Oil intensities and oil prices : evidence for Latin America

Crude oil prices have dramatically increased over the past years and are now at a historical maximum in nominal terms and very close to it in real terms. It is difficult to argue, at least for net oil importers, that higher oil prices have a positive impact on welfare. In fact, the negative relationship between oil prices and economic activity has been well documented in the literature. Yet, to the extent that higher oil prices lead to lower oil consumption, it would be possible to argue that not all the effects of a price increase are negative. Climate change concerns have been on the rise in recent years and fossil fuel consumption is generally viewed as one of the main causes behind it. Thus this paper explores whether higher oil prices contribute to lowering oil intensities (that is, oil consumption per unit of gross domestic product). The findings show that following an increase in oil prices, OECD countries tend to reduce oil intensity. However, the same result does not hold for Latin America (and more generally for middle-income countries) where oil intensities appear to be unaffected by oil prices. The paper also explores why this is so.Energy Production and Transportation,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Markets and Market Access,Energy Demand,Environment and Energy Efficiency

Enhancing Communication Initiation of Students with Moderate to Severe Disabilities Through General Education Peer Interaction

Communication is an important aspect to social interactions and inclusion. Oftentimes, general education students are paired with students with special needs for social interaction. This study investigates if the use of physical education (P.E.) buddies and communication training impact the rate of communication initiation of students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities. Three high school students with moderate to severe disabilities were trained to initiate communication with the P.E. buddy through a lesson that teaches potential conversation starters. Such conversations starters were, “Hello,” “How are you?” “What are we doing today?” In addition to verbal communication, the participants had access to an augmentative and alternative communication device to initiate conversation. Results indicated a functional relation was demonstrated, but not replicated. However, implementing interventions that increase communication and interactions among students with special needs and their typically developing peers are important and should be studied in the future

Characteristics and case outcomes of families that participate in team decision making

The purpose of this study was to identify the demographics, case characteristics, and outcomes of families that participate in Team Decision Making (TDM) within the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, Children\u27s Services Division. The study used secondary data from Riverside County Child Welfare System/Case Management System (CWS/CMS) and Efforts to Outcomes (ETO) databases. Data was collected from 2253 families that first entered CWS and participated in TDM between the years 2008-2012

Off to a Good Start: A Practical Tool for Sexual Health Education

The Off to a Good Start: Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Development of Youth Grades 5–8 (OTAGS) curriculum provides students with a foundation for future sex education. The curriculum consists of three modules covering puberty, healthful relationships, and HIV and sexually transmitted infections. University of Illinois Extension educators taught OTAGS at 15 schools in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Evaluation results were favorable, indicating knowledge improvement. OTAGS complements other Extension programs, lays a foundation for future sex education, and provides others in Extension with the opportunity to play a role in making timely and accurate sex education accessible to youths

Investigaciones arqueológicas en el Alero Las Mellizas, Bosque Andino de Patagonia Septentrional, sudoeste de la provincia de Neuquén

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo principal actualizar los resultados obtenidos en el estudio de los materiales culturales del sitio arqueológico denominado Alero Las Mellizas (ALM), y en segunda instancia destacar su importancia en el marco de las investigaciones regionales sobre las características de las ocupaciones humanas en el bosque andino de Norpatagonia durante el Holoceno tardío.We present the results of the review of the cultural materials of the archaeological site Alero Las Mellizas (ALM) and its relevance for the research on the characteristics of human occupations in Norpatagonia Andean forest during the late Holocene. The main goal of this paper is to expand the archaeological knowledge of the Traful river basin and the Traful lake. Here we present a general summary of the archaeological studies performed to date as well as a detailed report of new information on the fauna and lithic technology, and we discuss the results in a regional framework.Fil: Silveira, Mario. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo; ArgentinaFil: Lopez, Lisandro. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo; ArgentinaFil: Aldazabal, Veronica Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas; Argentin

UPM system for the translation task

This paper describes the UPM system for translation task at the EMNLP 2011 workshop on statistical machine translation (http://www.statmt.org/wmt11/), and it has been used for both directions: Spanish-English and English-Spanish. This system is based on Moses with two new modules for pre and post processing the sentences. The main contribution is the method proposed (based on the similarity with the source language test set) for selecting the sentences for training the models and adjusting the weights. With system, we have obtained a 23.2 BLEU for Spanish-English and 21.7 BLEU for EnglishSpanis

Compositos de cascarón de huevo / nanoparticulas de óxido de hierro - plata metálica, y su funcionalidad en la eliminación de iones pb, as y hg, en medio acuoso

Abstract The synthesis of nanoparticles of metallic silver and hematite supported on calcite by microwaves, forms a mesoporous material with an average diameter of 17.97 nm and a surface area of 1.4 m2 / g, the silver nanoparticles are hemispherical with a size between 10 and 20 nm in diameter and hematite nanoparticles less than 5nm. This material has a synergistic effect when placing 10mg of the composition in aqueous solution containing 10mg / L of lead, arsenic and mercury; these are eliminated 100%. The process of adsorption of the metals in the composition is adjusted to the kinetic model of pseudosecond order, with two active sites of adsorption

Learning to Teach in Mixed-Reality Simulated Virtual Environments at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty at a Hispanic serving institution shifted from face-to-face to totally online teaching. The authors describe two assignments for teacher candidates that required them to design and deliver lessons that focused on practicing two high-leverage practices utilizing Mursion, a mixed-reality simulation (MRS) software and platform. MRS sessions were delivered through Zoom video conferencing and were delivered asynchronously. Benefits, challenges, and limitations of using MRS in conjunction with Zoom in online courses were identified and discussed. Detailed logistics for planning, preparing, and executing MRS effectively were provided. The authors describe implications for remote learning as it related to teaching at an HSI located in one of the poorest areas of the U.S., with one of the most vulnerable populations