European Radiometry Buoy and Infrastructure (EURYBIA): A Contribution to the Design of the European Copernicus Infrastructure for Ocean Colour System Vicarious Calibration

In the context of the Copernicus Program, EUMETSAT prioritizes the creation of an ocean color infrastructure for system vicarious calibration (OC-SVC). This work aims to reply to this need by proposing the European Radiometry Buoy and Infrastructure (EURYBIA). EURYBIA is designed as an autonomous European infrastructure operating within the Marine Optical Network (MarONet) established by University of Miami (Miami, FL, USA) based on the Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) experience and NASA support. MarONet addresses SVC requirements in different sites, consistently and in a traceable way. The selected EURYBIA installation is close to the Lampedusa Island in the central Mediterranean Sea. This area is widely studied and hosts an Atmospheric and Oceanographic Observatory for long-term climate monitoring. The EURYBIA field segment comprises off-shore and on-shore infrastructures to manage the observation system and perform routine sensors calibrations. The ground segment includes the telemetry center for data communication and the processing center to compute data products and uncertainty budgets. The study shows that the overall uncertainty of EURYBIA SVC gains computed for the Sentinel-3 OLCI mission under EUMETSAT protocols is of about 0.05% in the blue-green wavelengths after a decade of measurements, similar to that of the reference site in Hawaii and in compliance with requirements for climate studies

COMPETIZIONE ELETTORALE E RENDIMENTO POLITICO: IL CASO ITALIANO

IntroduzioneLa democrazia liberale è una forma di governo fondata sul pluralismo e sulla competizione politica. Piú precisamente, «è una procedura e/o un meccanismo chea) genera una poliarchia aperta, la cui competizione sul mercato elettoraleb) conferisce potere al popolo ec) specificamente induce i governanti alla ricettività verso i governati». Ma a quali condizioni e in che misura questo avviene nel mondo reale? In altre parole, a quali condizioni la competizione elettorale assicura non solo il carattere democratico dei risultati, ma anche — e direi soprattutto — il «buon governo», la ricettività del potere? A livello di teoria empirica della democrazia, queste domande investono il problema del rapporto tra competizione e rendimento dei sistemi di partito. In base a questa logica dobbiamo quindi assumere che il tipo di aggregazione delle domande politiche, le modalità di composizione dei conflitti, la qualità dellaleadership, vale a dire le diverse componenti del rendimento politico, dipendono, in misura variabile in ogni sistema, anche dalla struttura della competizione elettorale. Mentre in scienza politica l'analisi comparata delle basi sociali del comportamento di voto a livello di massa ha fatto grandi progressi, ne sappiamo molto meno sull'influenza del comportamento elettorale sulla competizione e della competizione sul rendimento politico. Questo saggio si propone di studiare questo argomento mettendo a fuoco da una parte una serie di concetti teorici e dall'altra un modello della competizione elettorale nel sistema partitico italiano.</jats:p

Roberto D’Alimonte on discussing the European election at the EUI

This contribution was delivered on the occasion of the EUI State of the Union in Florence on 9 May 2014

The Italian elections of February 2013: the end of the Second Republic?

The recent Italian elections ended in gridlock, contrary to what most observers expected. The left won in the Chamber but not in the Senate. To make things worse, the result in the Senate made it impossible to form a majority coalition between Bersani\u2019s left and Monti\u2019s centre, which many considered the most likely outcome of these elections. This left the Democratic Party, the winner in the Chamber, with the unpalatable option of having to form a cabinet seeking the support of either the Fivestar Movement or Berlusconi. Eventually the latter option prevailed with the formation of the Letta cabinet. There are a number of factors behind this unexpected result. The success of the Five-star Movement is one. Surprisingly it has become the largest party in the country, attracting votes from across the political spectrum and from all sectors of society. The weakness of the Democratic Party coalition is another. It missed the goal of extending its electoral base at a time when the right lost almost eight million votes. Actually, it also lost 3.5 million. Another factor yet is the poor performance of the Monti coalition, which failed to become a competitive actor in spite of the popularity the outgoing prime minister enjoyed until he decided to step into the political arena. Last but not least, a key role has been played by the weird electoral system used for the Senate