Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson production in association with top quarks in pp collisions at 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The search for the production of the Higgs boson associated with a pair of top quarks in the ATLAS experiment is presented. It focuses on Higgs bosons decaying to $b\bar{b}$ and events containing two leptons (electrons and/or muons). It uses 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2012. No significant excess of events is found and the 95% CL observed (expected) limit is 7.0xSM (4.3xSM). After combining with the single lepton final state an observed (expected) limit of 4.1xSM (2.6xSM) with a best fit of $\mu=1.7\pm1.4$ is obtained.Comment: TOP 2014 workshop, ATL-PHYS-PROC-2014-26

Commissioning of the ATLAS reconstruction software with first data

Looking towards first LHC collisions, the ATLAS detector is being commissioned using the physics data available: cosmic rays and data taken during the LHC single beam operations at 450 GeV. During the installation of the ATLAS detector in the cavern, cosmic rays were collected with the different parts of the detector that were available. Combined cosmic runs taken with the full installed detector with and without magnetic field as well as a few single beam events recently recorded are being used to commission the full system prior to the first proton collisions.Comment: ICHEP08, 5 pages, 11 figure

A bayesian approach to simultaneously recover camera pose and non-rigid shape from monocular images

© . This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/In this paper we bring the tools of the Simultaneous Localization and Map Building (SLAM) problem from a rigid to a deformable domain and use them to simultaneously recover the 3D shape of non-rigid surfaces and the sequence of poses of a moving camera. Under the assumption that the surface shape may be represented as a weighted sum of deformation modes, we show that the problem of estimating the modal weights along with the camera poses, can be probabilistically formulated as a maximum a posteriori estimate and solved using an iterative least squares optimization. In addition, the probabilistic formulation we propose is very general and allows introducing different constraints without requiring any extra complexity. As a proof of concept, we show that local inextensibility constraints that prevent the surface from stretching can be easily integrated. An extensive evaluation on synthetic and real data, demonstrates that our method has several advantages over current non-rigid shape from motion approaches. In particular, we show that our solution is robust to large amounts of noise and outliers and that it does not need to track points over the whole sequence nor to use an initialization close from the ground truth.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

How secular staganation can affect income class structure in european countries: institutional and policy implications

In recent years, there has been increasing debate about the low economic growth and the risk of secular stagnation in economically advanced countries. Some authors point out possible links between secular stagnation and income inequality, causally in both directions. Taking as a reference point the theoretical literature on the relationship between economic growth and income distribution, this study examines the extent to which different levels of economic growth are associated with the income class structure in European countries between 1993 and 2016, focusing on income distribution before taxes and transfers (market incomes). We highlight that in recession periods the size and income share of the middle class decrease, while the opposite occurs in periods with strong economic growth rates. Nevertheless, when growth rates are modest the patterns are much less clearly defined. Some policy and institutional implications are discussed in order to tackle the concerns of secular stagnation and inequality simultaneously.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Disparities in entrepreneurship indicators across EU countries

The levels and characteristics of entrepreneurship differ widely across EU member countries due to diverse cultural, educational, economic-financial and institutional reasons. Taking as reference data provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), this paper analyzes the disparities in entrepreneurship indicators among the EU member countries in 2007 and 2013, highlighting the most significant changes occurred during the Great Recession. For this purpose, some of the major indices of inequality have been calculated, namely the Gini, Theil and Atkinson indices. In addition, the change in the Gini coefficient between these two years is additively decomposed into mobility and progressivity components, and growth incidence curves of some key indicators of entrepreneurial activity are estimated. Overall, we find that inequality among countries in most entrepreneurial attitude and aspiration indicators tends to diminish over the period 2007-2013. For all indicators the reduction is more generalized across the efficiency-driven economies than across the innovation-driven economies.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Entrepreneurship and Economic Liberalization in the OECD Countries

Entrepreneurship displays remarkable differences across countries because of diverse factors. In this sense, it is frequently argued that economic liberalization encourages entrepreneurship. In this paper we address the extent to which economic freedom, understood as market economy oriented institutions and policies, matters for entrepreneurial activity through a panel data analysis for 78 countries during the period 2001-2012. We examine the relationship between the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom index and its five areas, and three entrepreneurial activity indicators from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, namely total entrepreneurial activity, necessity entrepreneurship and opportunity entrepreneurship. Economic freedom seems to increase opportunity entrepreneurship and decrease necessity entrepreneurship. Focusing on the OECD countries, we highlight that economic freedom is positively associated with entrepreneurship. In terms of entrepreneurship motivation, we find that a more flexible regulation of credit, labor and business, as well as entrepreneurial attitudes, may contribute to enhance opportunity entrepreneurshipUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Institutional diversity in the euro area: Any evidence of convergence?

In recent years differences in the institutional structure across euro area countries are becoming a cause of concern both for some individual Member States and for the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). From a global competitiveness perspective, we deal with the diversity in the institutional environment in the EMU. In particular, we assess whether the changes in the state of institutions provide convergence across euro area countries between 2006 and 2015. In addition, among the institutional indicators considered, we compute which institutional aspect contributes more to overall inequality in the state of institutions, as well as the contribution of each country to inequality considering as benchmark the country with the highest institutional quality. According to these country contributions, we highlight distinct patterns of convergence between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ euro area countries and raise potential links between the institutional changes across euro area countries and both the differences in the intensity of the financial and economic crisis, and the policy responses in terms of fiscal consolidation applied by the respective national governments.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Does economic freedom increase income inequality? Evidence from the EU countries

Over the past decades there have been considerable changes in policies and institutions in favor of economic freedom in the EU countries. This trend coincides with widespread increases in income inequality in numerous member states. To what extent does economic freedom encourage inequality? This paper examines the relationship between economic freedom and income inequality in the EU countries using panel data for the 2000s. The empirical evidence suggests that economic freedom seems to entail greater income inequality. However, not all areas of economic freedom affect income distribution similarly. While government size and regulation appear to be robustly associated with income inequality, legal system and property rights, sound money, and freedom to trade internationally seem not to be significantly related with income distribution in the European context.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

E-Cognocracy and the Participation of Immigrants in E-Governance

This paper develops a new approach for a political support system related to the integration of immigrants using e-governance. Through the Internet the participation of immigrants is possible in both societies, the original and the new one, and at the three different levels: local, regional and national. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), we discuss how to consider immigrants as e-citizens and, through a questionnaire, and we measure the relative importance of these attributes for party decision makers. The focus of this paper is less on technological aspects of e-decision making, or the diffusion of knowledge and e-learning; Rather on the new aspects as how to integrate immigrants in e-governance. The mission is to increase the society-oriented knowledge derived from participatory decision-making and to increase the background and the scope of the learning process that goes along with the modification of the initial preferences in the interactive political resolution process.E-cognocracy, E-democracy, E-citizen, E-participation, Immigration, Knowledge society