Migrating Towards Minority Status: Shifting European Policy Towards Roma

During the 1990s, European policy towards Roma evolved from concern about migration toward rhetoric about rights. In this article we trace that shift across two OSCE reports. Following rhetorical-action models, we show how the EU\u27s commitment to enlargement and common values compelled it to elaborate an internal approach to minority protection. Concerns about migration persist, but Europe now has to consider how to integrate Roma as minorities

Multiple cyclical fractional structures in financial time series

This paper analyses multiple cyclical structures in financial time series. In particular, we focus on the monthly structure of the Nasdaq, the Dow Jones and the Standard&Poor stock market indices. The three series are modelled as long-memory processes with poles in the spectrum at multiple frequencies, including the long-run or zero frequency

Zeta Determinant for Laplace Operators on Riemann Caps

The goal of this paper is to compute the zeta function determinant for the massive Laplacian on Riemann caps (or spherical suspensions). These manifolds are defined as compact and boundaryless $D-$dimensional manifolds deformed by a singular Riemannian structure. The deformed spheres, considered previously in the literature, belong to this class. After presenting the geometry and discussing the spectrum of the Laplacian, we illustrate a method to compute its zeta regularized determinant. The special case of the deformed sphere is recovered as a limit of our general formulas.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

Small Mass Expansion of Functional Determinants on the Generalized Cone

In this paper we compute the small mass expansion for the functional determinant of a scalar Laplacian defined on the bounded, generalized cone. In the framework of zeta function regularization, we obtain an expression for the functional determinant valid in any dimension for both Dirichlet and Robin boundary conditions in terms of the spectral zeta function of the base manifold. Moreover, as a particular case, we specify the base to be a $d$-dimensional sphere and present explicit results for $d=2,3,4,5$.Comment: LaTeX, 23 page

Carbon-Rich Mira Variables: Radial Velocities and Distances

Optical radial velocities have been measured for 38 C-type Mira variables. These data together with others in the literature are used to study the differences between optical and CO mm observations for C-Miras and the necessary corrections to the optical velocities are derived in order to obtain the true radial velocities of the variables. The difference between absorption and emission line velocities is also examined. A particularly large difference (+30 km\s) is found in the case of the H-alpha emission line. A catalogue is given of 177 C-Miras with estimated distances and radial velocities. The distances are based on bolometric magnitudes derived in Paper I using SAAO observations or (for 60 of the stars) using non-SAAO photometry. In the latter case the necessary transformations to the SAAO system are derived. These data will be used in paper III to study the kinematics of the C-Miras.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in MNRA

New Developments in the Spectral Asymptotics of Quantum Gravity

A vanishing one-loop wave function of the Universe in the limit of small three-geometry is found, on imposing diffeomorphism-invariant boundary conditions on the Euclidean 4-ball in the de Donder gauge. This result suggests a quantum avoidance of the cosmological singularity driven by full diffeomorphism invariance of the boundary-value problem for one-loop quantum theory. All of this is made possible by a peculiar spectral cancellation on the Euclidean 4-ball, here derived and discussed.Comment: 7 pages, latex file. Paper prepared for the Conference "QFEXT05: Quantum Field Theory Under the Influence of External Conditions", Barcelona, September 5 - September 9, 2005. In the final version, the presentation has been further improved, and yet other References have been adde