Renaissance attachment to things: material culture in last wills and testaments

Over the past decade ‘material culture’ has become a sub-discipline of Italian Renaissance studies. This literature, however, has focused on the rich and their objects preserved in museums or reflected in paintings. In addition, the period 1300 to 1600 has been treated without attention to changes in the relationship between people and possessions. The article turns to last wills and testaments, which survive in great numbers and sink deep roots through late medieval and Renaissance cities and their hinterlands. They reveal aspirations and anxieties about things from post-mortem repairs to farm houses to pillows of monk's wool. These aspirations changed fundamentally after the Black Death. Earlier, during the ‘commercial revolution’, ordinary merchants, artisans, and peasants on their deathbeds practised what the mendicants preached: stripping themselves of their possessions, they converted their estates to coin to be scattered among pious and non-pious beneficiaries. After the Black Death, testators began to reverse tack, devising ever more complex legal strategies to govern the future flow of their goods. This work of the dead had larger economic consequences. By encouraging the liquidation of estates, the earlier mendicant ideology quickened the velocity of exchange, while the early Renaissance attachment to things did the opposite

U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade

Estimates changes in the 2007-09 inflow of unauthorized immigrants compared with 2000-07 by state, country of origin, gender, and age; their share in the labor force, and impact on the overall unauthorized population. Considers contributing factors

Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010

Analyzes trends in the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants overall, in the workforce, and of newborns with at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent. Examines unauthorized populations by state, share of state population, and settlement patterns

Trends in Unauthorized Immigration: Undocumented Inflow Now Trails Legal Inflow

Analyzes trends in the populations and annual inflows of undocumented and legal immigrants in the United States between 2000 and 2008. Presents findings on the composition of the foreign-born population in terms of arrival year and country of birth

U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050

Projects population growth, new immigrants and their descendants as a percentage of that growth, and changes in the population's ethnic/racial composition. Analyzes the "dependency ratio" of children and elderly to working-age Americans

A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States

Presents a demographic snapshot of the unauthorized immigrant population, including growth rates, regions of origin and settlement, family structure, portions of schoolchildren and the labor force, education, income level, and health insurance status

How Many Hispanics? Comparing New Census Counts With the Latest Census Estimates

Examines differences between 2010 census data on the Latino/Hispanic population nationwide as well as in each state with April 2010 estimates by the Census Bureau. Compares results with the 1990 and 2000 census counts

A continued fraction generator for smooth pulse sequences

Digital circuit produces rational output pulse rate at fraction of continuous input pulse rate. Output pulses have average rate with least possible deviation from absolute correct time spacing. Circuit uses include frequency synthesizing, fraction generation, and approximation of irrational sequences