Educando para la ciudadanía global. Una experiencia de investigación cooperativa entre docentes y profesionales de las ONGD

En este artículo se describe el proceso y se presentan los resultados de un proyecto de investigación cooperativa (IC) realizado en Valencia entre febrero 2010 y marzo 2011. Su objetivo fue reflexionar sobre los significados y las prácticas educativas que docentes de primaria, secundaria y universidad pueden realizar en conjunto con las ONGD para potenciar la ciudadanía global en el sistema educativo formal. El artículo comienza con una reflexión sobre la educación para el desarrollo. Posteriormente, se destacan algunos aspectos relevantes de la IC, se describe el proceso seguido y las técnicas empleadas y se discuten algunas reflexiones que se dieron sobre la ciudadanía global y los espacios educativos. Por último se detallan unas conclusiones sobre lo que la metodología de la IC puede aportar a la investigación en educación

Integration of stochastic models for long-term eruption forecasting into a Bayesian event tree scheme: a basis method to estimate the probability of volcanic unrest

Eruption forecasting refers, in general, to the assessment of the occurrence probability of a given erup- tive event, whereas volcanic hazards are normally associated with the analysis of superficial and evident phenomena that usually accompany eruptions (e.g., lava, pyroclastic flows, tephra fall, lahars, etc.). Nevertheless, several hazards of volcanic origin may occur in noneruptive phases dur- ing unrest episodes. Among others, remarkable examples are gas emissions, phreatic explosions, ground deforma- tion, and seismic swarms. Many of such events may lead to significant damages, and for this reason, the “risk” associ- ated to unrest episodes could not be negligible with respect to eruption-related phenomena. Our main objective in this paper is to provide a quantitative framework to calculate probabilities of volcanic unrest. The mathematical frame- work proposed is based on the integration of stochastic mod- els based on the analysis of eruption occurrence catalogs into a Bayesian event tree scheme for eruption forecast- ing and volcanic hazard assessment. Indeed, such models are based on long-term eruption catalogs and in many cases allow a more consistent analysis of long-term tem- poral modulations of volcanic activity. The main result of this approach is twofold: first, it allows to make inferences about the probability of volcanic unrest; second, it allows to project the results of stochastic modeling of the eruptive history of a volcano toward the probabilistic assessment of volcanic hazards. To illustrate the performance of the pro- posed approach, we apply it to determine probabilities of unrest at Miyakejima volcano, Japan

Chapter 3-20: From multi-risk assessment to multi-risk governance: Recommendations for future directions

Disasters caused by natural hazards can trigger chains of multiple natural and man-made hazardous events over different spatial and temporal scales. Multi-hazard and multi-risk assessments make it possible to take into account interactions between different risks. Classes of interactions include triggered events, cascade effects, and the rapid increase of vulnerability during successive hazards. Recent research has greatly increased the risk assessment community's understanding of interactions between risks. Several international sets of guidelines and other documents now advocate adopting an all-hazard approach to risk assessments. Nevertheless, barriers to the application of multirisk assessment remain. The challenges for the development of multi-risk approaches are related not only to the applicability of results, but also to the link between risk assessment and decision making, the interactions between science and practice in terms of knowledge transfer, and more generally to the development of capacities at the local level. So far, research has focused on the scientific aspects of risk assessment. But the institutional aspects, such as the issues arising when multi-risk assessment results need to be implemented within existing risk management regimes, are also important, though they have received less attention. The project described here focused on the institutional context of disasters, which includes a variety of elements ranging from sociopolitical to governance components. It looked at how to maximize the benefits arising from, and overcome the barriers to, the implementation of a multihazard and multi-risk assessment approach within current risk management regimes. Working at two test sites, one in Naples and one in Guadeloupe, the research team engaged with local authorities and practitioners to better understand how to effectively implement the results of multi-risk assessment. Among the hazards considered were earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, tsunamis, wildfires, cyclones, and marine inundation. Beside the practitioners working in the two test sites, risk and emergency managers from 11 countries also provided feedback. In total, more than 70 practitioners took part in the research

Towards spin injection from silicon into topological insulators: Schottky barrier between Si and Bi2Se3

A scheme is proposed to electrically measure the spin-momentum coupling in the topological insulator surface state by injection of spin polarized electrons from silicon. As a first approach, devices were fabricated consisting of thin (<100nm) exfoliated crystals of Bi2Se3 on n-type silicon with independent electrical contacts to silicon and Bi2Se3. Analysis of the temperature dependence of thermionic emission in reverse bias indicates a barrier height of 0.34 eV at the Si-Bi2Se3 interface. This robust Schottky barrier opens the possibility of novel device designs based on sub-band gap internal photoemission from Bi2Se3 into Si

A Brownian Model for Recurrent Volcanic Eruptions: an Application to Miyakejima Volcano (Japan)

The definition of probabilistic models as mathematical structures to describe the response of a volcanic system is a plausible approach to characterize the temporal behavior of volcanic eruptions, and constitutes a tool for long-term eruption forecasting. This kind of approach is motivated by the fact that volcanoes are complex systems in which a com- pletely deterministic description of the processes preceding eruptions is practically impos- sible. To describe recurrent eruptive activity we apply a physically-motivated probabilistic model based on the characteristics of the Brownian passage-time (BPT) distribution; the physical process defining this model can be described by the steady rise of a state variable from a ground state to a failure threshold; adding Brownian perturbations to the steady load- ing produces a stochastic load-state process (a Brownian relaxation oscillator) in which an eruption relaxes the load state to begin a new eruptive cycle. The Brownian relaxation os- cillator and Brownian passage-time distribution connect together physical notions of unob- servable loading and failure processes of a point process with observable response statistics. The Brownian passage-time model is parameterized by the mean rate of event occurrence, μ , and the aperiodicity about the mean, α . We apply this model to analyze the eruptive his- tory of Miyakejima volcano, Japan, finding a value of 44.2(±6.5 years) for the μ parameter and 0.51(±0.01) for the (dimensionless) α parameter. The comparison with other models often used in volcanological literature shows that this pysically-motivated model may be a good descriptor of volcanic systems that produce eruptions with a characteristic size. BPT is clearly superior to the exponential distribution and the fit to the data is comparable to other two-parameters models. Nonetheless, being a physically-motivated model, it provides an insight into the macro-mechanical processes driving the system

Minimal lepton flavor violating realizations of minimal seesaw models

We study the implications of the global U(1)R symmetry present in minimal lepton flavor violating implementations of the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses. In the context of minimal type I seesaw scenarios with a slightly broken U(1)R, we show that, depending on the R-charge assignments, two classes of generic models can be identified. Models where the right-handed neutrino masses and the lepton number breaking scale are decoupled, and models where the parameters that slightly break the U(1)R induce a suppression in the light neutrino mass matrix. We show that within the first class of models, contributions of right-handed neutrinos to charged lepton flavor violating processes are severely suppressed. Within the second class of models we study the charged lepton flavor violating phenomenology in detail, focusing on mu to e gamma, mu to 3e and mu to e conversion in nuclei. We show that sizable contributions to these processes are naturally obtained for right-handed neutrino masses at the TeV scale. We then discuss the interplay with the effects of the right-handed neutrino interactions on primordial B - L asymmetries, finding that sizable right-handed neutrino contributions to charged lepton flavor violating processes are incompatible with the requirement of generating (or even preserving preexisting) B - L asymmetries consistent with the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures; version 2: Discussion on possible generic models extended, typos corrected, references added. Version matches publication in JHE

Thermal stabilization of metal matrix nanocomposites by nanocarbon reinforcements

Metal matrix composites reinforced by nanocarbon materials, such as carbon nanotubes or nanodiamonds, are very promising materials for a large number of functional and structural applications. Carbon nanotubes and nanodiamonds-reinforced metal matrix nanocomposites with different concentrations of the carbon phase were processed by high-pressure torsion deformation and the evolving nanostructures were thoroughly analyzed by electron microscopy. Particular emphasis is placed on the thermal stability of the nanocarbon reinforced metal matrix composites, which is less influenced by the amount of added nanocarbon reinforcements than by the nanocarbon reinforcement type and its distribution in the metal matrix

Reactor mixing angle from hybrid neutrino masses

In terms of its eigenvector decomposition, the neutrino mass matrix (in the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix is diagonal) can be understood as originating from a tribimaximal dominant structure with small deviations, as demanded by data. If neutrino masses originate from at least two different mechanisms, referred to as "hybrid neutrino masses", the experimentally observed structure naturally emerges provided one mechanism accounts for the dominant tribimaximal structure while the other is responsible for the deviations. We demonstrate the feasibility of this picture in a fairly model-independent way by using lepton-number-violating effective operators, whose structure we assume becomes dictated by an underlying $A_4$ flavor symmetry. We show that if a second mechanism is at work, the requirement of generating a reactor angle within its experimental range always fixes the solar and atmospheric angles in agreement with data, in contrast to the case where the deviations are induced by next-to-leading order effective operators. We prove this idea is viable by constructing an $A_4$-based ultraviolet completion, where the dominant tribimaximal structure arises from the type-I seesaw while the subleading contribution is determined by either type-II or type-III seesaw driven by a non-trivial $A_4$ singlet (minimal hybrid model). After finding general criteria, we identify all the $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetries capable of producing such $A_4$-based minimal hybrid models.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. v3: section including sum rules added, accepted by JHE

Phonon assisted dynamical Coulomb blockade in a thin suspended graphite sheet

The differential conductance in a suspended few layered graphene sample is fou nd to exhibit a series of quasi-periodic sharp dips as a function of bias at l ow temperature. We show that they can be understood within a simple model of dyn amical Coulomb blockade where energy exchanges take place between the charge carriers transmitted trough the sample and a dissipative electromagnetic envir onment with a resonant phonon mode strongly coupled to the electrons