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The Brazil/U.S. Aspen Global Forum on Climate Change Policies and Programs has facilitated a dialogue between key Brazil and U.S. public and private sector leaders on the subject of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). With support from the U.S. government, a cooperative effort between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Sao Paulo conducted an assessment of a number of projects put forth by Brazilian sponsors. Initially, we gathered information and conducted a screening assessment for ten projects in the energy sector and six projects in the forestry sector. Some of the projects appeared to offer greater potential to be attractive for CDM, or had better information available. We then conducted a more detailed assessment of 12 of these projects, and two other projects that were submitted after the initial screening. An important goal was to assess the potential impact of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) on the financial performance of projects. With the exception of the two forestry-based fuel displacement projects, the impact of CERs on the internal rate of return (IRR) is fairly small. This is true for both the projects that displace grid electricity and those that displace local (diesel-based) electricity production. The relative effect of CERs is greater for projects whose IRR without CERs is low. CERs have a substantial effect on the IRR of the two short-rotation forestry energy substitution projects. One reason is that the biofuel displaces coke and oil, both of which are carbon-intensive. Another factor is that the product of these projects (charcoal and woodfuel, respectively) is relatively low value, so the revenue from carbon credits has a strong relative impact. CERs also have a substantial effect on the NPV of the carbon sequestration projects. Financial and other barriers pose a challenge for implementation of most of the projects. In most cases, the sponsor lacks sufficient capital, and loans are available only at high interest rate and with substantial guarantee. A few of the projects might go ahead without the benefit of CERs, but most probably would not. Whether the projected revenue from CERs would be sufficient to induce sponsors to proceed with the projects is an important issue that requires further investigation. All of the projects contribute to economic development in Brazil. The forestry projects in particular would create a significant number of rural jobs, and contribute income to rural communities. Some of the carbon sequestration projects would provide environmental benefits with respect to protection of biodiversity and soil.

AbstractIn this paper we explore changes over time in higher education (HE) participation and attainment between people from richer and poorer family backgrounds during a time period when the UK higher education system expanded at a rapid rate. We use longitudinal data from three time periods to study temporal shifts in HE participation and attainment across parental income groups for children going to university in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The key finding is a highly policy relevant one, namely that HE expansion has not been equally distributed across people from richer and poorer backgrounds. Rather, it has disproportionately benefited children from relatively rich families. Despite the fact that many more children from higher income backgrounds participated in HE before the recent expansion of the system, the expansion acted to widen participation gaps between rich and poor children. This finding is robust to different measures of education participation and inequality. It also emerges from non‐parametric estimations and from a more detailed econometric model allowing for the sequential nature of education choices with potentially different income associations at different stages of the education sequence.

Changes in the forms of education, which can currently be observed, are connected to multimedia. One of the new teaching methods based on IT and worth mentioning, are Knowledge Pills (KP) – short multimedia tips, enabling students to strengthen their professional competences. KPs are also a form of effective e‑learning. Appropriate methodology used in the process of KP creation allows for the increase of interest and motivation in participants of courses. It also gives better alignment of educational materials, which can lead to improving the effectiveness of teaching. The article presents methodologies for KP preparation used in selected organizations. Based on a survey conducted among the students of several courses at the Economy and Sociology Faculty of the University of Lodz, we highlight areas of particular importance for effective preparation of educational materials in the form of Knowledge Pills, corresponding to the students' expectations.

The present study reports two outbreaks of salt poisoning in goats on a property in the state of Pará, Brazil. The outbreaks occurred in July and August 2011 when young and adult goats received a mineral mixture after approximately three days of restriction from the supplement. The animals were kept in barns with a high stocking density and had an inadequate supply of water. In the second outbreak, the goats were supplemented too with brewery residue added to 3.3% of the mixture mineral. From a flock of 191 goats, 12 animals (nine crossbreeds, two Anglo-Nubians and one Boer) showed nervous symptomatology, and the morbidity rate was 6.28%. The most frequent clinical signs were head lowering, head tilt, muscle weakness, mydriasis and ataxia. Three goats died, four recovered spontaneously from the first outbreak, and five recovered from the second outbreak over three days after treatment with dexamethasone, thiamine and gradual water supply. The lethality rate was 25%. In two animals, necropsy was performed, and no macro- or microscopic alterations in the nervous system or other organs were observed. These negative pathological findings indicate that the neurological clinical signs were initiated by functional disturbances in the central nervous system. In the brain, a high sodium concentration (3703 and 3675 ppm), compared with the reference values for cattle was detected. Normonatremia was observed in the sick goats, and hypernatremia was observed in the goats from the same lot of affected animals based on blood serum samples obtained before the first outbreak. These results pointed out that the goats were consuming high sodium concentrations. Normal values for the sick animals were assigned after rapid osmotic control via adequate water intake. We conclude that the salt poisoning on the goats occurred due to a high intake of the mineral mixture caused by management errors and associated with water restrictions.

In order to improve the integration of higher education resources, local governments should strengthen the administrative management of higher education and propose measures to promote social governance. Therefore, from the perspective of local autonomy, this paper puts forward the following hypotheses about local government behavior and public policy adjustment: whether local autonomy affects the adjustment of higher education policy, whether the role of local intervention policy and legal improvement overlaps, whether the impact on resource integration is perfect, whether the public supervision mechanism is perfect, whether the public plays a role in promoting the integration of educational resources, and whether local laws and regulations have an impact on the integration of educational resources, the educational environment, and the level of local governance. The results show that the policy intervention of local governments and the improvement of laws and regulations have a great impact on the integration of educational resources, which can optimize the educational structure and form a good educational environment, which is the direct factor of the integration of educational resources. Therefore, local governments should strengthen the introduction of intervention policies, improve laws and regulations, and guide the public to participate in the integration of education.