Εl voto de un soldado a Silvano – Zeus "Dalbenus"?

Estudiamos una pieza inédita de una colección privada de Barcelona. Es una escultura votiva, ofrecida por un soldado. Representa al dios Silvano, si bien el nombre de este dios no aparece citado en la inscripción griega de la base, donde se indica que el voto va dirigido a Zeus Dalbenus. Este epíteto Dalbenos / Dalbenus es un hápax. Ofrecemos una lectura del texto e intentamos dar una respuesta a las “incongruencias” entre imagen y texto inscrito.

Applicazione della Tomografia con raggi X per la lettura virtuale di antichi manoscritti veneziani

Questo lavoro di tesi si inserisce in un progetto di ricerca internazionale denominato “Venice Time Machine” dove collaborano fianco a fianco l’Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne e l’Università Cà Foscari di Venezia. Grazie al coinvolgimento dell’Archivio di Stato di Venezia, decine di chilometri di documenti verranno digitalizzati e indicizzati, al fine di creare un database open access da utilizzare per la ricerca e l’istruzione. Molti di questi documenti tuttavia sono particolarmente fragili oppure, come nel caso di diversi testamenti, non sono mai stati aperti, per cui le tecniche tradizionali di digitalizzazione non sono applicabili. Di qui deriva l’interesse per sperimentare nuove tecniche non invasive al fine di digitalizzare e quindi rendere fruibili al pubblico anche questi documenti altrimenti inaccessibili. Lo scopo dell’analisi tomografica è quello di creare un modello 3D del documento, su cui effettuare successive elaborazioni al fine di ottenere una separazione virtuale delle pagine e quindi permetterne la lettura anche se il manoscritto è chiuso e non può essere aperto. In particolare in questo lavoro di tesi sono stati analizzati due testamenti: un testamento del 1679, usato come campione di prova per verificare la migliore sorgente di raggi X ai fini della ricostruzione tomografica e anche per valutare l’efficacia della tecnica, e il testamento Alchier-Spiera (dai nomi dei testatori), datato 1634, di maggiore interesse poiché ancora chiuso. I risultati ottenuti sono molto soddisfacenti, poiché elaborando le ricostruzioni tomografiche è possibile la lettura virtuale sia di parole che di intere frasi. Questo risultato porta nuova linfa al progetto che, di base, si pone l’obiettivo di convertire in formato digitale decine di km di testi conservati in Archivio, ma che ha trovato, in questo tipo di testamenti chiusi, un ostacolo molto difficile da superare.

Studio Stratigrafico-Vulcanologico della Successione Piroclastica di Lower Pollara - Salina (Isole Eolie)

L’argomento di questo lavoro di tesi è lo studio stratigrafico-vulcanologico dei depositi della successione piroclastica di Lower Pollara, nel settore NW dell’isola di Salina (Isole Eolie). Questa successione corrisponde alla prima attività esplosiva, di tipo subpliniana, del cratere di Pollara, ed è caratterizzata da un’ampia distribuzione areale sia sull'isola di Salina, sia sull'adiacente isola di Lipari, dove è noto un livello di tefra. Questo studio stratigrafico-vulcanologico, attraverso la ricostruzione di una sezione stratigrafica di dettaglio della successione piroclastica, suddividendola in diverse unità deposizionali, ha permesso di ricostruire lo stile eruttivo ed i meccanismi di innesco relativi a questa attività esplosiva del centro eruttivo di Pollara.

La pieve di San Giorgio di Samoggia (BO): restauro, riuso e consolidamento

La tesi di laurea ha come oggetto il complesso della pieve di San Giorgio di Samoggia che è situata nel comune di Valsamoggia (BO). Il complesso, composto da chiesa, canonica, campanile, casa dell’enfiteuta e cella campanaria, sorge isolato dal paese, in una zona collinare caratterizzata dalla presenza di importanti formazioni calanchive e si trova attualmente in un cattivo stato di conservazione dovuto soprattutto all’assenza di interventi di manutenzione negli ultimi ottant’anni. Il lavoro si è sviluppato nelle seguenti fasi: - Ricostruzione delle vicende costruttive tramite ricerca sulle fonti indirette (bibliografiche e archivistiche) - Rilievo diretto del complesso realizzato tramite la tecnica delle trilaterazioni e conseguente restituzione grafica di planimetrie, sezioni e prospetti del complesso - Analisi dello stato di fatto e di degrado del manufatto, ponendo una particolare attenzione alle tecniche costruttive utilizzate - Progetto di una serie di interventi di consolidamento aventi ad oggetto i tetti e i solai di piano della chiesa e della canonica - Proposta di attualizzazione funzionale della porzione di complesso che in passato era l’abitazione dell’enfiteuta che coltivava il fondo annesso alla pieve.

Is the supply of long-term debt independent of the term premia? Evidence from Portugal

An important assumption in the statistical analysis of the financial market effects of the central bank’s large scale asset purchase program is that the "long-term debt stock variables were exogenous to term premia". We test this assumption for a small open economy in a currency union over the period 2000M3 to 2015M10, via the determinants of short- term financing relative to long-term financing. Empirical estimations indicate that the maturity composition of debt does not respond to the level of interest rate or to the term structure. These findings suggest a lower adherence to the cost minimization mandate of debt management. However, we find that volatility and relative market size respectively decrease and increase short-term financing relative to long-term financing, while it decreases with an increase in government indebtedness.

Assessing public spending efficiency in 20 OECD countries

This study follows the framework of Afonso, Schuknecht, and Tanzi (2005), aiming to look at the public expenditure of 20 OECD countries for the period 2009-2013, from the per- spective of efficiency and assess if these developed countries are performing efficiently compared to each other. Public Sector Performance (PSP) and Public Sector Efficiency (PSE) indicators were constructed and Data Envelopment Analysis was conducted. The results show that the only country that performed on the efficiency frontier is Switzerland. The average input-oriented efficiency score is equal to 0.732. That is, on average countries could have reduced the level of public expenditure by 26.8% and still achieved the same level of public performance. The average output-oriented efficiency score is 0.769 denoting that on average the sample countries could have increased their performance by 23.1% by employing the same level of public expenditure.

Self-defeating austerity? Assessing the impact of fiscal consolidations on unemployment

The great recession of 2008/2009 has had a huge impact on unemployment and public finances in most advanced countries, and these impacts were magnified in the southern Euro area countries by the sovereign debt crisis of 2010/2011. The fiscal consolidation imposed by the European Union on highly indebted countries was based on the assumptions of the so-called expansionary austerity. However, the reality so far shows proof to the contrary, and the results of this paper support the opposing view of a self- defeating austerity. Based on the input-output relations of the productive system, an unemployment rate/budget balance trade-off equation is derived, as well as the impact of a strong fiscal consolidation based on social transfers and the notion of neutral budget balance. An application to the Portuguese case confirms the huge costs of a strong fiscal consolidation, both in terms of unemployment and social policy regress, and it allows one to conclude that too much consolidation in one year makes consolidation more difficult in the following year.

Economic growth and public and private investment returns

We study the macroeconomic effects of public and private investment in 17 OECD economies through a VAR analysis with annual data from 1960 to 2014. From impulse response functions we find that public investment had a positive growth effect in most countries, and a contractionary effect in Finland, UK, Sweden, Japan, and Canada. Public investment led to private investment crowding out in Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Canada, Sweden, the UK and crowding-in effects in the rest of the countries. Private investment has a positive growth effect in all countries; crowds-out (crowds-in) public investment in Belgium and Sweden (in the rest of the countries). The partial rates of return of public and private investment are mostly positive.

Foreign direct investment determinants revisited in the context of global value chains

In this paper, we aim at contributing to the new field of research that intends to bring up-to-date the tools and statistics currently used to look to the current reality given by Global Value Chains (GVC) in international trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Namely, we make use of the most recent data published by the World Input-Output Database to suggest indicators to measure the participation and net gains of countries by being a part of GVC; and use those indicators in a pooled-regression model to estimate determinants of FDI stocks in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-member countries. We conclude that one of the measures proposed proves to be statistically significant in explaining the bilateral stock of FDI in OECD countries, meaning that the higher the transnational income generated between two given countries by GVC, taken as a proxy to the participation of those countries in GVC, the higher one could expect the FDI entering those countries to be. The regression also shows the negative impact of the global financial crisis that started in 2009 in the world’s bilateral FDI stocks and, additionally, the particular and significant role played by the People’s Republic of China in determining these stocks.

The export performance of the 2004 EU enlargement economies since the 1990s : a constant market share analysis

This study focuses the export performance of the 2004 EU enlargement economies between 1990 and 2013. The long time span analysed allows to capture different stages in the relationship of these new members with the EU before and after accession. The study is based on the Constant Market Share methodology of decomposing an ex-post country’s export performance into different effects. Two different Constant Market Share Analysis (CMSA) were selected in order to disentangle, for the exports of the new members to the EU15, (i) the growth rate of exports and (ii) the growth rate of exports relatively to the world. Both approaches are applied to manufactured products first without disaggregating results by sectors and then grouping all products into two different classification of sectors: one considering the technological intensity of manufactured exports and another evaluating the specialization factors of the products exported. Results provide information not only on the ten economies’ export performance as a group but also individually considered and on the importance of each EU15 destination market to the export performance of these countries.

The specific shapes of gender imbalance in scientific authorships : a network approach

Gender differences in collaborative research have received little at- tention when compared with the growing importance that women hold in academia and research. Unsurprisingly, most of bibliomet- ric databases have a strong lack of directly available information by gender. Although empirical-based network approaches are often used in the study of research collaboration, the studies about the influence of gender dissimilarities on the resulting topological outcomes are still scarce. Here, networks of scientific subjects are used to characterize patterns that might be associated to five categories of authorships which were built based on gender. We find enough evidence that gen- der imbalance in scientific authorships brings a peculiar trait to the networks induced from papers published in Web of Science (WoS) in- dexed journals of Economics over the period 2010-2015 and having at least one author affiliated to a Portuguese institution. Our re- sults show the emergence of a specific pattern when the network of co-occurring subjects is induced from a set of papers exclusively au- thored by men. Such a male-exclusive authorship condition is found to be the solely responsible for the emergence that particular shape in the network structure. This peculiar trait might facilitate future network analyses of research collaboration and interdisciplinarity.

Portuguese National Accounts : a network approach

In recent years, the Portuguese economy has gone through a severe adjustment process, which aected almost every sector of the economy. Therefore, it is important to study how the structure of the economy changed during this period. To that end, using data on the annual output by industry and product from National Accounts, we developed a network of industries for the years 2010 and 2013. By comparing the Minimal Spanning Trees and a set of topological coecients for the years considered, we evaluate the structural evolution of the economy. In order to get a long term view, we extended the analysis to the period between 1995 and 2010. We found that the industries linked to trade activities maintained their centrality, although they decreased their importance over time. Together with construction activities, they were among the most severely aected industries.

Economic growth and individual satisfaction in an agent-based economy

Macro and micro-economic perspectives are combined in an eco- nomic growth model. An agent-based modeling approach is used to develop an overlapping generation framework where endogenous growth is supported by work- ers that decide to study depending on their relative (skilled and unskilled) indi- vidual satisfaction. The micro perspective is based on individual satisfaction: an utility function computed from the variation of the relative income in both space and time. The macro perspective emerges from micro decisions, and, as in other growth models of this type, concerns an important allocative social decision the share of the working population that is engaged in producing ideas (skilled work- ers). Simulations show that production and satisfaction levels are higher when the evolution of income measured in both space and time are equally weighted.