Desigualdade social no Brasil: as principais mudanças nos governos Lula

This monograph will focus on the social policies implemented by the Federal Government during the government of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. The aim of this study is to analyze the main changes in social inequality indicators in the period 2003 - 2010. In the first chapter, we present some ideas of poverty meaning and its history in Brazil. The second chapter is dedicated to the most important cash transfer program in the history of the country, the Bolsa Familia program, and finally, in Chapter 3, is highlighted as stocks in the labor market also contributed to improve social indicators in Brazil and lift millions out of poverty and extreme poverty, such as increasing the level of formal job creation and the real increase in the minimum wage

O governo estadual na experiência política brasileira: os desempenhos legislativos das assembléias estaduais

Este artigo analisa o volume e a dinamica da produção legislativa em 12 assembléias legislativas estaduais brasileiras durante duas legislaturas, 1999-2002 e 2002-2006. Em primeiro lugar, constatamos que a dinâmica legislativa das assembléias estaduais depende dos recursos institucionais conferidos constitucionalmente aos atores políticos pela Carta de 1988 que restringe a legislação proposta pelos deputados estaduais e limita a autonomia legislativa do Governador. Apesar de indícios claros da existência de uma dinâmica partidária relevante e um jogo efetivo entre governo e oposição nas assembléias que explica as variações encontradas entre os estados. Em segundo lugar, sinalizamos uma dinâmica legislativa estadual diversificada que não se restringe ao predomínio do poder executivo. O volume de propostas apresentadas pelos deputados estaduais que não distribuem benefícios concentrados sinaliza para uma agenda pelo menos "desejada", principalmente direcionada a definir normas e diretrizes das políticas públicas estaduais. Por outro lado, é evidente que o sucesso legislativo dos deputados estaduais é elevado se comparado ao dos deputados federais, mas basicamente restrito a uma categoria de norma: a concessão de benefícios concentrados, destacando-se a categoria das declarações de utilidades públicas. O esforço de pesquisa aqui empreendido e os dados apresentados chamam a atenção para a necessidade de futuras pesquisas sobre as assembléias estaduais em busca de uma melhor compreensão do funcionamento das instituições brasileiras no âmbito subnacional.

Environmental management reform for sustainable farming, fisheries and aquaculture: state of the art review

FOOD-CT-2007-036298: AquAgriS. Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework (2002-2006)

Essays in policy evaluation

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that aim at providing new evidence in the field of public policy evaluation. In particular, the first two chapters focus on the effects of the European cohesion policy, while the third chapter assesses the effectiveness of Italian labour market incentives in reducing long-term unemployment. The first study analyses the effect of EU funds on life satisfaction across European regions , under the assumption that projects financed by structural funds in the fields of employment, education, health and environment may affect the overall quality of life in recipient regions. Using regional data from the European Social Survey in 2002-2006, it resorts to a regression discontinuity design, where the discontinuity is provided by the institutional framework of the policy. The second study aims at estimating the impact of large transfers from a centralized authority to a local administration on the incidence of white collar crimes. It merges a unique dataset on crimes committed in Italian municipalities between 2007 and 2011 with information on the disbursement of EU structural funds in 2007-2013 programming period, employing an instrumental variable estimation strategy that exploits the variation in the electoral cycle at local level. The third study analyses the impact of an Italian labour market policy that allowed firms to cut their labour costs on open-ended job contracts when hiring long-term unemployed workers. It takes advantage of a unique dataset that draws information from the unemployment lists in Veneto region and it resorts to a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of the policy on the job finding rate of long-term unemployed workers.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma incidence in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study before and after highly active antiretroviral therapy

OBJECTIVE: To assess the long-term effect of HAART on non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) incidence in people with HIV (PHIV). DESIGN: Follow-up of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS). METHODS: Between 1984 and 2006, 12 959 PHIV contributed a total of 75 222 person-years (py), of which 36 787 were spent under HAART. Among these PHIV, 429 NHL cases were identified from the SHCS dataset and/or by record linkage with Swiss Cantonal Cancer Registries. Age- and gender-standardized incidence was calculated and Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR). RESULTS: NHL incidence reached 13.6 per 1000 py in 1993-1995 and declined to 1.8 in 2002-2006. HAART use was associated with a decline in NHL incidence [HR = 0.26; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.20-0.33], and this decline was greater for primary brain lymphomas than other NHL. Among non-HAART users, being a man having sex with men, being 35 years of age or older, or, most notably, having low CD4 cell counts at study enrollment (HR = 12.26 for < 50 versus >or= 350 cells/microl; 95% CI, 8.31-18.07) were significant predictors of NHL onset. Among HAART users, only age was significantly associated with NHL risk. The HR for NHL declined steeply in the first months after HAART initiation (HR = 0.46; 95% CI, 0.27-0.77) and was 0.12 (95% CI, 0.05-0.25) 7 to10 years afterwards. CONCLUSIONS: HAART greatly reduced the incidence of NHL in PHIV, and the influence of CD4 cell count on NHL risk. The beneficial effect remained strong up to 10 years after HAART initiation.

North Pacific Carbon Cycle Response to Climate Variability on Seasonal to Decadal Timescales

Climate variability drives significant changes in the physical state of the North Pacific, and there may be important impacts of this variability on the upper ocean carbon balance across the basin. We address this issue by considering the response of seven biogeochemical ocean models to climate variability in the North Pacific. The models' upper ocean pCO(2) and air-sea CO(2) flux respond similarly to climate variability on seasonal to decadal timescales. Modeled seasonal cycles of pCO(2) and its temperature- and non-temperature-driven components at three contrasting oceanographic sites capture the basic features found in observations (Takahashi et al., 2002, 2006; Keeling et al., 2004; Brix et al., 2004). However, particularly in the Western Subarctic Gyre, the models have difficulty representing the temporal structure of the total pCO(2) seasonal cycle because it results from the difference of these two large and opposing components. In all but one model, the air-sea CO(2) flux interannual variability (1 sigma) in the North Pacific is smaller ( ranges across models from 0.03 to 0.11 PgC/yr) than in the Tropical Pacific ( ranges across models from 0.08 to 0.19 PgC/yr), and the time series of the first or second EOF of the air-sea CO(2) flux has a significant correlation with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Though air-sea CO(2) flux anomalies are correlated with the PDO, their magnitudes are small ( up to +/- 0.025 PgC/yr ( 1 sigma)). Flux anomalies are damped because anomalies in the key drivers of pCO(2) ( temperature, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and alkalinity) are all of similar magnitude and have strongly opposing effects that damp total pCO(2) anomalies.

(Table 1) Contents of chlorophyll a over the Northern Sea Route according to data of field measurements and estimated from MODIS data on measurement days

New maps of mean monthly distribution of chlorophyll and primary production in the Kara Sea were compiled using joint processing of CZCS (1978-1986), SeaWiFS (1998-2005), and MODIS (2002-2006) satellite data and field measurements. The annual primary production of phytoplankton is estimated at 22.3 x 10**6 t C per year or 70 mg C/m**2 per day. Results of calculations of the organic carbon budget in the Kara Sea are presented.

Los alcances de la Seguridad Ciudadana en Bolivia como Bien público y Tarea de todos

El ascenso a la presidencia de Bolivia del dirigente sindical Juan Evo Morales -"Evo" en la voz popular -despertó grandes expectativas. El nuevo discurso estatal promueve una perspectiva de cambios profundos, orientada a la construcción de nuevas relaciones económicas, sociales y politicas justas y equitativas. ¿En qué medida podemos evidenciar dicha orientación en las prácticas gubernamentales y políticas públicas que marcaron los primeros ocho años de gestión del presidente Morales (2006-2013) en materia de seguridad ciudadana? El presente artículo responde a esa pregunta mediante una revisión de los alcances prácticos de dos premisas del postulado proceso de cambio boliviano: (1) el entendimiento de la seguridad ciudadana como Bien público; y (2) el ejercicio de los derechos de participación ciudadana y control social.

Los alcances de la Seguridad Ciudadana en Bolivia como Bien público y Tarea de todos

El ascenso a la presidencia de Bolivia del dirigente sindical Juan Evo Morales -"Evo" en la voz popular -despertó grandes expectativas. El nuevo discurso estatal promueve una perspectiva de cambios profundos, orientada a la construcción de nuevas relaciones económicas, sociales y politicas justas y equitativas. ¿En qué medida podemos evidenciar dicha orientación en las prácticas gubernamentales y políticas públicas que marcaron los primeros ocho años de gestión del presidente Morales (2006-2013) en materia de seguridad ciudadana? El presente artículo responde a esa pregunta mediante una revisión de los alcances prácticos de dos premisas del postulado proceso de cambio boliviano: (1) el entendimiento de la seguridad ciudadana como Bien público; y (2) el ejercicio de los derechos de participación ciudadana y control social.

Los alcances de la Seguridad Ciudadana en Bolivia como Bien público y Tarea de todos

El ascenso a la presidencia de Bolivia del dirigente sindical Juan Evo Morales -"Evo" en la voz popular -despertó grandes expectativas. El nuevo discurso estatal promueve una perspectiva de cambios profundos, orientada a la construcción de nuevas relaciones económicas, sociales y politicas justas y equitativas. ¿En qué medida podemos evidenciar dicha orientación en las prácticas gubernamentales y políticas públicas que marcaron los primeros ocho años de gestión del presidente Morales (2006-2013) en materia de seguridad ciudadana? El presente artículo responde a esa pregunta mediante una revisión de los alcances prácticos de dos premisas del postulado proceso de cambio boliviano: (1) el entendimiento de la seguridad ciudadana como Bien público; y (2) el ejercicio de los derechos de participación ciudadana y control social.

The FDIC quarterly banking profile.

Description based on: 2nd quarter 1987.

An analysis of penalty kicks in elite football post 1997

The penalty kick in football is a seemingly simplistic play; however, it has increased in complexity since 1997 when the rules changed allowing goalkeepers to move laterally along their goal line before the ball was kicked. Prior to 1997 goalkeepers were required to remain still until the ball was struck. The objective of this study was to determine the importance of the penalty kick in the modern game of football. A retrospective study of the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cup and the 2000, 2004 and 2008 European Championship tournaments was carried out, assessing the importance of the penalty kick in match play and shootouts and the effect of the time of the game on the shooter's success rate. This study demonstrated the conversion rate of penalties was 73% in shootouts and 68% in match play. Significantly more penalties were awarded late in the game: twice as many penalties in the second half than the first and close to four times as many in the fourth quarter vs. the first. Teams awarded penalty kicks during match play won 52%, drew 30% and lost 18% of the time; chances of winning increased to 61% if the penalty was scored, but decreased to 29% if missed. Teams participating in either the World Cup or European Championship final match had roughly a 50% chance of being involved in a penalty shootout during the tournament. Penalty shots and their outcome significantly impact match results in post 1997 football.