The Mélange of Innovation and Tradition in Maltese Law: The Essence of the Maltese Mix?

Aim of this paper is to provide valuable insights into the Maltese legal system with a special focus on private law. The assumption is that this legal system is the by-product of the "mixing" of innovation and tradition, resulting from the interaction of English law and continental law. A major role in the development of the system is played by courts. Some examples (moral damages and pre-contractual liability) are considered which highlight the importance of the function displayed by Maltese judges

Interspousal Claims at the Crossroads of Tort Law and Family Law: The Delicate Balance between Family and Individual

This paper discusses the solutions adopted by Italian law (on which this study is mainly focused) and U.S. law as to the issue of recoverability of non-monetary damages suffered by one spouse for the intentional tortious conduct of the other. These suits are usually raised within the divorce proceeding and are grounded in the Italian law on the breach of conjugal duties. In Italian law, notwithstanding the absence of specific provisions ruling this issue, and therefore the application of the general provisions on tort law not being barred, there was in the past a sort of immunity of family from the operation of tort law rules, resulting from the almost total absence of lawsuits in this field. The unfavourable Italian approach towards admitting marital torts had its background in custom, and could be easily explained through the proverb ―you shouldn‘t wash your dirty linen in public.‖ The immunity rule was not only typical to the Italian legal tradition, but was present also in American law. Unlike Italian law, in U.S. the immunity rule was rooted in common law (in accordance with the English legal tradition). The transformation of the traditional family model occurred in the western world, characterized by a shift from the primacy of the family unit upon the single member to the primary relevance of the individuals within the family, together with a wider recoverability of non-pecuniary losses, paved the way for the acknowledgement of interspousal torts in both the legal systems. The modern approach to the issue adopted in the Italian legal system will be illustrated mainly through judgments, while in U.S. the overcoming in most states of the traditional immunity rule (occurred through judicial rulings or by legislation) will be explained mainly through references to scholarship. This survey, rather than suggesting new approaches to interspousal tort liability aims at assessing differences and similarities on the ground of operational rules used in a field—that of family law—which in the past comparative law enquiries did not delve into because of its alleged ‘exceptionalism.

Convergence of collocation methods for solving periodic boundary value problems for renewal equations defined through finite-dimensional boundary conditions

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The Role of Judges in the Development of Mixed Legal Systems: The Case of Malta

Mixed jurisdictions that are a historical by-product of the convergence of common and civil law traditions may give the impression of entities with stable and fixed traits. Upon a closer look however, this impression is found to be inaccurate. An analysis of court judgements is the best way to evaluate how these legal systems develop. This paper focuses on Maltese private law, which is firmly rooted in the French legal tradition. Some issues concerning private law will be discussed solely because they are significant examples of the relevance that judgements have for the development of the system, notwithstanding the fact that the doctrine of binding precedent is not followed in Malta. Through an inquiry of specific issues not expressly provided for by the legislature, one can see if the legal system has evolved in a way which is coherent with the models that lie at its foundations or from which, and in what way, it has departed from them. In the case of Malta, foreign influences are incorporated to the extent that they are consistent with the Maltese legal tradition

Convergence analysis of collocation methods for computing periodic solutions of retarded functional differential equations

2noWe analyze the convergence of piecewise collocation methods for computing periodic solutions of general retarded functional differential equations under the abstract framework recently developed in [S. Maset, Numer. Math., 133 (2016), pp. 525-555], [S. Maset, SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 53 (2015), pp. 2771-2793], and [S. Maset, SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 53 (2015), pp. 2794-2821]. We rigorously show that a reformulation as a boundary value problem requires a proper infinite-dimensional boundary periodic condition in order to be amenable to such analysis. In this regard, we also highlight the role of the period acting as an unknown parameter, which is critical since it is directly linked to the course of time. Finally, we prove that the finite element method is convergent, while we limit ourselves to commenting on the infeasibility of this approach as far as the spectral element method is concerned.openopenANDO A.; BREDA D.Ando, A.; Breda, D

A Measurement Tool for Investigating the Volcanic Activity

Video surveillance systems are consolidated techniques for monitoring eruptive phenomena in volcanic areas. Along with these systems, which use standard video cameras, people working in this field sometimes make use of infrared cameras providing useful information about the thermal evolution of eruptions. Real-time analysis of the acquired frames is required along with image storing to analyze and classify the activity of volcanoes. Human efforts are hence required to perform monitoring tasks. In this paper a new strategy is presented, which aims to improve the performance of surveillance systems in terms of human-independent image processing. The proposed methodology is based on real time thermo graphic analysis of the area considered. The tool developed provides information about the activity being monitored

Localisation de la déformation dans les milieux granulaires

International audienceThis paper discusses strain localisation in granular media by presenting experimental, full-field analysis of mechanical tests on sand, both at a continuum level, as well as at the grain scale. At the continuum level, the development of structures of localised strain can be studied. Even at this scale, the characteristic size of the phenomena observed is in the order of a few grains. In the second part of this paper, therefore, the development of shear bands within specimen of different sands is studied at the level of the individual grains, measuring grains kinematics with x-ray tomography. The link between grain angularity and grain rotation within shear bands is shown, allowing a grain-scale explanation of the difference in macroscopic residual stresses for materials with different grain shapes. Finally, rarely described precursors of localisation, emerging well before the stress peak are observed and commented

A Measurement Tool for Investigating Cooling Lava Properties

This paper presents the development and uncertainty characterization of a system for the direct measurement of heat transfer in cooling lava. The system continuously measures the parameters involved in the cooling process and, particularly, in the formation of the crust. The aim is to allow the future development of a physical model of the cooling process itself. In order to realize a system that will be effective in such a hostile environment, the principles on which the instruments for radiation thermometry are based have been thoroughly investigated. A virtual instrument has been developed, interfacing the measuring system and the user, processing the incoming data, and producing an estimate of the uncertainty of the measurement chain. The various sources of uncertainty have been taken into account to produce an accurate estimate of the uncertainty associated with the measured data. The results of experimental tests are presented

Numerical continuation and delay equations: A novel approach for complex models of structured populations

Recently, many realistic models of structured populations are described through delay equations which involve quantities defined by the solutions of {it external} problems. For instance, the size or survival probability of individuals may be described by ordinary differential equations, and their maturation age may be determined by a nonlinear condition. When treating these complex models with existing continuation approaches in view of analyzing stability and bifurcations, the external quantities are computed from scratch at every continuation step. As a result, the requirements from the computational point of view are often demanding. In this work we propose to improve the overall performance by investigating a suitable numerical treatment of the external problems in order to include the relevant variables into the continuation framework, thus exploiting their values computed at each previous step. We explore and test this {it internal} continuation with prototype problems first. Then we apply it to a representative class of realistic models, demonstrating the superiority of the new approach in terms of computational time for a given accuracy threshold

A flow sensor exploiting magnetic fluids

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