As questões de números 36 a 40 baseiam-se no texto seguinte.

House G.O.P. Leaders Agree to Extension of Payroll Tax Cut

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: December 22, 2011

WASHINGTON - Under a deal reached between House and Senate leaders, the House will now approve as early as Friday the
two-month extension of a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits approved by the Senate last Saturday, and the Senate will
appoint members of a House-Senate conference committee to negotiate legislation to extend both benefits through 2012.
House Republicans - who rejected an almost identical deal on Tuesday - collapsed under the political rubble that has
accumulated over the week, much of it from their own party, worried that the blockade would do serious damage to their appeal to
voters.
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, announced the decision over the phone to members on Thursday, and did not permit the
usual back and forth that is common on such calls, enraging many of them.
After his conversation with lawmakers, the speaker conceded to reporters that it might not have been "politically the smartest
thing in the world" for House Republicans to put themselves between a tax cut and the 160 million American workers who would benefit
from it, and to allow President Obama and Congressional Democrats to seize the momentum on the issue.
The agreement ended a partisan fight that threatened to keep Congress and Mr. Obama in town through Christmas and was
just the latest of the bitter struggles over fiscal policy involving House conservatives, the president and the Democratic-controlled
Senate.
Under the deal, the employee's share of the Social Security payroll tax will stay at the current level, 4.2 percent of wages,
through Feb. 29. In the absence of Congressional action, it would revert to the usual 6.2 percent next month. The government will also
continue paying unemployment insurance benefits under current policy through February. Without Congressional action, many of the
long-term unemployed would begin losing benefits next month.
In addition, under the agreement, Medicare will continue paying doctors at current rates for two months, averting a 27 percent
cut that would otherwise occur on Jan. 1.
The new deal makes minor adjustments to make it easier for small businesses to cope with the tax changes and prevents
manipulation of an employee's pay should the tax cut extension fail to go beyond two months.
Mr. Obama, who has reaped political benefits from the standoff, welcomed the outcome.
"This is good news, just in time for the holidays," he said in a statement. "This is the right thing [VERB 1] to strengthen our
families, grow our economy, and create new jobs. This is real money that will [VERB 2] a real difference in people's lives."

(Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/politics/senate-republican-leader-suggests-a-payroll-tax-deal.html?_r=1&nl=
todays hea dlines & emc=tha2&pagewanted=all)

As questões de números 31 a 35 baseiam-se no texto seguinte.

Making Performance Budgeting Work: New IMF Book

October 04, 2007

Member countries will find valuable advice on how to reform their budgeting practices to improve the effectiveness and
efficiency of public expenditure in a major new work on performance budgeting produced by the Fiscal Affairs Department. The book,
Performance Budgeting: Linking Funding and Results (500pp), came off the presses of the top UK publisher Palgrave Macmillan in
September.

Edited by FAD staff member Marc Robinson, the book contains a comprehensive treatment of contemporary performance
budgeting practice and theory. In a series of thematic chapters and case studies, the book discusses:
- The key forms of performance budgeting which [TO IMPLEMENT] around the world - how they differ, and what they have in
common points.
- Lessons from the experience of governments around the world - ranging from OECD nations to developing, middle-income
and transition countries - about what forms of performance budgeting work, under what circumstances, and with what
implementation strategies.
- How successful performance budgeting can improve aggregate fiscal discipline.
- The information requirements of performance budgeting, and
- The links between performance budgeting and other budgeting and public management reforms.
Many of the contributors to this work are leaders in performance budgeting implementation in their countries. Others are
respected academics and technical experts from the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations. Countries
covered in the case studies include the UK, USA, Australia, France, Chile, Spain, Russia, Colombia and Ethiopia.
One major focus of the book is performance budgeting as a tool for improved expenditure prioritization - that is, for helping to
shift limited public resources to the services of greatest social benefit. A key finding is that this type of performance budgeting will only
work if the budget process is fundamentally changed so that top politicians and bureaucrats systematically consider expenditure
priorities when formulating the budget. This means more than just considering the priorities for new spending. It requires also having
mechanisms to systematically review existing spending programs to identify what is ineffective and low priority and can, therefore, be
cut. This is what countries such as Chile and the United Kingdom have successfully done, and the United States is currently attempting
to achieve with its Program Assessment Rating Tool instrument. Conversely, it is a mistake to believe that merely changing the budget
classification and developing performance indicators will in itself improve the allocation of resources in the budget.
(Adapted from http://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2007/10/making-performa.html)

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                           Don't spend all your time at the office. Take a break.
                                 By Kim Painter, USA TODAY, April 7th, 2011
Remember the lunch hour? In a more relaxed, less plugged-in era, office workers would rise up midday to eat food at tables, gossip with co-workers, enjoy a book on a park bench or take a walk in the sun. Can it still be done, without invoking the scorn of desk-bound colleagues or enduring constant electronic interruptions? It can and should. Here are five ways to break free: 1. Give yourself permission. As the hair-color ads say, “You're worth it." Taking a break in the workday is more than an indulgence, though: It's a way of taking care of your body and mind, says Laura Stack, a time-management expert and author who blogs at theproductivitypro.com. “You have to eliminate the guilt and remind yourself that the more you take care of yourself, the better you are able to take care of others," she says. “We have to recharge our batteries. We have to refresh. It's OK." 2. Get a posse. “Indeed, many people are wishing they could just peel themselves away, but they don't have the discipline," Stack says. Thus, invite a co-worker to take daily walks with you or a group to gather for Friday lunches. Pretty soon, you'll be working in a happier place (and feeling less like a shirker and more like a leader). 3. Schedule it. Put it on your calendar and on any electronic schedule visible to co-workers. “Code yourself as 'unavailable.' Nobody has to know why," says Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. And, if a daily hour of “me time" seems impossible right now, then commit to just one or two big breaks a week. Or schedule several 15-minute leg-stretching, mind-freeing breaks each day. Keep those appointments, and spend them in “a cone of silence," without electronic devices, Vanderkam says. 4. Apply deadline pressure. The promise of a lunch break could make for a more productive morning: “Treat it as a deadline or a game," Stack says. Pick a meaty task or two that must be finished before lunch and dive in. Plan what you'll finish in the afternoon, too. That will free your mind to enjoy the break, Vanderkam says. 5. Eat at your desk. That's right: If you can't beat them, seem to join them. If you really don't care about eating elsewhere, “pack your lunch and eat it at your desk, and save the time for something you'd rather do," whether it's going to the gym or sneaking out to your car to read, Vanderkam says. (But remember, you still have to schedule this break.) While most co-workers care less about your habits than you think they do, she says, “this has the extra advantage that you can be seen eating at your desk." . Access on April 7th, 2011. Adapted.

                                                          Information Systems
Information Systems (IS) is concerned with the information that computer systems can provide to aid a company, non-profit or governmental organization in defining and achieving its goals. It is also concerned with the processes that an enterprise can implement and improve using information technology. IS professionals must understand both technical and organizational factors , 5 and must be able to help an organization determine how information and technology-enabled business processes can provide a foundation for superior organizational performance. They serve as a bridge between the technical and management communities within an organization. What information does the enterprise need? How is that information generated? Is it delivered to the people who need it? Is it presented to them in ways that permit them to use it readily? 10 Is the organization structured to be able to use technology effectively? Are the business processes of the organization well designed? Do they use the opportunities created by information technology fully? Does the organization use the communication and collaboration capabilities of information technologies appropriately? Is the organization capable of adapting quickly enough to changing external circumstances? These are the important issues that businesses rely on IS people to 15 address. A majority of IS programs are located in business schools; however, they may have different names such as management information systems, computer information systems, or business information systems. All IS degrees combine business and computing topics, but the emphasis between technical and organizational issues varies among programs. For example, 20 programs differ substantially in the amount of programming required. Traditionally, many graduates of IS programs have functioned in roles that are similar to the roles for which IT programs explicitly prepare their students. Information systems graduates continue to fill these roles, but the new programs in information technology offer an alternative path to these positions. INFORMATION Systems. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 03 jan. 2011. 

DIRECTIONS: Choose the CORRECT alternative to
answer questions 16 to 25.
Questions 16 to 20: Choose the CORRECT alternative to
answer questions 16 to 20, according to TEXT 01.

Model copes with chaos to deliver relief Computer program helps responders transport supplies in tough conditions
By Rachel Ehrenberg Science News, Web edition: Monday, February 21st, 2011
WASHINGTON — Getting blood or other perishable supplies to an area that’s been struck by an earthquake or hurricane isn’t as simple as asking what brown can do for you. But a new model quickly determines the best routes and means for delivering humanitarian aid, even in situations where bridges are out or airport tarmacs are clogged with planes.
The research, presented February 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, could help get supplies to areas which have experienced natural disasters or help prepare for efficient distribution of vaccines when the flu hits.
Efficient supply chains have long been a goal of manufacturers, but transport in fragile networks — where supply, demand and delivery routes may be in extremely rapid flux — requires a different approach, said Anna Nagurney of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who presented the new work. Rather than considering the shortest path from one place to another to maximize profit, her system aims for the cleanest path at minimum cost, while capturing factors such as the perishability of the product and the uncertainty of supply routes. ‘You don’t know where demand is, so it’s tricky,’ said Nagurney. ‘It’s a multicriteria decision-making problem.’
By calculating the total cost associated with each link in a network, accounting for congestion and incorporating penalties for time and products that are lost, the computer model calculates the best supply chain in situations where standard routes may be disrupted.
‘Mathematical tools are essential to develop formal means to predict, and to respond to, such critical perturbations,’ said Iain Couzin of Princeton University, who uses similar computational tools to study collective animal behavior. ‘This is particularly important where response must be rapid and effective, such as during disaster scenarios … or during epidemics or breaches of national security.
’ The work can be applied to immediate, pressing situations, such as getting blood, food or medication to a disaster site, or to longer-term problems such as determining the best locations for manufacturing flu vaccines. . Retrieved April 7th, 2011.

'CityVille' now bigger on Facebook than 'FarmVille'
(Mashable) -- Facebook game developer Zynga has proved once
again that it knows exactly what it needs to do to keep millions of
Facebook users happy and occupied.
In less than a month, its latest game "CityVille"___ ______
(become) the most popular application on Facebook, surpassing
Zynga's previous hit "FarmVille" in all areas.
According to AppData, "CityVille" now has 16.8 million daily
active users, compared to "FarmVille's" 16.4 million. Looking at
monthly active users, "CityVille" is also ahead with 61.7 million
users, while "FarmVille" trails behind with 56.8 million users.
Zynga's "FrontierVille" and "Texas HoldEm Poker" also round out
the top five: put those four apps together (we'll disregard the fact
that many of those users overlap for a second) and you have a
very impressive number: 184 million active users across four
games.
The only non-Zynga app in the top five list is "Phrases," _____ at
one point threatened to take the top place, but is now
overshadowed by both "CityVille" and "FarmVille."
"CityVille's" future success wasn't hard to predict after an
amazingly good start at the beginning of December, but it's still
impressive to see Zynga amassing tens of millions of users in a
matter of days, proving that all that venture capital that went into
the company isn't there by accident.
Fonte :cnn.com