Child health in rural Colombia: determinants and policy interventions

In this paper we study the determinants of child anthropometrics on a sample of poor Colombian children living in small municipalities. We focus on the influence of household consumption, and public infrastructure. We take into account the endogeneity of household consumption using two different sets of instruments: household assets and municipality average wage. We find that household consumption is an important determinant of child health. The importance of the effect is confirmed by the two different sets of instruments. We find that using ordinary least squares would lead to conclude that the importance of household consumption is much smaller than the instrumental variable estimates suggest. The presence of a public hospital in the municipality positively influences child health. The extent of the piped water network positively influences the health of children if their parents have at least some education. The number of hours of growth and development check-ups is also an important determinant of child health. We find that some of these results only show up once squared and interaction terms have been included in the regression. Overall, our estimates suggest that both public and private investments are important to improve child health in poor environments

Green's functions technique for calculating the emission spectrum in a quantum dot-cavity system

We introduce the Green's functions technique as an alternative theory to the quantum regression theorem formalism for calculating the two-time correlation functions in open quantum systems. In particular, we investigate the potential of this theoretical approach by its application to compute the emission spectrum of a dissipative system composed by a single quantum dot inside of a semiconductor cavity. We also describe a simple algorithm based on the Green's functions technique for calculating the emission spectrum of the quantum dot as well as of the cavity which can easily be implemented in any numerical linear algebra package. We find that the Green's functions technique demonstrates a better accuracy and efficiency in the calculation of the emission spectrum and it allows to overcome the inherent theoretical difficulties associated to the direct application of the quantum regression theorem approach

Summary of Golden Measurements at a ν\nu-Factory

The precision and discovery potential of a neutrino factory based on muon storage rings is summarized. For three-family neutrino oscillations, we analyze how to measure or severely constraint the angle $\theta_{13}$, CP violation, MSW effects and the sign of the atmospheric mass difference $\Delta m^2_{23}$. The appearance of ``wrong-sign muons'' at three reference baselines is considered: 732 km, 3500 km and 7332 km. We exploit the dependence of the signal on the neutrino energy, and include as well realistic background estimations and detection efficiencies. The optimal baseline turns out to be $O$(3000 km).Comment: 7 pages, Latex2e, 5 eps figures, use package espfi

Golden measurements at a neutrino factory

The precision and discovery potential of a neutrino factory based on muon storage rings is studied. For three-family neutrino oscillations, we analyse how to measure or severely constraint the angle $\theta_{13}$, CP violation, MSW effects and the sign of the atmospheric mass difference $\Delta m^2_{23}$. We present a simple analytical formula for the oscillation probabilities in matter, with all neutrino mass differences non-vanishing, which clarifies the subtleties involved in disentangling the unknown parameters. The appearance of ``wrong-sign muons'' at three reference baselines is considered: 732 km, 3500 km, and 7332 km. We exploit the dependence of the signal on the neutrino energy, and include as well realistic background estimations and detection efficiencies. The optimal baseline turns out to be ${\cal O}(3000$ km). Analyses combining the information from different baselines are also presented.Comment: 45 pages, Latex2e, 24 figures using epsfig.sty. An incorrect statement and a few misprints have been corrected. Results and conclusions are unchange

Physics Potential of Very Intense Conventional Neutrino Beams

The physics potential of high intensity conventional beams is explored. We consider a low energy super beam which could be produced by a proposed new accelerator at CERN, the Super Proton Linac. Water Cherenkov and liquid oil scintillator detectors are studied as possible candidates for a neutrino oscillation experiment which could improve our current knowledge of the atmospheric parameters and measure or severely constrain the parameter connecting the atmospheric and solar realms. It is also shown that a very large water detector could eventually observe leptonic CP violation. The reach of such an experiment to the neutrino mixing parameters would lie in-between the next generation of neutrino experiments (MINOS, OPERA, etc) and a future neutrino factory.Comment: Talk given at the Venice Conference on Neutrino Telescopes, Venice, March, 200

Proper motions of the HH1 jet

We describe a new method for determining proper motions of extended objects, and a pipeline developed for the application of this method. We then apply this method to an analysis of four epochs of [S~II] HST images of the HH~1 jet (covering a period of $\sim 20$~yr). We determine the proper motions of the knots along the jet, and make a reconstruction of the past ejection velocity time-variability (assuming ballistic knot motions). This reconstruction shows an "acceleration" of the ejection velocities of the jet knots, with higher velocities at more recent times. This acceleration will result in an eventual merging of the knots in $\sim 450$~yr and at a distance of $\sim 80"$ from the outflow source, close to the present-day position of HH~1.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure