Risk Premia for Emerging Markets Bonds: Evidence from Brazilian Government Debt, 1996-2002

The goal of this paper is to identify the determinants of the risk premium on Brazilian government debt traded in the emerging markets bonds. The empirical evidence presented does not reject the hypotheses that fiscal solvency and the size of the public debt affect the risk premium as measured by the spread over treasury securities of the Brazilian C-bond.

Cultural accessible pedestrian ways. The case of Faro historic centre

In a historic city the existence of accessible pedestrian routes constitutes an essential feature to a true access to culture heritage, contributing for processes of social inclusion. It is necessary to create accessible pedestrian infrastructures network to hold a set of attributes that guarantee usability for all citizens. The creation and design of an accessible physical environment should be considered as a criterion of urban quality, which will make walking more pleasant not only for the elderly and people with disabilities but, also, for the entire resident population and tourists. In this case study it is ascertainable whether the physical characteristics of pedestrian infrastructures of cultural interest, located in the Historical Centre of Faro (Portugal), comply with the requirements of the National Law of Accessibility. There has, therefore, been created a methodology for evaluating the accessibility of pedestrian infrastructure through the construction of performance indicators. The analysis is achieved through a model of evaluation of the degree of conformity of the spaces, and presented, spatially, with appeal to a Geographical Information System, which is a tool to support the decision taking in the processes of urban rehabilitation, thus contributing to the choice of priority areas of intervention in the field of accessibility. The diagnosis confirms the existence of inaccessible pedestrian infrastructure and concludes the need to trigger processes of urban renovation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Smoking Habits: Like Father, Like Son, Like Mother, Like Daughter

We use instrumental variable methods to investigate whether the impact of parental smoking habits on their children’s smoking decisions is a causal one. We find evidence of same-sex role models in two-parent households: mothers play a crucial role in determining their daughters’ smoking decisions, while fathers’ smoking habits are primarily imitated by their sons.youth smoking, intergenerational habit transmission, multivariate probit, instrumental variables

Reabilitação urbana da Baixa Portuense - Qualidade Habitacional

Neste artigo apresentamos, um estudo de mercado, cujo objectivofoi obter um quadro dos aspectos que potenciais interessados em habitar naBaixa do Porto valorizam quando procuram uma habitação.Para responder a este objectivo, a preocupação que orientou este estudo foia de procurar compreender as aspirações e expectativas que alguns grupospretendem ver satisfeitas com a sua habitação.Na primeira parte, apresentamos um breve enquadramento dos conceitos dereabilitação/revitalização urbana. Depois a caracterização geral do parquehabitacional e das características sociodemográficas da Baixa Portuense e porfim, a análise dos inquéritos efectuados à procura potencial, tendo-se inquiridoum segmento da população que utiliza esta área por motivos deemprego, compras, lazer e utilização de serviços diversos, apoiado numinquérito de rua administrado a 442 indivíduos.In this article, we present a market study, whose goal it was toobtain a profile of the aspects that those who are potentially interested in livingin Oporto's City Centre value when they are looking for housing.So as to accomplish this goal, the main concern guiding this study was theneed to understand the aspirations and expectations that some groups hopeto see fulfilled with their new homes.In the first part, we present a brief review of the concepts of urban regeneration/rehabilitation. This is followed by the general characterization of thehousing stock and the sociodemographic characteristics of Oporto's City Centreand finally, an analysis of the survey conducted on the potential demandfor housing. A segment of the population, which uses this area for employmentreason, purchases, leisure and the use of diverse services, was interviewedby questionnaire, during a street survey with 442 individuals

Photography, Land-Cover and Land-Use changes, and tourism urbanization: A narrative focused on Hotel do Garbe, Armação de Pêra, Algarve, Portugal

This article is focused on the use of photography to characterize land-cover and land-use changes in a 7.59 km2 study area centered on Hotel do Garbe, in the village of Armação de Pêra, Algarve, Portugal. Orthorectified vertical aerial, oblique aerial and ground-level photographs were the main data sources required to carry out the analysis. In a preliminary approach, a conventional research design was adopted. Based on the available orthorectified vertical aerial photographs, a sixty-year time series, with four homogeneously distributed steps (1958, 1978, 1997 and 2018), was constructed, and maps were produced to support the description of the changes that have taken place. To deepen the analysis, photographs from fourteen picture postcards were recognized as a useful source of information, and the authors of these photographs were considered “involuntary or accidental photo-geographers” whose work was relevant to feed a case study in which human geography and landscape biography sciences are the main narrative axes. The final result proved to be richer than the interpretation only based on the orthorectified vertical aerial photographs, and the importance of combining photographs taken from different points of view, with different aims and for different recipients is highlighted.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Simulation of the Steady-State Transport of Radon from Oil intoHouses with Basements under Constant Negative Pressure

A theoretical model was developed to simulate this phenomenon, under some specific assumptions. The model simulates: the generation and decay of radon within the soil; its transport throughout the soil due to diffusion and convection induced by the pressure disturbance applied at a crack in the basement; its entrance into the house through the crack; and the resultant indoor radon concentration. The most important assumptions adopted in the model were: a steady-state condition; a house with a basement; a geometrically well-defined crack at the wall-floor joint in the basement; and a constant negative pressure applied at the crack in relation to the outside atmospheric pressure. Two three-dimensional finite-difference computer programs were written to solve the mathematical equations of the model. The first program, called PRESSU, was used to calculate: the pressure distribution within the soil as a result of the applied disturbance pressure at the crack; and the resultant velocity distribution of the soil gas throughout the soil matrix. The second program, called MASTRA, was used to: solve the radon mass-transport equation, and to calculate the concentration distribution of radon in the soil gas within the whole soil; and to calculate the entry rate of radon through the crack into the basement, and the final indoor radon concentration. A parametric sensitivity analysis performed on the model, revealed several features of the mechanisms involved in the transport of radon into the house. 84 refs., 66 figs., 16 tabs

Ageing and quality of life - new responses from the real estate sector in Portugal

In the second half of the 20th century, the history of European demography is associated with a pronounced and widespread process of ageing. The 21st century will have to cater to the needs of an elderly population in transformation. Portugal is also part of this process and in efforts to improve the quality of life of the elderly, a wide range of facilities, services and social responses have been established by a variety of promoters, targeting several social levels. This paper will analyze a specific segment directed at an exclusive niche of the elderly population, the Senior Residential Condominiums. This is a very recent segment of the housing market, with high levels of comfort, quality, sanitation, health, and recreation, essential to full well-being. The paper intends to characterize this real estate market niche so as to identify its distinctive features, the promoting agents and how they can contribute to residents' quality of life

Active transportation to school. Utopia or a strategy for a healthy life in adolescence

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The way adolescents travel to school can be an important contribution to achieving their daily physical activity recommendations. The main objective of this research is to know which variables are associated with the mode of transportation used to and from school by Portuguese adolescents. The 2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children questionnaire was applied to 5695 adolescents with an average age of 15.5 (SD ± 1.8), 53.9% of whom were female. The associations were studied by applying χ2 tests and multivariate logistic regression models. In this study, 36.5% of the participants reported walking or cycling to school. Active transportation to school is associated with age (OR = 1.3; p < 0.05), sufficient physical activity (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05), adequate number of hours of sleep (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05), perception of happiness (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05) and living near the school (OR = 2.4; p < 0.05). The results revealed that adolescents' choice to travel to/from school using an active mode of transportation increased with age, physical activity, hours of sleep, perception of happiness, and living near the school.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio