Aplicación de la Teoría Situacional de los Públicos al primer proceso de voto en el exterior para Costa Rica: Lecciones para las relaciones públicas internacionales y la diplomacia pública

Using information gathered from 40 interviews with Costa Ricans who live abroad (some who decided to vote in the newly granted external voting right and others who did not vote in the Costa Rican National Elections of 2014), the variables that impacted the voting intention and/or behaviour of these Costa Rican diaspora members were categorized using the independent variables presented by the Situational Theory of Publics: problem recognition, constraint recognition (internal and external constraints), and level of involvement. This theory was used to better understand what is moving these potential external voters to vote or not, in order to suggest what kinds of efforts should the Costa Rican government undertake to increase the number of external voters. The implications for public diplomacy and international public relations are explored

Insights into thermonuclear supernovae from the incomplete silicon burning process

Type Ia supernova (SNIa) explosions synthesize a few tenths to several tenths of a solar mass, whose composition is the result of incomplete silicon burning that reaches peak temperatures of 4 GK to 5 GK. The elemental abundances are sensitive to the physical conditions in the explosion, making their measurement a promising clue to uncovering the properties of the progenitor star and of the explosion itself. Using a parameterized description of the thermodynamic history of matter undergoing incomplete silicon burning, we computed the final composition for a range of parameters wide enough to encompass current models of SNIa. Then, we searched for combinations of elemental abundances that trace the parameters values and are potentially measurable. For this purpose, we divide the present study into two epochs of SNIa, namely the optical epoch, from a few weeks to several months after the explosion, and the X-ray epoch, which refers to the time period in which the supernova remnant is young, starting one or two hundred years age and ending a thousand years after the event. During the optical epoch, the only SNIa property that can be extracted from the detection of incomplete silicon burning elements is the neutron excess of the progenitor white dwarf at thermal runaway, which can be determined through measuring the ratio of the abundance of manganese to that of titanium, chromium, or vanadium. Conversely, in the X-ray epoch, any abundance ratio built using a couple of elements from titanium, vanadium, chromium, or manganese may constrain the initial neutron excess. Furthermore, measuring the ratio of the abundances of vanadium to manganese in the X-ray might shed light on the timescale of the thermonuclear explosion.Comment: Accepted for Astronomy and Astrophysics (16 pages, 3 tables, 15 figures

New results on alpha_s and optimized scales

A summary of the latest alpha_s results at LEP1 and LEP2 from event-shape predictions at Order(alpha2_s) + NLLA is presented. Later these are compared to measurements obtained using the Experimentally Optimized Scale method. Finally the alpha_s measurement from the 4-jet rate is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, talk presented at the 30th ISMD, Hungary, October 200

Coincidences in generalized Lucas sequences

For an integer $k\geq 2$, let $(L_{n}^{(k)})_{n}$ be the $k-$generalized Lucas sequence which starts with $0,\ldots,0,2,1$ ($k$ terms) and each term afterwards is the sum of the $k$ preceding terms. In this paper, we find all the integers that appear in different generalized Lucas sequences; i.e., we study the Diophantine equation $L_n^{(k)}=L_m^{(\ell)}$ in nonnegative integers $n,k,m,\ell$ with $k, \ell\geq 2$. The proof of our main theorem uses lower bounds for linear forms in logarithms of algebraic numbers and a version of the Baker-Davenport reduction method. This paper is a continuation of the earlier work [4].Comment: 14 page

Program Evaluation in the Context of Debates in the Field: The Evaluation of PR-CETP

This paper rationalizes the selection of the concept of energy as the central theme of a new capstone course aimed at science education majors. It describes the goals of the course and the activities that preceded the course design and led to the selection of the topics, of the educational materials, and of the teaching methodologies. It presents a sequential description of the manner in which the conceptual knowledge of energy was to be developed. The specific experiments, interactive demonstrations and other educational materials utilized for the conceptual development of the concept of energy in context are described and referenced. The course objectives are described, as well as the instruments utilized to assess student learning. It also presents the activities utilized to assess the course, in addition to the modifications made to the course syllabus based on this assessment

Empirical likelihood inference with applications to some econometric models

In this paper we analyse the higher order asymptotic properties of the empirical likelihood ratio test, by means of the dual likelihood theory. It is shown that when the econometric model is just identified, these tests are accurate to an order o(1/n), and this accuracy can always be improved to an order O(1/n^2) by means of a scale correction, as in standard parametric theory. To show this, we first develop a valid Edgeworth expansion for the empirical likelihood ratio under a local alternative in terms of an "induced" local alternative. As a by-product of the expansion, we find an explicit expression for the Bartlett correction in terms of cumulants of dual likelihood derivatives which is slightly different from the standard adjustment reported in the literature on Bartlett corrections of the empirical likelihood ratio. We then highlight the connection between the empirical likelihood method and the bootstrap by obtaining a valid Edgeworth expansion for a bootstrap based empirical likelihood ratio test. The theory is then applied to some standard econometric models and illustrated by means of some Monte Carlo simulations.

Effcient M-estimators with auxiliary information

This paper introduces a new class of M-estimators based on generalised empirical likelihood estimation with some auxiliary information available in the sample. The resulting class of estimators is efficient in the sense that it achieves the same asymptotic lower bound as that of the efficient generalised method of moment-based M-estimator with the same auxiliary information. The results of the paper are quite general and apply to M-estimators defined by both smooth and nonsmooth estimating equations. Simulations show that the proposed estimators perform well in finite samples, and can be less biased and more precise than standard M-estimators within China.Asymptotic efficiency. Generalised empirical likelihood. Generalised method of moments. M-estimators. Generalised method of moments, M-estimators.

Bartlett-type Adjustments for Empirical Discrepancy Test Statistics

This paper derives two Bartlett-type adjustments that can be used to obtain higher-order improvements to the distribution of the class of empirical discrepancy test statistics recently introduced by Corcoran (1998) as a generalisation of Owen's (1988)empirical likelihood. The corrections are illustrated in the context of the so-called Cressie-Read goodness-of-fit statistic Baggerly, and their effectiveness in finite samples is evaluated using simulations.asymptotic expansions; Bartlett and Bartlett-type corrections; empirical likelihood; nonparametric likelihood inference

An interior point algorithm for computing equilibria in economies with incomplete asset markets

Computing equilibria in general equilibria models with incomplete asset (GEI) markets is technically difficult. The standard numerical methods for computing these equilibria are based on homotopy methods. Despite recent advances in computational economics, much more can be done to enlarge the catalogue of techniques for computing GEI equilibria. This paper presents an interior-point algorithm that exploits the special structure of GEI markets. We prove that the algorithm converges globally at a quadratic rate, rendering it particularly effective in solving large-scale GEI economies. To illustrate its performance, we solve relevant examples of GEI market