Os fundamentos geográficos da política externa

Foreign policy is linked to the vital space of the State, wherein it has developed; the first duty of the State being its maintenance and expansion if possible. Simultaneously, within the State a policy that allows the capacity to be self-sufficient (autarchy) must be defined. Demographic pressure urges Germany and Japan to increase their vital space by necessity, in contrast with the great space availability in the old and new colonial powers; thus, a smart foreign policy in Germany should search for an alliance with Japan ―without disregarding one with Russia―. Centrifugal tendencies in Germany are associated to different vital space experiences in its component parts that make some of its leaders underestimate the territorial losses occurred in the wake of the First World War. Geopolitics must be, above all, a tool to construct an effective foreign policy that must be transmitted onto the people in order to secure the construction of the State.La política exterior está vinculada al espacio vital del Estado, en el que éste se ha desarrollado, y es su primer deber mantenerlo y agrandarlo si cabe. Al mismo tiempo, en el interior del Estado se tiene que definir una política que preserve la capacidad de bastarse por sí mismo (autarquía). La presión demográfica en Alemania y Japón aboca necesariamente a estos Estados a aumentar su espacio vital, en contraste con la gran disponibilidad de espacio de las viejas y nuevas potencias coloniales; por este motivo, una política exterior alemana inteligente debería buscar una alianza con Japón ―sin desechar otra con Rusia―. Las tendencias centrífugas en Alemania se asocian a diferentes experiencias de espacio vital en sus partes componentes, que hacen minusvalorar a algunos de sus dirigentes las pérdidas territoriales acaecidas tras la Primera Guerra Mundial. La geopolítica debe de ser, ante todo, una herramienta para construir una política exterior eficaz, que ha de ser transmitida al pueblo para afianzar la construcción del Estado.A política externa está vinculada ao espaço vital do Estado, no qual este se desenvolveu, e é o seu primeiro dever mantê-lo e, se possível, ampliá-lo. Ao mesmo tempo, no interior do Estado é preciso definir uma política que preserve a capacidade de bastar-se em si mesmo (autarquia). A pressão demográfica na Alema-nha e no Japão leva necessariamente esses Estados a aumentar seu espaço vital, em contraste com a grande disponibilidade de espaço das velhas e novas potências coloniais; por esse motivo, uma política externa alemã inteligente deveria buscar uma aliança com o Japão – sem descartar outra com a Rússia. As tendências centrífugas na Alemanha estão associadas a diferentes experiências de espaço vital em suas partes compo-nentes, que fazem alguns de seus líderes menosprezarem as perdas territoriais ocorridas após a Primeira Guerra Mundial. A geopolítica deve ser, antes de tudo, uma ferramenta para construir uma política externa eficaz, que deve ser transmitida ao povo de modo a fortalecer a construção do Estado

Community-based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone’s Ebola Outbreak

Postmortems on the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa suggest that effective community engagement helped slow transmission by encouraging people to come forward and be tested. We evaluate the impact of Community Care Centers: a new crisis response model designed to allay fears about western medical care and, thus, encourage early reporting, isolation, and treatment. We employ new panel data on reported Ebola cases and a difference-in-difference design and find that Community Care Centers dramatically increased reporting, potentially reducing the spread of Ebola. Our results highlight how community-based efforts to increase confidence in health systems can be critical for crisis management

How Soon Is Now? Evidence of Present Bias from Convex Time Budget Experiments

Empirically observed intertemporal choices about money have long been thought to exhibit present bias, i.e. higher short-term compared to long-term discount rates. Recently, this view has been called into question on both empirical and theoretical grounds, and a spate of recent findings suggest that present bias for money is minimal or non-existent when one allows for curvature in the utility function and transaction costs are tightly controlled. However, an alternative interpretation of many of these findings is that, in the interest of equalizing transaction costs across earlier and later payments, small delays were introduced between the time of the experiment and the soonest payment. We conduct a laboratory experiment in Kenya in which we elicit time and risk preference parameters from 291 participants, using convex time budgets and tightly controlling for transaction costs. We make the soonest payments truly immediate, using the Kenyan mobile money system M-Pesa to make real-time transfers to subjects' phones. We find strong evidence of present bias, with estimates of the present bias parameter ranging from 0.901 to 0.937. This result suggests that present bias for money does in fact exist, but only for truly immediate payments

Using behavioral science to promote international development

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Measuring and bounding experimenter demand

We propose a technique for assessing robustness to demand effects of findings from experiments and surveys. The core idea is that by deliberately inducing demand in a structured way we can bound its influence. We present a model in which participants respond to their beliefs about the researcher's objectives. Bounds are obtained by manipulating those beliefs with "demand treatments." We apply the method to 11 classic tasks, and estimate bounds averaging 0.13 standard deviations, suggesting that typical demand effects are probably modest. We also show how to compute demand-robust treatment effects and how to structurally estimate the model

Down and out in London: addictive behaviors in homelessness

Backgrounds and aims: Problem gambling occurs at higher levels in the homeless than the general population. Past work has not established the extent to which problem gambling is a cause or consequence of homelessness. This study sought to replicate recent observations of elevated rates of problem gambling in a British homeless sample, and extend that finding by characterizing (a) the temporal sequencing of the effect, (b) relationships with drug and alcohol misuse, and (c) awareness and access of treatment services for gambling by the homeless. Methods: We recruited 72 participants from homeless centers in Westminster, London, and used the Problem Gambling Severity Index to assess gambling involvement, as well as DSM-IV criteria for substance and alcohol use disorders. A life-events scale was administered to establish the temporal ordering of problem gambling and homelessness. Results: Problem gambling was evident in 23.6% of the sample. In participants who endorsed any gambling symptomatology, the majority were categorized as problem gamblers. Within those problem gamblers, 82.4% indicated that gambling preceded their homelessness. Participants displayed high rates of substance (31.9%) and alcohol dependence (23.6%); these were not correlated with PGSI scores. Awareness of treatment for gambling was significantly lower than for substance and alcohol use disorders, and actual access of gambling support was minimal. Discussion and conclusions: Problem gambling is an under-recognized health issue in the homeless. Our observation that gambling typically precedes homelessness strengthens its role as a causal factor. Despite the elevated prevalence rates, awareness and utilization of gambling support opportunities were low compared with services for substance use disorders

Random Convex Hulls and Extreme Value Statistics

In this paper we study the statistical properties of convex hulls of $N$ random points in a plane chosen according to a given distribution. The points may be chosen independently or they may be correlated. After a non-exhaustive survey of the somewhat sporadic literature and diverse methods used in the random convex hull problem, we present a unifying approach, based on the notion of support function of a closed curve and the associated Cauchy's formulae, that allows us to compute exactly the mean perimeter and the mean area enclosed by the convex polygon both in case of independent as well as correlated points. Our method demonstrates a beautiful link between the random convex hull problem and the subject of extreme value statistics. As an example of correlated points, we study here in detail the case when the points represent the vertices of $n$ independent random walks. In the continuum time limit this reduces to $n$ independent planar Brownian trajectories for which we compute exactly, for all $n$, the mean perimeter and the mean area of their global convex hull. Our results have relevant applications in ecology in estimating the home range of a herd of animals. Some of these results were announced recently in a short communication [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 140602 (2009)].Comment: 61 pages (pedagogical review); invited contribution to the special issue of J. Stat. Phys. celebrating the 50 years of Yeshiba/Rutgers meeting

Separate processing of texture and form in the ventral stream : evidence from fMRI and visual agnosia.

Real-life visual object recognition requires the processing of more than just geometric (shape, size, and orientation) properties. Surface properties such as color and texture are equally important, particularly for providing information about the material properties of objects. Recent neuroimaging research suggests that geometric and surface properties are dealt with separately, within the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and the collateral sulcus (CoS), respectively. Here we compared objects that either differed in aspect ratio or in surface texture only, keeping all other visual properties constant. Results on brain-intact participants confirmed that surface texture activates an area in the posterior CoS, quite distinct from the area activated by shape within LOC. We also tested two patients with visual object agnosia, one of whom (DF) performed well on the texture task but at chance on the shape task, while the other (MS) showed the converse pattern. This behavioral double dissociation was matched by a parallel neuroimaging dissociation, with activation in CoS but not LOC in patient DF, and activation in LOC but not CoS in patient MS. These data provide presumptive evidence that the areas respectively activated by shape and texture play a causally necessary role in the perceptual discrimination of these features