Changes in the Dynamic Behavior of Emerging Market Volatility: Revisiting the Effects of Financial L

In this paper we test whether the dynamic behavior of stock market volatility in six emerging economies has changed over the period 1976:01-2004:12. This period corresponds to years of profound development of both the financial and the productive sides in these emerging countries, but also to the years of the major financial crises. Our analysis suggests that changes in volatility behavior, while indeed present, may have been overstated in the past: simple specifications account for most of the dynamics of stock market volatility and therefore become powerful tools for volatility analysis. Additionally, we show that financial liberalization of emerging markets has generally reduced the level of market volatility and its sensititivity to news.

Improving a Satellite Mission System by means of a Semantic Grid Architecture

The use of a semantic grid architecture can make easier the deployment of complex applications, in which several organizations are involved and diverse resources are shared. This paper presents the application of the architecture defined in the Ontogrid project (S-OGSA) into a scenario for the analysis of the quality of the products of satellite missions

Giant Collective Spin-Orbit Field in a Quantum Well: Fine Structure of Spin Plasmons

We employ inelastic light scattering with magnetic fields to study intersubband spin plasmons in a quantum well. We demonstrate the existence of a giant collective spin-orbit (SO) field that splits the spin-plasmon spectrum into a triplet. The effect is remarkable as each individual electron would be expected to precess in its own momentum-dependent SO field, leading to D'yakonov-Perel' dephasing. Instead, many-body effects lead to a striking organization of the SO fields at the collective level. The macroscopic spin moment is quantized by a uniform collective SO field, five times higher than the individual SO field. We provide a momentum-space cartography of this field.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplemental material available here as an ancillary fil

Brazilian foreign policy in health during Ddilma Rrousseff's administration (2011-2014)

Abstract This article analyses changes and continuities in Brazilian international actions in the field of public health, aiming at understanding how the Brazilian foreign policy in health during President Dilma Rousseff's first term (2011-2014) was developed. Available data from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) years and Dilma's first term were used for comparative purposes. Emphasis was given on South-South cooperation projects, more specifically the Union of South American Countries (USAN, Unión de Naciones Suramericanas - Unasur) and to the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP). Brazilian behavior in international fora, such as the World Health Organization, was analyzed as well, with the purpose of understanding how such behavior evolved. In addition, domestic issues were considered. In this case, the coordination among different actors of the Brazilian Executive Power received due attention. Findings suggest that there has been downfall and even decline in the Government's foreign health policy

A Sustainable Approach for the Downstream Processing of Bacterial Polyhydroxyalkanoates: State-of-the-art and latest developments

Bioplastics have emerged as a platform to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of biodegradable polyesters with large potential in consumer goods and medical applications. These polymers accumulate in prokaryotic microbes and their recovery is a challenging, often under explored, operation. In the past, oil-derived solvents and chemicals have been widely used as extracting agents, compromising the “environmentally-friendly” claim of bioplastics. Furthermore, the large amount of chemicals and solvents required at the industrial level would negatively impact the economics of the process. The present review presents the latest advances in the field of downstream operations for PHA recovery emphasizing those green technologies with scaling-up feasibility. As for the upstream and fermentation stages, the extraction process needs to be carefully optimized to accomplish a competitive production of PHAs

Yielding and Ultimate Deformations of Wide and Deep Reinforced Concrete Beams

[EN] Current formulations proposed by Eurocode 8 part 3 for the inelastic deformations of existing reinforced concrete members are assessed separately for wide beams (WB) and conventional deep beams (DB). The current approach, based on a large experimental database of members, predicts larger ultimate chord rotation but lower chord rotation ductility for WB rather than for DB despite the similar curvature ductility, due to lower plastic hinge lengths in WB. However, if the data are disaggregated into DB and WB, predicted chord rotations are consistently conservative for DB and not conservative for WB if compared with experimental values, especially at ultimate deformation. Thus, plastic hinge length may be even greater for DB in comparison to WB. Therefore, some feasible corrections of the formulations for chord rotations are proposed, in order to reduce the bias and thus increase the robustness of the model for cross-section shape variability.Gómez-Martínez, F.; Perez-Garcia, A. (2022). Yielding and Ultimate Deformations of Wide and Deep Reinforced Concrete Beams. Buildings. 12(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12112015121

Influence of Different European Code Provisions for Capacity Design on the Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Frames

[EN] Performance-based seismic codes ensure proper inelastic behaviour of reinforced concrete frames through capacity design, among others. This strategy relies not only on avoiding brittle failures and providing ductility to plastic hinges but also in their distribution within the frame aimed at a greater number of storeys involved in the eventual collapse mechanism. Although codes are generally in agreement to some basic principles in order to ensure capacity design, they show some discrepancies regarding the specific strategies. In this paper, capacity design provisions proposed by some European current codes-Eurocode 8, Italian NTC, and Spanish NCSE-02-are compared, and their effectiveness is discussed. The alternative formulation proposed by Italian code for "strong column-weak beam" turns out to be not suitable under specific circumstances, such as with large gravity loads or significant cantilever deformation in lower storeys. Regarding the value of axial load in columns to be considered for the calculation of shear and moment capacities, provisions in the three codes could eventually cause unconservative design for perimeter columns. The Spanish whole set of provisions is proved to not be effective due to their different fundamentals-they are based on overstrength instead of capacity. For all the three cases, some alternative procedures are suggested in this work.Gómez-Martínez, F.; Perez-Garcia, A. (2023). Influence of Different European Code Provisions for Capacity Design on the Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Frames. Buildings. 13(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings1308205113

Identifying students at risk to academic dropout in Higher Education

© 2021 by the authors. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This document is the Published version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Education Sciences. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11080427Abstract: A main goal of the university institution should be to reduce the desertion of its students, in fact, the dropout rate constitutes a basic indicator in the accreditation processes of university centers. Thus, evaluating the cognitive functions and learning skills of students with an increased risk of academic failure can be useful for the adoption of strategies for preventing and reducing school dropout. In this research, cognitive functions and learning skills in 284 university students were evaluated. Academic performance predictors were identified, and conglomerates analysis was carried out to establish groups according to those variables. The stability and validity of the conglomerates were tested with discriminant analyzes and comparison tests. The variables associated significantly to academic performance were: attention, intelligence, motivation, metacognition and affective components. The conglomerate analysis suggested a three-group solution: (1) students with cognitive skills of moderate to high, but deficient learning strategies; (2) students with cognitive and learning capabilities of moderate to high; (3) students with cognitive functions low and moderate learning capacity. Students from groups 1 and 3 showed worse academic performance; 83.3% of students at risk of desertion belonged to such groups. Two groups of students have been identified with the highest risk of academic failure: those with poor cognitive capacity and those with bad learning skills

Compressibility and structural stability of ultra-incompressible bimetallic interstitial carbides and nitrides

We have investigated by means of high-pressure x-ray diffraction the structural stability of Pd2Mo3N, Ni2Mo3C0.52N0.48, Co3Mo3C0.62N0.38, and Fe3Mo3C. We have found that they remain stable in their ambient-pressure cubic phase at least up to 48 GPa. All of them have a bulk modulus larger than 330 GPa, being the least compressible material Fe3Mo3C, B0 = 374(3) GPa. In addition, apparently a reduction of compressibility is detected as the carbon content increased. The equation of state for each material is determined. A comparison with other refractory materials indicates that interstitial nitrides and carbides behave as ultra-incompressible materials.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Non-linear analyses to assess the seismic performance of RC buildings retrofitted with FRP

Post-seismic reinforcement is extensively used to repair structural elements of buildings hit by strong earthquakes, while pre-seismic reinforcement can be very convenient to improve the seismic performance of buildings designed according to less stringent standards than current. One of the most commonly used techniques for both pre and post-seismic retrofit of structures is that of wrapping elements previously identified as weak or damaged with sheets of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP). This technique may be in fact more advantageous than other strengthening approaches, due to speed of placement, low environmental impact and small load increase. Non-linear methods of analysis can be very helpful for planning the retrofit strategy and assessing in advance its effectiveness. Based on non-linear static and dynamic numerical analyses, the effectiveness of the FRP pre-seismic reinforcement on the global performance of buildings was investigated in this paper with reference to a residential Italian building designed according to obsolete standards. The seismic capacity of the building, before and after the FRP retrofit, was assessed and the efficacy of the seismic rehabilitation was evaluated. The results show that, by improving the local resistance of the most vulnerable elements and the global ductility of the building, the FRP wrapping of the ground-floor columns of the considered building has an important impact on the overall seismic response of the structure, although it cannot entirely avoid undesirable global collapse mechanisms