Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [139]-144).

Submitted by Israel Vieira Neto (israel.vieiraneto@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-06T16:34:43Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE NATASHA DE ANDRADE FALCÃO.pdf: 623803 bytes, checksum: b07a48408c98f9cf1d9500fcd1b3e377 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-06T16:34:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE NATASHA DE ANDRADE FALCÃO.pdf: 623803 bytes, checksum: b07a48408c98f9cf1d9500fcd1b3e377 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-13 / CNPq / This study intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of the decentralization of basic public education in Brazil. It uses as reference the implementation of FUNDEF - Fund for Maintenance and Development of the Fundamental Education and Valorization of Teaching - to identify the impact of the decentralization on the students’ performance, as well as on the school’s efficiency. For this, a panel data from the school census between 1996 and 2006 is used. First, the impact of decentralization on students’ performance - failure, dropout and age-grade distortion rates - is estimated through the use of differencesin- differences models. An analysis on how the different local conditions might affect these results is also presented. After this, the efficiency of municipal and state schools is compared using a double bootstrap procedure that takes into account the effects of the local context on the estimated efficiency scores. Results indicate that there was an increase in failure rates and, more importantly, these results might be affected by local characteristics such as city size and political participation. Related to the efficiency estimations, results indicate that state schools are relatively more efficient and, local conditions would impact differently the efficiency of these two school types.

Psoriasis is a chronic, clinically heterogeneous, skin condition that affects approximately 2% of the general population. In 1985, Henseler and Christophers, classified psoriasis into early onset (EOP; age at onset ≤40 years-y) and late onset disease (LOP; age at onset >40 y). Previous research suggests that there are genetic and immunological differences between EOP and LOP. In particular, the major genetic determinant for psoriasis, the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-Cw6 allele, occurs more frequently in EOP (55-80%) compared to LOP (15-20%) patients. Epidermal Langerhans’ cells (LC) migration is also different in these 2 subtypes of psoriasis. The primary aim of this thesis was to further explore the clinical, histological and immunohistochemical (IHC) differences between EOP and LOP. We compared clinical characteristics in a total of 497 subjects, including 340 psoriasis patients (108 recruited prospectively; 76 EOP and 32 LOP, mean age of onset 20.3±9.9 and 55.6±7y respectively, and 232 retrospectively; 202 EOP and 30 LOP, mean age of onset 20.7±9.9 and 55.2±7.2y respectively) and 157 controls (mean age 66±11.2y). Information on demographics, family history of psoriasis, clinical features, treatment and co-morbidities were recorded. Patients were also assessed for health-related quality of life and psychological distress. A total of 31 psoriasis patients, ≥ 50y of age, participated in the histological and IHC evaluation; 17 EOP and 14 LOP, mean age of onset 21.1±8.5 and 55.4±7.7y respectively. Skin biopsies were taken from involved (PP) and uninvolved (PN) skin and stained with haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and IHC antibodies against various T-cell (CD3, CD4, and CD8) and LC (CD1α) markers. The H&E parameters (morphological and inflammatory) were graded with the use of a study specific histological score, whilst IHC positive epidermal cells were counted per microscopic field at 200X magnification. The dermal IHC infiltrate was assessed with a semi-quantitative (0-3) scale. Gender, body mass index, disease duration and severity, diagnosed hypertension and dyslipidemia were treated as covariates. The clinical data showed that LOP patients had a lower likelihood of having a positive family history of psoriasis (62% of EOP versus 35.6% of LOP patients; chi square-x2, P=0.001). In addition, patients with EOP parent(s) were 91% less likely to develop LOP than EOP (odds ratio-OR=0.093, P=0.025, 95% confidence interval-CI 0.012-0.74). Moreover, compared to LOP, EOP patients had a more severe disease (x2, P=0.021), usually requiring 3rd line treatments (x2; P=0.010). They also experienced frequent flares, following upper respiratory tract infections (x2, P=0.049). When data were segregated by age (≥50years) and after accounting for covariates, we observed that, compared to the non-psoriasis population, LOP patients were approximately 3 times more likely to develop type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (OR=2.56, P=0.05, 95% CI 1.01-6.54), whilst, EOP subjects were 98% less likely to develop autoimmune thyroiditis (OR=0.025, P=0.02, 95% CI 0.001-0.55). Psychologically, LOP patients were found to be a clinically more anxious group compared to EOP (t-test, P=0.006). Microscopically, the results from the H&E study showed an increased total inflammatory infiltrate in LOP, PP sections compared to EOP, PP ones (t-test, P=0.028). With IHC stains, we observed that in the epidermis of LOP PP, there was a significantly higher count of CD4+ cells; mean CD4+ in LOP of 15.1 ± 6.2 versus 6.7±4.6 in EOP (Analysis of variance-ANOVA, P<0.001). This subsequently led to a higher epidermal CD4+/CD8+ ratio of 1.3 in the LOP versus 0.5 for the EOP sections (ANOVA, P=0.002). In the PP dermis, CD4+ were also more abundant in the LOP tissue (x2, P=0.049). To assess whether these CD4+ cells were either T-lymphocytes or LC, we examined for differences in the CD3+ and CD1α+ cells. The mean epidermal CD3+ tended to be higher in LOP PP sections; mean epidermal CD3+ in the LOP 42.8 ± 13.3 versus 31.7 ± 17.5 in the EOP group (ANOVA, P= 0.061), while the dermal infiltrate showed a similar pattern (x2,P=0.067). Finally, there was no difference in epidermal and dermal CD1α+ and CD8+ cells in PP between EOP and LOP sections. These data indicate differences in clinical phenotype, heritability, comorbidities and immunopathomechanism between EOP and LOP. Taken together they provide further evidence that EOP and LOP may be different diseases.

O regime de metas de inflação é uma estratégia de política monetária utilizada por inúmeros países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento que tem por objetivo ancorar as expectativas dos agentes econômicos quanto ao comportamento futuro da taxa de inflação. De acordo com a literatura sobre o tema, o regime de metas inflacionárias além de provocar efeitos positivos sobre a taxa de inflação das economias que o adotam, tende também a provocar melhoras sobre o comportamento do produto. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar empiricamente os impactos da adoção do sistema de metas de inflação para a taxa de inflação e crescimento real do produto dos países, diferenciando os impactos entre os países desenvolvidos e os em desenvolvimento. Utilizando o grupo de países que adotam metas de inflação como o grupo de tratamento e os países que não adotam como grupo de controle, dois procedimentos metodológicos foram realizados: estimação por diferenças em diferenças e análise em painel. Os resultados da estimação por diferenças em diferenças não se mostraram robustos e assim a análise em painel foi realizada. Os resultados demonstram que a adoção do sistema de metas inflacionárias produz impactos significativos para a inflação e crescimento do produto dos países que o adotam. Para o caso dos países desenvolvidos a adoção do sistema de metas tende a elevar a taxa média de inflação assim como o crescimento do produto. Para os países em desenvolvimento, aqueles que adotam o regime tendem a apresentar médias de inflação e do crescimento do produto significativamente menores que os países que não adotam. Concluí-se que para os países em desenvolvimento existe um custo de manutenção do sistema de metas de inflação em termos de queda do crescimento do produto. Esse custo estaria relacionado à maior dificuldade enfrentada por tais países na construção de credibilidade, fazendo com que os mesmos sigam políticas monetárias restritivas e definam um desenho rígido para o regime de metas de inflação. / Inflation targeting is a monetary policy strategy used by several developed and developing countries which aims to link together the economic actors? expectation related to the future behaviour of the inflation rate. According to specialized literature, inflation targeting tends to bring an improvement over product behaviour, besides bringing positive effects over inflation rates of those countries that make use of it. The focal point of this dissertation is to empirically analyse the impacts caused by the adoption of inflation targeting system on countries? inflation rate and real GDP growth, distinguishing effects on developed countries from those on developing ones. Defining the group made of countries that do use inflation targeting as treatment group and the group made of countries that do no use it as control group, two methodological procedures were accomplished: differences-in-differences estimation and panel data analysis. As the results of differences-in-differences estimator did not seem robust, panel analysis was also consummated. These results showed that inflation targeting adoption causes significative impacts on inflation rate and GDP growth in countries that adopt it. In developed countries, the adoption of such monetary policy strategy tends to increase the mean inflation rate, which also occurs with the GDP growth. In the other hand, developing countries that adopted inflation targeting tend to present mean inflation rate and GDP growth substantially lower than developing countries that do not make use of it. Though, it is possible to conclude that exists a maintenance cost of inflation targeting system for developing countries regarding the loss in GDP growth. This cost could be related to the greater difficulty that these countries face when forming credibility, which forces them to follow restrictive monetary policies and also to define an strict outline for inflation targeting.

Este trabalho visa contribuir para a compreensão dos incentivos que permeiam os agentes envolvidos no financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. Por meio de evidências empíricas reunidas a partir do contexto do financiamento de campanhas brasileiras, a compra de ações de empresas de capital aberto por parte do governo é analisada como possível mecanismo de compensação do financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. A análise é feita comparando a participação do governo no capital de sociedades anônimas doadoras e não doadoras de recursos para financiamento de campanhas usando o método de Diferenças em Diferenças. Por meio dessa metodologia, identificou-se, particularmente na eleição de 2010, um efeito positivo do financiamento eleitoral sobre o investimento do governo em ações de empresas financiadoras. / This study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the incentives that pervade agents involved in electoral campaign funding. By means of empirical evidence gathered from the Brazilian electoral financing context, government investment in stocks is analyzed as a possible compensation mechanism for electoral campaign financing. The study investigates government investments in stocks comparing corporations that have supported electoral campaigns and those that have not, by applying the Differences-in-Differences method. By this method, a positive effect of electoral financing on government investment in companies stocks was identified in the 2010 electoral cycle. However, the empirical tests suggest no effect in 2002 and 2006 elections.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bremen, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references and register.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [109]-111).

Perceptual bi/multi-stability—the phenomenon in which perceptual awareness switches between alternative interpretations of a stimulus—can be elicited by a large range of stimuli. The phenomenon is explored in vision, audition, touch, and even olfaction. The degree to which perceptual switching across visual and auditory bi/multi-stable paradigms depends on common or separate mechanisms remains unanswered. This main question was addressed in the current work by using four ambiguous tasks that give rise to bi/multi-stability and which are thought to involve rivalry at different levels of cognitive processing: auditory streaming and ambiguous-structure-from-motion (low- level tasks), and verbal transformations and ambiguous figures (high-level tasks). It was also investigated if individual differences in executive function (inhibitory control and set-shifting), creativity and personality traits have common relationships with perceptual switching in adults and children. A series of five experiments (four studies) were conducted. In Study 1 (two experiments), perceptual switching behaviour of adult participants was examined in the four perceptual tasks mentioned above. In Experiment 1, participants reported higher switching rates for the ambiguous figure and verbal transformations than for ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. However, in Experiment 2 participants had a higher switching rate in verbal transformations than in auditory streaming, while the switching rates in the two visual tasks did not differ significantly. The correlations between visual and auditory switching rates were similarly inconclusive: in Experiment 1, no cross-modal correlations emerged, while in Experiment 2 there were correlations between ambiguous figure and verbal transformations and between ambiguous motion and verbal transformation. Furthermore, inhibitory control, set-shifting, and creativity correlated with perceptual ii switching rates in some of the perceptual tasks, although not in a consistent manner. In Study 2, the development of perceptual switching was investigated in children in the same four tasks used in Study 1. Findings showed that the number of switches increased with age in all four perceptual tasks, indicating general maturational developments. Executive functions and creativity were not associated with the ongoing perceptual switching, which was similar to what was found in adults. In Study 3, a neuroscientific perturbation approach was used to investigate whether the superior parietal cortex is causally involved in both visual and auditory multistability as a top-down mechanism. Transcranial magnetic stimulation on the anterior and posterior superior parietal cortex did not increase or decrease the median phase durations in response to the ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. These regions were not causally involved in either visual or auditory multistability. Perceptual switching across modalities correlated nevertheless, indicating common perceptual mechanisms. In Study 4, the effects of attentional control and instructions were further investigated in ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. There were strong correlations between perceptual switching in the two tasks, confirming that there are common mechanisms. However, the effects of voluntary attention did not explain the commonalities found. Possibly the commonalities found reflect similar functionalities at more low-level sensorial mechanisms. In conclusion, perceptual switching in vision and audition share common mechanisms. These commonalities do not seem to be due to the same neural underpinning in parietal cortex. Moreover, attentional control does not explain the commonalities found, indicating a more low-level common mechanism or functionality. Perceptual switching across all ages is task-specific, more than modality specific. No central influence of inhibitory control and creativity was constantly associated with perceptual switching regardless of task/modality, supporting the distributed mechanisms hypothesis.

Este trabalho visa contribuir para a compreensão dos incentivos que permeiam os agentes envolvidos no financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. Por meio de evidências empíricas reunidas a partir do contexto do financiamento de campanhas brasileiras, a compra de ações de empresas de capital aberto por parte do governo é analisada como possível mecanismo de compensação do financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. A análise é feita comparando a participação do governo no capital de sociedades anônimas doadoras e não doadoras de recursos para financiamento de campanhas usando o método de Diferenças em Diferenças. Por meio dessa metodologia, identificou-se, particularmente na eleição de 2010, um efeito positivo do financiamento eleitoral sobre o investimento do governo em ações de empresas financiadoras. / This study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the incentives that pervade agents involved in electoral campaign funding. By means of empirical evidence gathered from the Brazilian electoral financing context, government investment in stocks is analyzed as a possible compensation mechanism for electoral campaign financing. The study investigates government investments in stocks comparing corporations that have supported electoral campaigns and those that have not, by applying the Differences-in-Differences method. By this method, a positive effect of electoral financing on government investment in companies stocks was identified in the 2010 electoral cycle. However, the empirical tests suggest no effect in 2002 and 2006 elections.

O regime de metas de inflação é uma estratégia de política monetária utilizada por inúmeros países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento que tem por objetivo ancorar as expectativas dos agentes econômicos quanto ao comportamento futuro da taxa de inflação. De acordo com a literatura sobre o tema, o regime de metas inflacionárias além de provocar efeitos positivos sobre a taxa de inflação das economias que o adotam, tende também a provocar melhoras sobre o comportamento do produto. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar empiricamente os impactos da adoção do sistema de metas de inflação para a taxa de inflação e crescimento real do produto dos países, diferenciando os impactos entre os países desenvolvidos e os em desenvolvimento. Utilizando o grupo de países que adotam metas de inflação como o grupo de tratamento e os países que não adotam como grupo de controle, dois procedimentos metodológicos foram realizados: estimação por diferenças em diferenças e análise em painel. Os resultados da estimação por diferenças em diferenças não se mostraram robustos e assim a análise em painel foi realizada. Os resultados demonstram que a adoção do sistema de metas inflacionárias produz impactos significativos para a inflação e crescimento do produto dos países que o adotam. Para o caso dos países desenvolvidos a adoção do sistema de metas tende a elevar a taxa média de inflação assim como o crescimento do produto. Para os países em desenvolvimento, aqueles que adotam o regime tendem a apresentar médias de inflação e do crescimento do produto significativamente menores que os países que não adotam. Concluí-se que para os países em desenvolvimento existe um custo de manutenção do sistema de metas de inflação em termos de queda do crescimento do produto. Esse custo estaria relacionado à maior dificuldade enfrentada por tais países na construção de credibilidade, fazendo com que os mesmos sigam políticas monetárias restritivas e definam um desenho rígido para o regime de metas de inflação. / Inflation targeting is a monetary policy strategy used by several developed and developing countries which aims to link together the economic actors? expectation related to the future behaviour of the inflation rate. According to specialized literature, inflation targeting tends to bring an improvement over product behaviour, besides bringing positive effects over inflation rates of those countries that make use of it. The focal point of this dissertation is to empirically analyse the impacts caused by the adoption of inflation targeting system on countries? inflation rate and real GDP growth, distinguishing effects on developed countries from those on developing ones. Defining the group made of countries that do use inflation targeting as treatment group and the group made of countries that do no use it as control group, two methodological procedures were accomplished: differences-in-differences estimation and panel data analysis. As the results of differences-in-differences estimator did not seem robust, panel analysis was also consummated. These results showed that inflation targeting adoption causes significative impacts on inflation rate and GDP growth in countries that adopt it. In developed countries, the adoption of such monetary policy strategy tends to increase the mean inflation rate, which also occurs with the GDP growth. In the other hand, developing countries that adopted inflation targeting tend to present mean inflation rate and GDP growth substantially lower than developing countries that do not make use of it. Though, it is possible to conclude that exists a maintenance cost of inflation targeting system for developing countries regarding the loss in GDP growth. This cost could be related to the greater difficulty that these countries face when forming credibility, which forces them to follow restrictive monetary policies and also to define an strict outline for inflation targeting.