Intergovernmental grant rules, the "golden rule" of public finance and local expenditures

The Stability and Growth Pact and the process of fiscal consolidation in several European countries have enhanced the role of fiscal rules at sub-national level. This paper analyzes the combined effect of a rule to allocate capital and current block grants to local governments and the “golden rule” of public finance (surplus of current balance). We argue that the two fiscal rules introduce significant rigidities and distortions in local governments’ expenditures structure since these mimic the structure of revenues. This effect is particularly relevant in municipalities that are more dependent of intergovernmental grants, mainly rural. On the other hand, urban municipalities with greater tax revenues (current revenues) are constrained in their ability to make capital investments because they receive per capita capital grants below what economies of scale would suggest. An empirical analysis of Portuguese local governments shows that it is no longer the median voter, but fiscal rules, that command the broad pattern of expenditure (current versus capital) at a local level. This paper is a contribution to the literature on the perverse effects of fiscal rules.Intergovernmental block grants; Fiscal Rules; Local Government Expenditure; “Golden Rule”

Impact of Geo-distribution and Mining Pools on Blockchains: A Study of Ethereum

Given the large adoption and economical impact of permissionless blockchains, the complexity of the underlying systems and the adversarial environment in which they operate, it is fundamental to properly study and understand the emergent behavior and properties of these systems. We describe our experience on a detailed, one-month study of the Ethereum network from several geographically dispersed observation points. We leverage multiple geographic vantage points to assess the key pillars of Ethereum, namely geographical dispersion, network efficiency, blockchain efficiency and security, and the impact of mining pools. Among other new findings, we identify previously undocumented forms of selfish behavior and show that the prevalence of powerful mining pools exacerbates the geographical impact on block propagation delays. Furthermore, we provide a set of open measurement and processing tools, as well as the data set of the collected measurements, in order to promote further research on understanding permissionless blockchains.Comment: To appear in 50th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 202

Citizens’ Freedom to Choose Representatives: Ballot Structure, Proportionality and “Fragmented” Parliaments

The analysis of the political consequences of electoral laws has emphasized how individual characteristics of the electoral system (electoral formulas, district magnitude, ballot structure) affect the degree of parliament “fragmentation” and proportionality. This paper argues that the personal attributes of representatives are also an important consequence of electoral laws, and that they are in part determined by citizens’ freedom to choose representatives. We clarify this concept and develop an index of citizens’ freedom to choose members of parliament as a function of the ballot structure, district size and electoral formulae. Using data from twenty nine countries, we find that neither proportionality nor the effective number of parties is significantly affected by voters’ freedom of choice. This result has important normative implications for electoral reform.Ballot structure; Electoral index; Freedom to choose; Personal vote.

A new concept in compressed air energy storage

Tese de mestrado integrado, Engenharia da Energia e do Ambiente, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2015The aim of this master thesis is to explore a new concept in energy storage, the liquid assisted compressed air energy storage (LACAES). Several other energy storage technologies were briefly reviewed to set a comparative basis for LACAES. The fundamentals of compressed air energy storage (CAES) are explained, and an essential introduction to LACAES is made, emphasizing the advantages of LACAES over conventional CAES. From this comparison the most promising applications for LACAES technology are chosen. For one of the applications, in the field of human generated and stored power, an early prototype, named KeepIt™ is built and tested. The efficiency of the system, the possibility of power output control and the performance of crucial components are evaluated. Although KeepIt™ early prototype had a maximum efficiency of about 7 %, the guidelines for further development are well defined and great improvements on the performance are foreseen in future work.O objectivo desta tese de mestrado foi a de explorar o conceito da tecnologia de armazenamento de energia por ar comprimido assistida por líquido (LACAES). O armazenamento de energia tem um papel cada vez mais importante em sistemas de energia, desde armazenamento para a rede emobilidade eléctrica, as aplicações são imensas. Istomanifestase numa expectativa de crescimento de mercado em 10 vezes da actual dimensão em 2018 (Miller, 2014). Este crescimento tem vindo a alimentar um crescimento de investigação nas áreas de armazenamento por ar comprimido (CAES) devido ás suas características promissoras (Najjar u. Zaamout, 1998). Ainda assim o CAES não é ainda uma solução competitiva para omercado, essencialmente porque requer a queima de gás natural para compensar as ineficiências do armazenamento. A tecnologia LACAES vem resolver as ineficiências existentes no CAES com a introdução de compressões e expansões isotérmicas. Nesta tese, tecnologias de armazenamento de energia são revistas em síntese e, posteriormente, comparadas com LACAES. Os fundamentos da tecnologia de armazenamento de energia comar comprimido (CAES) são apresentados. As vantagens de LACAES sobre CAES são apresentadas e a LACAES é explicada. Desta comparação determinam-se as melhores aplicações para a tecnologia LACAES. Para a aplicação de produção e armazenamento de energia por esforço humano, um protótipo designado por KeepIt™é construído e testado. Testou-se a eficiência deste sistema, a eficácia do sistema de controlo de potência e o desempenho de componentes essenciais. Ainda que o protótipo KeepIt™tenhaumaeficiência de cerca de 7 %, osmelhoramentos necessários são descritos e uma grande melhoria na eficiência está prevista em trabalho futuro

Construction of a Web-based Project Management Simulator: Proposal, Process and Features

This paper proposes a model of a simulation system of Project Management based on the Web environment (Project Management Virtual Environment - PMVE), its features, and the process of its construction. This system aims to support the process of teaching/learning the subject of project management. When compared with other work in this field, there are two aspects that standout: the use of the Web to enhance the interaction between the agents involved in the teaching/learning process, and the variety of skills considered in the system. More than focusing on a small set of processes dealing with technical work management, the solution presented here involves nearly all of the project management life cycle. The description of this solution starts by presenting the context of the problem being solved, highlighting some of the features of the project management activity. Next, the conceptual perspective behind the construction of the system is presented, followed by the technological solution and respective features

An industry 4.0 intelligent decision support system for analytical laboratories

This paper presents an Intelligent Decision Support System (IDSS) to enhance the management of Analytical Laboratories (AL) of a company operating in the chemical industry. This IDSS incorporates two predictive Machine Learning (ML) models, related with the prediction of the arrival of samples at the AL and the consumption of AL materials, which are then used to perform prescriptive analytics for AL instrument allocation tasks. The IDSS is also complemented with descriptive analytics of instrument similarities regarding the tests performed for better supporting the AL manager decisions. The IDSS includes interactive dashboards and it was successfully validated by the AL managers using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) 3 and open interviews, which resulted in a positive feedback.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. The authors also wish, to thank the chemical company staff involved with this project for providing the data and also the valuable domain feedback

An automated machine learning approach for predicting chemical laboratory material consumption

This paper address a relevant business analytics need of a chemical company, which is adopting an Industry 4.0 transformation. In this company, quality tests are executed at the Analytical Laboratories (AL), which receive production samples and execute several instrumen- tal analyses. In order to improve the AL stock warehouse management, a Machine Learning (ML) project was developed, aiming to estimate the AL materials consumption based on week plans of sample analy- ses. Following the CRoss-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology, several iterations were executed, in which three input variable selection strategies and two sets of AL materials (top 10 and all consumed materials) were tested. To reduce the mod- eling effort, an Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) was adopted, allowing to automatically set the best ML model among six distinct re- gression algorithms. Using real data from the chemical company and a realistic rolling window evaluation, several ML train and test iterations were executed. The AutoML results were compared with two time series forecasting methods, the ARIMA methodology and a deep learning Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model. Overall, competitive results were achieved by the best AutoML models, particularly for the top 10 set of materials.FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/202