On the Kinetic Roughening in Polymer Film Growth by Vapor Deposition

This is a Comment on a recent publication: Y.-P. Zhao et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 3229 (2000). In the Letter, the authors report on an experimental investigation of polymeric (p-xylene) thin film growth and propose a new universality class not previously known. Here, we point out that the critical exponents reported in the Letter are consistent with the critical exponents of Das Sarma-Tamborenea growth model.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure include

Randall-Sundrum with Kalb-Ramond field: return of the hierarchy problem?

We show that when the antisymmetric Kalb-Ramond field is included in the Randall-Sundrum scenario, although the hierarchy problem can be solved, it requires an extreme fine tuning of the Kalb-Ramond field (about 1 part in $10^{62}$). We interpret this as the return of the problem in disguise. Further, we show that the Kalb-Ramond field induces a small negative cosmological constant on the visible brane.Comment: 8 pages, latex, 4 figures. Contributed talk at `Recent Developments in Gravity' (NEB XII), Nafplion, Greece, 29 June 200

Credit default swaps – Financial innovation or financial dysfunction?

Credit CDS contracts were originally designed to transfer and disperse default risk within the capital markets to strengthen the resilience of financial institutions. The Global Financial Crisis has revealed that CDS contracts may not in fact achieve these objectives and may in fact increase the leverage within the system and also increase systemic risks in other ways. Documentary complexity, counterparty risk and increased concentration risk, brought about by CDS contracts, have contributed to the crisis and made it difficult to deal with key issues. CDS contracts may be presented as an important financial innovation, but actually are a major financial dysfunction and a cause of risk within financial system under certain circumstances.