International codes and standards: challenges and priorities for financial stability.

The smooth functioning of the increasingly interdependent world economy requires the adoption and observance of common rules. In the light of recent economic crises, it has become clear that the effective implementation of codes and standards could contribute to strengthening financial stability at the national level, and thereby, reduce the risks of spillover. To effectively implement standards, a strategy has been defined within the international community and tasks shared out: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank conduct assessments of their member states’ observance of the main international standards. Numerous hurdles nevertheless remain to be cleared in order to increase the contribution made by codes and standards to prevent financial crises. Emerging economies’ ownership of codes and standards must be strengthened, which requires these countries to be more closely involved in the definition of standards, and also a more gradual approach in implementing standards to take account of diverse levels of development. The importance given to the assessment of the implementation of codes and standards is a noteworthy step forward in IMF surveillance. It requires increased co-ordination among international financial institutions (IFIs), other standard setting bodies such as the Basel Committee, the OECD and the FATF, and the countries themselves. In addition, countries to be assessed should be more carefully selected, clear priorities should be set in the areas covered by standards and countries should be provided with greater incentives to publish external assessment results. Lastly, the private sector in developed countries could further encourage the implementation of standards by factoring them more fully into its investment strategies, or by supplementing official initiatives in respect of the assessment of observance.

Les revues littéraires dans l’entre-deux-guerres entre France et Grèce. Réseaux, transferts culturels et traduction

Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, certaines revues littéraires grecques adoptent uneattitude hellénocentriste, tandis que d’autres s’ouvrent au contraire largement à l’étranger.Cette ouverture se manifeste bien sûr par la publication d’oeuvres en traduction, maisaussi par un intérêt grandissant pour les revues étrangères, et en particulier françaises,qui se marque par l’emprunt d’articles et surtout par la création de rubriques spécialisées.Le but de ce travail est de mettre en lumière l’existence de relations privilégiées entrerevues grecques et revues françaises comme vecteurs de transferts culturels –qu’il s’agissede la reprise de modèles éditoriaux ou de la circulation de textes, d’idées ou même decollaborateurs–, d’évaluer la part que la traduction prend dans l’établissement de cesrelations et enfin de déterminer si on peut ou non parler dans ces cas de “réseau derevues”, comme cela a été fait dans d’autres contextes européens

Les revues littéraires dans l’entre-deux-guerres entre France et Grèce. Réseaux, transferts culturels et traduction

Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, certaines revues littéraires grecques adoptent uneattitude hellénocentriste, tandis que d’autres s’ouvrent au contraire largement à l’étranger.Cette ouverture se manifeste bien sûr par la publication d’oeuvres en traduction, maisaussi par un intérêt grandissant pour les revues étrangères, et en particulier françaises,qui se marque par l’emprunt d’articles et surtout par la création de rubriques spécialisées.Le but de ce travail est de mettre en lumière l’existence de relations privilégiées entrerevues grecques et revues françaises comme vecteurs de transferts culturels –qu’il s’agissede la reprise de modèles éditoriaux ou de la circulation de textes, d’idées ou même decollaborateurs–, d’évaluer la part que la traduction prend dans l’établissement de cesrelations et enfin de déterminer si on peut ou non parler dans ces cas de “réseau derevues”, comme cela a été fait dans d’autres contextes européens

Relations intellectuelles et artistiques entre la France et la Grèce au xxe siècle

Octave Merlier (1897-1976) et Roger Milliex (1913-2006) sont deux grands néohellénistes et philhellènes qui ont joué un rôle déterminant dans les relations culturelles entre la France et la Grèce au XXe siècle, aussi bien par leurs travaux personnels que par les fonctions officielles qu’ils ont exercées. S’ils n’ont pas hésité à prendre clairement position à titre personnel quand il le fallait, en particulier durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, ils sont surtout connus pour leur contribution essentielle à la constitution de réseaux franco-grecs d’intellectuels et d’artistes, grâce à des initiatives aussi audacieuses qu’originales. En se faisant les inlassables intermédiaires entre les deux pays, c’est évidemment l’idée d’une culture méditerranéenne et, plus largement, européenne, qu’ils ont servie.Octave Merlier (1897-1976) and Roger Milliex (1913-2006) are two great Neohellenists and Philhellenes who played an instrumental role in cultural relations between France and Greece in the 20th century just as much through their personal work as through the official posts they fulfilled. They never hesitated to unequivocally take a stand in a personal capacity when it was necessary, particularly during the Second World War, but they were known above all for their vital contribution to the forming of Franco-Greek networks of intellectuals and artists thanks to initiatives that were as bold as they were original. Becoming the indefatigable mediators between the two countries, plainly it is the idea of a Mediterranean and, more widely, European culture that they served

Topological Constraints at the Theta Point: Closed Loops at Two Loops

We map the problem of self-avoiding random walks in a Theta solvent with a chemical potential for writhe to the three-dimensional symmetric U(N)-Chern-Simons theory as N goes to 0. We find a new scaling regime of topologically constrained polymers, with critical exponents that depend on the chemical potential for writhe, which gives way to a fluctuation-induced first-order transition.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX, typo

On the signature of tensile blobs in the scattering function of a stretched polymer

We present Monte Carlo data for a linear chain with excluded volume subjected to a uniform stretching. Simulation of long chains (up to 6000 beads) at high stretching allows us to observe the signature of tensile blobs as a crossover in the scaling behavior of the chain scattering function for wave vectors perpendicular to stretching. These results and corresponding ones in the stretching direction allow us to verify for the first time Pincus prediction on scaling inside blobs. Outside blobs, the scattering function is well described by the Debye function for a stretched ideal chain.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letter

Excluded volume effects on the structure of a linear polymer under shear flow

The effect of excluded volume interactions on the structure of a polymer in shear flow is investigated by Brownian Dynamics simulations for chains with size $30\leq N\leq 300$. The main results concern the structure factor $S({\bf q})$ of chains of N=300 Kuhn segments, observed at a reduced shear rate $\beta=\dot{\gamma}\tau=3.2$, where $\dot{\gamma}$ is the bare shear rate and $\tau$ is the longest relaxation time of the chain. At low q, where anisotropic global deformation is probed, the chain form factor is shown to match the form factor of the continuous Rouse model under shear at the same reduced shear rate, computed here for the first time in a wide range of wave vectors. At high q, the chain structure factor evolves towards the isotropic equilibrium power law $q^{-1/\nu}$ typical of self-avoiding walk statistics. The matching between excluded volume and ideal chains at small q, and the excluded volume power law behavior at large q are observed for ${\bf q}$ orthogonal to the main elongation axis but not yet for ${\bf q}$ along the elongation direction itself, as a result of interferences with finite extensibility effects. Our simulations support the existence of anisotropic shear blobs for polymers in good solvent under shear flow for $\beta>1$ provided chains are sufficiently long.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures, submitted to J. Chem. Phy