Innovation, Market Structure and Economic Growth

This paper presents a dynamic partial equilibrium model that endogenizes firms' investment decision on innovation: product innovation causes horizontal expansion growth, and process innovation causes vertical expansion growth. Market structure in different markets emerges as a consequence of different investment on innovation opportunities. Main variables that constrain this structure in a given market are the rate of scientific (basic) discoveries that permit innovation productivity, and the degree of substitution between varieties, together with the possible existence of scope economies.R&D, Market Structure, Growth.

Harvesting big data from residential building energy performance certificates: retrofitting and climate change mitigation insights at a regional scale

UID/AMB/04085/2019The reduction of energy consumption and the increase in energy efficiency is currently an important cornerstone of EU policy. Energy performance certificates (EPCs) were implemented as one of the tools to promote this agenda, and are used for the energy performance assessment of buildings. In this study, the characteristics of the Portuguese dwelling stock are regionally analysed using data from approximately 523,000 Portuguese residential EPCs. Furthermore, a bottom-up building typology approach is used to assess the regional energy needs impact of retrofitting actions and to estimate the heating and cooling energy performance gaps of the whole dwelling stock, as well as the potential CO2 emissions resulting from the gaps' potential offset due to increase thermal comfort. The results show that Portuguese residential buildings have very low energy performance, with windows and roofs being identified as the most energy inefficient elements. Roof retrofitting has the highest potential for the reduction of energy needs. The estimated heating and cooling energy performance gap amount to very significant percentages, due to the poor performing building stock but also very low energy consumption levels, with probable consequences for the thermal comfort of occupants. Assuming the current energy mix, carbon emissions would be 9.8 and 20.2 times higher associated with heating and cooling, respectively, if the actual final energy consumption were to match the estimated theoretical values derived from building regulation. This study demonstrates several application cases and leverages the potential of the individual EPC, increasing the detail in the dwelling stock characterization and energy performance estimation, revealing its value for energy retrofit and climate change mitigation assessments, as well as establishing the ground for future work related to building retrofits, energy efficiency measure implementation, climate change mitigation, thermal comfort, and energy poverty studies.publishersversionpublishe

Protein partitioning in polymer/polymer aqueous two-phase systems

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Química e Biológica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Making Sense Out Of Nothing

When I was a child, fortunately, I used to sleep with the light on. The absence of light was lived through as a phobia, a fear of what can’t be seen, of what can’t be perceived, as an unbearable feeling of nothing, of emptiness. Death existed in that space; it walked and lived in darkness, inhabiting the unknown. Over time, these problematic issues were converted into something new. I do not know exactly what this new thing is, but we can say we have created a familiar relationship. Throughout my existence, this discomfort, and at the same time curiosity, unconsciously generated a primary point of reference of great personal interest. Later, when I began to contemplate some of these powerful emotional feelings, I began to select them, understand them, and name them: space, time, life and death, and light. Dealing with some of the natural facts of life soon started to be an important part of my reality. Later, a sort of tranquility set in. Thus, this thesis comes from an intimate personal perspective, where I do not seek for answers or explanations, but where I simply expose my perspective on some specific fields, pertinent to my personal and artistic motivations, and hopefully creating consistent and deep associations between them. Light comes later, as the central point of reference; a point of concert and harmony, living as the unifying element. Light is the connecting topic that involves all these referents, and is explored between the fields of art and science

Tunable Optical Filters Using Compound Ring Resonators for DWDM

The device is based on a loop mirror in a ring resonator. The loop mirror allows tuning by changing the coupling coefficient of a directional coupler. The loop mirror is implemented using a Sagnac configuration to have the same optical path between the signals to be interfered (copropagating and counterpropagating ones). The filter structure allows optical integration for having higher free-spectral ranges. Simple design equations for the filter parameters and the tuning are reported. Measurements on a passive optical fiber tunable filter are presented. There is a good agreement between measurements and theory.Publicad

Measurements On Passive Tunable Optical Filters For DWDM

WFOPC 2002 IEEE/LEOS Workshop on Fibre and Optical Passive Components, University of Glasgow, Scotland, on 5th-6th June 2002.Measurements on a passive optical fibre tunable filter are presented. The device is based on a loop mirror in a ring resonator. The loop mirror allows tuning by changing the coupling coefficient of a coupler. The novel filter structure allows planar optical integration for having higher free spectral ranges. Novel and simple design equations for the filter parameters and the tuning process are reported. There is a good agreement between measurements and theory.Universidad Carlos III de MadridPublicad

Mapping regional vulnerability to energy poverty in Poland

Funding Information: Funding: This article is based upon work from COST Action ‘European Energy Poverty: Agenda Co-Creation and Knowledge Innovation’ (ENGAGER 2017–2021, CA16232), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Lilia Karpinska and Sławomir S´miech gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Centre in Poland (grant no. 2018/29/N/HS4/ 02813). João Pedro Gouveia and Pedro Palma acknowledge and are thankful for the support provided to CENSE by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the strategic project UIDB/04085/2020. Pedro Palma’s work has also been supported by FCT through the scholarship SFRH/BD/146732/2019.Raising concerns about the effectiveness of the energy poverty policy actions in Poland, such as Clean Air and Stop Smog, brings forward the need to apply different strategies to identify the energy poor. More than 13.7% of Polish households were energy poor in 2018 according to the ability-to-keep-home-warm indicator. This study proposes enhancing the model-based approach to measure households’ energy poverty. Our goal is to assess regional vulnerability to energy poverty in Poland. The study relies on three national datasets and is conducted in two steps. The Energy Consumption Survey (2018) and the Household Budget Survey (2018) provide data for modeling household’s energy poverty in the first step. The Local Data Bank (2019) gives information on the potential factors increasing regional vulnerability to energy poverty evaluated in the second step. We apply multiple linear regression to identify energy-poor households and principal components analysis to examine the regions’ vulnerability factors. As a result, we produce several maps showing the spatial distribution of vulnerability to energy poverty in 380 Polish districts. Our results indicate that some northern, southern and eastern districts in Poland are primary targets of energy poverty policy actions.publishersversionpublishe

The use of sighting data to analyse Iberian lynx habitat and distribution

1. Over a large part of its very restricted and fragmented range, Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus occur in remote mountainous country at low density, where the only information about the species comprises records of incidental sightings obtained by inquiry. In this study we developed an approach for quantifying lynx-habitat relationships and distribution patterns from sighting data, using records from western Algarve (Portugal) in 1990-95. 2. Habitat was described in terms of land cover, topography, human disturbance and rabbit abundance, in 25-km(2) cells surrounding lynx sightings and at random locations within the study area. 3. Lynx sightings were consistently associated with predictable habitat features. Sighting probabilities estimated from a logistic regression model increased with the abundance of rabbits and the proportion of land covered by tall Mediterranean maquis, and declined with road density and the amount of developed land. This model identified correctly 85.7% of lynx sightings; at the same time only 20.7% of the random locations were misclassified. 4. Indices of human presence were never associated positively with lynx sightings, suggesting that observation patterns were not influenced by the spatial distribution of potential observers. 5. Kriging was used to interpolate spatially between sighting probabilities derived from the logistic model in order to produce a map of sighting potential for the Iberian lynx in western Algarve. Jack-knife resampling assessed the accuracy of this map. Three well-defined areas of high sighting potential were identified, probably representing the lynx core areas in this region. 6. Our analysis of lynx sighting records suggests that these data may provide a first approximation to lynx habitat and distribution when further information is lacking. The application of this approach to other ran and reclusive species is discussed.This study was funded by the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza (ICN) and by the European Union (Project LIFE B4±3200/94/767)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio