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The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had social and clinical effects over the healthcare system. Globally, over 314.019.135 confirmed cases and 5.507.370 deaths have been recorded at 12 January 2022, based on the Dashboard updated by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The continuous rise in the number of asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, and symptomatic patients has developed efficient and accessible models for prediction using Open Source Libraries and Cloud Services. This paper proposes different machine-learning algorithms to analyse the COVID-19 OpenData Resources from Mexico and Brazil, which represent the two major populations, economics and affected by disease countries in Latin America. This model uses only the COVID-19 patient's geographical, social conditions, economics conditions, clinical risk factors, symptom reports, and demographic data to predict recovery and death. The model of Mexico has an accuracy of 93% and the perceived mean of recall and the precision (F1 Score) of 0.79 on the dataset used. On the other hand, the model of Brazil has an accuracy of 69% and F1 score of 0.75 on the dataset studied. The result considers data from patients under the age of 0 and 120 years. The contribution of the work is the application of Big Data technologies and Machine Learning algorithms using Open Resource Libraries and Amazon Web Services (AWS) with the vision to improve the clinical diagnosis, even infectious disease with mathematical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its appearance in 2020, Brazil and Mexico have been among the most affected countries in the world by covid-19. Their respective presidents, Jair Bolsonaro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO), have played a leading role in specific policies during the pandemic. Their choices were both singular and counter- intuitive. On the health front, AMLO initially underplayed the seriousness of the situation, and the Brazilian president, Bolsonaro, defended a frankly negationist attitude, with a dramatic balance sheet, without his popularity being seriously affected. On the economic front, they have chosen policies that contradict not only each other but also their own supposed ideological stances. Bolsonaro, who is ranked on the far right, has implemented an emergency transfer program on a scale comparable to those of developed countries and the most massive the country has ever seen. Conversely, AMLO, considered a progressist, provided just a minimum policy package, maintaining his previous electoral program. By adopting a comparative approach and mobilizing a unique and diversified set of data, the objective of this paper is to explore these apparent contradictions. After having established the precise diagnosis of the policies implemented to deal with the crisis and the economic and health situation in the two countries during the 2020-2022 period, we propose an original interpretation grid of the central role played by the two presidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent world-wide trend of female chief executives struggling to maintain public support while facing corruption allegations and scandals poses the question of whether female politicians face stronger backlash for corruption than their male counterparts. Even though corruption scandals and allegations are not exclusive to countries led by female incumbents, notable figures such as former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and former Chilean President Michele Bachelet seem to have experienced more dramatic drops in public support when targeted by corruption allegations in comparison to male incumbents from their region. This paper tests whether beliefs about women's higher honesty and purity can lead voters to punish perceived transgressions by female politicians more harshly than when those are performed by men. Using survey-experiments conducted in Brazil and Mexico, the analyses find support for the gender-related backlash in Mexico and no evidence for it in Brazil. However, the backlash observed in Mexico is not larger among subjects holding views about women as less corrupt than men. Overall, the results suggest that the differential gender-related backlash against incumbents depends on individual and contextual-level factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this paper is to compare the state of Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs (CRP) in 2009 with 2015. Focus is directed on health care, training of health-providers, research, and the barriers to their implementation. Methods: All authors of RENAPREC-2009, and other cardiac rehabilitation leaders in Mexico were requested to participate. These centres were distributed into two groups: RENAPREC-2009 centres that participated in 2015, and the new CRP units. Results: In 2009 there were 14 centres, two of which disappeared and another two did not respond. CRP-units increased by 71% (n = 24), and their geographic distribution shows a centripetal pattern. The coverage of CRP-units was 0.02 centres per 100,000 inhabitants. Only 4.4% of eligible patients were referred to CRP, with a rate of 10.4 patients/100,000 inhabitants in 2015. The ratio of Clinical Cardiologists to Cardiac Rehabilitation Specialists was 94:1, and the ratio of Intervention Specialists to cardiac rehabilitation experts was 16:1. Cardiac rehabilitation activities and costs varied widely. Patient dropout rate in phase II was 12%. Several barriers were identified: financial crisis (83%), lack of skilled personnel (67%), deficient equipment (46%), inadequate areas (42%), and a reduced number of operating centres (38%). Conclusions: CRPs in Mexico are still in the process of maturing. Mexican CRP-centres have several strengths, like the quality of the education of the professionals and the multidisciplinary programs. However, the lack of referral of patients and the heterogeneity of procedures are still their main weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Paper studies wages differentials across levels of governments in Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay. • National government employees earn on average higher wages than observationally similar subnational employees, but difference disappears once individual heterogeneity is considered. • National and subnational public employees receive on average a wage premium with respect to private sector employment. • Results indicate public sector employees are positively selected in terms of their earnings potential in the private sector. Workers at subnational governments play a prominent role in the delivery of public services in most countries. Yet, information about their remuneration is scarce. Using data for Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay, we document that national government employees earn on average higher wages than observationally similar subnational employees; consequently, public–private sector wage gaps vary significantly by level of government. Then we use individual fixed-effects to estimate the wage premium to public sector employment (the wage gap net of selection effects) for Brazil and Mexico. We find that (i) both national and subnational public employees receive a significant wage premium with respect to private sector employment; and (ii) the difference between the national and subnational wage premiums is small in Brazil and null in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between infrastructure and total factor productivity (TFP) in the four major Latin American economies: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Design/methodology/approach – The authors hypothesise that an increase in infrastructure has an indirect effect on output by raising productivity. To assess this theory, the traditional Johansen methodology was used for testing the cointegration between TFP and physical measures of infrastructure stock, such as energy, roads, and telephones. The Lütkepohl, Saikkonen and Trenkler Test, which considers a possible level shift in the series and has better small sample properties, was applied to the same data set and the two tests were compared. Findings – The results do not support a robust long-term relationship between the series; the authors do not find strong evidence that cuts in infrastructure investment in some Latin American countries were the main reason for the fall in TFP during the 1970s and 1980s. Originality/value – The present paper addresses the empirical relationship between infrastructure and economic growth for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico between 1950 and 2000, using new time series econometric methods finding new evidences on this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years electricity sectors worldwide have undergone major transformations, referred to as the "energy transition". This has required energy planning to quickly adapt to provide useful inputs to the regulation activity so that a cost-effective electricity market emerges to facilitate the integration of renewables. This paper analyzes the role of system planning and regulations on two specific elements in the energy market design: the concept of firm capacity and the presence of distributed energy resources, both of which can be influenced by regulation. We assess the total cost of different regulatory mechanisms in the Brazilian and Mexican systems using optimization tools to determine optimal long-term expansion for a given regulatory framework. In particular, we quantitatively analyze the role of the current regulation in the total cost of these two electricity systems when compared to a reference "efficient" energy planning scenario that adopts standard cost-minimization principles and that is well suited to the most relevant features of the new energy transformation scenario. We show that two very common features of regulatory designs that can lead to distortions are: (i) renewables commonly having a lower "perceived cost" under the current regulations, either due to direct incentives such as tax breaks or due to indirect access to more attractive contracts or financing conditions; and (ii) requirements for reliability are often defined more conservatively than they should be, overstating the hardships imposed by renewable generation on the existing system and underestimating their potential to form portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioethanol as fuel oxygenator is currently being introduced in Mexico with an estimated yearly demand of 3 billion liters expected to be produced mainly from sugarcane. This paper studies how to employ some of the expertise acquired by Brazil during its transition from typical mills into advanced biorefineries to retrofit the Mexican sucroalcohol industry. A typical Mexican sugarcane factory design is retrofitted to three biorefinery designs commonly found in Brazil, which are an autonomous distillery, a biorefinery with 50:50 feedstock ratio for ethanol and sugar production and a molasses distillery. The results of a techno-economic analysis considering these four designs under Mexican conditions are presented, followed by an economic comparison of the autonomous distillery design operating under Mexican and Brazilian conditions. Sustainability analysis is then carried out to identify the advantages and drawbacks of each design. The analysis compares an environment-driven scenario promoting bioethanol production and use for phasing out fossil fuels, against a commercially focused framework considering only environmental and economic issues affecting stakeholders' profit. Results show in monetary terms the impact of each indicator of a retrofitting path from currently profitable biorefineries coproducing sugar and alcohol to sustainable distilleries using molasses and juice as feedstock to produce bioethanol. • Retrofitting the Mexican sugar industry with Brazilian expertise for ethanol production. • Techno-economic and sustainability analyses of all designs. • Calculation with same tools and bases, thus highlighting differences between countries. • Comparison of environment-driven sustainability versus current commercial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and related approaches to human-environment problems (e.g., Forest Transition Theory) generally posit an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and economic development, frequently utilizing a cross-national approach. After numerous years of research, the overall empirical evidence remains equivocal: case studies that appear to support key EKC hypotheses are contradicted by others that fail to demonstrate environmental recovery following increasing indices of economic development. This paper undertakes a critical review of EKC approaches, identifying their collective contributions and remaining gaps, and integrating insights from two case study regions in Mexico and Brazil relevant to a forest transition. The larger aim is to identify the arenas that hold the greatest promise for a re-conceptualization of EKC-related approaches to move from proximate understandings of environmental degradation/recovery patterns, to deeper explanations of the processes and institutions structuring those patterns across spatio-temporal scales. We argue that such a reworking is critical to comparative scientific analyses of dynamic and coupled human-environment systems, and for policy prescriptions targeting applied geographical issues and a transition towards sustainability at a variety of scales. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]