Agents and Brokers as Intermediaries: Their Regulation in Germany

Most markets are characterized by imperfections, mostly market power and limited information. Under these circumstances, intermediaries like real estate agents and insurance brokers play an important role in the economy by facilitating exchange between third parties. As specialized entities they can transmit information, thereby lessening information asymmetries between market participants and can thus enhance the functioning of markets. This special role allows for opportunistic behavior by intermediaries, though. As long as the parties can write enforceable contracts that cover the relevant aspects of the intermediaries behavior, legal regulation is not necessary. In this paper it will be shown, though, that contracts are only partially able to solve possible principalagent problems and that the current legal rules in Germany are inefficient as they can not sufficiently control possible opportunistic behavior. A system of legal rules for intermediaries is sketched, taking into account that severe informa-tional asymmetry is more likely to arise if transactions are infrequent and learning does not take place.

Experimental results of a terrain relative navigation algorithm using a simulated lunar scenario

This paper deals with the problem of the navigation of a lunar lander based on the Terrain Relative Navigation approach. An algorithm is developed and tested on a scaled simulated lunar scenario, over which a tri-axial moving frame has been built to reproduce the landing trajectories. At the tip of the tri-axial moving frame, a long-range and a short-range infrared distance sensor are mounted to measure the altitude. The calibration of the distance sensors is of crucial importance to obtain good measurements. For this purpose, the sensors are calibrated by optimizing a nonlinear transfer function and a bias function using a least squares method. As a consequence, the covariance of the sensors is approximated with a second order function of the distance. The two sensors have two different operation ranges that overlap in a small region. A switch strategy is developed in order to obtain the best performances in the overlapping range. As a result, a single error model function of the distance is found after the evaluation of the switch strategy. Because of different environmental factors, such as temperature, a bias drift is evaluated for both the sensors and properly taken into account in the algorithm. In order to reflect information of the surface in the navigation algorithm, a Digital Elevation Model of the simulated lunar surface has been considered. The navigation algorithm is designed as an Extended Kalman Filter which uses the altitude measurements, the Digital Elevation Model and the accelerations measurements coming from the moving frame. The objective of the navigation algorithm is to estimate the position of the simulated space vehicle during the landing from an altitude of 3 km to a landing site in the proximity of a crater rim. Because the algorithm needs to be updated during the landing, a crater peak detector is conceived in order to reset the navigation filter with a new state vector and new state covariance. Experimental results of the navigation algorithm are presented in the paper

Spacecraft rendezvous by differential drag under uncertainties

At low Earth orbits, differentials in the drag forces between spacecraft can be used for controlling their relative motion in the orbital plane. Current methods for determining the drag force may result in errors due to inaccuracies in the density models and drag coefficients. In this work, a methodology for relative maneuvering of spacecraft based on differential drag, accounting for uncertainties in the drag model, is proposed. A dynamical model composed of the mean semimajor axis and the argument of latitude is used for describing long-range maneuvers. For this model, a linear quadratic regulator is implemented, accounting for the uncertainties in the drag force. The actuation is the pitch angle of the satellites, considering saturation. The control scheme guarantees asymptotic stability of the system up to a certain magnitude of the state vector, which is determined by the uncertainties. Numerical simulations show that the method exhibits consistent robustness to accomplish the maneuvers, even in the presence of realistic modeling of density fields, drag coefficients, the corotation of the atmosphere, and zonal harmonics up to J(8)

Measuring Social Well Being in The Big Data Era: Asking or Listening?

The literature on well being measurement seems to suggest that "asking" for a self-evaluation is the only way to estimate a complete and reliable measure of well being. At the same time "not asking" is the only way to avoid biased evaluations due to self-reporting. Here we propose a method for estimating the welfare perception of a community simply "listening" to the conversations on Social Network Sites. The Social Well Being Index (SWBI) and its components are proposed through to an innovative technique of supervised sentiment analysis called iSA which scales to any language and big data. As main methodological advantages, this approach can estimate several aspects of social well being directly from self-declared perceptions, instead of approximating it through objective (but partial) quantitative variables like GDP; moreover self-perceptions of welfare are spontaneous and not obtained as answers to explicit questions that are proved to bias the result. As an application we evaluate the SWBI in Italy through the period 2012-2015 through the analysis of more than 143 millions of tweets.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1512.0156

Il Parlamento europeo attiva l'art. 7, par. 1 TUE nei confronti dell'Ungheria: quando, per tutelare lo 'Stato di diritto', si viola la regola di diritto

L'A. esamina le problematiche giuridiche sollevate dall'adozione della risoluzione del Parlamento europeo del 12 settembre 2018, con la quale è stata attivata la procedura sanzionatoria ex art. 7(1) TUE nei confronti dell'Ungheria

POLÍTICAS ALIMENTARIAS Y ESPACIOS SUBNACIONALES: EVALUANDO LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN

Interventions that the State develops in a society are linked to a particular historical moment and specific social context. In this context, the social policies implemented by states are often a reflection of social relations, and permeability and interdependence of those at that time in history. The present work aims to evaluate the implementation of the Plan Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria in the state of Santa Fe, Argentina, from its begining in 2003 until 2013. Studying the implementation in a policy process provides the opportunity to visualize the strategic deployment of a multiplicity of players, realizing that it escapes linearity often held. Thus, new players invite to participate in politics, from the decentralized implementation mode to the centrality of design, from innovative solutions to old problems, were part of the challenges of inquiry.Las intervenciones que el Estado desarrolla en una sociedad se vinculan con un determinado momento histórico y un contexto social específico. En este marco, las políticas sociales desplegadas por las esferas estatales suelen ser reflejo de relaciones sociales y de la permeabilidad e interdependencia de las mismas en un momento de su historia. En esta línea, el presente trabajo tiene como propósito evaluar la implementación del Plan Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria en la Provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina, desde su puesta en marcha en el año 2003 hasta 2013. Estudiar la implementación en un proceso de políticas brinda la oportunidad de visualizar el despliegue estratégico de una multiplicidad de actores, dando cuenta que el mismo escapa a la linealidad muchas veces sostenida desde los estudios clásicos. Así, de nuevos actores citados a participar en las políticas, desde el mododescentralizado de implementación a la centralidad del diseño, desde improntas innovadoras a viejos problemas, fueron parte de los desafíos de indagación

A scuola d'italiano in Europa. Insegnare la cultura nazionale

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Dal discorso fiorentino del primo ministro May al quinto round delle trattative per il recesso e le future relazioni tra il Regno unito e l’Unione europea

L’articolo prende in esame gli aspetti più attuali del negoziato per il recesso del Regno unito dall’UE. In particolare, l’autore approfondisce il discorso tenuto a Firenze, il 22 dicembre 2017, dal primo ministro Teresa May. Infatti, differentemente da quanto ci si immaginava, quest’evento non ha segnato un punto di svolta nei negoziati per il recesso. Piuttosto, ha mostrato il persistere di una certa confusione da parte del governo britannico su come condurre il processo verso l’uscita dall’UE e su come impostare le future relazioni fra Regno unito e UE. Prendendo come spunto il discorso del dicembre 2017, l’autore sviluppa un’analisi giuridica sui possibili scenari che caratterizzeranno il periodo immediatamente successivo alla Brexit.This article explores the Brexit EU-UK negotiation at the present time. The author particularly focuses on the speech given by the Prime Minister Teresa May in Florence on 22 December 2017. This speech was supposed to be a re-launching of the negotiations on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. Unfortunately, the author highlights that Teresa May showed to be still very confused about the Brexit and the future relations between UK and EU. Thus, starting from a deep survey of the above cited speech, the author makes a legal analysis on the period post-Brexit, giving some prediction on the time to com

Chapter Rappresentare il movimento. Grafica bidimensionale e computer graphics tra XX e XXI

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences