CMB as a probe of new physics and old times

Cosmic birefringence (CB)---a rotation of photon-polarization plane in vacuum---is a generic signature of new scalar fields that could provide dark energy. Previously, WMAP observations excluded a uniform CB-rotation angle larger than a degree.

In this thesis, we develop a minimum-variance--estimator formalism for reconstructing direction-dependent rotation from full-sky CMB maps, and forecast more than an order-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity with incoming Planck data and future satellite missions. Next, we perform the first analysis of WMAP-7 data to look for rotation-angle anisotropies and report null detection of the rotation-angle power-spectrum multipoles below L=512, constraining quadrupole amplitude of a scale-invariant power to less than one degree. We further explore the use of a cross-correlation between CMB temperature and the rotation for detecting the CB signal, for different quintessence models. We find that it may improve sensitivity in case of marginal detection, and provide an empirical handle for distinguishing details of new physics indicated by CB.

We then consider other parity-violating physics beyond standard models---in particular, a chiral inflationary-gravitational-wave background. We show that WMAP has no constraining power, while a cosmic-variance--limited experiment would be capable of detecting only a large parity violation. In case of a strong detection of EB/TB correlations, CB can be readily distinguished from chiral gravity waves.

We next adopt our CB analysis to investigate patchy screening of the CMB, driven by inhomogeneities during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). We constrain a toy model of reionization with WMAP-7 data, and show that data from Planck should start approaching interesting portions of the EoR parameter space and can be used to exclude reionization tomographies with large ionized bubbles.

In light of the upcoming data from low-frequency radio observations of the redshifted 21-cm line from the EoR, we examine probability-distribution functions (PDFs) and difference PDFs of the simulated 21-cm brightness temperature, and discuss the information that can be recovered using these statistics. We find that PDFs are insensitive to details of small-scale physics, but highly sensitive to the properties of the ionizing sources and the size of ionized bubbles.

Finally, we discuss prospects for related future investigations.

Bilingual Dictionary Drafting. The Example of German-Basque, a Medium-density Language Pair

Edited by Andrea Abel, Chiara Vettori, Natascia Ralli.

Experimental Economics Meets Language Choice

Roughly one half of World's languages are in danger of extinction. The endangered languages, spoken by minorities, typically compete with powerful languages such as En- glish or Spanish. Consequently, the speakers of minority languages have to consider that not everybody can speak their language, converting the language choice into strategic,coordination-like situation. We show experimentally that the displacement of minority languages may be partially explained by the imperfect information about the linguistic type of the partner, leading to frequent failure to coordinate on the minority language even between two speakers who can and prefer to use it. The extent of miscoordination correlates with how minoritarian a language is and with the real-life linguistic condition of subjects: the more endangered a language the harder it is to coordinate on its use, and people on whom the language survival relies the most acquire behavioral strategies that lower its use. Our game-theoretical treatment of the issue provides a new perspective for linguistic policies.

Irakaslearen ikuspegi psikopedagogikoaren eragina idazketa prozesuaren hastapenetan: Avellaneda, Etorkizuna eta Eguzkibegi ikastetxeetako kasuen azterketa

EUSKARA LABURPENA:Haurrek hizkuntza idatzia nola barneratzen duten eta irakasteko metodorik egokiena zein izan daitekeen inguruko eztabaida egon izan da aspalditik. Gai horri buruz, haurrek idazketaz egiten duten jabekuntza prozesuan irakasleen ikuspegi psikopedagogikoek zer nolako eragina duten haurrengan ikertu dugu. Ikerketaren alde kualitatibo eta kuantitatiboei erreparatuz, metodologia berritzaileen aplikazio ezberdinak egiten dituzten Bizkaiko Avellaneda, Etorkizuna eta Eguzkibegi ikastetxeetan ikerketa sinkroniko bat eraman dugu aurrera. Lanerako lagina HHko etapako 5 urteko gelan dauden 55 ikaslek eta 6 irakaslek osatu dute. Emaitzek adierazten dutenez, ikuspegi tradizionalean heziak dauden haurrek idazkeraren alde figuratiboekiko ziurtasun handiagoa erakusten dute eta eredu eraikitzailean hezitakoek, berriz, komunikazio gaitasun handiagoa dute. Eredu bakoitzak bere indar-guneak eta ahulguneak izateak zaildu egiten du eredu baten egokitasuna nabarmentzea.

Carbon leakage and the future of Old Industrial Regions

4 p.

Carbon leakage and the future of Old Industrial Regions after Copenhagen

35 p.

On innate and specific aspects of human language

Mixel Aurnague, Kepa Korta and Jesus M. Larrazabal (eds.)

A Brief Grammar of Euskara, the Basque Language

This is a short grammar of the Basque language, or Euskara as it is called by its speakers. What follows is a partial description of the syntax of Euskara. The text has been arranged in the following fashion: there is an index where you can find the distribution of topics. Within each of the topics, an effort has been made to arrange information from general to specific, so that as you read into a given section, you will get into more details about the topic being under discussion. This grammar hopes to be useful to a wide variety of users. Therefore, it will probably not satisfy anyone completely: Those who want a quick 'feel' for the language will be disappointed by the slow and messy details the text dives into. Those who want a detailed, professional description will be disappointed by the lack of depth in the discussion. The text hopes to sit somewhere in the middle, and if it tells too much to those who want to know a little, and too little to those who want to know a lot, then it will have done its job.