An experimental analysis of grandfathering vs dynamic auctioning in the EU ETS

This study constitutes a first attempt to experimentally test the performance of a 100% auction versus a 100% free allocation of CO2 permits under the rules and parameters that mimic the EU ETS (imperfect competition, uncertainty in emissions’ control, and allowing banking). It also incorporates a first attempt to include in the analysis measures of the risk preferences of subjects participating in emission permits experiments. Another distinctive feature of this study is the implementation of a theoretically appropriate auction format for the primary allocation of emission permits. Our experimental results indicate that the EU ETS has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions, achieving targets considerably more restrictive than the current ones at high efficiency levels, both with auctioned and free emission permits. Auctioning, however, reveals a clear potential to do better than grandfathering the initial allocation of permits. In addition, the results reveal that concerns about undue scarcity, and corresponding high prices, in secondary markets generated by a primary auction market are not warranted under the proposed dynamic auction format.EU ETS, auctioning, grandfathering, banking, Ausubel auction

Evaluation of public policies in Portuguese regional development context – a preliminary methodological approach supported in north region

The evaluation of territorial programs and plans has been gaining importance, both in political-institutional speeches and practices and in academic reflections. In Portugal, the structure of planning, operacionalized on a vast number of quite recent instruments, requires an effort of articulation in the guidelines to various scales (from European until the municipal) and of the various fields (some sectoral, others, of more transversal nature). The development of monitoring systems, as well as the generalisation of the evaluation procedures, answer to the need of articulation between policies and support the strategic nature that is planning today. As a part of the Research Project SPOTIA - Sustainable Spatial Policy Orientations and Territorial Impact Assessment - Contribution to Portuguese context' (Centre of Geographical Studies – University of Lisbon to the Ministry of Science and Technologies), this paper aims to present an example of the first outputs of this research on the analysis of coherence between three different instruments planning, such as the National Policy Planning (PNPOT), a guiding document of national level, the Regional Spatial Plan to Northern Territory (PROT-Norte), the regional guidance document, and the Regional Operational Programme (PO-Norte), the regional program associated to a financing plan and program implementation. The analysis of coherence between these documents is not only between their general, strategic and specific objectives, but also by the indicator system assessment of each document. With this analysis we can reach the domains that are constantly, or not, present in these documents. In this context, a first essay of a methodological approach on evaluation of public policies in Portuguese context will be presented.

Globalisation process, urban and regional dynamics in Portugal

The globalisation process has been changing the Portuguese productive structure but also the urban and regional economic geography, phenomenon particularly important after Portuguese integration in the European Community in 1986. The increase of foreign direct investment (FDI), the growth of the service sector, the industrial restructuring and the change of exports constitute the main economic effects of globalisation in Portugal. In the present paper we will present a brief empirical analysis of these recent trends and their urban and regional dynamics.N/

Metodologia de análise das dinâmicas do uso e cobertura da terra: o caso do estado de Santa Catarina - Brasil entre 2000 e 2010

The aim of this paper is to examine land use and land cover changes and to relate it to the potential driving forces observed in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, during the period from 2000 to 2010. The methodology consists of identifying trends in land use and land cover changes; indicating possible explanatory factors by means of Principal Component Factor Analysis and elaborating a final typology, based on Cluster Analysis. Results point to the considerable expansion and increased intensity of agricultural activity as well as silviculture throughout the state and the loss of native vegetation, suggesting the need for protective actions and land use and cover regulations, particularly from an environmental perspective, to frame the development of intensive and mechanized agricultural activity.Este artigo objetiva verificar a dinâmica do uso e cobertura da terra e relacioná-la com potenciais forças motrizes dessa dinâmica no estado de Santa Catarina, Brasil, para o período de 2000 a 2010. A metodologia consiste na identificação de tendências na dinâmica de uso e cobertura da terra; apontar possíveis fatores explicativos com base na análise fatorial por componentes principais e na elaboração de uma tipologia final, baseada na análise de clusters. Como resultados, nota-se uma forte expansão e fortalecimento da atividade agropecuária e da silvicultura pelo estado, e perda da vegetação nativa, o que aponta para a necessidade de desenvolver medidas de proteção e de regulamentação da cobertura e uso da terra nomeadamente na vertente ambiental, enquadrando o desenvolvimento de uma atividade agropecuária intensiva e mecanizada.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

URBACT Health & Greenspace network. Health-responsive planning and management of urban green infrastructure

In 2017, WHO presented eight classes of green spaces: roadside greenery and other vegetation barriers that could be found along streets or rail tracks; small urban green spaces (such as gardens or pocket parks) and playgrounds; green roofs and facades; parks and urban meadows; greenways and corridors (such as green trails for walking/cycling); green with blue spaces (that could be found in coastal, riverside or lakeside trails); recreational and urban gardening facilities (such as community gardens, sport and play areas and school grounds); and finally the facilitated access to urban woodlands, forests and natural wildlife areas.2 A set of dimensions could characterise green spaces; their location, distance to users, size, quality and security, all aspects that could be aggregated in an “availability and accessibility” dimension. Besides, there are also aspects related with landscape quality and the user’s perception, designated as “aesthetic” dimension, that include aspects like the type of services provided by green spaces and the possibilities of management of these spaces.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluating partitioning and bucketing strategies for Hive-based Big Data Warehousing systems

Hive has long been one of the industry-leading systems for Data Warehousing in Big Data contexts, mainly organizing data into databases, tables, partitions and buckets, stored on top of an unstructured distributed file system like HDFS. Some studies were conducted for understanding the ways of optimizing the performance of several storage systems for Big Data Warehousing. However, few of them explore the impact of data organization strategies on query performance, when using Hive as the storage technology for implementing Big Data Warehousing systems. Therefore, this paper evaluates the impact of data partitioning and bucketing in Hive-based systems, testing different data organization strategies and verifying the efficiency of those strategies in query performance. The obtained results demonstrate the advantages of implementing Big Data Warehouses based on denormalized models and the potential benefit of using adequate partitioning strategies. Defining the partitions aligned with the attributes that are frequently used in the conditions/filters of the queries can significantly increase the efficiency of the system in terms of response time. In the more intensive workload benchmarked in this paper, overall decreases of about 40% in processing time were verified. The same is not verified with the use of bucketing strategies, which shows potential benefits in very specific scenarios, suggesting a more restricted use of this functionality, namely in the context of bucketing two tables by the join attribute of these tables.This work is supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007043 and FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013, and by European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER com-ponent, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project no. 002814; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-002814]

Reconceptualising public spaces of (IN)equality: sensing and creating layers of visibility

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Geografia e Planeamento Territorial - Especialidade: Geografia HumanaSpace and social identities mutual relation of constitution and reproduction lead us to the understanding that space reflects power relations and hegemonic discourses, and that inequality can perpetuate itself through the ways space is organized, experienced, represented and created. Public spaces are constructed around particular notions of appropriate sexual comportment, reflecting and reproducing heteronormativity, as they exclude non-normative sexualities, such as lesbian sexualities. In a context of a heteronormative socio-spatial landscape women can decide not to disclose their non-normative sexual orientation, leading to a pervasive invisibility of lesbian sexualities in public spaces. Concurrently the pervasive invisibility of lesbian sexualities in public spaces reinforces power inequalities, feeding back the heteronormative socio-spatial landscape. Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is still a widespread reality in Portugal in spite of the significant legal advances towards equality in recent years. Discriminated minority groups, such as lesbians, experience power inequalities in their everyday lives, and their spatial invisibility in public spaces contributes to their disempowerment. Communication technologies recast the organization and production of the spatial and temporal scenes of social life and they open new possibilities of public action. The production of alternative representations of space, based on individuals’ georeferenced experiences, thoughts and emotions are increasingly supported by the potentialities of Internet based technologies, such as the ever more easy-to-use online software. The potential of these technologies to promote the agency, to change power relations and to disrupt the hegemonic discourse increase as more people become the authors of a complementary flow of knowledge, information, memories and stories. This research explores the potential of geospatial online practices, based upon the experiences, emotions and feelings of lesbian and bisexual women to disclose the socially encoded meanings of different bodies in specific spatial, temporal and cultural contexts, highlighting how spaces and sexual identities are mutually constitutive. This research project aims to explore the potential of collaborative web mapping to promote the agency and empowerment of lesbian and bisexual women. It is structured in three phases: ‘Mapping the landscape’ aims to map spaces of lesbian and gay visibility in public spaces to contextualise the hetero pervasive reality in Portugal; the second phase ‘Sensing the landscape’ focuses on the intersections of gender and sexual orientation, aiming to identify significant dimensions of space and places that relate to lesbian and bisexual women sexual identities; and the third and final phase of the research ‘Creating landscapes’ explores how creating and sharing digital layers of lesbian visibility on collaborative web maps can disrupt a hetero pervasive reality and impact social identity and belonging, building capacities for action of lesbian and bisexual women, and facilitating same-sex public displays of affection. Ultimately, this research aims to explore the empowering potentialities of geospatial online practices to provide alternative possibilities for citizenship, and foster social change

Literacia científica: enquadramento conceptual que prevalece na primeira década do século XXI.

The term scientific literacy arises due to the need of the scientific community to see that the population validated its scientific and technological production. The construct Scientific literacy has been subject to diverse conceptual considerations over the years, arising from the scientific, technological, social and political changes that marked contemporary society characteristics. In this study, we sought to assess the evolution of the scientific literacy construct over the first decade of the twenty-first century, through qualitative research, using a bibliographic study. Forthe operationalization of this analysis, different dimensions for scientific literacy were defined. The results suggest that scientific literacy embodies a construct that is deictic in nature, shaped by the social, political, cultural and scientific contexts prevailing in the society it belongs to. The conclusion is that all of this conceptual matrix suggests a change in the relatively passive form in which science is appreciated of and the way this operates in society towards a commitment to personal involvement with science and towards the valuation of the importance of scientific knowledge throughout life.El término alfabetización científica surge como consecuencia de la necesidad de la comunidad científica de ver validada, por parte de la población, la producción científica y tecnológica. El constructo Alfabetización científica fue objeto de varias actualizaciones conceptuales a lo largo de los años como resultado de los cambios científicos, tecnológicos y sociales de la sociedad contemporánea. En esta investigación se realiza una revisión sistemática en la cual se analiza la evoluciónde la alfabetización científica en la primera década de este siglo. Buscamos evaluar la evolución del constructo Alfabetización científica durante la primera década del siglo XXI, a través de una investigación cualitativa, realizando un estudio bibliográfico. Para la operacionalización de este análisis, se definieron diferentes dimensiones de la alfabetización científica. Los resultados indican que es un constructo de naturaleza deíctica, que conforma su contenido a los entornos social, político, cultural y científico en que se inserta. La conclusión es que toda esta matriz conceptual sugiere un cambio en la forma relativamente pasiva como se aprecia la ciencia y como esta funciona en la sociedad hacia un compromiso de implicación personal con la ciencia y hacia la valoración de la utilidad del conocimiento científico a lo largo de la vida.O termo literacia científica surgir na década 50 do século passado, nos EUA, fruto da necessidade da comundiade cientifica ver válida, por parte da população, a producão científica e tecnologiaca da época. Literacia científica representa um construto sujeito a diversas representações conceituais ao longo dos anos decorrentes das modificações científicas, tecnológicas, sociais e políticas características da segunda metade do século XX. Neste estudo, realizamos a revisão sistemática do construto da literacia científica na primeira década do século XXI. Os resultados obtidos mostram como a literacia científica incorpora um constructo de caráter dêitico que molda o conteúdo ao contexto social, político, cultural e científico que prevalece na respectiva sociedade. Conclui-se que toda essa matriz conceitual sugere uma mudança na forma relativamente passiva de valorização da ciência e no modo como esta opera na sociedade em direção ao compromisso com o envolvimento pessoal com a ciência e à valorização da utilidade do conhecimento científico ao longo da vida

Acessibilidade à rede de serviços de urgência em territórios de baixa densidade: o caso do Baixo Alentejo, Portugal

Access to health care is a sensitive issue in low population density territories, as these areas tend to have a lower level of service provision. One dimension of access is accessibility. This paper focuses on measuring the accessibility to urgent and emergency care services in the Portuguese region of Baixo Alentejo, a territory characterized by low population density. Data for the calculation of accessibility is the road network, and the methodology considers the application of a two-level network analyst method: time-distance by own mean (car or taxi) to the urgent care services and the time distance to emergency services as a way to get assistance and to go to urgent care services. While urgent care accessibility meets the requirements stipulated in the Integrated Medical Emergency System’s current legislative framework, the simulation of different scenarios of potential accessibility shows intra-regional disparities. Some territories have a low level of accessibility. Older adults, the poorly educated, and low-income population, also have the lowest levels of accessibility, which translates into dually disadvantageous situation since the potential users of emergency services are most likely to belong to this group of citizens.Em territórios de baixa densidade populacional, o acesso aos cuidados de saúde é uma questão delicada, pois essas áreas tendem a ter um nível mais baixo de prestação de serviços. Uma dimensão do acesso é a medição da acessibilidade. Este artigo tem como propósito medir a acessibilidade aos serviços de urgência e aos meios de emergência médica na região portuguesa do Baixo Alentejo, território caracterizado por uma baixa densidade populacional. A metodologia considera o método network analyst aplicado à rede viária, em dois níveis: o cálculo da distância-tempo aos serviços de urgência usando modo próprio (carro ou táxi); e o cálculo da distância-tempo recorrendo aos meios de socorro e emergência como forma de aceder aos serviços de urgência. Embora se considere que a acessibilidade às urgências atende ao atual quadro legislativo do Sistema Integrado de Emergência Médica, a simulação de diferentes cenários no Baixo Alentejo mostra a existência de disparidades intra-regionais no que se refere à acessibilidade aos serviços de urgência. Verifica-se que é a população idosa, de baixa instrução e residente em zonas com baixa densidade populacional quem apresenta menores índices de acessibilidade, o que traduz uma situação duplamente desvantajosa, uma vez que estes são os maiores utilizadores destes serviços.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio