Aditivos Alimentares para Aquicultura e Aquaricultura e Respectiva Utilização

A presente invenção consiste em aditivos alimentares para aquicultura e aquaricultura. Estes aditivos compreendem, na sua composição um amino ácido, o metil-L-triptofano ou os seus isómeros, com o objectivo de melhorar a apetência dos alimentos utilizados em aquicultura e aquaricultura, tanto em peixes como em outros organismos aquáticos quando em cultura. Desta forma, o objectivo da presente invenção tem aplicação na indústria agro-alimentar

Water Pricing and Social Equity in Portuguese Municipalities

Water supply services are Services of General Interest (SGI), subject to specific public service obligations, such as universality, continuity, quality, affordability, transparency, and consumer protection. There is an extensive empirical literature on the design of optimal prices. However, these contributions tend to neglect the issue of universal service and equity concerning the volume of water for basic needs (the ‘essential minimum quantity’). Addressing this gap in the literature, and using empirical data for the Portuguese municipalities, this paper aims to evaluate whether income-related equity considerations are embodied in water supply Portuguese municipalities’ tariffs. Accordingly, essential minimum quantities of water for representative households are computed, and then compared with the lowest tariff block’s upper limit by water utility. Next, representative households are ranked by costs underlying essential minimum quantities and by income. This analysis also considers concentration curves and indexes which show that water bills are regressive, i.e., there is socioeconomic inequity favourable to the better-off representative households.Water Policy, Water Pricing, Social Equity, Efficient Water Use, Portugal.

Evaluation of non-market goods: the relevance of considering “behavioural anomalies”

Texto da comunicação apresentada a International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) 2012 Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 16-19 de junho de 2012Environmental valuation techniques are intended to provide valuable insights in helping scientists and decision-makers to make informed choices about the trade-offs that are inherent to the scarcity restrictions of our daily decisions. However, among other limitations, values obtained on the assumption of a rational behaviour may only be of use for policy guidance if people make consistent and systematic choices. This research embraces the challenge of contributing to organize the complexities of valuation of non-market goods, rather than just ignoring them. We address the ongoing debate on symptoms of bounded rationality in studies applying stated or revealed preferences methods by examining the theoretically consistency of preferences using observed and intended behaviour without monetary values being directly asked. The environmental good considered in our empirical approach is a national wood (Mata do Bussaco), located in a European country (Portugal). Overall, the results reveal that visitors are sensitive to both price and quality changes. In the deterioration scenario, the intended number of trips would be seriously reduced and respondents would suffer an important welfare loss. Another key finding is the apparent inconsistency between preferences expressed by revealed and observed behaviour. As inconsistencies are detected for changes resulting from manager’s action, it is argued that they are likely the outcome of strategic behaviour

On Collaborative Aerial and Surface Robots for Environmental Monitoring of Water Bodies

Part 8: Robotics and ManufacturingInternational audienceRemote monitoring is an essential task to help maintaining Earth ecosystems. A notorious example is the monitoring of riverine environments. The solution purposed in this paper is to use an electric boat (ASV - Autonomous Surface Vehicle) operating in symbiosis with a quadrotor (UAV – Unmanned Air Vehicle). We present the architecture and solutions adopted and at the same time compare it with other examples of collaborative robotics systems, in what we expected could be used as a survey for other persons doing collaborative robotics systems. The architecture here purposed will exploit the symbiotic partnership between both robots by covering the perception, navigation, coordination, and integration aspects

The Role of Scent-marking in Patchy and Highly Fragmented Populations of the Cabrera Vole (Microtus cabrerae Thomas, 1906)

Rodent scent-marking is often used for territorial defense and self-advertisement, and both functions often entail the continuous scent-marking of a large area with high costs. In species with highly-fragmented populations and low density, in which the likelihood of social encounters is low,the costs of continuous scent-marking might exceed the associated fitness benefits; therefore, less intensive scent-marking only to signal presence to the opposite sex may be used. This hypothesis was tested in captivity with the Cabrera vole, a species with highly fragmented and low-density populations. Firstly, to assess the unknown scent-marking behaviour of the Cabrera voles, we conducted an assay wherein voles could scent-mark a clean substrate. Both sexes marked with urine and faeces, but never with anogenital secretions, and the amount of scent-marks was not different between sexes. In the subsequent assay, voles of each sex were given the choice of scent-mark on clean substrates or on substrates previously scent-marked by males or females. Both sexes marked with urine a larger area on substrates pre-marked by the opposite sex than on substrates pre-marked by the same-sex and clean substrates; however, no differences were found in the frequency of fecal boli deposited on the three types of substrate, and no anogenital secretions were found. The clear preference of receivers to scent-mark with urine the substrate pre-marked by the opposite sex strongly suggests that Cabrera voles use urine scent-marking for inter-sexual communication, probably to increase mate-finding likelihood, rather than for territorial defense and/or self-advertisement

Municípios de alta vulnerabilidade à ocorrência da febre amarela silvestre no Estado de São Paulo, Brasil

Until 1999 the endemic cases of Sylvatic Yellow Fever were located in the states of northern, midwestern and pre-Amazon regions. Since then, the disease progressively expanded its territory of occurrence, cases being registered beyond the traditional boundaries of endemism. The São Paulo State is considered to be part of this context, since after decades without registration of autochthonous cases of the disease, it reported, in 2000 and 2008-2009, epizootic occurrence in non-human primates and 30 cases in humans. Facts like these, added to the increase in incidences of serious adverse effects resulting from the Yellow Fever vaccination, have highlighted the importance of defining priority municipalities for vaccination against the disease in the state. Two groups of municipalities, some affected and some non-affected by YF, were compared for environmental variables related to the eco-epidemiology of the disease according to literature. The Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was used to pinpoint the factor able to differentiate the two groups of municipalities and define the levels of risk. The southeast region of the São Paulo State was considered to be the area with a higher number of municipalities classified as high risk and should be considered a priority for the application of prevention measures against Yellow Fever.Até o ano de 1999, no Brasil, casos endêmicos de Febre Amarela Silvestre estavam localizados nos estados das regiões Norte, Centro-Oeste e pré-amazônica. Desde então, a doença vem progressivamente expandindo seu território de ocorrência, sendo registrados casos além das fronteiras tradicionais de endemismo. Neste contexto se insere o estado de São Paulo que, após décadas sem registro de casos autóctones da doença, reportou em 2000 e 2008-2009 epizootias em primatas não humanos e 30 casos humanos. Fatos como este, somados a crescente incidência de eventos adversos graves relacionados à vacinação contra Febre Amarela, demonstram a importância de serem definidos municípios prioritários para a vacinação contra a doença no estado. Assim, dois grupos de municípios, afetados e não-afetados pela Febre Amarela, foram comparados para variáveis ambientais relacionadas com a eco-epidemiologia da doença segundo a literatura. A Análise por Correspondência Múltipla foi utilizada para gerar um fator capaz de diferenciar os dois grupos de municípios e definir os níveis de risco. Após aplicação da metodologia para os municípios atualmente localizados fora da área de recomendação de vacinação contra Febre Amarela, a região sudeste do estado foi considerada prioritária para aplicação de medidas preventivas contra a doenç

Regional planning insights from a portuguese bi-regional input-output model – the potential impact of agri food industry

Comunicação apresentada em 19th APDR Congress on Place-Based Policies and Economic Recovery, Braga, 2013In Portugal, the public debate at regional level is typically engaged in the discussion of asymmetries amongst the ‘interior’ and the ‘coast’. What is often discussed, with political and social relevance, is the extent of the interior’s delay (in terms of development) comparatively to the coastal region, and into what extent the dynamics of the economy, or eventually the ‘bias’ introduced by public policies, contributes to this drawback. Interestingly, however, the Portuguese regional science has miscarried this debate, largely on the grounds that the official statistics do not include this cleavage. Indeed, the design of the NUTS II in Portugal splits the country horizontally, forgetting the vertical gap that splits the interior regions from the coastal ones. The first objective of this paper is therefore to refocus the debate - in scientific terms – on the actual territorial disparity in Portugal: the contrast Coast-Interior. Accordingly, this paper starts by presenting the structure of a bi-regional Input-Output (IO) model for the Portuguese Economy. We consider a rectangular IO model (431 products by 125 industries), decomposing the Portuguese economy into two regions with comparable territorial sizes (the Coastal Region, comprising 44% of the Portuguese continental area, and the Interior Region). the model is ‘closed’ for the private consumption of households below 65 (which is supposed to be endogenous, as it depends on regional employment and therefore on households’ earnings. Multi-regional IO models describe the inter-sectoral dependencies both within the region and between the regions. The main aim is then to assess how the effects of a shock that hits only one of the regions are ‘distributed’ among the two regions. In particular, we intend to analyse at a greater detail the role of the agri-food sector in the Interior Region. Overall results illustrate the dependence of the Interior on the Coastal region, and that the (positive or negative) effects of a shock that hits the Interior Region tend to leak significantly to the Coastal Region, while an exogenous event in the Coastal Region tends to see its effects relatively more contained within the region.Thus, this analysis can be particularly relevant to policy-makers in dealing with regional and territorial planning, as they are better informed about the root causes of some outcomes. Accordingly, a summary of the key lessons learned and a discussion of their policy relevance, both at regional and national levels, will be offered.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

La cadena de valor de los productos forestales y los costes de su remodelación: impacto multirregional de la reducción de las industrias de pulpa y papel en Portugal

Las evaluaciones macroeconómicas de la industria forestal tienden a subestimar su impacto en las economías regionales. Este trabajo propone un concepto más amplio – la "cadena de valor de los productos forestales"- que incluye la contribución de las actividades que dependen (directa e indirectamente) de la silvicultura y los productos forestales. Con una metodología basada en un modelo de input-output multirregional y centrado en la economía portuguesa. Los resultados elucidan el papel del eucalipto en las producciones de pulpa, papel y cartón y artículos de papel y cartón. Finalmente, se evalúan las consecuencias macroeconómicas proyectadas para una reducción de estas producciones.Forestry industry macroeconomic assessments typically concentrate on the production, harvesting, and earliest processing of wood products, underestimating the full range of forests impacts in regional economies. This work proposes a broader concept – “forestry products value chain”– that ponders the contribution of the downstream activities relying (directly and indirectly) on Silviculture and Forestry products. The paper adopts a methodology based on a Multi-Regional Input-Output framework. We apply this approach to the Portuguese economy. Results clarify the role of eucalyptus in “Pulp”, “Paper and Cardboard” and “Paper and Cardboard Articles”. Finally, the projected wider macroeconomic consequences from a reduction of these productions is evaluated

Modelling of transcritical and supercritical nitrogen jets

The present paper addresses the modelling of fuel injection at conditions of high pressure and temperature which occur in a variety of internal combustion engines such as liquid fuel rocket engines, gas turbines, and modern diesel engines. For this investigation a cryogenic nitrogen jet ranging from transcritical to supercritical conditions injected into a chamber at supercritical conditions was modelled. Previously a variable density approach, originally conceived for gaseous turbulent isothermal jets, imploying the Favre averaged Navier-Stokes equations together with a “k-ε” turbulence model, and using Amagats law for the determination of density was applied. This approach allows a good agreement with experiments mainly at supercritical injection conditions. However, some departure from experimental data was found at transcritical injection conditions. The present approach adds real fluid thermodynamics to the previous approach, and the effects of heat transfer. The results still show some disagreement at supercritical conditions mainly in the determination of the potential core length but significantly improve the prediction of the jet spreading angle at transcritical injection conditions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio