The economics of language or how can language be an asset? General reflections on the European case and brief focus on the case of portuguese

In this paper, we will focus on the importance of languages as an asset to people and companies in knowledge-based society, giving special attention to the case of portuguese, not forgetting the role of Higher Education Institutions in preparing students to be part of the new creative multilingual and sucsessful class.

Effects of international diffusion of a general purpose technology on wage inequality

This paper studies the effects of the diffusion of a General Purpose Technology (GPT) that spreads first within the developed North country of its origin, and then to a developing South country. In the developed general equilibrium growth model, each final good can be produced by one of two technologies. Each technology is characterized by a specific labor complemented by a specific set of intermediate goods, which are enhanced periodically by Schumpeterian R&D activities. When quality reaches a threshold level, a GPT arises in one of the technologies and spreads first to the other technology within the North. Then, it propagates to the South, following a similar sequence. Since diffusion is not even, neither intra- nor inter-country, the GPT produces successive changes in the direction of technological knowledge and in inter- and intra-country wage inequality. Through this mechanism the different observed paths of wage inequality can be accommodated.

A general overview on hybrid and electric vehicles

The economical and environment impacts of fossil energies increased the interest for hybrid, battery and fuel-cell electric vehicles. Several demanding engineering challenges must be faced, motivated by different physical domains integration. This paper aims to present an overview on hybrid (HEV) and electric vehicles (EV) basic structures and features. In addition, it will try to point out some of the most relevant challenges to overcome for HEV and EV may be a solid option for the mobility issue. New developments in energy storage devices and energy management systems (EMS) are crucial to achieve this goal.

Nonlinear dynamics of the patient’s response to drug effect during general anesthesia

In today’s healthcare paradigm, optimal sedation during anesthesia plays an important role both in patient welfare and in the socio-economic context. For the closed-loop control of general anesthesia, two drugs have proven to have stable, rapid onset times: propofol and remifentanil. These drugs are related to their effect in the bispectral index, a measure of EEG signal. In this paper wavelet time–frequency analysis is used to extract useful information from the clinical signals, since they are time-varying and mark important changes in patient’s response to drug dose. Model based predictive control algorithms are employed to regulate the depth of sedation by manipulating these two drugs. The results of identification from real data and the simulation of the closed loop control performance suggest that the proposed approach can bring an improvement of 9% in overall robustness and may be suitable for clinical practice.

Nonlinear dynamics of the patient’s response to drug effect during general anesthesia

In today’s healthcare paradigm, optimal sedation during anesthesia plays an important role both in patient welfare and in the socio-economic context. For the closed-loop control of general anesthesia, two drugs have proven to have stable, rapid onset times: propofol and remifentanil. These drugs are related to their effect in the bispectral index, a measure of EEG signal. In this paper wavelet time–frequency analysis is used to extract useful information from the clinical signals, since they are time-varying and mark important changes in patient’s response to drug dose. Model based predictive control algorithms are employed to regulate the depth of sedation by manipulating these two drugs. The results of identification from real data and the simulation of the closed loop control performance suggest that the proposed approach can bring an improvement of 9% in overall robustness and may be suitable for clinical practice.