Sneaky light stop

A light supersymmetric top quark partner (stop) with a mass nearly degenerate with that of the Standard Model (SM) top quark can evade direct searches. The precise measurement of SM top properties such as the cross-section has been suggested to give a handle for this `stealth stop' scenario. We present an estimate of the potential impact a light stop may have on top quark mass measurements. The results indicate that certain light stop models may induce a bias of up to a few GeV, and that this effect can hide the shift in, and hence sensitivity from, cross-section measurements. The studies make some simplifying assumptions for the top quark measurement technique, and are based on truth-level samples

Improving the dynamics of aid : towards more predictable budget support

This paper considers approaches towards improving the predictability of aid to low income countries, with a special focus on budget support. In order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, the donor community is increasing aid flows while pushing for more coordination and tighter performance-based selectivity. However, these factors may increase the unpredictability of aid from current levels, which are already high enough to impose significant costs. Predictability is a particular challenge in the area of budget support, which will continue to increase in importance as aid is sought to underpin longer-term recurrent spending commitments. Budget support reduces transactions costs and drains on capacity, but it tends to be more vulnerable to fluctuations than multi-year project support. Poor predictability raises the threat of a low-level equilibrium: countries, budgeting prudently within a medium-term fiscal framework, will discount commitments; donors will see few funding gaps, so pledges will fall. With some countries discounting aid commitments in formulating budgets, some already see signs of this happening. To improve predictability, donors must extend their funding horizons. However, even if this can be done, several major issues will remainat country level. First, how can countries deal with residual short-run volatility of disbursements relative to commitments? Second, can donors lengthen commitment horizons to individual developing countries without excessive risk of misallocating aid? Third, within a country's overall aid envelope, how should donors set the shares of project aid and budget support? Finally, the paper considers the other main approach to budget support, the output or outcome-driven approach of the European Union. The paper concludes that many of these issues can be addressed. Simple spending and savings rules built around a buffer reserve fund of 2-4 months of imports can help smooth public spending. Aid can be pre-committed several years ahead with only small efficiency losses, using a strategy of"flexible pre-commitment."Guidelines can be set to limit the volatility of budget support while keeping it performance-based, and past experience can be used more systematically to develop"outcome"norms to better guide aid allocation.Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness,School Health,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Country Strategy&Performance

Business Environment and Comparative Advantage in Africa: Evidence from the Investment Climate Data

This paper ties together the macroeconomic and microeconomic evidence on the competitiveness of African manufacturing sectors. The conceptual framework is based on the newer theories that see the evolution of comparative advantage as influenced by the business climate -- a key public good -- and by external economies between clusters of firms entering in related sectors. Macroeconomic data from purchasing power parity (PPP), though imprecisely measured, estimates confirms that Africa is high-cost relative to its levels of income and productivity. This finding is compared with firm-level evidence from surveys undertaken for Investment Climate Assessments in 2000-2004. These confirm a pattern of generally low productivity, and also suggest the importance of high indirect costs and business-environment-related losses in depressing the productivity of African firms relative to those in other countries. There are differences between African countries, however, with some showing evidence of a stronger business community and better business climate. Finally, the paper adopts a political-economy perspective on the prospects for reform of Africa’s business climate, considering African attitudes to business and the fractured nature of African business sectors as between indigenous, minority and foreign investors. The latter have far higher productivity and a greater propensity to export; however, Africa’s difficult business climate and the tendency to overcome this by working in ethnic networks slows new entry and may decrease the incentives of key parts of the business community form constituting an aggressive pressure group for reform. Even though reforms are moving forward in several countries, this slows their impact and raises the possibility that countries settle into a low-productivity equilibrium. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings for reforms to boost the competitiveness and diversification of African economies.Africa, manufacturing, private sector, business climate,

Development of the ATLAS High-Level Trigger Steering and Inclusive Searches for Supersymmetry

The presented thesis is divided into two distinct parts. The subject of the first part is the ATLAS high-level trigger (HLT), in particular the development of the HLT Steering, and the trigger user-interface. The second part presents a study of inclusive supersymmetry searches, including a novel background estimation method for the relevant Standard Model (SM) processes. The trigger system of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) performs the on-line physics selection in three stages: level-1 (LVL1), level-2 (LVL2), and the event filter (EF). LVL2 and EF together form the HLT. The HLT receives events containing detector data from high-energy proton (or heavy ion) collisions, which pass the LVL1 selection at a maximum rate of 75 kHz. It must reduce this rate to ~200 Hz, while retaining the most interesting physics. The HLT is a software trigger and runs on a large computing farm. At the heart of the HLT is the Steering software. The HLT Steering must reach a decision whether or not to accept an event within a time budget of less than 40 ms (LVL2) and under 4 s (EF), averaged over all events. Its decision is based on the results of customised trigger algorithms. These algorithms perform a specific data reconstruction task in a small geometrical detector region. The Steering controls the flow and execution of these algorithms, such that only interesting (typically high-pT) detector regions are exami ned in several steps. The principles and design of this HLT selection strategy are discussed in detail. The final implementation of the Steering, including all required features such as pre-scaling, is presented. Furthermore, commissioning results from technical and cosmic ray runs are described. Finally, the common interface to all trigger results for off-line analysis and debugging is presented. Supersymmetry (SUSY) is a theoretically attractive scenario for physics beyond the SM which may also provide a suitable dark matter candidate in models where R-parity (+1 for SM and -1 for SUSY particles) is conserved. If SUSY is realised at a mass scale of ~1 TeV, as favoured by several arguments, it will be accessible at the LHC at CERN within the first years of data-taking. The second part of this thesis presents the inclusive one-lepton search strategy for generic SUSY models with R-parity conservation with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The signature of this search mode is based on large missing transverse momentum from undetected neutralinos, multiple high-pT jets and one lepton. The corresponding discovery reach is shown for the first fb^-1 of ATLAS data. Furthermore, background estimation techniques for inclusive SUSY searches are discussed. A novel background determination approach, denoted the Tiles Method, is proposed, which translates prior knowledge on the SM distributions of discriminating variables in a two or hi gher dimensional grid into an estimate of the abundances of SM and beyond-SM events. Depending on the grid granularity, the abundances are calculated by solving a system of linear equations or by minimising a log-likelihood function. The method does not rely on assumptions on background dominance for particular values of the variables, nor does it require iterations. Systematic effects due to uncertainties in the simulated prior distributions are investigated. Results for various mSUGRA scenarios are presented

The political economy of fiscal policy and economic management in oil exporting countries

Despite massive oil rent incomes since the early 1970s, the economic performance of oil-exporting countries-with notable exceptions-is poor. While there is extensive literature on the management of oil resources, analysis of the underlying political determinants of this poor performance is more sparse. Drawing on concepts from the comparative institutionalist tradition in political science, the authors develop a generalized typology of political states that is used in analyzing the political economy of fiscal and economic management in oil-exporting countries with widely differing political systems. In assessing performance, the authors focus on issues of long-term savings, economic stabilization, and efficient use of oil rents. The comparisons of country experiences suggest that countries with strong, mature, democratic traditions have advantages in managing oil rents well because of their ability to reach consensus, their educated and informed electorates, and a high level of transparency that facilitates clear decisions on how to use rents over a long horizon. Yet even these systems, ensuring cautious use of oil income is a continuing struggle. Traditional and modernizing autocracies have also demonstrated their ability to sustain long decision horizons and implement developmental policies. But resistance to transparency and the danger of oil-led spending and expenditure commitments becoming the major legitimizing force behind the state may pose risk to the long-term sustainability of their current development strategies. In contrast, little positive effect can be expected from the politically unstable, predatory autocracies, which typically have very short policy horizons and sometimes the characteristics of"roving bandit"regimes. Factional democracies, with weak political parties and highly personalized politics, present particular challenges because they lack a sufficiently effective political system to create a consensus among strong competing interests. Special attention will be needed to increase transparency and raise public awareness in these countries. And oil rent makes it more difficult to sustain a constituency in favor of sound, longer-run economic management because it weakens incentives for agents to support checks and balances that impinge on their individual plans to appropriate the rents. The country comparisons further demonstrate that technical solutions-such as the establishment of oil stabilization funds and budgetary reforms-to enhance transparency and efficiency in the use of oil rents will not work well unless constituencies can be developed in support of such measures.Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Energy and Environment

“How difficult not to go making ‘reality’ this and that”: Virginia Woolf’s Record of Representation

Virginia Woolf writes in her journal in March 1929 that: [...]Life is very solid, or very shifting? I am haunted by the two contradictions. This has gone on for ever: will last forever; goes down to the bottom of the world- this moment I stand on. Also it is transitory, flying, diaphanous. I shall pass like a cloud on the waves. Perhaps it may be that though we change; one flying after another, so quick so quick, yet we are somehow successive and continuous- we human beings; and show the light through. Woolf obsessively journaled her anxieties concerning the linearity of time and the way people are considered products of their time. Constantly occupied with philosophical questions of consciousness, reality and representation, Woolf actively worked to construct the concept of literary Modernism. Her journals and essays largely revolve around a rejection of the Victorian novel, which she characterizes as depicting exterior reality and representing social class relations, while idealizing romantic intimacy. Woolf and her fellow Bloomsbury contemporaries claimed they were consciously revolting against their predecessors and forming a new modern approach at depicting reality. A depiction which consisted of ambiguous temporality, a shift towards the internal, and a philosophical understanding that the human consciousness is an isolated and insular experience. Yet, the writers were unable to recognize how their perpetual anxiety of influence and obsession with their predecessors shaped their writing tremendously. The temporal tension that Woolf explains in her nonfiction bleeds directly into her fictional novels. Understanding the cause and effects of this tension between the present and the past, in relation to Virginia Woolf especially, is the central aim of my project. I place Woolf and her writing in conversation with scholars from different fields in order to analyze the relationship between fictional writing and representation. Both chapters attempt to understand the role fiction plays in the representation of the human experience, and specifically the experience of women. Woolf sought to depict a reality that closed the gap between representation and history, which ultimately allowed her to embed a record of representation into Western ideology

Removal of General Partners: A Method of Intrapartnership Dispute Resolution for Limited Partnerships

The term limited partnership denotes a business organization in which the liability of at least one partner, the limited partner, for the debts and obligations of the partnership is limited to his contribution to the partnership, whereas the other members of the partnership, the general partners, may incur unlimited personal liability. The limited partnership is currently used primarily as a public or private investment vehicle in oil and gas, mining,and real estate ventures. Limited partnerships recently have become more popular, primarily because they receive advantageous tax treatment and provide investors with the shelter of limited liability. Although many scholars have commented on the tax considerations associated with limited partnerships, commentators virtually have ignored the issue of intrapartnership dispute resolution. This Note sets forth and analyzes the issues surrounding the removal of general partners from the limited partnership as a method of resolving intrapartnership disputes. Part II discusses the partnership agreement, its functions and contents, and high-lights removal provisions that may prevent many potential partnership disputes. Part II also considers the applicable uniform legislation and the various rules promulgated by state securities administrators. Part III addresses the collateral effects of removing a general partner, including federal income tax consequences, exposure of the limited partners to general liability, and the post-removal status of the partnership\u27s contracts with third parties. Part IV outlines and examines the substitution of a new general partner to the partnership and the potential legal claims the former general partner may have against the partnership. Part V suggests specific legislation that would provide limited partners with an effective means, through a statutory grant of power to remove a general partner, of supervising their investments. Finally, Part VI concludes that legislators should grant limited partners a statutory right to remove a general partner as a means of protecting their investment and as a method of resolving intrapartnership disputes

Does Management Matter? Evidence from India

A long-standing question in social science is to what extent differences in management cause differences in firm performance. To investigate this we ran a management field experiment on large Indian textile firms. We provided free consulting on modern management practices to a randomly chosen set of treatment plants and compared their performance to the control plants. We find that adopting these management practices had three main effects. First, it raised average productivity by 11% through improved quality and efficiency and reduced inventory. Second, it increased decentralization of decision making, as better information flow enabled owners to delegate more decisions to middle managers. Third, it increased the use of computers, necessitated by the data collection and analysis involved in modern management. Since these practices were profitable this raises the question of why firms had not adopted these before. Our results suggest that informational barriers were a primary factor in explaining this lack of adoption. Modern management is a technology that diffuses slowly between firms, with many Indian firms initially unaware of its existence or impact. Since competition was limited by constraints on firm entry and growth, badly managed firms were not rapidly driven from the market.management, organization, IT, productivity and India

The Effect of Melatonin or Maternal Nutrient Restriction on Cell Proliferation in the Ovine Placenta

Our objectives were to assess melatonin receptor dependent modulation of placental cell proliferation following treatment with either melatonin, luzindole (melatonin receptor 1 and 2 antagonist), or vehicle. In addition, a second study was conducted to assess placental cell proliferation following dietary melatonin treatment in a maternal nutrient restriction model. For the first experiment, 14 primiparous ewes were fitted with Alzet mini osmotic pumps attached to a catheter and infused with vehicle, melatonin, or luzindole from d 62 to 90 of gestation. Ewes were euthanized and placentomes collected for analysis at the end of the 4 week infusion. For the second experiment, 31 primiparous ewes were supplemented with 5 mg of melatonin per d (MEL) or no melatonin (CON) and allocated to receive 100% (adequate) or 60% (restricted) of their nutrient requirements from d 50 to 130 of gestation. On d 130 of gestation, ewes were euthanized and placentomes were collected for analysis. Placentomes from both experiment 1 and 2 were examined for percentage of proliferating cells using an immunofluorescence assay. A Ki-67 mouse monoclonal antibody was used to stain proliferating cells within each tissue section and was compared to non-proliferating cells stained with DAPI to determine the percentage of proliferating cells within each sample. Total RNA, DNA and protein was also analyzed within each sample. For experiment 1, cell proliferation in the cotyledon and caruncle was not affected (P \u3e 0.30) by vehicle, melatonin or luzindole infusions. Dietary melatonin supplementation from mid to late gestation may impact cotyledon cell proliferation; however chronic infusion of melatonin or luzindole did not change proliferation in either the cotyledon or caruncle. Treatment did not alter the concentrations of RNA, DNA, protein (P . 0.15), or the ratio of RNA:DNA and the ratio of protein:DNA (P . 0.17). For experiment 2, there was no melatonin supplementation by nutritional plane interactions (P \u3e 0.50) on cellular proliferation in either the cotyledon or caruncle. There was a tendency (P = 0.08) for melatonin supplemented ewes to have an increased percentage of proliferating cells in the cotyledon; however, this effect of melatonin was absent (P \u3e 0.30) in the caruncle. Nutritional plane did not alter cellular proliferation in either the cotyledon (P \u3e 0.70) or caruncle (P \u3e 0.50). There was no effect of nutritional plane or melatonin treatment on the concentration of DNA or protein (P . 0.21) in caruncular tissue. However there was an interaction on RNA (P = 0.02) in caruncular tissue which may be due to an increase in gene expression following melatonin treatment. There was no effect of treatment or nutritional plane on DNA, RNA, protein (P . 0.20) as well as no effect on RNA:DNA or protein:DNA (P . 0.25). In summary, melatonin may alter placental growth in ewes with IUGR; however, this needs further investigation