How the full opening of the capital account to highly liquid financial markets led Latin America to two and a half cycles of ‘mania, panic and crash’

Latin America has recently experienced three cycles of capital inflows, the first two ending in major financial crises. The first took place between 1973 and the 1982 ‘debt-crisis’. The second took place between the 1989 ‘Brady bonds’ agreement (and the beginning of the economic reforms and financial liberalisation that followed) and the Argentinian 2001/2002 crisis, and ended up with four major crises (as well as the 1997 one in East Asia) — Mexico (1994), Brazil (1999), and two in Argentina (1995 and 2001/2). Finally, the third inflow-cycle began in 2003 as soon as international financial markets felt reassured by the surprisingly neo-liberal orientation of President Lula’s government; this cycle intensified in 2004 with the beginning of a (purely speculative) commodity price-boom, and actually strengthened after a brief interlude following the 2008 global financial crash — and at the time of writing (mid-2011) this cycle is still unfolding, although already showing considerable signs of distress. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the financial crises resulting from this second cycle (both in LA and in East Asia) from the perspective of Keynesian/ Minskyian/ Kindlebergian financial economics. I will attempt to show that no matter how diversely these newly financially liberalised Developing Countries tried to deal with the absorption problem created by the subsequent surges of inflow (and they did follow different routes), they invariably ended up in a major crisis. As a result (and despite the insistence of mainstream analysis), these financial crises took place mostly due to factors that were intrinsic (or inherent) to the workings of over-liquid and under-regulated financial markets — and as such, they were both fully deserved and fairly predictable. Furthermore, these crises point not just to major market failures, but to a systemic market failure: evidence suggests that these crises were the spontaneous outcome of actions by utility-maximising agents, freely operating in friendly (light-touched) regulated, over-liquid financial markets. That is, these crises are clear examples that financial markets can be driven by buyers who take little notice of underlying values — investors have incentives to interpret information in a biased fashion in a systematic way. ‘Fat tails’ also occurred because under these circumstances there is a high likelihood of self-made disastrous events. In other words, markets are not always right — indeed, in the case of financial markets they can be seriously wrong as a whole. Also, as the recent collapse of ‘MF Global’ indicates, the capacity of ‘utility-maximising’ agents operating in unregulated and over-liquid financial market to learn from previous mistakes seems rather limited.

Avaliação clínica da resposta do tratamento periodontal não-cirúrgico (Full mouth desinfection) de pacientes diabéticos e não diabéticos

Tem sido demonstrado que o diabetes influencia no desenvolvimento e progressão da doença periodontal. Acredita-se ainda que há uma relação bi-direcional entre o Diabetes Mellito e a Doença Periodontal. Por isso, o tratamento periodontal pode responder de forma diferente em pacientes com e sem o quadro de diabetes. O objetivo desse estudo foi avaliar clinicamente o efeito da terapia periodontal não cirúrgica em pacientes com periodontite e diabetes mellito (grupo teste) e sem o quadro de diabetes (grupo controle). Para isso, realizou-se o tratamento periodontal não-cirúrgico FMSRP (Full mouth Scalling and Root Planing) e verificou-se os parâmetro clínicos periodontais (profundidade de sondagem, nível clínico de inserção, mobilidade, índice gengival e índice de placa) no início do estudo e após 3 meses. Na análise estatística, o paciente foi considerado como unidade de análise (p<0,05). Para as variáveis categóricas utilizou-se o teste de Fisher. Nas comparações inter-grupo, foi utilizado o Mann-Whitney Test e para comparações intra-grupo (baseline e três meses) utilizou-se o Teste de Wilcoxon. Participaram 26 pacientes no grupo controle e 14 no grupo teste. O índice de placa era 71,20% no início do estudo para o grupo teste e ficou 47,12% no fim; já no controle, os valores eram de 48,52% passando para 37,50%. E o índice gengival no grupo teste no baseline era 42,67 diminuindo para 26,81 e no grupo controle diminuiu de 41,36 para 30,62. A profundidade de sondagem foi no grupo teste 2,71mm passando para 2,40mm; já no controle, os valores foram de 2,84mm diminuindo para 2,55mm. O grupo controle ganhou 0,34 mm de inserção e o grupo teste perdeu 0,44mm de inserção. A recessão gengival aumentou 0,33mm no grupo teste e 0,04mm no grupo controle após os 3 meses. Houve diferença significativa inter-grupo para o índice de placa e gengival no baseline, também foi encontrado na recessão após 3 meses; já intra-grupo verificou-se diferença significativa para todas as variáveis, exceto para o nível clinico de inserção e mobilidade. Quando se categorizou a profundidade de sondagem em ≤3mm, >3 e≤6mm e >6mm, não foi encontrado diferença entre os grupos, mas verificou-se diferença significativa entre os períodos tanto para o grupo teste como para o controle. A hemoglobina glicada no grupo controle foi de 5,90% e no teste aumentou de 7,79% para 8,10%. Portanto, verifica-se que há uma melhora dos parâmetros clínicos periodontais em ambos os grupos, contudo não se verificou uma diferença significativa entre eles. Não obstante, o FMSRP promove um efeito benéfico em relação à condição de saúde periodontal, melhora dos parâmetros clínicos periodontais, em curto prazo (3 meses) tanto em indivíduos diabéticos como em não diabéticos, não sendo possível observar um melhor quadro glicêmico nos diabéticos

Blood galactose and glucose levels in mothers, cord blood, and 48-hour-old breast-fed full-term infants

Background: Although galactose is an important component in human lactose, there are few reports of its role in the newborn metabolism. Objective: To determine the relationship of blood galactose and glucose levels in mothers, cord blood, and breast-fed full-term newborn infants. Methods: Maternal and cord vein blood samples were obtained from 27 pregnant women at delivery, and from their breastfed, full-term newborns 48 h later. Galactose and glucose were determined by HPLC. Statistical analysis used ANOVA and Pearson correlation with p < 0.05. Results: Maternal galactose concentrations (0.08 +/- 0.03 mmol/l) were similar to cord blood galactose (0.07 +/- 0.03 mmol/l; p = 0.129). However, newborn blood galactose (0.05 +/- 0.02 mmol/l) was significantly lower than both cord (p = 0.042) and maternal blood (p = 0.002). Maternal blood glucose levels (4.72 +/- 0.86 mmol/l) were higher than cord blood (3.98 +/- 0.57 mmol/l; p < 0.001), and cord blood concentrations were higher than newborn blood levels (3.00 +/- 0.56 mmol/l; p < 0.001); all values expressed as mean +/- SD. Significant correlation was only seen between maternal and cord blood galactose levels (r = 0.67; p < 0.001) and glucose levels (r = 0.38; p = 0.047). Conclusion: the association and similarity between maternal and cord blood galactose levels suggest that the fetus is dependent on maternal galactose. In contrast, the lower galactose levels in newborn infants and a lack of association between both suggest self-regulation and a dependence on galactose ingestion. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Copy number of P elements, KP/full-sized P element ratio and their relationships with environmental factors in Brazilian Drosophila melanogaster populations

The P transposable element copy numbers and the KP/full-sized P element ratios were determined in eight Brazilian strains of Drosophila melanogaster. Strains from tropical regions showed lower overall P element copy numbers than did strains from temperate regions. Variable numbers of full-sized and defective elements were detected, but the full-sized P and KP elements were the predominant classes of elements in all strains. The full-sized P and KP element ratios were calculated and compared with latitude. The northernmost and southernmost Brazilian strains showed fewer full-sized elements than KP elements per genome, and the strains from less extreme latitudes had many more full-sized P than KP elements. However, no clinal variation was observed. Strains from different localities, previously classified as having P cytotype, displayed a higher or a lower proportion of KP elements than of full-sized P elements, as well as an equal number of the two element types, showing that the same phenotype may be produced by different underlying genomic components of the P-M system.

A path integral approach to the full Dicke model with dipole-dipole interaction

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Path integral approach to the full Dicke model

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Characterization of two full-sized P elements from Drosophila sturtevanti and Drosophila prosaltans

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The Combination of Amoxicillin and Metronidazole Improves Clinical and Microbiologic Results of One-Stage, Full-Mouth, Ultrasonic Debridement in Aggressive Periodontitis Treatment

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Alkaline ribonuclease activity in maternal serum and in serum of newborns from birth up to thirty days of age. A study made with full-term appropriate-, full-term small- and preterm appropriate-for-gestational-age infants

We have studied the alkaline ribonuclease (RNase) activity in maternal serum and serum of full-term small- (T-SGA), full-term appropriate- (T-AGA) and preterm appropriate-for-gestational age (PT-AGA) newborns. A significantly lower level of RNase was observed in T-AGA and T-SGA newborns on the 30th day of age and in PT-AGA newborns on the 15th and 30th days of age, as compared to other T-AGA, T-SGA and PT-AGA groups of infants at birth. RNase activity was significantly higher in cord blood than in the maternal blood in all categories studied. Moreover, in preterm newborns, RNase activity in cord blood was significantly higher in those presenting a lower gestational age. We did not observe any significant difference in RNase levels in the cord blood of newborns from the 3 categories studied. The same results were observed concerning maternal blood. We, therefore, conclude that RNase activity in cord blood or in maternal blood is not a very statisfactory indicator of fetal malnutrition.

Full-color phosphors from amine-functionalized crosslinked hybrids lacking metal activator ions

Sol-gel derived hybrids that contain OCH2CH2 (polyethylene glycol, PEG) repeat units grafted onto a siliceous backbone by urea, -NHC(=O)NH-, or urethane, -NHC(=O)O-, bridges have been prepared. It is demonstrated that the white light PL of these materials results from an unusual convolution of a longer lived emission that originates in the NH groups of the urea/urethane bridges with shorter lived electron-hole recombinations occurring in the nanometer-sized siliceous domains. The PL efficiencies reported here (maximum quantum yields at room temperature of ≈ 0.20 ± 0.02 at a 400 nm excitation wavelength) are in the same range as those for tetramethoxysilane-formic acid, and APTES-acetic acid, sol-gel derived phosphors. The high quantum yields combined with the possibility of tuning the emission to colors across the chromaticity diagram present a wide range of potential applications for these hybrid materials.

Transmission network expansion planning in full open market considering security constraints

This paper presents a mathematical model and a methodology to solve the transmission network expansion planning problem with security constraints in full competitive market, assuming that all generation programming plans present in the system operation are known. The methodology let us find an optimal transmission network expansion plan that allows the power system to operate adequately in each one of the generation programming plans specified in the full competitive market case, including a single contingency situation with generation rescheduling using the security (n-1) criterion. In this context, the centralized expansion planning with security constraints and the expansion planning in full competitive market are subsets of the proposal presented in this paper. The model provides a solution using a genetic algorithm designed to efficiently solve the reliable expansion planning in full competitive market. The results obtained for several known systems from the literature show the excellent performance of the proposed methodology.