Abstract: Electric vehicles (EVs) have gained great popularity in recent years in the United States. The reduction in the cost of EVs and the environmental regulations that seek to reduce the polluting gases generated by conventional petrol/diesel cars drive up the demand for electric vehicles. The traditional idea is to consider EVs as energy consumers, however Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) is a technology that allows the batteries of parked EVs to operate as energy sources. V2G technology allows to store energy in EVs and then release it when this energy is needed. The implementation of V2G technologies can provide benefits to utility companies but also presents a series of challenges that must be analyzed and evaluated. V2G technology has a great potential to help Austin Energy use the energy stored in the EVs. This research focuses on the status of charging systems for EVs in Austin, the basic aspects of V2G technology, the standards related to V2G, and aims to provide specific and valuable applications of V2G technology for Austin Energy.

Abstract: The marketplaces of Bogotá are facing a decrease in frequency and a stiff competition against supermarket chains. In addition, the problems are related to various historical events, conceptions, and social and cultural changes that the city and its inhabitants have had since it’s beginning. The extinction of these spaces would endanger the disappearance of a part of the cultural identity of Colombians. In addition, it’s a space in the city where there is an interaction of all social classes, it is also the bearer of the country's local food and therefore carries part of the gastronomical heritage, which depends of the basic family basket of the country. This directly affects the rural economy, especially farmers and low-income people. Seeing this problem, my intention is to reach a solution through an architectural proposal that aims to recover the intangible cultural heritage of the marketplaces. With an urban-architectural design of a new market conception located in the neighborhood of Usaquén at the north of Bogotá, the objective is to create an urban detonator that transforms the dynamics of this sector by changing the mentality of its citizens about the conception they usually have about the markets; generate social sustainability in terms of the fight against social segregation; generate economic sustainability by competing directly with supermarket chains, directly supporting the rural economy; and finally creating a sustainable design of the building with an emphasis on the collection of rainwater and the use of solar panels.

The cities are composed by a series of complex networks of relationships that shape an urban fabric based on the social condition developing around the territory. The urbanism that rules most human establishments today, can be clearly differentiated by the conditions in which the inhabitants have appropriated the spaces that constitute the urban centers. In the case of the city of Bogotá, the contrasting territory is notorious. The capital district stands as the largest urban center in the country, which has a great historical, economic, and social burden and yet stands out strongly for its anti-value of urban deterioration. Within the rest of the city, some sectors coexist despite of being on undergoing process of deterioration because of urbanistic and social reasons that determined the spatialization of the crime and marginal dynamics. This issue has spread and become more complex over time. The areas called “ollas”, remind the city the consequences of oblivion and indifference toward broken zones, and at the same time, set an opportunity to transform the urban environment through architectural actions. “Ollas” urban phenomenon in the city of Bogotá, intends to analyze the cases known as “ollas” in the Colombian capital scenario, understanding these urban decay cases from an abstract concept applied to an area of high complexity where spatial, institutional and social factors converge and result in a built territory inhabited by vulnerable populations isolated from legality and conventional city dynamics; the above, with the aim of generating an urban and architectural proposal in the character of a model of acting based on the analysis of causes and effects of the entire system.

Abstract: In this work, we proposed a new approach for learning legged locomotion for any legged robot, in the sagittal plane, by using a combination of classical control techniques and reinforcement learning. Specifically, we use optimal control of the low-order model Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum (SLIP), for the planning and generation of expert reference trajectories that resemble the ideal dynamics of animals in nature, and a control policy that learns to imitate these ideal dynamics. The objective of this approach is to provide a generic methodology for learning legged locomotion, that is flexible enough to be applied to robots with different morphological properties, and reduces the impact of simulation inaccuracies in the emergence of unnatural controlled gaits.

Abstract: Colombia’s Constitutional Assembly enacted a constitution in 1991 whose text and application are regarded around the world as among the best examples of socioeconomic constitutionalism in the last three decades. Despite rising interest in the structural causes of economic inequality at both global and domestic levels, Colombian constitutional scholarship has not yet offered an account of the role of the current constitutional design in addressing economic inequality. In this paper, I show that the drafters of the Constitution of 1991 were deeply concerned with economic inequality and considered the problem from several angles. However, they did not agree on a structural plan with coherent tools to address it and avoid forces in the executive and the legislative branches, usually influenced by international agendas, undermine that purpose. As a result, after thirty years, the Assembly’s economic egalitarian aspirations are far from being achieved and Colombia is still among the most unequal countries on earth. Thus, the Colombian constitution-making experience provides a warning about how unclear and weak agreements in constitutional drafting when addressing economic inequality can be an obstacle to overcome it, especially in contexts that demand radical solutions.

Abstract: Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) and their governing structures are responsible not only to their shareholders but to a wide variety of stakeholders due to the scale of their business activities and their impact on societal and environmental levels. This study builds on such premise and investigates the relationship between the educational background of MNEs chief executive officers – CEOs and the firm’s corporate social performance (CSP). It also examines whether this relationship is moderated by the organizational visibility of the firm and/or by the institutional quality of the country where it is headquartered. First, while prior literature has predominantly focused on demographic characteristics of the firm’s dominant coalition that are likely to influence the company’s engagement with CSR activities, the current study examines their impact on the social performance of the company. Particularly, it focuses on the CEOs education background as a construct of both level and field of education. Second, building on the ‘upper-echelons’ and the stakeholder’s theories, the study theorizes and empirically investigates the mentioned relationships through a quantitative approach using a sample comprised by the Fortune Global 500. The study reveals that there is no significant correlation between CEOs educational background and firm’s CSP. Moreover, that neither the institutional quality nor the organizational visibility have a moderating effect on said relationship. Results are discussed and suggestions are made for further research. Resumen: Las empresas multinacionales (EMN) y sus estructuras de gobierno son responsables no sólo ante sus accionistas sino ante una gran variedad de partes interesadas debido a la escala de sus actividades comerciales y su impacto en la sociedad y el medio ambiente. El estudio se basa en tal premisa e investiga la relación entre la formación académica de los directores ejecutivos de las empresas multinacionales y el desempeño social empresarial de la compañía. Así mismo, examina si esta relación está moderada por la visibilidad organizacional de la firma y / o por la calidad institucional del país donde tiene su sede principal. En primer lugar, aunque la literatura previa se ha centrado predominantemente en las características demográficas de la coalición dominante de la empresa, las cuales tienden a influenciar los niveles de compromiso de la compañía con las actividades de responsabilidad social empresarial – RSE, el estudio actual examina su impacto en el desempeño social de la empresa. En particular, se centra en la formación académica de los directores ejecutivos, entendiéndola como una construcción de dos elementos a saber, el campo de estudio y el nivel educativo. En segundo lugar, basándose en las teorías de las ‘coaliciones dominantes’ y de los grupos de interés, el estudio teoriza e investiga empíricamente las relaciones mencionadas a través de un enfoque cuantitativo utilizando una muestra compuesta por las empresas del ‘Fortune Global 500’. El estudio revela que no existe una correlación significativa entre la formación académica de los directores ejecutivos y el desempeño social empresarial de las compañías. Adicionalmente, que ni la calidad institucional ni la visibilidad organizacional tienen un efecto moderador sobre dicha relación. Se discuten los resultados y se hacen sugerencias para futuras investigaciones.

Abstract: This paper seeks to determine whether stocks markets from Chile, Colombia and Peru present herding behavior, and what might be reasons behind it. The study is divided in two parts: a quantitative and a qualitative one. The quantitative uses an OLS model, whose objective is to determine the relationship between the average market return and the returns dispersion, as measured by the Cross-Sectional Absolute Deviation. The qualitative one seeks to dig into the available information to find the reasons behind the results of the OLS model. The results of the quantitative model are clear for Peru, market that shows significant herding signs for most of the different scenarios. Chile shows herding during days of low traded volume, while Colombia does not evidence any kind of herding. There are two main reasons that could explain those results: information availability and type of investors. The first refers to the scarcity of company specific information and the low credibility of investors on it. The second, refers to tremendous influence institutional investors exert when they are the predominant player in a stock market. In the three markets, AFP’s – pension funds – control most of the trading activity, reason why they behavior shapes the existence or non-existence of herd behavior. Some general reasons such as the size of the markets, the low diversification and the corruption level, help explain why AFP’s might herd. Each country has additional specific explanations: Chile shares characteristics of developed and developing markets; Colombia has important players that are part of both the supply and demand of stocks; Peru is the textbook representation of stock markets in developing economies.

Resumen: A través de la investigación en un barrio de Estambul y sus transformaciones físicas y sociales se plantea un proyecto que parte de la lectura del entorno construido. El entendimiento del mismo y de su valor arquitectónico (el valor de la no-arquitectura) genera un diálogo entre lo propuesto y lo existente. El edificio resultante sirve de marco para dar un nuevo significado a aquello que está ahí pero pasa desapercibido, transformando algo común en algo inusual. El objeto arquitectónico se convierte en una exploración en sí mismo, e intenta generar nuevas relaciones espaciales, retando convenciones establecidas por la arquitectura. El proyecto explora nuevas maneras en las que pueden habitarse y apropiarse tanto los espacios exteriores como interiores del edificio, un poco más cercanas a la forma en la que puede ocurrir en la arquitectura espontánea e informal de ciudades como Estambul. Abstract: Through the research of a neighborhood in Istanbul and its physical and social transformations, a project is proposed from the reading of the built environment. Its understanding and its architectural value (the value of the non-architecture) produces a dialog between what is proposed and the existent. The resulting building works as a frame to give a new meaning to what is already there but isn’t seen, making the common, uncommon. The architectural object becomes an exploration within itself and tries to generate new spatial relations, which challenge the conventions established by architecture. The project explores new ways in which both the exterior and interior spaces can be appropriated, closer to what can happen in the informal or spontaneous architecture of cities like Istanbul.

The present study is aimed at finding out the differences between Colombian and peninsular Spanish regarding pronominal address. 40 Colombians (20 males and 20 females) and 20 Spanish (10 males and 10 females) participated in an experiment in which they were presented with role play situations and they had to give and answer to the interlocutor mentioned in the description. It was found that Colombians used ustedeo more frequently than the Spanish since they use it to address all kinds of interlocutors and when expressing commands, reproaches or negative emotions such as anger or annoyance. On the other hand, the Spanish used tuteo more frequently than the Colombians, using ustedeo mainly to address older acquaintances, older strangers and people with a higher status.

Abstract: In recent years Colombia has attracted worldwide attention for its promising economy, for its flourishing cities, and more recently because of the peace talks with rebel groups. In spite of its thriving economy, Colombia is among the Latin American countries with the highest levels of inequality. Scholars from different fields have addressed this problem and it has also become part of the national agenda to find strategies to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Through the analysis of cityscapes and representations of the built environment produced during the 1930s and 1940s in Bogotá, this research presents an approach from the perspective of aesthetics to the problem of inequality. Through discourse analysis this dissertation shows how the images produced during the early capitalist period of Bogotá reflect the social tensions and configured a scenario of symbolic violence that would lead to the actual violence that erupted by the end of the 1940s. The results show the correlation between one type of violence and the other and how they would settle the basis to silently perpetuate a system of classes and inequality reflected in the cityscape.