The roots of "Western European societal evolution". A concept of Europe by Jenő Szűcs

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology

Number of Common Sites Visited by N Random Walkers

We compute analytically the mean number of common sites, W_N(t), visited by N independent random walkers each of length t and all starting at the origin at t=0 in d dimensions. We show that in the (N-d) plane, there are three distinct regimes for the asymptotic large t growth of W_N(t). These three regimes are separated by two critical lines d=2 and d=d_c(N)=2N/(N-1) in the (N-d) plane. For d<2, W_N(t)\sim t^{d/2} for large t (the N dependence is only in the prefactor). For 2<d<d_c(N), W_N(t)\sim t^{\nu} where the exponent \nu= N-d(N-1)/2 varies with N and d. For d>d_c(N), W_N(t) approaches a constant as t\to \infty. Exactly at the critical dimensions there are logaritmic corrections: for d=2, we get W_N(t)\sim t/[\ln t]^N, while for d=d_c(N), W_N(t)\sim \ln t for large t. Our analytical predictions are verified in numerical simulations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 .eps figures include

New Combinations: Changing Technologies and Infrastructures and the Business Organizations That Will Deal with Them.

This tale is somewhat unique. It is probably one of the few panels, or the only panel in which there is a certain level of agreement. In fact, every one in this room probably has the basic agreement with this panel, that changes in regulation and changes in policy that we are struggling with are driven by changes in technology. This panel has been put together to look at changes in technology. It has three overall goals. The first is, as you heard one of the panels this morning talk about, to talk about technology itself to try to gain some type of understanding. As regulators or practitioners of law in the area, it is hard to be effective without some type of understanding of just what the technology is that we are supposed to be regulating or trying to give people advice concerning. The second area that this panel will hopefully inform us on is how technology continues to change. Many times we look back and see how technological changes have occurred, and how they have forced us to change. However, there is little consideration for the fact that these technologies continue to change and there will be other challenges or maybe even solutions to current problems that will result from that change in technology. And the final area we hope to provide information on is, as technology changes and as it causes regulators to address new issues, how the utilities, are themselves very different, and have been changed and shaped by this changing technology. This group, I think, can demonstrate very well how the conversion of the different technologies have shaped most of the companies and people who are on the panel