Essays on political elites and violence in changing political orders of Middle East and Africa

This research project addresses the question of how political elites’ behaviour varies when competition among them is heightened. Focusing on changing political orders across Africa and the Middle East, it seeks to understand how political elites facing internal and external challenges manipulate local power structures for political survival purposes, resulting in distinct political trajectories. The thesis argues that local political and conflict environments are conditional on the nature of competition among elites. Volatile political transitions, intense popular unrest, and militarised environments all create distinct incentives and constraints which shape political orders, and determine the inclusion or exclusion of select elites in the resulting political settlement. Using a mixed-method research design which combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the thesis consists of five essays exploring select topics and three in-depth case studies. The essays address two cross-cutting themes. First, they show how elites reconfigure institutional structures to cement alliances and survive internal or external challenges when power is being contested after a change in the leadership, or when facing popular mobilisation. Bargaining occurs through ministerial appointments or purges which aim to consolidate political settlements and secure power holders from rivals. Examples from Tunisia and recent episodes of leadership changes from across Africa are presented together with original datasets of ministerial appointments. Second, the essays illustrate how patterns of violence within states are indicative of the fragmented nature of the political environment of the political competition therein taking place. Findings from Libya and Yemen are presented to demonstrate that localised fragmentation produce subnational geographies of conflict which reflect the strategies and the mobilisation capacity of armed groups and elite actors

Essays on Political Elites and Violence in Changing Political Orders of Middle East and Africa

"This research project addresses the question of how political elites’ behaviour varies when competition among them is heightened. Focusing on changing political orders across Africa and the Middle East, it seeks to understand how political elites facing internal and external challenges manipulate local power structures for political survival purposes, resulting in distinct political trajectories. The thesis argues that local political and conflict environments are conditional on the nature of competition among elites. Volatile political transitions, intense popular unrest, and militarised environments all create distinct incentives and constraints which shape political orders, and determine the inclusion or exclusion of select elites in the resulting political settlement. Using a mixed-method research design which combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the thesis consists of five essays exploring select topics and three in-depth case studies. The essays address two cross-cutting themes. First, they show how elites reconfigure institutional structures to cement alliances and survive internal or external challenges when power is being contested after a change in the leadership, or when facing popular mobilisation. Bargaining occurs through ministerial appointments or purges which aim to consolidate political settlements and secure power holders from rivals. Examples from Tunisia and recent episodes of leadership changes from across Africa are presented together with original datasets of ministerial appointments. Second, the essays illustrate how patterns of violence within states are indicative of the fragmented nature of the political environment of the political competition therein taking place. Findings from Libya and Yemen are presented to demonstrate that localised fragmentation produce subnational geographies of conflict which reflect the strategies and the mobilisation capacity of armed groups and elite actors.

Ropeway roller batteries dynamics. Modeling, identification, and full-scale validation

A parametric mechanical model based on a Lagrangian formulation is here proposed to predict the dynamic response of roller batteries during the vehicles transit across the so-called compression towers in ropeways transportation systems. The model describes the dynamic interaction between the ropeway substructures starting from the modes and frequencies of the system to the forced dynamic response caused by the vehicles transit. The analytical model is corroborated and validated via an extensive experimental campaign devoted to the dynamic characterization of the roller battery system. The data acquired on site via a custom-design sensor network allowed to identify the frequencies and damping ratios by employing the Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) method. The high fidelity modeling and the system identification procedure are discussed

What causes regime change in African autocracies?

African states have in recent years shown a vulnerability to military takeovers and the forced removal of established leaders. But these developments in autocracies are not associated with revolutionary change. New research seeks to explain political change in African autocracies by looking at the role of political elites, focussing on cycles of power between a leader and their rivals which determine their survival

Monitoring of fatigue crack growth in composite adhesively bonded joints using Fiber Bragg Gratings

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SVILUPPO E SUPPORTO AL DATA QUALITY MONITORING DELL'ESPERIMENTO CMS

La tesi si occupa di vari aspetti relativi alla raccolta ed elaborazione di dati di monitoring dell'esperimento CMS presso il CERN di Ginevra. Sono stati trattati sia aspetti relativi ai protocolli di comunicazione che quelli relativi alla GUI

Endo-orbital osteoma: Two case reports

Osteoma is a benign, slow-growing tumor, which mainly occurs in the bones and cavities of the middle third of the face, representing the most frequent benign tumor of the paranasal sinuses. Osteoma of the paranasal sinuses is generally asymptomatic and it is discovered only as a coincidental radiological finding; when it becomes symptomatic, the most common presenting symptoms are headaches and facial pain. Rarely the sinusal osteoma may entail secondary orbital extension, with ocular signs and symptoms. Primary intraorbital involvement is extremely rare. The authors present a review of the literature and report two cases of primary orbital osteoma. In both cases surgical treatment led to the complete remission of symptoms. Diagnosis and surgical therapy are discussed

+The phenology of species in a swamp forest in Bauru, SP / + A fenologia das espécies em uma floresta pântica em Bauru, SP

The way both phenophase and periodicity occur is crucial to define phenological patterns of species and communities. These studies are of great importance in order to understand the behavior of such communities in relation to climate variability, the measurement of the amount of fruit and the best time for seed collection. Thus, this work has the objective to describe the phenological patterns of the twelve most important species within their phytosociological structure from an arboreal shrub community in a swamp forest in the municipality of Bauru, SP. We have noticed that most of the species, the anthesis, occurred in the beginning and in the end of the dry season. For fruiting phenophase, the pattern has presented a greater variation from one year to another, meaning that in the first year, 75% of the individuals bore fruit during the dry season. On the other hand, lower fructification has been noticed throughout the same period (June to October) of the following year. Thus, we could get to the conclusion that anthesis phenophase has a strong correlation with the changing seasons. Fruiting phenophases have not shown to have a clear pattern. We could notice that fructification is strongly related with precipitation variability index, and it can be explained since there was a significant increase of rainfall and a decrease of fructification in the second year

Building the Web of Things with WS-BPEL and Visual Tags. Web of Things using Service-oriented Architecture standards

The Web of things is an emerging scenario in which everyday objects are connected to the Internet and can answer to HTTP queries with structured data. This paper presents a system that allows users to build networks of everyday objects using visual tags as proximity technology. The system backend is based on Service-oriented Architecture languages and tools for the runtime composition of “things” establishing connections we call hyperpipes.357-36