Thermal comfort and personal protective equipment (PPE)

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is considered the last preferred solution to an Occupational Safety Health (OSH) system. Brazilian OSH legislation assumes and requires PPE usage to neutralize the possibility of pesticide contamination. This study examines the inadequacy of the PPE used in a tomato crop, particularly from the standpoint of thermal comfort. This study made observations regarding heart rate and body temperature in a controlled environment using a treadmill (with and without PPE) of 12 volunteers; and during the process of rural labor (at rest and in normal work routine) of 2 actual rural workers. Comparing the results of the treadmill test (with and without PPE) which tried to reproduce the same level of effort and environmental conditions of the actual rural work, this study demonstrated that PPE makes thermoregulation harder and tympanic temperature reaches higher values with the same level of effort. Moreover, body temperature increases quickly: with PPE it took 15 minutes to raise 1°C in body temperature, compared to 40 minutes without PPE. The results of this study indicated that the use inadequate PPE might pose thermoregulation risk to rural workers.     

Global sensitivity analysis with dependence measures

Global sensitivity analysis with variance-based measures suffers from several theoretical and practical limitations, since they focus only on the variance of the output and handle multivariate variables in a limited way. In this paper, we introduce a new class of sensitivity indices based on dependence measures which overcomes these insufficiencies. Our approach originates from the idea to compare the output distribution with its conditional counterpart when one of the input variables is fixed. We establish that this comparison yields previously proposed indices when it is performed with Csiszár f-divergences, as well as sensitivity indices which are well-known dependence measures between random variables. This leads us to investigate completely new sensitivity indices based on recent state-of-the-art dependence measures, such as distance correlation and the Hilbert–Schmidt independence criterion. We also emphasize the potential of feature selection techniques relying on such dependence measures as alternatives to screening in high dimension.     

Global sensitivity analysis of stochastic computer models with joint metamodels

The global sensitivity analysis method used to quantify the influence of uncertain input variables on the variability in numerical model responses has already been applied to deterministic computer codes; deterministic means here that the same set of input variables always gives the same output value. This paper proposes a global sensitivity analysis methodology for stochastic computer codes, for which the result of each code run is itself random. The framework of the joint modeling of the mean and dispersion of heteroscedastic data is used. To deal with the complexity of computer experiment outputs, nonparametric joint models are discussed and a new Gaussian process-based joint model is proposed. The relevance of these models is analyzed based upon two case studies. Results show that the joint modeling approach yields accurate sensitivity index estimators even when heteroscedasticity is strong.     

Unthinking the European Higher Education Area – differentiated integration and Bologna's different configurations

Differentiated integration was conceived of as a political methodology and as a technology to achieve a European “union” in the field of knowledge policies. However, the non-achievement with regard to the political goals of the European Higher Education Area has highlighted the limitations of this approach to promote furthering the EHEA. In this paper, unthinking is both a research strategy aiming to question those limits and a pedagogical tactic to question the assumptions about the futures. As a research strategy, articulations between unity and diversity are examined. Based on the analysis of the documents endorsed by the Education Ministers in keeping the pace of the Bologna process, the paper contributes to expand knowledge on the nature of Bologna’s differences and underlines the paradoxes in dealing with those differences. As a pedagogical tactic, unthinking questions the assumptions about the future scenarios sketched for higher education. Alternative ways to further integration are discussed on the basis of the idea of integration of the “differences”, bringing to the centre education as a political concern, as higher education institutions, professors, and students/graduates are those at the core of the political management of the “differences”.     

Efficiency of personal protective equipment used in agriculture

Despite the practical importance of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), both in production and in consumption, it is observed a main problem regarding the quality of many PPE?s used in Brazil. This study found a gap between the state of the art and the state of prevailing practices in the design of PPE?s, which main consequences affect the health of workers who use PPE in agriculture activities. The results of this study identified legal constraints of this occurrence, involving the validation of PPE designed for isolate agents, without the analysis of relevant activities and without prototypes experiments in more frequent use situation.     

Intergenerational Programs Review: Study Design and Characteristics of Intervention,Outcomes, and Effectiveness

There is a growing interest in intergenerational connectivity through intergenerational programs. In this work, a review of intergenerational programs was performed, with focus on the program design and objectives as well as in their outcomes.

We used a systematic review method in which we screened 3,796 articles. After analyzing titles, abstracts, and full paper analysis, 16 articles were retained. Each study was reviewed, and data were extracted related to target population, study design, characteristics of intervention, outcomes, and effectiveness.

Intergenerational programs included educational programs and art, Information technology development, cultural heritage, health education, and therapeutic activities. Most of the programs collected both quantitative and/or qualitative data. Seven studies collected data in the beginning and at the end of the program. Significant diversity in sample size and intervention length was found. Measurement of outcomes was performed in both young and/or elderly group of participants. Programs impact evaluation varied between studies, including validated scales, interviews, observation, focus groups, and conversation analysis, narratives, videotaped sessions, and field notes.

Our study highlighted the diversity in the design of studies and in the program’s effectiveness evaluation. More randomized design studies are required to support researchers and practitioners in the development of future intergenerational programs.     

POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM AND COUNTERCYCLICAL FISCAL POLICY IN ELECTION‐YEAR RECESSIONS

Political budget cycles (PBCs) have been well documented in the literature, albeit not for all circumstances. Similarly, there is clear evidence on the positive effect of economic growth on electoral success. However, no work has been done on the impact of economic growth on the magnitude of PBCs. The theoretical model argues that a government has an incentive to increase fiscal manipulations when a recession is expected to hit and curtail reelection chances; this amounts to countercyclical policy for opportunistic rather than Keynesian motives. Very robust evidence for this behavior is found in Portuguese municipalities; in election years, budget deficits go up even more and significantly so, when a recession is expected. (JEL D72, E62, H62)     

A (Semi)Parametric Functional Coefficient Logarithmic Autoregressive Conditional Duration Model

In this article, we propose a class of logarithmic autoregressive conditional duration (ACD)-type models that accommodates overdispersion, intermittent dynamics, multiple regimes, and asymmetries in financial durations. In particular, our functional coefficient logarithmic autoregressive conditional duration (FC-LACD) model relies on a smooth-transition autoregressive specification. The motivation lies on the fact that the latter yields a universal approximation if one lets the number of regimes grows without bound. After establishing sufficient conditions for strict stationarity, we address model identifiability as well as the asymptotic properties of the quasi-maximum likelihood (QML) estimator for the FC-LACD model with a fixed number of regimes. In addition, we also discuss how to consistently estimate a semiparametric variant of the FC-LACD model that takes the number of regimes to infinity. An empirical illustration indicates that our functional coefficient model is flexible enough to model IBM price durations.