Crunch Time!

Brcue Grant-Braham looks at the performance of the hospitality industry in the economic slowdow

Toward the End of Time

The null-brane space-time provides a simple model of a big crunch/big bang singularity. A non-perturbative definition of M-theory on this space-time was recently provided using matrix theory. We derive the fermion couplings for this matrix model and study the leading quantum effects. These effects include particle production and a time-dependent potential. Our results suggest that as the null-brane develops a big crunch singularity, the usual notion of space-time is replaced by an interacting gluon phase. This gluon phase appears to constitute the end of our conventional picture of space and time.Comment: 31 pages, reference adde

Credit Crunch in East Asia: A Retrospective

In this paper, we explore the issue on credit crunch from a comparative perspective. Utilizing longer time series data, we investigate the existence of credit crunch in selected crisis-hit economies in East Asia over the period 1980-2002. We detected some episodes of credit crunch both before and after the Asian economic crisis. These episodes after the Crisis are somewhat different from those detected by previous studies on the issue. We, then, review the credit-crunch episodes in the broad macroeconomic context in order to assess our results in the longer-run perspective. We are well aware that financial liberalization has changed the financial environments of these countries more or less in due course. Even so, the mixed results we obtained on the existence of credit crunch do not suggest that the impact of the austerity programs on financial intermediation after the Asian Crisis was ambiguous. On the contrary, they implied that the impact of the programs were so severe that credit crunch or supply retrenchment was overwhelmed by a sharp fall in credit demand because of real and expected persistent overall economic depression.credit crunch, East Asia, Asian Economic Crisis, disequilibrium analysis

Global Fluctuation Spectra in Big Crunch/Big Bang String Vacua

We study Big Crunch/Big Bang cosmologies that correspond to exact world-sheet superconformal field theories of type II strings. The string theory spacetime contains a Big Crunch and a Big Bang cosmology, as well as additional ``whisker'' asymptotic and intermediate regions. Within the context of free string theory, we compute, unambiguously, the scalar fluctuation spectrum in all regions of spacetime. Generically, the Big Crunch fluctuation spectrum is altered while passing through the bounce singularity. The change in the spectrum is characterized by a function $\Delta$, which is momentum and time-dependent. We compute $\Delta$ explicitly and demonstrate that it arises from the whisker regions. The whiskers are also shown to lead to ``entanglement'' entropy in the Big Bang region. Finally, in the Milne orbifold limit of our superconformal vacua, we show that $\Delta\to 1$ and, hence, the fluctuation spectrum is unaltered by the Big Crunch/Big Bang singularity. We comment on, but do not attempt to resolve, subtleties related to gravitational backreaction and light winding modes when interactions are taken into account.Comment: 68 pages, 1 figure; typos correcte

Crunch Time for Water Quality Trading

Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A systematic mapping study of crunch time in video game development

Abstract. Crunch time means heavy overtime work, which usually happens before deadlines when development is behind schedule. It is common in game development and causes stress and social harm to developers. The purpose of this thesis was to study how crunch time is discussed in scientific literature by finding the trends and gaps using a systematic mapping study research method. The main research question was: How is crunch time in video game development discussed in scientific literature? Three assisting research questions were used to help with answering the main research question: How are the causes for crunch time in video game development discussed in the literature? How are the effects for crunch time in video game development discussed in the literature? How are the solutions for crunch time in video game development discussed in the literature? A search string was defined along with inclusion and exclusion criteria in a way that the resulting papers could best be used to answer the research questions. A total of 36 relevant, primary studies were included for this study after conducting the search on Google Scholar and applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The papers were categorised based on their contributions to the causes, effects and solutions related to crunch time. These papers were used as the source material for this research. It was found that the number of studies is increasing and the most common contribution of these studies is presenting the causes of crunch time. The most common causes presented were cultural, planning and process, and structural causes. Health and social effects were the most common effects. Process changes and no-crunch policies were the most common types of solutions to crunch time. The main contribution of this study was presenting an overview of how crunch time is discussed in scientific literature. It can be used by researchers to determine what kind of research might be necessary. The study could also be useful for game developers and managers in deciding what actions to take to avoid crunch time. This study found that there are gaps in the literature regarding solutions to crunch time, but often the causes seem to imply solutions. This study suggested that more research into feature creep and structural changes to the game development companies could be useful for learning how to reduce crunch time

Four-dimensional cosmology from dilaton coupled quantum matter in two dimensions

The reduction of 4D Einstein gravity with $N$ minimal scalars leads to specific 2D dilaton gravity with dilaton coupled scalars. Applying s-wave and large $N$ approximation (where large $N$ quantum contribution due to dilaton itself is taken into account) we study 2D cosmology for CGHS model and for reduced Einstein gravity (in both cases with dilaton coupled scalars). Numerical study shows that in most cases we get 2D singular Universe which may correspond to big bang. Nevertheless, big crunch or non-singular Universes are also possible. For reduced 4D Einstein gravity one can regard the obtained 2D cosmology with time-dependent dilaton as 4D Kantowski-Sacks Universe of singular,non-singular or big crunch type.Comment: LaTeX file, 14 pages and 2 figure

The trade collapse: lining up the suspects

Don't blame trade restrictions this time. Instead, the three culprits are the credit crunch, the "compositional effect" and the trend away from making an entire product in one country.International trade