This dissertation continues the tradition of identifying the unintended consequences of the US health insurance system. Its main contribution is to estimate the size of the distortions caused by the employer-based system and regulations intended to fix it, while using methods that are more novel and appropriate than those of previous work. Chapter 1 examines the effect of state-level health insurance mandates, which are regulations intended to expand access to health insurance. It finds that these regulations have the unintended consequence of increasing insurance premiums, and that these regulations have been responsible for 9-23% of premium increases since 1996. The main contribution of the chapter is that its results are more general than previous work, since it considers many more years of data, and it studies the employer-based plans that cover most Americans rather than the much less common individual plans. Whereas Chapter 1 estimates the effect of the average mandate on premiums, Chapter 2 focuses on a specific mandate, one that requires insurers to cover prostate cancer screenings. The focus on a single mandate allows a broader and more careful analysis that demonstrates how health policies spill over to affect the labor market. I find that the mandate has a significant negative effect on the labor market outcomes of the very group it was intended to help. The mandate expands the treatments health insurance covers for men over age 50, but by doing so it makes them more expensive to insure and employ. Employers respond to this added expense by lowering wages and hiring fewer men over age 50. According to the theoretical model put forward in the chapter, this suggests the mandate reduces total welfare. Chapter 3 shows that the employer-based health insurance system has deterred entrepreneurship. It takes advantage of the natural experiment provided by the Affordable Care Act's dependent coverage mandate, which de-linked insurance from employment for many 19-25 year olds. Difference-in-difference estimates show that the mandate increased self-employment among the treated group by 13-24%. Instrumental variables estimates show that those who actually received parental health insurance as a result of the mandate were drastically more likely to start their own business. This suggest that concerns over health insurance are a major barrier to entrepreneurship in the United States. / Economics

Building Information Modeling (BIM), ou, no Brasil, Modelagem da Informação da Construção, auxilia em alguns dos principais desafios apresentados no cenário atual do mercado da construção civil nacional, como a redução de riscos e aumento da produtividade. Contudo, para que o BIM propicie esses benefícios, é necessário que existam padronizações e especificações de como sua utilização deve ser conduzida, quais são os usos esperados do modelo BIM, como as informações serão trocadas e quais informações os elementos do modelo devem conter. Para esta finalidade, são desenvolvidas diretrizes de contratação de empreendimentos em BIM, fundamentais para garantir o alinhamento entre contratante e contratadas em tudo o que tange à utilização do BIM no projeto. Utilizando-se a metodologia da pesquisa construtiva, foi realizada a análise bibliográfica de diretrizes de contratação BIM e a proposição de uma ferramenta de apoio à criação de diretrizes de contratação de empreendimentos em BIM para o mercado da construção civil nacional. A ferramenta proposta tem como principal objetivo facilitar a geração de diretrizes de contratação, usando como base referências difundidas para aplicação de processos BIM, mas também permitindo sua customização para melhor se adequar à realidade de cada contratante. Espera-se que a ferramenta apoie as empresas contratantes a vencer a barreira criada pela dificuldade de produzir sua própria diretriz, deixando mais claras as especificações para contratação, apoiando a implementação do BIM. Esta ferramenta foi avaliada em um caso teste, em duas rodadas, para avaliar sua aplicabilidade e aferir os resultados obtidos, tornando-a base para o desenvolvimento de outros documentos similares e para futuras pesquisas na área. A avaliação comprovou que a ferramenta foi capaz de operar dentre os limites de desempenho esperados, facilitando o processo de geração e consulta de uma diretriz, permitindo customização pelo usuário e alimentada por bases de conhecimento consolidadas. tratação em BIM, Normas BIM. / Building Information Modeling (BIM) may assist with some of the main challenges presented in the current state of the national civil construction industry, such as reducing risks and increasing productivity. However, for BIM to provide these benefits, the existence of standards and specifications is necessary, indicating what workflows should be followed, what are the expected uses, how the information will be exchanged and what properties should be included in the model. Therefore, contracting guidelines for BIM projects are developed, to ensure alignment between owner and providers in all matters related to the use of BIM in the project. Using the Constructive Research methodology, this research performed an analysis of BIM publications in countries with proven experience on successful project procurement and the proposition of a tool to support the creation of guidelines for the contracting of projects in BIM in the national civil construction market. The main objective of the proposed tool is to facilitate the generation of contracting guidelines, using well-known references on the application of BIM processes as basis, but also allowing their customization to better suit the reality of each contractor. It is expected that the tool supports contractors to overcome the barrier created by the difficulty of producing their own guideline, clarifying the specifications for contracting and supporting the implementation of BIM. This tool was evaluated in a test case, in two rounds, to assess its applicability and to gauge the obtained results, making it the basis for the development of other similar documents and for future research in the area. The evaluation proved that the tool was able to operate within the expected performance limits, facilitating the process of generation and consultation of a guideline, allowing customization by the user and fed by consolidated knowledge bases.

Britain's presence in Palestine coincided with a promise to Zionists to support the establishment of a Jewish national home. For two decades, Britain continued to support Zionist aims in Palestine including immigration and colonization, even in the aftermath of the first phase of an Arab Revolt in 1936 that shook the foundations of British colonial rule and could not be suppressed without intervention from neighboring Arab states. With the Arab Revolt in full force again from 1937 to 1939, in the midst of preparations for war in Europe, British statesmen questioned and reinterpreted promises the British government had made to Zionists two decades earlier. The resulting new policy was published in the White Paper of May 1939. By using the White Paper as a lens it is possible to widen the scope of investigation to examine the end of British rule in Palestine in a broader context than that provided by the years after World War II, 1945 to 1948. The White Paper of 1939 introduced three measures: immigration quotas for Jews arriving in Palestine, restrictions on settlement and land sales to Jews, and constitutional measures that would lead to a single state under Arab majority rule, with provisions to protect the rights of the Jewish minority. The White Paper’s single state was indeed a binational state, where it would be recognized by law that two peoples, two nations, inhabited Palestine. But the provisions of the White Paper were self-contradictory. Constitutional measures and immigration restrictions advanced the idea of a binational state with a permanent Jewish minority, while land restrictions aimed to keep Jews where they had already settled, legislation more in keeping with the idea of partition. The debate between partition and a binational state continued throughout these years. This work examines the motivations for the White Paper, foremost among them to keep the world Jewish problem separate from Britain's Palestine problem and to assure stability throughout the Middle East. An investigation based on the White Paper introduces a number of important debates that took place between 1936 and 1948 and echo into the present. / text

This thesis traces the mandate concept as embodied in Art. 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as an intrinsic feature of the British Imperial mind. Therefore the purview of our study is British imperial thinking and policy making during and after the First World War. It was in respect to Iraq that the mandate concept, as a distinct policy, was formulated for the first time by Mark Sykes. The mandate concept sprang from that part of British Imperial thought which was deeply affected by official apprehension about the Empire's position in the Middle East. This thesis is proved in the following exegesis of the analytical framework of our thesis. Chapter I describes contemporary reactions and thinking on new models of peace order. We have concentrated mainly on Arnold Toynbee's and Leonard Woolf's thinking. Both crystallize the contemporary argumentation in an important way. While they are placed under the sub-title, Premises of Scientific Peace, others such as Amery are for their imperial senti- ments discussed under the second sub-title: Imperial Sentiment and its Impact on Planning for a New World Order. The two chapters reveal the inner conditions which allowed the birth of the mandate compromise. Many of the ingredients of the mandate concept stemmed from the doctrines of democracy. How-ever when these penetrated the East the Arab response to them was bound to bring about conflict with British imperial interests. Yet in its turn, the Empire's reaction and policy was not of one kind. It was marked with the three-cornered antagonism between the Government of India, the Arab Bureau at Cairo and Whitehall. The pivot of this study of British war-time policy is the chapter called: The British Glimpse of a Middle East Empire. Interestingly, the above antagonism gave rise to ideas of a British Middle Eastern Empire. There course and fate was implicit in the frequent committee chages, departmental struggle against rule by committee and in debates on immediate issues of policy. We regard their fate and their impact on the decision-making structure in Whitehall as more indicative of the state of the British will to rule in the East than such paper-designs as the MacMahon-Hussein correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement or the De Bunsen Committee Report. From this angle our chapter is meant to serve as a corrective to the weight of those paper-designs; further it puts the final creation of the Middle East Department in its right imperial perspective. The sectionhas been provided with what one may call a "trailer". Called, Some Features of the Mesopotamian Campaign, it gives the story of how the Admiralty pushed through its policy of physical control over the oil-bearing regions of Iraq. It was their policy which led to the capture of Mosul. The study of the war-time policy concludes with the section entitled: Mark Sykes and the Origin of the Iraq Mandate. This chapter is meant to be a synopsis of the contrapuntal studies of the Matrix of the Mandate Idea, on the one hand, and, on the other, the British Glimpse of a Middle East Empire. This syno-psis is amply contained in Mark Sykes's hitherto unknown memorandum of January 1918, and in his original way of looking at international affairs. Prompted by this find we have scrutinized Sykes's functioning in the policy making of the Lloyd George Cabinet. His thought and personality are separated out under the three topics of Sykes as (1) the campaigner and partisan official, (2) the admonisher and conscience of the age, (3) the nostalgic and reflective mind. The description of his failure to achieve his policy at the end of the war foreshadows the last chapter of this first part of the thesis. Entitled, The "A" mandate before the Supreme Council, this chapter investigates features which point to conflicting views as to the advisability of rendering the mandate concept more strictly. This chapter puts Art.22 of the Covenant in its right perspective as a tentative and somewhat incomplete compromise principle in the new international law. By its resultant vagueness the concept afforded considerable discretion to imperialist policy. The checks which were supposed to mitigate such a policy are examined in the concluding chapter VIII, entitled: Iraq before the League of Nations. The concept has emerged from the first part of our thesis as Janus-faced, combining an extremely flexible political instrument for the expansion of imperial control with an evolutionary political doctrine of "democratic control". In contrast, internationally, the mandate was regarded by League champoins as a check on the imperialistic ambitions of the mandatory. Of these three aspects the evolutionary principle was the new colonial dress. The studyof the application of the mandate starts with a detailed analysis of: The Political Role of the Oil-bearing Regions of Iraq. The oil-issue is followed as it ran like a red line through Iraq's early political history up to 1926. The first section of the ensuing chapter, Towards the Cairo-Conference, deals with what we call the "import article" of the colonial idea in the Middle East as it was designed and propagated advertisement-like for consumption in Britain by such on the spot experts as Gertrude Bell. The remaining sections deal, again contrapuntally, with public opinion and the taxpayer rationale in Britain and the final synthesis of the Cairo-policy. The chapter on the Cairo-Conference, is the opening movement for the subsequent constitutional development of Iraq, in the course of which Britain , set by set, gears the expansion of the governmental infra-structure to the achievement of her imperialistic aims of control. As in the previous chapter the part entitled, The British Gambits in the Constitutional Development of Iraq, gives much room to the role played by personalities. These, because of their more discernible and distinct capacities and idiosyncracies became what one may call "substitutes" for the far less calculable social forces, economic conditions and political circumstances in turmoil. There follows, in the chapter, The Shaping of Iraqis External Relations, a desciption of some features of Iraqis integration into the contemporary international context. The concluding chapter, euphemistically entitled, Iraq before the League of Nations, endeavours to define the three-cornered relationship between Britain, Iraq and the League within the context of immediate practice rather than of the myth which afterthought has woven around it.

Building Information Modeling (BIM), ou, no Brasil, Modelagem da Informação da Construção, auxilia em alguns dos principais desafios apresentados no cenário atual do mercado da construção civil nacional, como a redução de riscos e aumento da produtividade. Contudo, para que o BIM propicie esses benefícios, é necessário que existam padronizações e especificações de como sua utilização deve ser conduzida, quais são os usos esperados do modelo BIM, como as informações serão trocadas e quais informações os elementos do modelo devem conter. Para esta finalidade, são desenvolvidas diretrizes de contratação de empreendimentos em BIM, fundamentais para garantir o alinhamento entre contratante e contratadas em tudo o que tange à utilização do BIM no projeto. Utilizando-se a metodologia da pesquisa construtiva, foi realizada a análise bibliográfica de diretrizes de contratação BIM e a proposição de uma ferramenta de apoio à criação de diretrizes de contratação de empreendimentos em BIM para o mercado da construção civil nacional. A ferramenta proposta tem como principal objetivo facilitar a geração de diretrizes de contratação, usando como base referências difundidas para aplicação de processos BIM, mas também permitindo sua customização para melhor se adequar à realidade de cada contratante. Espera-se que a ferramenta apoie as empresas contratantes a vencer a barreira criada pela dificuldade de produzir sua própria diretriz, deixando mais claras as especificações para contratação, apoiando a implementação do BIM. Esta ferramenta foi avaliada em um caso teste, em duas rodadas, para avaliar sua aplicabilidade e aferir os resultados obtidos, tornando-a base para o desenvolvimento de outros documentos similares e para futuras pesquisas na área. A avaliação comprovou que a ferramenta foi capaz de operar dentre os limites de desempenho esperados, facilitando o processo de geração e consulta de uma diretriz, permitindo customização pelo usuário e alimentada por bases de conhecimento consolidadas. tratação em BIM, Normas BIM. / Building Information Modeling (BIM) may assist with some of the main challenges presented in the current state of the national civil construction industry, such as reducing risks and increasing productivity. However, for BIM to provide these benefits, the existence of standards and specifications is necessary, indicating what workflows should be followed, what are the expected uses, how the information will be exchanged and what properties should be included in the model. Therefore, contracting guidelines for BIM projects are developed, to ensure alignment between owner and providers in all matters related to the use of BIM in the project. Using the Constructive Research methodology, this research performed an analysis of BIM publications in countries with proven experience on successful project procurement and the proposition of a tool to support the creation of guidelines for the contracting of projects in BIM in the national civil construction market. The main objective of the proposed tool is to facilitate the generation of contracting guidelines, using well-known references on the application of BIM processes as basis, but also allowing their customization to better suit the reality of each contractor. It is expected that the tool supports contractors to overcome the barrier created by the difficulty of producing their own guideline, clarifying the specifications for contracting and supporting the implementation of BIM. This tool was evaluated in a test case, in two rounds, to assess its applicability and to gauge the obtained results, making it the basis for the development of other similar documents and for future research in the area. The evaluation proved that the tool was able to operate within the expected performance limits, facilitating the process of generation and consultation of a guideline, allowing customization by the user and fed by consolidated knowledge bases.

Submitted by Geandra Rodrigues (geandrar@gmail.com) on 2018-03-23T11:39:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 marianarezendeesilva.pdf: 2448635 bytes, checksum: 7a91fde9d65f686013a08919648c2f64 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-03-23T12:17:35Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 marianarezendeesilva.pdf: 2448635 bytes, checksum: 7a91fde9d65f686013a08919648c2f64 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-23T12:17:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 marianarezendeesilva.pdf: 2448635 bytes, checksum: 7a91fde9d65f686013a08919648c2f64 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-18 / O agravamento dos efeitos do aquecimento global, a volatilidade do preço do petróleo e a preocupação com a segurança energética são questões que contribuem para o aumento dos incentivos para a produção de biocombustíveis e o desenvolvimento de políticas relacionadas. A partir dos anos 2000 regiões como dos Estados Unidos e União Europeia lançaram os mandatos de biocombustíveis, políticas que estabelecem metas de consumo e produção de combustíveis renováveis até o ano de 2020. O crescimento da demanda interna não é acompanhado de um crescimento na oferta interna, precisando assim, importar etanol ou biodiesel. É nesse cenário que surge o Brasil como possível provedor de etanol para essas regiões por conta da disponibilidade de terras para a expansão do cultivo da cana-de-açúcar, a alta produtividade dessa commodity e o conhecimento da tecnologia de produção. O principal objetivo dessa dissertação é analisar o papel do Brasil no mercado mundial de biocombustíveis e identificar as implicações causadas pelas políticas de combustíveis renováveis de regiões como Estados Unidos e União Europeia. Para esse fim, foi construído um modelo de Equilíbrio Geral Computável a partir do Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), denominado GTAP-BIOBR. Nesse modelo estão desagregados os setores de biocombustíveis o que favorece a análise do comércio de etanol da cana, que tem como principal produtor o Brasil. A estratégia de análise empregada foi de simular três cenários com choques nas exportações brasileiras de etanol para os Estados Unidos e União Europeia no ano de 2020. Os resultados revelam que a produção de etanol no Brasil cresceria em todas as situações, acompanhado do crescimento do nível de atividade econômica. Por outro lado, o preço do etanol da cana sofreria uma queda e ocorreria perda de bem-estar econômico no país em consequência da piora dos termos de troca. / The worsening effects of global warming, the volatility of oil prices and the concern about energy security are issues that contribute to increasing incentives for the production of biofuels and the development of related policies. Since the 2000’s, regions such as the United States and the European Union have launched the biofuel mandates, policies that set targets for consumption and production of renewable fuels by the year 2020. The growth of domestic demand is not accompanied by a growth in domestic supply, thus needing to import ethanol or biodiesel. It is in this scenario that Brazil emerges as a possible supplier of ethanol to these regions because of the availability of land for the expansion of sugar cane cultivation the high productivity of this commodity and the knowledge of production technology. The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the role of Brazil in the world biofuels market and to identify the implications caused by the renewable fuel policies of regions such as the United States and the European Union. For this purpose, a Computable General Equilibrium model was constructed from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) called GTAP-BIOBR. In this model, the biofuels sectors are disaggregated, which favors the analysis of the sugarcane ethanol trade, whose main producer is Brazil. The analysis strategy employed was to simulate three scenarios with shocks in Brazilian ethanol exports to the United States and the European Union in the year 2020. The results show that ethanol production in Brazil would increase in all situations, accompanied by the growth of the level of economic activity. On the other hand, the price of sugarcane ethanol would suffer a fall and there would be a loss of economic welfare in the country as a result of the worsening terms of trade.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Introduction According (UNAIDS/WHO, 2011a) globally, 34.0 million [31.4 million–35.9 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2011 out of which 80% live in Sub Saharan Africa. In absolute terms, the burden of HIV increased by 354% between 1990 and 2006 (Ortblad et al, 2010). The prevalence of HIV in Zambia stands at 14.3% in the age group 15 to 49 years. Having realized that HIV/AIDS is no longer a health issue alone Zambia embarked on the multisectoral response initiative which allows many stakeholders to play their role. In order to coordinate this multiplicity of stakeholders the government of Zambia created the National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Council (NAC) with the core mandate to coordinate the national HIV/AIDS response agenda. In turn, the NAC created the Provincial (PATF) and District AIDS Task Forces (DATF) as decentralized structures through which to coordinate the response at provincial and district levels respectively. However, DAFT is not coordinating the response to HIV/AIDS epidemic effectively but the reason for the ineffective coordination has not yet been described. Aim The aim of the study is to explore factors which impact on the capacity of Lusaka DATF to coordinate an effective and sustainable local HIV/AIDS response. Methods A descriptive qualitative research was undertaken using purposive sampling methods. Data collection methods included a Document Review, Key Informant Interviews using semi structured interview guides, Focus Group Discussions and Field Notes. Results The study has found that the following factors promote effective coordination of DATF stakeholders and their activities at local level: recognition of the DATF by stakeholders as a formal structure which is enshrined within the institutional framework of the government; joint planning and resource mobilisation for activities by stakeholders particularly around national commemoration days such as World AIDS Day and the National VCT day and holding of stakeholder forum meetings to share experiences and lessons learnt. The study has also established that the following factors are responsible for preventing the DATF from coordinating effectively include: DATF does not exist as a legal entity enshrined in any Act of Parliament No. 10 of 2002 which created the NAC; there are multiple reporting channels for local stakeholders instead of having only one reporting framework through the DFATF; inadequate stakeholder forums; lack of memoranda of understanding between the DATF and stakeholders; weak technical capacity of the DACA due to factors such as lack of a training programme; inadequate joint planning and resource mobilisation plans and efforts; poor understanding and different interpretations of the of the concept of coordination by different stakeholders; weak feedback mechanisms from the DATF secretariat to stakeholders; and multiplicity of DATF guidelines by different partners which have at times contradicted each other. Poor political, civic and technical leadership engagement has been identified as key inhibiting factors.

No description available.

No description available.

Le mandat est un contrat torturé. Figé dans une définition imprécise et plongé dans une diversification non maitrisée, il est aujourd’hui malaisé de déterminer ce qu’il est. Le contexte familial est symptomatique de cette crise d’identité. Le mandat est un outil particulièrement sollicité par les membres de la famille, dans le but d’organiser leurs relations ou d’anticiper des événements (la vulnérabilité ou la mort) susceptibles de générer certaines difficultés. En tant que contrat, il est peu contraignant à mettre en œuvre et s’acclimate facilement des particularités de ce contexte. Cependant, s’il est en principe l’œuvre consentie de deux personnes, le mandant et le mandataire, cet environnement a révélé qu’il pouvait aussi être imposé par un membre de la famille ou une autorité extérieure, telle que la loi ou le juge. Alors, le mandat se trouve directement altéré dans certains de ses caractères essentiels : sa source (la volonté) ou son effet (la représentation). Ces manifestations originales mettent la notion à l’épreuve et elles invitent à la repenser.La particularité du contexte familial lui imprime assurément une coloration particulière. L’idée est alors séduisante de créer un mandat familial, singularisé, pour se départir d’une définition légale insaisissable et façonner la notion à partir de ses différentes applications. Une telle démarche nuirait pourtant à ce contrat en nourrissant le phénomène d’hyperspécialisation dont il est l’objet. C’est pour cette raison qu’une autre voie doit être empruntée, celle de la redéfinition. Ce n’est qu’une fois doté d’une définition claire et précise que ce contrat pourra, à l’avenir, s’épanouir dans une pluralité de domaines, sans qu’il n’ait à subir, pour cela, de dénaturation. Reconstruit sur de solides critères, indispensables à sa bonne qualification et à la nécessaire requalification de ses usurpations, le mandat s’affranchira de sa fongibilité actuelle et des nombreuses confusions qui en altèrent la compréhension. / The mandate is a tormented contract. Fixed in a broad definition and shot through an uncontrolled diversification, it is currently hard to determine what a mandate is. The family context is symptomatic of this identity crisis. The mandate is a tool which is particularly used by the members of the family, as it is suitable for organizing the family relationships, as well as for anticipating events, such as vulnerability or death, that may create some difficulties. As a contract, it is not excessively burdensome to implement, and it deals easily with the particular features of the context. If it is normally the result of the will of two persons, the principal and the agent, nevertheless, the family context revealed that the mandate could be imposed by a family member or an external authority, such as the law or the judge. The mandate is thus directly corrupted in its essential characteristics : its source (the will) or its effects (the representation). Those original phenomena test the mandate and prompt to rethink the notion. The particularities of the family context give it a very specific ring. Therefore, it is an appealing idea to create a singled out family mandate, in order to divest from an elusive legal definition, and to shape the notion using its various applications. However, such an approach would be damaging the contract, feeding the hyperspecialization to which it is subjected. That is why another course must be taken : the mandate must be redefined. Once given a clear and precise definition, the mandate will be able to fulfill itself in many areas, without suffering any distorsion. Rebuilt on solid criteria, allowing to sort out good classifications from usurpations, the mandate will be liberated from its current fungibility and from the numerous confusions which are now detrimental to its correct understanding.