In May 2023, the Italian region Emilia-Romagna was hit by intense rainfall, which caused extensive floods in densely populated areas. On May 4, 2023, a 12-month state of emergency was declared in the region with the activation of response and recovery plans. This field report provides an overview of the health response to the floods, paying particular attention to the measures put in place to ensure care for displaced populations and raising interesting points of discussion regarding the role of the health system during extreme weather events (EWEs). The considerations that emerge from this report underline the need for a primary care approach to disasters, especially when these occur in areas with a high prevalence of elderly resident population, and underscore the importance of integration of different levels of care.

An accurate dynamic model of a robot is fundamentally important for a control system, while uncertainties residing in the model are inevitable in a physical robot system. The uncertainties can be categorized as internal disturbances and external disturbances in general. The former may include dynamic model errors and joint frictions, while the latter may include external payloads or human-exerted force to the robot. Disturbance observer is an important technique to estimate and compensate for the uncertainties of the dynamic model. Different types of disturbance observers have been developed to estimate the lumped uncertainties so far. In this paper, we conducted a brief survey on five typical types of observers from a perspective of practical implementation in a robot control system, including generalized momentum observer (GMO), joint velocity observer (JVOB), nonlinear disturbance observer (NDOB), disturbance Kalman filter (DKF), and extended state observer (ESO). First, we introduced the basics of each observer including equations and derivations. Two common types of disturbances are considered as two scenarios, that is, constant external disturbance and time-varying external disturbance. Then, the observers are separately implemented in each of the two simulated scenarios, and the disturbance tracking performance of each observer is presented while their performance in the same scenario has also been compared in the same figure. Finally, the main features and possible behaviors of each type of observer are summarized and discussed. This survey is devoted to helping readers learn the basic expressions of five typical observers and implement them in a robot control system.

We prove that for every tree $T$ of radius $h$, there is an integer $c$ such that every $T$-minor-free graph is contained in $H\boxtimes K_c$ for some graph $H$ with pathwidth at most $2h-1$. This is a qualitative strengthening of the Excluded Tree Minor Theorem of Robertson and Seymour (GM I). We show that radius is the right parameter to consider in this setting, and $2h-1$ is the best possible bound.

The potential of Momordica charantia var. muricata, a little-known wild form, as a source of favourable alleles in breeding and improvement of bitter melons (M. charantia var. charantia), is demonstrated. The M. charantia var. charantia cultivar Priyanka and M. charantia var. muricata accession IC634896 were crossed with each other and cross ability and performance of F1 plants were studied. These botanical varieties were fully cross-compatible on either direction. Surprisingly, cross of Priyanka × IC634896 produced 80.0 fruits compared to 17.0 in Priyanka and fruit yield per plant (2287.4 g) was more than double that in Priyanka (1042.3 g). This hybrid has to be back crossed with commercial cultivar to improve its fruit size, with no compromise on fruit number. This is the first study showing the promise of M. charantia var. muricata as a potential donor in bitter melon breeding.

The policy area addressing the climate crisis in the UK, ‘Net Zero’, will affect many aspects of people’s everyday life. Given that policy builds from where we are now, which for some (post austerity, and mid cost of living crisis) means in financial crisis, there is work to be done in enabling a socially inclusive Net Zero. In this article, we modify the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix’s four forms of participation for social inclusion, drawing on the existing literature on the social risks of environmental policy, to articulate the risks of social exclusion in transition to Net Zero. This enables us to develop a ‘person-centred’ approach to understanding the risks of Net Zero, articulating the risks of exclusion, and who is likely to be affected by them. We conclude by outlining a framework for an inclusive transition, and commenting on the policy and research implications of our thinking.

The notion of countable well order admits an alternative definition in terms of embeddings between initial segments. We use the framework of reverse mathematics to investigate the logical strength of this definition and its connection with Fraïssé’s conjecture, which has been proved by Laver. We also fill a small gap in Shore’s proof that Fraïssé’s conjecture implies arithmetic transfinite recursion over $\mathbf {RCA}_0$, by giving a new proof of $\Sigma ^0_2$-induction.

After drawing a distinction between “class” and “status,” an early but short-lived sociological literature on status politics is reviewed. That approach has lost favor, but moral foundations theory (MFT) offers a new opportunity to link morality policy to status politics. While any of the five moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity) can provoke conflict over status, most often sanctity is the cause of status politics because it engages the emotion of disgust. Disgust drives the behavioral immune system, which prevents us from being infected by contaminants in tainted food or by “outsiders” who are perceived to follow unconventional practices. This research note concludes by referencing 20 empirical studies in which feelings of disgust targeted certain groups or practices in society (i.e., immigrants, criminals, abortion). Thus, status politics is the origin of morality policy.

This article examines images of revolution in Chinese artworks within a global context. It argues that the theme of revolution in Chinese art can be divided into three movements: (1) Art of Scars, (2) New Wave ’85, from which political pop art and cynical realism took their roots, and (3) the modern twenty-first century trend of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. An analysis of political pop art identified a synthesis of academic and iconographic features and Western philosophical concepts, which can be found in the semiotic elements of the painting Maozedong: AO. Its cynical realism is similar to the satire of the American painter in his Daughters of Revolution. Both artworks depict images of the "citizen" in an era of historical change. This analysis of the painting in the style of Mao and the Cultural Revolution offers a rethinking of traditional Chinese canons as a response to the Western religious traditions influenced by a multicultural environment. The data can be used as an additional source to examine symbolism and semiotics in the artistic language of Chinese artists representing the culture of revolution.

This article seeks to extend the theoretical discussion of interstitial emergence to an authoritarian context. An interstitial space is a space whose relations with the dominant power structure are not yet institutionalized. In analyzing interstitial emergence in an authoritarian context, it is necessary to examine the interaction between interstitial space and the state as an institutionalizing force and recognize that 1) institutionalization is an ongoing process that spans over a period and 2) a state’s intervention may induce unintended consequences. The rise and fall of labor NGO activism in China between 1996 and 2020 are used as a case to illustrate the theoretical discussion. Labor NGOs emerged out of the interstices of state control since the 1990s. Although the state started to regulate these organizations since the late 2000s, its intervention lacked consistency. Before the state finally gained the capacity to enforce rules, which was around 2015, labor NGOs had already launched a series of advocacy activism and cultivated a group of activists who identified with the value of social movement. Hence, although the activism was eventually incorporated, it had successfully thematized labor issues and produced enduring impact on the culture of public discussion.

Colonial Latin America had the fame of being a land where lower-class people were forever suing their betters. To Latin America's popular classes, the law was an indispensable instrument for claiming rights, solving conflicts, and advancing interests. Fast-forward to the middle of the twentieth century, however, and Latin American law held a very different fame. The law was now something to be shunned. It was seen as an instrument of power, manipulated by the rich and influential. Public trust in the law was low, and support for alternative forms of justice, high. In comparison with the colonial era, we are faced with a baffling reversal. This article seeks to explain that reversal by elaborating three propositions: (P1) popular trust in the law declined because of the law's increasing formalism, particularly evident in the codification of civil and criminal law over the course of the nineteenth century; (P2) popular trust in the law declined because of the rise of patrimonial capitalism over the period of study; and (P3) popular trust in the law declined because a new generation of social rights became politicized, first under populist, corporatist regimes that arose in the region in the early and mid-twentieth century and then under the region's Cold-War military dictatorships.

This paper presents an optimization method for pattern synthesis of distorted phased array antenna with unsteady surface deformation considering the dynamic range ratio (DRR). In the synthesis approach, different array deformations under unsteady mechanical loads are considered, and the distorted distribution of array elements is calculated after solving the mechanical deformation model. Then, optimize the excitation coefficients of each array element including amplitude and phase with DRR control so as to recover a high-quality pattern from a deteriorated pattern caused by the unsteady deformations. The optimization objective is to minimize the peak sidelobe level, which is synthesized by using a gradient-based algorithm. The optimized excitations can be used as the initial excitation, and the corresponding phase excitations can be derived according to the different deformations.