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The seismic events recently occurred in a different part of the world remind us once again the importance of reducing the risk of the national building stock. In order to properly invest the limited funds available for the retrofit of most exposed constructions, it is fundamental an estimate of the seismic vulnerability of the different building typologies. Such vulnerability is nowadays mainly expressed in terms of fragility curves, calibrated through post-seismic observed data or simulated data obtained by building mechanical models. In this paper, empirical fragility curves are presented for existing reinforced concrete buildings based on the post-earthquake observational data collected after the 2012 Emilia earthquake. This structural typology presents large variability in terms of seismic performance, depending on the seismic design level and other parameters such as the number of stories and the building typological classifications. Various regression models and statistical procedures have been proposed over the years to obtain fragility curves, hence more than one stochastic model is adopted, in order to point out how the fragility curves parameters change by varying the assumed probabilistic distribution.

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The authors offer three interpretations of onychophagia, a widespread but largely unstudied phenomenon. The first is phenomenological, and characterises onychophagia as a non-pathological behavioural symptom present in many pathologies and a distinct syndrome that is sometimes quite severe. The second is clinical, and indicates the convergent and divergent connections between onychophagia and the most frequent eating disorders. The third is psychodynamic, and suggests an interpretative hypothesis of onychophagia itself and the frequent sensation of trouble and refusal that it often provokes even in doctors and psychotherapists.

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