Kuluttaminen ja ylhäisaatelin elämäntapa 1700-luvun Ruotsissa

Consumption and the lifestyle of the high nobility in eighteenth-century Sweden This monograph is an analysis of the lifestyle, consumption and private finances of the Swedish high nobility during the eighteenth century (ca 1730 1795). It describes the lifestyle of one noble house, the House of Fersen. The Fersen family represents the leading political, economic and cultural elite in eighteenth-century Sweden. The analysis concentrates on Count Carl von Fersen (1716 1786) and his brother Count Axel von Fersen (1719 1794), their spouses and children. Carl von Fersen was a courtier whilst Axel von Fersen was an officer and one of the leaders of the Francophile Hat party. His son, Axel von Fersen the younger, was in his time an officer and a favourite of Gustavus III, King of Sweden, as well as a favourite and trusted confidant of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France. The research is based upon the Fersen family s private archives, the Counts personal account books, probate inventories, letters and diaries. The study discusses the Fersens landed property and investments in ironworks and manufacturing, the indebtedness of the high nobility, high offices in civil administration, the militia and at court, as well as marriages as the foundations of noble wealth and power. It analyses the Count von Fersens revenue and expenditure, their career options and personal expenses, their involvement in the building and decorating of palaces, and the servants in service of the Fersen family as well as the ideal nobleman and his consumption. Central themes are inheritance, children s education, marriages and ladies preparing their trousseaux, the nobility ordering luxury goods from France, the consumption of Counts and Countesses before and after marrying and having children, the pleasures of a noble life as well as the criticism of luxury and sumptuousness. The study contributes to the large body of research on consumption and nobility in the eighteenth century by connecting the lifestyle, consumption and private finances of the Swedish high nobility to their European context. Key words: nobility, Fersen, lifestyle, consumption, private finances, Sweden, eighteenth century

Coherent quasiparticle approximation cQPA and nonlocal coherence

We show that the dynamical Wigner functions for noninteracting fermions and bosons can have complex singularity structures with a number of new solutions accompanying the usual mass-shell dispersion relations. These new shell solutions are shown to encode the information of the quantum coherence between particles and antiparticles, left and right moving chiral states and/or between different flavour states. Analogously to the usual derivation of the Boltzmann equation, we impose this extended phase space structure on the full interacting theory. This extension of the quasiparticle approximation gives rise to a self-consistent equation of motion for a density matrix that combines the quantum mechanical coherence evolution with a well defined collision integral giving rise to decoherence. Several applications of the method are given, for example to the coherent particle production, electroweak baryogenesis and study of decoherence and thermalization.

Activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account (Greene & McKoon, 1995; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

Taide ja luova luonto : Goethen taideteorian luonnonfilosofinen perusta

J.W. von Goethen (1749-1832) merkitys ei rajoitu saksalaisen kirjallisuuden uudistamiseen. Hänen keskeisin antinsa filosofialle on pikemminkin hänen kehittämässään luonnontieteellisessä tutkimusmetodissa ja siinä ilmenevässä organistisessa luonnonfilosofiassa. Myös Goethen taideteoreettisia käsityksiä on hedelmällistä tutkia hänen luonnonfilosofiansa näkökulmasta. Tarkastelen pro gradu-tutkielmassani Goethen luontokäsityksen ja taidekäsityksen kehitystä välittömästi hänen Italiaan suuntautuvia matkojaan 1786 1789 ympäröivänä ajanjaksona. Tähän aikaan sijoittuivat paitsi morfologisen tutkimusmetodin syntyminen, myös Goethen kuvataiteellisten ihanteiden yhä vahvempi kääntyminen antiikin esikuvien puoleen. Tutkin Goethen luonnontutkimusten taustalla olevan tietoteoreettisen asenteen muotoutumista suhteessa tulkintoihin, joita hän muodosti Benedict de Spinozan ja Immanuel Kantin filosofiasta. Jäljitän hänen näin muodostuneen luonnonfilosofisen näkemyksensä ilmenemistä hänen Weimarin klassismia edustaneissa taideteoreettisissa kirjoituksissaan. Kysymykseni on, onko Goethen kuvaamassa luonnontieteellisessä tutkimusmetodissa yhtymäkohtia siihen tiehen, jota taiteilijan tai taiteentuntijan on hänen mielestään kuljettava päästäkseen oikeaan käsitykseen taiteesta. Analysoidakseni tarkemmin taiteellisen ja tieteellisen toiminnan samankaltaisuutta Goethella vertailen keskenään 1789 julkaistua tekstiä Einfache Nachahmung der Natur, Manier, Stil (Luonnon yksinkertainen jäljittely, maneeri, tyyli), joka pohtii taiteen kuvaustavan suhdetta todellisuuteen, sekä lyhyttä luonnontieteellistä metodia kuvaavaa tekstiä Erfahrung und Wissenschaft (Kokemus ja tiede) vuodelta 1798. Asetan rinnakkain luonnontutkijan etenemisen empiirisestä ja tieteellisestä ilmiöstä puhtaaseen ilmiöön eli alkuilmiöön ja taiteellisen toiminnan jatkumon luonnon yksinkertaisesta jäljittelystä maneeriin ja tyyliin. Epilogissa hahmottelen Goethen metodin yhtymäkohtia moderniin fenomenologiaan sekä arvioin Rudolf Steinerin (1861 1925) Goethen tietoteoriasta tekemää tulkintaa.

Credit Default Swaps and Insurance: Against the Potts Opinion

Little attention has been given to the possibility that CDS transactions might be construed as insurance contracts in English law. This article challenges the widespread “Potts opinion”, which states that CDSs are not insurance, because they do not require the protection buyer to sustain a loss or to have an insurable interest in the subject matter. CDSs often do provide protection against loss that the buyer is exposed to; loss indemnity is not a necessary characterisation of an insurance contract; insurable interest does not form part of the definition of insurance, but is an additional requirement of valid insurance; and what matters is the substance not the form of the contract. The situation in the US and Australia is also briefly considered.