Towards the 2017 French election: Socialist and Republican nominees from the selection to the presidential election

In France, primaries have become an important part of French party system. Recently, the process, used by different parties, has been opened also to sympathisers. Indeed, both the Socialist Party and the Republicans organised primaries in the 2017 presidential elections. This can be analysed as an expected step to address problems such as leadership and representativeness. In addition, this process is also in line with the personalisation that has become a characteristic of the Fifth Republic. However, after the collapse of the main parties in the last elections, the primary system seems to have entered in a crisis time. For this reason, this article will attempt to analyse the introduction of primaries in France with a particular attention on the last presidential election focusing on the similarities, differences, and effects in these two open selections

Shock formation in the collapse of a vapor nano-bubble

In this paper a diffuse-interface model featuring phase change, transition to supercritical conditions, thermal conduction, compressibility effects and shock wave propagation is exploited to deal with the dynamics of a cavitation bubble. At variance with previous descriptions, the model is uniformly valid for all phases (liquid, vapor and supercritical) and phase transitions involved, allowing to describe the non-equilibrium processes ongoing during the collapse. As consequence of this unitary description, rather unexpectedly for pure vapor bubbles, the numerical experiments show that the collapse is accompanied by the emission of a strong shock wave in the liquid and by the oscillation of the bubble that periodically disappears and reappears, due to transition to super/sub critical conditions. The mechanism of shock wave formation is strongly related to the transition of the vapor to supercritical state, with a progressive steepening of the compression wave to form the shock which is eventually reflected as an outward propagating wave in the liquid

Optimal Transportation Theory with Repulsive Costs

This paper intents to present the state of art and recent developments of the optimal transportation theory with many marginals for a class of repulsive cost functions. We introduce some aspects of the Density Functional Theory (DFT) from a mathematical point of view, and revisit the theory of optimal transport from its perspective. Moreover, in the last three sections, we describe some recent and new theoretical and numerical results obtained for the Coulomb cost, the repulsive harmonic cost and the determinant cost.Comment: Survey for the special volume for RICAM (Special Semester on New Trends in Calculus of Variations

Diffuse interface modeling of a radial vapor bubble collapse

A diffuse interface model is exploited to study in details the dynamics of a cavitation vapor bubble, by including phase change, transition to supercritical conditions, shock wave propagation and thermal conduction. The numerical experiments show that the actual dynamic is a sequence of collapses and rebounds demonstrating the importance of nonequilibrium phase changes. In particular the transition to supercritical conditions avoids the full condensation and leads to shockwave emission after the collapse and to successive bubble rebound

The French Socialist Party: Membership between Closed and Open Primaries

For some years now the clamor for democratisation of parties' internal functioning has been spreading across democracies. Among them, France has advanced impressively in the past few years. In 2006, the Socialist Party (PS) launched a closed primary to choose the socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, for the 2007 presidential election. Approaching the 2012 presidential elections, the leftist coalition (PS and PRG) launched open primary elections to select its chief-executive candidates, with François Hollande finally emerging as a nominee. In this article, we shall examine how the socialist membership changed during the past three socialist congresses, analysing the outcome of the two above-mentioned primary elections. In particular, we shall observe the Le Mans (2005), Reims (2008) and Toulouse (2012) Congresses, and describe membership, participation, and competitiveness within the PS. The study was based on data collected from an administrative unit, the French départements

The French Socialist Party: Membership between Closed and Open Primaries

For some years now the clamor for democratisation of parties' internal functioning has been spreading across democracies. Among them, France has advanced impressively in the past few years. In 2006, the Socialist Party (PS) launched a closed primary to choose the socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, for the 2007 presidential election. Approaching the 2012 presidential elections, the leftist coalition (PS and PRG) launched open primary elections to select its chief-executive candidates, with François Hollande finally emerging as a nominee. In this article, we shall examine how the socialist membership changed during the past three socialist congresses, analysing the outcome of the two above-mentioned primary elections. In particular, we shall observe the Le Mans (2005), Reims (2008) and Toulouse (2012) Congresses, and describe membership, participation, and competitiveness within the PS. The study was based on data collected from an administrative unit, the French départements

Dynamics of a vapor nanobubble collapsing near a solid boundary

In the present paper a diffuse interface approach is used to address the collapse of a sub-micron vapor bubble near solid boundaries. This formulation enables an unprecedented description of interfacial flows that naturally takes into account topology modification and phase changes (both vapor/liquid and vapor/supercritical fluid transformations). Results from numerical simulations are exploited to discuss the complex sequence of events associated with the bubble collapse near a wall, encompassing shock-wave emissions in the liquid and reflections from the wall, their successive interaction with the expanding bubble, the ensuing asymmetry of the bubble and the eventual jetting phase

Inside the secret garden of political parties. Transformations and reactions to primary elections in Italy and France

Primary elections are becoming quite spread within no-US political context. Many political parties in different countries choose to adopt such inclusive methods to select their candidates for general elections. Thus, primary elections have been re-adapted to different political systems, in order to fit with different party’s specific features. This implied a re-definition of the very concept of primary both in terms of procedures and in terms of political meaning. This paper aims to understand the promotion of party primaries in two EU countries: Italy and France. The two countries have implemented open primaries adopting the maximum level of inclusiveness. This paper will focus on the public debate about these two case studies in order to clarify which were the meaning and the political value of the primary contests in 2011 (France) and 2012 (Italy)