Feasible alternatives to green growth

Climate change and increasing income inequality have emerged as twin threats to contemporary standards of living, peace and democracy. These two problems are usually tackled separately in the policy agenda. A new breed of radical proposals have been advanced to manage a fair low-carbon transition. In this spirit, we develop a dynamic macrosimulation model to investigate the long-term effects of three scenarios: green growth, policies for social equity, and degrowth. The green growth scenario, based on technological progress and environmental policies, achieves a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of increasing income inequality and unemployment. The policies for social equity scenario adds direct labour market interventions that result in an environmental performance similar to green growth while improving social conditions at the cost of increasing public deficit. The degrowth scenario further adds a reduction in consumption and exports, and achieves a greater reduction in emissions and inequality with higher public deficit, despite the introduction of a wealth tax. We argue that new radical social policies can combine social prosperity and low-carbon emissions and are economically and politically feasible

Uma avaliação acerca da falha empírica do teorema da paridade descoberta da taxa de juros entre o Real e o Dólar

Resumo Este artigo testa a validade do teorema da paridade descoberta de juros para os dados da economia brasileira no período de 2000 a 2014. Nossos resultados corroboram a não validade empírica, conhecida na literatura como de UIP Failure ou Forward Premium Puzzle. O coeficiente do diferencial de juros estimado por um modelo GARCH apresenta sinal negativo, contradizendo parte dos testes da UIP em economias periféricas. Já os modelos markovianos de mudança de regime apontaram para dois padrões bem delimitados: nos períodos de menor volatilidade o coeficiente assume valor negativo e, nos meses de alta volatilidade, valor positivo. Os resultados encontrados são coerentes com a abordagem da taxa de juros exógena em uma economia aberta

Avaliação empírica do teorema da paridade coberta de juros entre o real brasileiro e o dólar americano (2008-2013)

Resumo: Em contraste com a vasta evidência internacional em favor da validade da Paridade Coberta de Juros (CIP), a escassa literatura nacional encontra dificuldades para confirmar tal condição na economia brasileira.Neste trabalho,a validade da CIP entre o Real brasileiro e o Dólar americano é testada para o período de 2008 a 2013, a partir de dados diários. Para tanto,são exploradas as peculiaridades dos dados brasileiros e das variáveis utilizadas na estimação. Argumenta-se que a taxa de juros externa relevante para o teste da CIP no Brasil é aquela acessível aos agentes internos, cuja proxy é a taxa libor acrescida do EMBI+ brasileiro (o spread entre os títulos da dívida externa soberana brasileira e a taxa livre de risco americana). Por fim, a comparação desta taxa com a do cupom cambial - que constitui um fechamento tautológico para a paridade coberta - estabelece um método alternativo para validar a CIP,o qual corrobora os resultados dos testes diretos

Temporal Web Image Retrieval

International audienceTemporal Web Image Retrieval can be defined as the process that retrieves sets ofWeb images with their temporal dimension from explicit or implicit temporal text queries. Supposing that (a) the temporal dimension is included in image indexing and (b) the query is explicitly expressed with a time tag (e.g. "Fukushima 2011"), the retrieval task can be straightforward as image retrieval has been studied for several years with success. However, text queries are usually implicit in time (e.g. "Second World War") and automatically capturing the time dimension included in Web images is a challenge that has not been studied so far to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we will discuss different research issues about Temporal Web Image Retrieval and the current progresses of our research in temporal ephemeral clustering and temporal image filtering

Why is the price elasticity of imports low in Brazil? Evidence from disaggregated imports

Resumo Estudos recentes indicam que a elasticidade-preço das importações brasileiras é baixa. Este trabalho procura racionalizar o referido resultado revisitando as estimativas das importações do país desagregadas por "categoria de uso". Os resultados reportados sugerem que a baixa elasticidade-preço das importações agregadas reflete fundamentalmente a baixa elasticidade-preço das importações de combustíveis, bens intermediários e de alguns tipos de serviços - notadamente, transporte, aluguel de equipamentos e pagamentos de royalties - produtos que, somados, respondem por pouco menos de dois terços do total importado. Isso ocorre porque vários desses produtos têm pouca ou nenhuma possibilidade de substituição por similares nacionais, devido principalmente a deficiências estruturais na oferta nacional

Students’ Confidence and Interest in Palliative and Bereavement Care: A European Study

As part of a European Erasmus Plus project entitled Death Education for Palliative Psychology, this study assessed the ways in which Master’s Degree students in psychology and the creative arts therapies self-rated their confidence and interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care. In five countries (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania), 344 students completed an online questionnaire, and 37 students were interviewed to better understand their views, interest, and confidence. The results revealed some significant differences between countries, and showed that older respondents with previous experience as formal caregivers for end-of-life clients showed greater interest in obtaining practical clinical competence in these fields. A mediation analysis indicated that students’ previous care experiences and past loss experiences were related to students’ current interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care through the mediation of their sense of confidence in this field. The qualitative findings identified five shared themes: life and death, learning about death, the psychological burden, personal experience and robust training, and four key training needs. Overall, students’ interest in studying and working with terminal illness and death are rooted in internal resources, a preliminary sense of confidence, but also external requirements

Barcoding rotifer biodiversity in Mediterranean ponds using diapausing egg banks

The biodiversity of Mediterranean freshwater bodies is among the most threatened worldwide; therefore, its accurate estimation is an urgent issue. However, traditional methods are likely to underestimate freshwater zooplankton biodiversity due to its high species seasonality and cryptic diversity. We test the value of applying DNA barcoding to diapausing egg banks, in combination with the creation of a reference collection of DNA barcodes using adult individual samples, to characterize rotifer communities. We use monogonont rotifers from two lakes in Doñana National Park and one from Ruidera Natural Park in Spain as models to create a reference collection of DNA barcodes for taxonomically diagnosed adult individuals sampled from the water column, to compare with the sequences obtained from individual eggs from the diapausing egg banks. We apply two different approaches to carry out DNA taxonomy analyses, the generalized mixed Yule coalescent method (GMYC) and the Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD), to the obtained sequences and to publicly available rotifer sequences. We obtained a total of 210 new rotifer COI sequences from all three locations (151 diapausing eggs and 59 adults). Both GMYC and ABGD generated the same 35 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), revealing four potential cryptic species. Most sequences obtained from diapausing eggs (85%) clustered with sequences obtained from morphologically diagnosed adults. Our approach, based on a single sediment sample, retrieved estimates of rotifer biodiversity higher than or similar to those of previous studies based on a number of seasonal samples. This study shows that DNA barcoding of diapausing egg banks is an effective aid to characterize rotifer diversity in Mediterranean freshwater bodies

Cryptic diversity of Keratella cochlearis – genetical, morphological and demographic aspects

Biodiversity is under threat in recent decades, with many natural habitats irreversibly disappearing due to global warming and human activity. Our perception of species loss highly depends on an accurate species estimate. However, occurrence of cryptic species (i.e. distinct species that are impossible or difficult to distinguish based on their morphology) hinders a correct assessment of biodiversity. Cryptic species have been described for rotifers of the class Bdelloidea and Monogononta. Rotifers of the class Monogononta are widespread in freshwater lakes all over the world and can serve as model organisms for speciation and adaptation. The main aim of this thesis was to investigate and describe the genetic diversity of one of the most common freshwater rotifer - Keratella cochlearis - in relation to its morphological variability. Beside the assessment of genetic diversity, a detailed study of K. cochlearis life cycle and reproductive strategy was performed. The results of the first study demonstrated that based on the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene different putative evolutionary significant units (ESU; a.k.a. cryptic species) can be delimited in Keratella cochlearis (I). Based on morphology, two ESUs can be delimited from the other six ESUs found. We also reported on co-occurrence of different putative ESUs of K. cochlearis in the same lakes, and presented the first SEM pictures of K. cochlearis females showing some detailed morphological characteristics. Life histories and demographic parameters differences between various haplotypes of K. cochlearis were determined in the second study (II). Several differences between life history traits and demographic parameters of haplotypes were found corroborating their status as cryptic species and demonstrating that genetic diversity of K. cochlearis is also reflected in demographic diversity. Additionally, morphologically deformed females occurring during the life table experiment were documented and photographed for the first time in this species. Moreover, the first case of an amphoteric female (producing both males and females) in K. cochlearis was reported. In the third study (III), mitonuclear discordance in three rotifer species complexes was assessed. Mitonuclear discordance hinders the assessment of species delimitation based on only one gene (single-locus). Discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenies was reported for three rotifer species complexes (K. cochlearis, Polyarthra dolichoptera, Synchaeta pectinata) with different levels of discordance between the mitochondrial COI and the nuclear ITS gene. The results corroborated the previous description of two ESUs in K. cochlearis. During our studies on K. cochlearis males, we developed a method to film zooplankton in general and rotifers specifically (IV). We connected a commercial single-lens reflex camera to a microscope and presented an affordable system with widely available components for filming. In filming male-female interactions of Brachionus angularis, our film showed a thread-like structure linking male and female. However, the purpose of this structure remained unclear. In conclusion, this PhD provided evidence for a high genetic and morphological diversity of K. cochlearis. Existence of a species complex of K. cochlearis was corroborated by mitochondrial and nuclear genetic information. This high genetic diversity in K. cochlearis was reflected to some extent in life histories and morphology. First videos of K. cochlearis males and of B. angularis males interaction with females were presente