Report of the workshop in Caribbean small and medium-sized enterprises and trade liberalization: challenges of clusters and network initiatives

Includes bibliography

Maritime and port security in South America: the situation in mid-2004

The current issue of the Bulletin is based on a document prepared by the ECLAC Transport Unit, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Division, on maritime and port security in South America: implementation of measures, general status as of mid-2004 (in Spanish only). This is a joint activity of the Technical Coordination Committee of the presidential initiative for Regional Infrastructure Integration in South America (IIRSA) and ECLAC. This document served as an input for a meeting on this subject held by representatives of the authorities of South American countries in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 22 June 2004. In this issue the results are presented of two recent surveys conducted by the users, operators and governmental authorities of the region on the new maritime and port security measures of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). An effort was made, on the one hand, to ascertain the existing level of awareness of the measures and the perceptions of impact, the potential costs and responsibility for the cost of the measures, and on the other hand to ascertain the degree of progress in their implementation, for which the deadline was 1 July 2004.

Maritime and port security in South America: implementation costs

This edition of the Bulletin is based on a document prepared by ECLAC and the Technical Coordination Committee of the presidential initiative for Regional Infrastructure Integration in South America (IIRSA), which is composed of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Andean Development Corporation (ADC) and the Financial Fund for the Development of the River Plate Basin (FONPLATA). The document was prepared as a joint activity on maritime and port security in South America in the context of the IIRSA sectoral integration process in relation to operational systems for maritime transport. It served as an input for the meeting on that subject held by representatives of the authorities of the South American countries in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 22 June 2004.This edition presents the results of the implementation cost assessment for the new compulsory regulations for maritime and port security of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and also considers the costs of the voluntary measures.

Homicide and public security indicator trends in the city of Sao Paulo between 1996 and 2008: a time-series ecological study

The scope of this paper was to analyze the association between homicides and public security indicators in Sao Paulo between 1996 and 2008, after monitoring the unemployment rate and the proportion of youths in the population. A time-series ecological study for 1996 and 2008 was conducted with Sao Paulo as the unit of analysis. Dependent variable: number of deaths by homicide per year. Main independent variables: arrest-incarceration rate, access to firearms, police activity. Data analysis was conducted using Stata. IC 10.0 software. Simple and multivariate negative binomial regression models were created. Deaths by homicide and arrest-incarceration, as well as police activity were significantly associated in simple regression analysis. Access to firearms was not significantly associated to the reduction in the number of deaths by homicide (p>0,05). After adjustment, the associations with both the public security indicators were not significant. In Sao Paulo the role of public security indicators are less important as explanatory factors for a reduction in homicide rates, after adjustment for unemployment rate and a reduction in the proportion of youths. The results reinforce the importance of socioeconomic and demographic factors for a change in the public security scenario in Sao Paulo.

Food and Nutrition Security - meanings and appropriations from the civil society segment of the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security

The huge transformations that occurred in the last two decades had impacts on the standards of food production and consumption, and determined a wider discussion in Brazil about the theme of food and nutrition security. It has also expanded the scope of it, which now considers nourishing aspects regarding the entire population and not only its most vulnerable segments. This research identified different meanings present in the speech about food and nutrition security, terms incorporated by movements and civil society organizations that were represented at the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (administration 2004-2007). Thematic appropriation could be observed in the following directions: a) privileging the interaction between thematic fields from both production and consumption spheres; b) strengthening the idea of nutrition as a human right; c) including an ethical goal to the country's development; d) development of an intra and intersectorial perspective; e) identifying the need of dialogic and freeing educational processes.

Homophobic discourse in blogs: Weaving of violence and network

This article aims at analyzing the effects of meaning installed in the discursive space of a blog, especially a formulation of discriminatory nature which was posted in November, 2011 and considerably discussed in other discursive spaces on the Internet. By means of French Discourse Analysis, we sought to track the memory networks and the ideological effects that are at play in the discourse on homosexuals posted by browsers-subjects and how they update the meanings already there in order to install effects of prejudice and hatred. Our interest is also to catch the meanings of violence inscribed in the electronic network and analyze the functioning of the language in motion in this space bordered by the imaginary in which it is possible to say anything. Hence, by means of the analyses performed in this study, we observed these effects of the subject's full freedom when he/she subscribes to the electronic network without fear of any punishment of any order. The discourses of intolerance and hatred posted on the blog by the subject give voice to a discursive confrontation observed by marks of agreement or indignation, supported by the discursive memory. Thus, we observed the interruption of regularities that break up with a supposed linearity in the discourse, putting the contradiction and the heterogeneous nature of the sayings on the net in motion.

Approach to Food and Nutrition issues in Teaching Materials in Elementary School: interface with food and nutritional security and national curriculum parameters

Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) must be ensured to everybody. The school environment is favorable to the formation of healthy habits and citizenship. The National Curriculum Parameters (PCNs) guide the promotion of health concepts in a transversal way in the school curriculum. This study aimed to identify and analyze the approach used for food and nutrition themes in Fundamental Education's teaching material and its interface with the concept of FNS and the PCNs. Documental research was conducted on the teaching material from 5th to 8th grades of Fundamental Education in Public School of the state of Sao Paulo. The diffuse presence of food and nutrition themes was found in most disciplines in all bimesters in the four series, which shows the interdisciplinarity in health. It was found that the PCNs are related to the concept of SAN in its various aspects and that most subjects include topics that approach this relationship. In the correlation between themes, there is emphasis to health promotion and food production. The methodology used in the teaching material presents the theme, but not the correspondent content, what made the analysis of its suitability impossible. We conclude that there is the approach of the issues related to food and nutrition in the teaching material, some of them in an inconsistent way; it is the educators' task to select the contents and the appropriate strategy, doing an effort of constant update. This isbeing proposed by the State, however it is not accessible to all professionals and therefore still depends on the initiative of each teacher.

Organization and dynamics of Conselho Municipal de Seguranca Alimentar e Nutricional de Sao Paulo: implications of their participation on the creation of a municipal food and nutrition security policy

Objective This study analyzed the internal functioning, organization and political participation of the local food and nutrition security council and possible implications of their participation on the creation of a municipal food and nutrition security policy in the city of Sao Paulo. Methods This qualitative study was done in three stages: document analysis; observation of meetings and semi-structured interviews with board members considered key informants. The axis of analysis was the political participation of the council, considering its internal aspects, like board members, operating dynamics of political participation of its members and the relationship between these topics and the council's actions for the definition and creation of a food and nutrition security policy. Results The intellectual profile of the board members does not represent the majority of the population, thereby facilitating the omission of actual issues in council discussions. Its strict internal dynamics and the asymmetry of its members generally prevent the active participation of board members and, specifically, discussions about a food and nutrition security policy. The so-called "militant members" have a differentiated, more aggressive participation, with greater mastery of the subject and its topics. Conclusion The board member profiles, internal organization of the council, complexity of the subject and its low insertion in the society distance the council from social needs and lead them to act incipiently with regard to the municipal policies of food and nutrition security.

Decomposition Methods and Network Design Problems

Decomposition based approaches are recalled from primal and dual point of view. The possibility of building partially disaggregated reduced master problems is investigated. This extends the idea of aggregated-versus-disaggregated formulation to a gradual choice of alternative level of aggregation. Partial aggregation is applied to the linear multicommodity minimum cost flow problem. The possibility of having only partially aggregated bundles opens a wide range of alternatives with different trade-offs between the number of iterations and the required computation for solving it. This trade-off is explored for several sets of instances and the results are compared with the ones obtained by directly solving the natural node-arc formulation. An iterative solution process to the route assignment problem is proposed, based on the well-known Frank Wolfe algorithm. In order to provide a first feasible solution to the Frank Wolfe algorithm, a linear multicommodity min-cost flow problem is solved to optimality by using the decomposition techniques mentioned above. Solutions of this problem are useful for network orientation and design, especially in relation with public transportation systems as the Personal Rapid Transit. A single-commodity robust network design problem is addressed. In this, an undirected graph with edge costs is given together with a discrete set of balance matrices, representing different supply/demand scenarios. The goal is to determine the minimum cost installation of capacities on the edges such that the flow exchange is feasible for every scenario. A set of new instances that are computationally hard for the natural flow formulation are solved by means of a new heuristic algorithm. Finally, an efficient decomposition-based heuristic approach for a large scale stochastic unit commitment problem is presented. The addressed real-world stochastic problem employs at its core a deterministic unit commitment planning model developed by the California Independent System Operator (ISO).

Climate change: an additional risk factor for agriculture and food security in the South

Climate change is expected to have far-reaching negative effects on agricultural production and food security in developing and transition countries. What do we know about these expected impacts, what are the factors that might affect production, and what are the implications for agricultural extension systems?

Botanical drugs, synergy, and network pharmacology: forth and back to intelligent mixtures

For centuries the science of pharmacognosy has dominated rational drug development until it was gradually substituted by target-based drug discovery in the last fifty years. Pharmacognosy stems from the different systems of traditional herbal medicine and its "reverse pharmacology" approach has led to the discovery of numerous pharmacologically active molecules and drug leads for humankind. But do botanical drugs also provide effective mixtures? Nature has evolved distinct strategies to modulate biological processes, either by selectively targeting biological macromolecules or by creating molecular promiscuity or polypharmacology (one molecule binds to different targets). Widely claimed to be superior over monosubstances, mixtures of bioactive compounds in botanical drugs allegedly exert synergistic therapeutic effects. Despite evolutionary clues to molecular synergism in nature, sound experimental data are still widely lacking to support this assumption. In this short review, the emerging concept of network pharmacology is highlighted, and the importance of studying ligand-target networks for botanical drugs is emphasized. Furthermore, problems associated with studying mixtures of molecules with distinctly different pharmacodynamic properties are addressed. It is concluded that a better understanding of the polypharmacology and potential network pharmacology of botanical drugs is fundamental in the ongoing rationalization of phytotherapy.