What can IBSA Offer to the Global Community?

What can IBSA offer to the global community? It is with this provocative question that IPC-IG reports on the policy dialogue that took place in the Fourth IBSA Academic Forum, which was held on 12-13 April 2010 in Brasilia before the meeting of the heads of state. If IBSA reflects a new power structure in which the Global South has more voice, then it also can and should contribute to the global development debate. The three countries have been successfully experimenting with innovative policies in areas such as healthcare and social protection, as well as in development cooperation through IBSA?s Fund for Alleviation of Poverty. This issue of Poverty in Focus brings together articles by speakers on the four panels organized. They address the role of non-contributory cash transfers and employment programmes, the debates on healthcare innovation, intellectual property rights and access to essential drugs, and the discussions about IBSA?s role and potential as a plurilateral arrangement. Lyal White starts by taking stock of IBSA?s progress in the seven years since it was launched in 2003. He argues that, given the economic crisis, IBSA?s role can be more relevant than ever. It has made significant progress on political coordination and development cooperation, though the substance in the working groups remains a challenge. Fábio Soares and Radhika Lal take an integrative approach to social development, linking cash transfers and employment programmes with a view to addressing vulnerability across the life cycle. The IBSA countries offer a good example of rights-based frameworks, and have a vision of moving beyond schemes to more comprehensive systems. Amita Sharma describes the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and emphasises the legal approach whereby NREGA is seen as a service provided by the government, an entitlement that involves public scrutiny and participation at a local level. NREGA has links to other policy areas, revealing the potential for integration that has been the great challenge of social policy in India. Ingrid Woolard discusses how South Africa?s Unemployment Insurance Fund is limited. She argues for greater integration between social assistance and labour-market policies. There is still no coherent system in place, and the fiscal sustainability of these policies will be a major concern as the country confronts a tougher growth environment. Sergei Soares shows the differences between taking account of a transversal definition of income (income in a given month) and a longitudinal one (income during the next 24 months) when calculating the targets for Brazil?s Bolsa Família. The longitudinal poverty rate is about twice the transversal poverty figure, thus explaining the mismatch between the targets and the eligible population. Radhika Lal gives an overview of the discussions on healthcare and points to problems in the field of trade-related intellectual property rights. Potential areas for collaboration between the IBSA countries include sharing information on drug prices and on sources of low-cost drugs, as well as research and development for drugs that treat neglected diseases. Biswajit Dhar and Reji Joseph express their concern for the weak legal distinction between substandard medicines and counterfeit drugs. Since laws on the matter apply to both branded and generic drugs, there is a risk of equating authorised generics with counterfeit products. This could disrupt the trade in generics and thus hamper access to crucial life-saving medicines in the Global South. Kamal Mitra Chenoy argues that plurilateralism in arrangements like IBSA can add value to multilateralism only if it can connect the excluded countries of the South to the blocs of the North. He also argues that plurilateralism is valuable if it goes beyond the interests of capital and helps create a people-centred development paradigm. Alcides Costa Vaz closes this Poverty in Focus with a discussion of the different approaches taken by each of the IBSA countries. As a flexible mechanism, however, IBSA should be able to accommodate the different perspectives. There is a follow-up to this debate. For more information, visit www.ipc-undp.org.What can IBSA Offer to the Global Community?

Post-Processing Air Temperature Weather Forecast Using Artificial Neural Networks with Measurements from Meteorological Stations

Human beings attempt to accurately predict the weather based on their knowledge of climate. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute is responsible for climate-related matters in Norway, and among its contributions is the numerical weather forecast, which is presented in a 2.5 km grid. To conduct a post-processing process that improves the resolution of the forecast and reduces its error, the Institute has developed the GRIDPP tool, which reduces the resolution to 1 km and introduces a correction based on altitude and meteorological station measurements. The present work aims to improve the current post-processing approach of the air temperature parameter by employing neural networks, using meteorological station measurements. Two neural network architectures are developed and tested: a multilayer perceptron and a convolutional neural network. Both architectures are able to achieve a smaller error than the original product. These results open doors for the Institute to plan for the practical implementation of this solution on its product for specific scenarios where the traditional numerical methods historically produce large errors. Among the test samples where the GRIDPP error is higher than 3 K, the proposed solution achieves a smaller error in 74.8% of these samples.publishedVersio

Acemoglu Joins Mankiw: Effect of Institutions in Growth Through Human Capital

Starting from the Augmented Solow Model developed by Mankiw, Romer, & Weil (1992), the present paper considered new perspectives in which institutions are considered “fundamental determinants” to explain economic growth. Through the data panel methodology, and with information for the years 2000, 2005 and 2010 from 87 countries, we used the interactive variables mechanism to verify whether the relationship between human capital and GDP per capita is encouraged by the institutions. The results indicate a positive relationship between economic and political institutions with the effect of education on per capita growth of countries, with greater influence of the former

PADRONIZAÇÃO DE METADADOS NA REPRESENTAÇÃO DA INFORMAÇÃO EM REPOSITÓRIOS INSTITUCIONAIS DE UNIVERSIDADES FEDERAIS BRASILEIRAS

Os repositórios institucionais (RI) têm-se tornado uma alternativa relevante para as instituições de pesquisa e ensino reunirem a produção científica em um único local, potencializando a disseminação e o acesso à informação científica. Um dos pré-requisitos para que os RI cumpram esse papel é que eles garantam a descrição de documentos com metadados padronizados. Nesta perspectiva, teve-se como objetivo geral identificar e analisar como os repositórios institucionais de universidades federais brasileiras padronizam os metadados na representação da informação, desdobrando-se como objetivos específicos detectar os RI destas universidades registrados nos diretórios ROAR, OpenDOAR e Luso-Brasileiro; identificar e analisar as políticas de funcionamento e os manuais divulgados nos sítios destes repositórios, quanto à padronização de metadados na descrição de documento e; verificar e analisar as ações, realizadas por estes repositórios, que visam a padronização de metadados na representação da informação. A metodologia caracterizou-se como descritiva, cuja investigação se deu através da combinação dos métodos levantamento, documental e estudo de casos múltiplos, a partir de uma amostra composta de 21 RI registrados em, pelo menos, um dos três diretórios selecionados, com o URL em funcionamento. Para obtenção das informações, optou-se pela adoção das técnicas de observação sistemática e aplicação de questionário junto aos gestores dos RI. A análise dos dados foi realizada a partir da integração das abordagens quantitativas e qualitativas. Os principais resultados apontaram que dos 32 RI registrados nos diretórios selecionados, somente 22 estavam registrados em pelo menos um dos diretórios e com a URL em funcionamento, e desses, apenas 13 (59,09%) constavam registros nos três diretórios. Dos 21 repositórios analisados, apenas 13 (61,90%) e 4 (19,05%) possuíam, respectivamente, política de funcionamento e manual divulgados; bem como 8 (38,10%) RI não disponibilizaram quaisquer destes documentos em seus sítios. Na análise das 13 políticas, em 9 (69,23%) constatou-se apenas informações relativas à definição de depositante. Quanto aos 4 manuais, verificou-se orientações sobre revisão/controle de metadados em apenas 2 (50%) documentos. Dos 20 gestores que responderam ao questionário, 17 (85%) declararam oferecer treinamento para os responsáveis pelo depósito; 19 (95%) informaram realizar revisão/controle de metadados; contudo, em 4 (21,05%) RI esta atividade não é desenvolvida por bibliotecário. Além disso, 14 (70%) afirmaram utilizar instrumentos de representação da informação para a padronização dos pontos de acesso (entradas) na representação descritiva; 13 (65%) declararam empregar base de dados para o controle de autoridade de autores; 15 (75%) afirmaram adotar regras gerais de padronização de metadados para descrever título, autor e assunto do documento. Entretanto, 11 (55%) disseram que a equipe técnica do RI possui apenas um bibliotecário e 14 (70%) informaram inexistência de política de indexação. Assim, concluiu-se que, embora a maioria dos repositórios institucionais analisados afirme realizar diversas ações que visam a padronização de metadados na representação da informação, observou-se questões críticas que a compromete, tais como número insuficiente de bibliotecários e carência de políticas de funcionamento e de manuais divulgados com conteúdos relevantes para auxiliar o depositante no processo de descrição de documento

Public Participation Design for Comprehensive Planning: Case Studies from the United States and Brazil

56 pagesThis paper serves as a guide to planners who want to design public participation components for comprehensive planning processes. First, this paper reviews the existing literature on public participation and discusses the strategic choices that planners make when designing planning processes. Then, it reviews legislation on state mandates for citizen engagement in planning processes in the United States and in Brazil. Next, it reviews four cases studies, two from the US and two from Brazil. The case studies illustrate how mandates for public participation are implemented across different public engagement contexts. Finally, the paper offers recommendations on how to design public participation components that meet legal requirements and provide for meaningful engagement with citizens in comprehensive planning processes

La realcalinización y la extracción electroquímica de los cloruros en las construcciones de hormigón armado

Realkalisation and electrochemical chloride removal techniques, developed for rehabiliting carbonated and chloride-containing structures, are presented. Electrolysis and electromigration mechanisms and consequences as well as electrochemical conditions at the reinforcement surface are discussed and compared with cathodic protection ones. Furthermore, possible side effects are commented