Colet??nea de pol??ticas p??blicas: volume 2: el papel de la burocracia en el proceso de determinaci??n e implementaci??n de las pol??ticas publicas

O principal objetivo deste livro ?? constituir uma fonte de pesquisa para o estudo do processo de produ????o e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas. Por meio de textos selecionados, analisa-se o pr??prio conceito de pol??ticas p??blicas, discute-se as defini????es utilizadas para distinguir suas diversas fases e apresenta-se algumas das principais correntes te??ricas de an??lise sobre o processo de pol??ticas p??blicas.

Colet??nea de pol??ticas p??blicas: volume 2: a pol??tica industrial no Brasil, 1985-1992: pol??ticos, burocratas e interesses organizados no processo de policy-making

O principal objetivo deste livro ?? constituir uma fonte de pesquisa para o estudo do processo de produ????o e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas. Por meio de textos selecionados, analisa-se o pr??prio conceito de pol??ticas p??blicas, discute-se as defini????es utilizadas para distinguir suas diversas fases e apresenta-se algumas das principais correntes te??ricas de an??lise sobre o processo de pol??ticas p??blicas.

Colet??nea de pol??ticas p??blicas: volume 2: conselhos de pol??ticas p??blicas: desafios para sua institucionaliza????o

O principal objetivo deste livro ?? constituir uma fonte de pesquisa para o estudo do processo de produ????o e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas. Por meio de textos selecionados, analisa-se o pr??prio conceito de pol??ticas p??blicas, discute-se as defini????es utilizadas para distinguir suas diversas fases e apresenta-se algumas das principais correntes te??ricas de an??lise sobre o processo de pol??ticas p??blicas.

Colet??nea de pol??ticas p??blicas: volume 2: redes de pol??tica p??blica

O principal objetivo deste livro ?? constituir uma fonte de pesquisa para o estudo do processo de produ????o e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas. Por meio de textos selecionados, analisa-se o pr??prio conceito de pol??ticas p??blicas, discute-se as defini????es utilizadas para distinguir suas diversas fases e apresenta-se algumas das principais correntes te??ricas de an??lise sobre o processo de pol??ticas p??blicas.

Colet??nea de pol??ticas p??blicas: volume 2: implementaci??n de las pol??ticas y asesor??a presidencial

O principal objetivo deste livro ?? constituir uma fonte de pesquisa para o estudo do processo de produ????o e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas. Por meio de textos selecionados, analisa-se o pr??prio conceito de pol??ticas p??blicas, discute-se as defini????es utilizadas para distinguir suas diversas fases e apresenta-se algumas das principais correntes te??ricas de an??lise sobre o processo de pol??ticas p??blicas.

Equilibrium play and best response to (Stated) beliefs in constant sum games

We report experimental results on one-shot two person 3x3 constant sum games played by non-economists without previous experience in the laboratory. Although strategically our games are very similar to previous experiments in which game theory predictions fail dramatically, 80% of actions taken in our experiment coincided with the prediction of the unique Nash equilibrium in pure strategies and 73% of actions were best responses to elicited beliefs. We argue how social preferences, presentation effects and belief elicitation procedures may influence how subjects play in simple but non trivial games and explain the diferences we observe with respect to previous work.

Sparse regularization for fiber ODF reconstruction: from the suboptimality of ℓ2 and ℓ1 priors to ℓ0.

Diffusion MRI is a well established imaging modality providing a powerful way to probe the structure of the white matter non-invasively. Despite its potential, the intrinsic long scan times of these sequences have hampered their use in clinical practice. For this reason, a large variety of methods have been recently proposed to shorten the acquisition times. Among them, spherical deconvolution approaches have gained a lot of interest for their ability to reliably recover the intra-voxel fiber configuration with a relatively small number of data samples. To overcome the intrinsic instabilities of deconvolution, these methods use regularization schemes generally based on the assumption that the fiber orientation distribution (FOD) to be recovered in each voxel is sparse. The well known Constrained Spherical Deconvolution (CSD) approach resorts to Tikhonov regularization, based on an ℓ(2)-norm prior, which promotes a weak version of sparsity. Also, in the last few years compressed sensing has been advocated to further accelerate the acquisitions and ℓ(1)-norm minimization is generally employed as a means to promote sparsity in the recovered FODs. In this paper, we provide evidence that the use of an ℓ(1)-norm prior to regularize this class of problems is somewhat inconsistent with the fact that the fiber compartments all sum up to unity. To overcome this ℓ(1) inconsistency while simultaneously exploiting sparsity more optimally than through an ℓ(2) prior, we reformulate the reconstruction problem as a constrained formulation between a data term and a sparsity prior consisting in an explicit bound on the ℓ(0)norm of the FOD, i.e. on the number of fibers. The method has been tested both on synthetic and real data. Experimental results show that the proposed ℓ(0) formulation significantly reduces modeling errors compared to the state-of-the-art ℓ(2) and ℓ(1) regularization approaches.

Identification of casein kinase 1, casein kinase 2, and cAMP-dependent protein kinase-like activities in Trypanosoma evansi

Trypanosoma evansi contains protein kinases capable of phosphorylating endogenous substrates with apparent molecular masses in the range between 20 and 205 kDa. The major phosphopolypeptide band, pp55, was predominantly localized in the particulate fraction. Anti-alpha and anti-beta tubulin monoclonal antibodies recognized pp55 by Western blot analyses, suggesting that this band corresponds to phosphorylated tubulin. Inhibition experiments in the presence of emodin, heparin, and 2,3-bisphosphoglycerate indicated that the parasite tubulin kinase was a casein kinase 2 (CK2)-like activity. GTP, which can be utilized instead of ATP by CK2, stimulated rather than inactivated the phosphorylation of tubulin in the parasite homogenate and particulate fraction. However, GTP inhibited the cytosolic CK2 responsible for phosphorylating soluble tubulin and other soluble substrates. Casein and two selective peptide substrates, P1 (RRKDLHDDEEDEAMSITA) for casein kinase (CK1) and P2 (RRRADDSDDDDD) for CK2, were recognized as substrates in T. evansi. While the enzymes present in the soluble fraction predominantly phosphorylated P1, P2 was preferentially labeled in the particulate fractions. These results demonstrated the existence of CK1-like and CK2-like activities primarily located in the parasite cytosolic and membranous fractions, respectively. Histone II-A and kemptide (LRRASVA) also behaved as suitable substrates, implying the existence of other Ser/Thr kinases in T. evansi. Cyclic AMP only increased the phosphorylation of histone II-A and kemptide in the cytosol, demonstrating the existence of soluble cAMP-dependent protein kinase-like activities in T. evansi. However, no endogenous substrates for this enzyme were identified in this fraction. Further evidences were obtained by using PKI (6-22), a reported inhibitor of the catalytic subunit of mammalian cAMP-dependent protein kinases, which specifically hindered the cAMP-dependent phosphorylation of histone II-A and kemptide in the parasite soluble fraction. Since the sum of the values obtained in the parasite cytosolic and particulate fractions were always higher than the values observed in the total T. evansi lysate, the kinase activities examined here appeared to be inhibited in the original extract.

Efeito do desmatamento da caatinga sobre as perdas de solo e água de um Luvissolo em Sumé (PB)

Foram estudados os efeitos do desmatamento da caatinga sobre as perdas de solo e água provocadas por chuvas erosivas num Luvissolo. Os dados relativos aos anos de 1983-1990 foram obtidos na Estação Experimental de Sumé (PB), pertencente à Universidade Federal da Paraíba - UFPB. Os tratamentos consistiram de duas parcelas desmatadas, uma parcela com caatinga nativa, uma parcela com caatinga nova, duas macroparcelas com caatinga nativa e duas macroparcelas desmatadas. Nas parcelas desmatadas, as perdas de solo foram de 61,7 e 47,7 t ha-1 e as perdas de água de 224,2 e 241,0 mm. A parcela com caatinga nativa, quando comparada com a parcela desmatada, reduziu a perda de solo em cerca de 98% e a perda de água em torno de 73%. Nas macroparcelas desmatadas foram observadas perdas anuais de solo de 31 e 26 t ha-1 e de água de 151,3 e 131,5 mm. Nas macroparcelas com caatinga, houve uma redução de aproximadamente 99% das perdas de solo e 90% das perdas de água, em relação às macroparcelas desmatadas.

Exact lower bounds to the ground-state energy of spin systems: The two-dimensional S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model

We present a very simple but fairly unknown method to obtain exact lower bounds to the ground-state energy of any Hamiltonian that can be partitioned into a sum of sub-Hamiltonians. The technique is applied, in particular, to the two-dimensional spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model. Reasonably good results are easily obtained and the extension of the method to other systems is straightforward.

Insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, and hepatic insulin extraction in first-degree relatives of type 2 diabetic patients

To identify early metabolic abnormalities in type 2 diabetes mellitus, we measured insulin secretion, sensitivity to insulin, and hepatic insulin extraction in 48 healthy normal glucose-tolerant Brazilians, first-degree relatives of type 2 diabetic patients (FH+). Each individual was matched for sex, age, weight, and body fat distribution with a person without history of type 2 diabetes (FH-). Both groups were submitted to a hyperglycemic clamp procedure (180 mg/dl). Insulin release was evaluated in its two phases. The first was calculated as the sum of plasma insulin at 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 min after the beginning of glucose infusion, and the second as the mean plasma insulin level in the third hour of the clamp procedure. Insulin sensitivity index (ISI) was the mean glucose infusion rate in the third hour of the clamp experiment divided by the mean plasma insulin concentration during the same period of time. Hepatic insulin extraction was determined under fasting conditions and in the third hour of the clamp procedure as the ratio between C-peptide and plasma insulin levels. FH+ individuals did not differ from FH- individuals in terms of the following parameters [median (range)]: a) first-phase insulin secretion, 174 (116-221) vs 207 (108-277) µU/ml, b) second-phase insulin secretion, 64 (41-86) vs 53 (37-83) µU/ml, and c) ISI, 14.8 (9.0-20.8) vs 16.8 (9.0-27.0) mg kg-1 min-1/µU ml-1. Hepatic insulin extraction in FH+ subjects was similar to that of FH- ones at basal conditions (median, 0.27 vs 0.27 ng/µU) and during glucose infusion (0.15 vs 0.15 ng/µU). Normal glucose-tolerant Brazilian FH+ individuals well-matched with FH- ones did not show defects of insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, or hepatic insulin extraction as tested by hyperglycemic clamp procedures.

Sum rules and correlations in asymmetric nuclear matter

The neutron and proton single-particle spectral functions in asymmetric nuclear matter fulfill energy-weighted sum rules. The validity of these sum rules within the self-consistent Green's function approach is investigated. The various contributions to these sum rules and their convergence as a function of energy provide information about correlations induced by the realistic interaction between the nucleons. The study of the sum rules in asymmetric nuclear matter exhibits the isospin dependence of the nucleon-nucleon correlations.

“Financial alchemy” or a zero sum game? Real estate finance, securitisation and the UK property market

Following the US model, the UK has seen considerable innovation in the funding, finance and procurement of real estate in the last decade. In the growing CMBS market asset backed securitisations have included $2.25billion secured on the Broadgate office development and issues secured on Canary Wharf and the Trafford Centre regional mall. Major occupiers (retailer Sainsbury’s, retail bank Abbey National) have engaged in innovative sale & leaseback and outsourcing schemes. Strong claims are made concerning the benefits of such schemes – e.g. British Land were reported to have reduced their weighted cost of debt by 150bp as a result of the Broadgate issue. The paper reports preliminary findings from a project funded by the Corporation of London and the RICS Research Foundation examining a number of innovative schemes to identify, within a formal finance framework, sources of added value and hidden costs. The analysis indicates that many of the gains claimed conceal costs – in terms of market value of debt or flexibility of management – while others result from unusual firm or market conditions (for example utilising the UK long lease and the unusual shape of the yield curve). Nonetheless, there are real gains resulting from the innovations, reflecting arbitrage and institutional constraints in the direct (private) real estate market

A QCD sum rule calculation for the Y(4140) narrow structure

We use the QCD sum rules to evaluate the mass of a possible scalar mesonic state that couples to a molecular D(s)*(D) over bar (s)* current. We find a mass m(Ds)*(Ds)* = (4.14 +/- 0.09) GeV, which is in an excellent agreement with the recently observed Y(4140) charmonium state. We consider the contributions of condensates up to dimension-eight, we work at leading order in alpha(s) and we keep terms which are linear in the strange quark mass m(s). We also consider a molecular D*(D) over bar* current and we obtain m m(D)*(D)* = (4.13 +/- 0.10), around 200 MeV above the mass of the Y(3930) charmonium state. We conclude that it is possible to describe the Y(4140) structure as a D(s)*(D) over bar (s)* molecular state or even as a mixture of D(s)*(D) over bar (s)* and D*(D) over bar* molecular states. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Isostructural M(RL)(2)(hfac)(2) complexes with RL=5-(4-[N-tert-butyl-N-aminoxyl]phenyl)pyrimidine

5-(4-(N-tert-Butyl-N-aminoxylphenyl)) pyrimidine (RL, 4PPN) forms crystallographically isostructural and isomorphic pseudo-octahedral M(RL)(2)(hfac)(2) complexes with M(hfac)(2), M = Zn, Cu, Ni, Co, and Mn. Multiple close contacts occur between sites of significant spin density of the organic radical units. Magnetic behavior of the Zn, Cu, Ni, Co complexes appears to involve multiple exchange pathways, with multiple close crystallographic contacts between sites that EPR (of 4PPN) indicates to have observable spin density. Powder EPR spectra at room temperature and low temperature are reported for each complex. Near room temperature, the magnetic moments of the complexes are roughly equal to those expected by a sum of non-interacting moments (two radicals plus ion). As temperature decreases, AFM exchange interactions become evident in all of the complexes. The closest fits to the magnetic data were found for a 1-D Heisenberg AFM chain model in the Zn(II) complex (J/k = (-)7 K), and for three-spin RL-M-RL exchange in the other complexes (J/k = (-)26 K, (-)3 K, (-) 6 K, for Cu(II), Ni(II), and Co(II) complexes, respectively). (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.