Pacific Horizons: The Transformation of European Perceptions of Paradise, 1880-1900

Since the publication of Bernard Smith’s European Vision in the South Pacific in the 1960s, an immense amount of literature has been produced about how European exploration in the Pacific Ocean affected explorers, national governments, elite classes, and indigenous peoples. However, there is little scholarship about how the interactions between Europeans and Pacific Islanders in the 19th century influenced the perceptions of readers on the continent. This project will fill in this gap by showing how colonial and imperial literature affected European readers’ perception of what constitutes an ideal society between 1880 and 1900. To explore these changes, I will analyze the relationship between the wealth of Pacific travel literature and its European audience at the end of the 19th century

Fostering Financial Stability: Three Essays on Banking, Potential Output and Employment

This work is devoted to the analysis of some of the fundamental pillars of economic stability. The first chapter deals with the banking sector, with the development of an innovative Early Warning System to timely identify cases of future financial distress, to allow the early intervention of the supervisor. The second chapter considers Gross Domestic Product and its potential, and discusses a new methodology for estimating potential output. The third and last chapter concludes by examinating the labor market, with the development of a new technique based on state-space modelling to estimate trend employment

Impact of enzymatically generated peptides on the formation of alkylpyrazines in Maillard model systems and baked food products

The Maillard reaction is the major route for thermal generation of flavor; it is a very complex cascade of interdependent chemical reactions that has been the topic of many research papers since it was first identified by Louis Camille Maillard in 1912. The aromas in most thermally processed foods, such as bread, cereal products, roasted peanuts, and roasted coffee, are largely due to the Maillard reaction. Currently, more than 2500 different flavor compounds have been identified. Among these Maillard–type flavors, heterocyclic compounds with desirable aromas and low odor thresholds make the most significant contribution. Pyrazines are specific Maillard reaction products known to contribute to the unique roasted, nutty, meaty, earthy, popcorn-like aroma of many heated foods. The generation of pyrazines has been studied extensively in model systems between free amino acids and sugars and studied less in more complex model systems. Nevertheless, in general, food products are known to contain small amounts of free amino acids. Therefore, the main goal of the research was to study the formation of pyrazines in different Maillard model systems containing peptides, proteins, amino acids, and glucose in a variety of conditions that can be related or applied in the food industry. The generation of pyrazines and their formation mechanisms were studied in several model systems. Further, the generation of these volatiles was studied in two different baked food products

Cytological evidence for gametophytic self-incompatibility in the genus Veronica

The self-incompatibility (SI) of 3 Middle East Veronica species (V. filiformis, V. gentianoides, V. teucrium) is studied, for the first time, by pollination and pollen tube growth experiments. Cytological observations of the self-pollen tubes within the pistils permit a conclusion about the presence of a gametophytic SI system in the first 2 species. The investigated population of the third is self-compatible and confirms the facultative trait of its self-sterility. The presence of a gametophytic SI system in 2 of them suggests the putative conservation of this SI system within the genus Veronica (Plantaginaceae) and could be related to the well-known gametophytic SI system present in the other Plantaginaceae genus, Antirrhinum

Cost-Utility Analysis of Biologic Therapies to Treat Chronic Plaque Psoriasis in Italy: The Importance of Using Updated and Adequate Social Tariffs to Calculate Quality-Adjusted Life-Years

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A new estimation method for employment trend

In this study, we propose the use a refined version of the Kalman filter to estimate the trend component of employment. In a first step, we retrieve the trend of labor force by applying the Kalman filter to a model where the measurement equation is augmented with several structural variables, which we expect to carry useful information on the cycle, as the retirement laws and the population growth. Then, we put our estimate of trend employment and compute the trend of the employment rate. Our investigation has at least two key implications for future studies: first, the development of a more reliable measure of employment trend could be the base of new empirical investigations on the role of shocks in the jobs creation process (which would be better approximated by a measure of employment rate than by the unemployment rate, as we illustrated above). Second, it will give us a second measure of trends in job market, which could be used to enhance our knowledge on the hysteresis process. Finally, this new trend variable will be helpful to evaluate the robustness of the investigations based on the NAIRU. This is a crucial issue since the NAIRU has been criticized on both theoretical and empirical ground

Migration, Marriage, and Social Mobility : Women in Sweden 1880-1900

We study the social mobility of women by looking at the connection between migration and marriage outcomes using complete count census data for Sweden. The censuses 1880-1900 have been linked at the individual level, enabling us to follow 100,000 women from their parental home to their new marital household. Marriage market imbalances were not an important push factor for migration but we find a strong association between migration distance and marriage outcomes, both in terms of overall marriage probabilities and in terms of partner selection. These results highlight the importance of migration for women’s social mobility during industrialization

Pathophysiological aspects and management workflow of coronary microvascular obstruction in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction

Restoring blood flow to ischemic but viable myocardium and reducing infarct size constitute the goals of reperfusion therapy with fibrinolytic drugs or primary percutaneous intervention in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). However, in a sizable proportion of patients, this intervention gains to reopen the obstructed epicardial coronary artery but does not achieve myocardial reperfusion because of coronary microvascular obstruction phenomenon (CMVO). In the last years, consistent evidence has pointed out how CMVO has a negative impact on outcome in patients with acute STEMI. Of note, most of the trials in this setting, mainly targeting reperfusion damage, have failed to show beneficial effects. In this article we provide a revision of mechanisms, diagnosis and prognosis of CMVO in acute STEMI, also pointing out the need of an integrated approach in order to prevent and treat CMVO in the different time windows of the acute event

Religion and Child Death in Ireland's Industrial Capital: Belfast 1911

Ireland is often seen as an outlier within the western world in terms of demographic behavior. As a society it has also been noted for its religious fervor, including religious division, at least until fairly recently. Might there be connections historically between these two spheres? One intriguing area of enquiry relates to possible links between religious denomination and child mortality. We explore this possibility using individual-level data from the household schedules of the Irish Census of 1911. The study area is Belfast, Ireland's leading industrial city, which allows for a wide range of occupational and social class differences. Combining regression techniques and the mortality index proposed by Preston and Haines (1991), we seek to tease out the relationship between child mortality and religious affiliation while controlling for a range of other explanatory variables. We show that religious identity is clearly associated with different infant and child mortality outcomes. Of the three major religious denominations, Catholics suffered the most from high infant mortality, Church of Ireland (Anglican) families were only a little better off, while the largest Protestant denomination, the Presbyterians, had the best infant mortality outcomes. These differences were related, in the main, to the varying socioeconomic composition of the three major religious denominations but religious affiliation also mattered in its own right