GDP and life expectancy in Italy and Spain over the long-run (1861-2008): insights from a timeseries approach

The article presents and discusses long-run series of per capita GDP and life expectancy for Italy and Spain (1861-2008). After refining the available estimates in order to make them comparable and with the avail of the most up-to-date researches, the main changes in the international economy and in technological and sociobiological regimes are used as analytical frameworks to re-assess the performances of the two countries; then structural breaks are searched for and Granger causality between the two variables is investigated. The long-run convergence notwithstanding, significant cyclical differences between the two countries can be detected: Spain began to modernize later in GDP, with higher volatility in life expectancy until recent decades; by contrast, Italy showed a more stable pattern of life expectancy, following early breaks in per capita GDP, but also a negative GDP break in the last decades. Our series confirm that, whereas at the early stages of development differences in GDP tend to mirror those in life expectancy, this is no longer true at later stages of development, when, if any, there seems to be a negative correlation between GDP and life expectancy: this finding is in line with the thesis of a non-monotonic relation between life expectancy and GDP and is supported by tests of Granger causality.

Thomas-Fermi theory for atomic nuclei revisited

The recently developed semiclassical variational Wigner-Kirkwood (VWK) approach is applied to finite nuclei using external potentials and self-consistent mean fields derived from Skyrme inter-actions and from relativistic mean field theory. VWK consist s of the Thomas-Fermi part plus a pure, perturbative h 2 correction. In external potentials, VWK passes through the average of the quantal values of the accumulated level density and total en energy as a function of the Fermi energy. However, there is a problem of overbinding when the energy per particle is displayed as a function of the particle number. The situation is analyzed comparing spherical and deformed harmonic oscillator potentials. In the self-consistent case, we show for Skyrme forces that VWK binding energies are very close to those obtained from extended Thomas-Fermi functionals of h 4 order, pointing to the rapid convergence of the VWK theory. This satisfying result, however, does not cure the overbinding problem, i.e., the semiclassical energies show more binding than they should. This feature is more pronounced in the case of Skyrme forces than with the relativistic mean field approach. However, even in the latter case the shell correction energy for e.g.208 Pb turns out to be only ∼ −6 MeV what is about a factor two or three off the generally accepted value. As an adhoc remedy, increasing the kinetic energy by 2.5%, leads to shell correction energies well acceptable throughout the periodic table. The general importance of the present studies for other finite Fermi systems, self-bound or in external potentials, is pointed out.

Classical references and their significance in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Although Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain has been the object of innumerable studies, this paper suggests that so far none of these has given truly close attention to the significance of the classical references in this novel with regard to the search for a true humanism. This is probably owing to the generally held belief that the influence of the classical tradition is relatively inconsequential in relation to the ample conjunction of philosophical ideas on which the novel is based. This article takes a differing view and, through a close analysis and comment of the explicit and implicit classical notions in the text, concludes that these ideas are also a valuable key to a greater comprehension of the ideological design of the main character, Hans Castorp, and to a certain degree they also help to continue to reflect on the most enigmatic and controversial episode of the novel: the young protagonist’s descent to the plain from the magical mountain (Zauberberg) in order to take part in the great tragedy of World War I, alien as is any war to the prevalent but ultimately futile desire that love (Liebe) should in the end prevail in the life of humans.