Overlapping political budget cycles in the legislative and the executive

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it is important whether the incumbent re-runs. To account for the potential endogeneity associated with this decision, we apply a unique instrumental variables approach based on age and pension eligibility rules. We find sizable and significant effects in expenditures before council elections and before joint elections when the incumbent re-runs

Overlapping political budget cycle

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing for cycles in expenditures for elections to the legislative and the executive branches. Using municipal data, we identify cycles independently for the two branches, evaluate the effects of overlaps, and account for general year effects. We find sizable effects on expenditures before legislative elections and even larger effects before joint elections to the legislature and the office of mayor. In the case of coincident elections, we show that it is important whether the incumbent chief executive seeks reelection. To account for the potential endogeneity of that decision, we apply an IV approach using age and pension eligibility rules

Determinants of the assignment of E.U. funds to portuguese municipalities

The paper examines the determinants of the assignment of EU funds to Portuguese municipalities using a large and unexplored dataset covering all (278) mainland municipalities over 15 years. Empirical results reveal that besides normative objectives, political motivations also influence the distribution of funds by the national government across municipalities. Grants to municipalities increase during local election years, and more funds are transferred to municipalities where legislative elections have been closely contested and where the ruling national party had been supported by voters.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Microbial characterization of probiotics-Advisory report of the Working Group "8651 Probiotics" of the Belgian Superior Health Council (SHC).

When ingested in sufficient numbers, probiotics are expected to confer one or more proven health benefits on the consumer. Theoretically, the effectiveness of a probiotic food product is the sum of its microbial quality and its functional potential. Whereas the latter may vary much with the body (target) site, delivery mode, human target population, and health benefit envisaged microbial assessment of the probiotic product quality is more straightforward. The range of stakeholders that need to be informed on probiotic quality assessments is extremely broad, including academics, food and biotherapeutic industries, healthcare professionals, competent authorities, consumers, and professional press. In view of the rapidly expanding knowledge on this subject, the Belgian Superior Health Council installed Working Group "8651 Probiotics" to review the state of knowledge regarding the methodologies that make it possible to characterize strains and products with purported probiotic activity. This advisory report covers three main steps in the microbial quality assessment process, i.e. (i) correct species identification and strain-specific typing of bacterial and yeast strains used in probiotic applications, (ii) safety assessment of probiotic strains used for human consumption, and (iii) quality of the final probiotic product in terms of its microbial composition, concentration, stability, authenticity, and labeling

Extraction of red cabbage anthocyanins: optimization of the operation conditions of the column process

The aim of this work was to extract anthocyanins from the red cabbage. Batch studies under several extraction conditions indicated that acetic acid in aqueous solution (10% V/V) was the best solvent, used in the proportion of 0.25 g of red cabbage mL-1. At this condition, column assays were carried out to evaluate the influence of the ionic force, pH, solvent flow rate, recirculated volume of red cabbage juice and the mass of red cabbage. Results showed that the pH, recirculation and mass of red cabbage had statistically significant effects, where the optimum operation conditions found for the process were pH 2.3, recirculation volume of the solvent 0.83 L and mass of red cabbage 50 g.<br>Desde os primórdios dos tempos as antocianinas são extraídas de vegetais, mas avanços que garantam um processo viável e rentável exigem conhecimento, quantificação e controle das condições de operação. Estudos em batelada sob várias condições de extração indicaram que ácido acético em solução aquosa (10% V/V) foi o melhor solvente, quando usado na proporção de 0,25 g de repolho roxo mL-1. Nesta condição de operação foram feitos ensaios em coluna para avaliar a influência da força iônica, pH, taxa de escoamento do solvente, volume recirculado da solução de extração e massa de repolho roxo. Os resultados mostraram que o pH, recirculação e massa de repolho foram estatisticamente significativos, e as condições ótimas de operação encontradas para o processo foram pH 2,3, volume de solvente recirculado de 0,83 L e massa de repolho roxo igual a 50g