‘Stay Home Without a Home’: Report from a webinar on the right to housing in Covid-19 lockdown times

This Update reports from a webinar on the impacts of lockdown measures put in place globally amid the Covid-19 pandemic on the right to housing and linked political struggles. Three main threads emerged from the conversation: the impacts of the pandemic are deepening pre-existing housing inequalities, while governments’ responses are largely insufficient; activists and contentious actors worldwide are changing their framings and repertoires to adapt to lockdown measures and attempt to radicalize their action; possibilities, albeit limited, are opening for the construction of global networks of struggle.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Generalized Phase Space Representation of Operators

Introducing asymmetry into the Weyl representation of operators leads to a variety of phase space representations and new symbols. Specific generalizations of the Husimi and the Glauber-Sudarshan symbols are explicitly derivedComment: latex, 8 pages, expanded version accepted by J. Phys.

Farmers’ perceptions and adoption of new agricultural technology: Evidence from analysis in Burkina Faso and Guinea, West Africa

Economists investigating consumer demand have accumulated considerable evidence showing that consumers generally have subjective preferences for characteristics of products and that their demand for products is significantly affected by their perceptions of the product's attributes. However, the role of farmers' preferences in adoption decisions have received very limited attention in adoption studies conducted by economists. This paper tests the hypothesis that farmers' perceptions of technology characteristics significantly affect their adoption decisions. The analysis, conducted with Tobit models of modern sorghum and rice varietal technologies in Burkina Faso and Guinea, respectively, strongly supports this hypothesis. Our results provide a strong case for future adoption studies to expand the range of variables used away from the broad socio-economic, demographic and institutional factors to include farmers' subjective perceptions of the characteristics of new agricultural technologie

Effect of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Technologies on the Performance of Millet in Niger: Understanding the Processes Using Simulation

Low soil fertility and erratic rainfall are the most limiting factors to crop production, in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa. The region is the home of the world’s poorest people, 90% of whom live in villages and gain their livelihood from subsistence agriculture. However, yields of cereals in general, and millet in particular that constitute the staple food of rural people, are very low (300–400 kg/ha). Research has developed technologies of integrated soil fertility management, but resource poor farmers have not adopted them. DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) is a tool incorporating models of 16 different crops with software that facilitates the evaluation and application of crop models for different purposes. Its use requires a minimum data set on weather, soil, crop management and experimental data. The simulations from these data can help scientists to develop promising management options to improve farmer’s conditions. However, requirements for such model use is to evaluate its capabilities under farming ­situations, soils, and weather that are characteristic of the area where it will be used. This study was conducted to evaluate the DSSAT millet model capabilities for ­simulating the interactions between soil fertility and millet yields in three sites (Banizoumbou, Bengou and Karabedji) of Niger over 5 years (2001–2005) and ­different nitrogen management

Parkour, Counter-Conducts and the Government of Difference in Post-industrial Turin

The following paper aims to offer a critical discussion of the unfolding politics of belonging and exclusion taking place in Turin's regenerating cityscape as a way to illuminate the paradoxes, tensions and daily negotiations of emerging forms of social and spatial restructuring in the post-industrial city. In developing this analysis, we engage with an integrated methodological approach that privileges the voices and experiences of about 30 young men, mostly of migrant origins and aged 16-21, practicing parkour in the city's public spaces. In addressing these issues, we focus on the participants' engagement with one of the symbols of Turin's (multi)cultural, community-oriented and creative renewal, the post-industrial urban park of Parco Dora in order to unpack the processes of inclusion/exclusion and the conduct of conduct (Rose 2000) enacted in the creation, management and use of the city's regenerating areas. Our discussion of the participants' ambivalent and contested practices in Turin's cityscape enabled us to address how these young men re-inscribe tensions, instabilities and fault-lines relational to the “selective story-telling” (Vanolo 2015, 2) characterizing Turin's narratives of consensual transformation, post-industrial renaissance and (multi)cultural vitality. In particular, by engaging with the participants' bodily and spatial negotiations in Turin's public spaces through the lens of counter-conduct (Foucault 2007[1978]), we highlight the significance of recognising and examining partial, but productive forms of urban contestation within contemporary, pacified scenarios of urban regeneration

Prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of patient prosthesis mismatch in women undergoing TAVI for severe aortic stenosis: Insights from the WIN-TAVI registry

Objective: To evaluate the incidence, predictors and outcomes of female patients with patient-prosthesis mismatch (PPM) following transcatheter aortic valve intervention (TAVI) for severe aortic stenosis (AS). Background: Female AS TAVI recipients have a significantly lower mortality than surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) recipients, which could be attributed to the potentially lower PPM rates. TAVI has been associated with lower rates of PPM compared to SAVR. PPM in females post TAVI has not been investigated to date. Methods: The WIN-TAVI (Women's INternational Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) registry i