Economic Growth, Ecological Technology and Public Intervention

Seminal works on growth theory had mainly focused on exogenous technological change, where a certain given path of technological change was considered. At the end of the 1980s, a new growth theory emerged allowing for the endogeneity of technological change, where economic agents can affect the pace of technological change and where technology is essentially interpreted as “knowledge”. The present paper aims to develop a simple endogenous growth model to study the effects of taxation on dirty intensive resources and the effects of subsidies on clean/ecological intensive resources. It also intends to analyse how exogenous environmental quality can affect the development of better quality (environmentally cleaner) inputs to production. For that, a dynamic general equilibrium growth model is considered based on the endogenous skill-biased technological change literature. It is shown that final-good sector bias is caused by the technological-knowledge bias, which is promoted by government intervention.economic growth, technological change, environment

Eco-Innovation and Emissions Trading: a sector analysis for European countries

This article aims to assess the impact of a specific regulation, namely the European Union emission trading system (EU-ETS), on the Eco-Innovation (EI) activities of the companies, to assess its effectiveness in changing the companies’ environmental behavior. It also intendsto empirically examine whether the EU-ETS and its ‘stringency’ are significantly related to EI, taking into account both the internal and external factors that might be correlated with EI. To this end, we develop a cross-sectional framework using the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data and by creating a stringency indicator for the period between 2012-2014 for 13 European countries. We found that the EU-ETS has limited and some controversial effects. Furthermore, technology policies emerge as an important element of the policy mix complementing climate policy. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for policymakers on how to improve the existing policy mix

A comunicação como factor de segurança em eventos públicos : o caso do festival Paredes de Coura

Comunicação e a Segurança são duas necessidades básicas que garantem uma convivência em harmonia para o ser humano. Como tal, o intuito desta dissertação é perceber se existe uma relação entre estas duas vertentes dentro da área dos eventos públicos em Portugal, optando-se por verificar esta hipótese no Festival Paredes de Coura. Primeiramente foi feita uma revisão bibliográfica que nos elucidou acerca da importância da Comunicação e da Segurança, mesmo que de forma separada, na realização de qualquer evento. A partir daqui, percebemos quais os critérios para a organização de um evento seguro e de que maneira a comunicação, através dos vários instrumentos, poderia contribuir para tal. De seguida, foi feita a observação de campo no festival musical que reuniu cerca de 80.000 pessoas durante os quatro dias de realização. Tentou-se perceber como era gerida a segurança, que instrumentos eram mais utilizados e de que forma correspondiam as pessoas a estes factores. Foi ainda aplicado um inquérito ao público, sendo a amostra de 400 pessoas. Por último, analisaram-se os resultados e tiraram-se as conclusões, comparando-as com as observações e a leitura previamente realizada.Communication and Security are two basic necessities that ensure the harmony amongst human beings in their daily societies. With this in mind, the aim of this dissertation is to understand if there is a relationship between these two factors inside the public area of events in Portugal, choosing to verify the key elements of communication and security taking place during the Festival Paredes de Coura. Firstly, a bibliographic revision was conducted which enlightened us to the importance of Communication and Security when creating an event of any kind. Based on this study we understood what was the criteria for organising of a safe event and how communication throughout the different instruments, could contribute to such an event. Secondly, we observed the entire complex holding the event that attracted around 80 000 people throughout the four day festival. We tried to understand the management of security, which instruments were most commonly used and how the people would respond to these factors. In addition, a survey was taken from 400 members of the general public Finally, we analysed the results and formed our conclusions by comparing the initial revision with the observations and studies carried out during the Festival Paredes de Coura

A relevância e utilidade das demonstrações financeiras : a perceção dos gestores das PME

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Gestão das Instituições FinanceirasAs Pequenas e Médias Empresas (PME) constituem um segmento de extrema importância quer a nível europeu quer a nível nacional, representando a quase totalidade do tecido empresarial português e a maior fonte potencial de emprego e crescimento. Atualmente, num mercado global, caracterizado pela competitividade e instabilidade, torna-se cada vez mais importante para as PME a necessidade de obter informações úteis que as auxiliem a gerir de forma eficiente os seus negócios. Neste sentido, a contabilidade tornou-se vital no sucesso da organização como forte instrumento para a tomada de decisão, deixando a sua anterior e simples função de registo. Considerando a importância das PME no cenário económico, e reconhecendo o contributo da informação contabilística no processo de tomada de decisão, este estudo foca-se na perceção dos gestores das PME, enquanto principais intervenientes no processo de elaboração das demonstrações financeiras, no que concerne à relevância e à utilidade que atribuem às demonstrações financeiras, no seio da organização. Porém, as PME nem sempre se encontram totalmente preparadas para superar os atuais e constantes desafios, sendo os seus procedimentos contabilísticos direcionados, maioritariamente, para as exigências fiscais, o que é contraditório com os reais objetivos da contabilidade.Small and Medium-Sized Entities (SME’s) are a very important segment both at European level and at national level, representing almost all the Portuguese business and the largest potential source of jobs and growth. Nowadays, in a global market, characterized by instability and competitiveness, it becomes increasingly important for SME's to obtain useful information that help them efficiently manage their businesses. In this sense, accounting has become vital to the success of the organization as a powerful tool for decision making, leaving its previous simple registration function. Considering the SME’s importance in the economic environment, and recognizing the contribution of accounting information in the decision-making process, this study is focused on SME’s manager’s perceptions as key players in the financial reporting process, with regard to the relevance and utility that they attach to the financial statements, within the organization. However, SME’s are not always fully prepared to overcome the current and ongoing challenges, and its accounting procedures are mostly related, with tax requirements, which is a contradiction bearing in mind the real objectives of accounting

Replacing coal-fired power plants by photovoltaics in the Portuguese electricity system

The decarbonization of the Portuguese electricity system, currently around 50% renewable-based, is undergoing with the commitment to reach 60% of renewable electricity share by 2020. Because of this, the phase-out of the two remaining coal-fired power plants has been receiving close attention, as they currently contribute to about one-fifth of the total electricity generation and two-thirds of the CO2 emissions in the power sector. This work assesses the impact of eliminating coal-fired generation from the Portuguese electricity system without replacing it, and explores a cleaner supply alternative achievable before 2025. Coal phase-out without substitution results in slightly increased CO2 emissions for the atmosphere if one assumes that the required additional imports are of carbon-intensive electricity, leading to the need of adding clean power capacity to the system. It is shown that coal plants could be replaced by about 8 GW of photovoltaics if accompanied by a modest increase in the already existing hydro pump capacity. In this case, the renewable electricity share increases to 77%, and carbon footprint decreases by 56%publishe

Liprobe, a vital dye for lipid aggregates detection in imaging and high-content screens

Pathological lipid accumulation is a hallmark of several metabolic disorders, and detection of lipid aggregates is an essential step for initial diagnosis and drug screening purposes. However, low-cost, simple, and reliable detection fluorescent probes are not widely available. Here, six push-pull-push dyes were studied, and proved to be highly sensitive to the polarity of the medium, presenting potential to distinguish structures with different hydrophobic indexes. Importantly, in the presence of lipid aggregates their staining specificity highly increased and the fluorescence wavelength blue shifted. One of the compounds, named Liprobe, was physiologically inert in cells, as witnessed by mass-spectrometry and metabolic assays. Liprobe was not toxic to living zebrafish embryos, and differentially stained the muscle and bone tissues. In triglyceride solutions, a high correlation was observed between Liprobe’s 558 and 592 nm emissions and the 0–2.5 mg dl−1 triglyceride range. Confocal and cell-based high content screens revealed that this fluorophore was able to selectively detect lipid droplets and ceramide loads in normal and Farber’s disease human fibroblasts, respectively. Our results demonstrate that Liprobe is a suitable fluorescing probe for vital staining of lipid aggregates, compatible with a rapid and cheap high content screening assays for preliminary diagnosis of Farber’s disease and, potentially, of other lipidosis.publishe

A wastewater-based epidemiology tool for COVID-19 surveillance in Portugal

Funding: Strategic funding of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, to cE3c and BioISI Research Units ( UIDB/00329/2020 and UIDB/04046/2020 ] is also gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported by Programa Operacional de Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) (FEDER component), Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa , and Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (Project COVIDETECT, ref. 048467 ).The presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater produced interest in its use for sentinel surveillance at a community level and as a complementary approach to syndromic surveillance. With this work, we set the foundations for wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) in Portugal by monitoring the trends of SARS-CoV-2 RNA circulation in the community, on a nationwide perspective during different epidemiological phases of the pandemic. The Charité assays (E_Sarbecco, RdRP, and N_Sarbecco) were applied to monitor, over 32-weeks (April to December 2020), the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 RNA at the inlet of five wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), which together serve more than two million people in Portugal. Raw wastewater from three Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reference hospitals was also analyzed during this period. In total, more than 600 samples were tested. For the first weeks, detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA was sporadic, with concentrations varying from 103 to 105 genome copies per liter (GC/L). Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA increased steeply by the end of May into late June, mainly in Lisboa e Vale do Tejo region (LVT), during the reopening phase. After the summer, with the reopening of schools in mid-September and return to partial face-to-face work, a pronounced increase of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater was detected. In the LVT area, SARS-CoV-2 RNA load agreed with reported trends in hotspots of infection. Synchrony between trends of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in raw wastewater and daily new COVID-19 cases highlights the value of WBE as a surveillance tool, particularly after the phasing out of the epidemiological curve and when hotspots of disease re-emerge in the population which might be difficult to spot based solely on syndromic surveillance and contact tracing. This is the first study crossing several epidemiological stages highlighting the long-term use of WBE for SARS-CoV-2.PostprintPeer reviewe

Association Between Preexisting Versus Newly Identified Atrial Fibrillation and Outcomes of Patients With Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) may exist before or occur early in the course of pulmonary embolism (PE). We determined the PE outcomes based on the presence and timing of AF. Methods and Results Using the data from a multicenter PE registry, we identified 3 groups: (1) those with preexisting AF, (2) patients with new AF within 2 days from acute PE (incident AF), and (3) patients without AF. We assessed the 90-day and 1-year risk of mortality and stroke in patients with AF, compared with those without AF (reference group). Among 16 497 patients with PE, 792 had preexisting AF. These patients had increased odds of 90-day all-cause (odds ratio [OR], 2.81; 95% CI, 2.33-3.38) and PE-related mortality (OR, 2.38; 95% CI, 1.37-4.14) and increased 1-year hazard for ischemic stroke (hazard ratio, 5.48; 95% CI, 3.10-9.69) compared with those without AF. After multivariable adjustment, preexisting AF was associated with significantly increased odds of all-cause mortality (OR, 1.91; 95% CI, 1.57-2.32) but not PE-related mortality (OR, 1.50; 95% CI, 0.85-2.66). Among 16 497 patients with PE, 445 developed new incident AF within 2 days of acute PE. Incident AF was associated with increased odds of 90-day all-cause (OR, 2.28; 95% CI, 1.75-2.97) and PE-related (OR, 3.64; 95% CI, 2.01-6.59) mortality but not stroke. Findings were similar in multivariable analyses. Conclusions In patients with acute symptomatic PE, both preexisting AF and incident AF predict adverse clinical outcomes. The type of adverse outcomes may differ depending on the timing of AF onset.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Effectiveness of Environmental Taxes in Reducing CO2 Emissions in Passenger Vehicles: The Case of Mediterranean Countries

The transport sector is the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Europe. It is responsible for over a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Passenger vehicles, alone, account for nearly 41% of these emissions, resulting in human health impacts. To meet the Paris climate commitments, cars and vans should be decarbonized until 2050. Such a transformation requires general changes, such as how the vehicles are owned, taxed, and driven. The European Federation for Transport and Environment revealed that Mediterranean countries tend to emit less per vehicle compared to the northern and central Europeans. Intriguingly, this does not necessarily correspond to motorization rates. In this article, we assess whether the observed reductions in CO2 emissions in the Mediterranean countries can be attributed to vehicle taxation on CO2 emissions. We apply panel data econometric techniques using data on annual registrations from 2008 to 2018 and model the demand for new-vehicle purchases and their responsiveness to changes in both CO2-based taxation and circulation tax. Our results show the determinants of new-vehicle demand and the change in the emissions rate in each country under the taxation currently adopted. We found that fiscal policies can have an important role in reducing the emission in the Mediterranean countries