We discuss the possibility of a smooth transition from the pre-to the post-big bang regime, in the context of the lowest-order string eeective action (without higher-derivative corrections), taking into account with a phenomenological model of source the repulsive gravitational eeects due to the back-reaction of the quantum uctuations outside the horizon. We determine a set of necessary conditi...

Field Editor: D. Jennings This study examines how the performance of cross-border venture capital investments is affected by national institutional and cultural distances between the environments of venture capitalists (VCs) and investee ventures. We propose that institutional and cultural distances will decrease VCs' effectiveness in conducting venture capital activities and negatively affect ...

We propose the model of Chain Inflation, in which a sequential chain of coupled scalar fields drives inflation. Motivated by the stringy landscape, we allow the number of fields to be very large, ranging from hundreds to many more; we note that the model is quite general and applies to any multidimensional potential, in string theory or otherwise. Each stage of inflation (which can be thought o...

Efflux time measurements are carried out for gravity draining of a liquid from a large cylindrical tank (where the flow is essentially laminar) through single exit pipe in the absence and presence of Cetyl Pyridinium Chloride (CPC) surfactant solutions. The variables considered are initial height of liquid in the tank, dia. of tank, length of the exit pipe and concentration of surfactant. T...

We re-examine the graceful exit problem in the pre-Big Bang scenario of string cosmology, by considering the most general time-dependent classical correction to the Lagrangian with up to four derivatives. By including possible forms for quantum loop corrections we examine the allowed region of parameter space for the coupling constants which enable our solutions to link smoothly the two asympto...

Iterative exchange of information between a decoder and a front end receiver was shown to improve the performance when comparing to non-iterative approach. This so-called turbo processing may be described using Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts which were already used in case of turbo decoders and turbo-equalizers. This work extends the EXIT charts technique to describe the behavior ...

We study hedonic games with heterogeneous player types that reflect her nationality, ethnic background, or skill type. Agents’ preferences are dictated by status-seeking where status can be either local or global. The two dimensions of status define the two components of a generalized constant elasticity of substitution utility function. In this setting, we characterize the core as a function o...

A 600-km/h maglev train can effectively close the speed gap between civil aviation and rail-based trains, thereby alleviating conflict existing demand actual capacity. However, hazards caused by micro-pressure wave amplitude of tunnel that occurs when is running at higher speeds are also unacceptable. At this stage, mitigation measures to control waves generated trains 600 km/h within reasonabl...

We reexamine the graceful exit problem in the Pre-Big-Bang inflationary scenario. The dilaton-gravity action is generalized by adding the axion and a general axion/dilaton potential. We provide a phase space analysis of the dynamics which leads us to extend the previous no-go theorem and rule out the branch change necessary for graceful exit in this context. Submitted to Physics Letters B

We confront the recent proposal of Emerging Brane Inflation with WMAP3+SDSS, finding a scalar spectral index of ns = 0.9659 +0.0049 −0.0052 in excellent agreement with observations. The proposal incorporates a preceding phase of isotropic, non accelerated expansion in all dimensions, providing suitable initial conditions for inflation. Additional observational constraints on the parameters of t...