Democracy, Judicial Attitudes and Heterogeneity: The Civil Versus Common Law Tradition

A key issue in the design of a legal system is the choice of the mechanism aggregating citizens ’ preferences over the harshness of punishment. While under Case law appellate judges ’ biases offset one another at the cost of volatility of the law, under Statute law a corruptible Legislator chooses certain rules that are biased only if she favors special interests: i.e., when the preference heterogeneity is sufficiently high and/or the political process sufficiently inefficient. Thus, society should possibly choose Case law only in the last scenario. Instrumental variables estimates based on data from 156 countries, which possibly reformed the transplanted law making institution, confirm this prediction

Accountability in Government and Regulatory Policies: Theory and Evidence

This paper analyzes the political economy of regulatory and judicial appointment rules. I study a model of price-setting by a political principal faced with a firm with unknown costs, and endowed with an information-gathering technology whose efficiency rises with the effort exerted by two accountable supervisors (a regulator and a judge). This set-up captures the institutions of several international markets. The model predicts that reforms toward election rather than appointment of regulators are more likely the less efficient is the information-gathering technology, the less stringent are the investment concerns of society, the stronger are regulators’ revolving-door motivations, and the closer is political competition. These predictions are consistent with US electric power market data. Moreover, in accordance with the model, electricity rates are lower and respond less to shock in input costs in states that elect their regulators or their High Court judges.Election, Agency, Judges, Regulation, Electricity

Investigating modularity in the analysis of process algebra models of biochemical systems

Compositionality is a key feature of process algebras which is often cited as one of their advantages as a modelling technique. It is certainly true that in biochemical systems, as in many other systems, model construction is made easier in a formalism which allows the problem to be tackled compositionally. In this paper we consider the extent to which the compositional structure which is inherent in process algebra models of biochemical systems can be exploited during model solution. In essence this means using the compositional structure to guide decomposed solution and analysis. Unfortunately the dynamic behaviour of biochemical systems exhibits strong interdependencies between the components of the model making decomposed solution a difficult task. Nevertheless we believe that if such decomposition based on process algebras could be established it would demonstrate substantial benefits for systems biology modelling. In this paper we present our preliminary investigations based on a case study of the pheromone pathway in yeast, modelling in the stochastic process algebra Bio-PEPA

Statistical mechanics approach to the phase unwrapping problem

The use of Mean-Field theory to unwrap principal phase patterns has been recently proposed. In this paper we generalize the Mean-Field approach to process phase patterns with arbitrary degree of undersampling. The phase unwrapping problem is formulated as that of finding the ground state of a locally constrained, finite size, spin-L Ising model under a non-uniform magnetic field. The optimization problem is solved by the Mean-Field Annealing technique. Synthetic experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

On kinks and other travelling-wave solutions of a modified sine-Gordon equation

We give an exhaustive, non-perturbative classification of exact travelling-wave solutions of a perturbed sine-Gordon equation (on the real line or on the circle) which is used to describe the Josephson effect in the theory of superconductors and other remarkable physical phenomena. The perturbation of the equation consists of a constant forcing term and a linear dissipative term. On the real line candidate orbitally stable solutions with bounded energy density are either the constant one, or of kink (i.e. soliton) type, or of array-of-kinks type, or of "half-array-of-kinks" type. While the first three have unperturbed analogs, the last type is essentially new. We also propose a convergent method of successive approximations of the (anti)kink solution based on a careful application of the fixed point theorem.Comment: Latex file, 25 pages, 4 figures. Final version to appear in "Meccanica

Process Calculi Abstractions for Biology

Several approaches have been proposed to model biological systems by means of the formal techniques and tools available in computer science. To mention just a few of them, some representations are inspired by Petri Nets theory, and some other by stochastic processes. A most recent approach consists in interpreting the living entities as terms of process calculi where the behavior of the represented systems can be inferred by applying syntax-driven rules. A comprehensive picture of the state of the art of the process calculi approach to biological modeling is still missing. This paper goes in the direction of providing such a picture by presenting a comparative survey of the process calculi that have been used and proposed to describe the behavior of living entities. This is the preliminary version of a paper that was published in Algorithmic Bioprocesses. The original publication is available at http://www.springer.com/computer/foundations/book/978-3-540-88868-

Luigi Pulci’s “Morgante” in the Jerónimo de Aunés’ valencian translation: the meeting between Morgante and Margutte

A partir del trabajo de Bernhard König y del análisis de los capítulos I-Viii del "Libro Segundo de Morgante" (Valencia, 1535) de Jerónimo de Aunés, el estudio quiere llamar la atención sobre la importancia de la traducción al español de "Morgante" de Luigi Pulci y la habilidad de su adaptador valenciano. El humorista ingresa en la literatura de la época y la religión aún más tradicional se convierte en objeto de burla y escarnio, como lo demuestra la transformación del "Credo cristiano" en "Credo gastronómico". Después de la edad cancioneril, España prepara la entrada de la figura del pícaro, que con tal éxito se redimirá en toda la literatura romance del siglo XVI.Beginning from Bernhard König’s work and through the analysis of chapters I-VIII of the "Libro Segundo de Morgante" (Valencia, 1535) by Jerónimo de Aunés, the study wants to draw attention to the importance of the Spanish translation of Luigi Pulci’s "Morgante" and the ability of its Valencian adapter. The comedian enters loudly in the literature of the time and even more traditional religion becomes the object of ridicule and derision, as demonstrated by the transformation of the "Christian Creed" in "Gastronomic Creed". After the age cancioneril, Spain prepares the entrance of the figure of pícaro, that such success will redeem in whole Romance literature of the sixteenth century.Partendo dalle considerazioni di Bernhard König ed attraverso l’analisi dei capitoli I-VIII del "Libro Segundo de Morgante" (Valenza, 1535) ad opera di Jerónimo de Aunés, lo studio vuole richiamare l’attenzione sull’importanza della traduzione spagnola del Morgante di Luigi Pulci e sull’abilità del suo adattatore. Il comico entra a gran voce nella letteratura più tradizionale dell’epoca e anche la religione diventa oggetto di scherno e derisione, come ben dimostra la trasformazione del "Credo Cristiano" in "Credo Gastronomico". Dopo l’epoca cancioneril, la Spagna si prepara all’ingresso della figura del pícaro, che tanto successo riscuoterà in tutta la letteratura romanza del secolo XVI.peerReviewe