Inter-comparison of stratospheric mean-meridional circulation and eddy mixing among six reanalysis data sets

The stratospheric mean-meridional circulation (MMC) and eddy mixing are compared among six meteorological reanalysis data sets: NCEP-NCAR, NCEP-CFSR, ERA-40, ERA-Interim, JRA-25, and JRA-55 for the period 1979–2012. The reanalysis data sets produced using advanced systems (i.e., NCEP-CFSR, ERA-Interim, and JRA-55) generally reveal a weaker MMC in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) compared with those produced using older systems (i.e., NCEP/NCAR, ERA-40, and JRA-25). The mean mixing strength differs largely among the data products. In the NH lower stratosphere, the contribution of planetary-scale mixing is larger in the new data sets than in the old data sets, whereas that of small-scale mixing is weaker in the new data sets. Conventional data assimilation techniques introduce analysis increments without maintaining physical balance, which may have caused an overly strong MMC and spurious small-scale eddies in the old data sets. At the NH mid-latitudes, only ERA-Interim reveals a weakening MMC trend in the deep branch of the Brewer–Dobson circulation (BDC). The relative importance of the eddy mixing compared with the mean-meridional transport in the subtropical lower stratosphere shows increasing trends in ERA-Interim and JRA-55; this together with the weakened MMC in the deep branch may imply an increasing age-of-air (AoA) in the NH middle stratosphere in ERA-Interim. Overall, discrepancies between the different variables and trends therein as derived from the different reanalyses are still relatively large, suggesting that more investments in these products are needed in order to obtain a consolidated picture of observed changes in the BDC and the mechanisms that drive them.

Environmental Objectives, Cost Efficiency, and Multivariate Stochastic Control

This paper is concerned with the cost efficiency in achieving the Swedish national air quality objectives under uncertainty. To realize an ecologically sustainable society, the parliament has approved a set of interim and long-term pollution reduction targets. However, there are considerable quantification uncertainties on the effectiveness of the proposed pollution reduction measures. In this paper, we develop a multivariate stochastic control framework to deal with the cost efficiency problem with multiple pollutants. Based on the cost and technological data collected by several national authorities, we explore the implications of alternative probabilistic constraints. It is found that a composite probabilistic constraint induces considerably lower abatement cost than separable probabilistic restrictions. The trend is reinforced by the presence of positive correlations between reductions in the multiple pollutants.

12-month results from a novel test battery used in a duodenal levodopa infusion trial

A novel test battery consisting of self-assessments and motor tests (tapping and spiral drawing) for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) was developed for a hand computer with touch screen in a telemedicine setting. Tests are performed four times per day in the home environment during weeklong test periods. Results are processed into scores for different dimensions of the symptom state and an ‘overall score’ reflecting the global condition of a patient during a test period. The test battery was validated in a separate study recently submitted to Mov Disord. This test battery is currently being used in an open longitudinal trial (DAPHNE, EudraCT No. 2005- 002654-21) by sixty-five patients with advanced PD at nine clinics around Sweden. On inclusion, the patients were either receiving treatment with duodenal levodopa/carbidopa infusion (Duodopa®) (n=36), or they were candidates for receiving this treatment (n=29). We now present interim results for the first twelve months. Test periods were performed in three-month intervals. During most of the periods, UPDRS ratings were performed in afternoons at the start of the week. In twenty of the patients, scores were available during individually optimized oral polypharamacy, before receiving infusion and at least one test period after having started infusion treatment. Usability and compliance with performing tests, this far are good, both with patients and clinical staff. Correlations between test periods 2 and 3 during infusion treatment (three months apart) are stronger for overall test score than for total UPDRS, indicating good reliability. The correlation between overall test score and UPDRS for all test periods is adequate (r=-0.6). In an exact Wilcoxon signed rank test, where the endpoint is the change from the first to the twelve month test period (n=25), there was no change in test results in any of the test battery dimensions for the patients already receiving infusion when included. However, in the patients entering the study before receiving infusion, there was a significant change (improvement) from the baseline to the twelve month test period in dimensions; ‘off’, ‘dyskinesia’ and ‘satisfied’ and in the ‘overall score’ (n=15). The mean improvement in overall score after infusion was 29% (p=0.015). We conclude that the test battery is able to measure a functional improvement with infusion that is sustained over at least twelve months.

Education, preferences for leisure, and the optimal income tax schedule

Recent advances in dynamic Mirrlees economies have incorporated the treatment of human capital investments as an important dimension of government policy. This paper adds to this literature by considering a two period economy where agents are di erentiated by their preferences for leisure and their productivity, both private information. The fact that productivity is only learnt later in an agent's life introduces uncertainty to agent's savings and human capital choices and makes optimal the use of multi-period tie-ins in the mechanism that characterizes the government policy. We show that optimal policies are often interim ine cient and that the introduction of these ine ciencies may take the form of marginal tax rates on labor income of varying sign and educational policies that include the discouragement of human capital acquisition. With regards to implementation, state-dependent linear taxes implement optimal savings, while human capital policies may require labor income taxes that depend directly on agents' schooling.

Common agency with informed principals

We analyze a common agency game under asymmetric information on the preferences of the non-cooperating principals in a public good context. Asymmetric information introduces incentive compatibility constraints which rationalize the requirement of truthfulness made in the earlier literature on common agency games under complete information. There exists a large class of differentiable equilibria which are ex post inefficient and exhibit free-riding. We then characterize some interim efficient equilibria. Finally, there exists also a unique equilibrium allocation which is robust to random perturbations. This focal equilibrium is characterized for any distribution of types.

On the limits of cheap talk for public good provision

This article studies a model where, as a consequence of private information, agents do not have incentive to invest in a desired joint project, or a public good, when they are unable to have prior discussion with their partners. As a result, the joint project is never undertaken and inefficiency is observed. Agastya, Menezes and Sengupta (2007) prove that with a prior stage of communication, with a binary message space, it is possible to have some efficiency gain since "all ex-ante and interim efficient equilibria exhibit a simple structure". We show that any finite message space does not provide efficiency gain on the simple structure discussed in that article. We use laboratory experiments to test these results. We find that people do contribute, even without communication, and that any kind of communication increases the probability of project implementation. We also observed that communication reduces the unproductive contribution, and that a large message space cannot provide efficiency gain relative to the binary one.

O processo de humanização: as bases constitutivas da subjetividade

Iniciando-se por uma descrição longitudinal, seguida de interpretação "a posteriori", obteve-se categorias relativas a cada dimensão do psiquismo. Estas, em seu caráter de transversalidade, foram tomadas como esteios para as explicações acerca da passagem do sujeito da condição biológica à condição de sujeito falante. O norteamento dessa análise teve como ponto de partida a postulação acerca dessas dimensões, dos aspectos relativos as mesmas, e dos efetores referentes por essa passagem, cujo início tem a esses aspectos que respondem lugar quando a mãe se dispõe a apontar para o sujeito o limite entre o núcleo filogenético e as transformações sócio-histórica. A partir dessa delimitação, ocorre a assimilação de características, tipicamente humanas para, enfim, serem fixados pela lei paterna, os limites do “tornar-se humano”. Nesse ínterim, são observadas ocorrências relativas as dimensões mencionadas. Tratando-se de permanência de conteúdos mantidos fora do campo da simbolização, e excluídos da matriz imaginária, tem-se então a caracterização do real ~elo seu mecanismo específico: a foraclusão. Ainda se situa a pulsão no seu caráter impensável e inominável. Já as ações resultantes do recalcamento originário concorrem para a formação de marcas não-simbolizáveis que, como faceta do imaginário, se vinculam às informações do núcleo filogenético referentes aos protofantasmas, aqui considerado corno outra faceta desta dimensão. No que concerne ao simbólico, registra-se a significação como fundante da condição humana, resultante do recalcamento propriamente dito. Sendo assim, a humanização enquanto explicada pelo conceito de recalcamento, conforme evidencia a metapsicologia freudiana, não açambarça todas as nuances relativas ao humano; visto englobar apenas aquilo que é imaginado corno fantasma ou aquilo que e apresentado simbolicamente. Por isso, a utilização do conceito de foraclusão, da perspectiva lacaniana, justifica-se pelo fato de oferecer uma visão mais completa dessa dinâmica. Desse modo, se pode incluir no escopo do "tornar-se humano", aqueles elementos não passíveis de simbolização, bem como aqueles da realidade pulsional que não se apresentam no texto do fantasma; mas que, ao se constituírem como um "pano-de-fundo", possibilitam que a conteúdos simbólicos e imaginários viabilizem a socialização. De resto, a socialização é um processo que, originado do simbólico, se assenta no imaginário tomado como base. Para isto, o real, em seu efeito marginal, possibilita o retorno ao simbólico. A partir daí, se verifica a utilização dos elementos culturais, que são descobertos em função daquilo que a atividade fantasmática suscita.

Insider trading, investment, and liquidity: a welfare analysis

We compare competitive equilibrium outcomes with and without trading by a privately infonned "monopolistic" insider, in a model with real investment portfolio choices ex ante, and noise trading generated by aggregate uncertainty regarding other agents' intertemporal consumption preferences. The welfare implications of insider trading for the ex ante expected utilities of outsiders are analyzed. The role of interim infonnation revelation due to insider trading, in improving the risk-sharing among outsiders with stochastic liquidity needs, is examined in detaiL

Common agency with informed principals

We analyze a common agency game under asymmetric information on the preferences of the non-cooperating principals. Asymmetric information introduces incentive compatibility constraints which rationalize the requirement of truthfulness made in the earlier literature on common agency games under complete information. There exists a large class of differentiable equilibria which are ex post inefficient and exhibit free-riding. We then characterize some interim efficient equilibria. Finally, there exists also a unique equilibrium allocation which is robust to random perturbations. This focal equilibrium is characterized for any distribution of types.

Flexible information acquisition and optimal Tobin tax in tractable dynamic global games

My dissertation focuses on dynamic aspects of coordination processes such as reversibility of early actions, option to delay decisions, and learning of the environment from the observation of other people’s actions. This study proposes the use of tractable dynamic global games where players privately and passively learn about their actions’ true payoffs and are able to adjust early investment decisions to the arrival of new information to investigate the consequences of the presence of liquidity shocks to the performance of a Tobin tax as a policy intended to foster coordination success (chapter 1), and the adequacy of the use of a Tobin tax in order to reduce an economy’s vulnerability to sudden stops (chapter 2). Then, it analyzes players’ incentive to acquire costly information in a sequential decision setting (chapter 3). In chapter 1, a continuum of foreign agents decide whether to enter or not in an investment project. A fraction λ of them are hit by liquidity restrictions in a second period and are forced to withdraw early investment or precluded from investing in the interim period, depending on the actions they chose in the first period. Players not affected by the liquidity shock are able to revise early decisions. Coordination success is increasing in the aggregate investment and decreasing in the aggregate volume of capital exit. Without liquidity shocks, aggregate investment is (in a pivotal contingency) invariant to frictions like a tax on short term capitals. In this case, a Tobin tax always increases success incidence. In the presence of liquidity shocks, this invariance result no longer holds in equilibrium. A Tobin tax becomes harmful to aggregate investment, which may reduces success incidence if the economy does not benefit enough from avoiding capital reversals. It is shown that the Tobin tax that maximizes the ex-ante probability of successfully coordinated investment is decreasing in the liquidity shock. Chapter 2 studies the effects of a Tobin tax in the same setting of the global game model proposed in chapter 1, with the exception that the liquidity shock is considered stochastic, i.e, there is also aggregate uncertainty about the extension of the liquidity restrictions. It identifies conditions under which, in the unique equilibrium of the model with low probability of liquidity shocks but large dry-ups, a Tobin tax is welfare improving, helping agents to coordinate on the good outcome. The model provides a rationale for a Tobin tax on economies that are prone to sudden stops. The optimal Tobin tax tends to be larger when capital reversals are more harmful and when the fraction of agents hit by liquidity shocks is smaller. Chapter 3 focuses on information acquisition in a sequential decision game with payoff complementar- ity and information externality. When information is cheap relatively to players’ incentive to coordinate actions, only the first player chooses to process information; the second player learns about the true payoff distribution from the observation of the first player’s decision and follows her action. Miscoordination requires that both players privately precess information, which tends to happen when it is expensive and the prior knowledge about the distribution of the payoffs has a large variance.

O tema no processo criativo da asmarias companhia de teatro

Seted in the context of the educational actions of Casa Renascer, a non-governmental organization, located in Natal city, which had as its primary purpose the care with children and adolescent girls in vulnerable situations, this research is based on describing and analysis on the topic in the creative process developed by Asmarias Theatre Company from 1993 to 2003, a process that culminated in the assembly of the dramatic text, Mateus e Mateusa, of Qorpo-Santo. In this research is focused on the route of the Theatre Company has done so much theater in its early history (1993), with the practice of reading and dramatic writing in the preparation of didactic material called Primer of Inventions, as in the procedures with theater street and forum theater (1997 to 2000) to the reunion in 2001 of seven teenagers which articulated the last group formation next to the assembly's text Qorpo-Santo (2002- 2003). During the development on this learning, the evolution of the creative process based on institutional theme when asked if one can provide moments of educational experiences through the traditional form of theater, with reference to the issues inherent in the dramatic texts considered classics. The debate on the issue through research and analysis in its descriptions and finds in the interim between his past and present indications that lead to conclusive guises. The methodology, which is guided by research, is based in theatrical archeology (PAVIS, 2005), the evidential paradigm (GINZBURG, 1989) and the second approaches the experiences narrated by Benjamin (1985). We selected documents in formats of written texts, photographic and filmed, and identified in these files, marks and tracks which took us to understand the subject in the creative process of Asmarias Theatre Company during the tests with the dramatic text, Mateus and Mateusa, of Qorpo-Santo. In this theatrical practice, located in the field of the theater pedagogy, it appears that the actions across thematic theater in the Casa Renascer and allowed the formation of critical aesthetic perspective and personal social dimension of the subjects involved. The theme has gained a significant proportion in the theatrical activity as a guiding point of the creative process of Theatre Company, taking in the theatrical art form. In this sense, the creative process with the dramatic and classic texts won the educational dimension to address the issue in the movement of the drama as the focus of individual creation which added to the collective universe of the interactive game

Estudo estatístico sobre eventos de precipitação intensa no nordeste do Brasil

The Northeast of Brazil (NEB) shows high climate variability, ranging from semiarid regions to a rainy regions. According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the NEB is highly susceptible to climate change, and also heavy rainfall events (HRE). However, few climatology studies about these episodes were performed, thus the objective main research is to compute the climatology and trend of the episodes number and the daily rainfall rate associated with HRE in the NEB and its climatologically homogeneous sub regions; relate them to the weak rainfall events and normal rainfall events. The daily rainfall data of the hydrometeorological network managed by the Agência Nacional de Águas, from 1972 to 2002. For selection of rainfall events used the technique of quantiles and the trend was identified using the Mann-Kendall test. The sub regions were obtained by cluster analysis, using as similarity measure the Euclidean distance and Ward agglomerative hierarchical method. The results show that the seasonality of the NEB is being intensified, i.e., the dry season is becoming drier and wet season getting wet. The El Niño and La Niña influence more on the amount of events regarding the intensity, but the sub-regions this influence is less noticeable. Using daily data reanalysis ERAInterim fields of anomalies of the composites of meteorological variables were calculated for the coast of the NEB, to characterize the synoptic environment. The Upper-level cyclonic vortex and the South atlantic convergene zone were identified as the main weather systems responsible for training of EPI on the coastland

Maracatus Solar e Reis de Paus: tradição e modernidade no carnaval de rua em Fortaleza

This is an ethnographic and comparative study of the Maracatus Solar (2006) and Reis de Paus (1960), whose aim was to verify what is ancient and traditional in the new maracatu practiced by the guild Solar and conversely, what is new or modern in the old maracatu ritualized by guild Reis de Paus. It is worth noting that through this case study it is also intended to ethnographically observe and better understand the processes of ruptures and continuities between modernization and tradition, and the relationship between the global and the local. The communication system, the dancing, the music, the costumes and the loas (letters) were analyzed using the technique of participant observation as well as secondary materials such as newspapers, blogs and magazines. The interviews were open, non-directive, but recorded to facilitate understanding the speech of revelers. The research has shown that all the symbolic elements of aesthetic expression of the maracatu are permeated by clashes of historical contexts and of political representation, which, in another instance, also enunciates a fight of micro-community resistance regarding the renewal process and the social development that plague modern megalopolis. It is In this interim, between modernity and tradition that today it can be spoken about the existence of hybrid identity in the maracatu regarding a context mediated by the overall above mentioned values and customs specific of the new generations. However, one can not deny that the forms of negotiations with modernity also require the establishment of a link with the specific singularity of a popular culture that is not excluded, but also should not get invaded by the idea of authenticity. Therefore, performing this study was above all an opportunity to understand also the community life in the city outskirts, understanding society, culture and everyday social relations maintained between humans that produce and make it all happen. The Solar and Reis de Paus do not join in opposition between themselves nor by their similarity. What is most striking among them is the renewal of a tradition that reinvents itself in the form of popular representation across the street parade

Oral Rehabilitation After Surgical Removal of Pleomorphic Adenoma

Although tumors of minor salivary glands are rare, the pleomorphic adenoma is the most common pathology among the benign neoplasm and can be found with high prevalence in the junction between hard palate and soft palate. The treatment of choice for most of maxillary tumors is surgical through either a total or partial maxillectomy. However, surgical defects caused by such type of treatment lead to both clinical and psychologic disorders for the patient. The immediate oral rehabilitation using interim palate obturator after maxillectomy provides optimization on the healing process, recovers the stomatognathic functions after surgery, and avoids psychosocial sequelae for the patients. This clinical report aimed to present the rehabilitation with immediate palate obturator of a patient who underwent a partial maxillectomy due to a hard palate pleomorphic adenoma of minor salivary glands. We report the clinical importance of the prosthetic rehabilitation and the improvements on both quality of life and stomatognathic functions of this patient. It can be concluded that the immediate rehabilitation of the patient after partial maxillectomy by using an interim palate obturator was a great option and provided clinical benefits in the immediate postoperative period, improving the patient's quality of life, allowing the patient's reinsertion into society, and reducing the surgical treatment sequelae.

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in elderly Japanese-Brazilians

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