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

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

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

Modeling of nearshore hydrodynamics for sediment transport calculations

Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-133).Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006.This thesis analyzes and improves Tajima's (2004) nearshore hydrodynamic model. Tajima's simple model accurately predicts long-shore sediment transport along long, straight beaches, while cross-shore transport predictions differ from observations. A better prediction of cross-shore transport requires improvement of the hydrodynamic model. We first contrast Tajima's model with other hydrodynamic models. To improve the characterization of incident waves, we examine a number of joint probability distributions of wave heights and periods. These distributions are then used to develop a probabilistic wave-by-wave hydrodynamic description based on Tajima's monochromatic wave model. We derive the model governing equations for the unsteady case and detail their numerical implementation. This unsteady model is applied to study the effect of a wave beat normally incident on a plane sloping beach. We use this case to illustrate the relevance of the unsteady generalization to sediment transport calculations.by David Gonzalez-Rodriguez.S.M

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

Carotid artery plaque in women with rheumatoid arthritis and low estimated cardiovascular disease risk: a cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION: We previously reported that most patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and moderate cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk according to the Systematic COronary Evaluation score (SCORE) experience carotid artery plaque. In this study, we aimed to identify patient characteristics that can potentially predict carotid plaque presence in women with RA and a concurrent low CVD risk according to the SCORE. METHODS: A cohort of 144 women with an evaluated low risk of CVD (SCORE value of zero) was assembled amongst 550 consecutive patients with RA that underwent CVD risk factor recording and carotid artery ultrasound. Participants had no established CVD, moderate or severe chronic kidney disease, or diabetes. We assessed carotid plaque(s) presence and its associated patient characteristics. RESULTS: Carotid artery plaque was present in 35 (24.3%) of women with RA. Age, the number of synthetic disease-modifying agents (DMARDs) and total cholesterol concentrations were independently associated with plaque in multivariable stepwise backward regression analysis (odds ratio (95% confidence interval)=1.15 (1.07 to 1.24), P49.5 years or/and total cholesterol concentration of >5.4 mmol/l, respectively, compared to only 7.8% in those (n=64; 44.4%) with age≤49.5 years or/and total cholesterol concentration of ≤5.4 mmol/l, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Approximately one-third of women with RA who experience a low SCORE value and are aged >49.5 years or/and have a total cholesterol concentration of >5.4 mmol/l, experience high-risk atherosclerosis, which requires intensive CVD risk management

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

Certification of butyltins and phenyltins in marine sediment certified reference material by species-specific isotope-dilution mass spectrometric analysis using synthesized (118)Sn-enriched organotin compounds

A new marine sediment certified reference material, NMIJ CRM 7306-a, for butyltin and phenyltin analysis has been prepared and certified by the National Metrological Institute of Japan at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (NMIJ/AIST). Candidate sediment material was collected at a bay near industrial activity in Japan. After air-drying, sieving, and mixing the material was sterilized with γ-ray irradiation. The material was re-mixed and packaged into 250 glass bottles (15 g each) and these were stored in a freezer at −30 °C. Certification was performed by use of three different types of species-specific isotope-dilution mass spectrometry (SSID–MS)—SSID–GC–ICP–MS, SSID–GC–MS, and SSID–LC–ICP–MS, with (118)Sn-enriched organotin compounds synthesized from (118)Sn-enriched metal used as a spike. The (118)Sn-enriched mono-butyltin (MBT), dibutyltin (DBT), and tributyltin (TBT) were synthesized as a mixture whereas the (118)Sn-enriched di-phenyltin (DPhT) and triphenyltin (TPhT) were synthesized individually. Four different extraction methods, mechanical shaking, ultrasonic, microwave-assisted, and pressurized liquid extraction, were adopted to avoid possible analytical bias caused by non-quantitative extraction and degradation or inter-conversion of analytes in sample preparations. Tropolone was used as chelating agent in all the extraction methods. Certified values are given for TBT 44±3 μg kg(−1) as Sn, DBT 51 ± 2 μg kg(−1) as Sn, MBT 67 ± 3 μg kg(−1) as Sn, TPhT 6.9 ± 1.2 μg kg(−1) as Sn, and DPhT 3.4 ± 1.2 μg kg(−1) as Sn. These levels are lower than in other sediment CRMs currently available for analysis of organotin compounds