196 research outputs found

    Teodora: Un’odierna lettura romanzata in Italia

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    This paper examines two Italian novels by Mariangela Galatea Vaglio, a historian, novelist, and blogger. The novels, published in 2018 and 2022, are titled Teodora. La figlia del circo and Teodora. I demoni del potere. In my analysis, I will focus on a few key aspects that are, in my opinion, essential to the novels. First, I will briefly analyze the techniques used to represent the cultural situation of the time. Secondly, the focus will be on Vaglio’s characterization of Theodora and Justinian as complementary examples of ‘nonconformist’ femininity and masculinity. In particular, I will consider the Nika revolt of 532 CE, which is presented in I demoni del potere as a crucial moment in the empress’s path. To highlight the unique aspects of Vaglio’s narrative, a comparison will be made between her depiction of Theodora’s famous speech during the revolt and Procopius’ narrative in his History of the Wars, as well as Stella Duffy’s description of the event in her novel The Purple Shroud. Finally, the author herself briefly explains the reasons for reexamining the figure of Theodora today in a short interview.This paper examines two Italian novels by Mariangela Galatea Vaglio, a historian, novelist, and blogger. The novels, published in 2018 and 2022, are titled Teodora. La figlia del circo and Teodora. I demoni del potere. In my analysis, I will focus on a few key aspects that are, in my opinion, essential to the novels. First, I will briefly analyze the techniques used to represent the cultural situation of the time. Secondly, the focus will be on Vaglio’s characterization of Theodora and Justinian as complementary examples of ‘nonconformist’ femininity and masculinity. In particular, I will consider the Nika revolt of 532 CE, which is presented in I demoni del potere as a crucial moment in the empress’s path. To highlight the unique aspects of Vaglio’s narrative, a comparison will be made between her depiction of Theodora’s famous speech during the revolt and Procopius’ narrative in his History of the Wars, as well as Stella Duffy’s description of the event in her novel The Purple Shroud. Finally, the author herself briefly explains the reasons for reexamining the figure of Theodora today in a short interview

    Romantyczne science fiction. Przyszłość według Teodora Tripplina

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    The present article aims to show the nineteenth century vision of the future in one of the first Polish science fiction novels, A Journey around the Moon (Podróż po Księżycu), written in 1858 by Teodor Tripplin. In the first (theoretical) part, the author characterizes the science fiction genre, highlighting a distinctive role of technological invention and scientific method, as well as locating the story in a future perspective. A concise description of the Polish science fiction genesis allows for relating Tripplin’s novel to a wider context and, hence, for considering it as a unique phenomenon in Polish literature. In the second part of the article, the author discusses Tripplin’s vision of the future, which is classified into three categories in the novel: 1) the future of technological inventions, 2) the future of medicine development, and 3) the future of society.Celem niniejszego artykułu będzie zaprezentowanie XIX-wiecznej wizji przyszłości, ukazanej w jednej z pierwszych polskich powieści fantastycznonaukowych – Podróży po Księżycu (1858) autorstwa Teodora Tripplina (1812–1881). W pierwszej, teoretycznej części artykułu przedstawiony zostanie gatunek science fiction, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem dystynktywnej roli wynalazku technologicznego, metody naukowej oraz osadzenia fabuły w realiach przyszłościowych. Skrótowe omówienie początków polskiej fantastyki naukowej pozwoli na osadzenie Podróż po Księżycu w szerszym kontekście, a co za tym idzie uznanie jej za ewenement w literaturze krajowej. W drugiej części artykułu skupiono się na ukazaniu wizji przyszłości, wykreowanej przez Teodora Tripplina w Podróży po Księżycu w podziale na trzy kategorie obecne w utworze 1) przyszłość wynalazków technologicznych, 2) przyszłość w rozwoju medycyny, 3) przyszłość społeczeństwa

    Business, politics, and governance in transition: Romania and beyond, 1999-2008

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    My dissertation addresses the fate of institutional reforms of market governance (such as laws of bankruptcy, capital markets, and concessions) and democratic governance (such as anti-corruption, civil service, and judicial reform) in Romania and across Eastern Europe. While progress has been limited in reforming democratic governance, the surprising turnaround in economic performance and institutional reforms of market governance in Romania challenges the prevailing view in the literature that communist-era managers were able to capture the state and prevent the creation of a sound institutional framework. I explain how this reversal of fortune was possible, as well as why this success has not been fully matched in the democratic governance domain, by focusing on the influence of private actors, economic and political, on the reform of governance institutions. Success in institutional reform in the market domain in Romania’s case came from a combination of economic elite change on the background of political change and banking reform that led to changing incentives of the business elite. Using data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), I show that banking reform also has a strong relationship to the reduction in state capture across Eastern Europe. The mixed success in state accountability or democratic governance in the Romanian case is due to the continued incentives of politicians for state exploitation in the context of quite robust political competition in Parliament, as well as competition between the President and the Prime Minister.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Patricia Teodora Youn

    Stochastic Learning Feedback Hybrid Automata for Dynamic Power Management in Embedded Systems

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    Dynamic Power Management (DPM) refers to the strategies employed at system level to reduce energy expenditure (i.e. to prolong battery life) in embedded systems. The trade-off involved in DPM techniques is between the reductions of energy consumption and latency incurred by the jobs to be executed by the system. Such trade-offs need to be decided at runtime making DPM an on-line problem. In this context, the contributions of this thesis are two-fold. Firstly, we formulate the DPM problem as a hybrid automaton control problem. We model a timed hybrid automaton to mathematically analyze various opportunities in optimizing energy in a given system model. Secondly, stochastic control is added to the automata model, whose control strategy is learnt dynamically using stochastic learning automata (SLA). Several linear and non-linear feedback algorithms are incorporated in the final Stochastic Learning Hybrid Automata (SLHA) model. Simulation-based experiments show the expediency of the feedback systems in stationary environments. Further experiments are conducted using real trace data to compare stochastic learning strategies to the outcomes of several former predictive algorithms. These reveal that SLHA attains better trade-offs than the other studied methods under certain trace data. Advanced characterization of trace sequences, which allows a better performance of SLHA, is a subject of further study.Master of Scienc

    Nuove tecnologie e commercio internazionale: un'analisi empirica

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    The essay regards issues related to international trade by focusing on factors related to technological innovation and the diffusion of net technologies. On the basis or an «extended» gravity model, which includes additional variables alongside GNP and population, the author examines international trade among 39 countries from 1973-1998 according to the technological content of goods, Among the variables in the model, the author introduces a nes index related to the ease of communication through the net, measured by the number of internet hyperlinks that exist on websites on a server in one country that point to web pages hosted by servers in another country. The empirical findings show that for homogeneous goods, the most outstanding variable explaining bilateral commercial flows is the GNP of the import country for differentiated goods, and the GNP of the export country for highly technological goods. For highly technological sectors, the effect of communication via internet, measured by internet hyperlinks, is very relevant, above al! in trade between OECD countries

    Considerations on The Convergence of Romania to The European Union in The Banking Field

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    According to commitments made by Romania (and by NBR) in the negotiating process to Chapter 11 - Economic and Monetary Union on the acquisition, transfer and implementation into national legislation of the acquis for banking, the NBR Statute was harmonized with the provisions of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and the European Central Bank , and the other Community provisions on central bank activity in the Member States of the European Union. The draft law on the Statute of the NBR was adopted by the Senate (on June 8, 2004) and the Chamber of Deputies and promulgated by Decree no. 532/26.06.2004, materialized into Law nr. 312/28.06.2004 on the NBR Statute. The new law was published in Romanian Official Gazette and entered into force on July 31, 2004, when Law no. 101/1998 on the Statute of the NBR, with further amendments and completions, was repealed.convergence, banking system, accession, commitments

    Poufne wieści z oświeconej Warszawy Teodora Ostrowskiego: przejawy tabloidyzacji w osiemnastowiecznych gazetach rękopiśmiennych (w perspektywie mediolingwistycznej)

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    The article discusses the manifestations of tabloidization in newspapers representative of the handwritten press of the 2nd half of the 18th century. The author refers to the concept of genre life, pragmalinguistic and genological characteristics of tabloidization, including the features of 18th century printed newspapers, considered in linguistic studies as the prototype of tabloid. Due to the journalistic nature of Theodor Ostrovsky’s newspapers, their analyses are profiled mediolinguistically and focus on the exponents of tabloidization: at the level of content, stylistic framing, form of expression (the processing of information into a press release) and the way they are embedded in the structure of a handwritten newspaper (hierarchization of content according to scope, degree of certainty).Artykuł omawia przejawy tabloidyzacji w gazetach reprezentatywnych dla prasy rękopiśmiennej drugiej połowy XVIII wieku. Autorka odwołuje się do koncepcji życia gatunków, pragmalingwistycznych i genologicznych charakterystyk tabloidyzacji, w tym do cech osiemnastowiecznych gazet drukowanych, uznawanych w badaniach lingwistycznych za pierwowzór tabloidu. Ze względu na dziennikarski charakter gazet Teodora Ostrowskiego ich analizy są sprofilowane mediolingwistycznie i koncentrują się na wykładnikach tabloidyzacji: na poziomie treści, ujęcia stylistycznego, formy wypowiedzi (przetworzenia informacji do przekazu prasowego) oraz sposobu ich osadzania w strukturze gazety rękopiśmiennej (hierarchizacja treści w zależności od zakresu, stopnia pewności)

    The Right to Grow: Genetically Modified Seed Patenting and Civilian Resistance in Guatemala

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    In 2014, mass civil disobedience in Guatemala effectively resisted government and corporate efforts to nationally legalize the patenting of genetically modified seeds. This paper examines the dynamics of seed patenting, with attention to the corporate interests and actions that propagate this trend and to the externalities that fall upon civilians and their cultural, economic and food security rights. Next, the paper examines the risks posed specifically to Guatemalan civilian and indigenous concerns when the government passed a decree to legalize seed patenting. This event is examined through the political and economic histories that influenced this conflict and the civilian interests that were threatened, specifically regarding the dynamics of the dietarily and culturally essential maize plant. Finally, the paper examines the strategies and organizations that effectively abolished the decree, emphasizing the potential of civilian disobedience in protecting civil rights.Peer reviewe
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