How well do lattice simulations reproduce the different aspects of the geometric Schwinger model

We compare continuum and lattice formulation of the geometric Schwinger Model on the torus. The lattice reproduces the $U(1)_A$ anomaly, related to non-trivial topological gauge configurations and zero modes.Comment: 3 pages, DESY 93-144, talk presented by H. Dilger at Lattice 9

Small Business Size Standards: A Historical Analysis of Contemporary Issues

[Excerpt] Small business size standards are of congressional interest because the standards determine eligibility for receiving Small Business Administration (SBA) assistance as well as federal contracting and tax preferences. Although there is bipartisan agreement that the nation’s small businesses play an important role in the American economy, there are differences of opinion concerning how to define them. The Small Business Act of 1953 (P.L. 83-163, as amended) authorized the SBA to establish size standards for determining eligibility for federal small business assistance. The SBA currently uses two size standards to determine program eligibility: industry-specific size standards and an alternative size standard based on the applicant’s maximum tangible net worth and average net income after federal taxes. This report provides a historical examination of the SBA’s size standards, assesses competing views concerning how to define a small business, and discusses how the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 might affect program eligibility. It also discusses H.R. 585, the Small Business Size Standard Flexibility Act of 2011, which would authorize the SBA’s Office of Chief Counsel for Advocacy to approve or disapprove a size standard proposed by a federal agency if it deviates from the SBA’s size standards. The SBA’s Administrator currently has that authority. It also discusses H.R. 3987, the Small Business Protection Act of 2012, which would require the SBA to make available a justification when establishing or approving a size standard that the size standard is appropriate for each individual industry classification within a grouping of four-digit NAICS codes. The bill would address the SBA’s announced intention to combine size standards within industrial groups as a means to reduce the complexity of its size standards and to provide greater consistency for industries that have similar economic characteristics

Small Business Administration and Job Creation

The Small Business Administration (SBA) administers several programs to support small businesses, including loan guaranty programs; disaster loan programs; management and technical assistance training programs; and federal contracting programs. Congressional interest in these programs has increased in recent years, primarily because they are viewed as a means to stimulate economic activity, create jobs, and assist in the national economic recovery. This report examines the economic research on net job creation to identify the types of businesses that appear to create the most jobs. That research suggests that business startups play a very important role in job creation, but have a more limited effect on net job creation over time because fewer than half of all startups are still in business after five years. However, the influence of small business startups on net job creation varies by firm size. Startups with fewer than 20 employees tend to have a negligible effect on net job creation over time whereas startups with 20- 499 employees tend to have a positive employment effect, as do surviving younger businesses of all sizes (in operation for one year to five years). This report then examines the possible implications this research might have for Congress and the SBA. For example, the SBA provides assistance to all qualifying businesses that meet its size standards. About 97% of all businesses currently meet the SBA’s eligibility criteria. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of targeting small business assistance to a narrower group, small businesses that are the most likely to create and retain the most jobs. Also, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended that the SBA use outcome-based program performance measures, such as how well the small businesses do after receiving SBA assistance, rather than focusing on output-based program performance measures, such as the number of loans approved and funded. GAO has argued that using outcome-based program performance measures would better enable the SBA to determine the impact of its programs on participating small businesses. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of adding net job creation as an outcome-based SBA program performance measure. This report also examines the arguments for providing federal assistance to small businesses, noting that policymakers often view job creation as a justification for such assistance whereas economists argue that over the long term federal assistance to small businesses is likely to reallocate jobs within the economy, not increase them. Nonetheless, most economists support federal assistance to small businesses for other purposes, such as a means to correct a perceived market failure related to the disadvantages small businesses experience when attempting to access capital and credit

German universities as state-sponsored co-operatives

Most universities in Germany are public firms but they have many properties of co-operatives. The most important thereof are described and analysed together with the characteristics of state-sponsorship. The real companions of the university as a co-operation are its professors. The same is true for the faculty level, perhaps even more so. However, especially the students are also organised in a co-operative form as are the representatives of all membership groups together. The state is making some crucial reforms that transform this university model or may even destroy it. In any case, the change is slow, painful and open-ended. --

The absent-minded prisoner

If one of two rational players is absent-minded for at least three rounds, cooperation in a prisoners dilemma with a finite number of repetitions is possible. If both players are absentminded, even two rounds of absent-mindedness can be enough for cooperation in these rounds and all rounds before. Sufficient conditions for the existence of a cooperative equilibrium are derived, a plausible interpretation of absent-mindedness in the case of many repetitions is given. --absent-mindedness,prisoners dilemma,repeated games

Small Business Administration and Job Creation

[Excerpt] The Small Business Administration (SBA) administers several programs to support small businesses, including loan guaranty programs, disaster loan programs, management and technical assistance training programs, and federal contracting programs. Congressional interest in these programs has increased in recent years, primarily because they are viewed as a means to stimulate economic activity and create jobs. This report examines the economic research on net job creation to identify the types of businesses that appear to create the most jobs. That research suggests that business startups play an important role in job creation, but have a more limited effect on net job creation over time because fewer than half of all startups are still in business after five years. However, the influence of small business startups on net job creation varies by firm size. Startups with fewer than 20 employees tend to have a negligible effect on net job creation over time whereas startups with 20-499 employees tend to have a positive employment effect, as do surviving younger businesses of all sizes (in operation for one year to five years). This report then examines the possible implications this research might have for Congress and the SBA. For example, the SBA provides assistance to all qualifying businesses that meet its size standards. About 97% of all businesses currently meet the SBA’s eligibility criteria. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of targeting small business assistance to a narrower group, small businesses that are the most likely to create and retain the most jobs. In addition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended that the SBA use outcome-based program performance measures, such as how well the small businesses do after receiving SBA assistance, rather than focusing on output-based program performance measures, such as the number of loans approved and funded. GAO has argued that using outcome-based program performance measures would better enable the SBA to determine the impact of its programs on participating small businesses. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of adding net job creation as an outcome-based SBA program performance measure. This report also examines the arguments for providing federal assistance to small businesses, noting that policymakers often view job creation as a justification for such assistance whereas economists argue that over the long term federal assistance to small businesses is likely to reallocate jobs within the economy, not increase them. Nonetheless, most economists support federal assistance to small businesses for other purposes, such as a means to correct a perceived market failure related to the disadvantages small businesses experience when attempting to access capital and credit

Topological Zero Modes in Monte Carlo Simulations

We present an improvement of global Metropolis updating steps, the instanton hits, used in a hybrid Monte Carlo simulation of the two-flavor Schwinger model with staggered fermions. These hits are designed to change the topological sector of the gauge field. In order to match these hits to an unquenched simulation with pseudofermions, the approximate zero mode structure of the lattice Dirac operator has to be considered explicitly.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, latex, 11 pages, 4 figures, DESY 94-14

The ambivalence of Christian-Muslim public presences in post-colonial Tanzania

In post-colonial Tanzania, efforts to govern the relations between Christianity and Islam—the country’s largest religions—have been impacted by the growing potential for conflict between and among diverse strands of the two faiths from the mid-1990s onward. They have also been shaped by the highly unequal relations between various Christian and Muslim actors and the Tanzanian government in the context of globalization. This article describes how the governance of religious multiplicity in Tanzania has affected the domains of transnational development, the registration of new religious bodies, and the regulation of religious instruction in schools. It argues that a comprehensive understanding of ‘lived religion’ needs to focus on the way in which religious multiplicities are molded as socio-cultural realities through a wide range of governing interventions

Scaling in the two-dimensional U(1)--Higgs model

We study the continuum limit of the $2D$ U(1)--Higgs model with variable scalar field length, which is qualitatively different from the fixed length case. Our simulations concentrate on the scaling behaviour of the topological susceptibility, and an instanton-induced confinement mechanism of fractional charges is numerically confirmed.Comment: Talk presented at LATTICE96(topology), 3 pages, latex2e, 2 Postscript figures, uses packages epsfig and espcrc