Gradient-prolongation commutativity and graph theory

This Note gives conditions that must be imposed to algebraic multilevel discretizations involving at the same time nodal and edge elements so that a gradient-prolongation commutativity condition will be satisfied; this condition is very important, since it characterizes the gradients of coarse nodal functions in the coarse edge function space. They will be expressed using graph theory and they provide techniques to compute approximation bases at each level.Comment: 6 page

The good faith principle in contract law and the precontractual duty to disclose: comparative analysis of new differences in legal cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to delineate new similarities and future differences between legal systems, using pre-contractual liability and good faith. Instead of focusing on the differences between common law and civil law, we focus our attention on the gap between Europe, England included, and United States. All over Europe, under the influence of good faith jurisprudence, duty to inform has been extremely broadened. Contemporary debate confirms that European Legal Academia overemphasizes the importance of the quest for central common principles of European private law, like Good Faith and obligation de renseignement, and ignores questions regarding cost-benefit effects of disclosure, parties informational rent seeking and general policy considerations. A stereotyped legal doctrine, concentrating on the influence of EU directives on national legal system and, in some cases, unification as a forthcoming national-positive law can create an undesirable effect in the creation of future case law.

Disinflationary boom in a price-wage spiral model

This paper analyses the impact of the disinflation policy timing on the sign and the magnitude of the sacrifice ratio in a modified price and wage staggered model of Blanchard (1986). When wages are updated every four quarters and prices every two quarters, we show that a “cold-turkey” disinflation is associated to an output boom when the policy is implemented during the last period of life of the wage contract and a recession the other quarters.Disinflation policy, Shock timing, Sacrifice ratio, Price and wage staggered contracts.

The Dynamic Properties of Alternative Assumptions on Price Adjustment in New Keynesian Models

This paper presents a classification of the different new Phillips curves existing in the literature as a set of choices based on three assumptions: the choice of the structure of price adjustments (Calvo or Taylor), the presence of backward indexation, and the type of price contracts (fixed prices or predetermined prices). The paper suggests study of the dynamic properties of each specification, following different monetary shocks on the growth rate of the money stock. We develop the analytical form of the price dynamics, and we display graphics for the responses of prices, output, and inflation. We show that the choice made for each of the three assumptions has a strong influence on the dynamic properties. Notably, the choice of the price structure, while often considered as unimportant, is indeed the most influential choice concerning the dynamic responses of output and inflation.New Keynesian Phillips Curves, Taylor Price Rule, Calvo Price Rule, Fixed Prices, Predetermined Prices, Disinflation policy.

500 penile prostheses implanted by a surgeon in Italy in the last 30 years

OBJECTIVES: The aim of our study was to report our experience with patients affected by Erectile Dysfunction (ED) and undergoing penile prosthetic implantation (PPI) in a single center by a single surgeon. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical outcome of 500 patients (mean age: 51.5 years, range: 20-86 years) affected by ED and referred to our private andrological center from January 1984 to December 2013 who underwent penile prosthesis implantation, including the reported level of patient satisfaction. RESULTS: 182 silicone, 180 malleable, 18 monocomponent hydraulic and 120 multicomponents hydraulic prostheses were implanted by the same experienced surgeon. All patients were hospitalized for the procedure. All patients were evaluated immediately, 1 month (496 patients) and, for the great majority, every year after implantation. One hundred twenty five patients were lost to follow-up. Twenty two patients underwent revision surgery for complications in the postoperative period. The most serious postoperative complications were mechanical problems (45 patients, 9.0%) and infection (15 patients, 3%). Forty two (8.4%) prostheses were explanted. Overall, 80% (400/500) of patients were able to have sexual intercourse and were fully satisfied with the results. CONCLUSIONS: In our experience prosthetic surgery should be considered a good solution for men affected by ED and not responsive to other therapeutic solutions. Prosthetic surgery can be performed not only in large public hospitals but also in smaller private facilities

Bone conductive implants in single sided deafness

Conclusion: The Bone Conductive Implants (BCI) showed to partly restore some of the functions lost when the binaural hearing is missing, such as in the single-sided deafness (SSD) subjects. The adoption of the single BCI needs to be advised by the clinician on the ground of a thorough counselling with the SSD subject. Objectives: To perform an overview of the present possibilities of BCI in SSD and to evaluate the reliability of the audiological evaluation for assessing the speech recognition in noise and the sound localization cues, as major problems related to the loss of binaural hearing. Method: Nine SSD subjects who underwent BCI implantation underwent a pre-operative audiological evaluation, consisting in the soundfield speech audiometry, as word recognition score (WRS) and sound localization, in quiet and in noise. Moreover, they were also tested for the accuracy of directional word recognition in noise and with the subjective evaluation with APHAB questionnaire. Results: The mean maximum percentage of word discrimination was 65.5% in the unaided condition and 78.9% in the BCI condition. The sound localization in noise with the BCI was better than the unaided condition, especially when stimulus and noise were on the same side of the implanted ear. The accuracy of directional word recognition showed to improve with BCI in respect to the unaided condition, in the BCI side, with either the stimulus on the implanted ear and the noise in the contralateral ear, or when both stimulus and noise were deliver to implanted ear

Do followers really matter in Stackelberg competition?

In this note, we consider a generalized T−stage Stackelberg oligopoly. We provide a proof and an interpretation that under the two necessary and sufficient conditions of linear aggregate demand and identical constant marginal costs, followers do not matter for leaders. Leaders act as rational myopic agents, voluntarily ignoring the number of followers and remaining stages, thereby behaving as Cournotian oligopolists. Strategies of incumbent firms are invariant to entry of new cohorts. Their profits can be studied by the way of two discount factors: the first impacting markup and the second impacting output supply. Some implications in terms of welfare and convergence toward competitive equilibrium are derived.Leader’s markup discount factor, linear economy, follower’s output discount factor, myopic behavior