Regional integration in Latin America, globalization and South-South trade

Includes bibliography

Reducing Legal Uncertainty: A Challenge for Subregional Integration in Latin America and the Caribbean

Despite the recovery in intraregional trade over the past three years, intra-group trade, that is trade within the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Andean Community (CAN) and the Central American Common Market (CACM), remains much weaker than that observed within similar groups in other regions of the world. This weakness is due essentially to the serious lack of complementarity in the process of eliminating tariff barriers (see chapter 3 of Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2004: Trends 2005, and the study on regional integration entitled: "América Latina y El Caribe: La integración regional en la hora de las definiciones", which is due to be published shortly and which updates basic information for the year 2005). The reasons include (a) weak institutional capacities; (b) the lack of macroeconomic coordination; (c) inadequate infrastructure and d) the lack of depth in integration-related trade disciplines.  This edition of the Bulletin reviews the mechanisms for dispute settlement within Mercosur, the Andean Community and CACM with a view to drawing conclusions on the extent to which they are used. In order to reform such mechanisms, consideration should be given to the creation of a single dispute settlement mechanism which would replicate the procedures and regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Regional integration in the Caribbean: The role of trade agreements and structural transformation

Despite having relatively open economies and a dedicated strategic focus on export expansion, Caribbean economies still account for a small proportion of global trade (goods and services). This paper therefore posits that the subregion adopt a new dais of regional integration, which favours deeper trade and economic integration with countries which are the region’s natural trading partners.

Integration in Latin America - Trends and Challenges

Regional trade agreements have had a significant presence in the design of international and productive policies in Latin American and Caribbean countries since the early 1950s. Fifty years later, the region has not reached the degree of economic inter-relation found, for instance, in Western Europe, but the concern with promoting regional integration has been a tradition in an impressive amount of speeches and declarations by policy makers in the last decades. The weakening of multilateral negotiations and the multiplicity of bilateral agreements with countries in other regions might affect regional trade both via trade diversion and through investment decisions, considering a larger time horizon. International capital movement might affect exchange rates and output growth, hence influencing trade. At the same time the need for new, broader negotiating agenda, from simply dealing with trade issues to taking into consideration topics not directly related to trade but rather to competition, labour standards, environmental issues and others increase the difficulties in designing integration strategies. Even more so if the group of countries that aim at integrating their economies present markedly different characteristics. This article – an extension of a presentation made at the German Development Institute Conference on Regional Economic Integration Beyond Europe held in Bonn in December, 2007 - discusses these and other aspects related to regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Estágio supervisionado em Serviço Social: tempos atuais e velhos desafios

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Using a threaded framework to enable practical activities in Operating Systems courses

Teaching Operating Systems (OS) is a rather hard task, since being an OS designer is not a desired goal for most students and the subject demands a large amount of knowledge over system's details. To reduce the difficulty many courses are planned with laboratory practices, differing in how the practices are designed. Some try to implement next-to-real kernels, others use simulators, and even others use synthetic kernels. In this paper an approach based on synthetic kernels is described. It uses thread programming in order to establish control over the operating system components. T his approach allows the kernel to grow following the materials presented in the course. It has been successfully applied in two different courses at our University, the first one being a basic OS course and the second one an upper level course. Results from these applications are presented.

Motivações para a (falta de) escolha pela Licenciatura em Educação Física

The frequent distortion of the teacher education in Physical Education, associating it with technical and sporting aspects, motivated us to initiate a study aimed at understanding the reasons for this misperception. For this, we performed a theoretical study, based on professional formation in Physical Education in Brazil, together with empirical research, located in the lived experience in a training course for teachers of Physical Education. Thus, the views of the students about the reasons for the choice of course, collected in on a questionnaire and literature review, we show the context of lack of choice, rather than a professional identification.

A quantidade de milho influencia na proliferação de gorgulho? aspectos teóricos que subsidiam o processo de construção de dados de uma investigação

The investigative practice as science teaching activity is recognized as an alternative to the learning improvement of science, becoming a perspective of work for teachers. This article arose from a study about the teachers formation process in the scope of investigative practices, conducted with trainee teachers of the Science Club of the Federal University of Pará - UFPA and students of basic education in public schools in Belém city, in order to discuss the theoretical-practical relationship in the planning of an investigative activity. In this process, some episodes indicate the necessity of such relationship, because in its absence the planning process shows itself to be questionable. Our analysis shows the importance of considering the theoretical context to conceive the planning and decisions regarding the conduction of the investigative practices, and oriented to a theoretical or practical goal.