This thesis is aimed to analyze the impact of economic crisis in Latvia which was carried out in 2008-2010. Concurentelly the first part of the study emhasizes on claryfying the causes of the emergence of the economic crisis. The following part is focused on description of the reasons why particularly the way out of crisis throuhg internal devaluation was chosen and used. The actual negotiations on assistance from IMF and implemented fiscal consolidation are incorporated in this section of the thesis as well. The final part of the study beyond analyzing impacts of economic crisis analyzes demographic trends in Latvia. The comparison of external devaluation, which took place in Iceland, and internal devaluation that was implemented in Latvia is essential. Implemented savings measures within the internal devaluation achieved their targets and Latvia quickly emerged from the crisis and since 2011 to 2014 its GDP was continually growing. However, the worst problem which negatively affected Latvia seemed to be adverse demographic development which causes the fact that the country has to face the high rate of emigration, low birth rate and population aging.

Cognitive theories of depression, including Beck’s Cognitive Theory, suggest that depressed individuals hold negative schemas about themselves and their environment. These negative schemas may influence the extent to which depressed individuals process positivity. Reward Devaluation Theory posits that depressed individuals avoid and devalue positivity. This suggests that depressed individuals may be less likely to hold positive schemas, or may be more likely to associate positivity with negativity. Previous meta-analytic reviews suggest that this is potentially the case, but have not assessed for self-referential stimuli. Self-referential encoding and recall tasks assess for self-schemas and may give further insight into how depressed individuals process self-referential positivity. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which depressed individuals differ in processing self-referential positivity and negativity. Results indicate that depressed individuals recalled fewer positive words than negative words, with severely depressed individuals also endorsing fewer positive words than negative words, in line with Reward Devaluation Theory. In addition, depressed individuals endorsed fewer positive words and more negative words as self-referential than other-referential. In comparison to nondepressed individuals, depressed individuals demonstrated endorsed and recalled fewer positive words and more negative words. These findings suggest that treatments targeting both reduced positive biases and increased negative biases may be most beneficial for depressed individuals, particularly those exhibiting more severe symptoms of depression

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Taking the structuralist approach as a starting point, this dissertation constructs a computable general equilibrium model for India using the social accounting matrix framework and along the lines of Lance Taylor's modelling of developing countries. The model is used to test the structuralist theories on the effects of a devaluation. The dissertation extends the testing of these models in two respects. First, by organizing the data in the form of traded and non-traded goods it studies the macroeconomic responses at a greater level of disaggregation than has been attempted earlier. Second, by constructing social accounting matrices for three time periods and using these to simulate the model, it examines the robustness of the predictions of the structuralist theories. The results indicate that the outcome of a devaluation depends on the structure of the economy and on the extent of the elasticity of exports, thus, generally supporting the structuralist theories.

China has been in a state that the currency appreciation is needed to restore the external balance. However, it appears that Chinese government worries about that the Renminbi appreciation may decrease the output. This purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether the contractionary hypothesis prevailing in developing countries holds for China with quarterly data over the period from 1995Q1 to 2006Q2. We apply VAR models by means of impulse response functions and variance decompositions. The empirical evidences indicate that even taking the spurious correlation into account, the real appreciation of Renminbi leads to a fall in China’s output. Thus, our findings do not support the contractionary devaluation hypothesis. Moreover, the impact of the exchange rate on output is not through the inflation rate. In the short run, real exchange rate shocks have much power in explaining the output’s variation while the U.S interest rate and government spending shocks are determinants to the variation in output in the long run. Particularly, the monetary policy has relatively weak effect on the output and the real exchange rate.

L’addiction aux drogues peut être considérée comme une maladie neurologique chronique avec des rechutes récurrentes en période d’abstinence qui constituent le problème majeur dans le traitement de l’addiction aux drogues. Grâce à un modèle animal de rechute, il a été montré qu’un rongeur pouvait réinstaller un comportement de recherche de drogue lorsqu’il était réexposé à la drogue elle-même, à des indices associés à la drogue, ou encore à un stress. Dans notre équipe, nous avons évalué la contribution relative des différentes propriétés de la cocaïne, de l’héroïne et de la nicotine (incitative, discriminative et renforçante) dans la réinstallation d’un comportement de recherche de nourriture. Afin de dissocier les propriétés discriminatives et renforçantes, les rats ont été entraînés à s’auto-administrer une récompense alimentaire. Nous avons alors trouvé que : 1) La cocaïne et la nicotine agissent comme des stimuli internes qui acquièrent un contrôle discriminatif sur le comportement, étant donné que la cocaïne et la nicotine, contrairement à l’héroïne, peuvent réinstaller un comportement éteint de recherche de nourriture lorsque ce comportement a été préalablement acquis sous les effets de la cocaïne et de la nicotine, respectivement. 2) La réinstallation induite par la cocaïne et la nicotine est indépendante de la valeur actuelle de la récompense, ce qui indique que la cocaïne et la nicotine contrôlent l’activation de comportements automatiques, habituels, liés à la drogue. Puis, afin d’identifier la façon dont les drogues d’abus entraînent la formation d’habitudes, nous avons également étudié les effets d’une sensibilisation à la cocaïne à différents moments d’un apprentissage instrumental pour une récompense alimentaire, après une dévaluation de la récompense. Nous avons alors trouvé que la sensibilisation à la cocaïne ne favorisait pas le développement de comportements de type habituel. Cette série d’expériences constitue une première étape dans la comparaison des processus automatiques produits par la cocaïne et la nicotine. Si l’activation de comportements de type habituel, automatique, peut être généralisée à d’autres drogues d’abus, nous pourrons considérer que la rechute vers la recherche et la prise de drogue est en partie sous le contrôle de processus automatiques, ce qui pourrait expliquer la forte probabilité de rechute, même après de longues périodes d’abstinence et malgré la connaissance des conséquences néfastes qui en découlent. / Drug addiction can be considered as a chronic brain disease with recurrent relapse during abstinence periods which remains the major problem for the treatment of drug addiction. Using an animal model of drug relapse, it has been shown that a rodent can reinstate a drug-seeking behavior when re-exposed to the drug itself, drug associated cues or stress. In our research group, we assessed the relative contribution of the different properties of cocaine, heroin and nicotine (incentive, discriminative and reinforcing) in food-seeking reinstatement, and in order to dissociate the discriminative from the reinforcing properties, rats were trained to self-administer a non-drug reward (food). We found that: 1) Cocaine and nicotine act as internal stimuli that acquires discriminative control over behavior, since cocaine and nicotine, but not heroin, can reinstate an extinguished food-seeking behavior when this behavior has been previously performed under the effects of cocaine and nicotine respectively. 2) Cocaine- and nicotine-induced reinstatement is independent of the current value of the outcome, which indicates that cocaine and nicotine control the activation of automatic, drug-related habitual behaviors. Then, in order to identify the way drugs of abuse lead to the formation of habits, we also examined the effects of cocaine sensitization at different stages of instrumental training for a food reward after outcome devaluation. We found that, globally, cocaine sensitization does not promote the development of habit-based behaviors. This series of experiments represent a first step in the comparison of automatic processes produced by cocaine and nicotine. If the activation of automatic, habit-based behaviors can be generalized to other drugs of abuse, we could consider that relapse to drug-seeking and drug-taking is partly under the control of automatic processes, which could explain the high probability of relapse, even after extended periods of abstinence and despite the knowledge of the adverse consequences.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2016-08-18T18:22:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ROSANNA LUZIA VENTURA CARVALHO.pdf: 8804514 bytes, checksum: a794090fad634439f2abd1fa4c644f13 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T18:22:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ROSANNA LUZIA VENTURA CARVALHO.pdf: 8804514 bytes, checksum: a794090fad634439f2abd1fa4c644f13 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-01 / This present research seeks to understand, based on Karl Marx´s alienation analysis - especially The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - the labor as a self-determined activity and it role as mediator between man and nature. Furthermore, we will expose the alienation of the labor issue, more specifically, in the social changes context through the natural evolution of the man, their relation with nature and the society impositions, beyond that how these changes occurred in the labor universe and the consequences to the working class. The key objective of this research is identify the existence of a not alienated labor, if the man can take of yourself without his work. Also, a demonstration that the alienation of the worker is within the capitalism soul and his production methods leads to the dehumanization of the man, comparing them to a commodity. / Através da presente pesquisa busca-se entender, embasado no referencial teórico das analises da alienação de Karl Marx, especialmente – em Manuscritos econômicos – filosóficos de 1844, a atividade laboral como atividade auto determinada e dotada de sentido que faz está mediação entre o homem e a natureza. Ainda observaremos a questão da alienação do trabalho, mais especificamente dentro de um contexto das transformações sociais através da evolução natural do homem e sua relação com a natureza e da imposição da sociedade, bem como algumas mudanças ocorridas no universo do trabalho e suas conseqüências para a classe trabalhadora. O problema central da investigação será identificar se existe trabalho que não seja alienado, se o homem consegue ocupar-se de si mesmo sem seu trabalho. Será ainda demonstrado que o trabalho alienado está na raiz do capitalismo e suas formas de produção é que desumanizam o homem equiparando-o a máquina reprodutora.

The ability to take effective decisions is fundamental for successful environmental adaptation and survival. In this thesis, I investigated situations in which decisions appear irrational, at least from certain standpoints. I conducted a behavioural decision-making experiment in two groups of macaques: controls and a group with ventromedial prefrontal cortex/medial orbitofrontal cortex (vmPFC/ mOFC) lesions. Some choices lead to compound outcomes composed of different constituent parts. Control macaques' decisions suggested their estimates of the value of the compound were biased away from the sum of the values of the constituents and towards their mean. Lesions of vmPFC/mOFC diminished the size of the effect so that macaques in some ways appeared to make more rational decisions. Based on the results of this experiment I devised a similar Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm with the control animals. This demonstrated strong vmPFC/mOFC activity when similar decisions were made and suggested a value comparison process. In addition, I investigated the role of dopamine in learning using Fast-Scan Cyclic Voltammetry (FSCV), while rats performed a simple decision-making task. Theories about the role of dopamine in learning have focused on the possibility that it codes scalar reward value prediction errors. Less consideration has been given to the possibility that dopamine might reflect prediction errors about reward identities regardless of value. I measured dopamine in the nucleus accumbens when unexpected changes in reward value or identity occurred while rats executed a two-choice two-reward instrumental task. Dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens reflected reward value prediction errors. In addition, however, they also reflected some information about reward identity under some circumstances. Further investigation suggested that this might be due to differences in the nutritional value of different reward types that did not have clear measurable impacts of behaviour in the tasks that I used.

In this dissertation, the experience of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the crisis in 2008-2010 is analysed. Its aim is to find out why the Baltic countries chose and were able to implement the strategy of “internal adjustment”, i.e. kept fixed exchange rates and achieved fiscal sustainability via fiscal consolidation. Furthermore, it asks why Estonia was able to handle the crisis most successfully. Based on the theories of currency crises and fiscal consolidation, a theoretical model is constructed. The empirical investigation relies on both qualitative and quantitative (statistical) methods. It is found in the dissertation that conventional theories cannot adequately explain the Baltic situation during the crisis. Therefore, non-conventional factors are investigated. The Baltic willingness to defend the fixed exchange rates can be attributed to certain economic factors (high flexibility and indebtedness in foreign currencies), continuity in economic policy, causal beliefs, and non-economic functions of fixed exchange rates. The implementation of a very large fiscal consolidation package was possible due to weak trade unions, a high degree of centralization, causal beliefs about appropriate economic policies, weak interest groups and lack of societal mobilization capacity. Estonia’s better performance was due to better informal institutions, namely a higher trust in government, which allowed Estonia to collect more taxes during the crisis than Latvia and Lithuania. / Disertacijoje nagrinėjama Estijos, Latvijos ir Lietuvos patirtis per ekonominę krizę 2008–2010 metais. Siekiama atsakyti, kodėl Baltijos šalys pasirinko ir sugebėjo įgyvendinti „vidinio prisitaikymo“ strategiją, t.y. išlaikė fiksuotą valiutos kursą bei taupymo būdu atkūrė fiskalinį tvarumą. Taip pat klausiama, kodėl Estija sugebėjo susitvarkyti su krize sėkmingiausiai. Remiantis valiutos krizių ir fiskalinės konsolidacijos teorijų įžvalgomis, disertacijoje konstruojamas vidinio prisitaikymo teorinis modelis. Empirinėje dalyje derinami kokybiniai ir kiekybiniai (statistiniai) metodai. Atskleidžiama, kad Baltijos valstybių situacijos adekvačiai negali paaiškinti vyraujančios politinės ekonomijos teorijos ir jų siūlomi veiksniai. Todėl atsižvelgiama į papildomus, nekonvencinius kintamuosius. Baltijos valstybių politikų norą išsaugoti fiksuotą valiutos kursą didino ekonominės struktūros ypatumai (lankstumas ir įsiskolinimas užsienio valiuta), ekonominės politikos tęstinumas, idėjiniai įsitikinimai, ne ekonominės fiksuoto valiutos kurso funkcijos. Itin didelę fiskalinės konsolidacijos programą pavyko įgyvendinti dėl silpnų profesinių sąjungų, didelės centralizacijos, vyraujančių idėjų apie tinkamą politiką, silpnų interesų grupių, menkos visuomenės mobilizacijos. Estijos didesnę sėkmę gali paaiškinti kokybiškesnės neformalios institucijos, ypač pasitikėjimas valdžia, dėl kurio šioje valstybėje per krizę mokestinės pajamos krito mažiau nei Latvijoje ir Lietuvoje.