On Determinants Of The Economic Growth Of European Countries During 2005–2015

The aim of the paper is to examine the economic growth of 32 European countries from 2005 to 2015. This period was characterized by a strong growth prior to 2009, when the Great Recession started, and lasted until 2012-2013 in the majority of examined countries. The growth between 2005 and 2015 was studied with regard to six selected socio-economic factors: initial level of the gross domestic product, economic openness, democracy index, human capital, physical capital, and foreign direct investments. The main result is that the growth was directly proportional to human and physical capital, and indirectly proportional to the initial level of GDP and the democracy index. Furthermore, cluster analysis showed that the historical division of Europe into “West” and “East” still persists to a considerable extent

Decision making under risk with continuous states of nature

Many real-world decision making situation are associated with uncertainty regarding future state of the World. Traditionally, in such situation different (and discrete) scenarios – future states of nature – are considered. This domain of decision making is denoted as decision making under risk. However, limitation to some set of discrete scenarios is somewhat unnatural as future reality might not choose one of considered scenarios, but some other scenario or a scenario in between. The aim of this paper is to propose a more natural approach with continuum states of nature, where all scenarios expressed by their probability density function from some reasonable interval are taken into consideration. The approach is illustrated by a numerical example and is compared with the corresponding decision making under risk with discrete states of nature

The decay of quantum correlations between quantum dot spin qubits and the characteristics of its magnetic field dependence

We address the question of the role of quantum correlations beyond entanglement in context of quantum magnetometry. To this end, we study the evolution of the quantum discord, measured by the rescaled discord, of two electron-spin qubits interacting with an environment of nuclear spins via the hyperfine interaction. We have found that depending on the initial state the evolution can or cannot display indifferentiability points in its time-evolution (due to the energy conservation law), as well as non-trivial dependence on inter-qubit phase. Furthermore, we show that for initial Bell states, quantum correlations display a strong magnetic-field sensitivity which can be utilized for decoherence-driven measurements of the external magnetic field. The potential discord-based measurement is sensitive to a wider range of magnetic field values than the entanglement-based measurement. In principle, entanglement is not a necessary resource for reliable decoherence-driven measurement, while the presence of quantum correlations beyond entanglement is.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Rotational bands in Quadrupole-Octupole Collective Model

A collective bands of positive and negative parity could be composed of the vibrations and rotations. The rotations of the octupole configurations can be based either on the axial or the non-axial octupole vibrations. A consistent approach to the quadrupole-octupole collective vibrations coupled with the rotational motion enables to distinguish between various scenarios of disappearance of the E2 transitions in negative-parity bands. The here presented theoretical estimates are compared with the recent experimental energies and transition probabilities in and between the ground-state and low-energy negaive-parity bands in $^{156}$Dy. A realistic collective Hamiltonian contains the potential energy term obtained through the macroscopic-microscopic Strutinsky-like method with particle-number-projected BCS approach and deformation-dependent mass tensor defined in vibrational-rotational, nine-dimensional collective space. The symmetrization procedure ensures the uniqueness of the Hamiltonian eigensolutions with respect to the laboratory coordinate system. This quadrupole-octupole collective approach may also allow to find and/or verify some fingerprints of possible high-order symmetries (e.g. tetrahedral, octahedral,...) in nuclear collective bands.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Interaction Strengths for the Fock-Space Formulation of the Nuclear Pairing Problem

A realistic nuclear mean-field hamiltonian with pairing has been diagonalized using Fock space representation that allows for nearly exact treatment of the problem. Calculations were performed for all the even-even nuclei with Z in (20, 100), whose pairing gaps were possible to extract out of the experimental masses. The optimal values of the pairing strength constants for the protons and neutrons have been found.Comment: Seminar given at XXXVII School of Physics in Zakopane, Poland. Paper in LaTeX, 4 pages including one figure, submitted to Acta Physica Polonica

Intel's XL Permit: A Framework for Evaluation

The paper develops a framework to evaluate permits granted to firms under the Environmental Protection Agency's Project XL � with emphasis on the novel air permit granted to the Intel Corporation. We describe the permit, the process that created it, and the types of costs and benefits likely to arise from this type of "facility-specific" regulatory arrangement. Among other things, the paper describes the permit's impact on environmental quality, production costs, transaction costs, and Intel's strategic market position. The paper also considers how an estimate of the costs and benefits � both to Intel and society � might be estimated. While facility-specific regulation typically conjures images of production cost savings as processes are re-engineered and low-cost abatement strategies pursued, the Intel case highlights perhaps a more important source of benefit: flexibility in the form of streamlined permitting. Flexibility in this form allows for accelerated product introductions, with potentially significant benefits to the firm and possibly to society.