Lost in Conversation

While still in the midst of their study abroad experiences, students at Linfield College write reflective essays. Their essays address issues of cultural similarity and difference, compare lifestyles, mores, norms, and habits between their host countries and home, and examine changes in perceptions about their host countries and the United States. In this essay, Kate Henley describes her observations during her study abroad program at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador

Switching Costs and Occupational Transition into Self-Employment

Contemporary dynamic theories of self-employment choice focus on occupational switching costs, and the risk associated with entrepreneurial income streams. However little or no previous research has addressed the question of what factors determine the length of time that it takes aspiring entrepreneurs to switch into self-employment. The existence of switching costs suggests that choice may be subject to 'hysteresis' (akin to investment under conditions of irreversibility and uncertainty). This paper presents empirical evidence on the dynamics of entrepreneurial transition drawing on data from Waves 8 to 16 of the British Household Panel Survey. The paper estimates a discrete-time duration model of the time between initial expressions of aspiration to transition into self-employment. The model incorporates measures of local economic volatility to capture uncertainty, as well as a range of demographic and background factors which may be associated with lower switching costs. Econometric results reveal that switching costs are lower for men, older individuals and graduates, as well as for those with prior entrepreneurial experience. Increased volatility in the local housing market is also found to be associated with slower transition, suggesting that information about the housing market may form an important indicator of uncertainty for aspiring entrepreneurs.self-employment, entrepreneurship, switching costs, occupational choice

The Weak Parity-Violating Pion-Nucleon Coupling (Revised)

We use QCD sum rules to obtain the weak parity-violating pion-nucleon coupling constant $f_{\pi NN}$. We find that $f_{\pi NN}\approx 2\times 10^{-8}$, about an order of magnitude smaller than the ``best estimates'' based on quark models. This result follows from the cancellation between perturbative and nonperturbative QCD processes not found in quark models, but explicit in the QCD sum rule method. Our result is consistent with the experimental upper limit found from $^{18}$F parity-violating measurements.Comment: 13 pages, uses LaTex; figures can be obtained from any of the authors: [email protected], Kisslinger@kelvin. phys.cmu.edu, [email protected]

Combined energy -- diffraction data refinement of decagonal AlNiCo

We incorporate realistic pair potential energies directly into a non-linear least-square fit of diffraction data to quantitatively compare structure models with experiment for the Ni-rich $d$(AlNiCo) quasicrystal. The initial structure models are derived from a few {\it a priori} assumptions (gross features of the Patterson function) and the pair potentials. In place of the common hyperspace approach to the structure refinement of quasicrystals, we use a real-space tile decoration scheme, which does not rely on strict quasiperiodicity, and makes it easy to enforce sensible local arrangements of the atoms. Inclusion of the energies provides information complementary to the diffraction data and protects the fit procedure from converging on spurious solutions. The method pinpoints sites which are likely to break the symmetry of their local environment.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, proceedings of the Internation Conference on Quasicrystals, Bangalore, India, August 200

Axial current matrix elements and pentaquark decay widths in chiral soliton models

Here I explain why in chiral soliton models the hadronic transition operator of the pentaquark decay cannot be identified from the axial current.Comment: seven pages, note on Delta resonance added, refs updated, version to be published in PR

Isospin Splitting in the Pion-Nucleon Couplings from QCD Sum Rules

We use QCD sum rules for the three point function of a pseudoscalar and two nucleonic currents in order to estimate the charge dependence of the pion nucleon coupling constant coming from isospin violation in the strong interaction. The effect can be attributed primarily to the difference of the quark condensates and . Assuming that the pi0 is a pure isostate we obtain for the splitting between the coupling of proton and neutron to the neutral pion an interval of [0.008 ; 0.023], the uncertainties coming mainly from the input parameters. In order to obtain the coupling to a physical pi0 we have to take pi - eta mixing into account leading to an interval of [0.012 ; 0.037]. The charged pion nucleon coupling is found to be the average of the two neutral ones. Electromagnetic effects are not included.Comment: contributed talk at CIPANP97 (Big Sky, Montana); 3 pages (aipproc.sty), no figure