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This manuscript presents an experimental and modeling approach in order to characterize the stiffness loss of bioabsorbable polymer filaments due to hydrolysis. In this regard, bioabsorbable suture yarns (poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid—PLGA) were chosen as a representative material for the present investigation. The observed mechanical response was characterized by means of a thermodynamically consistent constitutive variational framework. Usually, two different damage variables are assumed to take place in this class of materials: a hydrolytic damage (long-term degradation) and a strain-driven damage (short-term degradation). This work concerns the proposition of a constitutive model that only considers the hydrolytic damage, in which a specific strain energy and a proper dissipation damage potential were tailored to model the tested material. A nonlinear curve fitting procedure based on Particle Swarm Optimization was performed to identify the constitutive parameters. A set of numerical simulations demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed constitutive model to predict damage-induced creep and damage-induced stress relaxation, behaviors that can be used as design criteria in absorbable implants. The main achieved results show that the proposed constitutive approach leads to a simple but effective model capable to drive the first steps in the design of absorbable biomedical devices. The present variational framework can be extended to study the constitutive response of other bioabsorbable polymers, accounting for viscous and/or plastic behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate the impact of exchange rate movements on wage determination in unionized labor markets. Using a simple model of international oligopoly, the authors show that organized labor has a rational incentive to accept lower wages in the face of a currency appreciation. They examine this proposition empirically using a matched worker-firm data set for Portugal and, though the impact varies considerably with worker characteristics, find results consistent with the predictions of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are various reasons for the dissolution of the productivist coalition and the formation of an antidevelopmentalist bourgeois united front during Dilma Rousseff's first term. With the intention of accelerating the pace of Lulism, Rousseff actively opposed neoliberalism, but state intervention alienated the industrialists even though, paradoxically, it aimed to favor them. On a small scale, Rousseff's developmentalist experiment may have followed in the footsteps that led to the 1964 military coup. Diferentes razões apontam para a dissolução da coalizão produtivista e a formação de uma frente única burguesa antidesenvolvimentista durante o primeiro mandato de Dilma Rousseff. Com a intenção de acelerar o passo do lulismo, Dilma se contrapôs ativamente ao neoliberalismo, mas a intervenção estatal alienou os industriais, apesar de, paradoxalmente, tentar favorecê-los. Em ponto pequeno, o ensaio desenvolvimentista de Dilma pode ter seguido as pegadas que resultou no golpe de 1964. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article discusses issues related to the flow of critical advanced technology to North-South and its implications for international security in the post Cold War period. It was during the era of Cold War that the West kept East in a state of oblivion about advanced technology for fear of the military threat it might pose to international security. In order to develop rapid defense industrialization, a number of Third World nations have grown heavily dependent on technology transfers from advanced industrial economies.