Brazil's rise on the international scene: Brazil and the World

Since Cardoso and during Lula's Administration, the international order has undergone significant changes. These changes have allowed the Brazilian foreign policy to mitigate internal effects of an order established by others and, at the same time, to become an active participant in the formulation of the new order. To democratize globalization became the mainspring of Brazilian foreign policy. In the scope, President Lula has maintained the tradition of formulating and programming foreign policy as a State policy, and also has fostered the logistic strategy of incorporation of Brazil into the international scene.

Japan and India: soft balancing as a reaction to China's rise?

What are Indian and Japanese reactions to China's rise in economic, political and military terms? According to realist tradition, their option would be between balancing and bandwagoning. Applying Stephen Walt's balance of threats approach, this work aims to analyze Indian and Japan responses to an increasingly powerful China; its conclusions point to an evolving relationship between India and Japan, in military terms, especially after 2005.

Peaceful rise and the limits of Chinese exceptionalism

Throughout the last thirty years of opening to the world Beijing has stressed that its rise will be peaceful and that, from a strategic point of view, China is exceptional. There are many challenges facing Beijing's response to the US rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific, but we consider that the ones with greater impact are, in point of fact, of a domestic nature and constitute limits to Chinese exceptionalism.

Rise and fall in ischemic heart disease mortality: it may have happened before

The rise in ischemic heart disease(IHD) mortality occurring mostly during the first half of the 20th century is usually associated with economic development and its consequences for people's lifestyles. On the basis of historical evidence, it is postulated that a previous IHD epidemic cycle may have occurred in England and Wales towards the turn of the nineteenth century. The implications of this on causal theories and current etiological research on atherosclerosis are discussed.

An optically coupled power stimulus isolation unit with high voltage and fast rise time output

Recent technological developments have created new devices that could improve and simplify the construction of stimulus isolators. HEXFET transistors can switch large currents and hundreds of volts in nanoseconds. The newer opto-isolators can give a pulse rise time of a few nanoseconds, with output compatible with MOSFET devices, in which delays are reduced to nanoseconds. Integrated DC/DC converters are now available. Using these new resources we developed a new electrical stimulus isolator circuit with selectable constant-current and constant-voltage modes, which are precise and easy to construct. The circuit works like a regulated power supply in both modes with output switched to zero or to free mode through an opto-isolator device. The isolator analyses showed good practical performance. The output to ground resistance was 1011 ohms and capacitance 35 picofarads. The rise time and fall time were identical (5 µs) and constant. The selectable voltage or current output mode made it very convenient to use. The current mode, with higher output resistance values in low current ranges, permits intracellular stimulation even with tip resistances close to 100 megaohms. The high compliance of 200 V guarantees the value of the current stimulus. The very low output resistance in the voltage mode made the device highly suitable for extracellular stimulation with low impedance electrodes. Most importantly, these characteristics were achieved with a circuit that was easy to build and modify and assembled with components available in Brazil.

Iceland's meltdown: the rise and fall of international banking in the North Atlantic

This paper shows how rapid privatization and liberalization of Iceland's small local banks around 2000, combined with well-developed crony relations among the elite, enabled a small group of financiers to leverage government-guaranteed deposits into a vast wave of mergers and acquisitions abroad, and redistribute enough of the profits back home to make the economy boom. Negative policy feedback loops were systematically undermined. The incoming left-wing government, with IMF support, has managed to protect the bulk of the population from the worst of the effects.