When does universal peace prevail? Secession and group formation in rent seeking contests and policy conflicts

This paper analyzes secession and group formation in a general model of contest inspired by Esteban and Ray (1999). This model encompasses as special cases rent seeking contests and policy conflicts, where agents lobby over the choice of a policy in a one-dimensional policy space. We show that in both models the grand coalition is the efficient coalition structure and agents are always better off in the grand coalition than in a symmetric coalition structure. Individual agents (in the rent seeking contest) and extremists (in the policy conflict) only have an incentive to secede when they anticipate that their secession will not be followed by additional secessions. Incentives to secede are lower when agents cooperate inside groups. The grand coalition emerges as the unique subgame perfect equilibrium outcome of a sequential game of coalition formation in rent seeking contests.

Serlianas durante el Renacimiento italiano y español: del triunfo de la religión católica al lenguaje imperial

This article presents a panoramic view of the development of the so-called serliana or Serlian motif throughout the Italian Renaissance, focusing on the most relevant examples in the architecture of that period. The use of this motif during the Early Renaissance was pioneered by Filippo Brunelleschi in religious buildings. As its employment become widespread in a range of different settings, architects frequently incorporated local building traditions. It was only during the last twenty years of the Quattrocento that Giuliano da Sangallo and Leonardo da Vinci adopted the Serlian arch in residential architecture designed for the ruling elites. Thanks to Bramante and other artists such as Raphael, Baldassare Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Giulio Romano, the motif was extraordinarily popular during the High Renaissance period. Ever-increasingly complex and monumental compositions eased the adaptation of the serliana to both exterior and interior spaces, and in works such as the design by Galeazzo Alessi in Genoa, the imperial connotation of the motif is clear. This process illustrates the progressive transfer from the religious to the courtly sphere, and, at the same time, the permeability between the sacred and the profane. During the sixteenth century, Spain too was at the European avant-garde, due to its contacts with Italy and the latest fashions, such as the employment of the serliana in residential architecture, were followed in the fortified palace at La Calahorra, the Vich palace in Valencia, or the palace of Charles V in Granada, as part of a complex iconography of power. Throughout the sixteenth century, the serliana featured in that specifically-Spanish typology, the monumental altarpiece or retablo, as well as in monumental tombs. Italy was certainly the leading force in the process and had an indisputable influence on Spanish art, but the latter would develop its own original solutions in the sixteenth century, which matched the innovative character of Italian creations.

Survival of European patients diagnosed with lymphoid neoplasms in 2000-2002: results of the HAEMACARE project

The European Cancer Registry-based project on hematologic malignancies (HAEMACARE), setup to improve the availability and standardization of data on hematologic malignancies in Europe, used the European Cancer Registry-based project on survival and care of cancer patients (EUROCARE-4) database to produce a new grouping of hematologic neoplasma(defined by the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, Third Edition and the 2001/2008 World Health Organization classifications) for epidemiological and public healthpurposes. We analyzed survival for lymphoid neoplasms in Europe by disease group, comparing survival between different European regions by age and sex. Design and Methods Incident neoplasms recorded between 1995 to 2002 in 48 population-based cancer registries in 20 countries participating in EUROCARE-4 were analyzed. The period approach was used to estimate 5-year relative survival rates for patients diagnosed in 2000-2002, who did not have 5years of follow up. Results: The 5-year relative survival rate was 57% overall but varied markedly between the definedgroups. Variation in survival within the groups was relatively limited across European regions and less than in previous years. Survival differences between men and women were small. The relative survival for patients with all lymphoid neoplasms decreased substantially after the age of 50. The proportion of ‘not otherwise specified’ diagnoses increased with advancing age.Conclusions: This is the first study to analyze survival of patients with lymphoid neoplasms, divided into groups characterized by similar epidemiological and clinical characteristics, providing a benchmarkfor more detailed analyses. This Europe-wide study suggests that previously noted differences in survival between regions have tended to decrease. The survival of patients with all neoplasms decreased markedly with age, while the proportion of ‘not otherwise specified’ diagnoses increased with advancing age. Thus the quality of diagnostic work-up and care decreased with age, suggesting that older patients may not be receiving optimal treatment