Sustainable urban planning: parameters to the operational process

In modern society, energy consumption and respect for the environment have become essential aspects of urban planning. The rising demand for alternative sources of energy, coupled with the decline in the construction sector and material usage, gives the idea that the thinking on modern cities, where attention is given to reduced energy consumption, savings, waste recycling and respect for the surrounding environment, is being put into practice. If we examine development of the city over recent centuries, by means of the theories of the most famous and influential urban planners, it is possible to identify the major problems caused by this type of planning. For this reason, in recent urban planning the use of systems of indicators that evaluate and certify land environmentally and energetically guides the master plan toward a more efficient city model. In addition the indicators are targeted on key factors determined by the commissioner or the opportunities the territory itself provides. Due the complexity of the environmental mechanics, the process of design and urban planning has become a challenging issue. The introduction of the indicators system has made it possible to register the life of the process, with a spiral route that allows the design itself to be refined. The aim of this study, built around the creation of a system of urban sustainability indicators that will evaluate highly eco-friendly cities, is to develop a certification system for cities or portions of them. The system will be upgradeable and objective, will employ real data and will be concerned with energy production and consumption.

Infraventus-internationalizing a renewables business to Kenya

Infraventus – Internationalizing a Renewables Business to Kenya Infraventus is a renewable energy development company, with a consolidated experience, since 1988, in developing, constructing and operating projects mainly in Portugal, but also in other countries: Spain, Poland, France, Australia, Finland and Panama, and is now regarding Kenya as a possible destiny. Kenya is the biggest economy of East Africa, with a growing GDP around 5% and a low level of electric grid coverage thru its territory, 33% of national access to electricity. Kenya energy policy is intended to promote the investment in renewables; wind and sun are existing resources in good measures. Kenya is an interesting destiny to Infraventus, but has many risks. The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the possible advantages of this investment and risks and propose recommendations about how to mitigate them considering alternative entry mode

Value creation in the nursing home real estate investment market - A case study

The underlying thesis examines the value drivers of direct investments in nursing home real estate in Germany. A survey among investors and operators is conducted in order to identify significant value drivers. Moreover, based on survey results, a framework for assessing German nursing home real estate is developed. This is applied in a case-study about the set-up of a nursing home value-add fund which will demonstrate the value creation process of redeveloping an existing nursing home real estate portfolio. Through a concluding analysis the sources of value creation, sensitivities and future prospects of direct investing into German nursing home real estate are concluded.

Measuring impact with the social return on investment: the case of the social innovation hub

There is a growing interest in social impact assessment across the private, the public and the nonprofit sector. However, there is still limited academic research produced in this area, particularly in what concerns to the application of the Social Return of Investment (SROI) methodology. The goal of this Work Project is to give an overview of the social impact measurement literature and apply the Social Return on Investment, a flagship methodology to measure impact, to the specific case of the Social Innovation Hub (SIH). The findings suggest that each 1€ invested on the SIH generates 1,21€ in terms of social value. While this value seems very appealing to use, there are some risks in monetizing impact in such way, mainly due to the lack of reliable data available for benchmarking purposes.

Essays on bounded rationality: Individual decision and strategic interaction

Economics is a social science which, therefore, focuses on people and on the decisions they make, be it in an individual context, or in group situations. It studies human choices, in face of needs to be fulfilled, and a limited amount of resources to fulfill them. For a long time, there was a convergence between the normative and positive views of human behavior, in that the ideal and predicted decisions of agents in economic models were entangled in one single concept. That is, it was assumed that the best that could be done in each situation was exactly the choice that would prevail. Or, at least, that the facts that economics needed to explain could be understood in the light of models in which individual agents act as if they are able to make ideal decisions. However, in the last decades, the complexity of the environment in which economic decisions are made and the limits on the ability of agents to deal with it have been recognized, and incorporated into models of decision making in what came to be known as the bounded rationality paradigm. This was triggered by the incapacity of the unboundedly rationality paradigm to explain observed phenomena and behavior. This thesis contributes to the literature in three different ways. Chapter 1 is a survey on bounded rationality, which gathers and organizes the contributions to the field since Simon (1955) first recognized the necessity to account for the limits on human rationality. The focus of the survey is on theoretical work rather than the experimental literature which presents evidence of actual behavior that differs from what classic rationality predicts. The general framework is as follows. Given a set of exogenous variables, the economic agent needs to choose an element from the choice set that is avail- able to him, in order to optimize the expected value of an objective function (assuming his preferences are representable by such a function). If this problem is too complex for the agent to deal with, one or more of its elements is simplified. Each bounded rationality theory is categorized according to the most relevant element it simplifes. Chapter 2 proposes a novel theory of bounded rationality. Much in the same fashion as Conlisk (1980) and Gabaix (2014), we assume that thinking is costly in the sense that agents have to pay a cost for performing mental operations. In our model, if they choose not to think, such cost is avoided, but they are left with a single alternative, labeled the default choice. We exemplify the idea with a very simple model of consumer choice and identify the concept of isofin curves, i.e., sets of default choices which generate the same utility net of thinking cost. Then, we apply the idea to a linear symmetric Cournot duopoly, in which the default choice can be interpreted as the most natural quantity to be produced in the market. We find that, as the thinking cost increases, the number of firms thinking in equilibrium decreases. More interestingly, for intermediate levels of thinking cost, an equilibrium in which one of the firms chooses the default quantity and the other best responds to it exists, generating asymmetric choices in a symmetric model. Our model is able to explain well-known regularities identified in the Cournot experimental literature, such as the adoption of different strategies by players (Huck et al. , 1999), the inter temporal rigidity of choices (Bosch-Dom enech & Vriend, 2003) and the dispersion of quantities in the context of di cult decision making (Bosch-Dom enech & Vriend, 2003). Chapter 3 applies a model of bounded rationality in a game-theoretic set- ting to the well-known turnout paradox in large elections, pivotal probabilities vanish very quickly and no one should vote, in sharp contrast with the ob- served high levels of turnout. Inspired by the concept of rhizomatic thinking, introduced by Bravo-Furtado & Côrte-Real (2009a), we assume that each per- son is self-delusional in the sense that, when making a decision, she believes that a fraction of the people who support the same party decides alike, even if no communication is established between them. This kind of belief simplifies the decision of the agent, as it reduces the number of players he believes to be playing against { it is thus a bounded rationality approach. Studying a two-party first-past-the-post election with a continuum of self-delusional agents, we show that the turnout rate is positive in all the possible equilibria, and that it can be as high as 100%. The game displays multiple equilibria, at least one of which entails a victory of the bigger party. The smaller one may also win, provided its relative size is not too small; more self-delusional voters in the minority party decreases this threshold size. Our model is able to explain some empirical facts, such as the possibility that a close election leads to low turnout (Geys, 2006), a lower margin of victory when turnout is higher (Geys, 2006) and high turnout rates favoring the minority (Bernhagen & Marsh, 1997).

Machine diagnosis based on artificial immune systems

Nowadays, many of the manufactory and industrial system has a diagnosis system on top of it, responsible for ensuring the lifetime of the system itself. It achieves this by performing both diagnosis and error recovery procedures in real production time, on each of the individual parts of the system. There are many paradigms currently being used for diagnosis. However, they still fail to answer all the requirements imposed by the enterprises making it necessary for a different approach to take place. This happens mostly on the error recovery paradigms since the great diversity that is nowadays present in the industrial environment makes it highly unlikely for every single error to be fixed under a real time, no production stop, perspective. This work proposes a still relatively unknown paradigm to manufactory. The Artificial Immune Systems (AIS), which relies on bio-inspired algorithms, comes as a valid alternative to the ones currently being used. The proposed work is a multi-agent architecture that establishes the Artificial Immune Systems, based on bio-inspired algorithms. The main goal of this architecture is to solve for a resolution to the error currently detected by the system. The proposed architecture was tested using two different simulation environment, each meant to prove different points of views, using different tests. These tests will determine if, as the research suggests, this paradigm is a promising alternative for the industrial environment. It will also define what should be done to improve the current architecture and if it should be applied in a decentralised system.

NSP work project investment styles

This paper analyzes the Nova Student Portfolio (NSP) with the objective to understand performances of the fund. Each investment style has been analyzed (growth, value and momentum) in order to highlight what style allocation contributed positively and which had a negative impact. The results show that the team mainly invested in value stocks, which contributed positively but that its growth investments had a negative impact on the stock picking performance. The stock selection shows a major influence of the value investment style. A statistical approach shows that the market factor was the one explaining the most the NSP returns.

Cultural journalism in a digital environment : new models, practices and possibilities

Both culture coverage and digital journalism are contemporary phenomena that have undergone several transformations within a short period of time. Whenever the media enters a period of uncertainty such as the present one, there is an attempt to innovate in order to seek sustainability, skip the crisis or find a new public. This indicates that there are new trends to be understood and explored, i.e., how are media innovating in a digital environment? Not only does the professional debate about the future of journalism justify the need to explore the issue, but so do the academic approaches to cultural journalism. However, none of the studies so far have considered innovation as a motto or driver and tried to explain how the media are covering culture, achieving sustainability and engaging with the readers in a digital environment. This research examines how European media which specialize in culture or have an important cultural section are innovating in a digital environment. Specifically, we see how these innovation strategies are being taken in relation to the approach to culture and dominant cultural areas, editorial models, the use of digital tools for telling stories, overall brand positioning and extensions, engagement with the public and business models. We conducted a mixed methods study combining case studies of four media projects, which integrates qualitative web features and content analysis, with quantitative web content analysis. Two major general-interest journalistic brands which started as physical newspapers – The Guardian (London, UK) and Público (Lisbon, Portugal) – a magazine specialized in international affairs, culture and design – Monocle (London, UK) – and a native digital media project that was launched by a cultural organization – Notodo, by La Fábrica – were the four case studies chosen. Findings suggest, on one hand, that we are witnessing a paradigm shift in culture coverage in a digital environment, challenging traditional boundaries related to cultural themes and scope, angles, genres, content format and delivery, engagement and business models. Innovation in the four case studies lies especially along the product dimensions (format and content), brand positioning and process (business model and ways to engage with users). On the other hand, there are still perennial values that are crucial to innovation and sustainability, such as commitment to journalism, consistency (to the reader, to brand extensions and to the advertiser), intelligent differentiation and the capability of knowing what innovation means and how it can be applied, since this thesis also confirms that one formula doesn´t suit all. Changing minds, exceeding cultural inertia and optimizing the memory of the websites, looking at them as living, organic bodies, which continuously interact with the readers in many different ways, and not as a closed collection of articles, are still the main challenges for some media.

Engineering bio-based polymers using alternative solvents and processes

The work presented in this thesis explores novel routes for the processing of bio-based polymers, developing a sustainable approach based on the use of alternative solvents such as supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2), ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES). The feasibility to produce polymeric foams via supercritical fluid (SCF) foaming, combined with these solvents was assessed, in order to replace conventional foaming techniques that use toxic and harmful solvents. A polymer processing methodology is presented, based on SCF foaming and using scCO2 as a foaming agent. The SCF foaming of different starch based polymeric blends was performed, namely starch/poly(lactic acid) (SPLA) and starch/poly(ε-caprolactone) (SPCL). The foaming process is based on the fact that CO2 molecules can dissolve in the polymer, changing their mechanical properties and after suitable depressurization, are able to create a foamed (porous) material. In these polymer blends, CO2 presents limited solubility and in order to enhance the foaming effect, two different imidazolium based ILs (IBILs) were combined with this process, by doping the blends with IL. The use of ILs proved useful and improved the foaming effect in these starch-based polymer blends. Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR) proved the existence of interactions between the polymer blend SPLA and ILs, which in turn diminish the forces that hold the polymeric structure. This is directly related with the ability of ILs to dissolve more CO2. This is also clear from the sorption experiments results, where the obtained apparent sorption coefficients in presence of IL are higher compared to the ones of the blend SPLA without IL. The doping of SPCL with ILs was also performed. The foaming of the blend was achieved and resulted in porous materials with conductivity values close to the ones of pure ILs. This can open doors to applications as self-supported conductive materials. A different type of solvents were also used in the previously presented processing method. If different applications of the bio-based polymers are envisaged, replacing ILs must be considered, especially due to the poor sustainability of some ILs and the fact that there is not a well-established toxicity profile. In this work natural DES – NADES – were the solvents of choice. They present some advantages relatively to ILs since they are easy to produce, cheaper, biodegradable and often biocompatible, mainly due to the fact that they are composed of primary metabolites such as sugars, carboxylic acids and amino-acids. NADES were prepared and their physicochemical properties were assessed, namely the thermal behavior, conductivity, density, viscosity and polarity. With this study, it became clear that these properties can vary with the composition of NADES, as well as with their initial water content. The use of NADES in the SCF foaming of SPCL, acting as foaming agent, was also performed and proved successful. The SPCL structure obtained after SCF foaming presented enhanced characteristics (such as porosity) when compared with the ones obtained using ILs as foaming enhancers. DES constituted by therapeutic compounds (THEDES) were also prepared. The combination of choline chloride-mandelic acid, and menthol-ibuprofen, resulted in THEDES with thermal behavior very distinct from the one of their components. The foaming of SPCL with THEDES was successful, and the impregnation of THEDES in SPCL matrices via SCF foaming was successful, and a controlled release system was obtained in the case of menthol-ibuprofen THEDES.

Product quality judgments in a two-sequence cue environment

Previous research demonstrated that the sequence of informational cues and the level of distraction have an impact on the judgment of a product’s quality. This study investigates the influence of the force behind the processing of these cues, working memory (WM). The results indicate that without distraction, consumers with low and high WM capacity (WMC) equally base their product evaluation on the first sequential cue. In the presence of a distractor, however, low WM individuals are no longer able to recall the initial cue, and thus derive their product judgment from the final cue. Moreover, evidence of intercultural differences in the perception of product related cues, and their aptitude for signaling a favorable product quality is provided.

How small accounting firms can compete in an environment in which the big four are getting bigger

This paper sets out to determine how small accounting firms can compete in the United States in the early 21st century. The first chapter identifies the central goal of the paper: namely, to use existing literature and market data to define a business strategy for Ross & Moncure, Inc., a small accounting firm in the metropolitan Washington area. The second chapter is a literature review, and in it the author finds that large accounting firms are advantaged in terms of reputation, ability to diversify, and ability to retain employees, but are disadvantaged in their ability to form longstanding successful relationships with clients. In the third chapter, the author explores the relationship between the Big Four firms and their employees. The goal of this chapter is to determine how small accounting firms can compete for top talent in the HR market, and the author finds that this can be done by offering faster career progression and more client interaction. The fourth chapter looks at the market for accounting services in the United States, exploring the different options that consumers have to meet their accounting needs. It is found in this chapter that big and small accounting firms tend to compete for clients of different profiles. In the fifth chapter, the author uses proprietary company data to explore the composition, existing strategy and culture of Ross & Moncure. In the sixth chapter, all of the previous chapters come together to formulate a strategy and plan for action for Ross & Moncure: specifically, that the firm should further cultivate networks and relationships, and should create a fulfilling professional environment by increasing client-employee interaction, encouraging external education, and allowing employees to take on many different projects