Did the recent Brazilian economic defaults originate from real economic or financial issues?

This paper aims to discover whether the origins of the recent Brazilian economic defaults (2009, 2015, and 2016) were related to the real economy or to pure financial transactions. To do so, we analyzed the discrepancy of dispersion index (DDI) and structural path decomposition from flow of funds (FOF) matrices of the Brazilian economy from 2004 to 2015. Financial transactions mirrored real transactions in almost every year, except in 2008, when financial transactions more highly contributed to the imbalance. Additionally, the total value of financial firms’ transactions grew more than that of non-financial firms in periods preceding economic defaults (2008 and 2014) while the continued growth of non-financial firms transactions decreased the DDI in 2009 and 2015. Changes in the power of dispersion indices corroborated this observation by pointing out that the government and non-financial firms reduced their financial sharing while financial firms improved their role as financial intermediaries and, at the same time, the rest of the world was receiving a significant portion of Brazilian savings

Flow-of-funds analysis in the Brazilian economy (2004–2014)

This paper is applies the flow-of-funds (FOF) framework proposed by Tsujimura and Mizoshita (2004) to investigate the structure of financial system in the Brazilian economy. The study presents the compilation process of the asset–liability matrix (ALM) and then develops an ALM with six institutional sectors (households, non-financial firms, government, the rest of world, financial firms and the Central Bank of Brazil) for the years 2004 to 2014. From the Brazilian ALM, FOF indexes are calculated (the power of dispersion, the sensitivity of dispersion and the discrepancy of dispersion). For selected years, the structural decomposition of change in the discrepancy index is calculated and an additional expansion presents an ALM with four additional financial firms: three government-sponsored banks—Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, and Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social —and one private bank—Itaú. The role of each institutional sector in the Brazilian financial system is illustrated and the discrepancy of dispersion is highlighted with a good indicator of economic problems showing that the origin of recessions in Brazilian economy was almost in the structure of the financial system

Reducing Digestible Tidbits from Meaty Stock: Satisfying Varied Tastes with an Attractive Instructional Assessment Menu

Do you collect streams of data that never see the light of day? Libraries are more frequently being held accountable for metrics via scorecards, dashboards, and other short snapshots of performance. Information Literacy practitioners have meanwhile moved away from tick-marks to a learning outcome assessment culture. This means that the full array of evaluative, formative and summative approaches-- competencies, tests, self-reports and rubrics-- can leave new librarians\u27 heads spinning. Learning outcomes data are hard to wrangle, let alone, in a digestible format, but fresh assessment approaches can fully illustrate the benefits of our varied media and modes of instruction. Instead of underreporting our value, we must reconcile decision-makers\u27 needs with instructional best practices. The presenters are assessment enthusiasts, not assessment professionals, so this session will be highly accessible, and the presenters will encourage audience members to share their expertise. The session will gauge the audience\u27s vocabulary and skills regarding assessment culture. It will apprise practitioners of the challenges of educational media assessment and introduce new technologies for visualizing and compiling data. It will also provide practical examples from Capella Library\u27s assessment strategy. Session presenters come from a higher education for-profit setting. They bring the value of Information Literacy to the forefront in an intensely results-driven environment. Capella University Library has engineered a holistic reporting strategy through a living information literacy plan that draws from a plethora of data pipelines. Capella University is an invited member of the Presidents\u27 Alliance for Excellence in Student Learning & Accountability

The First Three Rungs of the Cosmological Distance Ladder

It is straightforward to determine the size of the Earth and the distance to the Moon without making use of a telescope. The methods have been known since the 3rd century BC. However, few amateur or professional astronomers have worked this out from data they themselves have taken. Here we use a gnomon to determine the latitude and longitude of South Bend, Indiana, and College Station, Texas, and determine a value of the radius of the Earth of 6290 km, only 1.4 percent smaller than the true value. We use the method of Aristarchus and the size of the Earth's shadow during the lunar eclipse of 2011 June 15 to derive an estimate of the distance to the Moon (62.3 R_Earth), some 3.3 percent greater than the true mean value. We use measurements of the angular motion of the Moon against the background stars over the course of two nights, using a simple cross staff device, to estimate the Moon's distance at perigee and apogee. Finally, we use simultaneous CCD observations of asteroid 1996 HW1 obtained with small telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico, and Ojai, California, to derive a value of the Astronomical Unit of (1.59 +/- 0.19) X 10^8 km, about 6 percent too large. The data and methods presented here can easily become part of a beginning astronomy lab class.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in American Journal of Physic

Natural heritage inventory of Buckley Air National Guard Base, Arapahoe County, Colorado

Prepared for: the Nature Conservancy.July 2000.Includes bibliographical references

Loss of androgen signaling in mesenchymal sonic hedgehog responsive cells diminishes prostate development, growth, and regeneration.

Prostate embryonic development, pubertal and adult growth, maintenance, and regeneration are regulated through androgen signaling-mediated mesenchymal-epithelial interactions. Specifically, the essential role of mesenchymal androgen signaling in the development of prostate epithelium has been observed for over 30 years. However, the identity of the mesenchymal cells responsible for this paracrine regulation and related mechanisms are still unknown. Here, we provide the first demonstration of an indispensable role of the androgen receptor (AR) in sonic hedgehog (SHH) responsive Gli1-expressing cells, in regulating prostate development, growth, and regeneration. Selective deletion of AR expression in Gli1-expressing cells during embryogenesis disrupts prostatic budding and impairs prostate development and formation. Tissue recombination assays showed that urogenital mesenchyme (UGM) containing AR-deficient mesenchymal Gli1-expressing cells combined with wildtype urogenital epithelium (UGE) failed to develop normal prostate tissue in the presence of androgens, revealing the decisive role of AR in mesenchymal SHH responsive cells in prostate development. Prepubescent deletion of AR expression in Gli1-expressing cells resulted in severe impairment of androgen-induced prostate growth and regeneration. RNA-sequencing analysis showed significant alterations in signaling pathways related to prostate development, stem cells, and organ morphogenesis in AR-deficient Gli1-expressing cells. Among these altered pathways, the transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) pathway was up-regulated in AR-deficient Gli1-expressing cells. We further demonstrated the activation of TGFβ1 signaling in AR-deleted prostatic Gli1-expressing cells, which inhibits prostate epithelium growth through paracrine regulation. These data demonstrate a novel role of the AR in the Gli1-expressing cellular niche for regulating prostatic cell fate, morphogenesis, and renewal, and elucidate the mechanism by which mesenchymal androgen-signaling through SHH-responsive cells elicits the growth and regeneration of prostate epithelium

Joint measurements and Bell inequalities

Joint quantum measurements of non-commuting observables are possible, if one accepts an increase in the measured variances. A necessary condition for a joint measurement to be possible is that a joint probability distribution exists for the measurement. This fact suggests that there may be a link with Bell inequalities, as these will be satisfied if and only if a joint probability distribution for all involved observables exists. We investigate the connections between Bell inequalities and conditions for joint quantum measurements to be possible. Mermin's inequality for the three-particle Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state turns out to be equivalent to the condition for a joint measurement on two out of the three quantum systems to exist. Gisin's Bell inequality for three co-planar measurement directions, meanwhile, is shown to be less strict than the condition for the corresponding joint measurement