Regulating Environmental Externalities through Public Firms: A Differential Game

We investigate the possibility of using public firms to regulate polluting emissions in a Cournot oligopoly where production takes place at constant returns to scale and entails a negative environmental externality. We model the problem as a differential game and investigate (i) the Cournot-Nash game among profit-seeking firms; (ii) the Markov Perfect Nash equilibrium under social planning, where the industry output is entirely controlled by a benevolent planner aiming at the maximisation of social welfare; and (iii) the Markov Perfect Nash equilibrium in a mixed setup where at least one firm is public, while the others remain profit-seeking agents. Our analysis identifies the conditions whereby having a mixed market as a regulatory instrument suffices to drive the industry to the same output, externality and social welfare as under planning, both along the optimal path and in steady state.

The search for effectiveness of the right to education: analysis of the Infancy and Youth Public Prosecutor's office of Justice role from a municipality of São Paulo State

O presente artigo analisa como o Ministério Público, instituição concebida na Constituição Federal de 1988, para defender o regime democrático e os interesses sociais e individuais indisponíveis, atuou para efetivar o direito à educação, ou seja, a garantia de um direito social positivado na legislação como direito de todos e dever do Estado. Para tanto, analisou-se a atuação da Promotoria da Justiça da Infância e Juventude do município de Ribeirão Preto. Da Promotoria estudada destaca-se a atuação crescente nos últimos anos, envolvendo diferentes solicitações, desde a requisição do acesso e permanência à educação infantil, ao ensino fundamental, ao ensino médio, às escolas próximas da residência, questionamentos sobre a qualidade de ensino, incentivos à gestão democrática do ensino público, entre outros assuntos. Outro importante aspecto do trabalho nessa Promotoria é o envolvimento da sociedade civil na discussão das prioridades por meio da realização de audiências públicas.The present article analyzes how the Public Prosecution Service, institution conceived on the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 to plead the democratic regime and the indispensable social and individual interests, acted to accomplish the right to education, in other words, the warranty of a social right formulated on law as a right of all and duty of the State. Therefore, Infancy and Youth Public Prosecutor's office of Justice from the municipality of Ribeirão Preto was selected to this research. It shows crescent actions from that office on the last years, involving different requests concerning: access and remaining in Early Childhood education, elementary education, high school education, schools that are near to students' homes, doubts about the quality of education, incentives on the democratic administration of public education, among other affairs. Another important aspect of the study is the civil society involvement in priorities discussions through the realization of public audiences

Feasibility of bioethanol production from microalgal biomass

The potential use of microalgal biomass as a feedstock for bioethanol production has attracted great attention in recent years. Bioethanol from microalgae can be produced through two distinct pathways: direct dark fermentation or fermentation of saccharified biomass by yeast. The main objective of this work was to assess the influence of increasing glucose concentration derived from hydrolysed microalgal biomass on bioethanol production. The green microalga C. vulgaris (strain P12) was cultivated at room temperature during 15 days in 15-L flat plate photobioreactors. Illumination was provided by cool white fluorescent lamps at an irradiance level of 300 μmol photon m−2 s−1 and CO2-enriched air (6.5% v/v CO2) was supplied at an aeration rate of 0.1 vvm. Successive disruption of microalgal cells with 0.5M HCl at 121 ºC for 20 min was performed in order to obtain fermentation media with increasing carbohydrate contents (25, 50 and 75 g/L). Microalgal starch was saccharified into glucose by α-amylase at 60 ºC for 30 min and amyloglucosidase at 55 ºC for 90 min. Fermentations of microalgal starch hydrolysates by Saccharomyces cerevisiae were carried out at 30 ºC during 48 h. Results showed that bioethanol production was enhanced by using microalgal hydrolysates containing elevated glucose concentration. A maximum ethanol concentration of 28.69 ± 0.68 g/L was achieved at 75 g/L initial glucose. It was concluded that ethanol production can be improved by increasing the glucose content in the fermentation medium, which can be attained by successive hydrolyses of microalgae