Memory Revisited in Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

An accumulation of years brings with it an accumulation of experiences. The revision of such experiences usually becomes more recurrent after retirement, a transition time from one period of life to another and, as such, a time in which we, human beings, have a tendency to take stock of our lives. This is actually one of the main issues present in Julian Barnes's last novel The Sense of an Ending (2011). When the main protagonist, a retired man quite comfortable and contented with his present life, receives an unexpected inheritance from the mother of a girlfriend from his university years, he is forced to track down a part of his life that he had left at the back of his mind a long time ago. As he explains his story, the protagonist and narrator of the novel raises a number of questions related to the quality and function of memory as one gets into old age. He experiments the unreliability of memory and questions to what extent memory is constructed through the remembered emotions that invaded him over that episode of his life rather than through the events as they actually took place. On the other hand, the act of revisiting and revising that specific episode, brings with it feelings of guilt and remorse as the protagonist realises that his past acts were not as noble as he remembered them to be. However, these acts are part of the past and they cannot be changed; thus, another question that the novel raises is how to account for those actions of which one does not feel proud and, more importantly, how to manage those bad memories as one gets older.

The Sense of embodiment in virtual reality

What does it feel like to own, to control, and to be inside a body? The multidimensional nature of this experience together with the continuous presence of one's biological body, render both theoretical and experimental approaches problematic. Nevertheless, exploitation of immersive virtual reality has allowed a reframing of this question to whether it is possible to experience the same sensations towards a virtual body inside an immersive virtual environment as toward the biological body, and if so, to what extent. The current paper addresses these issues by referring to the Sense of Embodiment (SoE). Due to the conceptual confusion around this sense, we provide a working definition which states that SoE consists of three subcomponents: the sense of self-location, the sense of agency, and the sense of body ownership. Under this proposed structure, measures and experimental manipulations reported in the literature are reviewed and related challenges are outlined. Finally, future experimental studies are proposed to overcome those challenges, toward deepening the concept of SoE and enhancing it in virtual applications.

On the stability of the optimal value and the optimal set in optimization problems

The paper develops a stability theory for the optimal value and the optimal set mapping of optimization problems posed in a Banach space. The problems considered in this paper have an arbitrary number of inequality constraints involving lower semicontinuous (not necessarily convex) functions and one closed abstract constraint set. The considered perturbations lead to problems of the same type as the nominal one (with the same space of variables and the same number of constraints), where the abstract constraint set can also be perturbed. The spaces of functions involved in the problems (objective and constraints) are equipped with the metric of the uniform convergence on the bounded sets, meanwhile in the space of closed sets we consider, coherently, the Attouch-Wets topology. The paper examines, in a unified way, the lower and upper semicontinuity of the optimal value function, and the closedness, lower and upper semicontinuity (in the sense of Berge) of the optimal set mapping. This paper can be seen as a second part of the stability theory presented in [17], where we studied the stability of the feasible set mapping (completed here with the analysis of the Lipschitz-like property).

Embedding theorems of funcitional classes, III

In this paper we obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions for embedding results of different function classes. The main result is a criterion for embedding theorems for the so-called generalized Weyl-Nikol'skii class and the generalized Lipschitz class. To define the Weyl-Nikol'skii class, we use the concept of a (λ,β)-derivative, which is a generalization of the derivative in the sense of Weyl. As corollaries, we give estimates of norms and moduli of smoothness of transformed Fourier series.

Translating and analysing songs: three songs in the context of communist Romania

Songs were the means used by the Romanian Communist Party to ‘educate’ Romanians. Through them, Romanians were told what they had to appreciate, how grateful they were supposed to be to the regime, how great President Ceausescu was and how they had to work harder and harder so that they could be even better Communists. This paper comprises the translation of three songs composed, performed and broadcast in Communist Romania and their analysis from the point of view of communication. In translating the song, I have chosen to translate closest to the original possible meaning and meanwhile to respect to the best of my ability Low’s ‘pentathlon principle’: singability, rhyme, rhythm, naturalness and fidelity to the sense of the source text

Collective Intelligence for OER Sustainability

To thrive, the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement, or a given initiative, must make sense of a complex, changing environment. Since "sustainability" is a desirable systemic capacity that our community should display, we consider a number of principles that sharpen the concept: resilience, sensemaking and complexity. We outline how these motivate the concept of collective intelligence (CI), we give examples of what OER-CI might look like, and we describe the emerging Cohere CI platform we are developing in response to these requirements.

Ideas, Possibilities and Limitations of Sustainable Economic Policy – the Example of Ecological Economics

A mesura que el suport del creixement econòmic constitueix un objectiu fonamental de la formulació de polítiques econòmiques, cal assenyalar que aquest tipus de creixement està limitat naturalment per un planeta finit. Aquest article argumenta que, des del punt de vista de la justícia intergeneracional, la realització d'un concepte de desmaterialització i, com a efecte, d'una economia que no creix (en el sentit de dissociació absoluta del creixement econòmic i consum d'energia i materials) es pot justificar. Per tant, el creixement pot ser també entesa com la millora de la qualitat de vida sobretot en comptes d'ampliar quantitats escarpats de sortida. Per tant, una dràstica reducció del cabal de material es necessita, sobretot en els països d'alts ingressos. Després de presentar alguns crítica de les propostes, en el focus d'aquest article es dibuixen en els arguments de per què la política econòmica en el futur han de ser etiquetats com "ecològic" i, a continuació, les opcions de posar en acció les idees del teòric presentat marc en tasques manejables polítiques seran discutides. En aquest cas, s'argumentarà que l'enfocament clàssic de internalització d'efectes externs sovint seguides de decisions de política econòmica ortodoxa no és completament capaç de reflectir canvis ecològics en les estructures de preus dels mercats. Per tant, formal (industrial i l'establiment de la política de consum) i institucions informals (llars) representen punts clau de la política econòmica sostenible, assenyalant l'individu com així com la responsabilitat col · lectiva per omplir aquest buit substancial.

One kind of lawlessness: estimating the welfare cost of Somali piracy

This paper estimates the effect of piracy attacks on shipping costs using a unique data set on shipping contracts in the dry bulk market. We look at shipping routes whose shortest path exposes them to piracy attacks and find that the increase in attacks in 2008 lead to around a ten percent increase in shipping costs. We use this estimate to get a sense of the welfare loss imposed by piracy. Our intermediate estimate suggests that the creation of $120 million of revenue for pirates in the Somalia area led to a welfare loss of over $1.5 billion.

Does Warfare Matter? Severity, Duration, and Outcomes of Civil Wars

Importa si una guerra civil es combat com un conflicte irregular, convencional o simètric no convencional? En altres paraules, tenen les “tecnologies de la rebel·lió” un impacte sobre la gravetat d’una guerra, la seva durada o el seu resultat? Aquest treball mostra que els conflictes irregulars duren més que els altres tipus de conflicte, mentre els convencionals tendeixen a ser més greus en termes de letalitat al camp de batalla. D’altra banda, els conflictes irregulars tendeixen a ser guanyats pels governs, mentre els altres són més propensos a acabar en empat. Substancialment, aquests resultats ens ajuden a donar sentit a l’evolució de les guerres civils, les quals tendeixen a ser més curtes, més intenses i més difícils per als governs. Teòricament, aquests resultats donen suport a la importància de la tecnologia de rebel·lió a l’estudiar la gravetat, la durada i els resultats de les guerres civils; a més, contribueixen a una millor comprensió de la contribució històrica de la guerra irregular a la construcció de l’Estat i al canvi social.

Organisational Values as "Attractors of Chaos": An Emerging Cultural Change to Manage Organisational Complexity

Business organisations are excellent representations of what in physics and mathematics are designated "chaotic" systems. Because a culture of innovation will be vital for organisational survival in the 21st century, the present paper proposes that viewing organisations in terms of "complexity theory" may assist leaders in fine-tuning managerial philosophies that provide orderly management emphasizing stability within a culture of organised chaos, for it is on the "boundary of chaos" that the greatest creativity occurs. It is argued that 21st century companies, as chaotic social systems, will no longer be effectively managed by rigid objectives (MBO) nor by instructions (MBI). Their capacity for self-organisation will be derived essentially from how their members accept a shared set of values or principles for action (MBV). Complexity theory deals with systems that show complex structures in time or space, often hiding simple deterministic rules. This theory holds that once these rules are found, it is possible to make effective predictions and even to control the apparent complexity. The state of chaos that self-organises, thanks to the appearance of the "strange attractor", is the ideal basis for creativity and innovation in the company. In this self-organised state of chaos, members are not confined to narrow roles, and gradually develop their capacity for differentiation and relationships, growing continuously toward their maximum potential contribution to the efficiency of the organisation. In this way, values act as organisers or "attractors" of disorder, which in the theory of chaos are equations represented by unusually regular geometric configurations that predict the long-term behaviour of complex systems. In business organisations (as in all kinds of social systems) the starting principles end up as the final principles in the long term. An attractor is a model representation of the behavioral results of a system. The attractor is not a force of attraction or a goal-oriented presence in the system; it simply depicts where the system is headed based on its rules of motion. Thus, in a culture that cultivates or shares values of autonomy, responsibility, independence, innovation, creativity, and proaction, the risk of short-term chaos is mitigated by an overall long-term sense of direction. A more suitable approach to manage the internal and external complexities that organisations are currently confronting is to alter their dominant culture under the principles of MBV.

Organisational values as "attractors of chaos": An emerging cultural change to manage organisational complexity

Business organisations are excellent representations of what in physics and mathematics are designated "chaotic" systems. Because a culture of innovation will be vital for organisational survival in the 21st century, the present paper proposes that viewing organisations in terms of "complexity theory" may assist leaders in fine-tuning managerial philosophies that provide orderly management emphasizing stability within a culture of organised chaos, for it is on the "boundary of chaos" that the greatest creativity occurs. It is argued that 21st century companies, as chaotic social systems, will no longer be effectively managed by rigid objectives (MBO) nor by instructions (MBI). Their capacity for self-organisation will be derived essentially from how their members accept a shared set of values or principles for action (MBV). Complexity theory deals with systems that show complex structures in time or space, often hiding simple deterministic rules. This theory holds that once these rules are found, it is possible to make effective predictions and even to control the apparent complexity. The state of chaos that self-organises, thanks to the appearance of the "strange attractor", is the ideal basis for creativity and innovation in the company. In this self-organised state of chaos, members are not confined to narrow roles, and gradually develop their capacity for differentiation and relationships, growing continuously toward their maximum potential contribution to the efficiency of the organisation. In this way, values act as organisers or "attractors" of disorder, which in the theory of chaos are equations represented by unusually regular geometric configurations that predict the long-term behaviour of complex systems. In business organisations (as in all kinds of social systems) the starting principles end up as the final principles in the long term. An attractor is a model representation of the behavioral results of a system. The attractor is not a force of attraction or a goal-oriented presence in the system; it simply depicts where the system is headed based on its rules of motion. Thus, in a culture that cultivates or shares values of autonomy, responsibility, independence, innovation, creativity, and proaction, the risk of short-term chaos is mitigated by an overall long-term sense of direction. A more suitable approach to manage the internal and external complexities that organisations are currently confronting is to alter their dominant culture under the principles of MBV.

Speculative dynamics in the term structure of interest rates

When long maturity bonds are traded frequently and traders have non-nestedinformation sets, speculative behavior in the sense of Harrison and Kreps (1978) arises.Using a term structure model displaying such speculative behavior, this paper proposesa conceptually and observationally distinct new mechanism generating time varying predictableexcess returns. It is demonstrated that (i) dispersion of expectations about futureshort rates is sufficient for individual traders to systematically predict excess returns and(ii) the new term structure dynamics driven by speculative trade is orthogonal to publicinformation in real time, but (iii) can nevertheless be quantified using only publicly availableyield data. The model is estimated using monthly data on US short to medium termTreasuries from 1964 to 2007 and it provides a good fit of the data. Speculative dynamicsare found to be quantitatively important, potentially accounting for a substantial fractionof the variation of bond yields and appears to be more important at long maturities.

Fermat's treatise on quadrature: A new reading

The Treatise on Quadrature of Fermat (c. 1659), besides containing the first known proof of the computation of the area under a higher parabola, R x+m/n dx, or under a higher hyperbola, R x-m/n dx with the appropriate limits of integration in each case , has a second part which was not understood by Fermat s contemporaries. This second part of the Treatise is obscure and difficult to read and even the great Huygens described it as'published with many mistakes and it is so obscure (with proofs redolent of error) that I have been unable to make any sense of it'. Far from the confusion that Huygens attributes to it, in this paper we try to prove that Fermat, in writing the Treatise, had a very clear goal in mind and he managed to attain it by means of a simple and original method. Fermat reduced the quadrature of a great number of algebraic curves to the quadrature of known curves: the higher parabolas and hyperbolas of the first part of the paper. Others, he reduced to the quadrature of the circle. We shall see how the clever use of two procedures, quite novel at the time: the change of variables and a particular case of the formulaof integration by parts, provide Fermat with the necessary tools to square very easily curves as well-known as the folium of Descartes, the cissoid of Diocles or the witch of Agnesi.

On the short-time behavior of the implied volatility for jump-diffusion models with stochastic volatility

In this paper we use Malliavin calculus techniques to obtain an expression for the short-time behavior of the at-the-money implied volatility skew for a generalization of the Bates model, where the volatility does not need to be neither a difussion, nor a Markov process as the examples in section 7 show. This expression depends on the derivative of the volatility in the sense of Malliavin calculus.

Audit quality: Attributes, private safeguards and the role of regulation

This article examines the private mechanisms used to safeguard quality in auditing, with a view to defining rules capable of facilitating the performance of market forces. An outline is given of a general theory of private quality assurance in auditing, based on the use of quasi-rents to self-enforce quality dimensions. Particular attention is paid to the role of fee income diversification as the key ingredient of private incentives for audit quality. The role of public regulation is then situated in the context defined by the presence of these safeguard mechanisms. This helps in defining the content of rules and the function of regulatory bodies in facilitating and strengthening the protective operation of the market. By making sense of the interaction between regulation, quality attributes and private safeguards, the analysis helps to evaluate the relative merits of different regulatory options.