The Accidental President of Brazil: An Interview with Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Latin American Studie

Using Lessons from Health Care to Protect the Privacy of Library Users: Guidelines for the De-Identification of Library Data based on HIPAA

While libraries have employed policies to protect the data about use of their services, these policies are rarely specific or standardized. Since 1996 the U.S. healthcare system has been grappling with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which is designed to provide those handling personal health information with standardized, definitive instructions as to the protection of data. In this work, the authors briefly discuss the present situation of privacy policies about library use data, outline the HIPAA guidelines to understand parallels between the two, and finally propose methods to create a de-identified library data warehouse based on HIPAA for the protection of user privacy

The impact of state-level R&D tax credits on the quantity and quality of entrepreneurship

The acceleration of start-up activity is often cited as a rationale for the R&D tax credit, a key innovation policy instrument adopted increasingly by US states over the past quarter century. While there is a strong empirical base linking the R&D tax credit to increased R&D expenditures and innovation, prior work has not provided causal evidence that this policy effects the rate of formation and growth potential of new businesses. This paper combines data from the US Startup Cartography Project with the Panel Database on Incentives and Taxes to implement a difference-in-differences estimate of the impact of the R&D tax credit on the quantity and quality-adjusted quantity of entrepreneurship. Our key finding is that the R&D tax credit is associated with a significant long-term impact on both the overall quantity and quality-adjusted quantity of entrepreneurship, with the bulk of the effect materializing more than five years after the policy is enacted. These findings stand in contrast to an analysis of the adoption of state-level investment tax credits. There, we observe no long-term impact on the quantity of entrepreneurship but a marked decline in the rate of formation of growth-oriented startups over time. Combined with other evidence regarding the efficacy of R&D tax credits in spurring innovative investment, our results shed light on the potential for this fiscal policy to also stimulate the formation of growth-oriented start-ups.Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationPublished versio

‘Swollen with lightning like revolt, bursting anger (...) they dance wild dances’: Theatre as transgressive space in Quebec women’s writing in the 1970s

Catherine Scott’s paper travels beyond European spaces to lead to the scene of Quebec Women’s theatre of the 1970s. Looking in detail at Denise Boucher’s Les Fées ont soif (The Fairies are Thirsty) and at La Nef des sorcières (A Clash of Symbols), written and produced by a collective, Scott highlights two of the first feminist plays which became of central importance for future theatrical activity in Quebec in the 1980s.. Many women playwriters regarded the established theatre as an institution, which ‘consolidated society’s misconceptions’ of women. Like other feminist writing of the 1970s in North America and Western Europe, these two plays posed questions about female identity by acting from a female-centred space. In making language and the patriarchal system of thought a centre of feminist intervention, Quebec women playwrights aimed at interrupting ‘the structure of accepted forms of communication’ and its ‘phallocentric order’. As other writings of the time, the texts were indebted to contemporary French feminist theories (e.g. Hélène Cixous’s) which provided a framework for theorising questions of language, the body and female desire. Theatre in its physical specificity that incorporates the body, provided spaces to transgress social norms in a public way. Quebec women used theatre, Scott argues, as a ‘tool’ to analyse the ‘nature of representation’ in patriarchal discourse, and to make deformations physically visible – presenting bodies ‘tattooed with signs and symbols’. In Boucher’s play, for instance, the ‘Virgin Mary’ was represented as a statue, and so ‘Woman’ and the images of her collapsed on stage. The political impact of these attacks on the Catholic Church, the institution of marriage, the judiciary and, not least, the class character of Quebec society, perceptible in the politics of language, was mirrored by the sharp public reaction which Boucher’s Les Fées ont soif provoked. Cultural objections against the arrival of Montreal working class accents on stage were based on notions of ‘standard’. Religious objections led to a blasphemy trial which was expected to impose a ban. As a matter of irony, Scott demonstrates, the objections brought up in court in terms of ‘censorship’ and ‘freedom of expression’ revolved around ‘central themes’ of the play. It is interesting, however, that the plays staging body politics on a large scale and raising issues central to radical feminist politics, functioned institutionally, as Scott shows, within mainstream theatre. Whereas Quebec literature during and after the Quiet Revolution tried to create a ‘Quebec space’, concerned with constructing a national identity, Quebec theatre women abstained from seeking a place in this national movement. In times of backlash – as some would argue – Catherine Scott’s paper is a timely reminder of the social impact feminism as a political movement had - an impact which reached far beyond the academy and aimed at social change; at the same time the paper shows with hindsight what has been gained on the journey from the debates of the 1970s, when feminism became feminisms

Child welfare policy and practice on children's exposure to domestic violence

There are emerging movements in several countries to improve policy and practice to protect children from exposure to domestic violence. These movements have resulted in the collection of new data on EDV and the design and implementation of new child welfare policies and practices. To assist with the development of child welfare practice, this article summarizes current knowledge on the prevalence of EDV, and on child welfare services policies and practices that may hold promise for reducing the frequency and impact of EDV on children. We focus on Australia, Canada, and the United States, as these countries share a similar socio-legal context, a long history of enacting and expanding legislation about reporting of maltreatment, debates regarding the application of reporting laws to EDV, and new child welfare practices that show promise for responding more effectively to EDV

Electrophysiological Correlates of Reading Processes in School Age Children

Orthographic and phonological decoding skills are known to be important for learning to read. In an attempt to develop physiologically based screening tools which may identify children at risk for developing these skills, Auditory Event Related Potentials (ERP) were recorded from 84 nine-year-olds to a series of Probe tones while they were engaged in a series of orthographic, phonological, and spelling tasks. Electrodes were applied over both hemispheres at the frontal, temporal, and parietal regions of the scalp. Analyses focus on the relationship between hemisphere differences and children\u27s performance on each of these tasks

DNA amplification fingerprinting of chrysanthemum cultivars

The genetic distance of closely related cultivars of chrysanthemum (Dendranthema grandiflora) was assessed using DNA Amplification Fingerprinting (DAF). Twenty-one cultivars of chrysanthemum included in the study were members of the following series: Anne (3), Blush (3), Boaldi (2), Charm (5), Davis (4), and Pomona (4). The genetic variability of these cultivars within and between series were evaluated using eleven arbitrary octamer primers. A few polymorphic loci were found that uniquely identified closely related cultivars within a series. In contrast, many polymorphisms were observed between members of different series. Genetic distances between cultivars were evaluated using UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Cluster Analysis Using Arithmetic Means) and Principal Coordinate Analysis. The average genetic distance between series was ten fold greater than between cultivars within a series. DNA from all cultivars belonging to a series were also bulked to generate DNA profiles containing unique amplified products for each series. Polymorphic loci that were generated by the DAF technique can possibly be utilized for patent protection, phylogenic studies and for identification of useful markers in breeding

Segmental migration of trunk neural crest: time-lapse analysis reveals a role for PNA-binding molecules

Trunk neural crest cells migrate through the somites in a striking segmental fashion, entering the rostral but not caudal sclerotome, via cues intrinsic to the somites. Attempts to define the molecular bases of these cues have been hampered by the lack of an accessible assay system. To examine trunk neural crest migration over time and to perturb candidate guiding molecules, we have developed a novel explant preparation. Here, we demonstrate that trunk regions of the chicken embryo, placed in explant culture, continue to develop apparently normally for 2 days. Neural crest cells, recognized by prelabeling with DiI or by poststaining with the HNK-1 antibody, migrate in the somites of the explants in their typical segmental pattern. Furthermore, this paradigm allows us to follow trunk neural crest migration in situ for the first time using low-light-level videomicroscopy. The trajectories of individual neural crest cells were often complex, with cells migrating in an episodic mode encompassing forward, backward and lateral movements. Frequently, neural crest cells migrated in close-knit groups of 2–4 cells, moving at mean rates of migration of 10–14 µm/hour. Treatment of the explants with the lectin peanut agglutinin (PNA) both slowed the rate and altered the pattern of neural crest migration. Neural crest cells entered both the rostral and caudal halves of the sclerotome with mean rates of migration ranging from 6 to 13 µm/hour. These results suggest that peanut agglutinin-binding molecules are required for the segmental patterning of trunk neural crest migration. Because this approach permits neural crest migration to be both observed and perturbed, it offers the promise of more direct assays of the factors that influence neural crest development

Joint Analysis of PET/MR Data for Improved PET Quantification

Quantitative pharmacokinetic analysis of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data typically requires a dynamic scan of at least one hour, which poses a challenge for both clinical and research studies. Instead, in standard practice, a static 10 minute scan is used to calculate the standardised uptake value ratio (SUVR). SUVR approximates tracer binding but is biased by blood flow changes, rendering it unsuitable for longitudinal studies. In this thesis, the availability of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, simultaneously acquired from a PET-MR scanner is exploited to reduce the time required for accurate PET quantification. The main body of this work comprises the development of a framework to incorporate blood flow information from arterial spin labelled (ASL) MRI data into the existing simplified reference tissue model (SRTM) to replace the early phase of the PET data, reducing the acquisition time. This reduced acquisition time (RT-) SRTM was evaluated on [18F]-florbetapir data for the estimation of both regional average and voxelwise amyloid burden (BPND), and was validated against the gold standard BPND using a 60 minute scan. The first step of the RT-SRTM requires the PET tracer delivery parameter, R1, to be estimated from the ASL cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps. Several methods were evaluated: linear regression using region as a covariate, multi-atlas propagation with image fusion, and deep learning based regression using a convolutional neural network. The RT-SRTM was shown to facilitate accurate regional voxelwise quantification in half the acquisition time (30 minutes). Additionally, deep learning based regression was used to learn the model which maps ASL-CBF and dynamic PET data to BPND in a single step (SSDL). The SS-DL model exploits all available information, and avoids noise sensitive voxelwise fitting. This allows the acquisition time to be cut to 15 minutes, and facilitates accurate voxelwise BPND quantification on a timescale manageable for almost all patients and studies