1,038 research outputs found
Explaining international variations in self-employment : Evidence from a panel of OECD countries
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data from 1972 to 1996 reveals substantial differences in the levels and trends of self-employment rates across countries. This article uses recently developed panel integration and cointegration techniques to explore the determinants of aggregate self-employment rates. We find that within the panel, self-employment rates are positively and significantly related to personal income tax rates and negatively and significantly related to the unemployment benefit replacement rate. This accords a central role to government tax and transfer policies, in contrast to nonrobust influences from macroeconomic variables, which have been widely used in previous studies
Clarifying Some Remaining Questions in the Anomaly Puzzle
We discuss several points that may help to clarify some questions that remain
about the anomaly puzzle in supersymmetric theories. In particular, we consider
a general N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The anomaly puzzle concerns the
question of whether there is a consistent way to put the R-current and the
stress tensor in a single supercurrent, even though in the classical theory
they are in the same supermultiplet. As is well known, the classically
conserved supercurrent bifurcates into two supercurrents having different
anomalies in the quantum regime. The most interesting result we obtain is an
explicit expression for the lowest component of one of the two supercurrents in
4-dimensional spacetime, namely the supercurrent that has the energy-momentum
tensor as one of its components. This expression for the lowest component is an
energy-dependent linear combination of two chiral currents, which itself does
not correspond to a classically conserved chiral current. The lowest component
of the other supercurrent, namely, the R-current, satisfies the Adler-Bardeen
theorem. The lowest component of the first supercurrent has an anomaly that we
show is consistent with the anomaly of the trace of the energy-momentum tensor.
Therefore, we conclude that there is no consistent way to put the R-current and
the stress tensor in a single supercurrent in the quantized theory. We also
discuss and try to clarify some technical points in the derivations of the
two-supercurrents in the literature. These latter points concern the
significance of infrared contributions to the NSVZ beta-function and the role
of the equations of motion in deriving the two supercurrents.Comment: 22 pages, no figure. v2: minor changes. v3: sections re-organized.
new subsections (IVA, IVB) added. references adde
Dynamical Casimir effect without boundary conditions
The moving-mirror problem is microscopically formulated without invoking the
external boundary conditions. The moving mirrors are described by the quantized
matter field interacting with the photon field, forming dynamical cavity
polaritons: photons in the cavity are dressed by electrons in the moving
mirrors. The effective Hamiltonian for the polariton is derived, and
corrections to the results based on the external boundary conditions are
discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
Extension of Earth-Moon libration point orbits with solar sail propulsion
This paper presents families of libration point orbits in the Earth-Moon system that originate from complementing the classical circular restricted three-body problem with a solar sail. Through the use of a differential correction scheme in combination with a continuation on the solar sail induced acceleration, families of Lyapunov, halo, vertical Lyapunov, Earth-centred, and distant retrograde orbits are created. As the solar sail circular restricted three-body problem is non-autonomous, a constraint defined within the differential correction scheme ensures that all orbits are periodic with the Sun’s motion around the Earth-Moon system. The continuation method then starts from a classical libration point orbit with a suitable period and increases the solar sail acceleration magnitude to obtain families of orbits that are parametrised by this acceleration. Furthermore, different solar sail steering laws are considered (both in-plane and out-of-plane, and either fixed in the synodic frame or fixed with respect to the direction of sunlight), adding to the wealth of families of solar sail enabled libration point orbits presented. Finally, the linear stability properties of the generated orbits are investigated to assess the need for active orbital control. It is shown that the solar sail induced acceleration can have a positive effect on the stability of some orbit families, especially those at the L2 point, but that it most often (further) destabilises the orbit. Active control will therefore be needed to ensure long-term survivability of these orbits
Preclinical Pharmacokinetic Evaluation to Facilitate Repurposing of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Nilotinib and Imatinib as Antiviral Agents
Background
Several tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) developed as anti-cancer drugs, also have anti-viral activity due to their ability to disrupt productive replication and dissemination in infected cells. Consequently, such drugs are attractive candidates for “repurposing” as anti-viral agents. However, clinical evaluation of therapeutics against infectious agents associated with high mortality, but low or infrequent incidence, is often unfeasible. The United States Food and Drug Administration formulated the “Animal Rule” to facilitate use of validated animal models for conducting anti-viral efficacy studies. Methods
To enable such efficacy studies of two clinically approved TKIs, nilotinib, and imatinib, we first conducted comprehensive pharmacokinetic (PK) studies in relevant rodent and non-rodent animal models. PK of these agents following intravenous and oral dosing were evaluated in C57BL/6 mice, prairie dogs, guinea pigs and Cynomolgus monkeys. Plasma samples were analyzed using an LC-MS/MS method. Secondarily, we evaluated the utility of allometry-based inter-species scaling derived from previously published data to predict the PK parameters, systemic clearance (CL) and the steady state volume of distribution (Vss) of these two drugs in prairie dogs, an animal model not tested thus far. Results
Marked inter-species variability in PK parameters and resulting oral bioavailability was observed. In general, elimination half-lives of these agents in mice and guinea pigs were much shorter (1–3 h) relative to those in larger species such as prairie dogs and monkeys. The longer nilotinib elimination half-life in prairie dogs (i.v., 6.5 h and oral, 7.5 h), facilitated multiple dosing PK and safety assessment. The allometry-based predicted values of the Vss and CL were within 2.0 and 2.5-fold, respectively, of the observed values. Conclusions
Our results suggest that prairie dogs and monkeys may be suitable rodent and non-rodent species to perform further efficacy testing of these TKIs against orthopoxvirus infections. The use of rodent models such as C57BL/6 mice and guinea pigs for assessing pre-clinical anti-viral efficacy of these two TKIs may be limited due to short elimination and/or low oral bioavailability. Allometry-based correlations, derived from existing literature data, may provide initial estimates, which may serve as a useful guide for pre-clinical PK studies in untested animal models
Measurements of long-range near-side angular correlations in TeV proton-lead collisions in the forward region
Two-particle angular correlations are studied in proton-lead collisions at a
nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of TeV, collected
with the LHCb detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on data recorded in
two beam configurations, in which either the direction of the proton or that of
the lead ion is analysed. The correlations are measured in the laboratory
system as a function of relative pseudorapidity, , and relative
azimuthal angle, , for events in different classes of event
activity and for different bins of particle transverse momentum. In
high-activity events a long-range correlation on the near side, , is observed in the pseudorapidity range . This
measurement of long-range correlations on the near side in proton-lead
collisions extends previous observations into the forward region up to
. The correlation increases with growing event activity and is found
to be more pronounced in the direction of the lead beam. However, the
correlation in the direction of the lead and proton beams are found to be
compatible when comparing events with similar absolute activity in the
direction analysed.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-040.htm
Evidence for the strangeness-changing weak decay
Using a collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity
of 3.0~fb, collected by the LHCb detector, we present the first search
for the strangeness-changing weak decay . No
hadron decay of this type has been seen before. A signal for this decay,
corresponding to a significance of 3.2 standard deviations, is reported. The
relative rate is measured to be
, where and
are the and fragmentation
fractions, and is the branching
fraction. Assuming is bounded between 0.1 and
0.3, the branching fraction would lie
in the range from to .Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, All figures and tables, along with any
supplementary material and additional information, are available at
https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-047.htm
flavour tagging using charm decays at the LHCb experiment
An algorithm is described for tagging the flavour content at production of
neutral mesons in the LHCb experiment. The algorithm exploits the
correlation of the flavour of a meson with the charge of a reconstructed
secondary charm hadron from the decay of the other hadron produced in the
proton-proton collision. Charm hadron candidates are identified in a number of
fully or partially reconstructed Cabibbo-favoured decay modes. The algorithm is
calibrated on the self-tagged decay modes and using of data collected by the LHCb
experiment at centre-of-mass energies of and
. Its tagging power on these samples of
decays is .Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
http://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-027.htm
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