CMB low multipole alignments in the Λ\mathbf{\Lambda}CDM and Dipolar models

The dipolar model \cite{Gordon:2005ai} has attracted much interest because it may phenomenologically explain the CMB hemispherical power asymmetry found in the WMAP and Planck data. Since such a model explicitly breaks isotropy at large angular scales it is natural to wonder whether it can also explain other CMB directional anomalies. Focusing on the low $\ell$ alignments and assuming $\Lambda$CDM, we confirm that the quadrupole/octupole and the dipole/quadrupole/octupole alignments are anomalous with a significance up to $99.9\%$ C.L., for both WMAP and Planck data. Moreover, we show for the first time that such features are anomalous also in the dipolar model, roughly at the same level as in $\Lambda$CDM. We conclude that the dipolar model does not provide a better fit to the data than the $\Lambda$CDM.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures and 4 table

Capital flows to Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

The capital flows to Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU) represent a relatively small, albeit growing share of capital flows to developing countries. Taking all flows together, the total net flows to these 25 countries (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) were about $44 billion in 1996 or about 1/8 of aggregate net flows to all developing countries. These countries accounted, however, for about 20 and 22 percent respectively of all developing countries Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and exports in 1996. As a fraction of their GDP, total inflows were consequently smaller than for many other developing countries, and averaged about 5.4 percent over the 1990-96 periods. In more recent years, there has been a more rapid inflow of private capital, as reform efforts have consolidated and economic prospects improved and, for some countries, as European Union (EU) integration became a possibility for the near future. For some countries, short-term capital has recently become an important source of external financing. Since most countries have been late comers to the phenomenon of large private capital inflows, they have not experienced much of the overheating phenomena which have affected other developing countries in the past (Latin America) and recently (East Asia). The paper is organized as follows. Section IIbriefly describes the facts on capital flows to these countries. Section III discusses important links and relationships between macroeconomic variables and the capital flows, including some of the basic motivations, and causes for capital flows. Section IV describes and analyzes the policy framework and policy responses in those countries that received the bulk of capital flows. Econometric tests are presented in section V, while section VI discusses the issues which may be arising with capital flows in these countries in the future and provides some conclusions.Capital Markets and Capital Flows,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Capital Flows,Banks&Banking Reform,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Theory&Research,Settlement of Investment Disputes

Proposal for a standardized design and modeling procedure of tall CLT buildings

A crucial issue in the design of a mid-rise Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) building under horizontal seismic action, is the definition of the principal elastic vibration period of an entire superstructure. Such vibration period depends on the mass distribution and on the global stiffness of the buildings. In a CLT structure the global stiffness of the buildings is highly sensitive to deformability of the connection elements. Consequently for a precise control of the vibration period of the building it is crucial to define the stiffness of each connections used to assemble a superstructure. A design procedure suitable for a reliable definition of the connection stiffness is proposed referring to code provisions and experimental tests. Discussion addresses primary issues associated with the usage of proposed procedure for numerical modeling of case study tall CLT buildings is reported

Equivalent birational embeddings II: divisors

Two divisors in $\P^n$ are said to be Cremona equivalent if there is a Cremona modification sending one to the other. We produce infinitely many non equivalent divisorial embeddings of any variety of dimension at most 14. Then we study the special case of plane curves and rational hypersurfaces. For the latter we characterise surfaces Cremona equivalent to a plane.Comment: v2 Exposition improved, thanks to referee, unconditional characterization of surfaces Cremona equivalent to a plan

Stage 4 neuroblastoma: sequential hemi-body irradiation or high-dose chemotherapy plus autologous haemopoietic stem cell transplantation to consolidate primary treatment

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two consecutive nonrandomised treatment programs applied between 1989 and 1999 at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Milan in an unselected cohort of 59 children over the age of one with stage 4 neuroblastoma. Both treatment programs consisted of two phases, the induction of the remission phase and the consolidation phase. The induction of the remission phase consisted of intensive chemotherapy, and remained the same throughout the study period. The consolidation phase consisted of sequential hemi-body irradiation (HBI) (10 Gy per session, 6 weeks apart) in the first period (1988–June 1994) and sequential high-dose cyclophosphamide, etoposide, mitoxantrone+L-PAM and autologous haemopoietic stem cell transplantation in the second (July 1994–1999). Intention-to-treat analysis revealed a significantly better outcome for patients treated with the second program, the 5-year event-free survival probability being 0.12 for program 1 and 0.31 for program 2 (P=0.03). This finding led us to conclude that sequential HBI is useless as consolidation treatment. The high-dose chemotherapy adopted in the second program enabled a proportion of patients to obtain long-term survival but, since the clinical results remain unsatisfactory, new treatment strategies are warranted