Judicial Risk and Credit Market Performance: Micro Evidence from Brazil Payroll Loans

A large body of literature has stressed the institution-development nexus as critical in explaining differences in countries' economic performance. The empirical evidence, however, has been mainly at the aggregate level, associating macro performance with measures of quality of institutions. This paper, by relating a judicial decision on the legality of payroll debit loans in Brazil to bank-level decision variables, provides micro evidence on how creditor legal protection affects market performance. Payroll loans are personal loans with principal and interests payments directly deducted from the borrowers' payroll check, which, in practice, makes a collateral out of future income. In June 2004, a high-level federal court upheld a regional court ruling that had declared payroll deduction illegal. Using personal loans without payroll deduction as a control group, we assess whether the ruling had an impact on market performance. Evidence indicates that it had an adverse impact on risk perception, interest rates, and amount lent.

Performance clínica de la autorrefraction Visionix L67

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Biomarkers: a strategic tool in the assessment of environmental quality of coastal waters

Ecosystems are under the pressure of complex mixtures of contaminants whose effects are not always simple to assess. Biomarkers, acting as early warning signals of the presence of potentially toxic xenobiotics, are useful tools for assessing either exposure to, or the effects of these compounds providing information about the toxicant bioavailability. In fact, it has been argued that a full understanding of ecotoxicological processes must consider an integrated multi-level approach, in which molecular impact is related with higher-order biological consequences at the individual, population and community levels. Monitoring programs should make use of this tool to link contaminants and ecological responses fulfilling strategies like those launched by OSPAR (Commissions of Oslo and Paris) Convention on the protection of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). An overview of the work done in the past few years using biomarkers as in situ tools for pollution assessment in Portuguese coastal waters is presented as a contribution to the set up of a biomonitoring program for the Portuguese coastal zone. Considering the data set available the biomonitoring proposal should include the analysis of biomarkers and effects at individual levels. The aim of the program will include a spatial and temporal characterization of the biomarkers acetyl-cholinesterase, metallothioneins, DNA damage, adenylate energy charge and scope-for-growth levels. The investigation of the spatial variation of biomarkers is crucial to define sites for long term monitoring, which will be integrated with a chemical monitoring program. This framework will be a major contribution to the implementation of a national database for the use of biomarkers along the Portuguese coast.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of the Potential Performance of the Chief Information Officer based on the experience, training and personal characteristics

O Gestor de Sistemas de Informação ou Chief Information Officer é o responsável pela Função Sistemas de Informação. Dada a natureza das atividades que necessita de realizar, a sua ação influencia de forma significativa o desenvolvimento da organização de que faz parte. É, assim, importante avaliar o desempenho potencial de candidatos a ocupar este lugar, antes de serem colocados ao comando de uma função determinante para o sucesso do negócio. Neste póster é apresentado um trabalho em curso que visa propor uma extensão do “Modelo para a Avaliação de Desempenho Potencial de Gestores de Sistemas de Informação”, considerando as dimensões experiência, formação e características pessoais conjuntamente. Este estudo procura contribuir para auxiliar as organizações no processo de decisão de contratação e avaliação do potencial do seu gestor de Sistemas de InformaçãThe Information Systems Manager or Chief Information Officer is the head of the Information Systems Function. Given the nature of the activities that s/he needs to accomplish, her/hisaction influences significantly the development of her/his organization. Thus, it is important to evaluate the potential performance of the candidates chosen to occupy that role, before being placed at the control of a core business function. This poster presents a work in progress which proposes an extension of the “Model for the Evaluation of Potential Performance of Information Systems Managers” , considering the dimensions experience, education and personal characteristics jointly. This study aims at contributing for helping organizations in the decision process of hiring Information Systems managers(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Direct measurement of transcription rates reveals multiple mechanisms for configuration of the Arabidopsis ambient temperature response

Background Sensing and responding to ambient temperature is important for controlling growth and development of many organisms, in part by regulating mRNA levels. mRNA abundance can change with temperature, but it is unclear whether this results from changes in transcription or decay rates, and whether passive or active temperature regulation is involved. Results Using a base analog labelling method, we directly measured the temperature coefficient, Q10, of mRNA synthesis and degradation rates of the Arabidopsis transcriptome. We show that for most genes, transcript levels are buffered against passive increases in transcription rates by balancing passive increases in the rate of decay. Strikingly, for temperature-responsive transcripts, increasing temperature raises transcript abundance primarily by promoting faster transcription relative to decay and not vice versa, suggesting a global transcriptional process exists that controls mRNA abundance by temperature. This is partly accounted for by gene body H2A.Z which is associated with low transcription rate Q10, but is also influenced by other marks and transcription factor activities. Conclusions Our data show that less frequent chromatin states can produce temperature responses simply by virtue of their rarity and the difference between their thermal properties and those of the most common states, and underline the advantages of directly measuring transcription rate changes in dynamic systems, rather than inferring rates from changes in mRNA abundance. Background The mechanism for ambient temperature sensing in plants is unclear. Control of transcript levels is believed to be important in responses to temperature [1-4] but affects of ambient temperature on transcription and mRNA decay rates have not been measured. According to the work of Arrhenius [5] the temperature coefficient (Q10) of biochemical reactions is expected to be 2 to 3 at biological temperatures: yet less than 2% of Arabidopsis thaliana genes have a two-fold or greater difference in expression level between 17°C and 27°C [6]. The remaining genes either have rates buffered against changing temperatures, or passive increases in transcription rate must be offset by a balanced increase in decay rate, leading to higher turnover but static steady state levels. Despite this fundamental uncertainty, steady state transcriptomic responses to ambient temperature have been used to infer a role for chromatin modifications in temperature signaling [2,7]. 4-Thiouracil (4SU) is a non-toxic base analogue that has been shown to be incorporated into mammalian and yeast mRNA during transcription [8-12]. Biotinylation and column separation allow 4SU-labeled RNA to be separated from unlabeled RNA, and transcriptomic analysis using the separated samples can be used to simultaneously calculate mRNA synthesis and decay rates [8]. Here we use 4SU labeling to measure transcription rates and determine the Q10 genome-wide of mRNA synthesis and decay rates in Arabidopsis thaliana. We show that ambient temperature has large passive effects on both mRNA synthesis and decay rates, and that where temperature controls transcript abundance it does so by regulating transcription relative to decay and not vice versa. Our analysis suggests that transcription factor binding sites and epigenetic state combine to create a complex network of temperature responses in plants. Results Cells incorporate 4SU into RNA and this has been exploited in mammalian cells [8,11,12] and in yeast [13] to measure mRNA synthesis and decay rates. In order to determine whether plants can take up 4SU we floated intact seedlings in MS medium and monitored 4SU incorporation into RNA by biotinylation and dot blot (Figure S1a in Additional file 1). This clearly showed that plants incorporate 4SU from the environment into RNA and that concentrations as low as 1 mM lead to a signal detectable above background within 1 hour (Figure 1B). The resulting RNA could be separated from unlabeled RNA by biotinylation and passage through a streptavidin column as described previously. At 1.5 mM the flow-through can be depleted of detectable 4SU-labeled RNA, whilst labeled plant RNA is highly concentrated in the fraction recovered from the column [8,13] (Figure S1c in Additional file 1). To maximize recovery we chose a low concentration of 4SU at 1.5 mM [8] as high labeling frequencies are known to lead to binding of fewer more frequently labeled transcripts to the columns and reduce recovery. At this concentration Arabidopsis plants treated with 4SU showed the same growth and survival as control plants (Figure S2a in Additional file 1), suggesting 4SU has low toxicity in plants, as in other organisms. Therefore, 4SU dynamics in Arabidopsis seedlings resemble those described for other experimental systems. Preliminary experiments showed that RNA turnover was faster at 27°C compared to 12°C (Figure S2b in Additional file 1), suggesting that temperature generally affected transcription rates

AdS black disk model for small-x DIS

Using the approximate conformal invariance of QCD at high energies we consider a simple AdS black disk model to describe saturation in DIS. Deep inside saturation the structure functions have the same power law scaling, F_T ~ F_L ~ 1/x^w, where w is related to the expansion rate of the black disk with energy. Furthermore, the ratio F_L /F_T is given by the universal value (1+w)/(3+w), independently of the target. For virtual photon-photon scattering at high energies we obtain explicit expressions and ratios for the total cross sections of transverse and longitudinal photons in terms of the single parameter w.Comment: 5 pages. Minor correction

Determinantes escolares y de los estudiantes en el rendimiento lector: un análisis multinivel con estudiantes portugueses

Available online 10 June 2021Reading is crucial for learning, in general. Starting right with reading in primary grades is, therefore, vital for school achievement. The present study aims to test whether students’ factors best predict reading performance than school factors and determine what student and school factors predict reading performance. The study sample includes 4,118 fourth-grade students participating in IEA PIRLS 2016. Three questionnaires were used to collect data: one for school principals, one for students, and one for parents. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to study the relation of school and student-level variables to students’ reading performance. Students’ confidence in reading and home resources for learning are the best predictors of reading performance at the student level. At the school level, school emphasis on academic success is the best predictor of reading performance. The results provide clues as to what schools might do to improve reading results.La lectura es fundamental para el aprendizaje en general. Empezar con la lectura en educación primaria es, por tanto, vital para el rendimiento académico. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo probar si los factores de los estudiantes predicen mejor el rendimiento en lectura que los factores escolares y determinar qué factores del alumnado y de la escuela predicen el rendimiento en lectura. La muestra del estudio incluye 4.118 estudiantes de cuarto curso de educación primaria que participan en el Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), 2016. Han sido utilizados tres cuestionarios para recopilar datos: un cuestionario para directores de escuela, un cuestionario para estudiantes y un cuestionario para padres. Se ha utilizado un modelo lineal jerárquico para estudiar la relación de las variables al nivel de la escuela y del alumnado con el rendimiento de los estudiantes en lectura. La confianza de los estudiantes en la lectura y los recursos del hogar para el aprendizaje son los mejores predictores del rendimiento lector. Al nivel escolar, el mejor indicador del rendimiento lector es el énfasis de la escuela en el éxito académico. Los resultados proporcionan pistas sobre lo que podrán hacer las escuelas para mejorar los resultados de lectura