluation are the constant characteristics (i.e. principles) of smart city and SEC development. It resulted in, to the best of my knowledge, the first multi-dimensional and comprehensive definition of SEC development, revealing its principles, objectives, domains of intervention, stakeholders, time and spatial dimensions. Furthermore, a list of smart energy solutions in each SEC domain of intervention was provided. The empirical investigation of the past SEC projects resulted in the identification of 35 common barriers to the implementation of SEC development, categorized in policy, administrative, legal, financial, market, environmental, technical, social, and information and awareness dimensions. The barrier prioritization showed that barriers related to collaborative planning, external funding of the project, providing skilled personnel, and fragmented ownership should be the key action priorities for SEC project coordinators. Application of case-based learning methodology resulted in identifying five past SEC projects that were the most similar to the SINFONIA project in terms of project internal characteristics. Investigating the barriers to the similar projects revealed that fragmented ownership is the most probable barrier to implementation of SINFONIA project. Application of the decision trees methodology resulted in generation of 20 barrier models, four of which showed a very good performance in prediction of barriers: lack of values and interest in energy optimization measures, time-consuming requirements by European Commission concerning reporting and accountancy, economic crisis, and local unfavorable regulations for innovative technologies. None of these four barriers were predicted to occur in the SINFONIA project. The application of this method in the SINFONIA showed a higher predicting power when a barrier was absent. The findings of the here presented thesis contribute to successful implementation of SEC development by supporting decision-makers in different phases of SEC projects. The results of the conceptual analysis contribute to a common understanding and foster the dialogue on the concept among various SEC stakeholders, particularly decision-makers and urban planners. The results of the empirical investigation lead to a better comprehension and evaluation of the barriers to the implementation of SEC projects in order to efficiently allocate resources to mitigate barriers. The proposed learning methodologies proved to be promising in helping decision-makers to identify similar projects to a new SEC development and to predict barriers to the implementation of new SEC projects. The thesis concludes that SEC is an outstanding urban development that can make a valuable contribution to the sustainability of urban energy systems. The specific characteristics of SEC development pose new challenges to the future smart and sustainable urban planning. Nevertheless, SEC development brings about unprecedented opportunities for integration and application of advanced quantitative techniques with current urban planning methods. This allows efficient knowledge transfer in not only intra-urban but also inter-urban levels in order to provide a collaborative, integrated and constructive movement towards successful implementation of SEC projects and sustainability of future urban development.

In an attempt to make concrete linkages between neighborhood change and the boundary-making paradigm, this field and historical study of a New York City's neighborhood, addresses the influences of displacement, housing- abandonment and resettlement in Super-gentrification processes on 1) the types of institutions that emerged to represent different class interests; 2) the types of social groups that came to inhabit the neighborhood; 3) the pattern of that evolution over time; 4) the particular goals, values, and morals that such community organizations evolved; and 5) the social status displays carried out in cultured consumption in housing and leisure. Employing a multi-methodological and theoretical approach, the study follows the evolution and development of neighborhood change over forty years through the analysis of social groups and their community organizations (looking at archival documents for the past and by in-depth interviews, shadowing and ethnographic observation for the present time), census data analysis, archival/documental research, and visual data. Community organizations emerged, on the one hand, to represent different class interests - improvement, mandated, ideological - and to emphasize liberal progressive values, on the other. This emergence followed historical and geographical patterns of accelerating gentrification. The study argues that four waves of gentrification showed up across the time and tended to concentrate in four different neighborhood areas, where the incoming groups formed parallel boundary shifts. Accordingly, I found that different waves of gentrification were associated with the emergence of different types of Gentrifiers over time, and this had to do with the changing role of post-industrial cities within the American economy, the processes of government/local institution interventions in the neighborhood housing market, the changes in class interests, morals and ideologies, and the increased aestheticized re-scriptings of neighborhood housing choices and lifestyles. Such aesthetic appreciation operated for gentrifiers as a visible marker of social status. As residential displacement, the disappearance of "old" local stores, and their replacement of upscale shops entailed forms of social inequality that enhanced the lifestyle of new waves of gentrifiers (raising housing values and rents) while, at the same time, forced out morally (by alienation) or practically (by displacement) long-term residents, who helped produce the neighborhood socio-cultural fabric. Diversity and aesthetic appeal seemed to underlie the motives of wealthier, well-educated newcomers to move into the neighborhood. Interestingly, those have not been changing throughout the different waves of gentrifiers who came to inhabit the community in the last 40 years. However - during the process of Super-gentrification - I found that the more they populate the neighborhood, the more it becomes homogenized and less richly diverse, still quite progressive but in a different way. I would say, in a privileged progressive way. Despite the fact that the moral order of these institutions has always been the one of community solidarity, culture, education, and growth, I observed at the same time the playing out of the most common paradox of gentrifiers. The desire of diversity and the producing of difference. This is, I believe, the central problem of gentrification: the balance between, or the combination of, pleasure and power. Balancing pleasure and power is a social, political, and moral problem. It brings together many of the concerns about gentrification, the desire for (and the loss of) diversity, and expresses the central thesis of this study.

La tesi modifica l’indice di qualità della vita urbana introdotto da Roback (1982) in letteratura. L’obiettivo è quello di misurare il livello di accessibilità per particolari beni distribuiti all’interno di una singola città, sfruttando un indice di disugliaglianza alla Atkinson-Kolm-Sen, disaggragabile in funzione delle diverse caratteristiche considerate. Il modello teorico è stato provato su dati per il Comune di Milano, che hanno permesso di calcolare indici di prezzo edonico per le caratteristiche introdotte nell’intervallo 2004-2008. L’analisi della segregazione residenziale all’interno del comune è stata valutata nell’intervallo 1991-2007 e da questa è stata sviluppata un’analisi dell’indice di segregazione di Atkinson coerente con le misure di uguaglianza e segregazione esistenti nella letteratura dei pianificatori e dei sociologi. / The thesis modifies the urban Quality of Life index introduced in the literature by Roback (1982). The aim if the work is to measure the level of accessibility to particular goods distributed within a single city, exploiting the inequality index à la Atkinson-Kolm-Sen, which can be disentangled depending on the characteristics considered. The theoretical model has been tested on data about the Municipality of Milan, at carring out as well hedonic price indices over the characteristics introduced in the time span 2004-2008. The analysis of the residential segregation has been referred to the time span 1991-2007 and it has yielded a residential segregation index consistent with measures of both fairness and segregation, already available in the literature of planners and sociologists.

Cette thèse aborde les formalismes pour la modélisation multi-physique en support au cycle en V de conception. Ce travail a été réalisé dans le cadre du projet ANR-MoCoSyMec, selon la méthodologie du prototypage virtuel fonctionnel (PVF) et illustré sur des systèmes électromagnétiques. Nous nous sommes principalement intéressés au langage VHDL-AMS, en tant que support aux différents niveaux de modélisation apparaissant dans le cycle en V de conception. Cela nous a conduits à traiter la portabilité et l'interopérabilité en VHDL-AMS de diverses méthodes et outils de modélisation. Nous avons proposé et validé, via le formalisme des composants logiciels ICAr, des solutions aux limites de l'utilisation de VHDL-AMS pour modéliser certains phénomènes physiques reposants sur des calculs numériques. Nous avons étendu la norme ICAr pour supporter des modèles dynamiques décrits par des équations différentielles algébriques (DAE) ; et pour des besoins de co-simulation, nous pouvons également y associer un solveur. Ces développements sont désormais capitalisés dans le framework CADES. Enfin, nous avons proposé une architecture pour le portage de modèles d'un formalisme à un autre. Elle a été définie et mise en oeuvre plus particulièrement pour des modèles magnétiques réluctants (Reluctool) et des MEMS magnétiques (MacMMems) vers le VHDL-AMS. Ces formalismes et méthodologies sont mis en oeuvre autour du PVF d'un contacteur électromagnétique.

La Tesi indaga sulle attività finalizzate a valorizzare i beni culturali materiali e immateriali che costituiscono una risorsa del nostro paese, formalmente molto tutelata, ma ancora poco valorizzata. L’obiettivo è quello di delineare politiche e progetti territoriali e urbani a partire dal riconoscimento del valore dei beni culturali da parte delle comunità locali, e gli strumenti di gestione e di valutazione a sostegno di scelte condivise e fattibili. Le azioni da intraprendere riguarderanno più forme di turismo culturale integrate con più campi di attività sociale ed economica nella convinzione che ciò possa garantire uno sviluppo “sostenibile”, attraverso un equilibrio tra popolazione residente e popolazione turistica e tra i canali di investimento pubblici e privati in più settori di attività economica. Il lavoro si sviluppa in una prima parte indagando le dinamiche turistiche, il significato di cultura e bene culturale, gli approcci finalizzati all'analisi dei fenomeni culturali e termina con l’elaborazione di una matrice e dei relativi indicatori e campi di indagine, sottoposta agli operatori economici circa le potenzialità e le criticità del sistema turistico italiano. La seconda parte descrive l’importanza ed il ruolo di alcuni personaggi del passato e di oggi, che hanno contribuito al miglioramento della qualità della vita attraverso interventi nei settori della cultura e della domanda sociale. Inoltre sono stati affinati ed ampliati i campi di indagine e gli indicatori della matrice, somministrata a più categorie di stakeholders, con l’obiettivo di indagare le differenze di approccio e di punto di vista di operatori privati e pubblici. L'ultima parte della Tesi traccia una proposta di procedura per la programmazione e per la valorizzazione degli attrattori turistici locali, individuando come volano la componente culturale presente in ognuno di essi e le modalità di integrazione con altri aspetti del territorio, con particolare attenzione alle località del territorio italiano meno conosciute. / This PhD Thesis investigates the activities aimed to promote cultural heritage and intangible assets that constitute a resource of our country, formally very protected, but still little valorized. The mission is to delineate urban and territorial policies and projects, starting from the recognition of cultural heritage value by local communities, and delineate tools for management and promotion supporting feasible and shared choices. Actions to be undertaken will concern many cultural tourism types integrated with social and economic activities, because the belief is that all of this will ensure “sustainable” development. This is possible through a balance between resident and touristic population, and through public and private investment channels in many sectors of economic activity. The first part of the Thesis investigates the tourism’s dynamics, culture and cultural heritage’s meaning. This part inquires approaches aimed to analyze cultural phenomena, and it ends with developing a matrix with associated indicators and research’s range, to submit to economic stakeholders to investigate potentiality and critical aspects of Italian tourism. The second part of Thesis describes the importance of some present and past characters who have contributed to improve quality of life, through interventions in cultural and in social demand’s areas. In this part it has been refined the range of investigation and the matrix’s indicators, and the matrix has been given to various groups of stakeholders, with the aim to explore the differences in terms of approaches and viewpoints of private and public operators. The third, and the last, part of the Thesis tries to draw a procedure’s proposal to program and valorize the local touristic attractors, identifying in each of them the cultural component, and how they interact with other aspects of the territory, focusing on lesser-known places of Italian territory.

Several technologies involve the coating of a bulk material with a thin layer made up of another material, so as to achieve enhanced mechanical properties for the composite system. The use of coated solids embraces a broad field of applications, so that a strong research effort has been devoted to these systems. From a mechanical point of view, a coating layer diffuses the load on an attached solid in a non-local way, thus introducing a characteristic length, and profoundly affects the mechanical response and failure mechanisms of the coated object. Therefore, the development of mechanical models to describe the behaviour of coated materials plays an important role in engineering design. In the framework of linear elasticity, the case of an elastic thin layer, perfectly bonded to an elastic disk, is analyzed in the present thesis by providing a mathematical tool with which to determine the mechanical response of the coating/bulk complex, which may find application in micro and nano technologies, for instance in the characterization of nanowires via nanoindentation. The coating is modelled by means of an Euler-Bernoulli curved rod, assumed to be perfectly bonded on the boundary of a circular elastic disk. The elastic rod acts as a coating for the disk and its axial inextensibility imposes an isoperimetric constraint on the internal disk, which is constrained to maintain its perimeter constant during the deformation process. The mechanical model for the coating/disk system is formulated for general loading, using the complex potential formalism. The elastic rod becomes equivalent to a Benveniste-Miloh interface characterized by the bending stiffness of the rod; in this way the problem can be solved entirely on the disk through the complex potential formalism and Kolosov- Muskhelishvili potentials. The kinematics and statics of the rod, together with its axial inextensibility, lead to the formulation of a 5th-order differential equation governing the mechanical state at every point on the boundary of the disk. The solution of this equation is obtained by means of a complex Fourier series expansion for the unknown fields on the boundary of the disk, when a particular distribution of the external load is prescribed. The complex variables method shows that the unknown complex coefficients involved in the series expansion depend only on the external load. Hence, all the elastic fields become known on the coating and on the boundary and within the disk. The analytical results are complemented with experiments related to a load distribution which models two equal and opposite concentrated forces. In this regard, two coated disks were designed and then manufactured (with a CNC engraving machine) from a single block of polymethyl methacrylate so that the bonding between the coating and disk was perfect and residual stresses were absent. The samples were tested in a circular polariscope and the results strongly supported the coated disk model, so the photoelastic fringes were very well captured by the elastic solution. Different situations were investigated in order to study the non-local stress diffusion of the coating. The limit case of an isoperimetric disk was also investigated by imposing a vanishing bending stiffness for the coating. This limit situation corresponded to a disk equipped with a device able to preserve the perimeter of the disk during the deformation. Exploiting the framework developed, the bifurcation problem of the coated disk was analyzed, assuming that the coating was subject to a radial pressure of three different types. A closed-form analytical solution was obtained for the bifurcation pressure and modes, showing that the presence of the disk profoundly changed the bifurcation landscape of the coating, forming a circular elastic rod. In fact, the circular rod admits only oval modes, while the coating/disk system displays high-frequency circumferential undulations. The experimental, analytical, and numerical results presented open new possibilities for the design of coated solids of cylindrical geometry, which may find applications in micro and nano technologies, for instance in the characterization of nanowires via nanoindentation.

The recognition of nature in the resolution of societal challenges has been growing in relevance. This recognition has been associated with the development of new concepts from science and policy such as natural capital, ecosystem services, green infrastructure, and more recently Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). NBS intends to address societal challenges in an effective and adaptive form providing economic, social, and environmental benefits. The overall aim of this PhD thesis is to develop an environmental and economic assessment of NBS for highly urbanised territories based on rationales and models underpinning ecosystem services, urban/landscape ecology, and life cycle thinking approaches. This combined evaluation approach would help to better understand if NBS are cost-effective or not. The aim is developed according to four specific objectives. The first objective corresponds to the characterisation of NBS in relation to urban contexts and the problematics that they can help to address or mitigate. To achieve this objective a critical review on the study of the relationship between NBS, ecosystem services (ES) and urban challenges (UC) was developed. As a main output, a graph of plausible cause-effect relationships between NBS, ES and UC is obtained. The graph represents a first step to support sustainable urban planning, moving from problems (i.e. urban challenges) to actions (i.e. NBS) to resolutions (i.e. ES). The second objective corresponds to the definition of an adequate set of biophysical and monetary assessment methods and indicators to evaluate the value of NBS in urbanised contexts. To achieve this objective, a review of existing methods on ecosystem services valuation, life cycle cost analysis and life-cycle assessment are developed. The review takes into account specific constraints such as easiness to use and availability of data. At the end, potential methods and indicators were selected, which will be later integrated in the combined assessment framework. The third objective corresponds to the design of a combined assessment framework integrating methods from life cycle assessment, landscape/urban ecology and ecosystem services that quantifies the environmental and economic value of NBS informing about the cost-effectiveness of its entire life cycle. To achieve this objective, a conceptual framework is developed. From it, a system dynamics model of ecosystem (dis)services is developed and coupled with a life cycle assessment method. The combined evaluation is tested with a relevant NBS type (i.e. urban forest) in a case study in the metropolitan area of Madrid. The fourth objective is the development of a decision support (DSS) tool that integrates the assessment framework as part of iterative design processes in urban planning and landscape design. The DSS intends to enhance the interrelation between science, policy and planning/design. To achieve this objective a user-friendly web-based prototype DSS on NBS, called NBenefit$®, is developed. The prototype DSS provides the user a simple form of quantifying the provision of multiple ES and costs over the entire life cycle (implementation, operational life, and end-of-life) of NBS. This thesis contributed to the characterisation of NBS and its environmental and economic assessment to inform urban planning and landscape design processes, allowing decisions that are more informed. / Il riconoscimento della natura nella risoluzione delle sfide sociali è diventato sempre più importante. Questo riconoscimento è stato associato allo sviluppo di nuovi concetti provenienti dalla scienza e dalla politica, come il capitale naturale, i servizi ecosistemici, le infrastrutture verdi e, più recentemente, le soluzioni basate sulla natura (NBS). NBS intende affrontare le sfide della società in una forma efficace e adattabile fornendo benefici economici, sociali e ambientali. Lo scopo di ricerca di questa tesi di dottorato è quello di sviluppare una valutazione ambientale ed economica delle NBS per territori altamente urbanizzati basata su logiche e modelli che hanno alla base i servizi ecosistemici, l'ecologia urbana e paesaggistica e degli approcci di approcio life cycle. Questo quadro di valutazione combinato aiuterebbe a capire meglio se le NBS sono costo effetive e se contribuiscono a uno sviluppo resiliente e sostenibile. Questo scopo di ricerca è sviluppato secondo quattro obiettivi specifici. Il primo obiettivo corrisponde alla caratterizzazione delle NBS in relazione ai contesti urbani e alle problematiche che possono aiutare ad affrontare o mitigare. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo è stata sviluppata una revisione critica dell letteratura sullo studio della relazione tra NBS, servizi ecosistemici (ES) e sfide urbane (UC). Come risultato principale, si ottiene un grafico delle relazioni causa-effetto plausibili tra NBS, ES ed UC. Il grafico rappresenta un primo passo per supportare la pianificazione urbana sostenibile, passando dai problemi (es. UC) alle azioni (es. NBS) alle risoluzioni (es. ES). Il secondo obiettivo corrisponde alla definizione di un set di metodi e indicatori di valutazione biofisica e monetaria adeguate per valutare il valore della NBS in contesti urbanizzati. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo, viene sviluppata una revisione dei metodi esistenti sulla valutazione dei servizi ecosistemici, l'analisi dei costi del ciclo di vita e la valutazione del ciclo di vita. La revisione tiene conto di vincoli specifici come la facilità d'uso e la disponibilità dei dati. Alla fine, sono stati selezionati potenziali metodi e indicatori, che saranno successivamente integrati nel quadro di valutazione combinato. Il terzo obiettivo corrisponde alla progettazione del quadro di valutazione combinato, integrando metodi di valutazione del ciclo di vita, ecologia paesaggistica / urbana e servizi ecosistemici che quantifica il valore ambientale ed economico della NBS informando sull'efficacia in termini di costi del suo intero ciclo di vita. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo, prima viene sviluppato un quadro concettuale. Da esso, viene sviluppato un modello di dinamica di sistemi per calcolare i servizi (e disservici) ecosistemici, il quale è interrelazionato con un metodo di valutazione life cycle. Questa valutazione combinata viene testata con un tipo di NBS pertinente (foresta urbana) in un caso di studio nell'area metropolitana di Madrid. Il quarto obiettivo è lo sviluppo di uno strumento di supporto decisionale (DSS) che integri il quadro di valutazione come parte dei processi di progettazione iterativa nella pianificazione urbana e nella progettazione del paesaggio. Il DSS intende migliorare l'interrelazione tra scienza, politica e pianificazione / progettazione. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo è stato sviluppato Nbenefit$® un prototipo di DSS online per la valutazzione NBS di facile uso. Il prototipo DSS fornisce all'utente una forma semplice per quantificare multipli ES e costi (internalizatti o no) durante l'intero ciclo di vita (implementazione, vita operativa e fine vita) del NBS. In conclusione, questa tesi ha contribuito alla caratterizzazione di NBS e alla sua valutazione ambientale ed economica per informare i processi di pianificazione urbana e progettazione del paesaggio, consentendo decisioni più informate.

The main bulk of this Thesis is focused on the response of cell membranes due to chemical and mechanical stimuli. Henceforth, it is mainly devoted to deduce how the key aspect of the cell response activated by chemical signaling can be predicted by a simplified energetics, making use of both theoretical models and numerical simulations. The a ention is focused on cell membranes embedding G protein-coupled receptors (GPRCs). By analyzing the behavior of cell mem- branes, one can isolate three main contributions in order to model their respon- se: (1) diffusion of receptors and transporters embedded in the lipid membrane; (2) conformational changes of the receptors; (3) membrane elasticity. Moreover, the interplay between TM confomational changes and lateral pressure of the lipid membrane against such TMs is introduced. The chemical potential of the receptor-ligand compound, deduced as the variational derivative of such energy, is compared with the one calculated by accounting for the work done by the lateral pressure. The result yields a relationship between the conformational field, the mechanical field (interpreted as either the thickness change or the areal change) and the distribution of the compounds receptor-ligand. The analysis of such resulting constitutive equation among those three quantities shows that, essentially, the reason why ligand-GPRCs compounds prefer to live on lipid ra is a necessity involving the interplay between the work performed by the lateral pressure and the need of TMs to change their conformation during ligand binding. Henceforth, mechanobiology gives a justification to the experimental findings of Kobilka and Lei ovitz, Chemistry Nobel Prizes 2012.