Welfare and growth effects of alternative fiscal rules for infrastructure investment in Brazil

This article studies the interplay between fiscal rules, public investment and growth in Brazil. It is investigated if it would make sense to raise public investment and, if so, under which fiscal rule it is best to do it — whether through tax financing, debt financing, or a reduction of public consumption. We construct and simulate a competitive general equilibrium model, calibrated to Brazilian economy, in which public capital is a component of the production function and public consumption directly affects individuals’ well-being. After assessing the impacts of alternative fiscal rules, the paper concludes that the most desirable financing scheme is the reduction of public consumption, which dominates the others in terms of output and welfare gains. The model replicates the observed growth slowdown of the Brazilian economy when we increase taxes and reduce public capital formation to the levels observed after 1980 and shows that the growth impact of the expansion of tax collection in Brazil was much larger than that of public investment compression.

Welfare cost of inflation considering adoption decisions and interest-bearing deposits

Attanasio et al. (JPE, 2002) have used microeconomic data on households to provide new estimates of the welfare costs of infiation using Bailey's unidimensional welfare measure as a basis for their calculations. Such a measure does not properly take into consideration lhe fact that the majority of households in their sample (58.7 percent) holds not only bank deposits and currency, but also a second type of interest-bearing assct. This work devises alternative formulas which account for the existence of bank deposits and a sccond interest-bearing asset in the economy, as well as for adoption decisions regarding alternative financiai technologies.

Natureza morta...edifício com vida: uma arquitetura sustentável para o Serviço de Verificação de Óbitos

Sustainability in buildings, while reducing the impact on the environment, contributes to the promotion of social welfare, to increase the health and productivity of occupants. The search for a way of build that meets the aspirations and development of humanity without, however, represent degradation of the environment, has become the great challenge of contemporary architecture. It is considered that the incorporation of principles that provide a sustainable building with careful choices of design solutions contribute to a better economic and thermal performance of the building, as well as functional and psychological comfort to its users. Based on this general understanding, this paper presents an architecture project aimed to health care whose the solutions adopted follow carefully the relevant legislation and sets his sights on the theme of sustainability. The methodology began with studies on the themes of verification service of deaths, sustainability and those application in construction developed through research in academic studies and analysis of architectural projects, using them like reference for the solutions adopted. Within the project analysis was performed a visit to the verification service of deaths in the city of Palmas in Tocantins, subsidizing information that, plus the relevant legislation, led to functional programming and pre-dimensional of the building to be designed. The result of this programming environments were individual records with information from environmental restrictions, space required for the development of activities, desirable flow and sustainability strategies, that can be considered as the first product of relevance of the professional master's degree. Finally we have outlined the basic design architecture of a Verification Service of Death SVO/RN (in portuguese), whose process of projecting defined as a guiding line of work four points: the use of bioclimatic architecture as the main feature projectual, the use of resources would provide minimal harm to the environment, the use of modulation and structure to the building as a form of rationalization and finally the search for solutions that ensure environmental and psychological comfort to users. Importantly to highlight that, besides owning a rare theme in literature that refers to architectural projects, the whole project was drawn up with foundations in projective criteria that contribute to environmental sustainability, with emphasis on thermal performance, energy efficiency and reuse of rainwater

Play behaviour in nonhuman animals and the animal welfare issue

The mission of defining animal welfare indicators is methodologically difficult, limited, and possibly impossible. A promising alternative, however, to evaluate suitable environmental conditions is the assessment of play behaviour. In the present review, we summarise the general aspects of play behaviour in nonhuman animals and propose its use as a potential indicator of animal welfare. Play behaviour probably occurs in most vertebrates and some invertebrates, but predominately in mammals. It is also more frequent in young males and is associated with the environmental context in which animals find themselves. Animals play if they are healthy and well-fed, but not if they are under stressful conditions or if they are in a stressful state. We can therefore use the prevalence of play behaviour as an indicator of suitable environmental conditions, considering the specificity associated with the above-mentioned modifying factors.

Da escala médica de saúde à experiência social do saudável :diálogo entre os espaços dos bares e das academias fisiculturistas na cidade do Natal-RN

Currently, we attend a reverence of concepts ahead as health, life, youth and body. In we widen amount the ideals concerned to the healthful life, to the quality of life, the longevity and joviality and the extremities of the body represented by the illness, for the virus infection, the physical deficiency and the aging. Of the historical shades of the plague, of the hunger and the war that gagged the defenseless individual and its body, in the current days we increase the search for a full and powerful life, independent of a religious imaginary to predict the epidemic curse, the threat represented for the sick people and the incarnate divine anger in the death; or of medical science presented in the spaces of the technology and the physiology, being left fragile the social and psychological dimensions of the human confined to the patient issue and, finally, the commanded urban health politics in quantitative goals of hygienic cleaning, of the medical techniques and the education citizen. For beyond these instances, emerges in our days a plural, close and biographical agreement well of the body and welfare. On the other hand, an understanding of the healthful life and well-being that more certifies the presence of something the one that clear landmarks amongst normality and the irregularity, the esteem and the destructive vice: it has a projection of healthful life measures without conceptual models of body and health under the doctor-scientific standard occidental. This thematic one will confide in way to the enclosure for spaces to the muscles and fitness exercises and the bars from the city of Natal, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, while comprehensive interchange concerning as the individual comes dealing with the notion the body and health and, mainly, if perceiving inside of its body and its health. Amongst these two spaces of typical leisure of the modern urban phenomenon, the hedonism bodily with its muscles and salience and one another form of hedonism in the fruition of allowed drugs will be across itself in a dialogue about which social s relationships are really in game in an imaginary construction amongst an doctor-aesthetic ideal of health and the social and subjective experience in the option for a healthful life

Strategies to promote farm animal welfare in Latin America and their effects on carcass and meat quality traits

Several initiatives, including research and development, increasing stakeholders' awareness and application of legislation and recommendation, have been carried out in Latin America to promote animal welfare and meat quality. Most activities focused on the impact of pre-slaughter conditions (facilities, equipment and handling procedures) on animal welfare and meat quality. The results are encouraging; data from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay showed that the application of the improved pre-slaughter handling practices reduced aggressive handling and the incidence of bruised carcasses at slaughter in cattle and pigs. These outcomes stimulated some to apply animal welfare concepts in livestock handling within the meat production chain as shown by the increasing demand for personnel training on the best. To attend this demand is important to expand local studies on farm animal welfare and to set up (or maintain) an efficient system for knowledge transfer to all stakeholders in the Latin America meat production chains. However, it is clear that to promote the long-term progress in this field is important to deliver practical solutions, assuring that they match the technical and financial conditions of those who are the target of training programs. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Psicologia e pobreza no Brasil: limites e perspectivas da produção de conhecimento e atuação do psicólogo

Poverty is a main theme in Brazil: according to official data, poverty reachs 70 million Brazilian people, and, between them, 20 million are unable to provide their basic needs. Psychology, as a welfare profession, and given its historical concerns with social actions, could not be away from this theme. Based on this, we ask: Which answers Psychology can provide, toward both the production of knowledge and the practice about social reality? The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychological scientific production on poverty and the propositions, limits and impacts of psychological actions. We carried out a three stages documental based study analyzing Brazilian psychological literature: (1) online databases survey (312 papers identified); (2) 109 scientific abstracts accessed and coded; (3) selected 47 scientific papers read and analyzed. Results are presented in three sections: general description of the selected scientific production; characterization of the role of poverty in psychological literature; and themes presented at the papers. The academic production about the main theme (poverty) is dispersed, heterogeneous, and related to other fields of knowledge. Poverty is presented at these studies in many ways, such as: a criterium for sample design and the assessment of its psychological impacts; reports on professional experience with poor population; descriptions of this population group; relationship between poverty and others social themes; developmental and learning problems of poor children. In general, it appears that Psychology has improved the scientific production and experiences with poor population. However, it is necessary to build up theories and technical innovations and also to understand structural boundaries for professional practice with this population group

Comparison of the psychological evaluation test and classical psychoanalysis in infertile women

This study aims to compare a psychological evaluation test to classical psychoanalysis in infertile women. Two hundred women were submitted to the Psychological Evaluation Test (PET). The sum of the scores for the responses ranged from 15 to 60 points, with scores 30 points being defined as 'psycho-emotional maladjustment' (cut-off point: median + 25%). For comparison, the patients were simultaneously submitted to a psychological examination by a psychologist, who was unaware of the PET results. of the 200 patients, 66 (33%) presented a test with greater than or equal to30 points ('psycho-emotional maladjustment') and 134 (67%) a test with <30 points (normal). Upon psychological examination, 105 (52.5%) presented an abnormal evaluation and 95 (47.5%) a normal evaluation. For the PET, statistical analysis showed 82% efficiency, 62% sensitivity, 98% positive predictive value, 99% specificity, 70% negative predictive value, likelihood ratio for a positive test result 62, and likelihood ratio for negative test result 0.38. The PET proved to be a useful clinical instrument, being of help in the selection of patients with psychological needs induced by infertility.

Morphological asymmetry and broiler welfare

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

Animal welfare: from concepts to reality.

In this review, we provide a brief retrospective history of the science of animal welfare and recognize the sentience of non-human animals; however, we emphasize that crucial problems remain regarding how to define and measure animal welfare. In general, the use of physiological measures to assess welfare is discouraged. Furthermore, there is a theoretical background for measures of stress, but not for welfare states because life may not be at risk. Instead, a preference or choice-based approach, which is based on the animal decision, is recommended. To this end, welfare is discussed and then contrasted with disease, health, stress and distress. In addition, the importance of prospective capacities for the welfare of human and non-human animals is discussed.

Psychological, biochemical and physiological responses of Brazilian soccer players during a training program

Aims of the study. - The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of the physiological, biochemical and psychological parameters in Brazilian soccer players during a training program.Materials. - Fifteen athletes were evaluated at the beginning (T1), in the middle (T2) and at the end (T3) of the training program. on the first day, at 7:30 am, before the blood collecting at rest for the determination of serum creatine kinase (CK), serum creatinine and serum urea, the athletes had their psychological parameters assessed by the profile of mood state questionnaire (POMS). After 90 min, they performed a 250-m sprint. on the second day at 8:30 am, the athletes had their alactic anaerobic performance measured and, after 40 min, they completed the aerobic test. Friedman test was used to verify the behavior of overtraining markers.Results. - There was a decrease in vigor score in T3 (p=0.01) compared with T1 and T2. In T3 (p=0.01), the athletes also showed an increase in serum creatinine levels compared to T1. Furthermore, in the same period, we verified a diminishing in the team performance.Conclusion. - The training program developed between T2 and T3 led to the fall of the vigor score, the increase in serum creatinine concentrations and the diminishing in team performance. (c) 2007 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.