The ECB is running out of policy space: Can fiscal policy help? CEPS Policy Insights No 2019-17/December 2019

Given persistently low inflation, sluggish growth and global uncertainties, the ECB needs to provide even more monetary stimulus. However, with interest rates already negative and strong opposition to further asset purchases (Financial Times, 13 September 2019), it seems to have run out of ammunition. This is why former ECB President Draghi, in his last press conference, called for fiscal policy ‘to do its part’ (Draghi, 2019). A further argument in favour of fiscal stimulus concerns the strident complaints of German savers about negative rates (Bindseil et al., 2015). An expansionary fiscal policy would presumably drive interest rates higher. According to this line of argument ‘the Germans’ should thus favour a fiscal stimulus in their own interest. Evaluating the Impact of Fiscal Expansion on inflation and interest rates To understand whether an expansionary fiscal policy can provide significant support to the ECB (and relief for German savers) a quantitative model is needed. There exist many different macroeconomic models making it possible to study the effect of fiscal policies. We use the mainstream models used by central banks and international institutions. This allows us to test the proposition, made by ECB representatives, that a fiscal expansion would materially help in achieving the inflation target within the type of models used by the ECB itself

A relativistic navigation system for space

We present here a method for the relativistic positioning in spacetime based on the reception of pulses from sources of electromagnetic signals whose worldline is known. The method is based on the use of a fourdimensional grid covering the whole spacetime and made of the null hypersurfaces representing the propagating pulses. In our first approach to the problem of positioning we consider radio-pulsars at infinity as primary sources of the required signals. The reason is that, besides being very good clocks, pulsars can be considered as being fixed stars for reasonably long times. The positioning is obtained linearizing the worldline of the observer for times of the order of a few periods of the signals. We present an exercise where the use of our method applied to the signals from four real pulsars permits the reconstruction of the motion of the Earth with respect to the fixed stars during three days. The uncertainties and the constraints of the method are discussed and the possibilities of using mov- ing artificial sources carried around by celestial bodies or spacecrafts in the Solar System is also discusse

A relativistic positioning system exploiting pulsating sources for navigation across the Solar System and beyond

We introduce an operational approach to the use of pulsating sources, located at spatial infinity, for defining a relativistic positioning and navigation system, based on the use of null four-vectors in a flatMinkowskian spacetime. We describe our approach and discuss the validity of it and of the other approximations we have considered in actual physical situations. As a prototypical case, we show how pulsars can be used to define such a positioning system: the reception of the pulses for a set of different sources whose positions in the sky and periods are assumed to be known allows the determination of the user's coordinates and spacetime trajectory, in the reference frame where the sources are at rest. In order to confirm the viability of the method, we consider an application example reconstructing the world-line of an idealized Earth in the reference frame of distant pulsars: in particular we have simulated the arrival times of the signals fromfour pulsars at the location of the Parkes radiotelescope in Australia. After pointing out the simplifications we have made, we discuss the accuracy of the method. Eventually, we suggest that the method could actually be used for navigation across the Solar System and be based on artificial sources, rather than pulsar

Preface. Social aspects and well‑being for improving healing processes’ effectiveness

The need to realize a monograph on "social aspects in healthcare facilities” becomes a key-point since the new trends in new hospitals’ planning and design or renovation of an existing health structure require that all the processes must rotate around the user and his needs. Hospital, since its origins, represents the social community and, in the socio-cultural context, the return to the values of interdependence and solidarity. Moreover, it embodies the permeability and the availability of entertainment and cultural activities in order to respond to the community’s demands. In fact, healthcare facilities should be oriented to the patient, providing system of diagnostic and therapeutic processes focused on the solution of health issues and able to meet the daily needs and rights of the patient: information, user-centered environments, safety, comfort, privacy, not excessive promiscuity with other users and the opportunity to meet his relatives should be ensured to each patient. “Social aspects” mean the possibility to guarantee the central role of the patient, taking into consideration also the workers and the high stress they undergo. In this way hospital’s spaces must be designed thinking to users and then considering the furniture, colours, quality of the materials, signage, sounds, temperature, humidity, ventilation, brightness, view, cleanliness and hygiene. All these parameters should communicate warmth and friendliness, thinking that health means the whole physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of disease. In this context, it is obvious to highlight the innovative studies of R. Ulrich in the 80s about Evidence Based Design, focused on the principle that built environment produces psychological effects and influences the users’ behaviour through measurable clinical results. Nowadays, it is necessary a multidisciplinary approach for the design and managing healthcare structures in order to link different skills and needs. It is fundamental that several disciplines (medicine, architecture, engineering, technology, design, etc.) should be adapted to take into account the comfort, meant as the perception and quality of the spaces [6], for the user, who is recognized both in patient, visitor or worker. The research of factors, that define the health, shifts the attention from a sanitary model, focused on the individual, to a social model, where health is the result of socio-economic, cultural and environmental aspects or indirectly related to the specific characteristics of the urban settlement. Well-being is not anymore related only to the field of the health, but it is an important aim, strongly influenced by the context in which people live. The choice to deal with “social aspects” related to healthcare facilities through multidisciplinary research, aims to fill the contemporary lack of the State of the Art to propose works that take into consideration the improvement of the user’s experience inside the hospital and do not involve only the health care fields. The factors considered regards the perception of users, qualitative and quantitative studies and space’s analysis, ad hoc questionnaires for users and workers, etc. in order to underline and understand benefits that users and works can achieve. For this reason, the monograph is composed by several articles written by experts and research groups that are addressing the social-health issues in different forms and at different scales

Social health: the challenges for healthcare facilities’ design

The need to realize a monograph on "social aspects in healthcare facilities” becomes a key-point since the new trends in new hospitals’ planning and design or renovation of an existing health structure require that all the processes must rotate around the user and his needs. [1] Hospital, since its origins, represents the social community and, in the socio-cultural context, the return to the values of interdependence and solidarity. Moreover, it embodies the permeability and the availability of entertainment and cultural activities in order to respond to the community’s demands. In fact, healthcare facilities should be oriented to the patient, providing system of diagnostic and therapeutic processes focused on the solution of health issues and able to meet the daily needs and rights of the patient: information, user-centered environments, safety, comfort, privacy, not excessive promiscuity with other users and the opportunity to meet his relatives should be ensured to each patient. “Social aspects” mean the possibility to guarantee the central role of the patient, taking into consideration also the workers and the high stress they undergo. In this way hospital’s spaces must be designed thinking to users and then considering the furniture, colours, quality of the materials, signage, sounds, temperature, humidity, ventilation, brightness, view, cleanliness and hygiene. [2] All these parameters should communicate warmth and friendliness, thinking that health means the whole physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of disease. [3,4] In this context, it is obvious to highlight the innovative studies of R. Ulrich in the 80s about Evidence Based Design, focused on the principle that built environment produces psychological effects and influences the users’ behaviour through measurable clinical results. [5] Nowadays, it is necessary a multidisciplinary approach for the design and managing healthcare structures in order to link different skills and needs. It is fundamental that several disciplines (medicine, architecture, engineering, technology, design, etc.) should be adapted to take into account the comfort, meant as the perception and quality of the spaces [6], for the user, who is recognized both in patient, visitor or worker. [7] The research of factors, that define the health, shifts the attention from a sanitary model, focused on the individual, to a social model, where health is the result of socio-economic, cultural and environmental aspects or indirectly related to the specific characteristics of the urban settlement. Well-being is not anymore related only to the field of the health, but it is an important aim, strongly influenced by the context in which people live. [8-9] The choice to deal with “social aspects” related to healthcare facilities through multidisciplinary research, aims to fill the contemporary lack of the State of the Art to propose works that take into consideration the improvement of the user’s experience inside the hospital and do not involve only the health care fields. The factors considered regards the perception of users, qualitative and quantitative studies and space’s analysis, ad hoc questionnaires for users and workers, etc. in order to underline and understand benefits that users and works can achieve. For this reason, the monograph is composed by several articles written by experts and research groups that are addressing the social-health issues in different forms and at different scales

Pulsars as celestial beacons to detect the motion of the Earth

In order to show the principle viability of a recently proposed relativistic positioning method based on the use of pulsed signals from sources at infinity, we present an application example reconstructing the world-line of an idealized Earth in the reference frame of distant pulsars. The method considers the null four-vectors built from the period of the pulses and the direction cosines of the propagation from each source. Starting from a simplified problem (a receiver at rest) we have been able to calibrate our procedure, evidencing the influence of the uncertainty on the arrival times of the pulses as measured by the receiver, and of the numerical treatment of the data. The most relevant parameter turns out to be the accuracy of the clock used by the receiver. Actually the uncertainty used in the simulations combines both the accuracy of the clock and the fluctuations in the sources. As an evocative example the method has then been applied to the case of an ideal observer moving as a point on the surface of the Earth. The input have been the simulated arrival times of the signals from four pulsars at the location of the Parkes radiotelescope in Australia. Some substantial simplifications have been made both excluding the problems of visibility due to the actual size of the planet, and the behaviour of the sources. A rough application of the method to a three days run gives a correct result with a poor accuracy. The accuracy is then enhanced to the order of a few hundred meters if a continuous set of data is assumed. The method could actually be used for navigation across the solar system and be based on artificial sources, rather than pulsars. The viability of the method, whose additional value is in the self-sufficiency, i.e. independence from any control from other operators, has been confirmed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 eps figures; revised to match the version accepted for publication in IJMP

Workshop: Urban Green Spaces, Built Environment and Urban - Mental - Environmental Health outcomes

Environmental sustainability, especially in an era of growth health inequality, is one of the most important challenges facing Public Health systems around the World. Environmental sustainability is responsibly interacting with the planet to maintain natural resources and not jeopardize the ability for future generations to meet their needs. The SDGs put environmental sustainability at the center of sustainable development. Environmental Health is the branch of Public Health concerning all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health, such as pollution, poverty and inadequate energy solutions. Urban Health is an intersectoral arena that links both the public health and the urban planning sectors, mainly captured by SDG3 (including Mental health) and SDG11. Both during the first waves of the Covid-19 pandemic period and in contemporary cities, urban environments were stressed; the resilience of our cities were tested, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the urban contexts, not always capable to pro-mote and protect the population health status. Urban Green Spaces (UGS) have proved essential role as ‘‘tools’’ to improve Urban Public and Mental Health. Unfortunately, the heterogeneous distribution of UGS inside the contemporary cities, together with the disparity in quality of such spaces, led to some exclusion phenomena. Evidence/experience-based research strongly demonstrated the positive effects on Public Health of the UGS, and for this reason, they are now becoming the strategic and challenging issue of many urban regeneration programs. The importance of UGS as a key infrastructure has generated the necessity of developing new health-centered design criteria able to conform to their new role in urban environments. The augmentation of UGS surface alone, does not necessarily make cities more livable. An increase in area and surfaces does not translate in ease of accessibility from all social groups or from all the cities’ neighborhoods, or not does it give data on the qualities of such areas, like potential for social engagement or Physical Activity. Aim of the Workshop - organized by the three EUPHA Section URB+MEN+ENV - it would like to be to build the capacity and knowledge between participants about the main topics and urban features capable to have relevant Urban Public, Mental and Environmental Health outcomes. Additional scope is to collected case studies and research experiences considered virtuous at the international level, analyzed in detail to highlight the main urban and architectural features of those healthy experiences and the related health outcomes, such as sedentary lifestyle reduction, increase of the attractiveness of places, reduction of air and noise pollution

Workshop: The city of proximity: Accessible, Inclusive, Sustainable, Healthy and Salutogenic

According to the ‘‘Urban Health Rome Declaration’’ at European meeting ‘‘G7 Health’’ that defines the strategic aspects and actions to improve Urban, Environmental and Public Mental Health into the cities, and referring to the Agenda 2030 in which the 11th SDG argue about ‘‘Sustainable Cities and Communities. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’’, one of the most expressive syntheses of the challenging relationship between urban planning and Public Health is stated by WHO (2016): ‘‘Health is the precondition of urban sustainable development and the first priority for urban planners’’. Referring to the Healthy Cities & Urban Health definitions, we can consider Public Health not merely an aspect of individual health protection and promotion, but a collective condition, strongly influenced by the environmental context and by the strategies implemented by local Governments. The ‘‘Health in All Policies’’ strategy, clearly underlines how health depend by the quality of outdoor and indoor living environments. In this scenario, healthy living and the requirements for healthy places, infrastructure for the public good and Public Health, cycling, walking, disintegrating the role of polluting traffic from the urban environments, social vulnerability and equality are just a few aspects in complex puzzle when designing the urban spaces for healthy, active, walkable cities. The lockdown due to the pandemic has prevented travels, forcing many people to work at home and reducing the possibility of accessing services in the territory. This condition has further highlighted the importance of urban living areas capable of satisfying basic needs within a reasonably easy range of accessibility. The concept of the ‘‘15 minutes city’’ is a useful vision to represent the city of proximity, where it is possible to meet the needs for sustainable, fair, quality, and healthy living. This dimension of proximity can be central to formulating strategies to improve the quality of urban life. A place of proximity, therefore not only defined based on the physical characteristics and people’s uses, but also based on the data collected from a public health perspective in which it is also possible to try to test different types of information and build the conditions to suggest suitable policies and projects. Aim of the Workshop - organized by the two EUPHA Section URB+ENV - it would like to be to build the capacity and knowledge between participants about the main topics and urban features capable to have relevant Urban Public and Environmental Health outcomes. Additional scope is to collected case studies and research experiences considered virtuous at the international level, analyzed in detail to highlight the main urban and architectural features of those healthy experiences and the related health outcomes, such as sedentary lifestyle reduction, increase of the attractiveness of places, reduction of air and noise pollution