Los mejores esfuerzos (best efforts) en el derecho contemporáneo de los contratos

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A cláusula de melhores esforços (best efforts) na prática jurídica brasileira: uma nova perspectiva

A utilização da cláusula de melhores esforços, ou best efforts, é prática comum do empresariado e advogados nacionais. Este trabalho realiza um levantamento a fim de demonstrar a alta incidência em acordos sofisticados entre acionistas de companhias abertas brasileiras. Tal inclusão tem fortes motivos econômicos, a justificar o reconhecimento e interpretação pelo aplicador do direito nacional. O padrão de conduta dessa obrigação de meio deve ser analisado por critérios distintos, por meio de elementos subjetivos e objetivos, bem como à luz do contexto social e usos e costumes relacionados, baseados em normas e princípios de direito privado amplamente aceitos. A escassa jurisprudência sobre o tema bem como a já consolidada jurisprudência norte-americana contribuem para o melhor entendimento sobre a natureza jurídica e o modelo de interpretação de conduta a ser aplicado, diferenciando a obrigação de melhores esforços dos deveres decorrentes da boa-fé objetiva. Entre as conclusões, pode-se mencionar que a cláusula de melhores esforços não deve ser igualada aos deveres de boa-fé ou a um mero dever moral. Seu reconhecimento legal como padrão de conduta distinto, apurado conforme cada caso, deve ser amparado pelo ordenamento jurídico nacional

Drug Misuse in Dublin, July 1982

In this report for the Medico Social Research Board the author provides an overview of the drug problem in Dublin's inner city. On 12-14 July 1982 the author visited the Sean Mac Dermott street area of the inner city, the Eastern Health Board, Coolmine Community, Jervis Street Drug Advisory and Treatment Centre and the Garda drug squad. From these interviews, the author concludes that Dublin's inner city has a serious problem with drug use, in particular the injecting of heroin. Heroin addicts steal on a regular basis to fund their habit, and frequently inject themselves in public spaces of local authority flat complexes. Despite the best efforts of the support services (Social workers, doctors, Gardai and clergy) there is a high prevalence of injecting heroin use. There has also been abuse of prescription services. Addicts frequently seek opiates from a small number of doctors who are willing to prescribe. Drug education is severely lacking or inappropriate, according to the author, and the Garda drug squad is severely over stretched. While cannabis use is said to be prevalent in Dublin's two universities, drug use has been most problematic in the deprived parts of the city. The author presents the drug epidemic, which has developed over the last two years, in moral terms, and wonders if Christian society, in particular the Catholic Church, and the health authorities can do anything to stop the crisis from worsening. Recommendations include; conducting epidemiological surveys to determine the true extent of the problem, cross disciplinary co-operation, greater drug awareness through education, and more rehabilitation units.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

A protocol for a systematic review on the impact of unpublished studies and studies published in the gray literature in meta-analyses.

BACKGROUND: Meta-analyses are particularly vulnerable to the effects of publication bias. Despite methodologists' best efforts to locate all evidence for a given topic the most comprehensive searches are likely to miss unpublished studies and studies that are published in the gray literature only. If the results of the missing studies differ systematically from the published ones, a meta-analysis will be biased with an inaccurate assessment of the intervention's effects.As part of the OPEN project (http://www.open-project.eu) we will conduct a systematic review with the following objectives:â-ª To assess the impact of studies that are not published or published in the gray literature on pooled effect estimates in meta-analyses (quantitative measure).â-ª To assess whether the inclusion of unpublished studies or studies published in the gray literature leads to different conclusions in meta-analyses (qualitative measure). METHODS/DESIGN: Inclusion criteria: Methodological research projects of a cohort of meta-analyses which compare the effect of the inclusion or exclusion of unpublished studies or studies published in the gray literature.Literature search: To identify relevant research projects we will conduct electronic searches in Medline, Embase and The Cochrane Library; check reference lists; and contact experts.Outcomes: 1) The extent to which the effect estimate in a meta-analyses changes with the inclusion or exclusion of studies that were not published or published in the gray literature; and 2) the extent to which the inclusion of unpublished studies impacts the meta-analyses' conclusions.Data collection: Information will be collected on the area of health care; the number of meta-analyses included in the methodological research project; the number of studies included in the meta-analyses; the number of study participants; the number and type of unpublished studies; studies published in the gray literature and published studies; the sources used to retrieve studies that are unpublished, published in the gray literature, or commercially published; and the validity of the methodological research project.Data synthesis: Data synthesis will involve descriptive and statistical summaries of the findings of the included methodological research projects. DISCUSSION: Results are expected to be publicly available in the middle of 2013.

Conceptualization and therapeutic treatment of a compulsive gambling case by Functional Analysis and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

A clinical case of compulsive gambling is exposed in this article. The subject’s playing behaviour had both positive and negative consequences. The subject tried to practice control over the urge to play. As shown in the functional analysis, the failure to control the urge despite the best efforts worsened the problem due to its negative consequences. A variation of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) was applied in order to break down the fight-surrender vicious circle of the playing behaviour. Two treatment strategies were agreed upon: acceptance of the fact that both playing and not playing had negatives consequences and commitment to one of these options despite its disadvantages. Finally, it is proposed that this acceptance and commitment therapy is a useful therapeutic process as it decreases the suffering subject and eliminates the problem: playing bahaviour.

Turkey after the start of negotiations with the European Union - foreign relations and the domestic situation, Part I. OSW Report, June 2007

The start of accession negotiations between Ankara and the EU is vital for the future of both Turkey and the Union, including Poland as its member state, as well as for the geopolitical situation in Eurasia (the Black Sea region, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East). Appreciating the significance of these issues, the Centre for Eastern Studies in early 2005 decided to launch a project entitled "Turkey after the start of negotiations with the European Union - foreign relations and the domestic situation". The goal of this project is to present, within the context of accession negotiations, Turkey's greatest internal challenges as well as Ankara's relations with its neighbour regions, the EU and the USA. This Report is the first of three which will be published as part of the project. The Report includes texts on Turkish-US relations since 2003, major political and social challenges on Turkey's path towards the EU and the current condition of the Turkish economy. The Report was developed between July 2005 and November 2006, over which time CES workers and associates searched for publicly available materials in Poland, Turkey and EU countries, and went on three research trips to Turkey, where they met local researchers, analysts, politicians and officials. The authors of the Report would like to express their gratitude to everyone who have shared their opinions with them, and to the Polish Embassy in Ankara, especially to Ambassador Grzegorz Michalski and Minister Andrzej Ananicz for their expert support and assistance in the authors' work on this Report. This Report does not present the official stance of the Polish government on the issues discussed therein; instead it reflects the personal views of its authors, who have made their best efforts to ensure that their work is reliable.

The New European Commission Presidency and the Advent of European Democracy. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 14 No. 17, August 2014

On June 15, 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker, the lead candidate of the European People’s Party, was elected President of the European Commission, with the support of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and some of the European Socialists and Greens. Amid unprecedented Euroscepticism, the media and many pundits predicted a record-low voter turnout and record-high results for Europhobic parties. The aforementioned parties then decided that the political outcome of these 2014 European elections would also be unprecedented. For the first time in EU history, the European political parties agreed to nominate candidates to chair the institution, which they justified by putting forward Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty. The European Parliament has often characteristically used political discourse - the logos, to influence the EU’s institutional framework, even though it entails grappling with Member States. It took the form of reports and resolutions, like the official use of the phrase “European Parliament” in 1962, direct universal suffrage elections in 1975 and a European Union in 1984. Nominating contenders to chair the European Commission is no exception. It requires a specific political discourse whose origins can be traced back to the early years of the European Parliament, when it was still the “Common Assembly”. This political discourse is one of the elements thanks to which the European Parliament acquired visibility and new prerogatives, in pursuit of its legitimacy. However, the executive branch in all member states is not intent on yielding such prerogatives to the European Parliament. As a matter of fact, the European Parliament has often ended up strengthening the heads of state and governments, since MEPs are forced to resort to self-discipline. The symbolic significance of its logos and, consequently, its own politicisation as a source of legitimacy, is thus undermined. For instance, in 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker’s election actually strengthened German Chancellor Angela Merkel. First she questioned the fact that the candidate whose party holds the parliamentary majority after the election should be appointed President of the Commission. Then she seemed strongly intent on democratising the Union, when she confronted David Cameron, who openly opposed Juncker, believed to be too federalist and old-fashioned a candidate. By doing so, she eventually reduced the symbolic dimension of the European Parliament’s initiative, and Juncker’s election. She also unquestionably embodied EU leadership. This paper aims at analysing Juncker’s election to the Presidency of the European Commission, as well as other questions it raises. In the first part, I lay out some thoughts about the sociohistorical context of voting in European elections in order to make the readers understand why the European Parliament should be bolder. Secondly, I try to explain how the European Parliament has used the logos as a weapon to grapple with member states for more power, as was the case during the 2014 European elections. Last but not least, I seek to show how Angela Merkel got hold of that weapon and took advantage of it, thus proving that despite MEPs’ best efforts, Juncker’s task will be all the more complicated as he was not the consensual candidate of all the governments.

In search of information systems value : a case study of the EHR benefits realisation efforts of three Swedish hospitals.

The Swedish public health care organisation could very well be undergoing its most significant change since its specialisation during the late 19th and early 20th century. At the heart of this change is a move from using manual patient journals to electronic health records (EHR). EHR are complex integrated organisational wide information systems (IS) that promise great benefits and value as well as presenting great challenges to the organisation. The Swedish public health care is not the first organisation to implement integrated IS, and by no means alone in their quest for realising the potential benefits and value that it has to offer. As organisations invest in IS they embark on a journey of value-creation and capture. A journey where a costbased approach towards their IS-investments is replaced with a value-centric focus, and where the main challenges lie in the practical day-to-day task of finding ways to intertwine technology, people and business processes. This has however proven to be a problematic task. The problematic situation arises from a shift of perspective regarding how to manage IS in order to gain value. This is a shift from technology delivery to benefits delivery; from an ISimplementation plan to a change management plan. The shift gives rise to challenges related to the inability of IS and the elusiveness of value. As a response to these challenges the field of IS-benefits management has emerged offering a framework and a process in order to better understand and formalise benefits realisation activities. In this thesis the benefits realisation efforts of three Swedish hospitals within the same county council are studied. The thesis focuses on the participants of benefits analysis projects; their perceptions, judgments, negotiations and descriptions of potential benefits. The purpose is to address the process where organisations seek to identify which potential IS-benefits to pursue and realise, this in order to better understand what affects the process, so that realisation actions of potential IS-benefits could be supported. A qualitative case study research design is adopted and provides a framework for sample selection, data collection, and data analysis. It also provides a framework for discussions of validity, reliability and generalizability. Findings displayed a benefits fluctuation, which showed that participants’ perception of what constituted potential benefits and value changed throughout the formal benefits management process. Issues like structure, knowledge, expectation and experience affected perception differently, and this in the end changed the amount and composition of potential benefits and value. Five dimensions of benefits judgment were identified and used by participants when finding accommodations of potential benefits and value to pursue. Identified dimensions affected participants’ perceptions, which in turn affected the amount and composition of potential benefits. During the formal benefits management process participants shifted between judgment dimensions. These movements emerged through debates and interactions between participants. Judgments based on what was perceived as expected due to one’s role and perceived best for the organisation as a whole were the two dominant benefits judgment dimensions. A benefits negotiation was identified. Negotiations were divided into two main categories, rational and irrational, depending on participants’ drive when initiating and participating in negotiations. In each category three different types of negotiations were identified having different characteristics and generating different outcomes. There was also a benefits negotiation process identified that displayed management challenges corresponding to its five phases. A discrepancy was also found between how IS-benefits are spoken of and how actions of IS benefits realisation are understood. This was a discrepancy between an evaluation and a realisation focus towards IS value creation. An evaluation focus described IS-benefits as well-defined and measurable effects and a realisation focus spoke of establishing and managing an on-going place of value creation. The notion of valuescape was introduced in order to describe and support the understanding of IS value creation. Valuescape corresponded to a realisation focus and outlined a value configuration consisting of activities, logic, structure, drivers and role of IS.

Sustaining Health Care Practice Change: The Experience of Best Practice Spotlight Organizations Implementing and Sustaining RNAO Best Practice Guidelines

Sustainability of change for improvement initiatives has been widely reported as a global challenge both within and outside health care settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which factors related to staff training and involvement, staff behaviour, and clinical leaders’ and senior leaders’ engagement and support impact the long term sustainability of practice changes for BPSO health care organizations who have implemented Registered Nursing Association of Ontario’s (RNAO) Best Practice Guidelines. Semi structured interviews with eleven organizational leaders’ from ten health care organizations were conducted to explore the unique experiences, views and perspectives on factors related to staff, clinical leaders and senior leaders and their involvement and impact on the long term sustainability of clinical practice changes within organizations who had implemented Registered Nursing Association of Ontario’s (RNAO) Best Practice Guidelines (BPGs). The interviews were coded and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Further analysis identified patterns and themes in relation to: 1. The National Health Service (NHS) Sustainability Model which was used as the theoretical framework for this research; and 2. Organizations found to have sustained practice changes longer term verses organizations that did not. Six organizations were found to have sustained practice changes while the remaining four were found to have been unsuccessful in their efforts to sustain the changes. Five major findings in relation to sustainability emerged from this study. First is the importance of early and sustained engagement and frontline staff, managers, and clinical leaders in planning, implementation and ongoing development of BPGs through use of working groups and champions models. Second is the importance of ongoing provision of formal training, tools and resources to all key stakeholders during and after the implementation phase and efforts made to embed changes in current processes whenever possible to ensure sustainability. Third is to ensure staff and management are receptive to the proposed change(s) and/or have been given the necessary background information and rationale so they understand and can support the need for the change. Fourth is the need for early and sustained fiscal and human resources dedicated to supporting BPG implementation and the ongoing use of the BPGs already in place. Fifth is ensuring clinical leaders are trusted, influential, respected and seen as clinical resources by frontline staff. The significance of this study lies in a greater understanding of the influence and impact of factors related to staff on the long term sustainability of implemented practice changes within health care organizations. This study has implications for clinical practice, policy, education and research in relation to sustainability in health care.

Development of Best Practices for Ship Recycling Processes

Ship recycling has been considered as the best means to dispose off an obsolete ship. The current state of art of technology combined with the demands of sustainable developments from the global maritime industrial sector has modified the status of erstwhile ‘ship breaking’ involving ship scrap business to a modern industry undertaking dismantling of ships and recycling/reusing the dismantled products in a supply chain of pre owned product market by following the principles of recycling. Industries will have to formulate a set of best practices and blend them with the engineering activities for producing better quality products, improving the productivity and for achieving improved performances related to sustainable development. Improved performance by industries in a sustainable development perspective is accomplished only by implementing the 4E principles, ie.,. ecofriendliness, engineering efficiency, energy conservation and ergonomics in their core operations. The present study has done a comprehensive investigation into various ship recycling operations for formulating a set of best practices.Being the ultimate life cycle stage of a ship, ship recycling activities incorporate certain commercial procedures well in advance to facilitate the objectives of dismantling and recycling/reusing of various parts of the vessel. Thorough knowledge regarding these background procedures in ship recycling is essential for examining and understanding the industrial business operations associated with it. As a first step, the practices followed in merchant shipping operations regarding the decision on decommissioning have been and made available in the thesis. Brief description about the positioning methods and important preparations for the most feasible ship recycling method ie.,. beach method have been provided as a part of the outline of the background information. Available sources of guidelines, codes and rules & regulations for ship recycling have been compiled and included in the discussion.Very brief summary of practices in major ship recycling destinations has been prepared and listed for providing an overview of the global ship recycling activities. The present status of ship recycling by treating it as a full fledged engineering industry has been brought out to establish the need for looking into the development of the best practices. Major engineering attributes of ship as a unique engineering product and the significant influencing factors on her life cycle stage operations have been studied and added to the information base on ship recycling. Role of ship recycling industry as an important player in global sustainable development efforts has been reviewed by analysing the benefits of ship recycling. A brief synopsis on the state of art of ship recycling in major international ship recycling centres has also been incorporated in the backdrop knowledgebase generation on ship recycling processes.Publications available in this field have been reviewed and classified into five subject categories viz., Infrastructure for recycling yards and methods of dismantling, Rules regarding ship recycling activities, Environmental and safety aspects of ship recycling, Role of naval architects and ship classification societies, Application of information technology and Demand forecasting. The inference from the literature survey have been summarised and recorded. Noticeable observations in the inference include need of creation of a comprehensive knowledgebase on ship recycling and its effective implementation in the industry and the insignificant involvement of naval architects and shipbuilding engineers in ship recycling industry. These two important inferences and the message conveyed by them have been addressed with due importance in the subsequent part of the present study.As a part of the study the importance of demand forecasting in ship recycling has been introduced and presented. A sample input for ship recycling data for implementation of computer based methods of demand forecasting has been presented in this section of the thesis.The interdisciplinary nature of engineering processes involved in ship recycling has been identified as one of the important features of this industry. The present study has identified more than a dozen major stake holders in ship recycling having their own interests and roles. It has also been observed that most of the ship recycling activities is carried out in South East Asian countries where the beach based ship recycling is done in yards without proper infrastructure support. A model of beach based ship recycling has been developed and the roles, responsibilities and the mutual interactions of the elements of the system have been documented as a part of the study Subsequently the need of a generation of a wide knowledgebase on ship recycling activities as pointed out by the literature survey has been addressed. The information base and source of expertise required to build a broad knowledgebase on ship recycling operations have been identified and tabulated. Eleven important ship recycling processes have been identified and a brief sketch of steps involved in these processes have been examined and addressed in detail. Based on these findings, a detailed sequential disassembly process plan of ship recycling has been prepared and charted. After having established the need of best practices in ship recycling initially, the present study here identifies development of a user friendly expert system for ship recycling process as one of the constituents of the proposed best practises. A user friendly expert system has been developed for beach based ship recycling processes and is named as Ship Recycling Recommender (SRR). Two important functions of SRR, first one for the ‘Administrators’, the stake holders at the helm of the ship recycling affairs and second one for the ‘Users’, the stake holders who execute the actual dismantling have been presented by highlighting the steps involved in the execution of the software. The important output generated, ie.,. recommended practices for ship dismantling processes and safe handling information on materials present onboard have been presented with the help of ship recycling reports generated by the expert system. A brief account of necessity of having a ship recycling work content estimation as part of the best practices has been presented in the study. This is supported by a detailed work estimation schedule for the same as one of the appendices.As mentioned earlier, a definite lack of involvement of naval architect has been observed in development of methodologies for improving the status of ship recycling industry. Present study has put forward a holistic approach to review the status of ship recycling not simply as end of life activity of all ‘time expired’ vessels, but as a focal point of integrating all life cycle activities. A new engineering design philosophy targeting sustainable development of marine industrial domain, named design for ship recycling has been identified, formulated and presented. A new model of ship life cycle has been proposed by adding few stages to the traditional life cycle after analysing their critical role in accomplishing clean and safe end of life and partial dismantling of ships. Two applications of design for ship recycling viz, recyclability of ships and her products and allotment of Green Safety Index for ships have been presented as a part of implementation of the philosophy in actual practice.

The status of biodiversity and bioprospecting efforts in the Caribbean subregion

Includes bibliography

An Analysis of U.S. Air Force Policy and Installation CO2 Emissions to Determine Best Practices for the Implementation of Executive Order 13514

United States Air Force (USAF) energy policy is a measured but aggressive response to federal energy policy guidance. Previous USAF efforts, like those of the federal government, focused primarily on energy intensity reduction, cost, and BTU savings, and in certain cases have resulted in facility greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. The USAF now faces the challenge of integrating GHG reduction goals and inventory requirements set forth in Executive Order 13514. Using USAF reported energy consumption data, facility GHG emission estimates have been synthesized to identify trends and elucidate existing energy best practices to be applied as part of overarching USAF GHG mitigation efforts and to highlight areas of possible concern for the integration of EO 13514 into operational USAF policy.

More Than A Movement: Unpacking Contemporary Anti-Human Trafficking Efforts in Washington, D.C.

Trafficking in persons has attracted seemingly boundless attention over the last two decades and the work aimed at fighting it is best understood when this cause is contextualized against the backdrop of other social forces—economic, social, and cultural—shaping contemporary nonprofit activities. This project argues that the paid and volunteer labor that takes place in metro Washington, D.C., to combat trafficking in persons can be understood as both a movement and an industry. In addition to arguing that anti-trafficking work is part of a nonprofit industrial complex that situates activist and advocacy work firmly inside state and economic institutions, this project is concerned with the ways in which trafficking work and workers conduct their business collectively. As an organizational study, it identifies the key players in the D.C. region focused on this issue and traces their interactions, collaborations, and cooperation. Significantly, this project suggests that despite variations in objectives, methods, priorities, and characterizations of trafficking, thirty organizations in metro D.C. working on this issue “get along” because they are bound by the benign common goal of raising awareness. Awareness, in this context, is best understood as both a cultural anchor facilitating cohesion and as a social currency allowing groups to opt into joint efforts. The dissertation concludes that organizations centralize awareness in their collective activities over more drastic priorities around which consensus would need to be gained. This is a lost opportunity for making sense of the ways that individual bodies—men, women, and children—experience not just trafficking, but the world around them.

What Is The Best Indication For Single-incision Ophira Mini Sling? Insights From A 2-year Follow-up International Multicentric Study.

The Ophira Mini Sling System involves anchoring a midurethral, low-tension tape to the obturator internus muscles bilaterally at the level of the tendinous arc. Success rates in different subsets of patients are still to be defined. This work aims to identify which factors influence the 2-year outcomes of this treatment. Analysis was based on data from a multicenter study. Endpoints for analysis included objective measurements: 1-h pad-weight (PWT), and cough stress test (CST), and questionnaires: International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form (ICIQ-SF) and Urinary Distress Inventory (UDI)-6. A logistic regression analysis evaluated possible risk factors for failure. In all, 124 female patients with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) underwent treatment with the Ophira procedure. All patients completed 1 year of follow-up, and 95 complied with the 2-year evaluation. Longitudinal analysis showed no significant differences between results at 1 and 2 years. The 2-year overall objective results were 81 (85.3%) patients dry, six (6.3%) improved, and eight (8.4%) incontinent. A multivariate analysis revealed that previous anti-incontinence surgery was the only factor that significantly influenced surgical outcomes. Two years after treatment, women with previous failed surgeries had an odds ratio (OR) for treatment failure (based on PWT) of 4.0 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02-15.57). The Ophira procedure is an effective option for SUI treatment, with durable good results. Previous surgeries were identified as the only significant risk factor, though previously operated patients showed an acceptable success rate.

Respostas agudas de parâmetros biomecânicos à utilização de diferentes tamanhos de palmar no nado crawl

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física