Aplicabilidade da avaliação global subjetiva e malnutrition inflammation score na avaliação do estado nutricional na doença renal crônica

Até o momento, não há um método único capaz de diagnosticar com fidedignidade a condição nutricional do paciente com doença renal crônica (DRC). Por essa razão, tem se recomendado o emprego de vários marcadores nutricionais. A avaliação global subjetiva (AGS) se baseia na história física e no exame clínico do paciente e, desde sua criação, novas versões foram elaboradas. A partir da AGS, foi criado o malnutrition inflammation score (MIS), composto por 70% das questões comuns à AGS acrescido de questões objetivas do estado nutricional. Como muitas modificações foram feitas na forma original da AGS e o emprego tanto da AGS quanto do MIS em pacientes com DRC aumentou significativamente na prática clínica, este trabalho tem como objetivo fazer uma revisão sobre a aplicabilidade desses métodos para avaliação do estado nutricional em pacientes com DRC.

Global booms and busts: how is Brazil's middle class faring?

Brazil's Post War economic history has been marked by inflationary booms and busts, which kept large parts of the population poor, as income distribution remained highly skewed, and most governments failed to put enough efforts and resources into education and health. That seems to have changed recently, as an increasing number of studies have shown considerable advances in the incomes of the lower and the middle classes. This essay examines those findings and puts them into a historical perspective, discussing earlier attempts and hopes of Brazilian policy makers to advance the welfare of the population. It concludes that while the last fifteen years have been remarkable for the country to achieve macroeconomic stability and while the increasing efforts of supporting the poor seemed to have been moving income distribution slowly towards a more equal level, there is still a long way to go. The 2008 world financial crisis also hit Brazil hard, but the recovery has been smoother and faster than in any OECD country. The impact of the current crisis may provide a good test as to the robustness of the previous trends to further the wellbeing of the poor and the middle class

The real mechanisms of the global economy

The paper presents the main arguments of Bresser Pereira's Globalization and Competition. Development strategies based on the 'conventional orthodoxy' are shown to carry serious drawbacks ("Dutch disease", pernicious effects of external saving, currency overvaluation), while a 'new developmentalism' is promoted, in spite of the widespread belief that the nation-states have been dispossessed of their room for manoeuvre because of the globalization process. The "new developmentalism" is based on domestic finance, balanced public budgets, moderate interest rates and competitiveness policies aimed at neutralizing the tendency to exchange rate overappreciation. The paper also points out a few theoretical questions the book raises.

The effects of the global economic crisis in Latin America

The aim of this article is to analyze the current phase of the global crisis and the way it has manifested itself in Latin America. The global crisis is the most important capitalist crisis since World War II. It is a new type of debt-deflation crisis, highlighting the limits of the finance-dominated regime of accumulation and characterized by securitization. Latin American countries have not been immune to the global crisis. Since it sets limits on globalization, the impossibility of maintaining export-driven accumulation sustained by restrictive monetary and fiscal policies becomes clear. This time, there will be no way out in external markets for any country. That fact will force them to restructure productive systems and search for a way out in domestic markets and in regional spaces for integration.

The effects of fiscal policy after the global recession: assessing the evidences

This paper offers a commented review of the most recent empirical studies of the effects of fiscal contraction on economic growth, which have helped underpin the prescription that fiscal policy should be expansionary in coming years in order to contain economic semi-stagnation in the developed countries. The paper shows that there is ample literature showing that fiscal expansion helps the economy grow, and that fiscal contraction tends to reduce output and employment in the short term.

Perspectivas das negociações entre o Mercosul e a União Europeia em um contexto de paralisia do sistema multilateral e da nova geografia econômica global

The aim of this paper is to scale the impact of changes in the patterns of international trade and Foreign Investment and how the shift in the world economic geography affects the relations between Mercosur and the European Union. The perception is that the outcome of negotiations between the two blocks is linked to the paralysis of the multilateral system and the European perspective of the economic dimension of the Agreement. The study suggests that the European Union faces conceptual and operational problems to establish clear goals and business strategies towards Mercosur and to insert them under a new global economic geography.

Global coordination: weighted voting

In order to halt the depletion of global ecological capital, a number of different kinds of meetings between Governments of countries in the world has been scheduled. The need for global coordination of environmental policies has become ever more obvious, supported by more and more evidence of the running down of ecological capital. But there are no formal or binding arrangements in sight, as global environmental coordination suffers from high transaction costs (qualitative voting). The CO2 equivalent emissions, resulting in global warming, are driven by the unstoppable economic expansion in the global market economy, employing mainly fossil fuel generated energy, although at the same time lifting sharply the GDP per capita of several emerging countries. Only global environmental coordination on the successful model of the World Band and the IMF (quantitative voting) can stem the rising emissions numbers and stop further environmental degradation. However, the system of weighted voting in the WB and the IMF must be reformed by reducing the excessive voting power disparities, for instance by reducing all member country votes by the cube root expression.

A política industrial chinesa como determinante de sua estratégia going global

China has experienced not only high rates of economic growth as well as an unprecedented competitive international insertion since the turn of the century. This process was not guided solely by market forces or influenced by Government intervention in the economy. Although much has been argued that China's "going global" strategy is rooted in state action, and especially its policy of exchange rate depreciation and trade policy incentives for exports and investments abroad, we argue that the major determinant of this strategy, which established the basic conditions for industrial competitiveness, was its industrial policy. The focus of this article is on the changes in China's industrial structure, emphasizing that Chinese industrial policy is a central determinant of its international insertion strategy.

Crise global, mudanças geopolíticas e inserção do Brasil

This paper has as its purpose to analyze the insertion of Brazil in the international economic order, considering the fundaments of the world power, the global crisis, the geopolitical changes and their consequences on the global order. The text attempts to present the advantages and structural challenges for an adequate international insertion of technology are the key elements in a process of economic and social innovation whose goals are to build a richer society, more just and compassionate, and environmentally sustainable.

Economic stagnation in the United States: underlying causes and global consequences

This paper analyzes the causes of the slow recovery of the US economy since the financial crisis and Great Recession of 2008-9. Fallen house values and excessive household debts continue to depress consumer spending, while corporations are failing to invest in spite of record profits. The increasingly unequal distribution of income limits demand, while long-term structural transformations continue to erode employment creation. An expansionary monetary policy has been incapable of sparking a more robust recovery and fiscal policy has been shifted to an austerity stance. In this context, Brazil and other emerging market nations cannot count on the United States to continue to be the leading source of global demand as it was in previous decades.

Global instability of currencies: reasons and perspectives according to the state-corporation hegemonic stability theory

This paper analyses reasons of the instability of the world monetary system. The author considers this problem from historical and contemporary perspectives. According to presented point of view banknotes and electronic money which replaced gold and silver coins in popular circulation are the most important reason of the instability. There are also proven positive and negative consequences of money instability. Reforms of the world monetary system need agreement within the global collective hegemony of state-powers and transnational corporations.

Neoliberalism and global capital mobility: a necessary reconsideration of textbook trade theory

Textbook theory ignores capital flows: trade determines exchange rates and specialisation. Approaches taking the effects of capital movements adequately into account are needed, and a new theory of economic policy including measures to protect the real economy from external volatility. Equilibrating textbook mechanisms cannot work unless trade-caused surpluses and deficits set exchange rates. To allow orthodox trade theory to work one must hinder capital flows from destroying its very basis, which the IMF and wrong regulatory decisions have done, penalising production and trade. A new, real economy based theory is proposed, a Neoclassical agenda of controlling capital flows and speculation.