Increasing access to credit through reforming secured transactions in the MENA Region

This paper provides a comparative summary of secured transactions systems related to the use of movable property as collateral in the MENA region vis a vis international practices in countries with modern secured transactions systems. The paper sets out the importance of introducing reforms in the area of secured transactions with the objective of increasing access to credit for businesses, particularly SMEs. The MENA region clearly lags behind all other regions in the introduction of secured transactions reforms. The paper summarizes many of the weaknesses common across the region. The two main critical areas that need urgent reforms are the creation of modern secured transactions laws and electronic movable collateral registries, and the need to improve enforcement mechanisms for security interests in movable property.Debt Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets,E-Business

Determining neutralino parameters in Left-Right Supersymmetric Models

We report exact analytical expressions relating the fundamental parameters describing the neutralino sector in the context of the left-right supersymmetric model. The method used for such a effects is the projector formalism deduced without take into account the Jarlskog's projector formulae. Also, expressions for the neutralino masses and the neutralino mixing matrix are determined . The results are compared with numerical and analytical ones obtained in similar scenarios in the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model.Comment: 34 pages, 23 figure

Target Space Duality I: General Theory

We develop a systematic framework for studying target space duality at the classical level. We show that target space duality between manifolds M and Mtilde arises because of the existence of a very special symplectic manifold. This manifold locally looks like M x Mtilde and admits a double fibration. We analyze the local geometric requirements necessary for target space duality and prove that both manifolds must admit flat orthogonal connections. We show how abelian duality, nonabelian duality and Poisson-Lie duality are all special cases of a more general framework. As an example we exhibit new (nonlinear) dualities in the case M = Mtilde = R^n.Comment: LaTeX, 29 pages, 1 eps figure. Added a couple of references and corrected a couple of typos. An FAQ that discusses some subtle points may be found at <http://www.physics.miami.edu/~alvarez/papers/duality/

Searching for the roots of retardation : Spain in European perspective, 1500-1850

This paper investigates when did retardation begin in Spain and examines the evidence on economic performance over three centuries. In contrast to earlier estimates that focus almost exclusively on Castilian agriculture we look at trends in urbanization as a measure of economic activity outside agriculture and construct new measures of agricultural and total output at regional and national levels. We find distinctive long-run behaviour across Spanish regions that reject the identification between Castile and Spain. We also provide new output estimates for six Western European countries that allow placing Spanish performance in comparative perspective. Two main findings are highlighted. At the time of her imperial expansion Spain appears to have a relatively affluent nation and, by the late sixteenth century, her income per head was only below the Low Countries’ and Italy’s. The roots of Spanish retardation lie in the seventeenth century and deepened during the early nineteenth century.Preindustrial Spain, Europe, Urbanization, Agriculture, Retardation

Dilaton Contact Terms in the Bosonic and Heterotic Strings

Dilaton contact terms in the bosonic and heterotic strings are examined following the recent work of Distler and Nelson on the bosonic and semirigid strings. In the bosonic case dilaton two-point functions on the sphere are calculated as a stepping stone to constructing a `good' coordinate family for dilaton calculations on higher genus surfaces. It is found that dilaton-dilaton contact terms are improperly normalized, suggesting that the interpretation of the dilaton as the first variation of string coupling breaks down when other dilatons are present. It seems likely that this can be attributed to the tachyon divergence found in \TCCT. For the heterotic case, it is found that there is no tachyon divergence and that the dilaton contact terms are properly normalized. Thus, a dilaton equation analogous to the one in topological gravity is derived and the interpretation of the dilaton as the string coupling constant goes through.Comment: 44 pages, Figures now included. This replacement version includes the 7 figures as PostScript files appended to the end and the macros to insert them into the text. Also some typos in intermediate formulae were correcte

On quantum equivalence of dual sigma models: SL(3)SL(3) examples

The equivalence of several $SL(3)$ sigma models and their special Abelian duals is investigated in the two loop order of perturbation theory. The investigation is based on extracting and comparing various $\beta$ functions of the original and dual models. The role of the discrete global symmetries is emphasized.Comment: Plain TEX, 24 page

Dilaton transformation under abelian and non-abelian T-duality in the path integral approach

We present a convenient method for deriving the transformation of the dilaton under T-duality in the path-integral approach. Subtleties arising in performing the integral over the gauge fields are carefully analysed using Pauli-Villars regularization, thereby clarifying existing ambiguities in the literature. The formalism can not only be applied to the abelian case, but, and this for the first time, to the non-abelian case as well. Furthermore, by choosing a particular gauge, we directly obtain the target-space covariant expression for the dual geometry in the abelian case. Finally it is shown that the conditions for gauging non-abelian isometries are weaker than those generally found in the literature.Comment: latex, 20 pages, no figure

Quantum structure of T-dualized models with symmetry breaking

We study the principal sigma-models defined on any group manifold GL x GR/GD with breaking of GR, and their T-dual transforms. For abritary breaking we can express the torsion and Ricci tensor of the dual model in terms of the frame geometry of the initial principal model. Using these results, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the dual model to be torsionless and prove that the one-loop renormalizability of a given principal model is inherited by its dual partner, who shares the same beta-functions. These results are shown to hold also if the principal model is endowed with torsion. As an application we compute the beta-functions for the full Bianchi family and show that for some choices of the breaking parameters the dilaton anomaly is absent: for these choices the dual torsion vanishes. For the dualized Bianchi V model (which is torsionless for any breaking), we take advantage of its simpler structure, to study its two-loops renormalizability.Comment: 24 pages, no figures, latex2