Regional Growth in Europe: The Role of European and National Policies

We conduct a systematic study of the impact of European Union (EU) regional policies on regional economic growth that controls for national policies and geographic characteristics. Special care is taken in distinguishing between the impact of EU policies and of national policies on economic growth. Our empirical study tries to answer two different questions. First, is there convergence across EU regions, and if so, do regions converge to a common European steady-state or to a national one? Second, how do European and national policies affect regional growth? We find evidence of regional convergence at the national level but not at the European level. In addition we find that trade openness at the national level is associated with regional convergence while European regional policies contribute, though weakly, to regional convergence. Our results suggest that policies that foster market integration – and convergence to a common steady-state - such as the promotion of labour and capital movements across countries and common regulatory policies are as important for European-wide regional convergence as regional structural funds. JEL codes: D30, R11National Policies, European Union Policies, regional growth

Comparing Exchange Market Pressure in West and Southern African Countries

We compare the performance of Cape Verde and Mozambique concerning financial credibility as measured by Exchange Market Pressure, an institutional feature that has often been overlooked in the literature as a relevant institution for economies. Drawing on previous research by Macedo et al. (2009), we expand their analysis and, using several definitions of “financial credibility”, all related to different angles on Exchange Market Pressure indices, we conclude that - against reasonable benchmarks in their respective regions - financial credibility has been very good for Cape Verde and fairly good for Mozambique. JEL codes: C22, E44, F31, F33Exchange Rate Regime, Exchange Market Pressure, EGARCH

Conservation history, hunting policies and practices in the South Western Mozambique borderland in the 20th century

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, August 2017This study uses both primary and secondary sources to investigate the history of the communities living in the southern Mozambique hinterland in the 20th century. It specifically examines the evolution of the colonial hunting laws and the establishment of hunting reserves in southern Mozambique. In this thesis, I argue that the Portuguese colonial administration put little effort into the protection of fauna and ecosystems in the south western Mozambique hinterland. Portuguese hunting laws were issued to provide the colonial system with revenue – through a system of fees imposed on licensed hunters when entering Mozambican forests and hunting reserves – rather than to improve fauna management. Colonial laws (particularly fees for the hunting permits) made it difficult for the majority of local African peasants to access game resources, on which during periods of drought and lack of foodstuffs they depended for subsistence. The study explores the extent to which postcolonial development projects affected conservation and the livelihoods of communities living in conservation areas. It shows how the period following independence was also characterised by mass killing of wildlife. In 1978, as part of the construction of the Massingir dam, Frelimo government officials relocated families living along the Elephants valley to areas having poor soils in Coutada 16, thus reducing the ability of the cultivators to produce enough food to sustain their families. Lack of food supplies increased the dependence of local families on bush meat for food. The armed conflict, which broke out immediately after independence in 1975 and lasted until 1992, contributed to the mass killing of wildlife, as both government soldiers and RENAMO fighters exploited bush for food. The end of the armed conflict allowed the Government of Mozambique (GoM) to implement projects aimed at rehabilitating the ecosystems destroyed by war and the transformation of Coutada 16 into the Limpopo National Park (LNP) in 2001. In 2002, the integration of the LNP into the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) turned into reality Hertzog´s 1927 desire to create a transnational conservation area across the South Africa – Mozambique border.XL201

Comércio electrónico on-line e direcção efectiva

No âmbito da tributação do rendimento das pessoas colectivas, os ordenamentos jurídicos e as directrizes da OCDE em matéria fiscal servem-se do conceito de direcção efectiva para determinar a existência de conexão entre os rendimentos obtidos por uma entidade e a jurisdição tributária de um Estado. Com este conceito procurou-se suprir a insuficiência que o elemento sede estatutária mostrava nas situações em que os locais da sede e da direcção efectiva não coincidiam. Não sendo um conceito formal, como o de “sede”, mas antes substancial, o conceito de direcção efectiva revela-se de difícil objectivação, sobretudo no actual contexto tecnológico e em particular no domínio do comércio electrónico. Este trabalho analisa os critérios que têm vindo a ser elaborados para a determinação do local da direcção efectiva bem como as propostas mais recentes de reformulação dos mesmos provenientes da OCDE.In the context of the corporate taxation, the jurisdictions and the OCDE Model Convention use the concept of place of effective management to determine the connection between the revenues obtained by an entity and its respective jurisdiction. With this concept they tried to overcome the inadequacy that the element “domicile law” showed in the situations when the places of the “domicile law” and “place of effective management” did not coincide. Unlike “domicile law” which is a formal concept, the “place of effective management” is a substantial concept. Therefore significant difficulties arise when it comes to interpretation and implementation, mainly in the context of new technologies like electronic commerce. This work analyses the approaches that have been elaborated for the determination of the “place of effective management” as well as the most recent proposals from the OCDE in this respect

Strangers and sojourners as all our fathers (I Ch 28: 15). Towards a receptive, inclusive and global ecumenism.

Este artículo pretende abordar el tema de la migración y su relación con la religión durante las dos primeras décadas del siglo XXI, en el marco de una teología práctica fundamental. Al utilizar los datos sociológicos como causa básica con el objeto de conocer los cambios y desafíos que están en juego en el mundo actual, nos proyectaremos hacia un análisis teológico de las categorías relacionadas con la migración humana desde una perspectiva bíblica y teológica. Nuestro principal objetivo es reflexionar brevemente sobre los principios que deben moldear una actitud cristiana hacia las diferencias étnicas, sociales y religiosas, teniendo en cuenta los avances de la teología ecuménica y del diálogo interreligioso de las últimas décadas

Audio-coupled video content understanding of unconstrained video sequences

Unconstrained video understanding is a difficult task. The main aim of this thesis is to recognise the nature of objects, activities and environment in a given video clip using both audio and video information. Traditionally, audio and video information has not been applied together for solving such complex task, and for the first time we propose, develop, implement and test a new framework of multi-modal (audio and video) data analysis for context understanding and labelling of unconstrained videos. The framework relies on feature selection techniques and introduces a novel algorithm (PCFS) that is faster than the well-established SFFS algorithm. We use the framework for studying the benefits of combining audio and video information in a number of different problems. We begin by developing two independent content recognition modules. The first one is based on image sequence analysis alone, and uses a range of colour, shape, texture and statistical features from image regions with a trained classifier to recognise the identity of objects, activities and environment present. The second module uses audio information only, and recognises activities and environment. Both of these approaches are preceded by detailed pre-processing to ensure that correct video segments containing both audio and video content are present, and that the developed system can be made robust to changes in camera movement, illumination, random object behaviour etc. For both audio and video analysis, we use a hierarchical approach of multi-stage classification such that difficult classification tasks can be decomposed into simpler and smaller tasks. When combining both modalities, we compare fusion techniques at different levels of integration and propose a novel algorithm that combines advantages of both feature and decision-level fusion. The analysis is evaluated on a large amount of test data comprising unconstrained videos collected for this work. We finally, propose a decision correction algorithm which shows that further steps towards combining multi-modal classification information effectively with semantic knowledge generates the best possible results

ASPHER statement: 5 + 5 + 5 points for improving food security in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. An opportunity arising from the disaster?

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Relationship between Childhood Experiences of Submissiveness, External shame and Paranoia in a Portuguese Student Sample

Paranoia has been conceptualised as a form of defence against perceived threat that is associated to internal shame, issues of rank and history of trauma in clinical populations. We aimed to explore whether a student sample would show external and internal shame with paranoid ideation and if this is related to childhood experiences of threat. A total of 165 college students were given a battery of scales measuring non-clinical paranoid ideation and experiences of paranoia, submission, external and internal shame, forms of self-blame vs. blame others and childhood memories of a threatening family environment. Results supported our hypotheses. Portuguese students acknowledge experiences of paranoia and those that acknowledged paranoid experiences presented statistically significantly more shame and childhood experiences of threat and submissiveness towards significant others than the ones that do not acknowledge having paranoia. A linear regression with a LASSO model also showed that external shame was the only significant predictor of paranoia which supports new literature about the importance of shame memories in shaping paranoia. Clinical implications are inferred suggesting the importance of teaching students to manage feelings of shame as a way of preventing the onset of paranoid ideation