This thesis addresses deep questions that cut to the physical and informational essence of central chemical quantities such as transition paths and reaction mechanisms and proposes fundamental new connections between transition-path theory, linear-response theory, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, and information theory. The author investigates slow, energetically efficient driving protocols that drive a system between conformations corresponding to endpoints of a reaction, aiming to find connections between principles of efficient driving and the spontaneous transition mechanism in the absence of driving. First, an alternative perspective of transition-path theory is developed that unifies it with stochastic thermodynamics to describe flows of entropy, energy, and information during the reaction. This also provides an optimization criterion for selecting collective variables. Next, protocols are designed which invert the magnetization of a 3×3 Ising model with minimal energetic cost, and it is determined that using multiple control parameters allows the system to be driven along a fast-relaxing pathway between reaction endpoints. Finally, the author compares these protocols with the spontaneous transition mechanism for magnetization inversion in the same Ising model, finding that designed protocols capture general features of the spontaneous mechanism and energetics given the constraints on the control parameters. This work represents a major step forward in our understanding of rare events and provides a basis for investigating the connection between efficient protocols and spontaneous transition mechanisms which can be further probed in a wider variety of systems.

This title was first published in 2002.The importance of institutions for transition economies has so far been overlooked; Michael Cuddy and Ruvin Gekker bring together leading experts in the field to fill this crucial void in the literature. The contributors concentrate on an ongoing tension between informal constraints and mechanisms and the new formal rules and mechanisms that have gradually evolved through the transition period. Experiences are primarily drawn from Russia. The book consists of three parts, the first comprising an analysis, synthesis and generalizations of the institutional adaptations, as a market economy slowly emerges from a fog of shifting rules and varying interpretations. This is followed by the study of business and taxation authorities’ behavior as they try to minimize or maximize the taxation take. The volume also analyzes the challenges facing central and regional governments in delivering equitable levels of public services across regions of vastly different development levels, while at the same time trying to stimulate regional economic growth.

This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank's lending and non-lending assistance to the Russian Federation since 1991, a 10-year period of tumultuous political, economic, and social change. This report concludes that an assistance strategy, concentrating on analytical and advisory services with limited financial support for Russia, would have been more appropriate than one involving large volumes of adjustment lending.

The transformation of Norway is a magnifying glass to processes of political change in European countries generally. In this book, a group of Norway`s most prominent political scientists closely analyzes the forces of change - ranging from the political apparatus, the mode of partisan mobilization, and the development of political trust to the new gender relations and the strains on the established elite consensus. This volume shows how Norway is an embodiment of the Nordic Model. Norwegian society and politics have attracted wide-spread interest for three interrelated reasons – a strikingly egalitarian and cooperative model for public-private relations, a stable and rich country on the outside of the European Union, and a notable engagement in moral policy areas globally. Now the model is in flux for domestic as well as external reasons. Rule by popular consent is in question, with a more fragile chain of governance and a slow erosion of mass parties. The model is transformed from below, through the changing democratic infrastructure, as well as from above, with privatization and market reform in the public sector. The focus is Norway, but the book is a comparative analysis of a paradigm case with relevance far beyond its own borders. This book was previously published as a special issue of the leading journal West European Politics.

Because of altered investment priorities, policymakers in socialist countries can no longer increase the resources devoted to agriculture as they have in the past. Instead, they must seek alternative means of improving agricultural performance. One approach has been to change the structure of socialist agriculture and to foster organizational changes within agricultural units. The contributors to this volume evaluate such reforms and weigh their implications for agricultural output and trade. They examine the normless links being introduced in the USSR and compare Soviet experiences with the successes of Chinese and Hungarian reorganizations; describe and analyze the changes being implemented in the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, and Vietnam; and pay particular attention to the role of Polish agriculture in the production crisis and to agriculture's potential for improving Poland's overall economic performance. The contributors also address issues of infrastructure development, the incentives being developed to foster more efficient allocation of resources within the agricultural sector, and the likely growth of East-West and intra-socialist agricultural trade.

Novel coherent light sources such as x-ray free-electron lasers open exciting prospects for the interaction of light with nuclei. The thesis "Coherent Control of Nuclei and X-rays" covers this still-developing field and proposes, in a daring attempt to revolutionize nuclear physics, three innovative schemes for taming nuclei using coherent effects. The theoretical explorations, which address control of nuclear quantum states, a nuclear memory for single photons in future photonic circuits, and optimized concepts for a nuclear clock, make use of new approaches at the borderline between nuclear physics and quantum dynamics. The result is a well written work, impressive in its stimulating style and promising ideas.