Ecological payback in national energy matrix: analysis of wind energy expansion

Sustainable development concern has become subject of recurrent discussions over the last years due to the duet large greenhouse gases emissions and world growth, especially in developing countries. Electrical sector is one of the major segments responsible for greenhouse gases emissions, but also the one in which modern society depends the most for life standard maintenance, economic and social activities. A renewable source considered in Brazilian energy sector expansion is wind power, which has a 143 GW potential. As such, the paper aims to estimate environmental impacts (CO2 emission) involved in wind power plants construction phase and return time for compensating these emissions during operation. Ecological payback is developed through CO2 emission analysis of different energy sectors required as inputs in construction and final emission reduction due to this “clean” power plant operation in national electrical matrix. Estimation of economic and environmental impacts is based on input-output methodology, using a 2004 matrix for Brazilian economy. Results point out for a maximum payback period of 4 months in worst case scenario, and major pollution contribution of Steel and Products Manufacturing during construction.Input-Output; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Economics; Wind Energy

Ecological payback in Brazil energy matrix: analysis of a wind energy expansion

Sustainable development concern has become subject of recurrent discussions over the last years due to the duet large greenhouse gases emissions and world growth, especially in developing countries. Electrical sector is one of the major segments responsible for greenhouse gases emissions, but also the one in which modern society depends the most for life standard maintenance, economic and social activities. A renewable source considered in Brazilian energy sector expansion is wind power, which has a 143 GW potential. As such, the paper aims to estimate environmental impacts (CO2 emission) involved in wind power plants construction phase and return time for compensating these emissions during operation. Ecological payback is developed through CO2 emission analysis of different energy sectors required as inputs in construction and final emission reduction due to this “clean” power plant operation in national electrical matrix. Estimation of economic and environmental impacts is based on input-output methodology, using a 2004 matrix for Brazilian economy. Results point out for a maximum payback period of 4 months in worst case scenario, and major pollution contribution of Steel and Products Manufacturing during construction.Input-Output; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Economics; Wind Energy; Brazil

Enabling IoT in Manufacturing: from device to the cloud

Industrial automation platforms are experiencing a paradigm shift. With the new technol-ogies and strategies that are being applied to enable a synchronization of the digital and real world, including real-time access to sensorial information and advanced networking capabilities to actively cooperate and form a nervous system within the enterprise, the amount of data that can be collected from real world and processed at digital level is growing at an exponential rate. Indeed, in modern industry, a huge amount of data is coming through sensorial networks em-bedded in the production line, allowing to manage the production in real-time. This dissertation proposes a data collection framework for continuously collecting data from the device to the cloud, enabling resources at manufacturing industries shop floors to be handled seamlessly. The framework envisions to provide a robust solution that besides collecting, transforming and man-aging data through an IoT model, facilitates the detection of patterns using collected historical sensor data. Industrial usage of this framework, accomplished in the frame of the EU C2NET project, supports and automates collaborative business opportunities and real-time monitoring of the production lines

Measurement of water level in urban streams under bad weather conditions

Flood control and water resources management require monitoring the water level in rivers and streams. Water level measurement techniques increasingly consider image processing procedures. Most of the systems use a staff gauge to support the waterline detection. However, these techniques can fail when applied to urban stream channels due to water undulation, debris on the water surface, and traces of rain captured by the camera, and other adverse effects on images can be quite dramatic on the results. The importance of considering these effects is that they are usually associated with the variation in the water level with the occurrence of rain. The technique proposed in this work uses a larger detection zone to minimize the effects that tend to obstruct the waterline. The developed system uses an infrared camera to operate during the day and night. Images acquired in different weather conditions helped to evaluate the proposed technique. The water level measurement accuracy was about 1.8 cm for images taken during the day and 2.8 cm for images taken at night. During short periods of heavy rain, the accuracy was 2.6 cm for the daytime and 3.4 cm for the nighttime. Infrared lighting can improve detection accuracy at night. The developed technique provides good accuracy under different weather conditions by combining information from various detection positions to deal with waterline detection issues.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Between Two Worlds: an Ethnographic Study of Gay Consumer Culture in Rio de Janeiro

It is not easy to study socially marginalized groups such as gays, ethnic minorities, and others. This is, however,an extremely relevant topic in the consumer behavior area since the status of members of a modern consumersociety is largely denied to stigmatized social groups (Barbosa, 2006). The objective of this work is to shed lighton how gay men in Rio de Janeiro use the discourse associated with their possessions to build and maintain thesymbolic and hierarchical boundaries between the gay and heterosexual worlds, as well as to investigate the roleconsumption plays in this boundary setting. An ethnographic observation of a group of gay men in Rio deJaneiro was conducted, along with 20 semi-structured interviews with openly gay men between 2005 and 2008.The results suggest that: (a) the world culturally built by gays seems to be divided into a gay world and aheterosexual world, where the division between these two worlds not only happens in their minds, but also intheir possessions and purchasing decisions; (b) the meaning of gay mens’ places of consumption range fromprofane to sacred along their lives; and (c) in the gay world, the body is seen both as a cultural construction andas an asset

Projecto de uma máquina especial para maquinação

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

WRC Vodafone Rally de Portugal fostering tourism development

Events influence the destinations that host them. It was therefore considered interesting to analyze the influence of the Portuguese Rally sports’ event at Porto. This research aims at evaluating the role of the Rally of Portugal in Porto as a tourism destination. It aims to identify the stakeholders’ opinion regarding the impact of the Rally of Portugal on tourism demand in the city of Porto, to evaluate the impact of the Rally of Portugal in Porto as a destination, to identify the conditioning components of the realization of the Rally of Portugal, and to perceive strategies to be applied in future editions, in less secure contexts. A qualitative methodology was used for data collection, through the convenience sampling method, according to the availability of the participants. Individual semi-structured online interviews using the Zoom platform were applied to event organizers, a former pilot, and a pilot of the event. It was verified that the Porto Street Stage, stage of the Rally of Portugal that takes place in the city of Porto, presents many positive impacts for the destination, which in the perspective of the organization include the international projection of the city of Porto (through the presence of the specialized international press), with passage of the circuit by the main urban tourism resources, increase of income, complementary social programs to the event, and pride of the resident community, regarding the reception of the event. From this perspective, the fact that the event was not held in 2020 due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly reflected in the absence of revenue at the destination, with a negative impact in organizational terms, given the advanced state of this process when the event was canceled, in particular the stages of route definition, budgeting, and communication/dissemination, with the involvement of specialized teams.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Da crise de refugiados na Europa: Uma ameaça à segurança

No mundo do século XXI, a Europa vê chegar às suas portas milhares de refugiados que numa ânsia desassossegada procuram a vida e os direitos que lhes tentam levar nos países de origem, devastados por conflitos infindáveis e pela miséria. À medida que os números aumentam, instala-se no seio europeu um medo daquilo que tamanho influxo poderá significar para a segurança dos países de acolhimento, exacerbado pelo fenómeno ser frequentemente equacionado com o terrorismo e a criminalidade transnacional. Ao longo deste trabalho procuramos compreender o fenómeno dos refugiados e perspetivar quais as ameaças à segurança que o mesmo implica para uma Europa que, ao longo das últimas décadas, procurou securitizar as migrações através de políticas restritivas e instrumentos de controlo e vigilância do outro que se consolidou no imaginário ocidental como potencial uma ameaça. Numa propensão evolutiva percecionámos que a Polícia, como ator natural no palco da segurança e rosto visível do Estado e das suas leis, deve adotar um papel de relevo em todo este contexto, compreendendo e preparando-se para as incipientes realidades que se avizinham, para que lhe seja possível assumir uma atuação pró-ativa no complexo processo de receção, integração e acompanhamento dos refugiados e antecipar eventuais ameaças à segurança./ Dans le XXIe siècle, l'Europe voit dans sa porte des milliers de réfugiés qui cherchent la vie et les droits qui ont été dans leurs pays d'origine, dévastés par les conflits et la misère. Avec l'augmentation de ces chiffres, s´installe en Europe le peur que ce afflux peut signifier pour la sécurité des pays d'accueil, exacerbée par l´association frequente de ce phénomène au terrorisme et à la criminalité transnationale. Dans cette étude, nous cherhons comprendre le phénomène des réfugiés et les ménaces de sécurité que cela implique pour une Europe qui, au cours des dernières décennies, a cherché securitizer la migration avec las politiques restrictifs et les instruments pour controler et surveil l'autre qui a été consolidée comme une menace potentielle, dans l'imaginaire ocidental. Dans une perspective évolutive, nous perçoivent la police comme un acteur naturel sur la scène de la sécurité et de la face visible de l'État et de ses lois, devraient jouer un rôle important dans ce contexte, pour se préparer à la réalité à venir, pour être proactif dans le processus complexe de la réception, l'intégration et la surveillance des réfugiés et anticiper les menaces de sécurité./ In the twenty-first century world, Europe found at its doors thousands of refugees, seeking the life and the rights which were taken away in their home countries, ravaged by endless conflict and misery. As the numbers increase, Europe starts to fear what this influx could mean for the security of the host countries, exacerbated by the often association of this phenomenon with terrorism and transnational crime. Throughout this study, we try to understand the phenomenon of refugees and the security threats that it implies for a Europe which, over the past decades, tried to securitize migration through restrictive policies and instruments to control and surveil the other, which is consolidated in the western imagination as a potential threat. On an evolutionary propensity, we perceived that the police, as a natural actor on the security stage and as the visible face of the State and its laws, should take an important role in this context, understanding and preparing itself for the incipient realities that lie ahead, to allow it to assume a proactive acting in the complex process of reception, integration and monitoring of refugees and also to anticipate possible security threats