Regional perspectives on digital disaster management in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Macroeconomic policies in times of crisis: options and perspectives

Includes bibliography

Trade and investment rules: Latin American perspectives

Includes bibliography

Economic Survey of the Caribbean 2010-2011: improving economic prospects amid global recovery

Includes bibliography

Antidumping and the global financial crisis: the impact on Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

RAP: identidade local e resistência global

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

The global financial crisis: what happened and what’s next

Global economic conditions have been deteriorating sharply since mid- September 2008. Lending has dropped abruptly, credit spreads have widened sharply, stock markets have plunged and economies everywhere are stumbling. Governments around the world have undertaken unprecedented measures, including some coordinated intervention. However, global economic prospects remain troubled, and further policy action is required. In order to better understand the task before policy makers as they chart a new direction, this paper examines how the global economy arrived at its current predicament, looking back at the sequence of events that contributed to create havoc in financial markets, as well as the policy response they produced. In light of these events, we examine the impact on Latin American financial markets in particular. The global nature of the current crisis underscores the need for coordinating the policy response at the global level, as well as advancing towards a new international financial architecture that will make possible a more effective response to the build-up of systemic pressures.

Reflexões sobre a idéia de sociedade civil global e a ação política não-estatal além das fronteiras

Pós-graduação em Relações Internacionais (UNESP - UNICAMP - PUC-SP) - FFC

Global financial rulemaking and small economies

This paper addresses some unintended consequences of global financial regulation and international tax evasion prevention and their impact on small economies. It explores how failure to recognize countries’ differing access to finance and varying costs of funding as well as the high costs of complying with financial regulations may overlook some unintended consequences, especially on smaller island countries Then, it discusses the global financial architecture and governance of standard setting bodies and the actions taken to improve representation and legitimacy and remediate some of the unintended deleterious effects on emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). Improving governance is ever more urgent at a time when financing the post-2015 agenda will require mobilization of both public and private funds at the national, regional and global levels.

Mudanças climáticas: o discurso da mídia sobre o aquecimento global

This research is aimed at discussing the ways in which social agents influence global warming, analyzing the discourse of social actors involved in the debate on climate change, since there is a wide divergence in the scientific community about how man is able to modify the climate on a global scale. In fact the debate that permeates the issues beyond the limits of science and enter into a political-economic framework that takes extraordinary proportions. This emphasis can be very unscientific in the fundamental design concepts, or even creating a trivialization of the media. The main way to convey these concepts is to disclose them in the media, but the media has enormous power to transform the concepts and often manipulate the news by creating a common sense goes against the interests of the scientific community. Thus was conducted extensive research in major newspapers and magazines that move in the country. We surveyed the first two papers which were: “Folha de S. Paulo” and “O Estado de S. Paulo”, during the period from January 2000 to December 2008, totaling 3285 units for the newspaper Folha and 2555 for the newspaper Estadão. Subsequently a survey was made of data published in two journals that move at the national level, and these are the magazines VEJA and ÉPOCA for the same period. By performing these steps, it was concluded that several factors involving the media and climate change, such as topic relevance, types of approaches, perspectives of analysis, the staff development, supplies, among other factors of utmost importance for building news. As a result we can say that the media in fulfilling its role of mediator scientific, disclosing only a vision that permeates the scientific debate. The newspaper media, especially newspapers, has an informative and instantaneous. Often this preoccupation...(Complete abstract, click electronic access below)

Global liver gene expression differences in Nelore steers with divergent residual feed intake phenotypes

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Older people's perspectives on participation in physical activity: a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative literature

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Knowledge Flows and Networks: the Interplay between Local and Global Linkages within Bangalore IT Cluster

This doctoral work gains deeper insight into the dynamics of knowledge flows within and across clusters, unfolding their features, directions and strategic implications. Alliances, networks and personnel mobility are acknowledged as the three main channels of inter-firm knowledge flows, thus offering three heterogeneous measures to analyze the phenomenon. The interplay between the three channels and the richness of available research methods, has allowed for the elaboration of three different papers and perspectives. The common empirical setting is the IT cluster in Bangalore, for its distinguished features as a high-tech cluster and for its steady yearly two-digit growth around the service-based business model. The first paper deploys both a firm-level and a tie-level analysis, exploring the cases of 4 domestic companies and of 2 MNCs active the cluster, according to a cluster-based perspective. The distinction between business-domain knowledge and technical knowledge emerges from the qualitative evidence, further confirmed by quantitative analyses at tie-level. At firm-level, the specialization degree seems to be influencing the kind of knowledge shared, while at tie-level both the frequency of interaction and the governance mode prove to determine differences in the distribution of knowledge flows. The second paper zooms out and considers the inter-firm networks; particularly focusing on the role of cluster boundary, internal and external networks are analyzed, in their size, long-term orientation and exploration degree. The research method is purely qualitative and allows for the observation of the evolving strategic role of internal network: from exploitation-based to exploration-based. Moreover, a causal pattern is emphasized, linking the evolution and features of the external network to the evolution and features of internal network. The final paper addresses the softer and more micro-level side of knowledge flows: personnel mobility. A social capital perspective is here developed, which considers both employees’ acquisition and employees’ loss as building inter-firm ties, thus enhancing company’s overall social capital. Negative binomial regression analyses at dyad-level test the significant impact of cluster affiliation (cluster firms vs non-cluster firms), industry affiliation (IT firms vs non-IT fims) and foreign affiliation (MNCs vs domestic firms) in shaping the uneven distribution of personnel mobility, and thus of knowledge flows, among companies.

Generating vegetation-spectra as a basis for global monitoring of annual vegetation cycles using DOAS satellite observations

Vegetation-cycles are of general interest for many applications. Be it for harvest-predictions, global monitoring of climate-change or as input to atmospheric models.rnrnCommon Vegetation Indices use the fact that for vegetation the difference between Red and Near Infrared reflection is higher than in any other material on Earth’s surface. This gives a very high degree of confidence for vegetation-detection.rnrnThe spectrally resolving data from the GOME and SCIAMACHY satellite-instrumentsrnprovide the chance to analyse finer spectral features throughout the Red and Near Infrared spectrum using Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS). Although originally developed to retrieve information on atmospheric trace gases, we use it to gain information on vegetation. Another advantage is that this method automatically corrects for changes in the atmosphere. This renders the vegetation-information easily comparable over long time-spans.rnThe first results using previously available reference spectra were encouraging, but also indicated substantial limitations of the available reflectance spectra of vegetation. This was the motivation to create new and more suitable vegetation reference spectra within this thesis.rnThe set of reference spectra obtained is unique in its extent and also with respect to its spectral resolution and the quality of the spectral calibration. For the first time, this allowed a comprehensive investigation of the high-frequency spectral structures of vegetation reflectance and of their dependence on the viewing geometry.rnrnThe results indicate that high-frequency reflectance from vegetation is very complex and highly variable. While this is an interesting finding in itself, it also complicates the application of the obtained reference spectra to the spectral analysis of satellite observations.rnrnThe new set of vegetation reference spectra created in this thesis opens new perspectives for research. Besides refined satellite analyses, these spectra might also be used for applications on other platforms such as aircraft. First promising studies have been presented in this thesis, but the full potential for the remote sensing of vegetation from satellite (or aircraft) could bernfurther exploited in future studies.

How does socio economic position link to health behaviour? Sociological pathways and perspectives for health promotion

Socio economic inequalities in adult health behaviour are consistently observed. Despite a well-documented pattern, social determinants of variations in health behaviour have not been sufficiently clarified. This article therefore presents sociological pathways to explain the existing inequalities in health behaviour. At a micro level, control beliefs have been part of several behavioural theories. We suggest that these beliefs might bridge the gap between sociology and psychology by emphasising their roots in fundamental socio-economic environments. At a meso level, social networks and support have not been explicitly considered as behavioural determinants. This contribution states that these social factors influence health behaviour while being unequally distributed across society. At a macro level, characteristics of the neighbourhood environment influence health behaviour of its residents above and beyond their individual background. Providing further opportunity for policy makers, it is shown that peer and school context equalise inequalities in risky behaviour in adolescence. As a conclusion, factors such as control expectations, social networks, neighbourhood characteristics, and school context should be included as strategies to improve health behaviour in socially disadvantaged people.