While Europe’s political leaders continue their diplomatic dance, real power in the eurozone has shifted to central bankers

Since the beginning of the eurozone crisis European leaders have attended summit after summit, which tend to result in little effective action. In light of the European Central Bank’s recent decision to buy stricken country’s bonds, Federico Castiglioni argues that the power to shape Europe’s financial and fiscal future may now be vested in the monetary policy of central banks

Estimation of flattening coefficient for absorption and circular dichroism using simulation

The absorbance and circular dichroism (CD) of suspensions is lower than if the same amount of chromophore were uniformly distributed throughout the medium. Several mathematical treatments of this absorption flattening phenomenon have been presented using various assumptions and approximations. This article demonstrates an alternative simulation approach that allows relaxation of assumptions. On current desktop computers, the algorithm runs quickly with enough particles and light paths considered to get answers that are usually accurate to better than 3%. Results from the simulation agree with the most popular analytical model for 0.01 volume fraction of particles, showing that the extent of flattening depends mainly on the absorbance through a particle diameter. Unlike previous models, the simulation can show that flattening is significantly lower when volume fraction increases to 0.1 but is higher when the particles have a size distribution. The simulation can predict the slope of the nearly linear relationship between flattening of CD and the absorbance of the suspension. This provides a method to correct experimental CD data where volume fraction and particle size are known

Cosimplicial versus DG-rings: a version of the Dold-Kan correspondence

The (dual) Dold-Kan correspondence says that there is an equivalence of categories K:\cha\to \Ab^\Delta between nonnegatively graded cochain complexes and cosimplicial abelian groups, which is inverse to the normalization functor. We show that the restriction of $K$ to $DG$-rings can be equipped with an associative product and that the resulting functor DGR^*\to\ass^\Delta, although not itself an equivalence, does induce one at the level of homotopy categories. The dual of this result for chain $DG$ and simplicial rings was obtained independently by S. Schwede and B. Shipley through different methods ({\it Equivalences of monoidal model categories}. Algebraic and Geometric Topology 3 (2003), 287-334). Our proof is based on a functor Q:DGR^*\to \ass^\Delta, naturally homotopy equivalent to $K$, which preserves the closed model structure. It also has other interesting applications. For example, we use $Q$ to prove a noncommutative version of the Hochschild-Konstant-Rosenberg and Loday-Quillen theorems. Our version applies to the cyclic module that arises from a homomorphism $R\to S$ of not necessarily commutative rings when the coproduct $\coprod_R$ of associative $R$-algebras is substituted for $\otimes_R$. As another application of the properties of $Q$, we obtain a simple, braid-free description of a product on the tensor power $S^{\otimes_R^n}$ originally defined by P. Nuss using braids ({\it Noncommutative descent and nonabelian cohomology,} K-theory {\bf 12} (1997) 23-74.).Comment: Final version to appear in JPAA. Large parts rewritten, especially in the last section.Proof of main theorem simplifie

Landscape as mediator, landscape as commons: an introduction

Il contributo propone una trattazione dei due temi chiavi che si intersecano nel volume, andando a costituire non solo una introduzione ai saggi ivi contenuti, ma una pi\uf9 ampia trattazione delle questioni attorno a cui questi si muovono: le potenzialit\ue0 del concetto di paesaggio considerato come intermediario/mediatore e come bene comune/commons. Il volume raccoglie i migliori contributi internazionali presentati nelle sessioni sul paesaggio del congresso Eugeo 2013 (Roma) coordinate dai curatori dell'opera, e si conclude con una approfondita postfazione redatta da Kenneth R. Olwig, che ha partecipato come discussant ai lavori congressuali

A synthetic measure of mortality using skeletal data from ancient cemeteries: the d index

<b>Background</b>: Due to the scarcity of written sources in ancient historical periods, and thanks to the development of increasingly sophisticated methods of excavation, recognition, publication, and interpretation, archaeology has played an important role in the understanding of demographic mechanisms. It is in this context that the last decade has seen important developments in paleodemography, the use of skeletons to reconstruct the demographic dynamics of the past. <b>Objective</b>: In this study we show how skeletal data can be used to determine mortality regimes, enlarging the demographic meaning of the d index proposed by Bocquet-Appel in 2002. We apply the d index to Italian cemeteries dating from the 1st to the 15th century AD. <b>Contribution</b>: Our study contributes to the development of paleodemography, a particularly valuable method that uses large osteological samples to understand mortality trends in ancient historical periods. In this study we extend and develop the d index, introduced by Bocquet-Appel in 2002, and demonstrate its usefulness in a range of plausible demographic scenarios. By applying this method to the study of mortality in Italy from the 1st to the 15th centuries AD, we show its reliability in tracing mortality trends in periods of both normal mortality and mortality crisis