Experiments on Pro-Sociality and Environmental Issues

The thesis comprises three essays that use experimental methods, one about other-regarding motivations in economic behavior and the others on pro-social behavior in two environmental economics problems. The first chapter studies how the expectations of the others and the concern to maintain a balance between effort exerted and rewards obtained interact in shaping the behavior in a modified dictator game. We find that dictators condition their choices on recipients' expectations only when there is a high probability that the the recipient will not be compensated for her effort. Otherwise, dictators tend to balance the efforts and rewards of the recipients, irrespective of the recipients' expectations. In the second chapter, I investigate the problem of local opposition to large public projects (e.g. landfills, incinerators, etc.). In particular, the experiment shows how the uncertainty about the project's quality makes the community living in the host site skeptical about the project. I also test whether side-transfers and costly information disclosure can help to increase the efficiency. Both tools succesfully make the host more willing to accept the project, but they lead to the realization of different types of projects. The last chapter is an experiment on climate negotiations. To avoid the global warming, countries are called to cooperate in the abatement of their emissions. We study whether the dynamic aspect of the climate change makes cooperation across countries behaviorally more difficult. We also consider inequality across countries as a possible factor that hinders international cooperation.

Thin-Film Sparse Boundary Array Design for Passive Acoustic Mapping During Ultrasound Therapy

A new 2-D hydrophone array for ultrasound therapy monitoring is presented, along with a novel algorithm for passive acoustic mapping using a sparse weighted aperture. The array is constructed using existing polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrasound sensor technology, and is utilized for its broadband characteristics and its high receive sensitivity. For most 2-D arrays, high-resolution imagery is desired, which requires a large aperture at the cost of a large number of elements. The proposed array's geometry is sparse, with elements only on the boundary of the rectangular aperture. The missing information from the interior is filled in using linear imaging techniques. After receiving acoustic emissions during ultrasound therapy, this algorithm applies an apodization to the sparse aperture to limit side lobes and then reconstructs acoustic activity with high spatiotemporal resolution. Experiments show verification of the theoretical point spread function, and cavitation maps in agar phantoms correspond closely to predicted areas, showing the validity of the array and methodology.

Estimación de la Reflectividad del Multitrayecto en Entornos Urbanos en Radares de Apertura Sintética

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images a target region reflectivity function in the multi-dimensional spatial domain of range and cross-range. SAR synthesizes a large aperture radar in order to achieve finer azimuth resolution than the one provided by any on-board real antenna. Conventional SAR techniques assume a single reflection of transmitted waveforms from targets. Nevertheless, today¿s new scenes force SAR systems to work in urban environments. Consequently, multiple-bounce returns are added to direct-scatter echoes. We refer to these as ghost images, since they obscure true target image and lead to poor resolution. By analyzing the quadratic phase error (QPE), this paper demonstrates that Earth¿s curvature influences the defocusing degree of multipath returns. In addition to the QPE, other parameters such as integrated sidelobe ratio (ISLR), peak sidelobe ratio (PSLR), contrast and entropy provide us with the tools to identify direct-scatter echoes in images containing undesired returns coming from multipath.

Rehabilitación estructural del edificio de L’Union

Dada la actual tendencia de las empresas de poseer sus propios edificios de oficinas con espacios dedicados al público en general como son bibliotecas, salas de conferencias, etc. Mapfre decide la compra del Edificio de L’Union, que se sitúa en el emplazamiento antes mencionado. Este nuevo edificio, además de contar con los espacios mencionados, se decide la ampliación del parking subterráneo actual para posibilitar a los empleados su aparcamiento. Este documento persigue un doble objetivo. En primer lugar, llevará a cabo una exposición del proceso seguido para la obtención de la solución más adecuada, partiendo de una serie de estudios previos y normativas, para alcanzar tres soluciones aceptables que será sometidas a un proceso de valoración a partir del cual se obtendrá la alternativa más adecuada evaluando una serie de parámetros que la diferenciarán del resto de alternativas. Una vez elegida la solución más adecuada se va a llevar a cabo el desarrollo de un estudio en profundidad de la misma definiendo sus aspectos principales, estructura, método constructivo, etc., que permitirán llevar a cabo la ejecución del edificio

escritos : artículos escogidos

Contenido : Poder del cristianismo – La generación espontanea – La moneda acuñada – Seismología – La imaginación – Métodos – La filosofía escolástica – La medicina de los antiguos hebreos – La felicidad – La población – Instrucción primaria – Schiller – Las inclinaciones – Observaciones críticas sobre el discurso de Cicerón en defensa de Aulo Licinio Archías – Escuelas dominantes – ¿Descienden los americanos de los cananeos? – Parentesco de las lenguas

Estudios y artículos literarios

El estudio de la literatura tiene su trascendencia para la vida social, se toma para la enseñanza de todos los conocimientos útiles que entran en el movimiento activo en que se agita la vida moderna. En este libro encontraran la parcidad de un estilo reposado, penetración de criterio, unidad de ideas, convicción literaria y un material considerable de erudición que robustece los juicios y se resuelve en enseñanza

La caridad de la lengua: discurso pronunciado por el doctor Adolfo Leon Gomez en la Sesión Solemne de la Sociedad de San Vicente de Paúl celebrada el 25 de julio de 1897

25 p.

Posesión del Presidente de la República

26 p.

Un día: dos minutos de paz y 1438 de...

Fondo Margaritainés Restrepo

Trigger and aperture of the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory consists of 1600 water-Cherenkov detectors, for the study of extensive air showers (EAS) generated by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. We describe the trigger hierarchy, from the identification of candidate showers at the level of a single detector, amongst a large background (mainly random single cosmic ray muons), up to the selection of real events and the rejection of random coincidences. Such trigger makes the surface detector array fully efficient for the detection of EAS with energy above 3 x 10(18) eV, for all zenith angles between 0 degrees and 60 degrees, independently of the position of the impact point and of the mass of the primary particle. In these range of energies and angles, the exposure of the surface array can be determined purely on the basis of the geometrical acceptance. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Limit on the diffuse flux of ultrahigh energy tau neutrinos with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory are used to establish an upper limit on the diffuse flux of tau neutrinos in the cosmic radiation. Earth-skimming nu(tau) may interact in the Earth's crust and produce a tau lepton by means of charged-current interactions. The tau lepton may emerge from the Earth and decay in the atmosphere to produce a nearly horizontal shower with a typical signature, a persistent electromagnetic component even at very large atmospheric depths. The search procedure to select events induced by tau decays against the background of normal showers induced by cosmic rays is described. The method used to compute the exposure for a detector continuously growing with time is detailed. Systematic uncertainties in the exposure from the detector, the analysis, and the involved physics are discussed. No tau neutrino candidates have been found. For neutrinos in the energy range 2x10(17) eV < E(nu)< 2x10(19) eV, assuming a diffuse spectrum of the form E(nu)(-2), data collected between 1 January 2004 and 30 April 2008 yield a 90% confidence-level upper limit of E(nu)(2)dN(nu tau)/dE(nu)< 9x10(-8) GeV cm(-2) s(-1) sr(-1).

Les sanctions d'une règle de droit législative incompatible avec la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés: le reading in, le reading down, l'interprétation large, l'interprétation atténuée, etc.!

Cet article a précédemment été publié par la Revue du Barreau.

La feria de los Congresos.

Título anterior de la publicación : Boletín de la Comisión Española de la UNESCO

The fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is a hybrid detector for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. It combines a surface array to measure secondary particles at ground level together with a fluorescence detector to measure the development of air showers in the atmosphere above the array. The fluorescence detector comprises 24 large telescopes specialized for measuring the nitrogen fluorescence caused by charged particles of cosmic ray air showers. In this paper we describe the components of the fluorescence detector including its optical system, the design of the camera, the electronics, and the systems for relative and absolute calibration. We also discuss the operation and the monitoring of the detector. Finally, we evaluate the detector performance and precision of shower reconstructions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.