Risky business: social media metrics and political risk analysis

A quantificação do risco país – e do risco político em particular – levanta várias dificuldades às empresas, instituições, e investidores. Como os indicadores econômicos são atualizados com muito menos freqüência do que o Facebook, compreender, e mais precisamente, medir – o que está ocorrendo no terreno em tempo real pode constituir um desafio para os analistas de risco político. No entanto, com a crescente disponibilidade de “big data” de ferramentas sociais como o Twitter, agora é o momento oportuno para examinar os tipos de métricas das ferramentas sociais que estão disponíveis e as limitações da sua aplicação para a análise de risco país, especialmente durante episódios de violência política. Utilizando o método qualitativo de pesquisa bibliográfica, este estudo identifica a paisagem atual de dados disponíveis a partir do Twitter, analisa os métodos atuais e potenciais de análise, e discute a sua possível aplicação no campo da análise de risco político. Depois de uma revisão completa do campo até hoje, e tendo em conta os avanços tecnológicos esperados a curto e médio prazo, este estudo conclui que, apesar de obstáculos como o custo de armazenamento de informação, as limitações da análise em tempo real, e o potencial para a manipulação de dados, os benefícios potenciais da aplicação de métricas de ferramentas sociais para o campo da análise de risco político, particularmente para os modelos qualitativos-estruturados e quantitativos, claramente superam os desafios.

Betting on winner: the effect of local elections on corporate political activity outcomes

How can managers successfully access political rents by way of corporate political strategies (CPA)? Existing research has suggested several endogenous factors that correlate with CPA outcomes. I offer a more robust solution to this problem. Drawing on insights from the perspective of CPA as exchanges between firms and political decision-makers, and from the special interest politics of political economy, I develop and test a causal mechanism that links local elections, legislative bargaining and access to political rents at the national level. I conducted a natural experiment using regression discontinuity design and propensity score matching in municipal elections in Brazil to show that firms enjoy superior access to subsidized financing from the state-owned national development bank (BNDES) when they decide to invest in municipalities whose winning mayoral candidate is coalition-aligned with the national ruler. This effect fades away fades away as the level of competition in the local election decreases. The evidence implies that when managers bet on national coalition-aligned winners in close local elections, they positively affect CPA outcomes. I extend the exchange-based typology of corporate political strategies by offering a novel possibility of targeting voters with financial inducements, which I call a private local development strategy. Finally, these results show that firms exchange their project-execution capabilities for superior access to subsidized financing.

The Limits of political compromise: debt ceilings and political competition

We study the desirability of limits on the public debt and of political competition in an economy where political parties alternate in office. Due to rent-seeking motives, incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimal level. Parties cannot commit to future policies, but they can forge a political compromise where each party curbs excessive spending when in office if it expects future governments to do the same. In contrast to the received literature, we find that strict limits on government borrowing can exacerbate political-economy distortions by rendering a political compromise unsustainable. This tends to happen when political competition is limited. Conversely, a tight limit on the public debt fosters a compromise that yields the efficient outcome when political competition is vigorous, saving the economy from immiseration. Our analysis thus suggests a legislative tradeoff between restricting political competition and constraining the ability of governments to issue debt.

Foreign support, internal political disputes and mass killings

This paper studies the incentives underlying the relations between foreign countries and rival domestic groups. It models the interaction in a infinitely-repeated game between these three players. The domestic groups bargain for a split of the domestic surplus and may engage in violent dispute for power and in unilateral mass killing processes. The foreign country may choose to support one of these groups in exchange for monetary transfers. The paper characterizes the parametric set in which strategies leading to no violent disputes nor mass killings are Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibra in the presence of foreign support, but not in its absence.

Spatial spillovers and political coordination in public health provision

We estimate the impact of the main unconditional federal grant (Fundo de Participaçãodos Municípios - FPM) to Brazilian municipalities as well as its spillover from the neighboring cities on local health outcomes. We consider data from 2002 to 2007 (Brollo et al, 2013) and explore the FPM distribution rule according to population brackets to apply a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) using cities near the thresholds. In elasticity terms, we nd a reduction on infant mortality rate (-0.18) and on morbidity rate (- 0.41), except in the largest cities of our sample. We also nd an increase on the access to the main program of visiting the vulnerable families, the Family Health Program (Programa Sa ude da Família - PSF). The e ects are stronger for the smallest cities of our sample and we nd increase: (i) On the percentage of residents enrolled in the program (0.36), (ii) On the per capita number of PSF visits (1.59), and (iii) On the per capita number of PSF visits with a doctor (1.8) and nurse (2). After we control for the FPM spillover using neighboring cities near diferent thresholds, our results show that the reduction in morbidity and mortality is largely due to the spillover e ect, but there are negative spillover on preventive actions, as PSF doctors visits and vaccination. Finally, the negative spillover e ect on health resources may be due free riding or political coordination problems, as in the case of the number of hospital beds, but also due to to competition for health professionals, as in the case of number of doctors (-0.35 and -0.87, respectively), specially general practitioners and surgeons (-1.84 and -2.45).

Análise das interpretações do governo Evo Morales: o legado histórico e o poder nacional-indígena

This work aims to analyze the interpretations about Evo Morales' government in Bolivia. For such, it proposes a theoretical reclaim of Marxism in Latin America, as well as of Bolivian political history since the 1952 Revolution, going through the crisis in Pacted Democracy intensified in the five-year conjuncture of struggles started in 2000 up to the election and reelection of Morales. It departs from an empirical prior conjecture taken from a qualitative analysis and a broad literature review to analyze the different interpretations of the Bolivian political process from Marxist theoretical matrices. After this historical recovery and this reading of contemporary Bolivia, it concludes with a consideration about the formation of a possible new block of power in the country, with the retaking of nationalism and Indianism as revolutionary reasons

Reforma administrativa e gestão de políticas sociais em Mossoró: a falácia dos atores institucionais e sociais

The thesis entitled The administrative reform and social political management in Mossoró: the institutional and social staff's falacy. Comprehends a moment of apprehensiveness and analysis in the reestrcturing process of the city, whose process will show the formation of strategies and deployment of its relation with the social political affectiveness. It represents a single moment in the approach of such a kind of experience in the city. The analysis starts from the third mandate of the Mayor Rosalba Ciarlini Rosado, during the quadriennium 2001/2004, for being the time in which the public management got materialized, such as in the operational way of the social politics. For that, we delimitate this study in two distinct moments: the first one refers to the reform elaboration from the creation of the additional law nº 001/2000 GP/PMM: the second one refers to a practical reform from the social and institutional staff's speech. Within that scenary it was seen that the approaching, though partially, the State Reform and, consequently, the master plan of the state apparatus, which were made of theoretical matrices of such a project locally. However, that is a complex experience, that required the use of field and documental research for the proposed investigation and at the same time, prove the guiding hypothesis of it, what means a grouping of areas like: education, healthy, and social development in only one department City Citizenship Department that is able to materialize a new intitutional arrangement, according to the management principles in the public administration at the govern local level, configuring a reform and not just an institutional adequacy. In that context, it got necessary to apprehending the institutional and social actors' falacy as a way to prove or not the presented hypothesis. Among the first staff, we have the mayor's direct leaders and advisors' perception that express the politcal administrative aspects of the reform and, in the second, the perception of the political view of what has changed concerning the management of the social politics

Ionized-air-treated curaua fibers as reinforcement for phenolic matrices

Curaua fibers were treated with ionized air to improve the fiber/phenolic matrix adhesion.The treatment with ionized air did not change the thermal stability of the fibers. The impact strength increased with increase in the fiber treatment time. SEM micrographs of the fibers showed that the ionized air treatment led to separation of the fiber bundles. Treatment for 12 h also caused a partial degradation of the fibers, which prompted the matrix to transfer the load to a poorer reinforcing agent during impact, thereby decreasing the impact strength of the related composite. The composites reinforced with fibers treated with ionized air absorbed less water than those reinforced with untreated fibers.

Single real transformation matrices applied to double three-phase transmission lines

Single real transformation matrices are tested as phase-mode transformation matrices of typical symmetrical systems with double three-phase and two parallel double three-phase transmission lines. These single real transformation matrices are achieved from eigenvector matrices of the mentioned systems and they are based on Clarke's matrix. Using linear combinations of the Clarke's matrix elements, the techniques applied to the single three-phase lines are extended to systems with 6 or 12 phase conductors. For transposed double three-phase lines, phase Z and Y matrices are changed into diagonal matrices in mode domain. Considering non-transposed cases of double three-phase lines, the results are not exact and the error analyses are performed using the exact eigenvalues. In case of two parallel double three-phase lines, the exact single real transformation matrix has not been obtained yet. Searching for this exact matrix, the analyses are based on a single homopolar reference. For all analyses in this paper, the homopolar mode is used as the only homopolar reference for all phase conductors of the studied system. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Structural damage identification and location using grammian matrices

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

Tissue response to polyanionic collagen: elastin matrices implanted in rat calvaria

The tissue response to polyanionic collagen matrices, prepared from bovine pericardium and implanted subperiosteally in rat calvaria, was studied. The materials were implanted in 72 male rats (Rattus norvegicus, albinus, Holtzman), randomly divided into four groups: GI-MBP hydrolyzed for 24 h; GII-MBP hydrolyzed for 36 h; GIII-MBP hydrolyzed for 48 h; GIV-native M BP. The materials were explanted after 15, 30 and 60 days and analyzed by routine histological procedures. Except for group IV (native bovine pericardium), polyanionic collagen from groups GI, GII and GIII showed low inflammatory reaction associated with bone formation, partially or completely integrated to the cranial bone; group GIV was characterized by an intense inflammatory reaction with occasional dystrophic mineralization and with occasional bone formation at 60 days when there was a decrease in the inflammatory reaction. Thus, the MBP from groups I, II and III were biologically compatible, enhancing bone formation with a slight delay at 60 days in GII. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. Ltd. All rights reserved.

MATHEMATICA notebook for computing tetrahedral finite element shape functions and matrices for the Helmholtz equation

A MATHEMATICA notebook to compute the elements of the matrices which arise in the solution of the Helmholtz equation by the finite element method (nodal approximation) for tetrahedral elements of any approximation order is presented. The results of the notebook enable a fast computational implementation of finite element codes for high order simplex 3D elements reducing the overheads due to implementation and test of the complex mathematical expressions obtained from the analytical integrations. These matrices can be used in a large number of applications related to physical phenomena described by the Poisson, Laplace and Schrodinger equations with anisotropic physical properties.

Hierarchy and anarchy in quark mass matrices, or can hierarchy tolerate anarchy?

The consequences of adding random perturbations (anarchy) to a baseline hierarchical model of quark masses and mixings are explored. Even small perturbations of the order of 5% of the smallest non-zero element can already give deviations significantly affecting parameters of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix, so any process generating the anarchy should in general be limited to this order of magnitude. The regularities of quark masses and mixings thus appear to be far from a generic feature of randomness in the mass matrices, and more likely indicate an underlying order. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier B.V. B.V.

General soliton matrices in the Riemann-Hilbert problem for integrable nonlinear equations

We derive the soliton matrices corresponding to an arbitrary number of higher-order normal zeros for the matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem of arbitrary matrix dimension, thus giving the complete solution to the problem of higher-order solitons. Our soliton matrices explicitly give all higher-order multisoliton solutions to the nonlinear partial differential equations integrable through the matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem. We have applied these general results to the three-wave interaction system, and derived new classes of higher-order soliton and two-soliton solutions, in complement to those from our previous publication [Stud. Appl. Math. 110, 297 (2003)], where only the elementary higher-order zeros were considered. The higher-order solitons corresponding to nonelementary zeros generically describe the simultaneous breakup of a pumping wave (u(3)) into the other two components (u(1) and u(2)) and merger of u(1) and u(2) waves into the pumping u(3) wave. The two-soliton solutions corresponding to two simple zeros generically describe the breakup of the pumping u(3) wave into the u(1) and u(2) components, and the reverse process. In the nongeneric cases, these two-soliton solutions could describe the elastic interaction of the u(1) and u(2) waves, thus reproducing previous results obtained by Zakharov and Manakov [Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, 1654 (1975)] and Kaup [Stud. Appl. Math. 55, 9 (1976)]. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.

A method for evaluating Ra-228 in environmental matrices and its use at Pocos de Caldas plateau, Brazil

This work describes a methodology developed for performing the extraction, detection and quantification of Ra-228 in waters, suspended solids and sediments. The technique proved to be useful for analyzing samples from the hydrological environment of Morro do Ferro, Pocos de Caldas plateau, Brazil. The 228Ra activity in underground waters of 5 boreholes drilled in the area varied from 0.02 up to 14.5 Bq/l, whereas for the surficial waters the variation was from 0.04 to 0.51 Bq/l; for the suspended solids, the values ranged from 1.5 up to 419 Bq/g, whereas it was possible to find a value of 2.04 Bq/g for the sediments. These results show the applicability of the method for characterizing different matrices of environmental interest. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. Ltd. All rights reserved.