Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: A Preference-based Lucas Critique of Public Policy

Policies and explicit private incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social preferences. Evidence from 51 experimental studies indicates that this crowding out effect is pervasive, and that crowding in also occurs. A model in which self-regarding and social preferences may be either substitutes or complements is developed and evidence for the mechanisms underlying this non-additivity feature of preferences is provided. The result is a preference-based analogue to the Lucas Critique restricting feasible implementation to allocations that are supportable given the effect of incentives on preferences.public goods, behavioural experiments, social preferences, second best, motivational crowding, explicit incentives

Smile detection in the wild based on transfer learning

Smile detection from unconstrained facial images is a specialized and challenging problem. As one of the most informative expressions, smiles convey basic underlying emotions, such as happiness and satisfaction, which lead to multiple applications, e.g., human behavior analysis and interactive controlling. Compared to the size of databases for face recognition, far less labeled data is available for training smile detection systems. To leverage the large amount of labeled data from face recognition datasets and to alleviate overfitting on smile detection, an efficient transfer learning-based smile detection approach is proposed in this paper. Unlike previous works which use either hand-engineered features or train deep convolutional networks from scratch, a well-trained deep face recognition model is explored and fine-tuned for smile detection in the wild. Three different models are built as a result of fine-tuning the face recognition model with different inputs, including aligned, unaligned and grayscale images generated from the GENKI-4K dataset. Experiments show that the proposed approach achieves improved state-of-the-art performance. Robustness of the model to noise and blur artifacts is also evaluated in this paper

Transnational Memory of the Atlantic Slave Trade Today: Modes of Remembering in Three Lusophone Nations

From the 15th century up until the 19th century, millions of enslaved Africans were forcibly taken from their homes to the Americas and, to a lesser extent, to Europe. The remnant effects of slavery have persisted in these societies and remain evident today. This paper examines the transnational Memory of the Atlantic slave trade today and its modes of remembering through palimpsests of Memory in three Lusophone nations: Angola, Brazil, and Portugal. Using Astrid Erll’s outline (2010) on Memory studies, this thesis argues that there are different modes of remembering the past according to the distinct positions occupied within the world system. This thesis thereby proposes the notion of palimpsests of Memory, as a parallel with Pierre Nora’s (1996) Lieux de mémoire, as mediums of remembering that elicit those modes. To this end, three cases are compared: Angolan poetry, capoeira practice in Brazil, and the urban toponymy in Lisbon (the capital city of Portugal). The double structure of the palimpsest presented by Sarah Dillon (2005) will be used for this analysis. The following three modes of remembering are analyzed and discussed from a transnational perspective: the defiant, the heterogeneous, and the nostalgic. This juxtaposed analysis demonstrates how Memory constitutes a representation that is affected by diverse social and cultural frameworks in which it is situated

Training needs of the agricultural assistants (Practicos agricolas) in the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA).

Maestría en CienciasMaestrí

Grado de madurez organizacional en la gerencia de proyectos de Industrias Haceb S. A.: plan de acción

Emplear herramientas que ayuden a determinar en qué nivel de madurez se encuentra la PMO de una organización es un beneficio para el desarrollo de capacidades internas, el mejoramiento del desempeño como empresa y del logro de las metas corporativas acorde con el cuadro de mando integral -- Industrias Haceb S. A., es un piloto para evaluar ese grado de madurez en la gerencia de sus proyectos, buscando por medio del modelo Prado (Prado–PMMM) identificar el nivel en el que se encuentra actualmente su PMO y partiendo de esto, elaborar un plan de acción -- Este proceso inició con la selección del modelo a aplicar, en este caso el Prado – PMMM, el cual, como otros modelos, se sustenta en el hecho de que la empresa debe pasar por diferentes niveles para lograr su excelencia en el desempeño, y ésta se obtiene en la implementación natural de la mejora continua de la PMO -- El encontrar el nivel de madurez impacta directamente a la PMO, responsable de estandarizar los procesos relacionados con los proyectos y que soportado con información gerencial puede permitir la toma de decisiones -- La PMO de Industrias Haceb S. A. deberá evolucionar y pasar por diferentes niveles de madurez como forma de preparación para que esta oficina se convierta en el apoyo fundamental en la ejecución de la estrategia de la empres

Helping the Helpers: Altruism As A Rational Choice of Donors to A Students Voluntary Organization

Altruism, understood as the individual disposition to sacrifice personal income to improve someone else´s income can be a rational choice strategy which responds to different motivations, incentives and institutions, in a consistent way with the donor´s optimization logic. In this article we extend the Andreoni and Miller´s experimental design (2002) using a modified Dictator game and we applied it to 470 students from several universities and different majors, years of study and level of income who can donate part of their income to the Bella Flor Foundation (http://www.bellaflor.org/), a real nonprofit organization founded by a group of college students whose mission is to promote the integral development of the children from Bella Flor, Paraíso and Mirador neighborhoods through social activities in education, health care, recreation, and exalting human values". We test the consistency of the player´s decisions with the axioms of revealed preferences, and with the effects of relative prices and income. We also evaluate the violation of consistency of the axioms and estimate the demand functions for altruism towards this charity, with policy implications related to the optimal design for fundraising strategies. Our results confirm that a significant fraction of individuals show consistent decisions, i.e. that donations to these charities behave as "normal goods" in price and income effects and with rather small number of violations of the axioms of revealed preferences. However, the experimental data suggests that revealing the identity of the donor can decrease altruism and induce more violations of the axioms of consistent behavior mentioned."altruism, experimental economics, consistency, GARP, Charity, dictator game, Bella Flor.

A temperature-dependent control program for the omnivorous leaf roller Platynota stultana Walsingham (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) in commercial rose production.

Flores y ornamentalesDoctor of PhilosophyDoctorad

Alcance del control interno en la cartera del sector asegurador

El ensayo tiene como finalidad mostrar las diferentes situaciones de riesgo que deben contemplar los modelos de control interno en la cartera del sector asegurador colombiano y que, para mitigar las irregularidades, deben permanecer en constante revisión. Para esto se mostraran los diferentes escenarios en los cuales se puede incurrir en fraudes, específicamente desde las operaciones de cobranza y recaudo de las primas de pólizas de seguro, sumado hasta dónde se puede soportar legalmente las acciones del control interno y su alcance dentro de los procesos de recuperación de carter

Morpho-physiological analysis of adaptive responses of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) to drought stress. Thesis (Ph.D.)

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most important food legume in the diet of poor people in the tropics. This legume is cultivated by small farmers and is usually exposed to unfavorable conditions with minimum use of inputs. Drought and low soil fertility, especially phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) deficiencies, are major limitations to bean yield in smallholder systems. Beans can derive part of their required N from the atmosphere through symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF). Drought stress severely limits SNF ability of plants. Identification of traits associated with drought resistance contributes to improving the process of designing bean genotypes adapted to these conditions. Field studies were conducted at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Palmira, Colombia to determine the relationship between grain yield and different parameters in elite lines selected for drought resistance over the past decade. The selected traits were effective use of water (EUW), canopy biomass, remobilization of photosynthates to grain (pod partitioning index, harvest index and pod harvest index) and SNF ability. Moreover, in field trials we also validated the use of 15N natural abundance in grain tissue to quantify phenotypic differences in SNF ability for its implementation in breeding programs aiming to improve SNF in common bean. Carbon isotope discrimination (CID) was used for estimation of water use efficiency (WUE) and effective use of water (EUW). A set of 36 bean genotypes belonging to the Middle American gene pool were evaluated under field conditions with two levels of water supply (irrigated and rainfed) over two seasons. Additionally, a greenhouse study was conducted at CIAT using plastic cylinders with soil inserted into PVC pipes, to determine the relationship between grain yield and different root parameters such as total root length, fine root production and visual root growth rate in same group of elite lines under drought stress. Eight bean lines (NCB 280, NCB 226, SEN 56, SCR 2, SCR 16, SMC 141, RCB 593 and BFS 67) were identified as resistant to drought stress. Resistance to terminal drought stress was positively associated with EUW combined with a deeper and vigorous root system, better plant growth, and superior mobilization of photosynthates to pod and seed production, but negatively associated with days to flowering and days to physiological maturity. Based on phenotypic differences in CID, leaf stomatal conductance, canopy biomass and grain yield under drought stress, the tested lines were classified into two groups, water savers and water spenders. These groups also differ in their root characteristics, water spenders with a vigorous and deeper root system and water savers genotypes with a moderate to shallow root system and more presence of fine roots. We used 15N natural abundance method to compare SNF ability estimated from shoot tissue sampled at mid-pod filling growth stage vs. grain tissue sampled at harvest. The results showed a significant positive correlation between nitrogen derived from the atmosphere (Ndfa), estimated using shoot tissue at mid-pod filling, and Ndfa estimated using grain tissue at harvest. The method showed phenotypic variability in SNF ability under both drought and irrigated conditions. A significant reduction in SNF ability was observed under drought stress. We suggest that the method of estimating Ndfa using grain tissue (Ndfa-G) can be applied in bean breeding programs to improve SNF ability. Using this method of Ndfa-G, we identified four bean lines (RCB 593, SEA 15, NCB 226 and BFS 29) that combine greater SNF ability with higher grain yield under drought stress. These lines could serve as potential parents to further improve SNF ability of common bean. Better SNF ability under drought stress was related with superior presence of thick roots. Superior N uptake from the soil was associated with a large root system with more presence of fine roots. Pod harvest index, grain CID and Ndfa using grain tissue could be a useful selection criterion in breeding programs to select for drought resistance in common bean

Economic incentives and social preferences: A reference-based Lucas critique of public policy

Policies and explicit incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social preferences. Evidence from 51 experimental studies indicates that this crowding out effect is pervasive, and that crowding in also occurs. A model in which self-regarding and social preferences may be either substitutes or complements is developed and evidence for the mechanisms underlying this non-additivity feature of preferences is provided. The result is a preference-based analogue to the Lucas Critique restricting feasible implementation to allocations that are supportable given the effect of incentives on preferences