The financial sustainability of Microcredit in Portugal

Microcredit and microfinance emerged in the 1970’s in Bangladesh and other developing countries and expanded rapidly worldwide as a business model financially sustainable and able to fight poverty and social exclusion. Empirical evidence confirms microcredit ability to mitigate poverty but its financial sustainability is controversial. Using 2006-2009 Portuguese micro-level data, we estimate the failure rate of Portuguese micro-credit projects as 20,6%/year that, to be financially sustainable, would require a real interest rate by 25%/year. Using a territorial variable on a discrete Cox proportional hazard model with censured data, we estimate that the failure rate of those micro-credit projects located in the worst-case NUTS II Portuguese regions (Alentejo and Centro) and promoted by lower schooling people is significantly higher than best-case.Microcredit, Firms failure rate, Poverty, Financial sustainability

Los efectos de la dominación simbólica en el feminismo

En este artículo quisiera aludir a las tesis de Bourdieu sobre la dominación simbólica, incidiendo en su faceta androcéntrica; para, a continuación contemplar cómo, debido al carácter incorporado de dicha estructura (esto es, a que su eficacia radica en que el dominado contribuye a su propia dominación), algunas teorías y prácticas feministas, como el feminismo de la diferencia de Luce Irigaray, los planteamientos éticos y políticos de Benhabib y la subversión de la identidad que promueve Butler, pueden llegar a reproducir las diferencias que pretendían combatir. Finalmente, quisiera plantear las opciones que pueden llevar a cabo los distintos feminismos (y otras figuras dominadas) para evitar estos problemas.In this paper, I would like to refer to Bourdieu’s symbolic domination, with an especial interest in its androcentric aspect. In a second moment, I would examine how due to the embodied character of this androcentric structure (i. e., this domination is effective within the dominated contribute to its own domination), some feminist movements, for example Irigaray’s feminism of the difference, Benhabib’s ethic and political theory and the subversion of the identity proposed by Butler) might reproduce the discrimination that they aimed to avoid. Finally, I would like to present the options and choices that feminists (and other dominated actors) could manage to avoid this kind of problems

Foliations and Chern-Heinz inequalities

We extend the Chern-Heinz inequalities about mean curvature and scalar curvature of graphs of $C^{2}$-functions to leaves of transversally oriented codimension one $C^{2}$-foliations of Riemannian manifolds. That extends partially Salavessa's work on mean curvature of graphs and generalize results of Barbosa-Kenmotsu-Oshikiri \cite{barbosa-kenmotsu-Oshikiri} and Barbosa-Gomes-Silveira \cite{barbosa-gomes-silveira} about foliations of 3-dimensional Riemannian manifolds by constant mean curvature surfaces. These Chern-Heinz inequalities for foliations can be applied to prove Haymann-Makai-Osserman inequality (lower bounds of the fundamental tones of bounded open subsets $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{2}$ in terms of its inradius) for embedded tubular neighborhoods of simple curves of $\mathbb{R}^{n}$.Comment: This paper is an improvment of an earlier paper titled On Chern-Heinz Inequalities. 8 Pages, Late

La compleja articulación del concepto de democracia radical en el contexto de la globalización

A lo largo de este artículo se tratará de esbozar el concepto de democracia radical, acuñado por la filósofa belga Chantal Mouffe. Una de las aportaciones más importantes de esta autora es la recuperación de ciertos elementos del segundo Wittgenstein para la definición de su teoría política, aún sabiendo que el filósofo vienés nunca se ocupó de esta materia. Profundizaremos en esta relación entre Wittgenstein y Mouffe para conocer los límites de la democracia radical, teniendo en cuenta que es sólo de un concepto teórico, sino que, expresado en términos wittgensteinianos, se trata de un modo de vida, de una nueva práctica de la política acorde a nuestro globalizado presente.In this paper we would try to understand the concept of “radical democracy”, defined by the Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe. One of her most important points is the adaptation of some elements of the second Wittgenstein to her political theory, even though the Austrian philosopher never theorized about politics. We will go deeper into this Wittgenstein-Mouffe link and its complexities, understanding that the radical democracy is not a theoretical concept but a way of life (in the wittgensteinian expression), a new political praxis for our globalized time

Desenvolvimentos recentes no comportamento à fadiga de conectores metálicos

A presente comunicação recolhe a mais recente investigação, realizada em torno da avaliação experimental do comportamento à fadiga de vários tipos de conectores metálicos, como sejam os pernos de cabeça, conector C, os conectores pós-instalados, o Perfobond e o Crestbond. Com base num conjunto vasto de resultados experimentais obtidos por diversos investigadores, discutem-se aspectos como a vida de fadiga, a resistência residual ou a evolução do escorregamento e comparam-se os vários resultados obtidos. A partir da comparação entre resultados analisados, é possível definir um plano de ensaios para avaliar o comportamento à fadiga de um novo tipo de conector metálico, o Crestbond, recentemente desenvolvido por dois autores deste artigo. O objectivo final é o de obter a curva S-N para este conector

Dynamic fator Models for bivariate Count Data: an application to fire activity

The study of forest re activity, in its several aspects, is essencial to understand the phenomenon and to prevent environmental public catastrophes. In this context the analysis of monthly number of res along several years is one aspect to have into account in order to better comprehend this tematic. The goal of this work is to analyze the monthly number of forest res in the neighboring districts of Aveiro and Coimbra, Portugal, through dynamic factor models for bivariate count series. We use a bayesian approach, through MCMC methods, to estimate the model parameters as well as to estimate the common latent factor to both series