Representations of Europe and the Nation: How do Spaniards see themselves as Nationals and Europeans? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 4. No. 13, October, 2004

(From the introduction). The core theme of this article is the relation between citizens’ national identity and their European identity. After the European Union (EU) launched a series of policies aimed at creating a European identity at the end of the 1980s, the member states responded by including a paragraph in the Maastricht Treaty specifying that the Union should respect member states’ national identities (Article F, point 1). This reaction, along with the introduction of the principle of subsidiarity and the rejection of the word “Federal”, suggested that many member states saw the creation of a European identity as a potential threat to their own national identities and their citizens’ national loyalties. Indeed, in the early 1990s national identity was used by the political elites as a means of justifying the right to independent statehood and sovereignty. Due to the close links between national identity and national independence, many scholars have argued that the European integration process could be seen as a threat to national identity (Höjelid 2001), and hence difficult to achieve

Information Spreading on Almost Torus Networks

Epidemic modeling has been extensively used in the last years in the field of telecommunications and computer networks. We consider the popular Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible spreading model as the metric for information spreading. In this work, we analyze information spreading on a particular class of networks denoted almost torus networks and over the lattice which can be considered as the limit when the torus length goes to infinity. Almost torus networks consist on the torus network topology where some nodes or edges have been removed. We find explicit expressions for the characteristic polynomial of these graphs and tight lower bounds for its computation. These expressions allow us to estimate their spectral radius and thus how the information spreads on these networks

Defensive Resource Allocation in Social Networks

In this work, we are interested on the analysis of competing marketing campaigns between an incumbent who dominates the market and a challenger who wants to enter the market. We are interested in (a) the simultaneous decision of how many resources to allocate to their potential customers to advertise their products for both marketing campaigns, and (b) the optimal allocation on the situation in which the incumbent knows the entrance of the challenger and thus can predict its response. Applying results from game theory, we characterize these optimal strategic resource allocations for the voter model of social networks.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.538

Phenolic content and radical scavenging properties of natural extracts for traditional care of domestic animals in Mediterranean areas

Extracts of plants traditionally used for treatments on animals were tested for total phenolic, non tannic phenolic, condensed tannins and total flavonoid content. Antioxidant properties were determined using 2,2’-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) and 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) chemical assays following DMSO extraction. We also assessed the toxicity of extracts on cell viability and determined their ability to modulate the production of intracellular reactive oxygen species

THE WEALTH DISTRIBUTION WITH DURABLE GOODS

This paper studies the effect that illiquid assets and collateral credit frictions have on the level of wealth inequality in a standard model of ex-ante heterogenous agents with idiosyncratic uncertainty. We calibrate our model so that its steady state statistics match selected aggregate statistics of the U.S. economy and data on the earnings distribution. We find that adding illiquid assets and collateral credit frictions decreases wealth inequality decreases slightly relative to an economy with liquid assets and no credit frictions. The effect is small because these frictions mostly affect poor households that account for a small fraction of aggregate wealth. Nevertheless, our richer model allows us to study other dimensions of wealth inequality. In particular, our model replicates the fact that financial assets are more concentrated than total wealth, while residential assets are less concentrated. Furthermore, we document that, in the U.S., the earnings and housing distributions are remarkably similar. Our model can account for this fact so long as the earnings process is fairly persistent

ON THE USER COST AND HOMEOWNERSHIP

This paper studies the determinants of housing tenure choice and the differences in the cost of housing services across households in an overlapping generations model with household-specific uninsurable earnings risk and housing prices that vary over time. We model houses as illiquid assets that provide collateral for loans. To analyze the impact of preferential housing taxation on the tenure choice, we consider a tax system that mimics that of the U.S. economy in a stylized way. We find that a mixture of idiosyncratic earnings uncertainty, house price risk, down payments and transaction costs are needed for the model to deliver life cycle patterns of homeownership and portfolio composition similar to those found in the data. Through simulations, we also show that a rental equivalence approach (relative to a user cost approach) overestimates the mean unit cost of housing by approximately 3 percent.

Caratterizzazione dell'aridità in Sardegna attraverso l'uso dei diagrammi ombrotermici

The definitions, given by Bagnouls and Gaussen in the construction of ombrothermic diagrams, are used in order to study dryness in Sardinia. The analysis is carried in five thermopluviometric stations with different geographic and topoclimatic features, over a period of 62 years from 1926 to 1990. There are changes of the duration of dry period. These changes may be very important for climatic classification and from bioclimatological point of view. Moreover the variability of dryness is studied by means of the analysis of frequencies of dry months. Finally a comparison between the results coming from frequencies analysis and the information obtained by the ombrothermic diagrams is carried out in order to try a statistical modelisation of their relation

Insuring Island States: The Role of Insurance for Small Island States in Responding to the Adverse Effects of Sea Level Rise

Small island states are likely to suffer the greatest impact of sea level rise. They are also generally low emitters of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), meaning they have contributed little to the problem of human-induced climate change. For an array of reasons, including their reduced economic and political power relative to the international power of other states, these smaller islands and states have come together, forming the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Jointly, they have been battling to gain the attention of the international community in their search for solutions. However, they are still left with many unanswered questions and no clear path on how to deal with their issues. Will there be a future for them? Is anyone responsible for the damages and losses they will suffer? What will happen to their population and their resources? Do other countries have responsibility in light of their possible contributions to these circumstances? This article will discuss risks, present trends and theories, as well as possible ways to start answering some of these questions. It will then address how insurance companies playa part, considering the uncertainties of the consequences of climate change and the insurability of the risks associated with it

Climate Change and Indigenous Groups: The Rise of Indigenous Voices in Climate Litigation

Climate change’s pervasive human rights impacts on populations worldwide are widespread and now widely known. One avenue to address these human rights impacts is the growth of rights-based climate litigation. There are now hundreds of cases worldwide grounded on human rights claims. However, less attention has been brought to how vulnerable groups are disproportionally affected by climate change. Indigenous groups, in particular, are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their connection to their land and dependence on their ecosystems. To increase global attention and seek legal remedies to address how Indigenous communities are impacted by climate change, Indigenous groups are becoming important stakeholders in climate litigation. This article broadly discusses how Indigenous communities are negatively affected by climate change and how they use litigation to address them. The article answers these questions by bringing international, regional, and national examples