Science Policy for an increasingly diverging Europe

This paper argues about the need for a revisited public policy framework giving priority to knowledge and technological change across the entire Europe, by discussing new cumulative data on R&D expenditure and the qualification of human resources across Europe. It takes a wide international comparison after a decade hit by recession and economic and budgetary problems, which shows an increasing internal divergence on knowledge investments across Europe, beyond the increasing gap between Europe as a whole and North America. As a result, the paper argues that new paradigms and conditions for responsible science and innovation policy across EU require the collective action of R&D institutions and a system approach to higher education, together with new initiatives towards international cooperation across an enlarged Europe.Analysis shows that chronic backwardness in science and technology in many European peripheries, including in EU southern and eastern regions, have been significantly overcome over the last decade. Nevertheless, their growing scientific and technological capacity is now associated with an increasing vulnerability as a result of the growing international competition for qualified human resources. Additionally, the comparative analysis of levels of economic diversification and sophistication across Europe, suggests the need to insist on qualification and institutional strengthening. This should consider active public policies to attract and retain qualified human resources all over Europe, as well as considering public actions towards promoting new markets. The way in which the economic fabric may gain competitiveness and access to external markets may require enhancing the degree of internationalization of the scientific community and encouraging international knowledge and innovation networks.

Equity research: an evaluation of EDP´s tender offer over EDP Renováveis

The increasing cost competitiveness of renewable technologies (mainly wind power and solar PV), the continuous increase in global electricity demand and strict government policies towards the decarbonisation of the economy are some of the main challenges and growth opportunities that have been increasingly transforming the renewable energy industry. One of the companies in the front row of this ongoing revolution is EDP Renováveis, focused exclusively on the generation of energy from renewable sources, primarily wind onshore. Hence, to benefit even more from the attractive growth of EDPR, its major shareholder (EDP - Energias de Portugal) launched on 27 March 2017 a tender offer to buy-back the 22.47% of share capital it did not hold in the subsidiary, at a price of €6.75 per share. This dissertation presents, as of 31 March 2017, a comprehensive analysis and consequent estimation of the fair value of EDP Renováveis, by targeting a price for the year-end 2017. Consequently, it allowed for the fair evaluation of EDP’s offer and to answer whether minority shareholders should be willing to accept it or not. Accordingly, a sum-of-the-parts DCF valuation derives a target price of €7.83 per share, i.e., a 13% upside, which clearly indicates that the price offered by EDP did not truthfully reflected the fundamental value of the company and its potential growth. Overall, the positive historical performance and low-risk approach to attractive markets, such as the United States, are fundamental to support a buy recommendation, considering the market ight be undervaluing the stockA crescente competitividade no custo das tecnologias (principalmente eólica e solar), o aumento no consumo de eletricidade e as rígidas políticas governativas rumo à descarbonização da economia são alguns dos principais desafios que têm, cada vez mais, transformado o sector das energias renováveis. Uma das empresas que se encontra em posição favorável nesta revolução em curso é a EDP Renováveis, dedicando-se à produção de energia exclusivamente através de fontes renováveis, particularmente eólica onshore. Assim, para incrementar a exposição ao crescimento das renováveis, o maior acionista (EDP - Energias de Portugal) lançou, a 27 de março de 2017, uma Oferta Pública de Aquisição (OPA) sobre os 22.47% de capital que não controlava na subsidiária, a um preço de 6.75€ por ação. Esta dissertação apresenta uma análise, a 31 de março de 2017, e consequente definição de um preço-alvo para a ação no final do ano de 2017. Foi também possível analisar se o valor oferecido pela EDP era justo e se os acionistas minoritários estariam, ou não, dispostos a aceitá- lo. Um modelo DCF, alicerçado na soma das partes, assinala um preço-alvo de €7.83, ou seja, uma apreciação de 13%, o que indica que o valor oferecido pela EDP não reconhece verdadeiramente o valor intrínseco e o crescimento potencial da empresa. Concluindo, o desempenho histórico positivo aliado a uma abordagem de baixo risco na exposição a mercado atraentes, como os Estados Unidos, são essenciais para reforçar uma recomendação de Compra, considerando que o mercado não reflete o correto valor da EDP Renováveis

No project found: Development of the nineteenth century unplanned cemetery

This paper through a use of syntactic descriptive tools explores a presence of Catholic morphological implications that are discreetly woven into the organic spatial configuration of Bernardines cemetery – culturally and historically significant afforested scape. A case study is approached as a sum of internal connections, able to communicate attitudes to death and memory in the nineteenth-century Vilnius, Lithuania. The article involves overlaying axial network, topography, burial directions and chronological occupation data over each other, aiming at understanding correlation between them, and how they help to explain the configuration of unplanned burial ground. Bernardines cemetery functioned as a suburban branch of overcrowded churchyard burial ground that was in need of extension. A chapel was built 15 years after cemetery foundation. Even today chapel is a central figure in the spatial composition of Catholic cemeteries – in Bernardines cemetery the centrality of the chapel is not that apparent. After processing topographical and syntactical analysis it was possible to detect network’s structural potential gathered around the chapel, its configurative relation to the burial directions and the location on the highest altitudes of the whole plot. In this case spatiality of religious hierarchy was implemented discreetly, but a tight dialogue with the natural terrain enabled Catholic cemetery to be identified with a pagan forest necropolis.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologiainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Requiem for a pagan soul. Pagan reminiscences in 19th century cemeteries in Lithuania

European burial grounds suffered a great shift in the 19th century: hygienic strategies of city development brought them to be outside of the city cores. A new model of cemetery handed a right to memory for those social classes that were sentenced to forgetting before: it was the time of the rise of the individual. Following garden development – from hortus conclusus to an open landscape – first through the use of the false funeral monuments in the gardens, then placing real tombs in natural milieu (for example, a tomb of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Île des Peupliers in Ermenonville) – people got accustomed to see death in the garden and burial spaces acquired Edenic expression. Lithuania was the very last European country to accept Christianity; all the territory was only Christianised in the beginning of the 15th century. Therefore this article approaches burial grounds in Lithuania as places where pagan culture meets recent Christian attitudes and concerns. The first trigger for this research was an urge to identify elements of pagan beliefs in spatial solutions of Lithuanian cemeteries. In order to decode a morphogenetic identity of Lithuanian burial grounds, two 19th-century cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuania, were approached from a syntactic point of view taking into account the mythological references of Christianity and Baltic paganism. The spatial texture of two cemeteries – Rasos and Bernardines - is analysed and compared, by interpreting it as a system of accessibility axes. Configurative relations are used to inform morphological analysis by identifying their architectural character and cultural identity as well as relating them to the pagan imaginaries of the afterlife. To understand the spatial reality of the cemeteries, observations of the movement have been carried out, helping to construct simple graphs of cemeteries’ plans, significant for genotype definition. Through the configurative relations it was possible to confirm a premise that the two burial grounds studied in the paper are symbolically-organic spaces, which could have evolved in the sequence of the pagan custom to bury in the wilderness – places associated with abode of gods and the dwelling places of dead.Eurooppalaiset hautausmaat kävivät läpi suuren muutoksen 1800-luvulla: kaupunkikehityksen hygieniastrategiat toivat ne kaupunkien ytimien ulkopuolelle. Hautausmaiden uusi malli salli oikeuden muistiin niille sosiaalisille luokille, jotka olivat tähän asti tuomitut unohduksiin: oli yksilön nousun aika. Hautausmaiden suunnittelu seurasi puutarhasuunnittelua, jonka myötä ihmiset tottuivat näkemään kuolemaa puutarhassa ja hautaukset saivat Paratiisinomaisen ilmaisun. Liettua on viimeinen Euroopan maa, joka hyväksyi kristinuskon (1500-luvun alussa). Tästä syystä tämä artikkeli lähestyy liettualaisia hautausmaita paikkoina, joissa pakanakulttuuri kohtaa Kristinuskon asenteet ja kiinnostuksen kohteet. Tämän tutkimuksen lähtökohta on halu tunnistaa pakanallisten uskomuksien elementtejä liettualaisten hautausmaiden tilallisissa ratkaisuissa. Tutkimus tarkastelee kahta 1800-luvun hutausmaata Vilnassa, Liettuassa. Niitä analysoidaan syntaktisesta näkökulmasta, joka ottaa huomioon mytologiset viittaukset Kristinuskoon ja balttilaiseen pakanallisuuteen, jotta näiden hautausmaiden morfogeneettistä identiteettiä voidaan avata. Kahden hautausmaan – Rasos ja Bernardines – tilallista tekstuuria analysoidaan ja vertaillaan tutkimalla sitä, miten niiden arkkitehtuuri ja kulttuurinen identiteetti on järjestetty suhteessa pakanallisiin uskomuksiin kuolemanjälkeisestä elämästä

New architectures for bottom‐up science diplomacy: Learning from the evolving Portuguese diaspora in the UK

Scientific diasporas and related non‐state actors have increasingly been coming into play to permeate and promote modern science diplomacy. However, these non‐formal collaborative architectures are particularly complex to sustain, and their systematic and long‐term action rely very much on conjunctural and, above all, individual engagement. The paper provides a multi‐stakeholder perspective that analyses the creation, during the lead‐up to Brexit, of the first ever scientific advisory board (SAB) at a Portuguese Embassy. In particular, it focuses on the interplay between bottom‐up diaspora initiatives and top‐down government actions. Our evidence is based on the experience of the development of a non‐formal and non‐hierarchical collaborative architecture established between Portuguese diplomats and the Portuguese scientific diaspora in the United Kingdom in the time of Brexit. The paper draws on lessons learnt that could be useful to other countries when engaging with their respective scientific diasporas

Can Latin America Move Forward after a Lost Decade in Technical Change? …Looking at Opportunities for Knowledge-based Change in Times of Increasing Uncertainty

In view of the current global context, which challenges are facing science- and technology-based developments and cooperation in a way to contribute for policies that stimulate localized learning, innovation and endogenous development in Latin America?This broad question has motivated the work behind the Special Issue introduced by this paper, which considers the development of case studies in selected Latin America regions. The analysis lead us to argue that value-based networks have the potential to make both public policies and markets more effective, promoting learning trajectories for the inclusive development of regions. But they require effective public investments to keep attracting and qualifying human resources, together with long-term developments towards technical industries and export capacity for emerging markets worldwide. Our analysis argues about the unique potential for further developing Latin America through strategic international, knowledge-based ventures, exploring the emerging role the internationalization of universities and scientific institutions may play at a global level. Above all, they require the systematic observation of science and technical change in international comparison, as well as a relational infrastructure for collective action, at an international level, in a context much influenced by a dynamic of change and a necessary balance between the creation and diffusion of knowledge towards the endogenous development of all parts involved. The role of Latin America Universities and science policies based on international cooperation are considered to be particularly important in this process

Glass furnace technology for reduced emissions based on advanced control and monitoring

This paper reports an advanced furnace viewing sensor for regenerative U-flamed glass furnaces, which is demonstrated in a 40 t /d pull furnace of tableware glass burning thick fuel oil. The system processes digitized images from the combustion Chamber a n d uses information related to the geometric features of the flame for monitoring furnace Performance. The procedure is shown t o be able to reduce NOₓ, levels by u p to 20 %, by means of adequate control of the fuel atomization air