Adolescent childbearing is a crucial problem challenging policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries. The objective of this study is to show how teenage pregnancy and motherhood is related to social determinants like place of residence, education level and wealth quintiles, and consequently to suggest pragmatic actions susceptible to control the burden of teenage pregnancy. Disaggregated data were analyzed using data covering the decade 2012–2022 and provided by Demographic Health Surveys. In each country considered, the index of dissimilarity (ID) was computed to illustrate the variation of teenage pregnancy and motherhood according to the level of education, the rural-urban residence and the income quintiles. Recent statistics were also used for a comparison between countries. This study showed that childbearing affected 22.7% of African adolescents (15–19 years). However, the rate of adolescent childbearing varied from 40.4% in Nigeria to 5.2% in Ruanda. Moreover, huge differences were found in each country. Teenage girls living in rural areas, illiterate or with low level of education and suffering from poverty are more likely to be early married and to be exposed to pregnancy. The rate of adolescent childbearing is higher in Sub-Saharan African countries compared with countries from Latin America and World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean. Most of the 31 countries considered in this study suffer from high rate of adolescent childbearing and large iniquities by place of residence and/or education level and/or wealth quintiles. Consequently, policymakers should adopt urgent and efficient strategies to reduce (and ideally to end) early marriage and teenage pregnancy by developing a policy that targets disadvantaged girls living in remote areas, having low or no decent income and suffering from illiteracy or low level of education.

Political representation is responsible for choices regarding the supply and the management of transport infrastructure, but its decisions are sometimes in conflict with the will and the general interest expressed by citizens. This situation has progressively prompted the use of specific corrective measures in order to obtain socially sustainable decisions, such as the deliberative procedures for the appraisal of public goods. The standard Stated Choice Modelling Technique (SCMT) can be used to estimate the community appreciation for public goods such as transport infrastructure; but the application of the SCMT in its standard form would be inadequate to provide an estimation that expresses the general interest of the affected community. Hence the need to adapt the standard SCMT on the basis of the operational conditions imposed by deliberative appraisal procedures. Therefore, the general aim of the paper is to outline the basic conditions on which a modified SCMT with deliberative procedure can be set up. Firstly, the elements of the standard SCMT on which to make the necessary adjustments are identified; subsequently, modifications and additions to make to the standard technique are indicated; finally, the contents of an extensive program of experimentation are outlined.

Nanomaterials are a recently discovered type of material that is gaining importance and receiving a lot of attention from researchers. Due to their numerous advantages, scholars are studying nanoparticles extensively. The articles in this issue that discuss the various applications of nanoparticles are very interesting. The majority of these articles focus on the use of nanoparticles in the medical sector and their contributions to environmental protection.

Taking six typical forest communities in Taizhou Green Heart (ⅰ: Liquidambar formosana + Ulmus pumila + Celtis sinensis; ⅱ: Celtis sinensis + Pterocarya stenoptera + Pinus massoniana; ⅲ: Sapindus mukorossi + Sapium sebiferum + Cupressus funebris; ⅳ: Liquidambar formosana + Acer buergerianum + Cupressus funebris); ⅴ: Celtis sinensis + Ligustrum compactum + Pinus massoniana; ⅵ: Machilus ichangensis + Sapindus mukorossi + Acer buergerianum) as the research objects, 5 indicators: Shannon-Wiener (H), Patrick richness (R1), Margalef species richness (R2), Pielou evenness (J) and ecological dominance (D) were used to analyze species diversity in forest communities. The results showed that: (1) the community was rich in plant resources, with a total of 50 species belonging to 40 genus and 31 families, including 19 species in tree layer, 22 species in shrub layer and only 9 species in herb layer, few plant species; (2) the species richness and diversity index of tree layer and shrub layer were significantly higher than that of herb layer, but there were differences among different communities in the same layer, and no significant difference was reached; (3) the species richness and community diversity of the six communities showed as follows: community VI > community I > community II > community IV > community V > community III.

The present work shows an application of the Chan-Vese algorithm for the semi-automatic segmentation of anatomical structures of interest (lungs and lung tumor) in 4DCT images of the thorax, as well as their three-dimensional reconstruction. The segmentation and reconstruction were performed on 10 CT images, which make up an inspiration-expiration cycle. The maximum displacement was calculated for the case of the lung tumor using the reconstructions of the onset of inspiration, the onset of expiration, and the voxel information. The proposed method achieves appropriate segmentation of the studied structures regardless of their size and shape. The three-dimensional reconstruction allows us to visualize the dynamics of the structures of interest throughout the respiratory cycle. In the future, it is expected to have more evidence of the good performance of the proposed method and to have the feedback of the clinical expert, since the knowledge of the characteristics of anatomical structures, such as their dimension and spatial position, helps in the planning of Radiotherapy (RT) treatments, optimizing the radiation dose to cancer cells and minimizing it in healthy organs. Therefore, the information found in this work may be of interest for the planning of RT treatments.