$\beta$-decay studies using total absorption techniques: some recent results

$\beta$-decay experiments, are a primary source of information for nuclear structure studies and at the same time complementary to in-beam investigations far from stability. Although both types of experiment are mainly based on $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy, they face different experimental problems. The so-called $\textit{Pandemonium effect}$ is a critical problem in $\beta$-decay. In this contribution we will present a solution to this problem using total absorption spectroscopy methods. We will also present some examples of experiments carried out with the total absorption spectrometers TAS at GSI and Lucrecia recently installed at CERN. (25 refs).