5,220 research outputs found
Culture Rules: The Foundations of the Rule of Law and Other Norms of Governance
This study presents evidence about relations between national culture and social institutions. We operationalize culture with data on cultural dimensions for over 50 nations adopted from cross-cultural psychology and generate testable hypotheses about three basic social norms of governance: the rule of law, corruption, and accountability. These norms correlate systematically and strongly with national scores on cultural dimensions and also differ across cultural regions of the world. Regressions indicate that quantitative measures of national culture are alone remarkably predictive of governance, that economic inequality and British heritage add to predictive power, but that economic development and other factors add little. The results suggest a framework for understanding the relations between fundamental institutions of social order as well as policy implications for reform programs in transition economies.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39991/3/wp605.pd
Logarithmic roughening in a growth process with edge evaporation
Roughening transitions are often characterized by unusual scaling properties.
As an example we investigate the roughening transition in a solid-on-solid
growth process with edge evaporation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2746 (1996)], where
the interface is known to roughen logarithmically with time. Performing
high-precision simulations we find appropriate scaling forms for various
quantities. Moreover we present a simple approximation explaining why the
interface roughens logarithmically.Comment: revtex, 6 pages, 7 eps figure
Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a particle in a random potential
In this paper we carry out Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a quantum
particle in a one-dimensional random potential (plus a fixed harmonic
potential) at a finite temperature. This is the simplest model of an interface
in a disordered medium and may also pertain to an electron in a dirty metal. We
compare with previous analytical results, and also derive an expression for the
sample to sample fluctuations of the mean square displacement from the origin
which is a measure of the glassiness of the system. This quantity as well as
the mean square displacement of the particle are measured in the simulation.
The similarity to the quantum spin glass in a transverse field is noted. The
effect of quantum fluctuations on the glassy behavior is discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures included as eps files, uses RevTeX. Accepted for
publication in J. of Physics A: Mathematical and Genera
Quantum fluctuations and glassy behavior: The case of a quantum particle in a random potential
In this paper we expand our previous investigation of a quantum particle
subject to the action of a random potential plus a fixed harmonic potential at
a finite temperature T. In the classical limit the system reduces to a
well-known ``toy'' model for an interface in a random medium. It also applies
to a single quantum particle like an an electron subject to random
interactions, where the harmonic potential can be tuned to mimic the effect of
a finite box. Using the variational approximation, or alternatively, the limit
of large spatial dimensions, together with the use the replica method, and are
able to solve the model and obtain its phase diagram in the
plane, where is the particle's mass. The phase diagram is similar to that
of a quantum spin-glass in a transverse field, where the variable
plays the role of the transverse field. The glassy phase is characterized by
replica-symmetry-breaking. The quantum transition at zero temperature is also
discussed.Comment: revised version, 23 pages, revtex, 5 postscript figures in a separate
file figures.u
Culture Rules: The Foundations of the Rule of Law and Other Norms of Governance
This study presents evidence about relations between national culture and social institutions. We operationalize culture with data on cultural dimensions for over 50 nations adopted from cross-cultural psychology and generate testable hypotheses about three basic social norms of governance: the rule of law, corruption, and accountability. These norms correlate systematically and strongly with national scores on cultural dimensions and also differ across cultural regions of the world. Regressions indicate that quantitative measures of national culture are alone remarkably predictive of governance, that economic inequality and British heritage add to predictive power, but that economic development and other factors add little. The results suggest a framework for understanding the relations between fundamental institutions of social order as well as policy implications for reform programs in transition economies.Rule of Law, Corruption, Accountability, Culture, Governance, Economic Inequality, Economic Development
Directed polymers on a Cayley tree with spatially correlated disorder
In this paper we consider directed walks on a tree with a fixed branching
ratio K at a finite temperature T. We consider the case where each site (or
link) is assigned a random energy uncorrelated in time, but correlated in the
transverse direction i.e. within the shell. In this paper we take the
transverse distance to be the hierarchical ultrametric distance, but other
possibilities are discussed. We compute the free energy for the case of
quenched disorder and show that there is a fundamental difference between the
case of short range spatial correlations of the disorder which behaves
similarly to the non-correlated case considered previously by Derrida and Spohn
and the case of long range correlations which has a totally different overlap
distribution which approaches a single delta function about q=1 for large L,
where L is the length of the walk. In the latter case the free energy is not
extensive in L for the intermediate and also relevant range of L values,
although in the true thermodynamic limit extensivity is restored. We identify a
crossover temperature which grows with L, and whenever T<T_c(L) the system is
always in the low temperature phase. Thus in the case of long-ranged
correlation as opposed to the short-ranged case a phase transition is absent.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, standard latex. J. Phys. A, accepted for
publicatio
Quantitative Analysis of the Publishing Landscape in High-Energy Physics
World-wide collaboration in high-energy physics (HEP) is a tradition which
dates back several decades, with scientific publications mostly coauthored by
scientists from different countries. This coauthorship phenomenon makes it
difficult to identify precisely the ``share'' of each country in HEP scientific
production. One year's worth of HEP scientific articles published in
peer-reviewed journals is analysed and their authors are uniquely assigned to
countries. This method allows the first correct estimation on a ``pro rata''
basis of the share of HEP scientific publishing among several countries and
institutions. The results provide an interesting insight into the geographical
collaborative patterns of the HEP community. The HEP publishing landscape is
further analysed to provide information on the journals favoured by the HEP
community and on the geographical variation of their author bases. These
results provide quantitative input to the ongoing debate on the possible
transition of HEP publishing to an Open Access model.Comment: For a better on-screen viewing experience this paper can also be
obtained at:
http://doc.cern.ch/archive/electronic/cern/preprints/open/open-2006-065.pd
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