The effect of relative wealth concerns on the cross-section of stock returns

There are several economic reasons why investors might want to hedge local risk resulting from relative wealth concerns; namely, keeping up with the Joneses preferences and competition for local assets in short supply. In equilibrium, hedging for these purposes results in a negative risk Premium for the local risk factors. We study the empirical implications of this equilibrium at the level of the nine US census divisions. As a proxy for the local risk factor we use regional labor income growth. In explaining the cross-section of stock returns, the model performs substantially better than the CAPM, and as well as the Fama-French three factor model.Local risk, Negative risk premium, Relative wealth concerns

Dilatonic Randall-Sundrum Theory and renormalisation group

We extend Randall-Sundrum dynamics to non-conformal metrics corresponding to non-constant dilaton. We study the appareance of space-time naked singularities and the renormalization group evolution of four-dimensional Newton constant.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, reference added, typos correcte

One-loop Parke-Taylor factors for quadratic propagators from massless scattering equations

In this paper we reconsider the Cachazo-He-Yuan construction (CHY) of the so called scattering amplitudes at one-loop, in order to obtain quadratic propagators. In theories with colour ordering the key ingredient is the redefinition of the Parke-Taylor factors. After classifying all the possible one-loop CHY-integrands we conjecture a new one-loop amplitude for the massless Bi-adjoint $\Phi^3$ theory. The prescription directly reproduces the quadratic propagators from of the traditional Feynman approach.Comment: 43 pages, new appendix added, few typos corrected. Accepted for publication in JHE

Brane World with Bulk Horizons

A brane world in the presence of a bulk black hole is constructed. The brane tension is fine tuned in terms of the black hole mass and cosmological constant. Gravitational perturbations localized on the brane world are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Typos corrected and new references adde

A multi-objective extremal optimisation approach applied to RFID antenna design

Extremal Optimisation (EO) is a recent nature-inspired meta-heuristic whose search method is especially suitable to solve combinatorial optimisation problems. This paper presents the implementation of a multi-objective version of EO to solve the real-world Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) antenna design problem, which must maximise efficiency and minimise resonant frequency. The approach we take produces novel modified meander line antenna designs. Another important contribution of this work is the incorporation of an inseparable fitness evaluation technique to perform the fitness evaluation of the components of solutions. This is due to the use of the NEC evaluation suite, which works as a black box process. When the results are compared with those generated by previous implementations based on Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) and Differential Evolution (DE), it is evident that our approach is able to obtain competitive results, especially in the generation of antennas with high efficiency. These results indicate that our approach is able to perform well on this problem; however, these results can still be improved, as demonstrated through a manual local search process.Full Tex

Refugees living with dementia: assessing the barriers to healthcare access in crisis-affected populations in Lebanon and Switzerland, and the role humanitarian actors have on addressing them

As life expectancies increase in many places around the world, the prevalence of aging populations has increased. Consequently, increased numbers of people globally, especially in developing countries, have been diagnosed with conditions associated with old age. Dementia, a group of conditions associated with impaired cognitive functions, is among these. Notwithstanding, many developing countries have done poorly with regards to diagnosing and treating dementia, with some cultures not even having a word to describe the condition. (ADI 2022). The lack of a diagnosis and knowledge about dementia for some refugee communities has led to healthcare challenges in their host countries (Corfield et al. 2019). From diagnosing dementia, to providing adequate treatment and adapting humanitarian aid response to allow for equal access to healthcare for these populations, humanitarian actors dealing with refugees have a large responsibility to ensure the well-being of this group. My research looks at the way these groups are currently interacting with healthcare systems in order to explore gaps in healthcare access and the potential ways humanitarian actors are dealing with these gaps. I am focusing my research on Lebanon, the country that hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and Switzerland, a country that hosts a significant number of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region