Simitis's Unsuccessful Struggle for Economic and Governmental Modernisation: A Case of Irresolution or Impotence?

Modernisation, meaning the attainment of best governmental practice in the European Union, was the mission of Kostas Simitis while prime minister in 1996–2004. In the goals which mattered most to himself and to voters — improving governmental efficiency so as to promote economic development and citizens’ welfare — his record was disappointing. Various international measures of Greece’s governmental and economic efficiency, and assessments of citizens’ satisfaction and government finances, indicate regression rather than progress. The basic cause of failure is argued to be the prevalence of traditional clientelist attitudes, which made the state very influential over society and the economy, while condemning it to inefficiency. Government influence over the economy and labour force burdened them with restrictive practices. Yet few if any members of the major political parties accepted the full implications of modernisation. While meriting some blame, Simitis failed mainly because of factors beyond his control

New Trends in Greece in the 1990s: an Essay in Contemporary History

Even though complete success is impossible, it is worth trying to see the recent past from the perspective of the distant future. This task requires one to identify and describe significant new trends in contemporary history. Those which became apparent in Greece in the 1990s are arguably of special importance

Calculating Hyperfine Couplings in Large Ionic Crystals Containing Hundreds of QM Atoms: Subsystem DFT is the Key

We present an application of the linear scaling Frozen Density Embedding (FDE) formulation of subsystem DFT to the calculation of isotropic hyperfine coupling constants (hfccs) of atoms belonging to a guanine radical cation embedded in a guanine hydrochloride monohydrate crystal. The model systems considered range from an isolated guanine to a 15,000 atom QM/MM cluster where the QM region is comprised of 36 protonated guanine cations, 36 chlorine anions and 42 water molecules. Our calculations show that the embedding effects of the surrounding crystal cannot be reproduced neither by small model systems nor by a pure QM/MM procedure. Instead, a large QM region is needed to fully capture the complicated nature of the embedding effects in this system. The unprecedented system size for a relativistic all-electron isotropic hfccs calculation can be approached in this work because the local nature of the electronic structure of the organic crystals considered is fully captured by the FDE approach

The Riots of December 2008: their Causes in Historical and International Contexts

The riots of December 2008 were initially provoked by the killing of a schoolchild, but had wider motives. Most rioters were students or schoolchildren; while the destruction was perpetrated mainly by self-styled anarchists and revolutionaries. For the most part, their attitudes and behaviour patterns can be dated from 1974 and were now unique to Greece. The young were experienced in protesting against a poor educational system, lack of job prospects and political corruption. Anarchists and revolutionaries flourished in a society which had good cause to be disrespectful of governmental authority. Both groups confronted a discredited and inefficient police force

Are Greeks Really the Poor Relations of the European Union? Evidence of the Standard of Living

Greek governments frequently emphasise that their goal is convergence in standard of living with the European Union average, and assume that they have far to go. This paper discuses the methods available to compare standards of living between the 15 member countries. They are: estimates of Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power Parity; average incomes in relation to average prices of everyday necessities; estimates of income inequality; subjective expressions of satisfaction with living conditions, and subjective assessments of improvement or deterioration in them; and ownership of certain goods, and of homes. Each measure is open to objection; but on most, Greece comes near the bottom of the EU scale. According to the other criteria of Human Development adopted by the United Nations, Greece rates high in health but low in educational level

The New Democracy Government and the Continuing Struggle for Modernisation, 2004-2007

The government led by Konstantinos Karamanlis from March 2004 continued the modernising task of those led by Kostas Simitis, while differing in language and emphasis. Most of its achievements were in the spheres of financial reform and economic management. Here it strengthened investors’ confidence and reduced the budget deficit. It did nothing to improve procedures for appointments to the public administration, or to raise its level of efficiency. Abuses of patronage continued without change. The government built on the improvements in service to citizens begun by its predecessor. Changes in public attitudes give grounds for thinking that firm leadership in reform will win widespread support

Asymptotic Freedom for Non-Relativistic Confinement

Some aspects of asymptotic freedom are discussed in the context of a simple two-particle non-relativisitic confining potential model. In this model asymptotic freedom follows from the similarity of the free-particle and bound state radial wave functions at small distances and for the same angular momentum and the same large energy. This similarity, which can be understood using simple quantum mechanical arguments, can be used to show that the exact response function approaches that obtained when final state interactions are ignored. A method of calculating corrections to this limit is given and explicit examples are given for the case of the harmonic oscillator.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, RevTex

Pump-probe differencing technique for cavity-enhanced, noise-canceling saturation laser spectroscopy

We present an experimental technique enabling mechanical-noise free, cavity-enhanced frequency measurements of an atomic transition and its hyperfine structure. We employ the 532nm frequency doubled output from a Nd:YAG laser and an iodine vapour cell. The cell is placed in a traveling-wave Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) with counter-propagating pump and probe beams. The FPI is locked using the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) technique. Mechanical noise is rejected by differencing pump and probe signals. In addition, this differenced error signal gives a sensitive measure of differential non-linearity within the FPI.Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Optics Letter

On the Age of the Widest Very Low Mass Binary

We have recently identified the widest very low-mass binary (2M0126AB), consisting of an M6.5V and an M8V dwarf with a separation of ~5100 AU, which is twice as large as that of the second widest known system and an order of magnitude larger than those of all other previously known wide very low-mass binaries. If this binary belongs to the field population, its constituents would have masses of ~0.09 Msun, at the lower end of the stellar regime. However, in the discovery paper we pointed out that its proper motion and position in the sky are both consistent with being a member of the young (30 Myr) Tucana/Horologium association, raising the possibility that the binary is a pair of ~0.02 Msun brown dwarfs. We obtained optical spectroscopy at the Gemini South Observatory in order to constrain the age of the pair and clarify its nature. The absence of lithium absorption at 671 nm, modest Halpha emission, and the strength of the gravity-sensitive Na doublet at 818 nm all point toward an age of at least 200 Myr, ruling out the possibility that the binary is a member of Tucana/Horologium. We further estimate that the binary is younger than 2 Gyr based on its expected lifetime in the galactic disk.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa