Extracting the chiral anomaly from gamma pi --> pi pi

We derive dispersive representations for the anomalous process gamma pi --> pi pi with the pi pi P-wave phase shift as input. We investigate how in this framework the chiral anomaly can be extracted from a cross-section measurement using all data up to 1 GeV, and discuss the importance of a precise representation of the gamma pi --> pi pi amplitude for the hadronic light-by-light contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; version published in Phys. Rev.

Clustering tales from the Greek construction sector: lessons from experience

The idea of increasing regional and national economic competitiveness through the implementation of cluster strategies is not something new. In each business sector, in each country, the creation of clusters has been used to capitalise on sector characteristics and address country specific productivity needs. While clusters have met with significant success in many context, the Greek context and in particularly the Greek Construction sector has not been so fruitful. This paper, through the development of a conceptual framework, questionnaires with 92 firms and interviews with 10 key firms, sought to investigate the critical success factors for the creation of a cluster within the challenging context of the Greek construction sector. Using evidence of good practicefrom other European countries facing similar challenges and the empirical data, the findings indicated a series of factors which firms could adopt, mitigate against or manage to help improve the potential success of the cluster. The findingstherefore have important implications for interventions not only by the state and local authorities that will encourage construction firms to participate in a cluster, but also by the managers/owners/practitioners for the creation of the required foundations for their participation in an environment where competitors cooperate

Uremic Restless Legs Syndrome Pleads “Not Guilty”

[No abstract available

Public Debt Consolidation and its Distributional Effects. ESRI WP629, July 2019

We build a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous households, namely Rich and Poor, and capitalskill complementarity structure in the production function, to study aggregate and distributional implications of fiscal consolidation policies when the government uses a rich set of spending and tax instruments. Fiscal policy is conducted through constrained optimized fiscal rules. Our results show that, in the long run, fiscal consolidation enhances both aggregate efficiency and equity; however, it may hurt Rich households depending on which fiscal instrument takes advantage of the fiscal space created. Along the transition, wage inequality significantly increases due to the capital skill complementarity structure of the production function. Specifically, this happens because debt consolidation crowds in capital and this favours Rich (skilled) households. On the other hand, the reduction in interest rates and government bonds lead to a decrease in Rich households income coming from capital and government bonds which eventually decrease income inequality. Finally, a rather novel finding is that the combination of asset and skill heterogeneity amplifies the increase in wage inequality in the early phase of fiscal consolidation

Fertilization and early embryology: Differential effect of epithelial cell-conditioned medium fractions on preimplantation mouse embryo development

Coculture studies using preimplantation embryos have led to a number of conflicting studies. In the human, ethical considerations have led to the preferential use of epithelial cell lines as distinct from human Fallopian tube cells. In an attempt to isolate factors influencing embryo development we have cultured 2-cell OF1 mouse embryos in media [Ménézo's B2 and Whittingham's T6 supplemented with vitamins and amino acids (T6VA)] conditioned on two types of kidney epithelial cells (MBDK and Vero). Different molecular weight fractions of conditioned medium were used to show the absence or presence of specific embryotrophic factors. With MDBK cells, B2 conditioned medium enhanced embryo development up to the blastocyst stage, while no blastocysts developed in B2 alone. When using T6VA medium, both the control and conditioned media showed a high percentage of blastocyst formation (57.0 and 54.0% respectively), while the different molecular weight fractions showed no added improvement. With Vero cells, B2 alone, B2 conditioned medium and fractions were all detrimental to embryo development. A high percentage of blastocyst formation (between 64.7 and 75.8%) was observed in T6VA alone, T6VA conditioned medium and fractions. Low blastocyst formation in a control medium can show strong positive results when medium is conditioned by cells. In contrast, a good base medium, such as T6VA, can equal the results using conditioned medium. Different cells in contact with different types of medium show variability in the pattern of responses, highlighting the presence of false positives in coculture studie

The role of transaction costs and risk aversion when selecting between one and two regimes for portfolio models

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Estimation of the inputs is the main problem when applying portfolio analysis, and Markov regime-switching models have been shown to improve these estimates. We investigate whether the use of two-regime models remains superior across a range of values of risk aversion and transaction costs, in the presence of skewness and kurtosis and no short sales. Our results for US data suggest that, due to differences in their risk preferences and transactions costs, most retail investors may prefer to use one-regime models, while investment banks may prefer to use two-regime models