bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Phanerozoic Oxygen
Authors: Canfield Donald Eugene
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the modeling of the history of atmospheric oxygen. The most recently deposited sediments will also be the most prone to weathering through processes like sea-level change or uplift of the land. Thus, through rapid recycling, high rates of oxygen production through the burial of organic-rich sediments will quickly lead to high rates of oxygen consumption through the exposure of these organic-rich sediments to weathering. From a modeling perspective, rapid recycling helps to dampen oxygen changes. This is important because the fluxes of oxygen through the atmosphere during organic carbon and pyrite burial, and by weathering, are huge compared to the relatively small amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. Thus, all of the oxygen in the present atmosphere is cycled through geologic processes of oxygen liberation (organic carbon and pyrite burial) and consumption (weathering) on a time scale of about 2 to 3 million years.
Introduction: The Diversity of Planetary Climates
Authors: Ingersoll Andrew P.
Published: November 2017

This book examines the fundamental physical processes that control planetary climates, from convection and radiation to escape of atmospheres, evaporation, condensation, atmospheric chemistry, and the dynamics of rotating fluids. It looks at the climates of the planets in order of distance from the Sun, starting with Venus and ending with planets around other stars. The greenhouse effect and climate evolution are discussed, along with basic physical processes such as convection, radiation, Hadley cells, and the accompanying winds. It also considers the “faint young Sun paradox,” illustrated by Mars, and the effect of planetary rotation on climate, the influence of sunlight and rotation on weather patterns, and Neptune's extraordinary strong winds.
Venus: Atmospheric Evolution
Authors: Ingersoll Andrew P.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the greenhouse effect and climate evolution using Venus as an example. Venus mostly has an Earth-like inventory of volatile gases—the basic ingredients of atmospheres and oceans—but with one glaring exception: water. Earth's ocean is 300 times as massive as its atmosphere. Water is more abundant than all the other volatiles combined, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen. In contrast, Venus has only a small amount of water, and it is all in the atmosphere. The chapter first compares Earth and Venus in terms of size, distance from the Sun, and bulk composition, as well as climates and inventories of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. It then considers loss of water and escape of atmospheres on Venus, along with the so-called runaway greenhouse.
Mars: The Present Era
Authors: Ingersoll Andrew P.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines condensation and evaporation on Mars, with particular emphasis on how exchanges of water vapor and carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and polar ice influence the planet's climate. Both Earth and Mars have seasonal cycles. At the poles of each planet, frost accumulates during the fall and winter and evaporates during the spring and summer; and right at the poles, the frost lasts throughout the year. In these respects the seasons on Mars are like the seasons on Earth, but there are differences. For example, on Mars, there are two kinds of frost—water and carbon dioxide, the latter of which is also the major constituent of the atmosphere. The chapter first provides an overview of seasonal cycles of water and carbon dioxide on Mars before discussing the effect of winds on weather. It also considers dust storms and weather fluctuations on Mars.
Conclusion
Authors: Ingersoll Andrew P.
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter discusses some of the lessons that can be learned from studying the planets and planetary climates. It first considers the general principles that turned out to be right; for example, size and distance from the Sun matter. The larger objects are able to hold on to their atmospheres better than the small objects. The outer solar system is hydrogen rich and the inner solar system is oxygen rich; as one moves away from the Sun different substances take on different roles. There are also assumptions that proved inaccurate; such was the case for Venus, Mars, and the moons of the giant planets. The chapter also asks whether the study of planetary climates provides lessons for Earth, whether the study of planets has informed us about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, and whether it has made the development of extraterrestrial life seem more likely.
Introduction
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Kabbalah. A Hebrew term one can render as “tradition” or “reception.” Kabbalah referred to a mode of reading, a library of texts, a series of concepts, and a range of practices. As a mode of reading, Kabbalah encompassed a set of interpretive assumptions adopted by an initiate in the course of approaching a sacred text. Kabbalists assiduously applied these methods of exegesis to the most sacred of texts, the Bible, and relied on mystical symbolism to uncover its theological content. The term Kabbalah also encompassed a series of ritual practices. For the religious adept, however, Kabbalah also referred to something beyond these rituals of practice, modes of exegesis, bodies of literature, and new theological concepts. Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the term Kabbalah referred to a putative tradition of esotericism, to secrets that God had revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai.
Hebrew Manuscripts in an Age of Print
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter posits Leon Modena's writing practices within the context of early modern Venice, capital of Hebrew printing and center of manuscript production. The circumstances of Modena's life as well as the cultural world of early modern Venice offer some context for why Ari Nohem (The Roaring Lion, 1840) did not appear in print in the seventeenth century. As a work of criticism, Ari Nohem reflected upon the transmission of Jewish tradition, particularly the transmission of esoteric information and the principles of Jewish law. Modena argued that the printing of legal and kabbalistic books had effected a radical change in the transmission of Jewish tradition, a change that he decried in no uncertain terms at several points. Ari Nohem polemicized against one medium, print, in the form of another, manuscript.
Early Modern Criticism of the Zohar
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that Modena's criticism of the Zohar's origins had little to do with its theological contents. It emerged as a reaction to the elevated status of the work among his Jewish contemporaries and immediate predecessors; Jews had begun to treat the Zohar as a source of legal authority rather than a collection of stories and biblical glosses. Modena's critique constituted a denunciation of these larger trends in contemporary Jewish life rather than a rejection of the Zohar as a work of exegesis. As such, Ari Nohem offers a case study of how an early modern intellectual worked to prove that a text was pseudepigraphic. It also presents a wealth of information on attitudes toward the Zohar among Jews in Italy, Poland, and elsewhere. Ultimately, Modena rejected the status ascribed to the Zohar in contemporary Jewish life, denied the work's ostensible antiquity, and reflected on the deleterious impact of its packaging as a printed book.
Guiding the Perplexed
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines Modena's attempt to reclaim Maimonides from his kabbalistic critics and admirers. It argues that Modena's reading of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed informed most of his important positions in Ari Nohem—his understanding of tradition, his rejection of kabbalistic theology, and his attack on kabbalistic hermeneutics. Indeed, Modena quoted, paraphrased, defended, or alluded to Maimonides on nearly every page of Ari Nohem. He mentioned Maimonides explicitly on more than forty occasions in a treatise that consisted of thirty chapters; in addition, he often cited Maimonides without mentioning his name and engaged Maimonides' critics at great length. The chapter then connects Modena's discussion of two crucial issues in his criticism of Kabbalah to his reading of Maimonides: the history of esoteric secrets and the distinction between Kabbalah and philosophic knowledge.
Safed in Venice
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter uses Ari Nohem to document the transmission of Kabbalah from Safed to Venice and looks at Modena's indictment of this transfer of knowledge and practice. The three sections of the chapter trace different components of Modena's response to Safed Kabbalah. The first part charts Modena's rejection of stories about the magical and theurgic powers of Isaac Luria and other kabbalists from Safed that circulated in Venice. The second section concentrates on Modena's attempt to dissociate Kabbalah from philosophy, a response to and rejection of the thought of Israel Saruq—one of the most important kabbalists to travel from Safed to Venice in the late sixteenth century. Finally, the third section traces Modena's response to Cordovero's Pardes Rimonim, a work that systematically examined a central doctrine of theosophical Kabbalah—the sefirot or the ten hypostases of the divine being.
Kabbalah and Scholarship in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter reconstructs the competing efforts of a group of scholars in the early nineteenth century, including Isaac Reggio, Solomon Rosenthal, and Julius Fürst, to print the first edition of Ari Nohem. In the 1830s, Isaac Reggio and Solomon Rosenthal both prepared editions of Ari Nohem. Meanwhile, in an act of scholarly theft that infuriated them both, Julius Fürst printed Rosenthal's edition under his own name at Leipzig in 1840. Reggio, Rosenthal, and Fürst all looked to Modena and his criticism of Kabbalah as a model for their own opposition to the contemporary mystical revival in Hasidism. A decade and a half after Ari Nohem was first printed, however, kabbalists Elijah Benamozegh and Isaac Haver Wildmann subjected it to searing criticism; both tried to combat Modena's arguments against the antiquity of Kabbalah.
Lessons from the Crisis
Authors: Tirole Jean
Published: November 2017

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate on financial system reform. The first part describes what is perceived to be a massive regulatory failure, a breakdown that goes all the way from regulatory fundamentals to prudential implementation. The second part discusses some implications of recent events for financial sector regulation. It argues that to avoid a repetition of the financial crisis, we need both to change public policies that contributed to the crisis (particularly the mortgage crisis) and to institute financial reforms. Desirable reforms of public policy regarding real estate lending include promoting consumer protection and reducing subsidies. Financial regulation must also be international. The creation of supranational regulatory structures has become increasingly urgent in a world in which institutions and counterparties are truly international.
The Treatment of Distressed Banks
Authors: Dewatripont Mathias , Rochet Jean-Charles
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on the potential measures that G20 countries can take to deal with the international financial regime. More precisely, as far as the treatment of distressed banks is concerned, the actions of G20 countries should pursue two possible objectives. The first is the harmonization of the treatment of distressed banks across countries in order to level the playing field while also promoting global financial stability; it is useful in this regard to distinguish individual bank distress from systemic distress. The second is the promotion of cooperation between countries in the treatment of cross-border distressed banks. Each of these issues are discussed in turn.
The Makings of Indonesian Islam
Authors: Laffan Michael
Published: November 2017

Indonesian Islam is often portrayed as being intrinsically moderate by virtue of the role that mystical Sufism played in shaping its traditions. According to Western observers—from Dutch colonial administrators and orientalist scholars to modern anthropologists such as the late Clifford Geertz—Indonesia's peaceful interpretation of Islam has been perpetually under threat from outside by more violent, intolerant Islamic traditions that were originally imposed by conquering Arab armies. This book challenges this widely accepted narrative, offering a more balanced assessment of the intellectual and cultural history of the most populous Muslim nation on Earth. The book traces how the popular image of Indonesian Islam was shaped by encounters between colonial Dutch scholars and reformist Islamic thinkers. It shows how Dutch religious preoccupations sometimes echoed Muslim concerns about the relationship between faith and the state, and how Dutch–Islamic discourse throughout the long centuries of European colonialism helped give rise to Indonesia's distinctive national and religious culture. This book presents Islamic and colonial history as an integrated whole, revealing the ways our understanding of Indonesian Islam, both past and present, came to be.
New Regimes of Knowledge, 1800–1865
Authors: Laffan Michael
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the changes wrought in the nineteenth century under the impact of new cultures of science and new concepts of empire fostered by the governments of The Hague and Batavia. These intellectual developments resulted in a more active attempt by the Westerners to measure and understand how Islam was organized in the archipelago and to educate their officials in Islamic Law in preparation for their deployment in the field. Efforts to provide colonial officials with a working knowledge of local languages and cultures proceeded by fits and starts and really began in earnest only after the British interregnum of 1811–16. For much of the nineteenth century, Dutch scholarship followed the British lead. Once the Dutch returned to power, they made a fresh effort to collect information about indigenous education with an eye to substituting something of their own devising.
Seeking the Counterweight Church, 1837–1889
Authors: Laffan Michael
Published: November 2017

This chapter shows that a parallel framing of the Indies as a missionary field was crucial in informing, and sometimes challenging the colonial enterprises. In many instances, Dutch missionaries saw a chance for Christianizing the natives given what appeared to them as the natives' weak understanding and practice of Islam, arguing that the Javanese could not be considered Muslims for their “Islam” fell far short of the Islam they knew from the texts edited by their teachers in Delft. More crucially, however, one can see in their writings tangential and certainly unintended evidence of an active engagement with new modes of thinking, with printing, and with Sufi practices imported from the Middle East—practices that were leading some Javanese to label their neighbors ruddy abangan (red ones) while they themselves identified as spotless putihan (white ones). If anything was clear by 1888, it was that Dutch knowledge of Islam was outdated and far too oriented towards texts above contexts.
Ending Inflation Without Prolonged Recession
Authors: Granville Brigitte
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes how, since the 1980s, policymakers have managed to reduce and control inflation without unacceptably adverse welfare impacts by changing the monetary policy regime in a way that subjects policy to an external rule. The record in this period suggests that policymakers and economists have arrived at a better understanding of monetary policy and on how to keep the price level low and stable, while at the same time keeping real growth high and stable. This understanding incorporates three key beliefs. First, there is a natural rate of unemployment at which inflation is stable. Second, there is a transmission mechanism through which monetary policy actions affect the economy. Third monetary policymakers face trade-offs.
Who Is Voting for Low Inflation and Why?
Authors: Granville Brigitte
Published: November 2017

This chapter analyzes the impact of low inflation. It argues that despite repeated efforts by governing authorities to initiate anti-inflationary policies, long-lasting stabilization can prove elusive. Reducing inflation is one thing, but keeping it down is the real challenge. The chapter highlights the experiences of some Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Russia in the 1990s, and Argentina in the 2000s. One typical mistake was to choose the exchange rate as the nominal anchor, which allows the inflation rate to be reduced quickly, but its effect is temporary, as governments often use lower inflation as a reason to delay the necessary fiscal tightening, eventually leading to the collapse of the exchange rate peg and inflation striking back with a vengeance.
Inflation in an Open World
Authors: Granville Brigitte
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that the principles underlying the problem of inflation and how to contain it have not been superseded by globalization, and that the notion that globalization calls for a complete rethinking of the ideas presented in the previous chapters is misconceived. The chapter examines the cases that various changes in external conditions—that is, the results of globalization—call for a changed understanding of the causes and cure of inflation. Three different aspects of globalization that have been held to bring about these changes to the inflation picture are considered in turn: the expansion of international trade, the effects of increased competition and productivity, in particular as regards capacity utilization constraints, and the implications of financial openness and integration (cross-border financial flows) for domestic monetary policy.
Adapting to Expectations
Authors: Granville Brigitte
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers the possible application of academic research to address the dire predicament of balance sheet recession and chronic stagnation characterizing large parts of the world economy since 2007. Contemporary policymakers have striven to stimulate demand despite huge debt overhangs and without undermining confidence in the future value of money or sustainability of the public finances and debt. However, as the analysis in the book has shown, excess public debt is fraught with future inflation risk. It highlights two characteristics underlying the best thinking about inflation: adaptation and remembering. It then addresses the question of how inflation targeting might be usefully applied to the post-2007 problems of recession and stagnation against a background of excessive indebtedness.
The Progenitors of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Authors: Bloom Joshua S.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the object or objects responsible for gramma-ray bursts (GRBs). Until now, there are few absolute certainties with regard to the progenitors of GRBs. One clear standout is the progenitors of soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) which are very obviously neutron stars. There are a number of corroborating lines of evidence for this progenitor association: (1) some well-localized SGRs are associated with supernova remnants, suggesting they are byproducts of recent supernovae; (2) there is quiescent X-ray emission from the sites of SGRs, similar to a class of neutron stars called “anomalous X-ray pulsars”; (3) Galactic SGRs tend to be found in the Galactic plane, where most young neutron stars reside; and (4) the ringdown emission after SGR pulses is periodic, with periods comparable to that of slowly rotating neutron stars (few seconds).
Introduction
Authors: Barfield Thomas
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter discusses an anthropological approach to examining political order in Afghanistan. Rather than casting the nation in the context of war and conquerors, this chapter views the Afghans themselves as the main players to understand the country and its political dynamics. It examines the question of how rulers in Afghanistan obtained political legitimacy over the centuries and brought order to the land, particularly through looking at how notions of power and political legitimacy in Afghanistan change over a long period of time. The chapter lays out the groundwork for a more detailed discussion on these concepts by introducing the themes and theoretical framework underpinning the book's overall arguments.
Anglo-Afghan Wars and State Building in Afghanistan
Authors: Barfield Thomas
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the erosion of traditional elite authority and new models of modern state building in the nineteenth century. The Anglo-Afghan wars were the crucibles that transformed the Afghan state and society. Here, the focus is less on the wars themselves than the consequences they had for Afghanistan. In terms of foreign relations, the rulers of Afghanistan found themselves in the paradoxical state of becoming ever more dependent on the subsidies from the British raj even as they pushed the Afghan people to become more antiforeign. Domestically successive rulers sought to make the central government more powerful, but did not succeed until Amir Abdur Rahman took the throne in 1880. Understanding what he did and at what cost remains significant for Afghanistan today.
Recovering from the Great Depression
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines how the Middle West recovered from the ill effects of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was something Americans hoped they would never experience again. In the rural Midwest, foreclosures and sheriff's auctions were common. The worst drought years devastated the land. Dust storms blew with such intensity that crops failed and machinery broke down. World War II sparked the economy, revived agriculture, and coincided with better weather. However, the war took millions of men and women away from their families, necessitated mandatory rationing, and drove up prices. When it was over, rural communities faced continuing challenges. The chapter considers the case of Smith Center, Kansas, to illustrate the challenges rural communities faced as they overcame the setbacks of the Great Depression and prepared for the era ahead. Recovery from the Great Depression varied across middle America, but many of the dynamics evident in Smith County occurred elsewhere.
Reinventing the Rustic Life
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines how rustic life was reinvented in the Middle West. In middle America, hicks, hillbillies, and hayseeds drove down the cultural barometer. They spoke in a nasal dialect and perpetuated peculiar locutions, like “crick” and “warsh.” The picture was almost a mirror opposite of the Jeffersonian ideal that saw agrarian life as the taproot of civilization. The heartland was a national embarrassment. Rustics were simpleminded, ignorant, usually boring, and sometimes downright comical. The chapter shows how, between the 1940s and 1960s, heartland residents gained exposure to newer and more positive interpretations of the rustic life. It also considers shifting perceptions of the Wild West in the 1880s by looking at the stories of two Nebraskans: William F. Cody and Polly Spence. Finally, it suggests that the monetary connotation of landownership encourages residents to focus more on the landscape in conjunction with rustic life.
Education in Middle America
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on education in middle America. Education fitting the needs and aspirations of its citizens was an important aspect of life in heartland states from the start. Country schools, private academies, public high schools, and colleges were founded in such numbers during the first few decades of the twentieth century that the region came to be known as the “education belt.” After World War II, state and county boards of education launched a massive campaign to improve and consolidate public schools. Officials promoted education, technological improvements, and research as means of advancing their communities and the region. Colleges and universities throughout the Middle West expanded. The chapter considers issues relating to education in the Middle West, including educational attainment, public funds for education, migration, literacy, racism, the quality of rural education, and inequality between wealthier and poorer school districts.
Goods and Prices
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

This chapter develops the main aspects of the economic environment in which economic agents operate. There are two categories of economic agents, consumers and firms. Consumers buy and sell goods with the ultimate goal of consuming those goods. Firms buy goods that they transform into other goods that they later sell. An economy is made up of these consumers and firms. After having developed models of the consumers and firms, these are combined into a model of an economy with private ownership of production. But before developing these models, it is necessary to be somewhat more explicit about the economic goods and their prices that define the economic environment.
Preferences and Utility
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

Classical consumer theory is essentially the theory of utility maximization under a budget constraint. This theory starts with the definition of consumers' preferences. In classical consumer theory, preferences are assumed to be transitive, complete, monotone, and convex. These preferences can then be represented by utility functions. The latter are mathematically easier to handle than preferences. Another reason for being interested in utility functions goes back to the early phases of economic theory. Then, it was thought that utility functions could be used as a measure of consumer's satisfaction or utility. This chapter is devoted to a presentation of the basic issues regarding preferences and their representability by utility functions.
Demand Functions
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

Rational consumers are assumed to maximize their preferences subject to the constraints they perceive. With preferences that are representable by utility functions, the consumer's problem is modeled as one of maximizing a standard utility function subject to a budget constraint. This maximization problem determines the consumer's demand, a demand that is a function of the consumer's wealth and market prices. These demand functions feature several remarkable properties that make up the bulk of classical consumer theory. The most important ones are Walras law, the weak axiom of revealed preferences, and the negative definiteness of the Slutsky matrices. An important part of consumer theory is devoted to establishing these properties of demand functions when the latter come from the budget constrained maximization of standard utility function. This chapter focuses on this classical part of the theory. It also characterizes consumer's demand functions simply by their properties.
The Equilibrium Manifold
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

This chapter addresses the global structure of the equilibrium manifold E. It starts by motivating these global properties for their economic interest. These global properties can be of a topological nature like pathconnectedness, simple connectedness, and contractibility. They can also take a more practical form like the existence of global coordinate systems for the points of the equilibrium manifold in the same way the points at the surface of the earth can be located through their longitude and latitude. The chapter identifies an important subset of the equilibrium manifold, the set of no-trade equilibria. This enables us to uncover the remarkable structure of the equilibrium manifold as a collection of linear spaces parameterized by the no-trade equilibria. This remarkable structure is then applied to define a global coordinate system for the equilibrium manifold.
The Broad Picture
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

This chapter shows that the m-tuple (fi) of demand functions defining the exchange model belongs to ε‎r, i.e., the demand function fi is bounded from below (B) for every consumer and satisfies desirability (A) for at least one consumer. These additional properties will give to the natural projection the very important property of properness. The combination of smoothness and properness will suffice to yield what is now known as the theory of regular economies.
The Fine Picture
Authors: Balasko Yves
Published: November 2017

This chapter restricts the m-tuple (fi) of demand functions defining the exchange model to belong to ε‎c. In addition to the assumptions made in the previous chapters (recall that ε‎c is a subset of ε‎r), the demand function fi satisfies the weak axiom of revealed preferences for every consumer, and the slightly stronger negative definiteness of the Slutsky matrix for the consumer whose demand function satisfies desirability (A). These stronger assumptions are aimed at giving more economic flesh to the exchange model. As a consequence, the natural projection inherits much stronger properties that give a specificity of its own to the exchange model. The most important properties of the exchange model with (fi) ɛ ε‎c are the regularity of the no-trade equilibria, the openness and full measure (a.k.a., the genericity) of the set of regular equilibria as a subset of the equilibrium manifold, the inclusion of the set of equilibrium allocations in one and only one connected component of the set of regular economies, the uniqueness of equilibrium for all economies belonging to that component, and the interpretation of that property in terms of trade intensity.
Facts, Factors, and Questions
Authors: Diebold Francis X. , Rudebusch Glenn D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter introduces some important conceptual, descriptive, and theoretical considerations regarding nominal government bond yield curves. Conceptually, just what is it that are we trying to measure? How can we best understand many bond yields at many maturities over many years? Descriptively, how do yield curves tend to behave? Can we obtain simple yet accurate dynamic characterizations and forecasts? Theoretically, what governs and restricts yield curve shape and evolution? Can we relate yield curves to macroeconomic fundamentals and central bank behavior? The discussions cover three interest rate curves, zero-coupon yields, yield curve facts, yield curve factors, and yield curve questions.
Dynamic Nelson-Siegel
Authors: Diebold Francis X. , Rudebusch Glenn D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter starts with static in the cross section, then proceeds quickly to dynamic Nelson–Siegel modeling, with all its nuances and opportunities. Among other things, it emphasizes the model's state-space structure, generalizes it to the multicountry context, and highlights aspects of its use in risk management and forecasting.
Arbitrage-Free Nelson-Siegel
Authors: Diebold Francis X. , Rudebusch Glenn D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses a new class of affine arbitrage-free models that overcome the problems with empirical implementation of the canonical affine arbitrage-free model. This new class is based on the dynamic Nelson–Siegel model (DNS) and retains its empirical tractability. Thus, from one perspective, the chapter takes the theoretically rigorous but empirically problematic affine arbitrage-free model and makes it empirically tractable by incorporating DNS elements. From an alternative perspective, it takes the DNS model and makes it theoretically more satisfactory. DNS is simple and stable to estimate, and it is quite flexible and fits both the cross section and time series of yields remarkably well. However, DNS fails on an important theoretical dimension: It does not impose the restrictions necessary to eliminate opportunities for riskless arbitrage. The lack of freedom from arbitrage motivated Diebold et al. (2005) and Christensen et al. (2011) to introduce the class of arbitrage-free Nelson–Siegel (AFNS) yield curve models, which are affine arbitrage-free term structure models that nevertheless maintain the DNS factor-loading structure.
Macro-Finance
Authors: Diebold Francis X. , Rudebusch Glenn D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses a variety of arbitrage-free Nelson–Siegel (AFNS) macro-finance yield curve approaches. The AFNS factor structure provides a very useful framework for examining various macro-finance questions given the computational difficulties in extending finance-only affine arbitrage-free models. One application of the AFNS model, in Christensen et al. (2010c), produces estimates of the inflation expectations of financial market participants from prices of nominal and real bonds. A second macro-finance application of the AFNS model, provided in Christensen et al. (2009), investigates the effect of the new central bank liquidity facilities that were instituted during the financial crisis. The chapter concludes with a discussion of evolving research directions.
Diversity
Authors: Chaves Mark
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines America's increasing religious diversity, including the increasing number of people with no religious affiliation. People often talk about religious tolerance, but the cultural shift accompanying increased religious diversity goes beyond mere tolerance. With some qualifications, the chapter argues that Americans now have a greater appreciation of religion other than their own. Moreover, just as families and friendship circles are more religiously diverse than they once were, religious communities are more ethnically diverse than they were before. Indeed, increasing diversity is not just a distant fact about the society as a whole. Many people directly experience this trend in their everyday lives.
Congregations
Authors: Chaves Mark
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses six trends in congregational life: looser connections between congregations and denominations, more computer technology, more informal worship, older congregants, more high-income and college-educated congregants, and, what is perhaps most important, more people concentrated in very large churches. Taken together, these trends show that congregations are shaped by the same cultural, social, and economic pressures affecting American life and institutions more generally. The National Congregations Study (NCS), which began in 1998, is the primary source of information for several of the trends described in this chapter. As with change in American religion as a whole, trends in congregational life should be seen against the backdrop of substantial continuity, especially for the relatively brief period covered by the NCS.
Liberal Protestant Decline
Authors: Chaves Mark
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the decline in Liberal Protestant denominations in recent decades. This is one of the best known religious trends of the last several decades, but it often is misunderstood. Contrary to what many believe, this decline has not occurred because droves of people have been leaving more liberal denominations to join more conservative religious groups. Nor does the decline of liberal denominations mean that liberal religious ideas are waning. Indeed, as a set of ideas, religious liberalism steadily has gained ground in the United States, whatever the fate of the denominations most closely associated with it. Indeed, Americans' increasing endorsement of theological liberalism's core tenets—appreciating other religions, adjusting traditional belief and practice to modern circumstances, rejecting biblical literalism—shows that religious liberalism is a more potent cultural presence than many realize.
Conquest and Its Justifications
Authors: Tolan John , Veinstein Gilles , Laurens Henry
Published: November 2017

This chapter is devoted to the development of the concepts of jihad, Crusade, and reconquista. It shows that, in both Christian and Muslim territories, ideologies of holy war were often used to justify conquest of the “infidels.” These ideologies glorified war waged for the “true” religion but rarely ruled out political and military alliances with princes belonging to rival faiths. Nor did they prevent princes from setting aside a protected but subaltern place for religious minorities. Hence, although the ideology of holy war served to justify or celebrate one victory or another, the chapter argues that religion was often an a posteriori explanation for a conflict that had many other causes.
In Search of Egyptian Gold
Authors: Tolan John , Veinstein Gilles , Laurens Henry
Published: November 2017

This chapter shows the profound impact of trade on all the societies it touched, especially from the twelfth century on. In the Mediterranean world, commerce established strong ties between the European seaport cities (such as Pisa, Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona) and ports in the Muslim world. The Arab world was located on the major axes of world trade, linked to India, China, Byzantium, Africa, and Europe. In the tenth century, Latin Europe was only a minor partner in these exchanges, but over the following centuries, commercial relations developed and contributed to an economic boom for both civilizations, turning the Mediterranean region into a single economic unit.
Civilization or Conquest?
Authors: Tolan John , Veinstein Gilles , Laurens Henry
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers how, during the nineteenth century, the Muslim regions that succeeded in preserving formal independence were caught up in a race between European encroachment or interference and the establishment of a strong state, which also had to call on the Europeans for assistance. Because of that dynamic of change, it is difficult to determine what was borrowed pure and simple and what was the result of evolutionary synchronism: the complex question of the emancipation of non-Muslims in Islamic territory is a case in point. Other regions had to face the “colonial night” of European domination, which in certain places eventually adopted the form of settlement colonies. However, the Muslim world was far from passive when confronted with Europe's multifaceted advance. It entered a cycle of accelerated transformation, culminating in the adoption of the nationality principle as the new mode of social organization.
Temporal Leapfrog: Puzzles of Timing
Authors: Eliasoph Nina
Published: November 2017

This chapter portrays the Community House's possibly mismatched time lines, and shows how participants align them by focusing on future potential. Sometimes this temporal leapfrog works, but sometimes this focus on future potential comes at the expense of any focus on the past or present. The chapter indicates other temporal disconnections as well, as illustrated in how organizers try to “build community” by “drawing on community,” “build leadership by drawing on leadership,” by treating “the community,” “leadership,” “good choices,” and other potentials “simultaneously as diagnosis and cure.” This chapter shows how even with these mismatched time frames, people still manage to coordinate everyday action.
Paid Organizers Creating Temporally Finite, Intimate, Family-like Attachments
Authors: Eliasoph Nina
Published: November 2017

This chapter shows how some of the paid organizers became intimate with some of their program's members. It argues that organizers do want to become family-like with all of their program participants. However, they are not expecting to share a lifetime with them, and their intimacy is merely put on display for public judgment. In short, however intense their intimacy was at the moment, it was supposed to be temporally finite, because they were not “family.” Nevertheless, the chapter shows that some full-time, long-term paid organizers have managed to become “like family” to their youth program participants. In such circumstances, puzzles of loyalty—yet another set of temporal puzzles—would ensue.
“Getting Out of Your Box” versus “Preserving a Culture”: Two Opposed Ways of “Appreciating Cultural Diversity”
Authors: Eliasoph Nina
Published: November 2017

This chapter explains that multiculturalism means safety and protection for people who consider themselves minorities, and that they are protecting a tradition by staying apart from the mainstream. For people who feel “mainstream”—usually white, middle-class—on the other hand, multiculturalism means exploring and mixing with other cultures, not staying apart from them. The chapter illustrates the tensions between these two categories of people as they represent nearly opposite objectives: on the one hand, there are the “mixers,” who aim at experiencing lots of cultures but do not engage in any of them for a significant period of time; on the other, there are the “protectors” who prefer to separate themselves from the mainstream and devote themselves to learning the details of a single culture.
Finding Patterns in the “Open and Undefined” Organization: Gray Flannel Man Is Mostly Dead
Authors: Eliasoph Nina
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter pieces together some practical proposals based on the findings set out in the previous chapters. Like any other kind of organization, Snowy Prairie's empowerment projects had developed relatively predictable routines. Through their routines, the projects potentially arrived somewhere that may, in some ways, be better than where they had planned to go. The point of this chapter is to see what those potentials may be, both in Snowy Prairie and in other parts of the world. It starts by asking how Snowy Prairie empowerment projects' everyday routines had made it hard for organizers to notice those potentialities. The chapter then outlines a list of concrete suggestions to make empowerment projects work better. Finally, the chapter shows how these organizations' everyday routines are contributing to seismic historical transformations.
What Is Haecceitism, and Is It True?
Authors: Stalnaker Robert
Published: November 2017

This chapter starts with a preliminary attempt to characterize the contrasting theses, haecceitism and anti-haecceitism, discussing some of the different ways the contrast has been drawn in the literature. Then, it uses the framework sketched in Chapter 2 to try to sharpen the theses and to bring out their connection with some related metaphysical issues. The contrast between the two theses presupposes a distinction between properties and relations that are purely qualitative and those that are not, and it is argued that the content of the thesis of haecceitism, and the arguments for and against it, depend on the way this problematic distinction is understood. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between anti-haecceitism and the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, and of David Lewis's attempt to explain some of the haecceitist intuitions with a metaphysically cheap version of the doctrine.
The Windup Phenomenon and Anti-windup Illustrated
Authors: Zaccarian Luca , Teel Andrew R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter uses examples where windup occurs to motivate anti-windup synthesis. In particular, it discusses a SISO academic example, a MIMO academic example, the longitudinal dynamics of an F8 aircraft, a servo-positioning system, the damped mass-spring system, the experimental spring-gantry system, a robot manipulator, and a disturbance rejection problem. The examples illustrate the windup phenomenon, which may arise due to input saturation in a feedback loop, and the capabilities of anti-windup synthesis in mitigating the windup phenomenon. They show that windup can manifest itself as a sluggish response, a highly oscillatory response, or a diverging response. In each example, alternatives to anti-windup synthesis include investing in actuators with more capabilities, or redesigning the controller from scratch to account for input saturation directly. These strategies should be considered when the control system's actuators are continuously trying to act beyond their limits.
Linear M RAW Synthesis
Authors: Zaccarian Luca , Teel Andrew R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter deals with linear model recovery anti-windup (MRAW) synthesis. The MRAW structure permits recovering information about the unconstrained response, so that unconstrained response recovery is possible through the extra degree of freedom represented by the unspecified compensation signal. The stability and performance properties induced by MRAW on the closed loop depend on the choice of the feedback signal. In discussing linear MRAW synthesis, the chapter refers to suitable state–space representations of the plant and of the anti-windup compensator dynamics. It first considers anti-windup synthesis algorithms based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for which global stability and performance are guaranteed before describing LMI-based synthesis algorithms for regional stability and performance.
Annotated Bibliography
Authors: Zaccarian Luca , Teel Andrew R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the main phases characterizing anti-windup research and lists a number of relevant publications for each one. This annotated bibliography covers topics such as the anti-windup problem, constructive and general anti-windup techniques, the call for more rigorous and general solutions to the anti-windup problem, and the introduction of modern anti-windup solutions. The chapter also provides a classification of modern anti-windup schemes where the different contributions are grouped based on the underlying compensation architecture, such as reference and measurement governors, model recovery anti-windup designs, and direct linear anti-windup designs based on linear matrix inequalities. Finally, it considers additional references that are not directly related to anti-windup design but are nevertheless relevant in some anti-windup design contexts; these include papers addressing nonlinear systems with saturation.
Glasses and Quenched Disorder
Authors: Stein Daniel L. , Newman Charles M.
Published: November 2017

This chapter refers to the previous chapter in which the discontinuous behavior of thermodynamic functions at a phase transition was referred to as “carefully controlled conditions.” To proceed to the next part of the story, it is necessary to explain just what is meant by this. To do so, the chapter turns to the central notion of thermodynamic equilibrium. It chapter introduces systems with quenched disorder, namely, ordinary glasses. This requires an explanation of the central notions of equilibrium and nonequilibrium. The chapter shows how large a gap remains in our understanding of the condensed state, and how powerful is the challenge to conventional statistical mechanics presented by quenched disorder.
Magnetic Systems
Authors: Stein Daniel L. , Newman Charles M.
Published: November 2017

The chapter explains that up to this point the discussion has centered on some basic concepts of condensed matter physics as viewed through the illustrative lenses of familiar systems: liquids, crystals, and glasses. The chapter now turns to another important class of materials: magnetic systems, which are regarded as materials possessing properties that can be altered or manipulated through the application of an external magnetic field. The chapter introduces the basics of solid state magnetism, starting with the quantum mechanical property of spin, and showing how the familiar phenomenon of ferromagnetism—as well as the less familiar but equally important ones of antiferromagnetism and paramagnetism—arises. This is a necessary prelude to understanding the idea of what a spin glass is.