The transformation of Jean-Luc Mélenchon: from radical outsider to populist leader

A late surge in support for the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has added an extra layer of drama to France’s presidential election ahead of the first round of voting on 23 April. With Mélenchon now polling close enough to the leaders that he has a chance of making it to the second round, Marco Damiani traces his political career and assesses what it might mean for France if he secures an unlikely victory

The crisis of the French Socialist Party: Does the PS still have a future?

The French Socialist Party (PS) suffered a dramatic fall in popularity in the 2017 French presidential and legislative elections, with a number of high profile members subsequently choosing to leave the party in the aftermath of the result. Marco Damiani traces the party's decline and assesses whether the PS still has a future in the French party system

A model of protocell based on the introduction of a semi-permeable membrane in a stochastic model of catalytic reaction networks

In this work we introduce some preliminary analyses on the role of a semi-permeable membrane in the dynamics of a stochastic model of catalytic reaction sets (CRSs) of molecules. The results of the simulations performed on ensembles of randomly generated reaction schemes highlight remarkable differences between this very simple protocell description model and the classical case of the continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR). In particular, in the CSTR case, distinct simulations with the same reaction scheme reach the same dynamical equilibrium, whereas, in the protocell case, simulations with identical reaction schemes can reach very different dynamical states, despite starting from the same initial conditions.Comment: In Proceedings Wivace 2013, arXiv:1309.712

THE NEW LEFT IN THE EUROPEAN DEMOCRACIES. The case of the German Radical Left.

The new form of the social and political conflict cannot be explained by the traditional categories of right and left, but it articulates to them on two plans, that of the establishment, intended like plan of the struc-tured political conflict from the traditional actors, and that of the anti-establishment, in which new repre-sentations of politics emerge. The New Left is characterized by type of intermittent participation and new perspectives on mobilization inside the parties and the social movements. This type of parties differs moreover from the traditional ones left of the socialist and social democratic left in not arranging of organi-zations collaterals placed under the direction of the leadership of the same party. The mobilization that spontaneously assumes not conventional forms of active participation of the citizens, or is primed by the action of an associative network of which the same parties take part, than however does not monopolize the collective action. In this regard, the attention will be dedicated to the study of Die Linke: an anti-establishment party of the non-socialist German left-wing, heir to the communist tradition. The choice was affected to the German model because: 1) Germany is a country with a strong social democratic tradition, but 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the German political system identifies a new antagonist political party; 2) Die Linke represents an interesting case in the political landscape of the European radical left be-cause is a one-party that gives up at the federation of parties to try to unify the political parties of German radical left-wing

The New Left in the European Democracies: The Case of the German Radical Left

The new form of the social and political conflict cannot be explained by the traditional categories of right and left, but it articulates to them on two plans, that of the establishment, intended like plan of the structured political conflict from the traditional actors, and that of the anti-establishment, in which new representations of politics emerge. The New Left is characterized by type of intermittent participation and new perspectives on mobilization inside the parties and the social movements. This type of parties differs moreover from the traditional ones left of the socialist and social democratic left in not arranging of organizations collaterals placed under the direction of the leadership of the same party. The mobilization that spontaneously assumes not conventional forms of active participation of the citizens, or is primed by the action of an associative network of which the same parties take part, than however does not monopo-lize the collective action. In this regard, the attention will be dedicated to the study of Die Linke: an anti-establishment party of the non-socialist German left-wing, heir to the communist tradition. The choice was affected to the German model because: 1) Germany is a country with a strong social democratic tradition, but 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the German political system identifies a new antagonist political party; 2) Die Linke represents an interesting case in the political landscape of the European radical left because is a one-party that gives up at the federation of parties to try to unify the political parties of German radical left-wing

On Designing Multicore-aware Simulators for Biological Systems

The stochastic simulation of biological systems is an increasingly popular technique in bioinformatics. It often is an enlightening technique, which may however result in being computational expensive. We discuss the main opportunities to speed it up on multi-core platforms, which pose new challenges for parallelisation techniques. These opportunities are developed in two general families of solutions involving both the single simulation and a bulk of independent simulations (either replicas of derived from parameter sweep). Proposed solutions are tested on the parallelisation of the CWC simulator (Calculus of Wrapped Compartments) that is carried out according to proposed solutions by way of the FastFlow programming framework making possible fast development and efficient execution on multi-cores.Comment: 19 pages + cover pag

A stochastic model of catalytic reaction networks in protocells

Protocells are supposed to have played a key role in the self-organizing processes leading to the emergence of life. Existing models either (i) describe protocell architecture and dynamics, given the existence of sets of collectively self-replicating molecules for granted, or (ii) describe the emergence of the aforementioned sets from an ensemble of random molecules in a simple experimental setting (e.g. a closed system or a steady-state flow reactor) that does not properly describe a protocell. In this paper we present a model that goes beyond these limitations by describing the dynamics of sets of replicating molecules within a lipid vesicle. We adopt the simplest possible protocell architecture, by considering a semi-permeable membrane that selects the molecular types that are allowed to enter or exit the protocell and by assuming that the reactions take place in the aqueous phase in the internal compartment. As a first approximation, we ignore the protocell growth and division dynamics. The behavior of catalytic reaction networks is then simulated by means of a stochastic model that accounts for the creation and the extinction of species and reactions. While this is not yet an exhaustive protocell model, it already provides clues regarding some processes that are relevant for understanding the conditions that can enable a population of protocells to undergo evolution and selection.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

On political parties in contemporary democracies. From the classic perspective to the current debate.

The crisis of political parties in contemporary societies and democracies is composed of different points of views, that require a joint effort for social and political science to try to understand the changing relation-ship between citizens and parties. Compared to the political mass models, which are typical of the second half of the twentieth century, parties undergo deep processes of transformation. The beginning of a critical season for the traditional forms of political organization goes back to those years; and this critical season can be configured as ideological, organizational and institutional. Between the twentieth and twenty-first century, the political parties has strengthened the structure of their political organization and the weight of their parliamentary activities within the institutions, becoming more and more «state-centered parties», characterized by the progressive reduction of the forms of territorial settlement and the growth of the im-portance of central organisms and the representatives of the assemblies, especially those elected in na-tional parliaments. This results in significant changes of the organizational model and their political func-tions. In the face of these changes, will the parties still remain a key player for the functioning of contem-porary democracy? We will focus on three fundamental steps: the analysis of the creation process of par-ties and of their function; the description of the most recent perspectives in political parties; the analysis of the relationship between the personalisation of politics and the passage to leader democracy

On Political Parties in Contemporary Democracies: From the classic perspective to the current debate

The crisis of political parties in contemporary societies and democracies is composed of differ-ent points of views, that require a joint effort for social and political science to try to understand the changing relationship between citizens and parties. Compared to the political mass models, which are typ-ical of the second half of the twentieth century, parties undergo deep processes of transformation. The beginning of a critical season for the traditional forms of political organization goes back to those years; and this critical season can be configured as ideological, organizational and institutional. Between the twentieth and twenty-first century, the political parties has strengthened the structure of their political organization and the weight of their parliamentary activities within the institutions, becoming more and more «state-centered parties», characterized by the progressive reduction of the forms of territorial set-tlement and the growth of the importance of central organisms and the representatives of the assemblies, especially those elected in national parliaments. This results in significant changes of the organizational model and their political functions. In the face of these changes, will the parties still remain a key player for the functioning of contemporary democracy? We will focus on three fundamental steps: the analysis of the creation process of parties and of their function; the description of the most recent perspectives in political parties; the analysis of the relationship between the personalisation of politics and the passage to leader democracy