Pairing gaps from nuclear mean-field models

We discuss the pairing gap, a measure for nuclear pairing correlations, in chains of spherical, semi-magic nuclei in the framework of self-consistent nuclear mean-field models. The equations for the conventional BCS model and the approximate projection-before-variation Lipkin-Nogami method are formulated in terms of local density functionals for the effective interaction. We calculate the Lipkin-Nogami corrections of both the mean-field energy and the pairing energy. Various definitions of the pairing gap are discussed as three-point, four-point and five-point mass-difference formulae, averaged matrix elements of the pairing potential, and single-quasiparticle energies. Experimental values for the pairing gap are compared with calculations employing both a delta pairing force and a density-dependent delta interaction in the BCS and Lipkin-Nogami model. Odd-mass nuclei are calculated in the spherical blocking approximation which neglects part of the the core polarization in the odd nucleus. We find that the five-point mass difference formula gives a very robust description of the odd-even staggering, other approximations for the gap may differ from that up to 30% for certain nuclei.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in EPJ

Suicide Rates and Antidepressant Prescribing: A Casual or Causal Relationship?

Baune and Hay discuss the strengths and limitations of an ecological study that found an inverse correlation between suicide rates and fluoxetine prescriptions

Consequences of the center-of-mass correction in nuclear mean-field models

We study the influence of the scheme for the correction for spurious center-of-mass motion on the fit of effective interactions for self-consistent nuclear mean-field calculations. We find that interactions with very simple center-of-mass correction have significantly larger surface coefficients than interactions for which the center-of-mass correction was calculated for the actual many-body state during the fit. The reason for that is that the effective interaction has to counteract the wrong trends with nucleon number of all simplified schemes for center-of-mass correction which puts a wrong trend with mass number into the effective interaction itself. The effect becomes clearly visible when looking at the deformation energy of largely deformed systems, e.g. superdeformed states or fission barriers of heavy nuclei.Comment: 12 pages LATeX, needs EPJ style files, 5 eps figures, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

Liberating the Past and Transgressing the National. Simon Lewis. Belarus – Alternative Visions: Nation, Memory and Cosmopolitanism. Routledge, New York/London, 2019 (BASEES / Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies). XI, 230 pages.

In Slavic studies abroad, research on Belarusian literature is rare, and a monograph an event. This slender book evolved from Simon Lewis’s doctoral dissertation, submitted at Cambridge University in 2014. It is a thorough study on the negotiations of nation and memory, with cosmopolitanism as a key word for the ‘alternative visions’ of the Belarus(ian) past, in which the author is interested most. The book concentrates on the second half of the 20 th century and the post-Soviet period. As the first chapter offers an overview from ca. 1800, it doubles as an excellent introduction into modern Belarusian literature in general. The book must be praised particularly in this respect for its brevity and conciseness that completely differs from the multi-volume cumulative histories of Belarusian literature published in Miensk, and from Arnold McMillin’s encyclopaedic publications over the last decades. The six chapters, as well as the endnotes that follow each of them, prove the author’s broad and thorough knowledge not only of the Belarusian classics, but also of Russian and Polish literature. Reading Belarusian, Russian, Polish, English, and German, Lewis bridges the gap between both research communities and disciplines (a good deal of his secondary literature stems from history). Experts will also appreciate his interpretation of Belarusian culture against the theoretic background of postcolonial studies

Panegyrics and Politics: Three Polish and One Prussian Epithalamium on the Wedding of Sigismund I and Barbara Zapolya in 1512

Hochzeitsgedichte waren im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit eine überaus wichtige Gattung. Die ersten Epithalamia entstanden im Königreich Polen im Jahr 1512; sie gehören zu den frühesten Beispielen jagiellonischer Literaturpropaganda. Die Texte bzw. die sie enthaltenden okkasionalen Drucke begleiten die Hochzeit von Zygmunt I. und seiner ungarischen Braut, Barbara Zápolya. Unter den Autoren sind drei der wichtigsten Literaten der polnischen Frührenaissance – Paulus Crosnensis, Ioannes Dantiscus und Andreas Cricius. Bei dem vierten, der in der polonistischen Forschung zu Unrecht am Rande steht, handelt es sich um einen nicht weniger bedeutenden Dichter aus dem Reich, Eobanus Hessus, damals als Sekretär des Bischofs von Pomesanien im Ordensland tätig. Der politische Inhalt der Texte hängt eng mit den Personen zusammen, die die Dichter als Mäzene unterstützten und auf die die publizierten Textensembles verweisen: König, Königin, Bischof Jan Lubrański, Vizekanzler Krzysztof Szydłowiecki. Hessus’ Auftragswerk erweist sich dabei als aufschlussreiches Beispiel für die literarische Diplomatie des Deutschen Ordens in einer Krisenzeit. Tatsächlich streifen die Epithalamia nicht bloß politische Themen, sondern sie stellen selbst politische Handlungen dar. Der Beitrag zeichnet die Kommunikationssituation nach, in der die einzelnen Beiträge stehen, fragt nach ihren politischen Funktionen und bezieht diese pragmatische Perspektive in die Textanalyse ein. Er rekurriert auf die frühen Drucke sowie Manuskripte aus dem 16. Jahrhundert, die dank Digitalisierungsprojekten bequem zugänglich sind. Die digitalen Faksimiles lenken den Blick, anders als die vorhandenen Editionen, auf die Paratexte und Illustrationen, die wichtige Dimensionen der Dichter-Mäzen-Netzwerke sichtbar machen. Von großer Relevanz für die Zeitgenossen war v. a. die Ausgestaltung mit Wappen, deren korrekte heraldische Interpretation im Fall von Andreas Cricius neue Bedeutungskomponenten erschließt

Carmen de bisonte in English and for an International Audience – a Critical Review of and Supplement to Frederick J. Booth’s Bilingual Edition

The publication of a Latin-English edition of Nicolaus Hussovianus’ “Carmen de bisonte” in 2019 is a highly significant event as it makes this canonical text of Old Belarusian (as well as Lithuanian) literature accessible to a broad, international and interdisciplinary audience. This article analyses in detail the merits and shortcomings of Frederick J. Booth’s edition. It proposes some alternative translations, adds information that was not accessible to the classical philologist, and highlights the relevance of recent discoveries that change our knowledge about Hussovianus’ origin and biography. Designed as a kind of interface between research communities that are scarcely connected, the article demonstrates what we can and should learn from each other.With emphasis on the significance of working with the original old print, a subchapter of the article acquaints the reader with the figures in “Carmen de bisonte” and analyses the emblem on the last page of the book. It shows a picture of the Roman god Terminus, framed by quotes in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. This emblem served in the 1520s as a printer’s device for a “humanistic series” of the Krakow publisher Hieronymus Vietor. The fact that it was built upon an iconic symbol used by Erasmus of Rotterdam exemplifies what aroused Booth’s initial interest in CdB: the pan-European scope of Neo-Latin literature and the close connectedness of regions which in his academic youth were separated by the Iron Curtain.Carmen de bisonte in English and for an International Audience – a Critical Review of and Supplement to Frederick J. Booth’s Bilingual Edition. Booth, Frederick J. (ed., transl.).Song of the Bison. Text and Translation of Nicolaus Hussovianus’s „Carmen de statura, feritate ac venatione bisontis”. Leeds-Amsterdam: Arc Humanities Press; Amsterdam University Press, 2019, 87 p

Адзін народ, адна мова, адна літаратура? Змены ў рэканструкцыі гісторыі беларускай літаратуры (1956–2010)

aHistories of literature mirror views and experiences of their own age and thus are constantly being rewritten. This is true also for the history of Old Belarusian literature. The short introductions and comprehensive overviews, written in the period between the Thaw and the Lukashenko era (1956–2010), contain astonishingly different constructions of the literary past. The article analyses a dozen books in Belarusian, Russian and English and it singles out the most import changes, such as the role of the literature of Kyivan Rusʹ or periodization. However, the most prominent development is the step-by-step recognition of the multilingual nature of the literary heritage. This concerns the existence of texts not only in Eastern Slavonic varieties, but also in (Old) Church Slavonic, the discovery of Neo-Latin authors, and finally, the rehabilitation of Polish as a language of Belarusian literature. Although Old Belarusian studies in the post-Soviet years have been a field of innovation and reevaluation, even the most actual syntheses contain blind spots. The existence of texts in Lithuanian and the literary production of ethno-cultural minorities are hardly ever even mentioned. The idea of one common language has been given up, but the history of literature still deals with texts by representatives of one ethnos that inhabit one territoryHistoria literatury odzwierciedla system światopoglądowy swoich czasów, dlatego jest niezmiennie aktualizowana. Dotyczy to także historii literatury starobiałoruskiej. Zarówno w krótkich szkicach, jak i szczegółowych przeglądach literackich, powstałych od odwilży do ery Aleksandra Łukaszenki (1956–2010), odnajdujemy zadziwiająco różne rekonstrukcje twórczości literackiej. W artykule przeanalizowano kilkanaście książek napisanych w języku białoruskim, rosyjskim i angielskim, przedstawiono ich periodyzację oraz rolę, jaką przy ich powstaniu odegrała spuścizna literacka okresu Rusi Kijowskiej. Celem badania było omówienie wielojęzycznego charakteru starobiałoruskiego dziedzictwa literackiego. Jako obiekt analizy autor obrał teksty wschodniosłowiańskie, (staro)cerkiewnosłowiańskie, nowołacińskie, jak również należące do literatury białoruskiej utwory polskojęzyczne. Chociaż w latach postradzieckich studia starobiałoruskie uważano za innowacyjne, nawet najbardziej aktualne syntezy zawierają luki badawcze. W literaturze przedmiotu o istnieniu tekstów w języku litewskim i twórczości literackiej mniejszości etniczno-kulturowych prawie w ogóle się nie wspomina. Zrezygnowano z idei wspólnego języka, ale historia literatury wciąż zajmuje się tekstami przedstawicieli jednego etnosu zamieszkującego jedno terytorium.Гісторыя літаратуры адлюстроўвае светапогляд і досвед свайго часу і таму пастаянна перапісваецца. Гэта датычыць і гісторыі старабеларускай літаратуры. Кароткія агляды, як і грунтоўныя даследванні, створаныя ў перыяд паміж адлігай і эпохай Лукашэнкі (1956–2010), утрымліваюць надзіва розныя карціны літаратурнага мінулага. У артыкуле разглядаецца шэраг прац на беларускай, рускай і англійскай мовах, прасочваюцца найбольш істотныя змены: у падыходзе да перыядызацыі альбо ў разуменні ролі літаратуры Кіеўскай Русі. Аднак найбольш прыкметным з'яўляецца паступовае прызнанне шматмоўнасці літаратурнай спадчыны. У даследаваннях пачынаюць разглядацца тэксты не толькі на ўсходнеславянскіх мовах, але і на (стара)царкоўнаславянскай, адбывааецца адкрыццё неалацінскіх аўтараў і, нарэшце, рэабілітацыя польскай мовы як мовы беларускай літаратуры. Нягледзячы на тое, што даследаванні старажытнай Беларусі ў постсавецкія гады мелі інавацыйны характар і шмат што пераасэнсавана, белыя плямы ёсць нават у найноўшых працах. Амаль не згадваецца пра існаванне тэкстаў на літоўскай мове і літаратурную творчасць этнічных меншасцей. Ад ідэі адной агульнай мовы адмовіліся, але гісторыя літаратуры ўсё яшчэ займаецца тэкстамі прадстаўнікоў аднаго этнасу, якія насяляюць адну тэрыторыю