Angola's southern border: entrepreneurship opportunities and the state in Cunene

Santa Clara, on Angola's southern border with Namibia, is now a very dynamic urban hub, both economically and socially. It stands out in the remote province of Cunene, recording greater growth in the last five years than the provincial capital, Ondjiva. Its recent transformation into a thriving trading centre was mostly due to massive migration and an intensification of trade between Angola and Namibia at the beginning of this century, although the region's history in the last hundred years is a very different one. While local traders and entrepreneurs have developed their own strategies within this context, national and local administrative structures of the recently pacified country are trying to regulate trading and settlement. These forces in action produce both more sustainable and organised urban growth and at the same time influence social and economic development in the region. The main boom seems to be over, due to relatively successful regulation, which makes the region less attractive to business activity. Traders and entrepreneurs operating locally now have to find new strategies and opportunities. This article, based on empirical research and combined surveys, conducts an analysis of these dynamics and contributes to an understanding of regulation impacts, the way in which local traders cope with them, and the strategies they have developed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Organization and representation of informal workers in São Tomé and Príncipe: state agency and sectoral informal alternatives

In São Tomé and Príncipe, both the size of the informal economy and the scope of the mechanisms of organization and representation are little known. A research conducted recently showed that the almost always limited and irregular incomes generated in this sector are also associated with precarity and a lack of social protection mechanisms. While initiatives led by the state and supported by international funders positioned unions as privileged organizations for representing and supporting the workers in this sector, the limited results generated opportunities for the creation of sectoral bottom-up initiatives. The discussion is then focused on the areas addressed by the initiatives of specific sectors and types of activity - taxi and motorbike drivers and money exchangers - comparing the outcomes with those of the unions in terms of increased social protection and representation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Quantum Conductance in Silver Nanowires: correlation between atomic structure and transport properties

We have analyzed the atomic arrangements and quantum conductance of silver nanowires generated by mechanical elongation. The surface properties of Ag induce unexpected structural properties, as for example, predominance of high aspect ratio rod-like wires. The structural behavior was used to understand the Ag quantum conductance data and the proposed correlation was confirmed by means of theoretical calculations. These results emphasize that the conductance of metal point contacts is determined by the preferred atomic structures and, that atomistic descriptions are essential to interpret the quantum transport behavior of metal nanostructures.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The role of structural evolution on the quantum conductance behavior of gold nanowires during stretching

Gold nanowires generated by mechanical stretching have been shown to adopt only three kinds of configurations where their atomic arrangements adjust such that either the [100], [111] or [110] zone axes lie parallel to the elongation direction. We have analyzed the relationship between structural rearrangements and electronic transport behavior during the elongation of Au nanowires for each of the three possibilities. We have used two independent experiments to tackle this problem, high resolution transmission high resolution electron microscopy to observe the atomic structure and a mechanically controlled break junction to measure the transport properties. We have estimated the conductance of nanowires using a theoretical method based on the extended H\"uckel theory that takes into account the atom species and their positions. Aided by these calculations, we have consistently connected both sets of experimental results and modeled the evolution process of gold nanowires whose conductance lies within the first and third conductance quanta. We have also presented evidence that carbon acts as a contaminant, lowering the conductance of one-atom-thick wires.Comment: 10 page

The gathering firestorm in southern Amazonia.

Wildfires, exacerbated by extreme weather events and land use, threaten to change the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source. Here, we develop and apply a coupled ecosystem-fire model to quantify how greenhouse gas-driven drying and warming would affect wildfires and associated CO2 emissions in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Regional climate projections suggest that Amazon fire regimes will intensify under both low- and high-emission scenarios. Our results indicate that projected climatic changes will double the area burned by wildfires, affecting up to 16% of the region's forests by 2050. Although these fires could emit as much as 17.0 Pg of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere, avoiding new deforestation could cut total net fire emissions in half and help prevent fires from escaping into protected areas and indigenous lands. Aggressive efforts to eliminate ignition sources and suppress wildfires will be critical to conserve southern Amazon forests

Optimal control strategies for tuberculosis treatment: a case study in Angola

We apply optimal control theory to a tuberculosis model given by a system of ordinary differential equations. Optimal control strategies are proposed to minimize the cost of interventions. Numerical simulations are given using data from Angola.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form will appear in the international journal Numerical Algebra, Control and Optimization (NACO). Paper accepted for publication 15-March-201

The media, the social media and the elections

This chapter provides a snapshot of politicians and mainstreammedia’s engagement on social media platforms, particularly Twitter. The chapter, based on preliminary analysis, explores the extent to which some of the political parties relied on social media as a vehicle for their conversation with their followers, and the mainstream media’s opportunistic utilisation of this free-for-all information source to know what is happening on the ground. The chapter also points to a nexus between the politicians, mainstream media and social media during the 2014 General Election campaign in India

Balanced Scorecard aplicado à Coudelaria de Alter : trabalho elaborado no âmbito do FORGEP

O presente relatório foi elaborado no âmbito do Curso de Formação de Dirigentes da Administração Pública-FORGEP, Edição Suplementar de Coimbra e apresenta, num plano puramente académico, uma proposta de aplicação do Balanced Scorecard à Coudelaria de Alter