Search results for ""author pietro""

Economics has a very strong paradigm, grounded in rational choice behavior and concepts of equilibrium in markets. But it has its weaknesses. These were never more apparent than in recent years after the failure to predict, or even understand the financial crisis of 2007-8 and the subsequent crisis of the euro. Exactly what these weaknesses are is of course the subject of much debate. But the crisis and the associated failures of the dominant paradigm have had at least one salutary side effect, of providing room for other ways of thinking to come forward and to be heard. This volume focuses on alternative approaches to public economics. It surveys a number of alternative approaches, and also provides some unusual perspectives. It includes contributions by well known economists such as Giorgio Brosio and Pierre Salmon, and a chapter by Coco and Fedeli employing a Marxian economic approach to public economics. Some of the chapters are very novel, including two chapters on cognitive dissonance and one on the role of memory in modeling cycles of extreme events. There are also chapters on Austrian economics. And there is a welcome discussion of economic approaches to religion and values, including a chapter on religion by the distinguished economist Dennis Mueller, and contributions on the role of values and ethics in politics and public economics. All in all, the book provides a most welcome sourcebook of new and sometimes very different ways of thinking about public economics.'- Ronald Wintrobe, Western UniversityThis comprehensive and thought-provoking Handbook reviews public sector economics from pluralist perspectives that either complement or reach beyond mainstream views.The book takes a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, drawing on economic elements in the fields of philosophy, sociology, psychology, history and law. The expert contributors present new methodological approaches across these disciplines in five distinct sections:- 'Revisiting the Theoretical Foundations' compares and contrasts Austrians, Marxists, public choice theorists and Keynesians- 'Revisiting the Values' is concerned with justice, welfare, religions and civil rights- 'Beyond Rationalistic Rational Choice' includes chapters devoted to memory, information and group motivation- The final sections on 'Optimal Government and Government Failure' and 'Public Economics of Public Bads' deal with competition among governments, their suboptimal size, regulation, corruption, the informal economy, cognitive dissonance, rent seeking, the UN and criminal cycles.Academics, researchers and students with an interest in economics - particularly public sector economics and Austrian economics - and public policy will find this Handbook to be an invaluable reference tool.Contributors: F. Acacia, J. Alm, G. Brady, G. Brosio, M. Caputo, M. Casson, G. Coco, M. Cubel Sanchez, S. Fedeli, M. Florio, F. Forte, N. Goldschmit, A. Habisch, M. Holler, J. Huerta de Soto, J.P. Jimenez, A. Koziashvili, M.A. Leroch, C. Magazzino, M. Mantovani, D. Montolio, R. Mudami, D.C. Mueller, S. Nitzan, D.M.A. Patti, P. Salin, P. Salmon, F. Sobbrio, V. Tanzi, Y. Tobol, B.A. Wickström, R. Zanola

Read more less

One of the themes of the 20th International Congress of Entomology held in Florence in August 1996 was ecology and population dynamics, with papers presented on single species dynamics, population interactions, and community ecology. This text contains a selection of the papers that were presented, and gives and late-1990s picture of the developing area. It should be of interest to biometricians and general population ecolgists, as well as entomologists.

Read more less

Global economic progress in the twentieth century, while generally encouraging, was neither continuous nor uniform. With the exception of some Asian nations, countries that were more developed at the beginning of the twentieth century still rank amongst the wealthiest nations, while countries that were poorer, still lag behind. The distinguished authors in this volume address the fundamental causes for such heterogeneous international experiences, placing particular emphasis on the role of institutions.They demonstrate how the study of economic development is increasingly linked to the development of institutions, which allow for more complex exchanges to occur in markets and societies. Institutions can be understood as rules or constraints that channel individuals' actions in specific directions, and can be formal or informal depending on their genesis. The book highlights the connection between institutions and economic welfare by examining countries at different stages of development. Although the authors' study material effects, they also look at individual well-being which is more strongly influenced by the non-material products of institutions such as opportunity, freedom and relationships. They move on to highlight the role of institutions in global business, in terms of innovation, entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment. In the concluding chapters they focus on the actual process of transition from one institutional framework to another. Amongst other examples, they examine reforms to international financial institutions and constitutional adjustments in transition countries. This varied yet highly topical book will be invaluable to institutional and public-choice economists, students and researchers of the theory and policy of international business, and social and political scientists interested in the role and evolution of institutions.

Read more less

The design of an electoral system is fundamental to any democracy. It is through electoral systems that the commitment of a society to a political system is achieved. The peculiarities of an electoral system assume significant importance in periods in which democratic polities seem caught between a crisis of confidence in their representative systems and mass apathy over the product of government - as has recently occurred in Italy.Electoral rules constrain available choice alternatives and therefore have profound effects on governance of a country since different electoral rules generate different outcome patterns even with no change in the identity of candidates. The two most common electoral schemes are proportional representation and plurality. The theoretical debate concerning these two systems is of intense interest not least because of the importance of finding a stable, democratic and representative institutional structure that can be employed worldwide. This topical book analyses the change of electoral rules in Italy from proportional representation toward plurality. While Italy is used as the illustrative case, the analysis has far-ranging theoretical and practical implications, and will therefore be of interest to academics and researchers of political economy, constitutionalism and public choice.

Read more less

Analysis of hundreds of art works from the period provides insights into forgotten landscapes and hidden geographies. After the Napoleonic wars many wealthy British women and men settled along the coast in Liguria and travelled in Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta in search of warmth and health. They established English-speaking colonies of retired clerics, colonial officials, aristocrats and industrialists at places such as Alassio, Bordighera, Sanremo and Portofino. Many were keen artists. This book assesses hundreds of topographical drawings, paintings and photographs of north-west Italy produced by these British visitors and residents in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Through the identification and analysis of these works, scattered today in private and public collections in Italy and Britain, it provides insights into the way Italian landscapes were understood and appreciated. Considered in conjunction with historical photography, maps, archives and fieldwork, they deepen our knowledge of past land management traditions and recover how the contemporary landscape looked. The artists are placed in their intellectual and geographical contexts; and interconnections between British and Italian artists and between topographical art and photography are explored. Different chapters assess the main subjects depicted, including mountains, seascapes, rivers, agriculture, trees and woodland, castles, churches, villages, industries and landscapes of luxury.

Read more less

Hydrogels are an emerging area of interest in medicine as well as pharmaceutics, and their physico-chemical characterization is fundamental to their practical applications. Compared with synthetic polymers, polysaccharides that are widely present in living organisms and come from renewable sources are extremely advantageous for hydrogel formation. Furthermore, polysaccharides are usually non-toxic and biocompatible and show a number of peculiar physico-chemical properties that make them suitable for a wide variety of biomedical applications. This book bridges the gap between the preparation of hydrogels and their characterization techniques. It aims to offer a valid support that can help the readers find appropriate keys to open the doors to the complex world of polysaccharide hydrogels.

Read more less

This book aims to stimulate and promote the wide-ranging aspects of green chemistry and its major role in ensuring sustainable development. The book covers the following areas: green chemistry; green reagents and atom economy; safeguarding the atmosphere; industrial green catalysis; alternative reaction conditions; biocatalysis and green chemistry. This book is based on the third edition of the Collection of Lectures of the Summer Schools on Green Chemistry held in Venice, Italy in the summers of 1998-2003 (sponsored by the European Commission, TMR and Improving Programmes and carried out by the Consortzio Interuniversitario La Chemica per l'Ambiente).

Read more less

This text presents the information needed to design a successful quantitative analysis using mass spectrometric techniques currently available and widely employed. It is devoted to the researchers of different areas, who use mass spectrometry as a detector suitable for the measurements of their interest. An essential book for the practicing mass spectroscopist A genuine 'how-to' text for the practitioner focusing on quantification rather than instrumental design and techniques Up-to-date structured text describing methods, experimental strategy, capabilities and limitations, with data analysis and interpretation Brings together material widely dispersed in the pertinent literature into one unique source Internationally recognized group of authors

Read more less

"Governance is about managing networks". This quote from political scientist Rod A.W. Rhodes pioneered a whole series of governance studies in different disciplines. Accordingly, destination governance describes the collective management of tourism destinations. Promoting collective action in tourism destinations means dealing with a myriad of different actors and applying various instruments. Probably the most basic requirement is to take into account the peculiarities of every single destination. Therefore, this book approaches the issue of contemporary destination governance from a case study point of view focusing on 16 destinations. In contrast to other publications in the field of destination governance, the book concentrates on the discussion of cases and the peculiarities of destinations which influence the destination governance. It demonstrates how different theories from the fields of organizational studies, strategic management, tourism research and sociology can enlighten our understanding of particular real-world situations. Last but not least the bottom-up approach supports practitioners and students by making otherwise complex theories accessible to a broader audience.

Read more less

Smart structures that contain embedded piezoelectric patches are loaded by both mechanical and electrical fields. Traditional plate and shell theories were developed to analyze structures subject to mechanical loads. However, these often fail when tasked with the evaluation of both electrical and mechanical fields and loads. In recent years more advanced models have been developed that overcome these limitations. Plates and Shells for Smart Structures offers a complete guide and reference to smart structures under both mechanical and electrical loads, starting with the basic principles and working right up to the most advanced models. It provides an overview of classical plate and shell theories for piezoelectric elasticity and demonstrates their limitations in static and dynamic analysis with a number of example problems. This book also provides both analytical and finite element solutions, thus enabling the reader to compare strong and weak solutions to the problems. Key features: compares a large variety of classical and modern approaches to plates and shells, such as Kirchhoff-Love , Reissner-Mindlin assumptions and higher order, layer-wise and mixed theories introduces theories able to consider electromechanical couplings as well as those that provide appropriate interface continuity conditions for both electrical and mechanical variables considers both static and dynamic analysis accompanied by a companion website hosting dedicated software MUL2 that is used to obtain the numerical solutions in the book, allowing the reader to reproduce the examples given as well as solve problems of their own The models currently used have a wide range of applications in civil, automotive, marine and aerospace engineering. Researchers of smart structures, and structural analysts in industry, will find all they need to know in this concise reference. Graduate and postgraduate students of mechanical, civil and aerospace engineering can also use this book in their studies. www.mul2.com

Read more less

"Bartolo tells us about rescuing everyone he can, burying those he cannot, and saving their stories as if they were his own. This is a personal, urgent and universal book" GLORIA STEINEM"An urgent, wrenching dispatch from the frontline of the defining crisis of our times . . . Bartolo is at once the saviour and the coroner to boatload after boatload of migrants who risk everything to cross the deadly seas. It is also a damning indictment of the broader, collective indifference of humankind to both the drowned and the saved" PHILIP GOUREVITCH"Dr Pietro Bartolo has seen more suffering and death in his career than any one man should have to witness" Amnesty International"Through Bartolo we understand that it is impossible to do nothing in the face of such great human need" Vanity FairIt is common to think of the refugee crisis as a recent phenomenon, but Dr Pietro Bartolo, who runs the clinic on the Italian island of Lampedusa, has been caring for its victims - both the living and the dead - for a quarter of a century.Situated some 200 km off Italy's Southern coast, Lampedusa has hit the world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe.The shipwrecks began in 1992. Before the Arab Spring, they came from Africa, but now they come from across the Arab world as well. And the death toll is staggering. On Christmas Eve, 1996, 286 bodies were recovered; on the night of October 3, 2003, 366 out of 500 migrants died after a shipwreck nearby.For the past twenty-five years, Doctor Bartolo has been rescuing, welcoming, helping, and providing medical assistance to those who survived. But, above all, he has been listening to them. Tales of pain and hope, stories of those who didn't make it, who died at sea, their bodies washed up on shore; stories of those who lost their loved ones, of babies that never had a chance to be born.SHORTLISTED FOR THE ITALIAN PROSE TRANSLATION AWARD (IPTA)Translated from the Italian by Chenxin Jiang

Read more less

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), scholar and critic, was one of the most admired Latinists of his day. After some years at the court of Urbino, where he exchanged Platonic love letters with Lucrezia Borgia, he moved to Rome and served as secretary to Leo X (1513-1520). Later he retired to Padua and a life of letters. He was made a cardinal in 1539. The poems in this volume come from all periods of his life and reflect both his erudition and his wide-ranging friendships. This verse edition is the first time they have been translated into English.This volume also includes the prose dialogue Etna, an account of Bembo's ascent of Mt. Etna in Sicily during his student days, translated by Betty Radice.

Read more less