We obtain several combinatorial results about chains, cycles and orbits of the elements of the symmetric inverse semigroup ISn and the set Tn of nilpotent elements in ISn. We also get some estimates for the growth of |ISn| and |Tn|, and study random products of elements from ISn.

For years, Russia’s role in the Middle East was viewed primarily through its relations with Iran, Iraq, and, more recently, Syria. In 2006, however, a nearly forgotten dimension of Russia’s Middle East policy came to the fore with a new escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this time in Lebanon. Russia has long played an extraneous role in the Quartet on the Middle East, the grouping compose...

The recent progress in revealing classical integrable structures in quantummodels solved by Bethe ansatz is reviewed. Fusion relations for eigenvalues of quantum transfer matrices can be written in the form of classical Hirota’s bilinear difference equation. This equation is also known as the completely discretized version of the 2D Toda lattice. We explain how one obtains the specific quantum ...

This policy brief shall explore the current relation between two powers – the European Union and Russia. This relationship, often unstable not least because of historical heritage, has altered during the past few years due to a number of changes that are to be discussed here – the changing domestic situation in Russia, the growing competition between the two parties over the ‘shared neighbourho...

We study the effects of European immigration to the United States during the Age of Mass Migration (1850–1920) on economic prosperity today. We exploit variation in the extent of immigration across counties arising from the interaction of fluctuations in aggregate immigrant flows and the gradual expansion of the railway network across the United States. We find that locations with more historic...

In January 2009, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton stood before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearing for the post of Secretary of State. Time and again, Clinton affirmed her belief that U.S. national security depends on balancing three ‘D’s: Diplomacy, Development, and Defense. ‘In order to protect and defend the United States of America, to advance our interests,...