Contributions towards sustainable cities: urban monitoring and designing tools

The 21st century is the century of cities and urbanization [1]. We live in an increasingly urbanized world where it is projected that by 2050 over 70% of our population will live in cities. The city of the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including social and economic, excessive or even wasteful consumption of resources, transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. In order to address to these critical challenges, an urban renaissance should be founded on principles of sustainable design, economic strength, environmental responsibility, good governance and social well-being [2]. In the current and future research, three elements will be investigated: (i) understanding the consumption and functioning of cities through multi-scalar monitoring systems (ii) improving the air quality and reducing the carbon footprint of cities (iii) and the design of optimal green transportation systems

Aspherical supernova explosions and formation of compact black hole low-mass X-ray binaries

It has been suggested that black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries (BHLMXBs) with short orbital periods may have evolved from BH binaries with an intermediate-mass secondary, but the donor star seems to always have higher effective temperatures than measured in BHLMXBs (Justham, Rappaport & Podsiadlowski 2006). Here we suggest that the secondary star is originally an intermediate-mass (\sim 2-5 M_{\sun}) star, which loses a large fraction of its mass due to the ejecta impact during the aspherical SN explosion that produced the BH. The resulted secondary star could be of low-mass (\la 1 M_{\sun}). Magnetic braking would shrink the binary orbit, drive mass transfer between the donor and the BH, producing a compact BHLMXB.Comment: 4 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

Non-perturbatively Renormalized Light-Quark Masses with the Alpha Action

We have computed the light quark masses using the O(a^2) improved Alpha action, in the quenched approximation. The renormalized masses have been obtained non-perturbatively. By eliminating the systematic error coming from the truncation of the perturbative series, our procedure removes the discrepancies, observed in previous calculations, between the results obtained using the vector and the axial-vector Ward identities. It also gives values of the quark masses larger than those obtained by computing the renormalization constants using (boosted) perturbation theory. Our main results, in the RI (MOM) scheme and at a renormalization scale \mu=2 GeV, are m^{RI}_s= 138(15) MeV and m^{RI}_l= 5.6(5) MeV, where m^{RI}_s is the mass of the strange quark and m^{RI}_l=(m^{RI}_u+m^{RI}_d)/2 the average mass of the up-down quarks. From these results, which have been obtained non-perturbatively, by using continuum perturbation theory we derive the \bar{MS} masses, at the same scale, and the renormalization group invariant (m^{RGI}) masses. We find m^{NLO \bar{MS}}_s= 121(13)$ MeV and m^{NLO\bar{MS}}_l= 4.9(4) MeV at the next-to-leading order; m^{N^2LO \bar{MS}}_s= 111(12) MeV, m^{N^2LO \bar{MS}}_l= 4.5(4) MeV, m_s^{RGI}= 177(19) MeV and m^{RGI}_l= 7.2(6) MeV at the next-to-next-to-leading order.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Large Nc QCD and Harmonic Sums

In the Large-Nc limit of QCD, two--point functions of local operators become Harmonic Sums. I review some properties which follow from this fact and which are relevant for phenomenological applications. This has led us to consider a class of Analytic Number Theory Functions as toy models of Large-Nc QCD which I also discuss.Comment: Based on my talk at "Raymond Stora's 80th Birthday Party", LAPP, July 11th 201

Neutrino masses: From fantasy to facts

Theory suggests the existence of neutrino masses, but little more. Facts are coming close to reveal our fantasy: solar and atmospheric neutrino data strongly indicate the need for neutrino conversions, while LSND provides an intriguing hint. The simplest ways to reconcile these data in terms of neutrino oscillations invoke a light sterile neutrino in addition to the three active ones. Out of the four neutrinos, two are maximally-mixed and lie at the LSND scale, while the others are at the solar mass scale. These schemes can be distinguished at neutral-current-sensitive solar & atmospheric neutrino experiments. I discuss the simplest theoretical scenarios, where the lightness of the sterile neutrino, the nearly maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing, and the generation of $\Delta {m^2}_\odot$ & $\Delta {m^2}_{atm}$ all follow naturally from the assumed lepton-number symmetry and its breaking. Although the most likely interpretation of the present data is in terms of neutrino-mass-induced oscillations, one still has room for alternative explanations, such as flavour changing neutrino interactions, with no need for neutrino mass or mixing. Such flavour violating transitions arise in theories with strictly massless neutrinos, and may lead to other sizeable flavour non-conservation effects, such as $\mu \to e + \gamma$, $\mu-e$ conversion in nuclei, unaccompanied by neutrino-less double beta decay.Comment: 33 pages, latex, 16 figures. Invited Talk at Ioannina Conference, Symmetries in Intermediate High Energy Physics and its Applications, Oct. 1998, to be published by Springer Tracts in Modern Physics. Festschrift in Honour of John Vergados' 60th Birthda

Solution-focused brief therapy as an alternative to clinical social work in Chile

This manuscript consists in a three-paper dissertation that compiles relevant research and practice regarding solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) with Latinos and Latin Americans who present alcohol use disorders. In this sense, the first paper is a systematic review on all the empirical studies of SFBT with Latinos that have been published and not published from January 1990 to December 2014 and uncovers the scarcity of empirical studies on SFBT in Latin American countries. Findings suggest that this approach is a promissory alternative to intervene with Latinos and Latin American people who present varied psychosocial problems. More empirical studies examining different conditions will inform regarding its effectiveness. The second article corresponds to the description of an exploratory linguistic adaptation of the SFBT approach for Chilean, clinical, and vulnerable population who are alcohol users, following a qualitative approach. Findings suggest that this population understood main SFBT techniques after changing phrasing to make them clearer and simpler. In addition, practitioners should consider issues such as stigma of alcohol use in women, inclusion of family members in the treatment process, and being attentive to what client wants; all of these considerations are consistent with SFBT. The third article presents a pilot implementation of the approach with the population to which the approach was culturally adapted, four social workers were trained in SFBT and eight individuals with alcohol problems received a three-session SFBT. Data were analyzed using visual analysis, percentage of non-overlapping data, linear regression, and hierarchical linear modeling. Main findings suggest that individuals receiving SFBT trended to increase their abstinent days, decrease their depression scores, consequences of alcohol use, and improve their self-reported wellbeing. These three papers build on the small literature available until now regarding SFBT with Latin Americans, and sit the basis for continue to build more empirical research that provides Latin American practitioners with an evidence-based intervention to implement with their clients.Social Wor

Neutrino masses from new generations

We reconsider the possibility that Majorana masses for the three known neutrinos are generated radiatively by the presence of a fourth generation and one right-handed neutrino with Yukawa couplings and a Majorana mass term. We find that the observed light neutrino mass hierarchy is not compatible with low energy universality bounds in this minimal scenario, but all present data can be accommodated with five generations and two right-handed neutrinos. Within this framework, we explore the parameter space regions which are currently allowed and could lead to observable effects in neutrinoless double beta decay, $\mu - e$ conversion in nuclei and $\mu \rightarrow e \gamma$ experiments. We also discuss the detection prospects at LHC.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures. Version to be published. Some typos corrected. Improved figures 3 and

The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model: Group Summary Report

CONTENTS: 1. Synopsis, 2. The MSSM Spectrum, 3. The Physical Parameters, 4. Higgs Boson Production and Decays, 5. SUSY Particle Production and Decays, 6. Experimental Bounds on SUSY Particle Masses, 7. References.Comment: 121 pages, latex + epsfig, graphicx, axodraw, Report of the MSSM working group for the Workshop "GDR-Supersym\'etrie",France. Rep. PM/98-4

Renormalization-group study of Anderson and Kondo impurities in gapless Fermi systems

Thermodynamic properties are presented for four magnetic impurity models describing delocalized fermions scattering from a localized orbital at an energy-dependent rate $\Gamma(\epsilon)$ which vanishes precisely at the Fermi level, $\epsilon = 0$. Specifically, it is assumed that for small $|\epsilon|$, $\Gamma(\epsilon)\propto|\epsilon|^r$ with $r>0$. The cases $r=1$ and $r=2$ describe dilute magnetic impurities in unconventional superconductors, ``flux phases'' of the two-dimensional electron gas, and zero-gap semiconductors. For the nondegenerate Anderson model, the depression of the low-energy scattering rate suppresses mixed valence in favor of local-moment behavior, and leads to a marked reduction in the exchange coupling on entry to the local-moment regime, with a consequent narrowing of the range of parameters within which the impurity spin becomes Kondo-screened. The relationship between the Anderson model and the exactly screened Kondo model with power-law exchange is examined. The intermediate-coupling fixed point identified in the latter model by Withoff and Fradkin (WF) has clear signatures in the thermodynamic properties and in the local magnetic response of the impurity. The underscreened, impurity-spin-one Kondo model and the overscreened, two-channel Kondo model both exhibit a conditionally stable intermediate-coupling fixed point in addition to unstable fixed points of the WF type. In all four models, the presence or absence of particle-hole symmetry plays a crucial role.Comment: 44 two-column REVTex pages, 31 epsf-embedded EPS figures. MINOR formatting changes. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Exact Kohn-Sham exchange kernel for insulators and its long-wavelength behavior

We present an exact expression for the frequency-dependent Kohn-Sham exact-exchange (EXX) kernel for periodic insulators, which can be employed for the calculation of electronic response properties within time-dependent (TD) density-functional theory. It is shown that the EXX kernel has a long-wavelength divergence behavior of the exact full exchange-correlation kernel and thus rectifies one serious shortcoming of the adiabatic local-density approximation and generalized-gradient approximations kernels. A comparison between the TDEXX and the GW-approximation-Bethe-Salpeter-equation approach is also made.Comment: two column format 6 pages + 1 figure, to be publisehd in Physical Review