Promoting corporate intelligence in Italy to improve stability in the Middle East

Most national and international legislative instruments impose a duty to conduct appropriate due diligence when doing business, in order to hold each company accountable for the malicious activities of its partners. This project’s main argument is that formal due diligence is not enough when it comes to preventing corrupt business behavior, particularly when dealing with highly corrupt environments. Starting with an analysis of the Italian legislative efforts, this project demonstrates how the promotion of corporate intelligence into standard business practice could fill the gaps left by due diligence. Emphasis is placed upon the adoption of corporate intelligence among SMEs, given their being the proven stabilizers of society. This project presents a number of recommendations to the Italian government, the law enforcement agencies and corporate intelligence firms of how to promote corporate intelligence and, therefore, security in the Middle East

The CAP protein superfamily: function in sterol export and fungal virulence

CAP superfamily proteins, also known as sperm-coating proteins, are found in all kingdoms of life and have been implicated in a variety of physiological contexts, including immune defense in plants and mammals, sperm maturation and fertilization, fungal virulence, and toxicity of insect and reptile venoms as well as prostate and brain cancer. CAP family members are mostly secreted glycoproteins that are highly stable in the extracellular fluid. All members of the superfamily share a common CAP domain of approximately 150 amino acids, which adopts a unique α-β-α sandwich fold. The conserved structure suggests that CAP proteins exert fundamentally similar functions. However, the molecular mode of action of this protein family has remained enigmatic. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has three CAP family members designated Pry (pathogen related in yeast), and recent evidence indicates that they act as sterol-binding and export proteins. Expression of the mammalian CAP protein CRISP2, which binds sterols in vitro, complements the sterol export defect of a yeast pry mutant, suggesting that sterol binding and export is conserved among different CAP family members. Collectively, these observations suggest that CAP family members constitute a novel class of secreted extracellular sterol-binding proteins. A ligand-binding activity of the CAP domain could explain many of the biological activities attributed to these proteins. For example, the strong induction of plant pathogenesis-related 1 protein upon exposure to pathogens may serve to inhibit pathogen proliferation by extracting sterols from the pathogen membrane. Similarly, the presence of these proteins in the venom of toxic insects and reptiles or in the secretome of pathogenic fungi might inflict damage by sequestering sterols or related small hydrophobic compounds from the host tissu

Improved angular discretization and error analysis of the lattice boltzmann method for solving radiative heat transfer in a participating medium

In this paper, some improvements to the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for solving radiative heat transfer in a participating medium are presented and validated. Validation of the model is performed by investigating the effects of spatial and angular discretizations and extinction coefficient on the solution. The error analysis and the order of convergence of the scheme are also reporte

Analysis of a discontinuous Galerkin method for heterogeneous diffusion problems with low-regularity solutions

International audienceWe study the convergence of the Symmetric Weighted Interior Penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for heterogeneous diffusion problems with low-regularity solutions only belonging to $W^{2,p}$ with $p\in(1,2]$. In 2d we infer an optimal algebraic convergence rate. In 3d we achieve the same result for p>\nicefrac65 , and for p\in(1,\nicefrac65] we prove convergence without algebraic rate

Discrete functional analysis tools for Discontinuous Galerkin methods with application to the incompressible Navier--Stokes equations

28 pagesInternational audienceTwo discrete functional analysis tools are established for spaces of piecewise polynomial functions on general meshes: (i) a discrete counterpart of the continuous Sobolev embeddings, in both Hilbertian and non-Hilbertian settings; (ii) a compactness result for bounded sequences in a suitable Discontinuous Galerkin norm, together with a weak convergence property for some discrete gradients. The proofs rely on techniques inspired by the Finite Volume literature, which differ from those commonly used in Finite Element analysis. The discrete functional analysis tools are used to prove the convergence of Discontinuous Galerkin approximations of the steady incompressible Navier--Stokes equations. Two discrete convective trilinear forms are proposed, a non-conservative one relying on Temam's device to control the kinetic energy balance and a conservative one based on a nonstandard modification of the pressure

Arbitrary-order mixed methods for heterogeneous anisotropic diffusion on general meshes

International audienceWe devise mixed methods for heterogeneous anisotropic diffusion problems supporting general polyhedral meshes. For a polynomial degree $k\ge 0$, we use as potential degrees of freedom the polynomials of degree at most $k$ inside each mesh cell, whereas for the flux we use both polynomials of degree at most $k$ for the normal component on each face and fluxes of polynomials of degree at most $k$ inside each cell. The method relies on three ideas: a flux reconstruction obtained by solving independent local problems inside each mesh cell, a discrete divergence operator with a suitable commuting property, and a stabilization enjoying the same approximation properties as the flux reconstruction. Two static condensation strategies are proposed to reduce the size of the global problem, and links to existing methods are discussed. We carry out a full convergence analysis yielding flux-error estimates of order $(k+1)$ and $L^2$-potential estimates of order $(k+2)$ if elliptic regularity holds. Numerical examples confirm the theoretical results

A hybrid high-order locking-free method for linear elasticity on general meshes

International audienceWe develop an arbitrary-order locking-free method for linear elasticity on general (polyhedral, possibly nonconforming) meshes without nodal unknowns. The key idea is to reconstruct the relevant differential operators in terms of the (generalized) degrees of freedom by solving an inexpensive local problem inside each element. The symmetric gradient and the divergence operators are reconstructed separately. The divergence operator satisfies a commuting diagram property, yielding robustness in the quasi-incompressible limit. Locking-free error estimates are derived for the energy norm and for the L2-norm of the displacement, with optimal convergence rates for smooth solutions. The theoretical results are confirmed numerically, and the CPU cost is evaluated on both standard and general polygonal meshes

Hybrid High-Order methods for variable diffusion problems on general meshes

We extend the Hybrid High-Order method introduced by the authors for the Poisson problem to problems with heterogeneous/anisotropic diffusion. The cornerstone is a local discrete gradient reconstruction from element- and face-based polynomial degrees of freedom. Optimal error estimates are proved

The Hybrid High-Order Method for Polytopal Meshes: Design, Analysis, and Applications

International audienceHybrid High-Order (HHO) methods are new generation numerical methods for models based on Partial Differential Equations with features that set them apart from traditional ones. These include: the support of polytopal meshes including non star-shaped elements and hanging nodes; the possibility to have arbitrary approximation orders in any space dimension; an enhanced compliance with the physics; a reduced computational cost thanks to compact stencil and static condensation. This monograph provides an introduction to the design and analysis of HHO methods for diffusive problems on general meshes, along with a panel of applications to advanced models in computational mechanics. The first part of the monograph lays the foundation of the method considering linear scalar second-order models, including scalar diffusion, possibly heterogeneous and anisotropic, and diffusion-advection-reaction. The second part addresses applications to more complex models from the engineering sciences: non-linear Leray-Lions problems, elasticity and incompressible fluid flows