Characteristics of the Portuguese Economic Growth: What has been Missing?

This paper analyzes the Portuguese economic growth since the 1960's until present and compares its composition with that of Spain, Greece and Ireland. The average real GDP growth rate in each decade is decomposed as the contribution of input accumulation and total factor productivity. The contribution of labour and capital is separated using computed elasticities and the contribution of total factor productivity is disentangled into technological progress and efficiency. The methodology is based on Bayesian statistical methods and allows the computation of a world translog dynamic stochastic production frontier, which captures the technology that is available to all economies in each period of time. The results obtained are accurate in terms of the contribution of input accumulation and total factor productivity to GDP growth but there is lower precision when separating the contributions of technology growth and efficiency. The results obtained show that Portugal owes most of its economic growth to the accumulation of factors and not to total factor productivity. In particular the contribution of technology to economic growth is substantially lower than what is observed in the other economies considered. It is argued that this may be due to the existence of a low capital-labour ratio, which determines that Portugal is placed in a segment of the world production frontier that does not expand significantly as a result of technological progress. In addition, there is some evidence of modest developments in terms of efficiency which may be associated with the low quality of new inputs relatively to other economies. Another possible explanation for the disappointing performance of the Portuguese economy in the last decade lies in the existence of statistical inaccuracies in the measurement of GDP, especially in what concerns the contribution of some services.

Total Factor Productivity Growth in the G7 Countries: Different or Alike?

The paper compares the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) to economic growth in the G7 countries, from 1960 until 2005. A dynamic world translog stochastic production frontier is computed through Bayesian statistical methods using panel data on 21 OECD economies. The real GDP growth rate is decomposed in TFP and input accumulation contributions', the former being divided in two components: efficiency developments (the distance to the world production function) and technological progress (the expansion of the world production function). The paper adopts the methodology suggested by Koop, Osiewalsky and Steel (1999), though it covers a much larger period, allowing for the identification of intertemporal growth patters. The growth accounting exercise requires a Gibbs Sampling iteration algorithm and it is carried out for eight periods, each one covering ten yearly growth rates, with overlapping sub periods of five years. The results obtained show that the contribution of technological progress to total TFP is typically stronger than efficiency improvements. The US and Canada recorded a TFP acceleration after the mid 1980s, following declines in the previous decades. In addition, the inputs accumulation gave a relatively stable contribution for GDP growth throughout the sample period. Italy and France present a continuous declining trend in TFP contribution, though more marked in the latter case. Germany and the UK seem to have moved to a new lower floor of TFP contribution in the last decades. Japan, presents a downward trend in TFP contribution that is even more pronounced than in Italy. However, some reversal was seen in the Japanese TFP in the last decade considered. The shape of the stochastic production function changed along the period considered, benefiting more capital intensive input-combinations. In addition, there is some evidence of increasing returns to scale in the G7 countries, though it may be related with the non consideration of quality aspects in the measurement of inputs.

Dissecting Tick Vectors Biosystematics and Symbionts Transmission Potential

Ticks are one of the main vectors of disease to animals worldwide. Mainly due to anthropogenic impact on our planet, environmental changes are expected to impact tick and tick-borne diseases ecology and distribution. Rhipicephalus ticks are widely distributed throughout Southern Europe. Due to their unclarified taxonomic status, hidden diversity and unclear tick-host-pathogens interactions, assessments regarding the transmission potential of different species lineages and populations are not routinely performed. Following the premise that different tick species have different potential to transmit tick-borne diseases, the main aim of this study was to clarify if different Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. lineages or species distributed throughout Southern Europe show a differentiated potential for pathogens transmission to their hosts. First, tick collections from European and African countries were used to assess Rhipicephalus genus diversity using morphologic and genetic-based methods. Screening techniques were then applied to investigate their microbiota composition. By last, a spatio-temporal variation study of tick-borne symbionts with different transmission routes was performed in a four years database from the Netherlands to assess if the bacteria composition of ticks could affect pathogens and endosymbionts prevalence in the vector. Regarding the R. sanguineus s.l. diversity, our results evidence that the temperate lineage distributed in Southern Europe has at least two different morphotypes: “R. sanguineus” and “R. turanicus”. This result supports that a direct correlation between morphotype and transmission potential cannot be made based on the traditional paradigm, and additional methods should be used to confirm taxa identifications. Furthermore, our findings suggest that Coxiella-like endosymbiont diversity follow the Rhipicephalus species and lineages phylogeny, supporting not only a differentiated co-evolution as a different microbiota composition between lineages. By last, the results evidence significant associations between pathogens and endosymbionts, suggesting that microbiota composition can affect tick-borne pathogens prevalence within a tick, which ultimately could affect their transmission potential

Privacy-preserving key-value store

Cloud computing is arguably the foremost delivery platform for data storage and data processing. It turned computing into a utility based service that provides consumers and enterprises with on-demand access to computing resources. Although advantageous, there is an inherent lack of control over the hardware in the cloud computing model, this may constitute an increased privacy and security risk. Multiple encrypted database systems have emerged in recent years, they provide the functionality of regular databases but without compromising data confidentiality. These systems leverage novel encryption schemes such as homomorphic and searchable encryp tion. However, many of these proposals focus on extending existing centralized systems that are very difficult to scale, and offer poor performance in geo-replicated scenarios. We propose a scalable, highly available, and geo-replicated privacy-preserving key value store. A system that provides its users with secure data types meant to be replicated, along with a rich query interface with configurable privacy that enables one to issue secure and somewhat complex queries. We accompany our proposal with an implementation of a privacy-preserving client library for AntidoteDB, a geo-replicated key-value store. We also extend the AntidoteDB’s query language interface by adding support for secure SQL-like queries with configurable privacy. Experimental evaluations show that our proposals offer a feasible solution to practical applications that wish to improve their privacy and confidentiality

Waynergy: the way for energy harvesting: business model design

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economic

"The Subfamily orionininai puri, 1973 (Ostracoda; Hemicytheridae) in the Brazilian Continental Shelf, part II. Sistematic of the Genus Caudites Coryell & Fields, 1973"

Compreende o estudo sistemático das espécies do gênero Caudites Coryell & Fields, 1937, encontrados na Plataforma Continental Brasileira. É proposta a reformulação da diagnose do gênero Caudites com a inclusão de novos e importantes caracteres morfológicos diferenciais. Foram encontradas e descritas quatro novas espécies de Caudites para a região estudada: C. ohmerti, C. vandenboldi, C. fluminensis e C. gnomus. É redescrita e registrada por primeira vez a ocorrência de C. nipeensis Bold, 1946, para a costa brasileira, sendo também proposta uma emenda para sua diagnose

New species of Xestoleberididae (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from Archipelago of São Pedro and São Paulo, Equatorial Atlantic

Two new species of Xestoleberididae: Xestoleberis brasilinsularis sp. nov. and Xestoleberis machadoae sp. nov., both endemic to Archipelago of São Pedro and São Paulo, are described. The record of these shallow marine waters species from Brazilian oceanic islands represents an important contribution to the knowledge of the evolutionary history the species inhabit areas.Duas novas espécies de Xestoleberididae: Xestoleberis brasilinsularis sp. nov. e Xestoleberis machadoae sp. nov., ambas endêmicas do Arquipélago São Pedro e São Paulo, são descritas. O registro dessas espécies marinhas de águas rasas em ilhas oceânicas brasileiras representa uma importante contribuição para o conhecimento da história evolutiva das espécies que habitam estas áreas

Post Miocene Ostracodes From Pelotas Basin, Southern Brazil. Taxonomy - Part I

O estudo taxonômico dos ostracodes do intervalo Pós-Mioceno, contidos em sete perfurações, 2-MO-1-RS, 2-CI-1-RS, 2-CA-1-RS, 2-PS-1-RS, 2-PN-1-RS, 2-GA-1-RS e 2-GA-2-RS realizadas pela Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., PETROBRAS, na Bacia de Pelotas no Rio Grande do Sul, permitiu a determinação de Brasilicythere reticulispinosa gen. et sp. nov. e de nove outras espécies novas: Argenticytheretta levipunctata, A. variabilis, Caudites posdiagonalis, Ambostracon crucicostatum, Coquimba bertelsae, Bradleya pelotensis, Henryhowella rectangulata e H. spinosa. Permitiu, ainda, registrar a ocorrência de Cytheretta punctata, Coquimba tenuireticulata, Callistocythere litoralensis e C. marginalis. São apresentadas, também, duas espécies indeterminadas, Protocytheretta sp. e Quadracythere sp

New species of Xestoleberididae (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from Archipelago of São Pedro and São Paulo, Equatorial Atlantic

Two new species of Xestoleberididae: Xestoleberis brasilinsularis sp. nov. and Xestoleberis machadoae sp. nov., both endemic to Archipelago of São Pedro and São Paulo, are described. The record of these shallow marine waters species from Brazilian oceanic islands represents an important contribution to the knowledge of the evolutionary history the species inhabit areas.Duas novas espécies de Xestoleberididae: Xestoleberis brasilinsularis sp. nov. e Xestoleberis machadoae sp. nov., ambas endêmicas do Arquipélago São Pedro e São Paulo, são descritas. O registro dessas espécies marinhas de águas rasas em ilhas oceânicas brasileiras representa uma importante contribuição para o conhecimento da história evolutiva das espécies que habitam estas áreas