Quantum dynamics of bound states under spacetime fluctuations

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for hospitality to Martin Land and other Organizers of the IARD 2016 Conference, where a related lecture was delivered by TO. This work was supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (TO) and by the EPSRC GG-Top Project and the Cruickshank Trust (CW).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quantum gravitational decoherence of light and matter

T.O. is most grateful for a Carnegie Scholarship. C.W. acknowledges support from the EPSRC GG-Top Project.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quantum coherence, radiance, and resistance of gravitational systems

This work was supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (T.O.) and by the EPSRC GG-Top Project and the Cruickshank Trust (C.W.).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Spacetime foam induced collective bundling of intense fields

This research is supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (TO) and by the EPSRC GG-Top Project and the Cruickshank Trust (CW).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

La Germanie de Tacite entre \ue9rudition et croyances ethnographiques

Dans leur tentative de comprendre les cultures \ue9trang\ue8res et de cerner les similitudes et les divergences partielles entre le monde du \u2018soi\u2019 et celui de \u2018l\u2019autre\u2019, les ethnographes de l\u2019antiquit\ue9 avaient surtout recours, d\u2019une perspective universaliste et transculturelle, \ue0 la confrontation. Dans la Germania de Tacite, deux modes de penser sont particuli\ue8rement pertinents ici. Le premier est le proc\ue9d\ue9 que Tacite lui-m\ueame appelle \u2018interpretatio Romana\u2019 (ch. 43,3). Ceci consiste \ue0 postuler l\u2019existence d\u2019un certain nombre de divinit\ue9s universelles, qui changent simplement de nom lors du passage d\u2019une culture \ue0 l\u2019autre. Aussi on trouve chez Tacite la tentative d\u2019identifier les divinit\ue9s des Germains avec celle des Romains. En revanche, le deuxi\ue8me proc\ue9d\ue9 consiste en l\u2019opposition absolue des usages et des coutumes des peuples. A beaucoup d\u2019endroits dans la Germania on observe tr\ue8s distinctement le sch\ue9ma interpr\ue9tatif du \u2018mundus inversus\u2019, celui du \uab monde \ue0 l\u2019envers \ubb selon lequel la culture \ue9trang\ue8re finit par repr\ue9senter l\u2019inversion compl\ue8te, le retournement absolu des coutumes romaines contemporaines

Classic Insolvency Prediction Models Tested On Romanian Insurance Companies

This paper aims to analyse the applicability of classical bankruptcy prediction models for the Romanian insurance companies. Using four models, the Altman model, the Z-factor model, the Springate model and the model used to determine insolvency probability for the emerging markets we have conducted a study to see if they apply to Romanian insurance companies’ financial statements for the years between 2011 and 2013. We will present each model separately, analysing the indicators that led to the obtained results. In the end, we will combine the results to establish the applicability of these models to the Romanian insurance sector

The role of self-control in pro-environmental behaviour

Enhancing individuals’ pro-environmental behaviour is a key aspect of climate change mitigation. Despite most individuals endorsing positive environmental motivations, such as attitudes, pro-environmental behaviour uptake remains low. The thesis proposes that one’s self-control ability may play a role in their pro-environmental behaviour, by enabling individuals to overcome the obstacles in the way of acting on pro-environmental motivations. This thesis thus explores the relationship between self-control and pro-environmental behaviour, and the practical implications of this relationship, by investigating how self-control strategies can be used as a marketing tool to enhance pro-environmental behaviour. The first six studies provide evidence that self-control influences pro-environmental behaviour. A consistent, positive relationship between self-control and pro-environmental behaviour is found across three correlational studies. Findings from three experiments further suggest that lower self-control is linked to reduced pro-environmental behaviour, while higher self-control is linked to higher pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, self-control and attitudes are shown to predict pro-environmental behaviour together. The latter five experiments address the implication that enhancing one’s self-control may benefit one’s pro-environmental behaviour engagement, and explore the use of implementation intentions, a strategy shown to effectively support one’s self-control, for promoting pro-environmental behaviour, in a marketing context. As implementation intentions typically involve lengthy manipulations that are not suitable for wider-scale marketing use, this set of studies explores a brief, picture-based format of implementation intentions that is more suitable for marketing application. The first two experiments demonstrate that this implementation intentions format is as effective in influencing behaviour as the conventional format. Next, three field experiments demonstrate that implementation intentions, in this brief format, can effectively enhance pro-environmental behaviour. The findings contribute to a better understanding of pro-environmental behaviour, by highlighting a novel influence on pro-environmental behaviour, and identifying a new, independent predictor of pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, the findings provide practical insights into interventions for promoting pro-environmental behaviour and suggest an effective marketing tool that policy-makers and social marketers could use to promote pro-environmental behaviour on a wide scale

Performance of immobilized bacterial alpha-amylases in methyltriethoxsilane / tetraetoxysilane sol-gel matrices

The large number of studies related to the field of biomolecules encapsulation in sol-gel hosts clearly indicates that this approach can be considered as a powerful alternative to traditional encapsulation procedures involving biopolymer hosts. In this study, α-amylase was immobilized, by using the sol-gel technique, in silica particles obtained from hydrolysis and polycondensation of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and a mixture of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) and tetraethoxysilane. The influence of the pH and temperature of free and immobilized α-amylase were compared. It was shown that the relative activities of immobilized enzymes are higher than those of free enzymes over broader pH and temperature ranges. The Michaelis constant and the maximum rate of starch hydrolysis reaction were calculated by fitting the experimental data to the Michaelis-Menten equation. It was found that KM and Vmax values of the immobilized enzyme were smaller than those of the free enzyme

Latin Synthetic Compounding and Distributed Morphology

The theory of Distributed Morphology (DM) has been applied to English synthetic compounds by Harley (2009), who proposes an analysis as incorporation structures. After a short introduction on the passage from lexicalism to DM in Latin morphology (par. 1), I will try to extend Haley\u2019s analysis to Latin synthetic compounds, suggesting some revisions (par. 2). In the first place, I will argue for the necessity to introduce verbal features in the structure of a compound like "agricola", in order to explain the special meanings associated to the root COL, that is the fact that the verbal head introduces a dynamic event, and that the nominalized root AGR is interpreted as undergoing a change of state (par. 3). This suggestion is confirmed by comparing the structures of verb phrases, e.g. "colere agrum", noun phrases with nominal derivatives, e.g. "cultor agri", and synthetic compounds, e.g. "agricola", where the crucial observation is that in Latin, unlike English, there is no overt agentive suffix in the compound, such as -er in "taxi-driver": in Latin synthetic compounds we do not find the typical agentive suffix -tor (par. 4). I will conclude with some general observations on the relationships between morphology and syntax (par. 5)