Does Brazil Have the Right to Truth?

Brazil established its first truth commission in November 2011, which seeks to uncover the human rights abuses committed during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Although no international treaty or convention explicitly recognizes the right to truth, regional precedent suggests that it is a human rights norm. The Truth Commission faces the following barriers: the Amnesty Law protects perpetrators of human rights violations on either side of the conflict, tensions exist between the Brazilian Supreme Court and the regional human rights court, and politically strong military officials still present in the Brazilian government actively block the Truth Commission’s access to information. This paper reviews academic work on truth commissions and the right to truth, compares the events leading up to the Truth Commissions in Brazil and Argentina, and explore the hurdles to information in order to answer, does Brazil have the right to truth

Multivariate Nonparametric Estimation of the Pickands Dependence Function using Bernstein Polynomials

Many applications in risk analysis, especially in environmental sciences, require the estimation of the dependence among multivariate maxima. A way to do this is by inferring the Pickands dependence function of the underlying extreme-value copula. A nonparametric estimator is constructed as the sample equivalent of a multivariate extension of the madogram. Shape constraints on the family of Pickands dependence functions are taken into account by means of a representation in terms of a specific type of Bernstein polynomials. The large-sample theory of the estimator is developed and its finite-sample performance is evaluated with a simulation study. The approach is illustrated by analyzing clusters consisting of seven weather stations that have recorded weekly maxima of hourly rainfall in France from 1993 to 2011

Charge mobility of discotic mesophases: A multiscale quantum/classical study

A correlation is established between the molecular structure and charge mobility of discotic mesophases of hexabenzocoronene derivatives by combining electronic structure calculations, Molecular Dynamics, and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. It is demonstrated that this multiscale approach can provide an accurate ab-initio description of charge transport in organic materials

Chemical evolution of the bulge of M31: predictions about abundance ratios

We aim at reproducing the chemical evolution of the bulge of M31 by means of a detailed chemical evolution model, including radial gas flows coming from the disk. We study the impact of the initial mass function, the star formation rate and the time scale for bulge formation on the metallicity distribution function of stars. We compute several models of chemical evolution using the metallicity distribution of dwarf stars as an observational constraint for the bulge of M31. Then, by means of the model which best reproduces the metallicity distribution function, we predict the [X/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] relations for several chemical elements (O, Mg, Si, Ca, C, N). Our best model for the bulge of M31 is obtained by means of a robust statistical method and assumes a Salpeter initial mass function, a Schmidt-Kennicutt law for star formation with an exponent k=1.5, an efficiency of star formation of $\sim 15\pm 0.27\, Gyr^{-1}$, and an infall timescale of $\sim 0.10\pm 0.03$Gyr. Our results suggest that the bulge of M31 formed very quickly by means of an intense star formation rate and an initial mass function flatter than in the solar vicinity but similar to that inferred for the Milky Way bulge. The [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios in the stars of the bulge of M31 should be high for most of the [Fe/H] range, as is observed in the Milky Way bulge. These predictions await future data to be proven.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRA

Association of mid-infrared solar plages with Calcium K line emissions and magnetic structures

Solar mid-IR observations in the 8-15 micrometer band continuum with moderate angular resolution (18 arcseconds) reveal the presence of bright structures surrounding sunspots. These plage-like features present good association with calcium CaII K1v plages and active region magnetograms. We describe a new optical setup with reflecting mirrors to produce solar images on the focal plane array of uncooled bolometers of a commercial camera preceded by germanium optics. First observations of a sunspot on September 11, 2006 show a mid-IR continuum plage exhibiting spatial distribution closely associated with CaII K1v line plage and magnetogram structures. The mid-IR continuum bright plage is about 140 K hotter than the neighboring photospheric regions, consistent with hot plasma confined by the magnetic spatial structures in and above the active regionComment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by PAS

Prey selection by an apex predator : the importance of sampling uncertainty.

The impact of predation on prey populations has long been a focus of ecologists, but a firm understanding of the factors influencing prey selection, a key predictor of that impact, remains elusive. High levels of variability observed in prey selection may reflect true differences in the ecology of different communities but might also reflect a failure to deal adequately with uncertainties in the underlying data. Indeed, our review showed that less than 10% of studies of European wolf predation accounted for sampling uncertainty. Here, we relate annual variability in wolf diet to prey availability and examine temporal patterns in prey selection; in particular, we identify how considering uncertainty alters conclusions regarding prey selection. Over nine years, we collected 1,974 wolf scats and conducted drive censuses of ungulates in Alpe di Catenaia, Italy. We bootstrapped scat and census data within years to construct confidence intervals around estimates of prey use, availability and selection. Wolf diet was dominated by boar (61.5±3.90 [SE] % of biomass eaten) and roe deer (33.7±3.61%). Temporal patterns of prey densities revealed that the proportion of roe deer in wolf diet peaked when boar densities were low, not when roe deer densities were highest. Considering only the two dominant prey types, Manly's standardized selection index using all data across years indicated selection for boar (mean = 0.73±0.023). However, sampling error resulted in wide confidence intervals around estimates of prey selection. Thus, despite considerable variation in yearly estimates, confidence intervals for all years overlapped. Failing to consider such uncertainty could lead erroneously to the assumption of differences in prey selection among years. This study highlights the importance of considering temporal variation in relative prey availability and accounting for sampling uncertainty when interpreting the results of dietary studies

How sustainability factors influence maintenance of water distribution systems feeding manufacturing industries

This work aims to analyse the role played by relevant sustainability factors towards the implementation of maintenance interventions in the manufacturing industrial sector. In this context, we focus on industrial water distribution systems, on whose effective work depends the functioning of core plants as well as general industrial facilities. In detail, we propose aMulti-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) application based on the use of the Analytic Network Process (ANP) as amethodological way to prioritise maintenance interventions while considering the influence of some of themost relevant sustainability factors identified in literature. The main advantage of such an approach consists in the elaboration of a flexible maintenance procedure for companies based on a well-known and reliablemulti-criteria application. The novelty of our work refers to the development of a structured link between sustainability factors and maintenance management of industrial water distribution systems, something that is fundamental in manufacturing but also in other fields of application

A first-order stabilization-free Virtual Element Method

In this paper, we introduce a new Virtual Element Method (VEM) not requiring any stabilization term based on the usual enhanced first-order VEM space. The new method relies on a modified formulation of the discrete diffusion operator that ensures stability preserving all the properties of the differential operator.(c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved