THE SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA : (A Case Study of BIMAS)

The purpose of this study was to come up with a profile of the salient socio-economic characteristic of people who seek MFIs’ services. Specifically, the study was to shed light on their poverty status and their demographic characteristics. The research focused on clients of BIMAS operating within the five divisions of Embu district. The research findings gave a general profile of the clients reached by MFIs. The MFI clients are mainly male in the 26-40 age brackets that live in households of between 4 and 6 members which are predominantly male headed. A high proportion of the clients are married and do not suffer from any physical disability. Slightly over half of the clients have attained secondary school education and most have attended other training. In terms of their poverty status, over half of the clients have their children attending school. Majority can afford at least three ordinary meals per day and special meals thrice per week. The clients live in their own houses which have three or fewer rooms. The houses are largely made of brick walls, iron sheet roofs and concrete floors. The main source of energy for client household is firewood and charcoal and majority of them own a television. Key Words: Socio-economic characteristics, Demographic characteristics, Poverty statu

SU(2) Flux Distributions on Finite Lattices

We studied SU(2) flux distributions on four dimensional euclidean lattices with one dimension very large. By choosing the time direction appropriately we can study physics in two cases: one is finite volume in the zero temperature limit, another is finite temperature in the the intermediate to large volume limit. We found that for cases of beta > beta crit there is no intrinsic string formation. Our lattices with beta > beta crit belong to intermediate volume region, and the string tension in this region is due to finite volume effects. In large volumes we found evidence for intrinsic string formation.Comment: 21 pages text, 12 pages of postscript figure

πK\pi K Scattering in Three Flavour ChPT

We present the scattering lengths for the $\pi K$ processes in the three flavour Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) framework at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). The calculation has been performed analytically but we only include analytical results for the dependence on the low-energy constants (LECs) at NNLO due to the size of the expressions. These results, together with resonance estimates of the NNLO LECs are used to obtain constraints on the Zweig rule suppressed LECs at NLO, $L_4^r$ and $L_6^r$. Contrary to expectations from NLO order calculations we find them to be compatible with zero. We do a preliminary study of combining the results from $\pi\pi$ scattering, $\pi K$ scattering and the scalar form-factors and find only a marginal compatibility with all experimental/dispersive input data.Comment: 23 page

Crystal Structures and Electronic Properties of Haloform-Intercalated C60

Using density functional methods we calculated structural and electronic properties of bulk chloroform and bromoform intercalated C60, C60 2CHX3 (X=Cl,Br). Both compounds are narrow band insulator materials with a gap between valence and conduction bands larger than 1 eV. The calculated widths of the valence and conduction bands are 0.4-0.6 eV and 0.3-0.4 eV, respectively. The orbitals of the haloform molecules overlap with the $\pi$ orbitals of the fullerene molecules and the p-type orbitals of halogen atoms significantly contribute to the valence and conduction bands of C60 2CHX3. Charging with electrons and holes turns the systems to metals. Contrary to expectation, 10 to 20 % of the charge is on the haloform molecules and is thus not completely localized on the fullerene molecules. Calculations on different crystal structures of C60 2CHCl3 and C60 2CHBr3 revealed that the density of states at the Fermi energy are sensitive to the orientation of the haloform and C60 molecules. At a charging of three holes, which corresponds to the superconducting phase of pure C60 and C60 2CHX3, the calculated density of states (DOS) at the Fermi energy increases in the sequence DOS(C60) < DOS(C60 2CHCl3) < DOS(C60 2CHBr3).Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

A model for string-breaking in QCD

We present a model for string breaking based on the existence of chromoelectric flux tubes. We predict the form of the long-range potential, and obtain an estimate of the string breaking length. A prediction is also obtained for the behaviour with temperature of the string breaking length near the deconfinement phase transition. We plan to use this model as a guide for a program of study of string breaking on the lattice.Comment: 7 pages, minor improvements of the text and of the reference lis

Femto-Photography of Protons to Nuclei with Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering

Developments in deeply virtual Compton scattering allow the direct measurements of scattering amplitudes for exchange of a highly virtual photon with fine spatial resolution. Real-space images of the target can be obtained from this information. Spatial resolution is determined by the momentum transfer rather than the wavelength of the detected photon. Quantum photographs of the proton, nuclei, and other elementary particles with resolution on the scale of a fraction of a femtometer is feasible with existing experimental technology.Comment: To be published in Physical Review D. Replaces previous version with minor changes in presentatio

I=3/2 KπK \pi Scattering in the Nonrelativisitic Quark Potential Model

We study $I=3/2$ elastic $K\pi$ scattering to Born order using nonrelativistic quark wavefunctions in a constituent-exchange model. This channel is ideal for the study of nonresonant meson-meson scattering amplitudes since s-channel resonances do not contribute significantly. Standard quark model parameters yield good agreement with the measured S- and P-wave phase shifts and with PCAC calculations of the scattering length. The P-wave phase shift is especially interesting because it is nonzero solely due to $SU(3)_f$ symmetry breaking effects, and is found to be in good agreement with experiment given conventional values for the strange and nonstrange constituent quark masses.Comment: 12 pages + 2 postscript figures, Revtex, MIT-CTP-210

Matter degrees of freedom and string breaking in Abelian projected quenched SU(2) QCD

In the Abelian projection the Yang--Mills theory contains Abelian gauge fields (diagonal degrees of freedom) and the Abelian matter fields (off-diagonal degrees) described by a complicated action. The matter fields are essential for the breaking of the adjoint string. We obtain numerically the effective action of the Abelian gauge and the Abelian matter fields in quenched SU(2) QCD and show that the Abelian matter fields provide an essential contribution to the total action even in the infrared region. We also observe the breaking of an Abelian analog of the adjoint string using Abelian operators. We show that the adjoint string tension is dominated by the Abelian and the monopole contributions similarly to the case of the fundamental particles. We conclude that the adjoint string breaking can successfully be described in the Abelian projection formalism.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

Confirmation of a pi_1^0 Exotic Meson in the \eta \pi^0 System

The exclusive reaction $\pi^- p \to \eta \pi^0 n$, $\eta \to \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^0$ at 18 GeV$/c$ has been studied with a partial wave analysis on a sample of 23~492 $\eta \pi^0 n$ events from BNL experiment E852. A mass-dependent fit is consistent with a resonant hypothesis for the $P_+$ wave, thus providing evidence for a neutral exotic meson with $J^{PC} = 1^{-+}$, a mass of $1257 \pm 20 \pm 25$ MeV$/c^2$, and a width of $354 \pm 64 \pm 60$ MeV$/c^2$. New interpretations of the meson exotics in neutral $\eta \pi^0$ system observed in E852 and Crystal Barrel experiments are discussed.Comment: p3, rewording the paragraph (at the bottom) about the phase variations. p4, rewording paragrath "The second method ..." . p4, at the bottom of paragrath "The third method ..." added consistent with the results of methods 1 and 2

Exotic Meson Production in the f1(1285)π−f_{1}(1285)\pi^{-} System observed in the Reaction π−p→ηπ+π−π−p\pi^{-} p \to \eta\pi^{+}\pi^{-}\pi^{-} p at 18 GeV/c

This letter reports results from the partial wave analysis of the $\pi^{-}\pi^{-}\pi^{+}\eta$ final state in $\pi^{-}p$ collisions at 18GeV/c. Strong evidence is observed for production of two mesons with exotic quantum numbers of spin, parity and charge conjugation, $J^{PC} = 1^{-+}$ in the decay channel $f_{1}(1285)\pi^{-}$. The mass $M = 1709 \pm 24 \pm 41$ MeV/c^2 and width $\Gamma = 403 \pm 80 \pm 115$ MeV/c^2 of the first state are consistent with the parameters of the previously observed $\pi_{1}(1600)$. The second resonance with mass $M = 2001 \pm 30 \pm 92$ MeV/c^2 and width $\Gamma = 333 \pm 52 \pm 49$ MeV/c^2 agrees very well with predictions from theoretical models. In addition, the presence of $\pi_{2}(1900)$ is confirmed with mass $M = 2003 \pm 88 \pm 148$ MeV/c^2 and width $\Gamma = 306 \pm 132 \pm 121$ MeV/c^2 and a new state, $a_{1}(2096)$, is observed with mass $M = 2096 \pm 17 \pm 121$ MeV/c^2 and width $\Gamma = 451 \pm 41 \pm 81$ MeV/c^2. The decay properties of these last two states are consistent with flux tube model predictions for hybrid mesons with non-exotic quantum numbers