The symbolic power of the state: inheritance disputes and litigants' judicial trajectories in Cotonou

peer reviewedOver the last 10 years, scholars have started to focus on African states’ bureaucracies by investigating public servants’ relationships with the state, their professional ethos, how they appropriate reforms, and the way they interact with citizens. With inheritance disputes as a focal point, this article highlights the users’ perspective—which is often overlooked—and asks how litigants in Cotonou (Benin) see the state, appropriate legal reforms, and use the courts. It shows that citizens, despite a general sense that the court system is corrupt and ineffective, continue to use it because state institutions convey a form of authority that allows them either to legitimize or challenge family decisions in inheritance matters

Study of material activation in nanosatellites for gamma-ray astrophysics

For satellite gamma astrophysics, new missions have been proposed to investigate the Compton regime. The predecessors demonstrated as material activation is an important problem at these energies, because of the irradiation received from cosmic rays. We have quantified the material activation in a nanosatellite Compton in LEO with some Monte Carlo simulations. In this work we focused on primary protons, estimating the produced radioisotopes and in particular those that give gamma rays in out energetic range.ope

Machine and Deep Learning Applications for Inventory Replenishment Optimization

openInventory replenishment is the process of obtaining the items, components, and raw materials required to make and sell products. It guarantees that items and resources are acquired and delivered in an efficient and timely manner. Poorly managed inventory replenishment can have a severe influence on customers and the overall health of a business, which may result in lost revenue, reduced profits and damaged reputation. Implementing the correct inventory replenishment helps manufacturers and sellers in avoiding major issues such as stock-outs, delayed deliveries and overstocking. Accuracy of forecasting is therefore crucial to retailers' profitability. Fashion businesses need precise and accurate sales forecasting tools to prevent stock-outs and maintain a high inventory fill rate. This thesis navigates the complex landscape of fashion retail forecasting, addressing the challenges posed by intermittent time series data and stock management. Advanced forecasting models have been implemented to account for the intermittent nature of fashion product demand, resulting in predictions more accurate and reliable.The study extends also to stock replenishment strategies, emphasizing the importance of the reorder point, the Cycle Service Level and the safety stock. Lastly, it culminates in the development of a replenishment algorithm aimed at reducing stock-outs, which is a modified version of the Periodic Review Policy: Order-Up-To-Level, now tailored to the sporadic nature of intermittent demand.Inventory replenishment is the process of obtaining the items, components, and raw materials required to make and sell products. It guarantees that items and resources are acquired and delivered in an efficient and timely manner. Poorly managed inventory replenishment can have a severe influence on customers and the overall health of a business, which may result in lost revenue, reduced profits and damaged reputation. Implementing the correct inventory replenishment helps manufacturers and sellers in avoiding major issues such as stock-outs, delayed deliveries and overstocking. Accuracy of forecasting is therefore crucial to retailers' profitability. Fashion businesses need precise and accurate sales forecasting tools to prevent stock-outs and maintain a high inventory fill rate. This thesis navigates the complex landscape of fashion retail forecasting, addressing the challenges posed by intermittent time series data and stock management. Advanced forecasting models have been implemented to account for the intermittent nature of fashion product demand, resulting in predictions more accurate and reliable.The study extends also to stock replenishment strategies, emphasizing the importance of the reorder point, the Cycle Service Level and the safety stock. Lastly, it culminates in the development of a replenishment algorithm aimed at reducing stock-outs, which is a modified version of the Periodic Review Policy: Order-Up-To-Level, now tailored to the sporadic nature of intermittent demand

SEDIMENTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF DEEP WATER, UPSLOPEMIGRATING CROSS-BEDDED DEPOSITS IN A DISTALLY STEEPENED CARBONATE RAMP (MENORCA, BALEARIC ISLANDS, SPAIN)

The upper Miocene units cropping out along the southern coast of the Island of Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain), are mainly represented by two carbonate depositional systems: an early Tortonian distally steepened ramp (Lower Bar Unit) and an upper Tortonian – lower Messinian reef-rimmed platform prograding complex (Reef Complex). Within the distally steepened ramp, Pomar et al. (2002) distinguished four facies belts: fan-delta conglomerates passing upwards to bioturbated packstones (inner ramp), cross-bedded grainstones (middle- ramp), clinostratified rhodolithic rudstone (ramp slope) and fine-grained wackestonepackstone with planktonic foraminifera (outer ramp). The backset-bedded units analysed in this work are placed at the transition between toe-of-slope and outer ramp sediments, below the wave-base-level. They infill the axial depression of large slide/slump scars. These scars truncate the gently, 10°- 12° basinward dipping, slope-to-outer ramp clinoforms. Backset beds are cross-bedded forms that dip against the direction of flow of the depositing currents, therefore they present foresets migrating upcurrent (Gary et al., 1972). These sedimentary structures are well known and largely described on the foreset and toeset of Gilbert-type fan delta (Postma, 1984; Massari, 1984, 1996; Nemec, 1990). In carbonate depositional systems these type of bedforms are rarely found and only little described. The backset-bedded units, here analysed, are channel-like, wedge-shaped, 10-12 m thick, pinching out landward and extend laterally for tens of meters. Each unit is formed by several amalgamated set of backset beds, 40 cm to 2 m thick. These units are mainly conglomerates composed by bioclastic coarse-grained grainstone to rudstone. Large components are rhodoliths, bivalves, skeletal and ooid-rich pebbles to boulders, gastropods and corals. Matrix is of a bioclastic coarse-grained sand to fine gravel, made of fragments of bivalves, gastropods, rhodoliths, bryozoans, algae, echinoids, loose ooids and planktonic and benthic foraminifera. Ooids are locally very abundant both in matrix and as main components of pebbles. Pebbles are mainly flattened, elongated, of average size 6-8 cm (a-axis) and sometimes have mollusc borings on their surface: large (20-30 cm) rounded and spherical boulders are locally present. Intergranular and intergranular porosity is very high, cementation low and dolomitization patchy. Foreset laminae dip upslope with varying angles ranging from almost horizontal to 30°; higher angles are mostly found in the basinward part of the unit. Lamination is underline by the orientation along laminae of coarser components especially of bivalves, pebbles and rhodoliths. Grain-size distribution has a particular trend that shows a progressive decrease in size landwards and upwards. Sorting may noticeably vary being high or absent in different bodies. The lower boundary of the backset-bedded units is represented by scour surfaces which, on a parallel-to-flow section are almost concordant with the stratification below, while on a perpendicular-to-flow section are concave-up shaped, presenting the very steep walls. The study of different outcrops along the coast evidenced some important variation in components: moving northward composition changed from almost completely rhodolithic-dominated to rhodolith-bivalve-ooid-pebble-dominated to bivalve-ooid-pebble-dominated with first findings of corals. Upslope bedform migration has been explained as forming when a supercritical flow encounters a local obstruction or a local break on the slope, and a hydraulic jump may occur within the flow, upcurrent from the obstruction. Sediment will be therefore deposited at the obstruction forming an up-flow-dipping slipface that will tend to accrete and migrate in the upflow direction (Nemec, 1990 and reference therein). The backset deposits of Menorca are found in deep-water settings but they are composed of shallow-water sediment. The formation of these backset beds is interpreted to be related to high energy storm-events able to remove sediment from shallow water and to transport it into deeper position. The sediment-rich outgoing flows channalized and accelerated along slide-scar axis, eroding and rapidly infilling up-slope the scours. In this portion of the ramp preservation potential is higher thanks to sediment deposition which buries and preserves these structures. The repetitive occurrence of backset bedded units within the outer-ramp sediments and the progressive variation in composition suggest that those processes where probably active at the transition between the ramp and the reef systems. Therefore the formation of these sedimentary structures is interpreted to be strictly link to concurrence of peculiar morphological features, hydrodynamic energy and grain-size availability. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) numerical simulation have been performed as an integrated part of this work to improve the understanding of the development of hydraulic jumps within concentrated density flows. The simulated parameters do not refer to the example of Menorca but to turbidity currents for which finer-grain size (sand-size) have been used in a smaller-scale topography compared to the one studied in outcrop. The work presented proposes some new stating points for further simulations to constrain more precisely the main parameters controlling and determining the occurrence of a hydraulic jump and the consequent deposition of sediment with backset bedding

Search for a Josephson-like effect in the 116Sn + 60Ni system

openThe pairing interaction, responsible for the two-nucleon correlation, plays a fundamental role in defining the low-energy spectra of atomic nuclei and the properties of their ground state. The effect of pairing correlations in the reaction dynamics can be explored by using heavy-ion reactions, in particular those involving a transfer of few nucleons. In this context, an interesting analogy between the nuclear pairing and the Cooper pairing in superconductors can be investigated through heavy-ion collisions, focusing on nucleon-pair transfer and searching for a possible effect, predicted by a BCS-like theory applied to nuclei: the Josephson Effect. The idea was already suggested in the ’70s, but only recently more quantitative calculations, assisted by promising experimental results, revived the interest on the subject and ignited a more systematic research. The transfer of neutron Cooper pairs was therefore studied through the interaction between two superfluid nuclei, 116Sn and 60Ni, using the Advances Gamma-Ray Tracking Spectrometer AGATA and the large-acceptance magnetic spectrometer PRISMA at Legnaro National Laboratorries, INFN. The work presented in this Master Thesis includes the analysis of the data obtained from the PRISMA magnetic spectrometer and preliminary results for the γ-ray spectra from the AGATA array.The pairing interaction, responsible for the two-nucleon correlation, plays a fundamental role in defining the low-energy spectra of atomic nuclei and the properties of their ground state. The effect of pairing correlations in the reaction dynamics can be explored by using heavy-ion reactions, in particular those involving a transfer of few nucleons. In this context, an interesting analogy between the nuclear pairing and the Cooper pairing in superconductors can be investigated through heavy-ion collisions, focusing on nucleon-pair transfer and searching for a possible effect, predicted by a BCS-like theory applied to nuclei: the Josephson Effect. The idea was already suggested in the ’70s, but only recently more quantitative calculations, assisted by promising experimental results, revived the interest on the subject and ignited a more systematic research. The transfer of neutron Cooper pairs was therefore studied through the interaction between two superfluid nuclei, 116Sn and 60Ni, using the Advances Gamma-Ray Tracking Spectrometer AGATA and the large-acceptance magnetic spectrometer PRISMA at Legnaro National Laboratorries, INFN. The work presented in this Master Thesis includes the analysis of the data obtained from the PRISMA magnetic spectrometer and preliminary results for the γ-ray spectra from the AGATA array

A Comparison of Speech Amplification Devices for Individuals with Parkinson\u27s Disease and Hypophonia

One of the most prevalent speech impairments in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) is hypophonia, a reduction in intensity, which typically decreases intelligibility. Speech amplification devices are a potential solution; however, despite the availability of a broad range of devices, no previous studies systematically compare their efficacy in PD. This study examined the effects of speech task (Sentence Intelligibility Test versus conversation), background noise (no noise versus 65 dB SPL multi-talker noise), and selected devices (ADDvox, BoomVox, ChatterVox, Oticon, SoniVox, Spokeman, and Voicette) for 11 PD and 10 control participants, using outcome measures of speech intensity, speech-to-noise ratio, intelligibility, sound quality, and speakers’ experience. There were significant differences between the outcome measures for different device types, but experience scores did not always predict effectiveness according to the device hierarchy for the outcome measures. Future research is needed to determine performance and preference measures that will predict long-term device acceptance in PD

Editorial: Terrestrial Ecosystem Nitrogen Fluxes via the Atmosphere-Land System

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ruolo prognostico e predittivo del Body Mass Index nel tumore della mammella avanzato

L\u2019obesit\ue0 costituisce un noto fattore di rischio per lo sviluppo di carcinoma mammario e un fattore prognostico sfavorevole nella malattia precoce. Il nostro studio ha valutato il ruolo del Body Mass Index (BMI) in una serie di 400 pazienti affette da carcinoma mammario avanzato (ABC). Il sovrappeso non \ue8 risultato associato all\u2019Overall Survival e non sembra costituire un fattore prognostico sfavorevole nelle pazienti con ABC. Il sovrappeso \ue8 associato a migliore Progression Free Survival nelle pazienti con ABC endocrino responsivo trattate con terapia ormonal