Misura sistematica dei Branching Ratio dei decadimenti degli adroni B in due corpi mell'esperimento LHCb

We present a method to measure in a systematic way all two-body decays of B hadrons at LHCb into charged final states. For the 15 possible decay products that we consider, this corresponds to a total of 149 different decay channels of the B0, B+, Bs and Lambda_b. Of these, we study 62 channels for which a dataset of simulated signal was available. The method has been excercised on 10^7 simulated inclusive B decays. We start by performinging on each channel a cut-optimization based on rectangular cuts. We achieve the best sensitivity using a selecion based on the impact parameter, lifetime significance, pointing angle and transverse momentum of the B candidate. We determine the presence of a signal from comparing the number of candidates with an invariant mass near the B mass, to the number of candidates in a sideband region. Of the 62 channels studied, we find signals with a significance of at least three standard deviations in 15 channels. Three of these are used as reference channels, leaving 12 measurements quoted as a central value with uncertainty. We set limits on the branching ratios of the remaining channels, many of which have never been studied before

Efficiency, equality and labelling: an experimental investigation of focal points in explicit bargaining

Efficiency, equality and labelling: an experimental investigation of focal points in explicit bargainin

Vortex wave interaction theory to understand self sustaining processes in transitional flows

In this work the self-sustaining processes are investigated within a Couette flow de- veloping a method able to apply directly the stress jumps predicted by the vortex wave interaction theory. The challenge of the approach is to implement a technique able to directly implement the stress jumps and to implement a procedure able to deform the mesh to the flow variations. The derivation of the vortex wave interaction theory is also discussed and the numerical formulations of the governing equations are discretized through a spectral/hp element method. The method turns out to agree with the other approaches already utilised in literature and the results repro- duce a constraint of the mathematically inviscid flow suggesting that the flow is weakly dependent on the viscosity. The characteristics of the obtained flow are then discussed. These Navier-Stokes solutions are then perturbed by a sinusoidal wall forcing to study the robustness of the self-sustained mechanism by varying the amplitude of the forcing. The results show the possibility to control the behaviour of the flow and the effectiveness of the considered forcing to induce a drag reduction. Overcoming a certain amplitude threshold, a breakdown of the flow occurs in which the vortex core splits into multiple cores. Also after the breakdown the vortex wave interaction theory has been able to generate a self-sustained multiple core flow.Open Acces

The pizza night game: Conflict of interest and payoff inequality in tacit bargaining games with focal points

We report the results of a new tacit bargaining experiment that provides two key insights about the effects of payoff inequality on coordination and cooperation towards efficient outcomes. The experiment features the novel Pizza Night game, which can disentangle the effects of payoff inequality and conflict of interest. When coordination relies on focal points based on labelling properties, payoff inequality does not interfere with the successful use of those properties. When there are efficiency cues that assist coordination, payoff inequality is not an obstacle to the maximisation of efficiency. Conflict of interest is the main barrier to successful coordination

Do markets reveal preferences or shape them?

We contrast the proposition that markets reveal independently-existing preferences with the alternative possibility that they may help to shape them. Using demand-revealing experimental market institutions, we separate the shaping effects of price cues from the effects of market discipline. We find that individual valuations and prevailing prices are systematically affected by both exogenous manipulations of price expectations and endogenous but divergent price feedback. These effects persist to varying degrees, in spite of further market experience. In some circumstances, market experience may actually consolidate them. We discuss possible explanations for these effects of uninformative price cues on revealed preferences

Focal points and payoff information in tacit bargaining

Schelling proposed that payoff-irrelevant cues can affect the outcome of tacit bargaining games by creating focal points. Tests of this hypothesis have found that conflicts of interest between players inhibit focal-point reasoning. We investigate experimentally whether this effect is reduced if players have imperfect information about each other’s payoffs. When players know only their own payoffs, they fail to ignore this information even though it cannot assist coordination; the effects of payoff-irrelevant cues on coordination success are small. When no exact information about payoffs is provided, payoff-irrelevant cues are more helpful, but not as much as when conflict is absent

Boundedly rational expected utility theory

We build a satisficing model of choice under risk which embeds Expected Utility Theory (EUT) into a boundedly rational deliberation process. The decision maker accumulates evidence for and against alternative options by repeatedly sampling from her underlying set of EU preferences until the evidence favouring one option satisfies her desired level of confidence. Despite its EUT core, the model produces patterns of behaviour that violate standard EUT axioms, while at the same time capturing systematic relationships between choice probabilities, response times and confidence judgments, which are beyond the scope of theories that do not take deliberation into account

Deception aversion, norm violation and consumer responses to prosocial initiatives

Companies face increasing pressure to adopt social responsibility initiatives while simultaneously providing shareholder value. However, consumers may respond negatively to “win-win” initiatives that benefit society while bringing financial gain to the corporation, thus producing a backlash effect. Previous researchers have attributed this backlash effect to the violation of a communal relationship norm that companies trigger in consumers when communicating their win-win initiatives. We propose an alternative hypothesis, that the backlash derives from people’s deception aversion. We find evidence supporting deception aversion in three preregistered studies showing that companies are evaluated negatively when their actions differ from those implied by their stated prosocial policy and not, as predicted by the communal norm violation hypothesis, merely when they earn a profit. Our results suggest that companies should not fear that earning a profit from prosocial activities will carry reputational risk, so long as they are transparent

Boundedly rational expected utility theory

We build a satisficing model of choice under risk which embeds Expected Utility Theory (EUT) into a boundedly rational deliberation process. The decision maker accumulates evidence for and against alternative options by repeatedly sampling from her underlying set of EU preferences until the evidence favouring one option satisfies her desired level of confidence. Despite its EUT core, the model produces patterns of behaviour that violate standard EUT axioms, while at the same time capturing systematic relationships between choice probabilities, response times and confidence judgments, which are beyond the scope of theories that do not take deliberation into account

Taking the New Year’s Resolution Test seriously: Eliciting individuals’ judgements about self-control and spontaneity

Self-control failure occurs when an individual experiences a conflict between immediate desires and longer-term goals, recognises psychological forces that hinder goal-directed action, tries to resist them but fails in the attempt. Behavioural economists often invoke assumptions about self-control failure to justify proposals for policy interventions. These arguments require workable methods for eliciting individuals’ goals and for verifying occurrences of self-control failure, but developing such methods confronts two problems. First, it is not clear that individuals’ goals are context-independent. Second, facing an actual conflict between a desire and a self-acknowledged goal, a person may consciously choose not to resist the desire, thinking that spontaneity is more important than self-control. We address these issues through an online survey that elicited individuals’ self-reported judgements about the relative importance of self-control and spontaneity in conflicts between enjoyment and health-related goals. To test for context-sensitivity, the judgement-elicitation questions were preceded by a memory-recall task which directed participants’ attention either to the enjoyment of acting on desires or to the satisfaction of achieving goals. We found little evidence of context-sensitivity. In both treatments, however, judgements that favoured spontaneity were expressed with roughly the same frequency and strength as judgments that favoured self-control