Does the unemployment benefit institution affect the productivity of workers? Evidence from a field experiment

We investigate whether and how the type of unemployment benefit institution affects productivity. We designed a field experiment to compare workers' productivity under a welfare system, where the unemployed receive an unconditional monetary transfer, with their productivity under a workfare system, where the transfer is received conditional on the unemployed spending some time on ancillary activities. First, we find that having an unemployment benefit institution, regardless of whether it makes transfers conditional or unconditional, increases workers' productivity. Second, we find that productivity is higher under Welfare than under Workfare. Becoming unemployed under Welfare comes at the psychological cost of a drop in self-esteem, presumably due to the shame or stigma associated with receiving an unconditional unemployment benefit. We document the empirical relevance of precisely this channel. The differences we observe in productivity suggest that this psychological cost acts as an extra nonmonetary incentive for workers under Welfare to put a higher effort in their work

Ecología del Paisaje y Valores de Conservación para tres fincas propiedad de BARCA S.A, Costa Rica, en los años 2000-2005 y 2012

Proyecto de Graduación (Licenciatura en Ingeniería Forestal) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Escuela de Ingeniería Forestal, 2017.The ecology of the landscape and conservation values were analyzed for three farms owned by BARCA S.A, in the years 2000-2005 and 2012, and the company's social link with neighboring communities was diagnosed. The study was conducted in Parrita, Costa Rica. The Arcgis 10.3 and Fragstats 4.2 programs were used to analyze cartographic images. The farms were valued under FSC criteria. Birds was classified into three coverages: forest, non-forest and plantation. In 2000, forest cover predominated with 68% of the total farm, for 2005 forest plantations appeared, and accounted for 61%. In 2012, forest cover was recovered and represented 52% with an annual exchange rate of 0.18%. Around Birds changed the dynamics of the landscape. With Fragstats 4.2 the number of patches (PN), density of patches (PD) and average distance to the nearest neighbor (MNN) were calculated. Within Birds the NP increased for the three coverages in the study period. The MNN increased for forest cover in 2005. Around Birds the biggest change was from 2005 to 2012 in plantations, where the NP increased and the MNN decreased by -0.16%. In the assessment of the forests Birds was not considered With High Conservation Values (HCV). Finally, in the social analysis it was found that 30% of the inhabitants do not know the company or its projects, so a matrix was proposed to plan social projects.BARCA S.A

O perfil do dicionário pedagógico no ensino de espanhol como língua estrangeira

IX Congresso Brasileiro de Hispanistas realizado nos dias 22 a 25 agosto 2016Este trabalho propõe um diálogo entre o ensino de Espanhol como Língua Estrangeira (E/LE) e a Lexicografia Pedagógica. No momento de compreender textos, há espaço para: a) encorajar os alunos a ativarem seus conhecimentos prévios sobre a temática textual e inferirem os significados de itens lexicais desconhecidos; b) permitir e estimular a consulta a dicionários pedagógicos, quando necessário para a compreensão total e adequada do texto, já que, como afirma Schmitz (2011, p. 99), “O dicionário bilíngue me coloca no mundo real onde existem equivalentes seguros”. A produção textual, oral ou escrita, referese ao caminho língua materna → língua estrangeira feito pelo usuário do dicionário, a fim de expressar ideia ou conceito no idioma de aprendizagem. As informações linguísticas necessárias para compreender são diferentes das para produzir, portanto apresentamos o perfil do dicionário pedagógico para compreensão e do dicionário pedagógico para produção no ensino de Espanhol como Língua EstrangeiraUNILA­-UNIOEST

Análise dos falsos AVCs admitidos na Unidade de AVC do Hospital de Santa Maria entre 2007 e 2013

Trabalho Final do Curso de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 2017Introdução :O diagnóstico de Acidente Vascular Cerebral é realizado no serviço de urgência. Em 2010, ocorreram alterações nas escalas de urgência de neurolgia que resultaram num menor número de horas realizadas por especialistas em neurologia. Pretendemos com este estudo analisar se estas alterações se associaram a modificações no número e padrão de falsos AVCs internados Metodologia: Estudo observacional, retrospetivo de 2007 a 2013. A variação do número de internamentos ao longo do tempo foi analisada através da regressão segmentar - ARIMA - sendo a altura da intervenção entre Julho e Dezembro de 2010. O coeficiente de Correlação de Pearson foi utilizado para avaliar a associação entre o número de horas realizadas por internos e o número de falsos AVCs Resultados: Dos 2552 pacientes admitidos na Unidade de AVC, 290 foram Falsos AVCs(11.4%). Após Julho-Agosto 2010 verificou-se um aumento no número de falsos AVCs internados (p=0.03) O diagnóstico provisório mais comum no serviço de urgência foi AVC vertebro-basilar (n=137). Após 2010 o diagnóstico mais comum passou de Condições Psiquiátricas a S.Vertiginoso Periférico Foi encontrada uma correlação entre o número de horas realizadas primariamente por internos de neurologia e o número de falsos AVCs internados (Coeficiente de Correlação de Pearson=0.94; p=0.002). Conclusão: A alteração na organização do serviço de urgência conduziu a um maior número de internamentos por falsos AVC e a maior número de pacientes internados com síndromes vertiginosos periféricos.Background: The diagnosis of stroke is first done in the emergency department. In 2010, changes were made in the neurology emergency rota that resulted in a decrease in the number of emergency hours done by neurology specialists. We aim to analyze repercussions of such changes on the number or pattern of admitted stroke mimics (SM). Methods: Observational retrospective study from January 2007 to December 2013. We used a segmented linear regression – ARIMA to evaluate changes in the temporal pattern of admitted stroke mimics. Time of intervention was set between July 2010-August 2010. A statistical correlation between the number of emergency hours done by neurology residents and the number of admitted stroke mimics was calculated using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Results: Of the 2552 patients admitted to the stroke unit, 290 were SM (11.4%). After July-August 2010 there was an increase in the number of SM admitted (p=0.003) The most common provisional diagnosis in the emergency department was vertebro-basilar stroke (n=137). After 2010 the most frequent stroke mimic diagnosis changed from psychiatric conditions to peripheral vertigo . A correlation was found between the number of hours done primarily by neurology residents and the number of stroke mimics admitted (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.94; p=0.002). Conclusion: Changes in neurology emergency shift schedules were associated to an increase in the rate of admitted stroke mimics and to a higher number of mimics with a final diagnosis of peripheral vertigo

Learning Generative Models with Goal-conditioned Reinforcement Learning

We present a novel, alternative framework for learning generative models with goal-conditioned reinforcement learning. We define two agents, a goal conditioned agent (GC-agent) and a supervised agent (S-agent). Given a user-input initial state, the GC-agent learns to reconstruct the training set. In this context, elements in the training set are the goals. During training, the S-agent learns to imitate the GC-agent while remaining agnostic of the goals. At inference we generate new samples with the S-agent. Following a similar route as in variational auto-encoders, we derive an upper bound on the negative log-likelihood that consists of a reconstruction term and a divergence between the GC-agent policy and the (goal-agnostic) S-agent policy. We empirically demonstrate that our method is able to generate diverse and high quality samples in the task of image synthesis

Empowering IDP with SMS: a randomized controlled trial in Bogotá

We carried out a randomized controlled trial in Bogotá, the recipient of Colombia´s highest number of internally displaced people (IDP), to assess whether the use of SMS to communicate eligibility to social benefits fosters the welfare of victimized internal refugees. Only a fraction of IDP are elegible to benefits. We inform eligibility via SMS to a random half of IDP-households who are, and estimate the Local Average Treatment Effect of the text message on the knowledge of the benefits available tothe displaced population. We show that while on the average treated households know their rights better than controls, a more disaggregate analysis suggest that there is variation of awareness across benefits. The intervention was overall successful in empowering IDP and the use of SMS should be widened as a social policy instrument. However our results suggest that text messages should be complemented with other communication strategies, yet to be evaluated.