Regional climate change mitigation with crops: context and assessment

The intention of this review is to place crop albedo biogeoengineering in the wider picture of climate manipulation. Crop biogeoengineering is considered within the context of the long-term modification of the land surface for agriculture over several thousand years. Biogeoengineering is also critiqued in relation to other geoengineering schemes in terms of mitigation power and adherence to social principles for geoengineering. Although its impact is small and regional, crop biogeoengineering could be a useful and inexpensive component of an ensemble of geoengineering schemes to provide temperature mitigation. The method should not detrimentally affect food security and there may even be positive impacts on crop productivity, although more laboratory and field research is required in this area to understand the underlying mechanisms.

The "value" of property rights in social security law

This article provides a critical examination of the way that property rules are applied judicially in the context of social security law concerned with the assessment of capital, and especially in connection with the determination of ownership and the valuation of assets, which can have a critical bearing on entitlement to various means-tested benefits.

Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change

Water scarcity severely impairs food security and economic prosperity in many countries today. Expected future population changes will, in many countries as well as globally, increase the pressure on available water resources. On the supply side, renewable water resources will be affected by projected changes in precipitation patterns, temperature, and other climate variables. Here we use a large ensemble of global hydrological models (GHMs) forced by five global climate models and the latest greenhouse-gas concentration scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways) to synthesize the current knowledge about climate change impacts on water resources. We show that climate change is likely to exacerbate regional and global water scarcity considerably. In particular, the ensemble average projects that a global warming of 2 degrees C above present (approximately 2.7 degrees C above preindustrial) will confront an additional approximate 15% of the global population with a severe decrease in water resources and will increase the number of people living under absolute water scarcity (< 500 m(3) per capita per year) by another 40% (according to some models, more than 100%) compared with the effect of population growth alone. For some indicators of moderate impacts, the steepest increase is seen between the present day and 2 degrees C, whereas indicators of very severe impacts increase unabated beyond 2 degrees C. At the same time, the study highlights large uncertainties associated with these estimates, with both global climate models and GHMs contributing to the spread. GHM uncertainty is particularly dominant in many regions affected by declining water resources, suggesting a high potential for improved water resource projections through hydrological model development.

Metabolomic assessment with CE-MS of the nutraceutical effect of Cystoseira spp extracts in an animal model

There is a need of scientific evidence of claimed nutraceutical effects, but also there is a social movement towards the use of natural products and among them algae are seen as rich resources. Within this scenario, the development of methodology for rapid and reliable assessment of markers of efficiency and security of these extracts is necessary. The rat treated with streptozotocin has been proposed as the most appropriate model of systemic oxidative stress for studying antioxidant therapies. Cystoseira is a brown alga containing fucoxanthin and other carothenes whose pressure-assisted extracts were assayed to discover a possible beneficial effect on complications related to diabetes evolution in an acute but short-term model. Urine was selected as the sample and CE-TOF-MS as the analytical technique to obtain the fingerprints in a non-target metabolomic approach. Multivariate data analysis revealed a good clustering of the groups and permitted the putative assignment of compounds statistically significant in the classification. Interestingly a group of compounds associated to lysine glycation and cleavage from proteins was found to be increased in diabetic animals receiving vehicle as compared to control animals receiving vehicle (N6, N6, N6-trimethyl-L-lysine, N-methylnicotinamide, galactosylhydroxylysine, L-carnitine, N6-acetyl-N6-hydroxylysine, fructose-lysine, pipecolic acid, urocanic acid, amino-isobutanoate, formylisoglutamine. Fructoselysine significantly decreased after the treatment changing from a 24% increase to a 19% decrease. CE-MS fingerprinting of urine has provided a group of compounds different to those detected with other techniques and therefore proves the necessity of a cross-platform analysis to obtain a broad view of biological samples.

Modeling Information Diffusion in University Libraries: Assessing Peer Interaction Patterns as a Complex Dynamic System

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

Immigration, security and the public debate on US language policy : a critical discourse analysis of language attitudes in the United States of America

The narrative of the United States is of a "nation of immigrants" in which the language shift patterns of earlier ethnolinguistic groups have tended towards linguistic assimilation through English. In recent years, however, changes in the demographic landscape and language maintenance by non-English speaking immigrants, particularly Hispanics, have been perceived as threats and have led to calls for an official English language policy.This thesis aims to contribute to the study of language policy making from a societal security perspective as expressed in attitudes regarding language and identity originating in the daily interaction between language groups. The focus is on the role of language and American identity in relation to immigration. The study takes an interdisciplinary approach combining language policy studies, security theory, and critical discourse analysis. The material consists of articles collected from four newspapers, namely USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle between April 2006 and December 2007.Two discourse types are evident from the analysis namely Loyalty and Efficiency. The former is mainly marked by concerns of national identity and contains speech acts of security related to language shift, choice and English for unity. Immigrants are represented as dehumanised, and harmful. Immigration is given as sovereignty-related, racial, and as war. The discourse type of Efficiency is mainly instrumental and contains speech acts of security related to cost, provision of services, health and safety, and social mobility. Immigrants are further represented as a labour resource. These discourse types reflect how the construction of the linguistic 'we' is expected to be maintained. Loyalty is triggered by arguments that the collective identity is threatened and is itself used in reproducing the collective 'we' through hegemonic expressions of monolingualism in the public space and semi-public space. The denigration of immigrants is used as a tool for enhancing societal security through solidarity and as a possible justification for the denial of minority rights. Also, although language acquisition patterns still follow the historical trend of language shift, factors indicating cultural separateness such as the appearance of speech communities or the use of minority languages in the public space and semi-public space have led to manifestations of intolerance. Examples of discrimination and prejudice towards minority groups indicate that the perception of worth of a shared language differs from the actual worth of dominant language acquisition for integration purposes. The study further indicates that the efficient working of the free market by using minority languages to sell services or buy labour is perceived as conflicting with nation-building notions since it may create separately functioning sub-communities with a new cultural capital recognised as legitimate competence. The discourse types mainly represent securitising moves constructing existential threats. The perception of threat and ideas of national belonging are primarily based on a zero-sum notion favouring monolingualism. Further, the identity of the immigrant individual is seen as dynamic and adaptable to assimilationist measures whereas the identity of the state and its members are perceived as static. Also, the study shows that debates concerning language status are linked to extra-linguistic matters. To conclude, policy makers in the US need to consider the relationship between four factors, namely societal security based on collective identity, individual/human security, human rights, and a changing linguistic demography, for proposed language intervention measures to be successful.

The effect of social security, demography and technology on retirement

This article investigates the causes in the reduction of labor force participation of the old. We argue that the changes in social security policy, in technology and in demography may account for most of the changes in retirement over the second part of the last century in the U.S. economy. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds social security legislation. The model is able to match very closely the increase in the retirement rate of males aged 65 and older. It also quanti es the isolated impact on retirement and on the solvency of the social security system of the di¤erent factors. The model suggests that technological and demographic changes had a strong in uence on retirement, so that it would have increased signi cantly even if the social security rules had not changed. However, as the latter became much more generous in the past, changes in social security policy can account not only for a sizeable part of the expansion of retirement, but also for the most of the observed increase in the social security expenses as a share of GDP.

The effect of social security, demography and technology on retirement

This article investigates the causes in the reduction of labor force participation of the old. We argue that the changes in social security policy, in technology and in demography may account for most of the changes in retirement over the second part of the last century in the U.S. economy. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds social security legislation. The model is able to match very closely the increase in the retirement rate of males aged 65 and older. It also quanti es the isolated impact on retirement and on the solvency of the social security system of the di¤erent factors. The model suggests that technological and demographic changes had a strong in uence on retirement, so that it would have increased signi cantly even if the social security rules had not changed. However, as the latter became much more generous in the past, changes in social security policy can account not only for a sizeable part of the expansion of retirement, but also for the most of the observed increase in the social security expenses as a share of GDP.

Essays in taxation and savings

Esta tese é composta por três artigos. Dois deles investigam assuntos afeitos a tributação e o terceiro é um artigo sobre o tema “poupança”'. Embora os objetos de análise sejam distintos, os três possuem como característica comum a aplicação de técnicas de econometria de dados em painel a bases de dados inéditas. Em dois dos artigos, utiliza-se estimação por GMM em modelos dinâmicos. Por sua vez, o artigo remanescente é uma aplicação de modelos de variável dependente latente. Abaixo, apresenta-se um breve resumo de cada artigo, começando pelos dois artigos de tributação, que dividem uma seção comum sobre o ICMS (o imposto estadual sobre valor adicionado) e terminando com o artigo sobre poupança. O primeiro artigo analisa a importância da fiscalização como instrumento para deter a evasão de tributos e aumentar a receita tributária, no caso de um imposto sobre valor adicionado, no contexto de um país em desenvolvimento. O estudo é realizado com dados do estado de São Paulo. Para tratar questões relativas a endogeneidade e inércia na série de receita tributária, empregam-se técnicas de painel dinâmico. Utiliza-se como variáveis de controle o nível do PIB regional e duas proxies para esforço fiscal: a quantidade e o valor das multas tributárias. Os resultados apontam impacto significativo do esforço fiscal nas receitas tributárias. O artigo evidencia, indiretamente, a forma como a evasão fiscal é afetada pela penalidade aplicada aos casos de sonegação. Suas conclusões também são relevantes no contexto das discussões sobre o federalismo fiscal brasileiro, especialmente no caso de uma reforma tributária potencial. O segundo artigo examina uma das principais tarefas das administrações tributárias: a escolha periódica de contribuintes para auditoria. A melhora na eficiência dos mecanismos de seleção de empresas tem o potencial de impactar positivamente a probabilidade de detecção de fraudes fiscais, provendo melhor alocação dos escassos recursos fiscais. Neste artigo, tentamos desenvolver este mecanismo calculando a probabilidade de sonegação associada a cada contribuinte. Isto é feito, no universo restrito de empresas auditadas, por meio da combinação “ótima” de diversos indicadores fiscais existentes e de informações dos resultados dos procedimentos de auditoria, em modelos de variável dependente latente. Após calculados os coeficientes, a probabilidade de sonegação é calculada para todo o universo de contribuintes. O método foi empregado em um painel com micro-dados de empresas sujeitas ao recolhimento de ICMS no âmbito da Delegacia Tributária de Guarulhos, no estado de São Paulo. O terceiro artigo analisa as baixas taxas de poupança dos países latino-americanos nas últimas décadas. Utilizando técnicas de dados em painel, identificam-se os determinantes da taxa de poupança. Em seguida, faz-se uma análise contrafactual usando a China, que tem apresentado altas taxas de poupança no mesmo período, como parâmetro. Atenção especial é dispensada ao Brasil, que tem ficado muito atrás dos seus pares no grupo dos BRICs neste quesito. O artigo contribui para a literatura existente em vários sentidos: emprega duas amplas bases de dados para analisar a influência de uma grande variedade de determinantes da taxa de poupança, incluindo variáveis demográficas e de previdência social; confirma resultados previamente encontrados na literatura, com a robustez conferida por bases de dados mais ricas; para alguns países latino-americanos, revela que as suas taxas de poupança tenderiam a aumentar se eles tivessem um comportamento mais semelhante ao da China em outras áreas, mas o incremento não seria tão dramático.

Microinsurance: income risk, social security and the demand for private onsurance by low-income families

Insurance provision against uncertainties is present in several dimensions of peoples´s lives, such as the provisions related to, inter alia, unemployment, diseases, accidents, robbery and death. Microinsurance improves the ability of low-income individuals to cope with these risks. Brazil has a fairly developed financial system but still not geared towards the poor, especially in what concerns the insurance industry. The evaluation of the microinsurance effects on well-being, and the demand for different types of microinsurance require an analysis of the dynamics of the individual income process and an assessment of substitutes and complementary institutions that condition their respective financial behavior. The evaluation of the microinsurance effects on well-being, and the demand for different types of microinsurance require an analysis of the dynamics of the individual income process and an assessment of substitutes and complementary institutions that condition their respective financial behavior. The Brazilian government provides a relatively developed social security system considering other countries of similar income level which crowds-out the demand for insurance and savings. On the other hand, this same public infrastructure may help to foster microfinance products supply. The objective of this paper is to analyze the demand for different types of private insurance by the low-income population using microdata from a National Expenditure Survey (POF/IBGE). The final objective is to help to understand the trade-offs faced for the development of an emerging industry of microinsurance in Brazil.

Technology assessment for power quality mitigation devices - Micro-DVR case study

This work presents a case study on technology assessment for power quality improvement devices. A system compatibility test protocol for power quality mitigation devices was developed in order to evaluate the functionality of three-phase voltage restoration devices. In order to validate this test protocol, the micro-DVR, a reduced power development platform for DVR (dynamic voltage restorer) devices, was tested and the results are discussed based on voltage disturbances standards. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Technology assessment for power quality mitigation devices - Micro-DVR case study

This work presents a case study on technology assessment for power quality devices. A system compatibility test protocol for power quality mitigation devices was developed in order to evaluate the functionality of three-phase voltage restoration devices. In order to case test this test protocol, a development platform with reduced power for DVR (Dynamic Voltage Restorer), the Micro-DVR, was tested, and results were discussed based on voltage disturbances standards. ©2008 IEEE.

Quantitative assessment of a free trade agreement between MERCOSUR and the European Union

Incluye Bibliografía

Productive development in open economies

Includes bibliography