La fin de la guerre froide et les États membres du Conseil de l'Europe

Although the entry of Central Europe's new democracies into the Council of Europe proceeded rapidly and met little resistance, the Soviet federation's breakup has provided an opportunity to specify the criteria for admission to this organization. In regard to new candidacies for membership, it is worth recalling that member states must be sovereign states that respect fundamental rights and freedoms. Here, we have states whose independence was open to dispute, lying at the outermost limits of Europe, and seeking to free themselves from seventy-four years of "socialist democracy". This being the case, the Council of Europe must arbitrate between the particularises of its status, the necessities of diplomacy, and its willingness to open it self up

Calculation of semiclassical free energy differences along non-equilibrium classical trajectories

We have derived several relations, which allow the evaluation of the system free energy changes in the leading order in $\hbar^{2}$ along classically generated trajectories. The results are formulated in terms of purely classical Hamiltonians and trajectories, so that semiclassical partition functions can be computed, e.g., via classical molecular dynamics simulations. The Hamiltonians, however, contain additional potential-energy terms, which are proportional to $\hbar^{2}$ and are temperature-dependent. We discussed the influence of quantum interference on the nonequilibrium work and problems with unambiguous definition of the semiclassical work operator

Documenting a Personal and National History: Echoes of the Urban-Rural Divide in the Works of Helga Gamboa

This paper analyzes a series of vessels created by artist Helga Gamboa from 2003-2008. Gamboa, an Angolan artist, based in the United Kingdom, uses her work to recount the experiences of rural women during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) and her own experience growing up in the capital during the final years of the Salazar-Caetano regime. Gamboa’s syncretic approach incorporates European tin-glazing and indigenous African hand-building techniques. Early Modern Portuguese and traditional Southern Angolan material culture also guide the artist. The resulting works document a lasting urban-rural divide among Angolan women, dating back to colonial policy, liberation struggles, and civil war, but persists as Gamboa engages with her subject matter in the present day

Molecular reorientation in hydrogen-bonding liquids: through algebraic ∼t−3/2\sim t^{-3/2} relaxation toward exponential decay

We present a model for the description of orientational relaxation in hydrogen-bonding liquids. The model contains two relaxation parameters which regulate the intensity and efficiency of dissipation, as well as the memory function which is responsible for the short-time relaxation effects. It is shown that the librational portion of the orientational relaxation is described by an algebraic $\sim t^{-3/2}$ contribution, on top of which more rapid and non-monotonous decays caused by the memory effects are superimposed. The long-time behavior of the orientational relaxation is exponential, although non-diffusional. It is governed by the rotational energy relaxation. We apply the model to interpret recent molecular dynamic simulations and polarization pump-probe experiments on $HOD$ in liquid $D_{2}O$ [C. J. Fecko et al, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 054506 (2005)]

Microscopic origin of the jump diffusion model

The present paper is aimed at studying the microscopic origin of the jump diffusion. Starting from the $N$-body Liouville equation and making only the assumption that molecular reorientation is overdamped, we derive and solve the new (hereafter generalized diffusion) equation. This is the most general equation which governs orientational relaxation of an equilibrium molecular ensemble in the hindered rotation limit and in the long time limit. The generalized diffusion equation is an extension of the small-angle diffusion equation beyond the impact approximation. We establish the conditions under which the generalized diffusion equation can be identified with the jump diffusion equation, and also discuss the similarities and differences between the two approaches