Using Common Features to Investigate Common Growth Cycles for BRICS Countries

This paper examines the short and long-term co-movement of large  emerging market economies -- the BRICS countries -- by applying the  econometric techniques and the tests proposed in the common-feature literature. Despite their dissimilarities, given the rising trade linkages among the BRICS over the last 20 years one should expect their cycles to be  synchronized. Our empirical findings fully support this hypothesis. The evidence holds also for the co-movement between the BRICS and developed  economies, the US and the Eurozone, which may reflect the effects of  globalization

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the energy performance of residential neighborhoods and their occupancy behavior

Several contrasting effects are reported in the existing literature concerning the impact assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak on the use of energy in buildings. Following an in-depth literature review, we here propose a GIS-based approach, based on pre-pandemic, partial, and full lockdown scenarios, using a bottom-up engineering model to quantify these impacts. The model has been verified against measured energy data from a total number of 451 buildings in three urban neighborhoods in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. The accuracy of the engineering model in predicting the energy demand has been improved by 10%, in terms of the mean absolute percentage error, as a result of adopting a data-driven correction with a random forest algorithm. The obtained results show that the energy demand for space heating and cooling tended to increase by 8% and 17%, respectively, during the partial lockdown, while these numbers rose to 13% and 28% in the case of the full lockdown. The study also reveals that the introduced detailed occupancy scenarios are the key to improving the accuracy of urban building energy models (UBEMs). Finally, it is shown that the proposed GIS-based approach can be used to mitigate the expected impacts of any possible future pandemic in urban neighborhoods

Sentidos e indicios de vida de las prácticas religiosas urbanas de las mujeres laicas. Estudio de casos: parroquia santa maría de la paz y parroquia San Nicolás de Bari pastoral urbana, 2011-2012.

La investigación enfoca los sentidos e indicios de vida de las prácticas religiosas de las mujeres que asisten a dos parroquias de la ciudad: Santa María de la Paz, ubicada en los barrios del noroeste, y San Nicolás de Bari, emplazada en la zona periférica noreste de la Ciudad de Córdoba. A modo de hipótesis se plantea la emergencia de nuevos modos de vinculación y de pertenencia a la institución parroquial de los actores sociales laicos que concurren a las mismas, mayoritariamente mujeres con niveles de instrucción medio, que presumible-mente han modificado sus modos de vivir la fe y de practicar la religión a partir de las condiciones de transformación de la cultura urbana experimentada en la Ciudad en los últimos 20 años y que dan origen, a su vez, a nuevos sentidos de la religiosidad urbana y de la construcción de las subjetividades femeninas a partir de las nuevas referencias urbanas e identitarias. El objetivo principal pretende desarrollar un trabajo interdisciplinario de análisis e interpretación de los sentidos de las prácticas de espiritualidad de los crono-topos urbanos de los laicos, particularmente de las mujeres, que asisten a estas parroquias. Se espera obtener un exhaustivo conocimiento de la realidad urbana religiosa-cultural y de las prácticas espirituales de estas dos parroquias. La realización del proyecto de investigación supone un abordaje interdisciplinario bajo una metodología hermenéutica-cualitativa que implica dos momentos: empírico (sociológico: estudio de caso)y crítico hermenéutico (teológico y filosófico)

Synchrophasor and frequency estimations: Combining space vector and Taylor-Fourier approaches

Taylor-Fourier (TF) filters represent a powerful tool to design PMU algorithms able to estimate synchrophasor, frequency and rate of change of frequency (ROCOF). The resulting techniques are based on dynamic representations of the synchrophasor, hence they are particularly suitable to track the evolution of its parameters during time-varying conditions. Electrical quantities in power systems are typically three-phase and weakly unbalanced, but most PMU measurement techniques are developed by considering them as a set of three single phase signals; on the contrary, this peculiarity can be favorably exploited. For the first time, in this paper, the TF approach is applied to the space vector obtained from three-phase measurements. The positive sequence synchrophasor can be easily extracted along with the system frequency and ROCOF leveraging the three-phase characteristics. Performance of the proposed technique is assessed by using test signals defined by the standard IEEE C37.118.1-2011. Results show that the positive sequence estimations are always more accurate when compared to the single-phase measurements provided by the conventional TF algorithms under the same conditions

Postretention stability after orthodontic closure of maxillary interincisor diastemas

Anterior spaces may interfere with smile attractiveness and compromise dentofacial harmony. They are among the most frequent reasons why patients seek orthodontic treatment. However, midline diastema is commonly cited as a malocclusion with high relapse incidence by orthodontists. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the stability of maxillary interincisor diastemas closure and the association of their relapse and interincisor width, overjet, overbite and root parallelism. Material and Methods: Sample comprised 30 patients with at least a pretreatment midline diastema of 0.5 mm or greater after eruption of the maxillary permanent canines. Dental casts and panoramic radiographs were taken at pretreatment, posttreatment and postretention. Results: Before treatment, midline diastema width was 1.52 mm (SD=0.88) and right and left lateral diastema widths were 0.55 mm (SD=0.56) and 0.57 mm (SD=0.53), respectively. According to repeated measures analysis of variance, only midline diastema demonstrated significant relapse. In the overall sample the average relapse of midline diastema was 0.49 mm (SD=0.66), whilst the unstable patients showed a mean space reopening of 0.78 mm (SD=0.66). Diastema closure in the area between central and lateral incisors showed great stability. Multivariate correlation tests showed that only initial diastema width (β=0.60) and relapse of overjet (β=0.39) presented association with relapse of midline diastema. Conclusions: Midline diastema relapse was statistically significant and occurred in 60% of the sample, while lateral diastemas closure remained stable after treatment. Only initial diastema width and overjet relapse showed association with relapse of midline diastema. There was no association between relapse of interincisor diastema and root parallelism

Setor de software : diagnóstico e proposta de ação para o BNDES

Bibliografia: p. 126-127Uma das mais importantes características da tecnologia da informação, da qual o software é parte essencial, é que ela lida com o conhecimento, que pode ser reduzido a forma digital, armazenado em computadores e difundido mais rapidamente. São características desta indústria: a alta velocidade na introdução de inovações técnicas e o contínuo desenvolvimento de produtos; a competição acirrada; o baixo investimento em capital fixo; e a capacidade criativa e intelectual da mão-de-obra, que é o seu grande ativo. No Brasil, o setor produtor de software ainda é pouco conhecido, sem estatísticas consistentes, devido, em boa medida, ao fato de ter um desenvolvimento recente, com maciça participação de pequenas empresas e com o mesmo elevado grau de segmentação verificado internacionalmente. Por outro lado, dada a sua elevada contribuição a modernização da sociedade, é um segmento que apresenta tendência de expressivo crescimento, sendo que, para 1997, estima-se uma taxa da ordem de 40% em relação a 1996. atuação do BNDES no setor é praticamente inexistente, por carecer de um instrumento operacional adequado às peculiaridades das empresas, seja pelas características de suas operações de capital de risco, seja pelas garantias exigidas nos financiamentos ou mesmo pelo desinteresse dos agentes financeiros por estas empresas. Por outro lado, reconhece-se que este é um setor de grande importância para o desenvolvimento do país e que, por isso, requer atenção especial

Width of buccal and posterior corridors: differences between cases treated with asymmetric and symmetric extractions

OBJECTIVE: To verify if there is difference in the buccal and posterior corridor width in cases treated with extraction of one and four premolars. METHODS: Through posed smile photographs of 23 Class II patients, subdivision, treated with extraction of one premolar and 25 Class I and Class II patients, subdivision, treated with extraction of four premolars, the percentage of buccal and posterior corridor width was calculated. The two protocols of extractions were compared regarding the buccal and posterior corridor width by independent t tests. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference on the buccal and posterior corridor widths between patients treated with symmetric and asymmetric extraction. CONCLUSION: The buccal and posterior corridor did not differ between the evaluated protocols of extractions