Promotions and Incentives: The Case of Multi-Stage Elimination Tournaments

Promotion tournaments play an important role for the provision of incentives in firms. In this paper, we extend research on single-stage rank-order tournaments and analyze behavior in multi-stage elimination tournaments. The main treatment of our laboratory experiment is a two-stage tournament in which equilibrium efforts are the same in both stages. We compare this treatment to a strategically equivalent one-stage tournament and to another two-stage tournament with a more convex wage structure. Confirming previous findings average effort in our one-stage treatment is close to Nash equilibrium. In contrast, subjects in our main treatment provide excess effort in the first stage both with respect to Nash predictions and compared to the equivalent one-stage tournament. The results for the more convex two-stage tournament show that excess effort in the first stage is a robust finding and that subjects react only weakly to differences in the wage structure.personnel economics, tournament, incentives, laboratory experiment

Reparametrization invariance and the expansion of currents in the heavy quark effective theory

The coefficients appearing at leading and subleading order in the $1/m$ expansion of bilinear heavy quark currents are related to each other by imposing reparametrization invariance on both the effective current operators and the short-distance coefficient functions in the heavy quark effective theory. When combined with present knowledge about the leading order coefficients, the results allow to calculate all coefficients appearing at order $1/m$ to next-to-leading order in renormalization-group improved perturbation theory. They also provide a meaningful definition of the velocity transfer variable $v\cdot v'$ to order $1/m$.Comment: 10 pages ReVTeX, SLAC-PUB-6059 (no figures

Common pulse retrieval algorithm: a fast and universal method to retrieve ultrashort pulses

We present a common pulse retrieval algorithm (COPRA) that can be used for a broad category of ultrashort laser pulse measurement schemes including frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG), interferometric FROG, dispersion scan, time domain ptychography, and pulse shaper assisted techniques such as multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan (MIIPS). We demonstrate its properties in comprehensive numerical tests and show that it is fast, reliable and accurate in the presence of Gaussian noise. For FROG it outperforms retrieval algorithms based on generalized projections and ptychography. Furthermore, we discuss the pulse retrieval problem as a nonlinear least-squares problem and demonstrate the importance of obtaining a least-squares solution for noisy data. These results improve and extend the possibilities of numerical pulse retrieval. COPRA is faster and provides more accurate results in comparison to existing retrieval algorithms. Furthermore, it enables full pulse retrieval from measurements for which no retrieval algorithm was known before, e.g., MIIPS measurements

A Virial Theorem for the Kinetic Energy of a Heavy Quark inside Hadrons

The formalism of the heavy quark effective theory is used to derive the field-theory analog of the virial theorem, which relates the matrix element of the kinetic energy of a heavy quark inside a hadron to a matrix element of the gluon field strength tensor. The existing QCD sum rule calculations of the kinetic energy are not consistent with this theorem.Comment: 10 pages LaTeX, CERN-TH.7070/9

The Fraunhofer Quantum Computing Portal - www.qc.fraunhofer.de - A web-based Simulator of Quantum Computing Processes

Fraunhofer FIRST develops a computing service and collaborative workspace providing a convenient tool for simulation and investigation of quantum algorithms. To broaden the twenty qubit limit of workstation-based simulations to the next qubit decade we provide a dedicated high memorized Linux cluster with fast Myrinet interconnection network together with a adapted parallel simulator engine. This simulation service supplemented by a collaborative workspace is usable everywhere via web interface and integrates both hardware and software as collaboration and investigation platform for the quantum community. The beta test version realizes all common one, two and three qubit gates, arbitrary one and two bit gates, orthogonal measurements as well as special gates like Oracle, Modulo function, Quantum Fourier Transformation and arbitrary Spin-Hamiltonians up to 31 qubits. For a restricted gate set it feasible to investigate circuits with up to sixty qubits. URL: http://www.qc.fraunhofer.d

QCD Sum Rule Analysis of the Subleading Isgur-Wise Form Factor χ2(v⋅v′)\chi_2(v\cdot v')

We present a QCD sum rule calculation of the spin-symmetry violating universal function $\chi_2(v\cdot v')$, which appears at order $1/m_Q$ in the heavy quark expansion of meson form factors. This function vanishes in the standard approximation, where radiative effects are neglected. For the first time, the complete set of diagrams arising at order $\alpha_s$ is evaluated. In particular, we find $\chi_2(1) = -(3.8\pm 0.4)\%$ at zero recoil, indicating that $1/m_Q$ corrections induced by the chromo-magnetic moment operator are small.Comment: (10 pages, REVTEX, 2 figures not included) SLAC-PUB-5915, WIS-92/70/Sep-P