“A long-term mortality analysis of subsidized firms in rural areas: an empirical study in the Portuguese Alentejo region”

Studies have demonstrated that public policies to support private firms’ investment have the ability to promote entrepreneurship, but the sustainability of subsidized firms has not often been analysed. This paper aims to examine this dimension specifically through evaluating the mortality of subsidized firms in the long-term. The analysis focuses on a case study of the LEADER+ Programme in the Alentejo region of Portugal. With this purpose, the paper examines the activity status (active or not active) of 154 private, rural, for-profit firms in Alentejo that had received a subsidy to support investment between 2002 and 2008 under the LEADER+ Programme. The methodology is based on binary choice models in order to study the probability of these firms still being active. The explanatory variables used are the following: (1) the characteristics of entrepreneurs and managers’ strategic decisions, (2) firm profile and characteristics, (3) regional economic environment. Data assessment showed that the cumulative mortality rate of firms on 31st December 2013 is over 20 %. Interpretation of the regression model revealed that he probability of firms’ survival increases with higher investment, firm age and regional business concentration, whereas the number of applications made by firms has a negative impact on their survival. So it seems that for subsidized firms the amount of investment is as important as its frequency.

Quantificação do ião cálcio nas uvas e vinhos brancos por espectroscopia de infravermelho

Com o objetivo de diminuir a incidência das leveduras encapsulas em alginato se aglomerarem na segunda fermentação em garrafa e reduzir custos associados à sua eliminação, pretendeu-se utilizar a metodologia NIR para determinar a quantidade de cálcio no vinho. Foram quantificados outros minerais para avaliar hipotéticos antagonismos iónicos. Observou-se também que este controlo de qualidade poderá ser efetuado no mosto. Atualmente este controlo é realizado por metodologias de análise de referência bastante morosas como EAA. Contudo a metodologia NIR demonstrou ser uma boa alternativa no controlo dos parâ-metros de qualidade na produção de vinho espumante, permitindo a diminuição do tempo de análise e de resíduos. No desenvolvimento dos modelos matemáticos para a calibração do NIR utilizaram-se 79 vinhos brancos e 60 amostras de mosto. Foram desenvolvidos 11 modelos de calibração onde o coeficiente de correlação foi, em aproximadamente 58% dos casos, maior que 0,99; ABSTRACT: In order to reduce the incidence of alginate beads aggregation during the second fermentation in the bottle and to reduce costs associated with their disposal, it was used the NIR technology to quantify calcium content in the wine. Other minerals were also quantified in order to evaluate possible ionic antagonisms. Quality control is usually done in the base wine but it can also be evaluated in the must. Currently this control was carried out by reference analysis methodologies generally rather slow as AAS. However NIR proved to be a good alternative technique in the control of quality parameters of wine production, allowing the reduction of the analysis time and waste. In order to develop mathematical models for the calibration of NIR it was used 79 white wine samples and 60 must samples. Eleven calibration models have been developed, where the correlation coeffi-cient was, in approximately 58% of cases, greater than 0,99.

Control and Supervision of Wind Energy Conversion Systems

This paper is about a PhD thesis and includes the study and analysis of the performance of an onshore wind energy conversion system. First, mathematical models of a variable speed wind turbine with pitch control are studied, followed by the study of different controller types such as integer-order controllers, fractional-order controllers, fuzzy logic controllers, adaptive controllers and predictive controllers and the study of a supervisor based on finite state machines is also studied. The controllers are included in the lower level of a hierarchical structure composed by two levels whose objective is to control the electric output power around the rated power. The supervisor included at the higher level is based on finite state machines whose objective is to analyze the operational states according to the wind speed. The studied mathematical models are integrated into computer simulations for the wind energy conversion system and the obtained numerical results allow for the performance assessment of the system connected to the electric grid. The wind energy conversion system is composed by a variable speed wind turbine, a mechanical transmission system described by a two mass drive train, a gearbox, a doubly fed induction generator rotor and by a two level converter.