678 research outputs found
Gender and the welfare state
Gender relations, as embodied in the sexual division of labor, compulsory heterosexuality, discourses and ideologies of citizenship, motherhood, masculinity and femininity, and the like, profoundly shape the character of welfare states. Likewise, the institutions of social provision the set of social assistance and social insurance programs, universal citizenship entitlements, and public services to which we refer as "the welfare state" affect gender relations in various ways. Although many recent studies of the welfare state use a comparative analysis to study the factors shaping the welfare state, few of these studies have paid systematic attention to gender. Similarly, most feminist work has not been systematically comparative. This paper summarizes the current state of understanding of the varying effects of welfare states on gender relations, and vice versa.
Predictions of selected flavour observables within the Standard Model
This letter gathers a selection of Standard Model predictions issued from the
metrology of the CKM parameters performed by the CKMfitter group. The selection
includes purely leptonic decays of neutral and charged B, D and K mesons. In
the light of the expected measurements from the LHCb experiment, a special
attention is given to the radiative decay modes of B mesons as well as to the
B-meson mixing observables, in particular the semileptonic charge asymmetries
a^d,s_SL which have been recently investigated by the D0 experiment at
Tevatron. Constraints arising from rare kaon decays are addressed, in light of
both current results and expected performances of future rare kaon experiments.
All results have been obtained with the CKMfitter analysis package, featuring
the frequentist statistical approach and using Rfit to handle theoretical
uncertainties.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables. Typos corrected and discussion of
agreement between SM and data update
Constructing female entrepreneurship policy in the UK : is the US a relevant benchmark?
Successive UK governments have introduced a range of policy initiatives designed to encourage more women to start new firms. Underpinning these policies has been an explicit ambition for the UK to achieve similar participation rates as those in the US where it is widely reported that women own nearly half the stock of businesses. The data underlying these objectives are critically evaluated and it is argued that the definitions and measures of female enterprise used in the UK and the US restrict meaningful comparisons between the two. It is suggested that the expansion of female entrepreneurship in the US is historically and culturally specific to that country. UK policy goals should reflect the national socioeconomic context, while drawing upon good practice examples from a range of other countries. The paper concludes by discussing the economic and social viability of encouraging more women in the UK to enter self-employment without fully recognising the intensely competitive sectors in which they are often located
Trivial trauma and delayed rupture of a normal spleen: a case report
Although a majority of splenic ruptures present acutely with a known mechanism of injury, a
minority of patients present days to weeks following trauma with a delayed rupture. Also uncommon is the
atraumatic rupture, the vast majority of which occur in patients with underlying splenic pathology. A handful of
cases of apparently spontaneous rupture of a normal spleen are reported; however, there is debate about whether
these actually represent delayed ruptures following a history of trauma that is not elicited. Although a few cases of
delayed rupture of the spleen following trivial trauma have been reported, the majority of these present evidence
of an underlying disease process. We found only two such cases that documented a normal spleen and three
cases where underlying splenic pathology was not reported. We review the literature and discuss the
phenomenon of delayed rupture of the normal spleen following trivial trauma
Carbon nanotube-rich domain effects on bulk electrical properties of nanocomposites
Carbon nanotube (CNT)/epoxy composites are intriguing materials that enable materials scientists and engineers to tailor structural and electrical properties for applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. Recent insights into CNT-rich domain formation and its influence on electrical properties raise questions about which processing variables can be used to tune the overall electrical conductivity. Here, we investigate how mass fraction and curing temperature influence these electrical properties. CNT nanocomposites were fabricated varying the mass fraction of CNT and the epoxy curing temperature. First, scanning lithium ion microscopy coupled with transmission electron microscopy were employed to investigate the morphology of CNT-rich domains that formed more readily at elevated curing temperatures than during room temperature curing. Then, oscillatory shear rheology measurements of the unfilled curing epoxy informed a simple kinetic argument to explain the CNT-rich domain formation. Finally, the electrical conductivity (both alternating and direct current) was characterized with a novel microwave cavity perturbation spectroscopy technique (alternating current conductivity) and a standard four-point probe station (direct current conductivity). The overarching conclusion of the work was that the CNT-rich domains formed a secondary percolated network surrounded by an almost completely unfilled epoxy matrix that allowed for higher conductivities at lower loadings. This work demonstrates that perfect dispersion of the nanoparticulate is, at least in this instance, not necessarily the preferred morphology
Supersymmetric constraints from Bs -> mu+mu- and B -> K* mu+mu- observables
We study the implications of the recent LHCb limit and results on Bs ->
mu+mu- and B -> K* mu+mu- observables in the constrained SUSY scenarios. After
discussing the Standard Model predictions and carefully estimating the
theoretical errors, we show the constraining power of these observables in
CMSSM and NUHM. The latest limit on BR(Bs -> mu+mu-), being very close to the
SM prediction, constrains strongly the large tan(beta) regime and we show that
the various angular observables from B -> K* mu+mu- decay can provide
complementary information in particular for moderate tan(beta) values.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figure
Mixing of Active and Sterile Neutrinos
We investigate mixing of neutrinos in the MSM (neutrino Minimal Standard
Model), which is the MSM extended by three right-handed neutrinos. Especially,
we study elements of the mixing matrix between three
left-handed neutrinos () and two sterile
neutrinos () which are responsible to the seesaw mechanism
generating the suppressed masses of active neutrinos as well as the generation
of the baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU). It is shown that
can be suppressed by many orders of magnitude compared with
and , when the Chooz angle is large in the
normal hierarchy of active neutrino masses. We then discuss the neutrinoless
double beta decay in this framework by taking into account the contributions
not only from active neutrinos but also from all the three sterile neutrinos.
It is shown that and give substantial, destructive contributions
when their masses are smaller than a few 100 MeV, and as a results receive no stringent constraint from the current bounds on such decay.
Finally, we discuss the impacts of the obtained results on the direct searches
of in meson decays for the case when are lighter than pion
mass. We show that there exists the allowed region for with such
small masses in the normal hierarchy case even if the current bound on the
lifetimes of from the big bang nucleosynthesis is imposed. It is also
pointed out that the direct search by using and might miss such since the branching ratios can be
extremely small due to the cancellation in , but the search by
can cover the whole allowed region by improving the
measurement of the branching ratio by a factor of 5.Comment: 30 pages, 32 figure
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