Suchergebnisse

Water is a key input in the production of many goods and services and under certain conditions can become a critical limiting factor with significant impacts on regional development. This is the case of many agricultural European Mediterranean basins, where water deficit during drought events is partially covered by illegal abstractions, mostly from aquifers, which are tolerated by the authorities. Groundwater overexploitation for irrigation has created in these areas an unprecedented environmental catastrophe that threatens ecosystems sustainability, urban water supply and the current model of development. Market-based drought insurance systems have the potential to introduce the necessary incentives to reduce overexploitation during drought events and remove the high costs of the drought indemnity paid by the government. This paper develops a methodology to obtain the optimum risk premium based on concatenated stochastic models. The methodology is applied to the agricultural district of Campo de Cartagena (Segura River Basin, Spain). Results show that the prices in a hypothetic competitive private drought insurance market would be reasonable and the expected environmental outcomes significant.

Background: in 2013, UNAIDS reports more than 62 million people infected with HIV since the onset of the pandemic, of which 3 million became infected during the past year. The impact of HIV/AIDS at the individual level has been well documented, but the effects of the pandemic at the global macroeconomic level have been less studied. Objective: to determine the macroeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS. Materials and methods: hermeneutic study on secondary sources of information that through triangulation of this information with the economic theory was documented predictions of what will happen in the countries most affected by the pandemic. Results: the HIV/AIDS pandemic impacts the labour supply, through increased morbidity and mortality. AIDS reduces labour productivity, thus creating fiscal crises. Public spending related to HIV/AIDS will increase within the range of 0.2% and 3.5% of the government budget. The low productivity of the national primary sector increases the import of food. Slope of GDP in South Africa by 2010 the GDP would be 17% lower than a scenario without HIV/AIDS. Conclusions: it is estimated that HIV/AIDS will increase the costs of maintaining the labour force, will alter the trade balance, inducing a fiscal deficit, as well as a productivity decrease of close to 75% and economic growth of 5% of GDP in the next ten years. Although a search was carried out worldwide, the results obtained are concentrated in Africa. ; Introducción: en 2013, ONUSIDA reportó más de 62 millones de personas infectadas por el VIH desde el inicio de la pandemia; de estos, tres millones se infectaron durante el último año. El impacto del VIH/SIDA a nivel individual ha sido bien documentado, mas los efectos de la pandemia a nivel macroeconómico mundial han sido menos estudiados. Objetivo: determinar el impacto a nivel macroeconómico del VIH/SIDA. Materiales y métodos: estudio hermenéutico sobre fuentes secundarias de información que mediante la triangulación de esta con la teoría económica, se proyectaron posibles consecuencias en los países más afectados por la pandemia. Resultados: la pandemia del VIH/SIDA impacta la oferta de trabajo, mediante el aumento de la morbilidad y mortalidad. El SIDA reduce la productividad laboral, creando así crisis fiscales. El gasto público relacionado con el VIH/SIDA aumentará dentro del rango de 0,2% y 3,5% del presupuesto del gobierno. La baja productividad del sector primario nacional aumenta la importación de alimentos. En Sudáfrica para el año 2010 el PIB sería un 17% menor a un escenario sin VIH/SIDA. Conclusiones: se estima que el VIH/SIDA aumentará los costos de mantenimiento de la fuerza de trabajo, alterará la balanza comercial, induciendo déficit fiscal, así como una caída de la productividad cercana al 75% y del crecimiento económico de 5% del PIB en los próximos diez años. Aunque se realizó una búsqueda a nivel mundial, los resultados obtenidos se concentran en África.

Introducción: en 2013, ONUSIDA reportó más de 62 millones de personas infectadas por el VIH desde el inicio de la pandemia; de estos, tres millones se infectaron durante el último año. El impacto del VIH/SIDA a nivel individual ha sido bien documentado, mas los efectos de la pandemia a nivel macroeconómico mundial han sido menos estudiados. Objetivo: determinar el impacto a nivel macroeconómico del VIH/SIDA. Materiales y métodos: estudio hermenéutico sobre fuentes secundarias de información que mediante la triangulación de esta con la teoría económica, se proyectaron posibles consecuencias en los países más afectados por la pandemia. Resultados: la pandemia del VIH/SIDA impacta la oferta de trabajo, mediante el aumento de la morbilidad y mortalidad. El SIDA reduce la productividad laboral, creando así crisis fiscales. El gasto público relacionado con el VIH/SIDA aumentará dentro del rango de 0,2% y 3,5% del presupuesto del gobierno. La baja productividad del sector primario nacional aumenta la importación de alimentos. En Sudáfrica para el año 2010 el PIB sería un 17% menor a un escenario sin VIH/SIDA. Conclusiones: se estima que el VIH/SIDA aumentará los costos de mantenimiento de la fuerza de trabajo, alterará la balanza comercial, induciendo déficit fiscal, así como una caída de la productividad cercana al 75% y del crecimiento económico de 5% del PIB en los próximos diez años. Aunque se realizó una búsqueda a nivel mundial, los resultados obtenidos se concentran en África. ; Background: in 2013, UNAIDS reports more than 62 million people infected with HIV since the onset of the pandemic, of which 3 million became infected during the past year. The impact of HIV/AIDS at the individual level has been well documented, but the effects of the pandemic at the global macroeconomic level have been less studied. Objective: to determine the macroeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS. Materials and methods: hermeneutic study on secondary sources of information that through triangulation of this information with the economic theory was documented predictions of what will happen in the countries most affected by the pandemic. Results: the HIV/AIDS pandemic impacts the labour supply, through increased morbidity and mortality. AIDS reduces labour productivity, thus creating fiscal crises. Public spending related to HIV/AIDS will increase within the range of 0.2% and 3.5% of the government budget. The low productivity of the national primary sector increases the import of food. Slope of GDP in South Africa by 2010 the GDP would be 17% lower than a scenario without HIV/AIDS. Conclusions: it is estimated that HIV/AIDS will increase the costs of maintaining the labour force, will alter the trade balance, inducing a fiscal deficit, as well as a productivity decrease of close to 75% and economic growth of 5% of GDP in the next ten years. Although a search was carried out worldwide, the results obtained are concentrated in Africa.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for both assessing the role of economic instruments, and reshaping them in order to enhance their contribution to the goals of managing water scarcity. Water management problems stem from the mismatch between a multitude of individual decisions, on the one hand, and the current and projected status of water resources on the other. Economics can provide valuable incentives that drive individual decisions, and can design efficient instruments to address water governance problems in a context of conflicting interests and relevant transaction costs. Yet, instruments such as water pricing or trading are mostly based on general principles of welfare economics that are not readily applicable to assets as complex as water. A flaw in welfare economic approaches lies in the presumption that economic instruments may be good orbad on their own (e.g., finding the "right" price). This vision changes radically when we focus on the problem, instead of the instrument. In this paper, we examine how economic instruments to achieve welfare-enhancing water resource outcomes can realize their full potential in basin-scale management contexts. We follow a political economy perspective that views conflicts between public and private interest as the main instrumental challenge of water management. Our analysis allows us to better understand the critical importance of economic instruments for reconciling individual actions towards collective ambitions of water efficiency, equity and sustainability with lessons for later-adopting jurisdictions. Rather than providing panaceas, the successful design and implementation of economic instruments as key river basin management arrangements involves high transaction costs, wide institutional changes and collective action at different levels.

The analysis of comorbidity is an open and complex research Field in the branch of psychiatry, where clinical experience and several studies suggest that the relation among the psychiatric disorders may have etiological and treatment implications. In this paper, we are interested in applying latent feature modeling to Find the latent structure behind the psychiatric disorders that can help to examine and explain the relationships among them. To this end, we use the large amount of information collected in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) database and propose to model these data using a nonparametric latent model based on the Indian BuFiet Process (IBP). Due to the discrete nature of the data, we First need to adapt the observation model for discrete random variables. We propose a generative model in which the observations are drawn from a multinomial-logit distribution given the IBP matrix. The implementation of an eFicient Gibbs sampler is accomplished using the Laplace approximation, which allows integrating out the weighting factors of the multinomial-logit likelihood model. We also provide a variational inference algorithm for this model, which provides a complementary (and less expensive in terms of computational complexity) alternative to the Gibbs sampler allowing us to deal with a larger number of data. Finally, we use the model to analyze comorbidity among the psychiatric disorders diagnosed by experts from the NESARC database. ; Francisco J. R. Ruiz is supported by an FPU fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (AP2010-5333), Isabel Valera is supported by the Plan Regional-Programas I+D of Comunidad de Madrid (AGES-CM S2010/BMD-2422), Fernando P erez-Cruz has been partially supported by a Salvador de Madariaga grant, and Carlos Blanco acknowledges NIH grants (DA019606 and DA023200) and the New York State Psychiatric Institute for their support. The authors also acknowledge the support of Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (projects DEIPRO TEC2009-14504-C02-00, ALCIT TEC2012-38800-C03-01, and program Consolider-Ingenio 2010 CSD2008-00010 COMONSENS). This work was also supported by the European Union 7th Framework Programme through the Marie Curie Initial Training Network \Machine Learning for Personalized Medicine" MLPM2012, Grant No. 316861.

The study was conducted in order to analyze forest governance in Twi Waupasa territory, Puerto Cabezas Municipality, Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Focal groups and individual interviews were established which allowed identifying a set of constraints and problems that disrupt forest governance; Internal conflicts between neighboring communities, poor distribution of economic benefits, land invasions by settlers, weakening of traditional structures by political parties, and inexperience in Community Forest Management are situations that hinder governance. To this end, a forest ; El estudio se realizó con el n de analizar la gobernanza forestal en el territorio Twi Waupasa, Municipio de Puerto Cabezas, Región Autónoma de la Costa Caribe Norte de Nicaragua. Se establecieron grupos focales y entrevistas individuales lo cual permitió identificar un conjunto de limitantes y problemas que interrumpen la gobernanza forestal; los conflictos internos entre comunidades vecinas, la mala distribución de los beneficios económicos, la invasión de tierra por colonos, el debilitamiento de las estructuras tradicionales por partidos políticos y la inexperiencia en el Manejo Forestal Comunitario, son situaciones que entorpecen la gobernanza. Para ello se ofrece un modelo de gobernanza forestal construido desde la perspectiva de los actores locales.

The study was conducted in order to analyze forest governance in Twi Waupasa territory, Puerto Cabezas Municipality, Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Focal groups and individual interviews were established which allowed identifying a set of constraints and problems that disrupt forest governance; Internal conflicts between neighboring communities, poor distribution of economic benefits, land invasions by settlers, weakening of traditional structures by political parties, and inexperience in Community Forest Management are situations that hinder governance. To this end, a forest governance model built from the perspective of local actors is offered. ; El estudio se realizó con el n de analizar la gobernanza forestal en el territorio Twi Waupasa, Municipio de Puerto Cabezas, Región Autónoma de la Costa Caribe Norte de Nicaragua. Se establecieron grupos focales y entrevistas individuales lo cual permitió identificar un conjunto de limitantes y problemas que interrumpen la gobernanza forestal; los conflictos internos entre comunidades vecinas, la mala distribución de los beneficios económicos, la invasión de tierra por colonos, el debilitamiento de las estructuras tradicionales por partidos políticos y la inexperiencia en el Manejo Forestal Comunitario, son situaciones que entorpecen la gobernanza. Para ello se ofrece un modelo de gobernanza forestal construido desde la perspectiva de los actores locales.