2,063 research outputs found
Textile and Apparel: an historical and "glo-cal" perspective. The Italian case from an economic agent's point of view
What might happen to the Italian Textile and Apparel industry? Does it deserve to survive, even if in a reduced dimension, or is it going to disappear, simply being a piece of our past without a passport to our future? This paper call for debate and reach a better view of a changing industry, starting from a different perspective from the usual one which regards the Textile and Clothing industry as a sunset one for western Europe. With the end of the quota system the Italian industry is facing market disruption produced by the flood of exports from China. Too much, too soon, too cheap. Italian entrepreneurs are over-reacting to this and technological innovation is no longer regarded as an opportunity to cultivate differential competitive advantage. Anti - dumping, tariffs and quotas are considered as controversial issues in the search for a new global balance. To reach this, we shouldn't forget that both structural and strategic aspects are always in action when international competition is concerned. All in all, transparency is very important and could be supported by product traceability. This issue is connected with the difference of standards and the difficulty to make them become a purchasing and innovation driver.
Gauss-Bonnet Brane Cosmology with Radion Stabilization
We study cosmology in a five-dimensional brane-world with a stabilizing
effective potential for the radion and matter localized on the two branes. We
consider the corrections induced by the Gauss-Bonnet contribution to the total
action performing and expansion around the two possible static solutions up to
second order in the ratio between brane matter energy density and brane
tensions. The Friedmann and acceleration equations on the visible brane are
obtained and discussed.Comment: To be published in Phys.Rev.D, References Adde
Organizational capital and firm performance. Empirical evidence for European firms
The paper assesses the impact of Organizational Capital (OC) on firm perfor- mance for a sample of European firms. OC is proxied by capitalizing an income statement item (SGA expenses). A rationale for this methodology is provided. Results are robust and show the strong effect of OC on firm performance.Intangibles, Knowledge-based resources, Organizational capital,R&D capital stock, Translog production function
Inflation and Quantum Gravity in a Born-Oppenheimer Context
A general equation, describing the lowest order corrections coming from
quantum gravitational effects to the spectrum of cosmological scalar
fluctuations is obtained. These corrections are explicitly estimated for the
case of a de Sitter evolution.Comment: 13 pages, no figures. Final version, accepted for publication in PL
Quantum Gravity and the Large Scale Anomaly
The spectrum of primordial perturbations obtained by calculating the quantum
gravitational corrections to the dynamics of scalar perturbations is compared
with Planck 2013 and BICEP2/{\it Keck Array} public data. The quantum
gravitational effects are calculated in the context of a Wheeler-De Witt
approach and have quite distinctive features. We constrain the free parameters
of the theory by comparison with observations.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures; the analysis has been updated with the combined
Planck-BICEP2/Keck Array public data. Final version, accepted for publication
in JCA
Inflation and Reheating in Spontaneously Generated Gravity
Inflation is studied in the context of induced gravity (IG) , where is the Ricci scalar, a scalar field and a
dimensionless constant, and diverse symmetry-breaking potentials
are considered. In particular we compared the predictions for Landau-Ginzburg
(LG) and Coleman-Weinberg (CW) type potentials and their possible
generalizations with the most recent data. We find that large field inflation
generally leads to fewer constraints on the parameters and the shape of the
potential whereas small field inflation is more problematic and, if viable,
implies more constraints, in particular on the parameter . We also
examined the reheating phase and obtained an accurate analytical solution for
the dynamics of inflaton and the Hubble parameter by using a multiple scale
analysis (MSA). The solutions were then used to study the average expansion of
the Universe, the average equation of state for the scalar field and both the
perturbative and resonant decays of the inflaton field.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
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