AT THE WATER¿S EDGE? ITALIAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND MILITARY OPERATIONS ABROAD

For various decades, scholars in the fields of International Relations (IR) and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) have neglected the relevance of political parties as crucial actors in the study of states\u2019 foreign and security policy. However, recently, academic debate on the connection between parties and foreign policy has significantly grown along three lines: party contestation across ideological cleavages, the impact of coalition politics and junior coalition partners, and the constraining power of legislatives, also considered as aggregations of parties. Contributing to this flourishing research agenda, this PhD dissertation explores how Italian parties positioned and interacted on Military Operations Abroad (MOA) during the so-called \u201cSecond Republic\u201d (1994-2013). In other words, it fundamentally aims to scrutinize and explain party support for MOAs in Italy. The relevance of the Italian case lies in the country\u2019s extraordinary commitment to military interventions after the end of the Cold War and the relatively high extent of fragmentation in its party system. Through the use of quantitative and qualitative data and methods, this PhD thesis highlights a series of findings with considerable implications for the study of party politics of troop deployments in Italy and in other Western democracies. Among them, three deserve particular attention. First, in line with existing studies, the presence of a centrist and bipartisan consensus on this issue based on a shared humanitarian narrative is confirmed. Secondly, party contestation across the left-right axis is decisively affected by a number of domestic and external factors, namely party affiliation to the cabinet, law-making procedures and the international legitimation of the specific operation. Thirdly, the salience attributed to opposition to MOAs among radical parties diverges according to their ideological leaning: extreme left parties rooted their scepticism on a deeply entrenched pacifist sentiment while the far right and autonomist Lega Nord had a more instrumental approach to the issue

Towards smaller family size in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey: overall change over time or socio-economic compositional effect?

The whole region of the South and East Mediterranean exhibits a profound fertility transition with marked differences in the pace of fertility declines among the countries. The authors choose three representative countries: Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. Determinants of the propensity towards smaller family size are investigated as scrutinizing the development in the pattern of third births, which represents the critical step in the transitional process for these countries. The authors are particularly interested in verifying whether the decline of higher-order births is significantly driven by an overall societal change over time or by compositional change over different socio-economic segments of the female population. Evidence is found that overall societal changes have mainly driven the decline in large family size, though, to a much lesser extent, compositional changes are important too.Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, childbearing, family size, fertility decline

A Low Complexity Rolling Bearing Diagnosis Technique Based on Machine Learning and Smart Preprocessing

In this work, we present a diagnosis system for rolling bearings that leverages simultaneous measurements of vibrations and machine rotation speed. Our approach combines the robustness of simple time domain methods for fault detection with the potential of machine learning techniques for fault location. This research is based on a neural network classifier, which exploits a simple and novel preprocessing algorithm specifically designed for minimizing the dependency of the classifier performance on the machine working conditions, on the bearing model and on the acquisition system set-up. The overall diagnosis system is based on light algorithms with reduced complexity and hardware resource demand and is designed to be deployed in embedded electronics. The fault diagnosis system was trained using emulated data, exploiting an ad-hoc test bench thus avoiding the problem of generating enough data, achieving an overall classifier accuracy larger than 98%. Its noteworthy ability to generalize was proven by using data emulating different working conditions and acquisition set-ups and noise levels, obtaining in all the cases accuracies greater than 97%, thereby proving in this way that the proposed system can be applied in a wide spectrum of different applications. Finally, real data from an on-line database containing vibration signals obtained in a completely different scenario are used to demonstrate the distinctive capability of the proposed system to generalize

Development of a Self-Sufficient LoRaWAN Sensor Node with Flexible and Glass Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Modules Harvesting Energy from Diffuse Low-Intensity Solar Radiation

This paper aims to demonstrate the viability of energy harvesting for wide area wireless sensing systems based on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) under diffuse sunlight conditions, proving the feasibility of deploying autonomous sensor nodes even under unfavorable outdoor scenarios, such as during cloudy days, in the proximity of tall buildings, among the trees in a forest and during winter days in general. A flexible thin-film module and a glass thin-film module, both featuring an area smaller than an A4 sheet of paper, were initially characterized in diffuse solar light. Afterward, the protype sensor nodes were tested in a laboratory in two different working conditions, emulating outdoor sunlight in unfavorable lighting and weather to reconstruct a worst-case scenario. A Li-Po battery was employed as a power reserve for a long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN)-based sensor node that transmitted data every 8 h and every hour. To this end, an RFM95x LoRa module was used, while the node energy management was attained by exploiting a nano-power boost charger buck converter integrated circuit conceived for the nano-power harvesting from the light source and the managing of the battery charge and protection. A positive charge balance was demonstrated by monitoring the battery trend along two series of 6 and 9 days, thus allowing us to affirm that the system’s permanent energy self-sufficiency was guaranteed even in the worst-case lighting and weather scenario

Complex Dynamics in Digital Nonlinear Oscillators: Experimental Analysis and Verification

A specific topology of Digital Nonlinear Oscillators (DNOs) has been implemented by using commercial off-the-shelf digital components to experimentally verify and demonstrate the capability of these circuits to support complex dynamics, independently from their implementation technology. In detail, a direct experimental evidence of the DNO dynamical behavior is presented at the analog level with a bifurcation diagram analysis, investigation of periodic and chaotic attractors, and dynamical stability. The autonomous circuit has been investigated as a source of entropy, adopting different figures of merit, including the Lempel–Ziv Complexity, to evaluate the dynamics measured under different operating conditions

Gas sensing properties of In2O3 nano-films obtained by low temperature pulsed electron deposition technique on alumina substrates

Nanostructured Indium(III) oxide (In2O3) films deposited by low temperature pulsed electron deposition (LPED) technique on customized alumina printed circuit boards have been manufactured and characterized as gas sensing devices. Their electrical properties have monitored directly during deposition to optimize their sensing performance. Experimental results with oxidizing (NO2) as well as reducing (CO) gases in both air and inert gas carriers are discussed and modeled

Strategies for the Accurate Measurement of the Resonance Frequency in QCM-D Systems via Low-Cost Digital Techniques

In this paper, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array)-based digital architecture for the measurement of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) oscillating frequency of transient responses, i.e., in QCM-D (QCM and Dissipation) applications, is presented. The measurement system is conceived for operations in liquid, with short QCM transient responses due to the large mechanical load. The proposed solution allows for avoiding the complex processing systems typically required by the QCM-D techniques and grants frequency resolutions better than 1 ppm. The core of the architecture is a reciprocal digital frequency meter, combined with the preprocessing of the QCM signal through mixing operations, such as a step-down of the input frequency and reducing the measurement error. The measurement error is further reduced through averaging. Different strategies are proposed to implement the proposed measurement solution, comprising an all-digital circuit and mixed analog/digital ones. The performance of the proposed architectures is theoretically derived, compared, and analyzed by means of experimental data obtained considering 10 MHz QCMs and 200 μs long transient responses. A frequency resolution of about 240 ppb, which corresponds to a Sauerbrey mass resolution of 8 ng/cm2, is obtained for the all-digital solution, whereas for the mixed solution the resolution halves to 120 ppb, with a measurement time of about one second over 100 repetitions

Characterization of the Response of Magnetron Sputtered In2O3−x Sensors to NO2

The response of resistive In2O3−x sensing devices was investigated as a function of the NO2 concentration in different operative conditions. Sensing layers are 150 nm thick films manufactured by oxygen-free room temperature magnetron sputtering deposition. This technique allows for a facile and fast manufacturing process, at same time providing advantages in terms of gas sensing performances. The oxygen deficiency during growth provides high densities of oxygen vacancies, both on the surface, where they are favoring NO2 absorption reactions, and in the bulk, where they act as donors. This n-type doping allows for conveniently lowering the thin film resistivity, thus avoiding the sophisticated electronic readout required in the case of very high resistance sensing layers. The semiconductor layer was characterized in terms of morphology, composition and electronic properties. The sensor baseline resistance is in the order of kilohms and exhibits remarkable performances with respect to gas sensitivity. The sensor response to NO2 was studied experimentally both in oxygen-rich and oxygen-free atmospheres for different NO2 concentrations and working temperatures. Experimental tests revealed a response of 32%/ppm at 10 ppm NO2 and response times of approximately 2 min at an optimal working temperature of 200 °C. The obtained performance is in line with the requirements of a realistic application scenario, such as in plant condition monitoring

Dreaming experience as a useful diagnostic clue for syncopal episodes

BACKGROUND: The differential diagnosis between epileptic seizures and syncopes is a common occurrence in clinical practice. The manifestations of seizure and syncope sometimes overlap, and available diagnostic testing often not provides a conclusive answer. Syncope is often preceded by a symptom complex characterized by lightheadedness, generalized muscle weakness, giddiness, visual blurring, tinnitus, and gastrointestinal symptoms. These subjective symptoms are very important in guiding the diagnosis. In our experience, the impression of coming out of a dream after the syncopal episode is a subjective symptom commonly reported by patients, if questioned. METHODS: To verify the occurrence of dreaming experience after syncope and after generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) and its diagnostic value in differential diagnosis, we asked 100 patients with GTCS and diagnosis of idiopathic generalized epilepsy (Group 1) and 100 patients with a certain diagnosis of syncope (Group 2) whether they have never felt the impression of coming out of a dream after the loss of consciousness (GTCS or syncope, respectively). RESULTS: In Group 1, nobody referred the dreaming experience, whereas in the syncope group, 19% of patients referred this subjective symptom. CONCLUSIONS: Dreaming experience seems to be an additional useful diagnostic clue for syncopal episodes, helping the clinician to differentiate them from seizures

Fibre Tip Sensor with Embedded FBG-LPG for Temperature and Refractive Index Determination by means of the Simple Measurement of the FBG Characteristics

A novel optical fibre sensing system based on a hybrid long period grating (LPG) and Bragg grating (FBG) configuration is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. The hybrid configuration, which uses the difference in temperature and refractive index (RI) different response of a Bragg grating and a long period grating, makes it possible to discriminate simultaneously the temperature and the refractive index of different aqueous solutions. RI (1.33 RIU–1.40 RIU) and temperature (21°C–28°C) working ranges have been experimentally determined. Experimental results show that the maximum accuracy in the refractive index measurement (0.004 RIU) with temperature compensation has been achieved within the working ranges