Colonisation, formal and informal institutions, and development

This article analyses current attempts to identify the factors underlying long-term economic growth. The author criticises some the arguments and historical proofs in which are based the two main explanations which dominate recent literature: the institutional approach and those which focus on the importance of geographical factors. Using an approach which is deliberately eclectic, the author considers the role of geography, international trade, human capital and institutional quality in explaining development. A new estimation is carried out through TLSL with instrumental variables. The results of the empirical model confirm the central role of institutions in long-term economic growth. However, certain geographical conditions also seem to have influenced countries´ possibilities of progress. Human capital and trade openness are less robust in explaining economic growth.Development, long-term growth, institutional quality, geographical factors, human capital, trade openness.

Anolis liogaster

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Cancer immunotherapy as a new treatment option

Cancer can coaptate the immune control of the immune system (IS), evade immunity and its destruction. So, could we say openly that immunotherapy is a viable treatment option for patients with advanced cancer? Yes, immunotherapy would give us great advances in the war against cancer. Therefore, the development of a new generation of immune modulators (which have been analyzed in the following article) is necessary. In addition, these will be more effective if we use them in combination, taking advantage of their synergy.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Chaotic Vibrations in a Buckled Beam Induced by a Galloping Phenomenon

Chaos theory has spectacularly evolved since the pioneering work by E. Lorenz on chaotic motion in a simple, deterministic system. Since then, the chaotic behavior of many other deterministic, low-dimensional systems in a large variety of fields has been developed. In the particular field of aeroelasticity of aircraft structures several reports of chaos have been documented. However, we are unaware of any report of chaotic systems of civil (non-aeronautical) use induced by an aeroelastic phenomenon. In this paper a well defined civil, aeroelastic system, susceptible to exhibit chaotic behavior is presented. The system consists of a buckled beam from which a second beam is suspended. This last beam (hereafter, galloping beam) has a square cross- section and can undergo transverse galloping. The system is subjected to an uniform wind flow and, as it will be shown in the paper, for wind velocities larger than a threshold value, the galloping beam begins to oscillate and induces, for a determined set of parameter values, a chaotic motion in the buckled bea

The Determinants of Institutional Quality. More on the Debate

This paper provides new evidences about the determinants of institutional quality. Given the shortcomings of governance indicators, we first discuss the criteria employed to judge institutional quality. Then, we identify the factors that, according to these criteria, shape the quality of institutions. The results of this empirical research show that the main determinants of the quality of the institutions of a given country are its income per head and its income distribution, the efficiency of its tax system and the educational level of its population. Interestingly, some of the variables identified in previous literature (location, ethnolinguistic fragmentation, the origin of the legal system or colonial origin) either do not have any impact on institutional quality or they impact indirectly through the variables previously mentioned.Institutional Quality Development, Income Distribution, Tax System

Gaussian entanglement induced by an extended thermal environment

We study stationary entanglement among three harmonic oscillators which are dipole coupled to a one-dimensional or a three-dimensional bosonic environment. The analysis of the open-system dynamics is performed with generalized quantum Langevin equations which we solve exactly in Fourier representation. The focus lies on Gaussian bipartite and tripartite entanglement induced by the highly non-Markovian interaction mediated by the environment. This environment-induced interaction represents an effective many-parties interaction with a spatial long-range feature: a main finding is that the presence of a passive oscillator is detrimental for the stationary two-mode entanglement. Furthermore, our results strongly indicate that the environment-induced entanglement mechanism corresponds to uncontrolled feedback which is predominantly coherent at low temperatures and for moderate oscillator-environment coupling as compared to the oscillator frequency.Comment: 15 page, 6 figure

The Determinants of Institutional Quality. More on the Debate

This paper provides new evidences about the determinants of institutional quality. Prior to implementing our empirical research, we discuss the criteria that should be used to judge the quality of institutions. Then, we identify the factors that, according to these criteria, determine institutional quality. The results obtained in the estimated model enable to draw some interesting conclusions. First of all, development level determines institutional quality: the highest the former, the highest the latter. Secondly, income distribution seems to condition institutional quality. A certain degree of social cohesion is needed to provide institutional predictability and legitimacy. Thirdly, a sound tax system is positively asso-ciated with institutional quality improvement. Taxes provide the necessary revenue to ge-nerate quality institutions, while creating a narrower and more demanding relation between State and citizens. Finally, education improves institutional quality. On the contrary, some of the variables identified in the literature either they do not seem to determine institutional quality or their effects are indirect, through the aforementioned variables.Institutional quality, income distribution, taxes, education.

The decoupling problem : invariants, parameter variations, composite systems and time-varying linear systems

Imperial Users onl

Pinched weights and Duality Violation in QCD Sum Rules: a critical analysis

We analyze the so-called pinched weights, that are generally thought to reduce the violation of quark-hadron duality in Finite-Energy Sum Rules. After showing how this is not true in general, we explain how to address this question for the LR correlator and any particular pinched weight taking advantage of our previous work [1], where the possible high-energy behavior of the LR spectral function was studied. In particular we show that the use of pinched weights allows to determine with high accuracy the dimension six and eight contributions in the operator product expansion, O6=(-4.3^[+0.9}_{-0.7})*10^-3 GeV^6 and O8=(-7.2^{+4.2}_{-5.3})*10^-3 GeV^8.Comment: 11 pages. A few references added and discussion slightly enlarged. Results unchanged