We can hardly know for certain how strongly a scholarly discipline like history is able to affect politics and society, popular views and morals. Whatever its impact, it's influence also varies from epoch to epoch. During a few decades of the nineteenth century, historians were overwhelmed by so many questions and by such high expectations that there existed a large public space for them that they merely had to occupy. At other times, they have had to conquer this space first if they wanted to gain continued attention.

To be sure, a differentiation has to be introduced: any society has particular interests, e.g., in parts of its more recent past or in events that society sees as having something like a “mythical quality” about then, events that represent a major divide, that are deeply imprinted on that society's memory, that have attained a special role through tradition. There is, of course, always a space commanding wider public attention for these aspects. However, they are no more than small specks on the large canvas of history.

Estimating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection in communities is critical. We surveyed 2244 stratified random sample community members of the Gardena valley, a winter touristic area, amidst the first expansion phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. We measured agreement between Diasorin and Abbott serum bioassay outputs and the Abbott optimal discriminant threshold of serum neutralisation titres with recursive receiver operating characteristic curve. We analytically adjusted serum antibody tests for unbiased seroprevalence estimate and analysed the determinants of infection with non-response weighted multiple logistic regression. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence was 26.9% (95% CI 25.2–28.6) by June 2020. The bioassays had a modest agreement with each other. At a lower threshold than the manufacturer's recommended level, the Abbott assay reflected greater discrimination of serum neutralisation capacity. Seropositivity was associated with place and economic activity, not with sex or age. Symptoms like fever and weakness were age-dependent. SARS-CoV-2 mitigation strategies should account for context in high prevalence areas.

We develop a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) approximation of one-dimensional diffusions with sticky boundary or interior points. Approximate solutions to the action of the Feynman–Kac operator associated with a sticky diffusion and first passage probabilities are obtained using matrix exponentials. We show how to compute matrix exponentials efficiently and prove that a carefully designed scheme achieves second-order convergence. We also propose a scheme based on CTMC approximation for the simulation of sticky diffusions, for which the Euler scheme may completely fail. The efficiency of our method and its advantages over alternative approaches are illustrated in the context of bond pricing in a sticky short-rate model for a low-interest environment and option pricing under a geometric Brownian motion price model with a sticky interior point.

A novel adaptive approach to compute the eigenenergies and eigenfunctions of the two-particle (electron-hole) Schrödinger equation including Coulomb attraction is presented. As an example, we analyze the energetically lowest exciton state of a thin one-dimensional semiconductor quantum wire in the presence of disorder which arises from the non-smooth interface between the wire and surrounding material. The eigenvalues of the corresponding Schrödinger equation, i.e., the one-dimensional exciton Wannier equation with disorder, correspond to the energies of excitons in the quantum wire. The wavefunctions, in turn, provide information on the optical properties of the wire.

We reformulate the problem of two interacting particles that both can move in one dimension as a stationary eigenvalue problem with two spacial dimensions in an appropriate weak form whose bilinear form is arranged to be symmetric, continuous, and coercive. The disorder of the wire is modelled by adding a potential in the Hamiltonian which is generated by normally distributed random numbers. The numerical solution of this problem is based on adaptive wavelets. Our scheme allows for a convergence proof of the resulting scheme together with complexity estimates. Numerical examples demonstrate the behavior of the smallest eigenvalue, the ground state energies of the exciton, together with the eigenstates depending on the strength and spatial correlation of disorder.

We demonstrate the shape- and size-controlled synthesis of colloidal ∼10 nm bismuth telluride nanoparticles stabilized by organic ligands in solution. Post-synthetic ligand exchange with oleic acid allows for a quick and simple ligand removal by consecutive washing with basic ammonia solution. Mild spark plasma sintering yields a macroscopic nanostructured bulk solid with nanograins unaltered in size and shape. We present the full thermoelectric characterization with an emphasis on the thermal properties of this material. It will be shown that thus prepared nanostructured bulk solids possess significantly altered physical properties typical for materials with high surface-to-volume-ratios. These alterations have the potential to lead to improved thermoelectric performances benefiting from their phonon-glass electron-crystal behavior.

The electron energy structure of self-assembled In(Ga)As/GaAs nanostructures, quantum dots, and quantum rings was studied with capacitance-voltage spectroscopy and one-dimensional numerical simulation using Poisson/Schrödinger equations. The electron energy levels in the quantum dots and quantum rings with respect to the electron ground state of the wetting layer were determined directly from capacitance-voltage measurements with a linear lever arm approximation. In the regime where the linear lever arm approximation was not valid anymore (after the charging of the wetting layer), the energy difference between the electron ground state of the wetting layer and the GaAs conduction band edge was obtained indirectly from a numerical simulation of the conduction band under different gate voltages, which led to the erection of complete electron energy levels of the nanostructures in the conduction band.