Political competition and the allocation of public investment in Mexico

This paper examines the causality between central government spending in regions and local elections, in an environment of increasing electoral competition and a undefined decentralisation. This study examines Mexican elections during the period 1990-1995 where the main party started loosing part of its influence and there were many claims of use of the budget to favour the central governing party. We employ data on public investment and municipalities ruled by the PRI in each Mexican region. The evidence shows that there is opportunistic behaviour of the central government using public investment to gain local control of pressures for decentralisation.

Dynamic failure rate model of an electric motor comparing the Military Standard and Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF) methods

Abstract Electric motors are industrial systems' components widely diffused enabling all productive processes and safety equipment. They are affected by aging effect with a contribution based on the environmental condition on which they work. In order to design efficient maintenance plans, the behaviour of their main components, such as bearings and winding, has to be predicted. Therefore, a model-based methodology is applied aiming at codifying the failure rate of an electric engine, taking into account the thermal aging and relevant environment boundary conditions in which bearings and winding operate. The winding failure mode is coded by means of the Military standard technique while the bearings one is simulated comparing the Military Standard and the Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF) techniques. While the former predicts more conservative behaviours, the latter, taking into account lubrication conditions, dynamic loads and a better knowledge of materials quality, enables to capture the evolution of the operative conditions. The proposed reliability model can capture both the deterministic and stochastic behaviour of the electric motor: it belongs to the field of hybrid automaton application; the model is coded by means of the emerging software framework called SHYFTOO. The proposed model and the Monte Carlo simulation process that performs its evolution can support the development of a new class of electric motors: a cyber-physical oriented electric motor

High Trypanosoma spp. diversity is maintained by bats and triatomines in Espírito Santo state, Brazil

The aim of this study was to reevaluate the ecology of an area in the Atlantic Forest, southeast Brazil, where Chagas disease (CD) has been found to occur. In a previous study, immediately after the occurrence of a CD case, we did not observe any sylvatic small mammals or dogs with Trypanosoma cruzi cruzi infections, but Triatoma vitticeps presented high T. c. cruzi infection rates. In this study, we investigated bats together with non-volant mammals, dogs, and triatomines to explore other possible T. c. cruzi reservoirs/hosts in the area. Seventy-three non-volant mammals and 186 bats were captured at three sites within the Guarapari municipality, Espírito Santo state. Rio da Prata and Amarelos sites exhibited greater richness in terms of non-volant mammals and bats species, respectively. The marsupial Metachirus nudicaudatus, the rodent Trinomys paratus, and the bats Artibeus lituratus and Carollia perspicillata were the most frequently captured species. As determined by positive hemocultures, only two non-volant mammals were found to be infected by Trypanosoma species: Monodelphis americana, which was infected by T. cascavelli, T. dionisii and Trypanosoma sp., and Callithrix geoffroyi, which was infected by T. minasense. Bats presented T. c. cruzi TcI and TcIII/V, T. c. marinkellei, T. dionisii, T. rangeli B and D, and Trypanosoma sp. infections. Seven dogs were infected with T. cruzi based only on serological exams. The triatomines T. vitticeps and Panstrongylus geniculatus were found to be infected by trypanosomes via microscopy. According to molecular characterization, T. vitticeps specimens were infected with T. c. cruzi TcI, TcII, TcIII/V, and TcIV, T. c. marinkellei and T. dionisii. We observed high trypanosome diversity in a small and fragmented region of the Atlantic Forest. This diversity was primarily maintained by bats and T. vitticeps. Our findings show that the host specificity of the Trypanosoma genus should be thoroughly reviewed. In addition, our data show that CD cases can occur without an enzootic cycle near residential areas

Neurohypophyseal hormones: novel actors of striated muscle development and homeostasis

Since the 1980's, novel functional roles of the neurohypophyseal hormones vasopressin and oxytocin have emerged. Several studies have investigated the effects of these two neurohormones on striated muscle tissues, both in vitro and in vivo. Whereas oxytocin appears to have a greater influence on cardiomyocyte differentiation and heart homeostasis, important effects of vasopressin on skeletal myogenic cells, developing muscle and muscle homeostasis have been extensively documented. Recent findings include in vivo results of strategies aimed at sensitizing skeletal muscles to endogenous, physiological vasopressin. These approaches resulted in accelerated and more efficient regeneration of injured or regeneration-impaired muscles. This review summarizes the studies on these novel roles of the two neurohypophyseal hormones, thus opening the possibility of new therapeutic approaches for diseases affecting striated muscle and for antagonizing muscle wasting in disuse and aging

Uma Análise sobre o Mercado Mundial do Biodiesel

O combustível fóssil, base da matriz energética mundial, dá sinais de esgotamento das suas reservas e saturação ambiental por causa do aquecimento global. Surgiu assim um novo desafio para a Academia: encontrar um combustível substituto que seja renovável e não emita Dióxido de Carbono. O biodiesel surgiu como potencial substituto do combustível fóssil que se esgotará dentro de 50 anos. O mercado mundial de biodiesel está em expansão e demanda por informações econômicas referentes ao bicombustível. Este trabalho se propõe a realizar um levantamento sobre as informações de mercado do biodiesel e seu desenvolvimento no mundo. Traz informações relativas à produção, à capacidade produtiva e aos incentivos fiscais do biodiesel em diversos países do mundo.--------------The fossil fuel, base of the energy matrix world, the signs of depletion of its reserves and environmental saturation because of global warming, have arisen thus a new challenge for the Academy: find a substitute fuel that is renewable and does not send Carbon Dioxide. The biodiesel emerged as a potential substitute for fossil fuel exhaust that if within 50 years. The world market for biodiesel is expanding and demand for economic information concerning the bicombustível. This work proposes to undertake a survey on the information market of biodiesel and its development in the world. Brings information on the production, production capacity and the tax incentives of biodiesel in several countries of the world.Protocolo de Kyoto, Biocombustíveis, Máximo 5, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Generating human-like movements on an anthropomorphic robot using an interior point method

In previous work we have presented a model for generating human-like arm and hand movements on an anthropomorphic robot involved in human-robot collaboration tasks. This model was inspired by the Posture-Based Motion-Planning Model of human movements. Numerical results and simulations for reach-to-grasp movements with two different grip types have been presented previously. In this paper we extend our model in order to address the generation of more complex movement sequences which are challenged by scenarios cluttered with obstacles. The numerical results were obtained using the IPOPT solver, which was integrated in our MATLAB simulator of an anthropomorphic robot.EU funded Project PF7 Marie Curie ``NETT - Neural Engineering Transformative Technologies'', by FEDER funds through COMPETE (Operational Programme Thematic Factors of Competitiveness) and by portuguese funds through FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) within the projects PEst-C/MAT/UI0013/2011 and FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674

CARES: computation-aware scheduling in virtualized radio access networks

In a virtualized Radio Access Network (RAN), baseband processing is performed by software running in cloudcomputing platforms. However, current protocol stacks were not designed to run in this kind of environments: the high variability on the computational resources consumed by RAN functions may lead to eventual computational outages (where frames are not decoded on time), severely degrading the resulting performance. In this paper, we address this issue by re-designing two key functions of the protocol stack: (i) scheduling, to select the transmission of those frames that do not incur in computational outages, and (ii) modulation and coding scheme (MCS) selection, to downgrade the selected MCS in case no sufficient computational resources are available. We formulate the resulting problem as a joint optimization and compute the (asymptotically) optimal solution to this problem. We further show that this solution involves solving an NP-hard problem, and propose an algorithm to obtain an approximate solution that is computationally efficient while providing bounded performance over the optimal. We thoroughly evaluate the proposed approach via simulation, showing that it can provide savings as high as 80% of the computational resources while paying a small price in performance.The work of University Carlos III of Madrid was supported by the H2020 5G-MoNArch project (Grant Agreement No. 761445) and the work of NEC Europe Ltd. by the 5G-Transformer project (Grant Agreement No. 761536)

A machine learning approach to 5G infrastructure market optimization

It is now commonly agreed that future 5G Networks will build upon the network slicing concept. The ability to provide virtual, logically independent "slices" of the network will also have an impact on the models that will sustain the business ecosystem. Network slicing will open the door to new players: the infrastructure provider, which is the owner of the infrastructure, and the tenants, which may acquire a network slice from the infrastructure provider to deliver a specific service to their customers. In this new context, how to correctly handle resource allocation among tenants and how to maximize the monetization of the infrastructure become fundamental problems that need to be solved. In this paper, we address this issue by designing a network slice admission control algorithm that (i) autonomously learns the best acceptance policy while (ii) it ensures that the service guarantees provided to tenants are always satisfied. The contributions of this paper include: (i) an analytical model for the admissibility region of a network slicing-capable 5G Network, (ii) the analysis of the system (modeled as a Semi-Markov Decision Process) and the optimization of the infrastructure providers revenue, and (iii) the design of a machine learning algorithm that can be deployed in practical settings and achieves close to optimal performance.The work of University Carlos III of Madrid was supported by the H2020 5G-MoNArch project (Grant Agreement No. 761445) and the 5GCity project of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (TEC2016-76795-C6-3-R). The work of NEC Laboratories Europe was supported by the 5G-Transformer project (Grant Agreement No. 761536)