Economic Impacts of Ageing: An Interindustry Approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of the evolution of consumption patterns associated with ageing on the relative importance of industries in Portugal. Design/Methodology/Approach - This paper uses data from the Family Spending Survey to disaggregate the Household column of the Portuguese Input-Output Table in different age groups, projecting their consumption, using the latest demographic projections made by Statistics Portugal (INE). Findings - The study identifies the industries that are likely to be stimulated by the ageing of the Portuguese populations, as well as the industries that will most likely become disadvantaged by the process. Social implications - The task of identification of growing and declining industries due to ageing is important to help the design of employment, environmental, and social policies. Original/Value - The contemporary demographic trends in western societies have added to the importance of studying the economic and social consequences of ageing. Previously, the main issues have been the labour market effects, the sustainability of social security systems, and long-term care. In this paper, we address a different research topic, quantifying the sectoral impact of the evolution of consumption patterns associated with ageing.Ageing; Input-output; Consumption behaviour.

National industry cluster templates and the structure of industry output dynamics: a stochastic geometry approach

Cluster analysis has been widely used in an Input-Output framework, with the main objective of uncover the structure of production, in order to better identify which sectors are strongly connected with each other and choose the key sectors of a national or regional economy. There are many empirical studies determining potential clusters from interindustry flows directly, or from their corresponding technical (demand) or market (supply) coefficients, most of them applying multivariate statistical techniques. In this paper, after identifying clusters this way, and since it may be expected that strongly (interindustry) connected sectors share a similar growth and development path, the structure of sectoral dynamics is uncovered, by means of a stochastic geometry technique based on the correlations of industry outputs in a given period of time. An application is made, using Portuguese input-output data, and the results do not clearly support this expectation.Clusters, Input-output analysis, Industry output dynamics

Effect of noise in open chaotic billiards

We investigate the effect of white-noise perturbations on chaotic trajectories in open billiards. We focus on the temporal decay of the survival probability for generic mixed-phase-space billiards. The survival probability has a total of five different decay regimes that prevail for different intermediate times. We combine new calculations and recent results on noise perturbed Hamiltonian systems to characterize the origin of these regimes, and to compute how the parameters scale with noise intensity and billiard openness. Numerical simulations in the annular billiard support and illustrate our results.Comment: To appear in "Chaos" special issue: "Statistical Mechanics and Billiard-Type Dynamical Systems"; 9 pages, 5 figure

National industry cluster templates and the structure of industry output dynamics : a stochastic geometry approach

Cluster analysis has been widely used in an Input-Output framework, with the main objective of uncover the structure of production, in order to better identify which sectors are strongly connected with each other and choose the key sectors of a national or regional economy. There are many empirical studies determining potential clusters from interindustry flows directly, or from their corresponding technical (demand) or market (supply) coefficients, most of them applying multivariate statistical techniques. In this paper, after identifying clusters this way, and since it may be expected that strongly (interindustry) connected sectors share a similar growth and development path, the structure of sectoral dynamics is uncovered, by means of a stochastic geometry technique based on the correlations of industry outputs in a given period of time. An application is made, using Portuguese input-output data, and the results do not clearly support this expectation

The characteristics and regional distribution of older workers in Portugal

Population ageing is a common trend in most developed countries with many important economic, social and political consequences. In Portugal, this trend has been particularly strong. The ageing index was 34% in 1970, it is about 129% in 2011, according to the provisory results of the last Census and most recent demographic projections, is expected to be over 240% in 2030. One of the main issues associated with ageing is its effect on the composition of the labour force. The main purpose of this paper is to study the changes in the age structure of the Portuguese labour force between 1989 and 2009. First of all, the size and relative weight of older workers are quantified, both as a group (people with more than 54 years old), by age sub-groups (55-59; 60-64; 65 +) and gender. Then, particular attention is given to the regional distribution of these workers, both at the Nuts II (7 regions) and Nuts III (30 regions) levels. The sectoral distribution is also measured, at national and regional levels. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between younger and olderer workers, considering the education levels, establishments’ size, labour compensation and part-time versus full time work regime. The main data used are Quadros de Pessoal, from Ministry of Solidarity and Social Security covering people working in the private business sector (around 3,3 million workers, in 2009) and excluding liberal professionals

Efficacy of two traps and three different pheromone-based attractants to control the banana weevil adults Cosmopolites sordidus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in banana orchards on Terceira Island, Azores.

ABSTRACT: The banana borer weevil, Cosmopolites sordidus (German) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is considered an important pest of bananas. It is extremely specific to Musaceae (Musaceae: Musa species). The efficacy of the different combination of traps and attractants on the banana weevil is important to been investigated to identify the best combination to use in banana orchards on Terceira Island (Azores). For that purpose, an essay was conducted during two years (2021 and 2022) to determine the efficiency of two traps (Cosmotrack and Stopweevil) and three attractants containing sordidin pheromone (Cosmogel NovAgrica, CosmoPlus Scyll’Agro and EcoSordidina 90K Ecobertura) to monitor C. sordidus populations in two banana orchards. The trap contents were collected every 15 days in 2021 for all the year (January to December). In 2022 the same two traps (Cosmotrack and Stopweevil) and only two different attractants (Cosmogel NovAgrica and CosmoPlus Scyll’Agro) were tested for 5 months (from January to May). The results from both essays suggest that Cosmotrack with Cosmoplus is the more suitable best combination trap and attractant for the control of C. sordidus. We also found significant differences in the banana weevil adult captures between the two traps and the three attractants considered in two orchards. Significant difference was found between Cosmotrack with Cosmoplus and Cosmotrack with Cosmogel, and when between Cosmotrack with Cosmoplus regarding all the other trap and attractant combinations tested.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dicionário virtual de ornitologia e ecologia: as novas tecnologias de informação ao serviço do ensino da Biologia e Ecologia

1º Encontro de Observadores de Aves das Arribas do Douro, Solar dos Marcos, Bemposta, Mogadouro, 26-27 Julho 2003.Este artigo apresenta o projeto “Dicionário Virtual de Ornitologia e Ecologia”, que pretende tirar partido do veículo de divulgação por excelência que é a Internet para divulgar informação científica, nas áreas da Ornitologia e Ecologia. Na sequência de um trabalho anterior, e com o apoio do ministério da educação, através do programa Nónio Século XXII e PRODEP III, foi possível constituir um consórcio que reúne as competências necessárias e suficientes para a concepção, implementação e manutenção do projeto. De facto, a junção da competência técnica do Centro de Computação Gráfica aos conhecimentos científicos do Instituto do Mar e à qualidade das ilustrações científicas da empresa Gradientes e Texturas, permitiu a implementação de um portal com as funcionalidades necessárias para reunir à sua volta uma comunidade mundial de amantes da natureza, e da ornitologia em particular. São as principais características deste portal que se apresentam ao longo deste artigo, bem como algumas conclusões que foi possível formular desde que ficou oficialmente online

From simulation to development in MAS a JADE-based approach

Multi-agent systems (MAS) present an effective approach to the efficient development of modular systemscomposed of interacting agents. Several frameworks exist that aid the development of MAS, but they areoften not very appropriate for some kind of uses, such as for Multi-Agent-based Simulation (MABS). Otherframeworks exist for running simulations, sharing little with the former. While open agent-based applicationsbenefit from adopting development and interaction standards, such as those proposed by FIPA, mostMABS frameworks do not support them. In this paper we propose an approach to bridge the gap betweenthe development and simulation of MAS, by putting forward two complementary tools. The Simple API forJADE-based Simulations (SAJaS) enhances MABS frameworks with JADE-based features, and the MAS Simulationto Development (MASSim2Dev) tool allows the automatic conversion of a SAJaS-based simulationinto a JADE MAS, and vice-versa. Repast Simphony was used as the base MABS framework. Our proposalprovides increased simulation performance while enabling JADE programmers to quickly develop their simulationmodels using familiar concepts. Validation tests demonstrate the significant performance gain in usingSAJaS with Repast Simphony when compared with JADE and show that using MASSim2Dev preserves theoriginal functionality of the system