The pion form factor: Sudakov suppressions and intrinsic transverse momentum

It is demonstrated that any attempt to calculate the perturbative QCD contribution to the pion form factor requires the inclusion of intrinsic transverse momentum besides Sudakov form factors. For momentum transfers of the order of a few GeV the intrinsic transverse momentum leads to a substantial suppression of the perturbative QCD contribution.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 3 figures included with epsf-style option (postscript files added as uuencoded tar-compressed file), CERN-TH.6900, WU-B 93-1

Semi-inclusive structure functions in the spectator model

We establish the relationship between distribution and fragmentation functions and the structure functions appearing in the cross section of polarized 1-particle inclusive deep-inelastic scattering. We present spectator model evaluations of these structure functions focusing on the case of an outgoing spin-1/2 baryon. Distribution functions obtained in the spectator model are known to fairly agree at low energy scales with global parameterizations extracted, for instance, from totally inclusive DIS data. Therefore, we expect it to give good hints on the functional dependence of the structure functions on the scaling variables x(Bjorken), z and on the transverse momentum of the observed outgoing hadron, P_{h\perp}. Presently, this dependence is not very well known, but experiments are planned in the near future.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

Transfer of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus is a serious human pathogen with remarkable adaptive powers. Antibiotic-resistant clones rapidly emerge mainly by acquisition of antibiotic-resistance genes from other S. aureus strains or even from other genera. Transfer is mediated by a diverse complement of mobile genetic elements and occurs primarily by conjugation or bacteriophage transduction, with the latter traditionally being perceived as the primary route. Recent work on conjugation and transduction suggests that transfer by these mechanisms may be more extensive than previously thought, in terms of the range of plasmids that can be transferred by conjugation and the efficiency with which transduction occurs. Here, we review the main routes of antibiotic resistance gene transfer in S. aureus in the context of its biology as a human commensal and a life-threatening pathogen

Decomposing Firm-level Sales Variation

We measure the contribution of firm-specific effects to overall sales variation within a destination and find it remarkably low. Our empirical decomposition is structurally motivated by a heterogeneity model of exporting involving destination-specific, firm-specific, and firm-destination-specific latent effects with incidental truncation. We use a highly detailed dataset with exports by products and destinations for all Danish manufacturing firms. We find the contribution of firm-specific heterogeneity to within-destination sales variation varies greatly across HS6 products, and that for the median product it drives 31% of the sales variation. When we remove first-time exports from our sample, the median value increases to 40%, implying that firm-destination-specific effects are most important the first year. We conclude that while firm-specific productivity can account for some of the variation, the majority is explained by firm-destination-specific heterogeneity sources such as firm-destination-specific demand.firm heterogeneity; firm-level export data; truncation correction

The Overlap Representation of Skewed Quark and Gluon Distributions

Within the framework of light-cone quantisation we derive the complete and exact overlap representation of skewed parton distributions for unpolarised and polarised quarks and gluons. Symmetry properties and phenomenological applications are discussed.Comment: LaTex, 36 pages. v2: incorrect paper attached originally. v3: erratum adde