Three lepton signatures from tZq interactions in the SM and top-FCNC at the CMS experiment at \sqrt{s} = 8 TeV

The search for a top quark in association with a Z boson can be performed in both top pair production as well as single top production. Targeting the three lepton final state, the search can be used to identify the standard model (SM) process of a single top quark associated with a Z boson and to search for flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) interactions. The presented analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $19.7$ fb$^{-1}$ recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV. The cross section for the SM tZq production is measured to be $\sigma(tZq\rightarrow l\nu bl^+ l^- q)= 10^{+8}_{-7}$ fb with a significance of $2.4 \sigma$. Exclusion limits at 95$\%$ confidence level on the branching ratio of a top quark decaying to a Z boson and an up or charm quark are determined to be $BR(t \rightarrow Zu) < 0.022\%$ and $BR(t \rightarrow Zc) < 0.049\%$ respectively.Comment: Presented at the 9th International Workshop on Top Quark Physics, Olomouc, Czech Republic, September 19-23, 201

The Effect of Public Policies on Consumers' Preferences: Lessons from the French Automobile Market

In this paper, we investigate whether French consumers have modified their preferences towards environmentally-friendly vehicles between 2003 and 2008. We estimate a model of demand for automobiles incorporating both consumers' heterogeneity and CO2 emissions of the vehicles. Our results show that there has been a shift in preferences towards low-emitting cars, with an average increase of 367 euros of the willingness to pay for a reduction of 10 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. We also stress a large heterogeneity in the evolution of preferences between consumers. Rich and young people are more sensitive to environmental issues, and our results are in line with votes for the green party at the presidential elections. We relate these changes with two environmental policies that were introduced at these times, namely the obligation of indicating energy labels by the end of 2005 and a feebate based on CO2 emissions of new vehicles in 2008. Our results suggest that such policies have been efficient tools to shift consumers utility towards environmentally-friendly goods, the shift in preferences accounting for 20% of the overall decrease in average CO2 emissions of new cars on the period

Dealing with natural language interfaces in a geolocation context

In the geolocation field where high-level programs and low-level devices coexist, it is often difficult to find a friendly user inter- face to configure all the parameters. The challenge addressed in this paper is to propose intuitive and simple, thus natural lan- guage interfaces to interact with low-level devices. Such inter- faces contain natural language processing and fuzzy represen- tations of words that facilitate the elicitation of business-level objectives in our context

PARKS, POPULATION, AND RESETTLEMENT IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

A survey of 139 men and 123 women in four communities bordering Los Haitises National Park in the Dominican Republic took place in late 1992. The survey followed a presidential decree ordering the army to clear the forest of people and cattle and to resettle a number of villages. The survey found that people admitted using the forest for firewood and cash crop cultivation. However, they were aware of the need to conserve the forest and expressed willingness to compromise on its use. They were less aware of park boundaries and did not understand the concept of a national park. Villagers welcomed rapid population growth, and women favor (and have) large families despite high rates of sterilization. Nearly everyone opposed resettlement and favored community participation in programs to reduce pressures on the park. In addition to providing housing and services, a resettlement program will have to find adequate substitutes for current park activities that provide cash income. Of a battery of social indicators such as gender, age, or socio-economic status, few showed much relationship to park use or attitudes toward conservation, the exception being community and religion.Attitudes, Behavior, Gender, Knowledge, Park, Population, Resettlement, Survey, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

ARE EXPORTS CAUSING GROWTH? EVIDENCE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE EXPANSION IN CUBA, 1960-2004

Economic development in Cuban economy in the last 50 years has been involved in the so called socialist revolution time. In the external sector, the COMECON arrangements have determined its international specialization trade pattern and balance of payments position until 1989. When the Berlin Wall fell down, Cuban economy collapsed showing the malfunctions of the previous external regulated period. In this paper, we analyzed the role of exports as an engine of economic growth in Cuba considering essential events in its commercial policy-making in the long period from 1960 to 2004. Our results show that the export led growth (ELG) hypothesis is not an appealing phenomenon. Causality proofs on the basis of error correction and augmented level VAR modellings show the imperious necesssity to import for the Cuban development. The inclusion of imports not only evidences the weakness in the feedback and interrelation between economic growth and exports but also their expansion has been precisely causing growth in most of the considered periods.Cuba, Export-led Growth, commercial agreements effects, cointegration, causality, error correction and augmented VAR modelling

Understanding Communication Patterns in MOOCs: Combining Data Mining and qualitative methods

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer unprecedented opportunities to learn at scale. Within a few years, the phenomenon of crowd-based learning has gained enormous popularity with millions of learners across the globe participating in courses ranging from Popular Music to Astrophysics. They have captured the imaginations of many, attracting significant media attention - with The New York Times naming 2012 "The Year of the MOOC." For those engaged in learning analytics and educational data mining, MOOCs have provided an exciting opportunity to develop innovative methodologies that harness big data in education.Comment: Preprint of a chapter to appear in "Data Mining and Learning Analytics: Applications in Educational Research

El dilema de los próceres: literatura e história

IX Congresso Brasileiro de Hispanistas realizado nos dias 22 a 25 agosto 2016Jorge Fernández Díaz é um reconhecido escritor e jornalista argentino. É autor de oito romances e de vários contos, crônicas, artigos e ensaios. Entre suas obras, destacase o romance El dilema de los próceres que foi publicado em 1997 e reeditado em 2009. A referida narrativa tem como protagonistas Sherlock Holmes e Borges, os quais tentam resolver uma conspiração que envolve cartas apócrifas de José de San Martín e Juan Manuel de Rosas. Em sua investigação, os personagens entram em contato com os escritores Victoria Ocampo, Evaristo Carriego, Leopoldo Lugones e Horacio Quiroga. Percebemos que o autor não só ficcionaliza personagens históricos, mas também reflete sobre acontecimentos marcantes da história argentina e discute temas literários, além de dialogar com a poética borgeana. Desse modo, as fronteiras entre a literatura e a história são desconstruídas. Tendo em vista essas considerações, analisaremos a citada ficção a partir de sua problematização da relação entre a literatura e a história e nos apoiaremos nos trabalhos de Esteves (2010) e Weinhardt (2011), entre outros estudiosos que examinaram esta temáticaUNILA­-UNIOEST