Environmental contamination by Toxocara sp eggs in public areas of Salvador, Bahia state, Brazil

A survey ofparasite eggs and cysts in soil and dog feces collected in public places of 23 boroughs of Salvador, a city in the Northeast of Brazil, was performed. High degree of contamination by Toxocara sp eggs was observed in all boroughs studied; other parasites found included: Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworms, whipworms and protozoan cysts. Parks andpublic gardens were more contaminated than streets and beachesfor all parasites, including Toxocara sp.

Environmental remediation project of Cunha Baixa mining area cost benefit analysis

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Leveraging facebook’s open graph to develop an environmental persuasive application

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Urban containment: An effective tool for environmental protection?

This paper examines the effectiveness of urban containment policies to protect forestland from residential conversion and to increase the provision of forest public goods in the presence of irreversible investments and policy uncertainty. We develop a model of a single landowner that allows for switching between competing land uses (forestry and residential use) at some point in the future. Our results show that urban containment policies can protect (even if temporarily) forestland from being developed but must be supplemented with policies that influence the length and number of harvesting cycles if the goal is to increase nontimber benefits. The threat of a development prohibition creates incentives for preemptive timber harvesting and land conversion. In particular, threatened regulation creates an incentive to shorten rotation cycles to avoid costly land-use restrictions. However, it has an ambiguous effect on forestland conversion as the number of rotation cycles can also be adjusted to maximize the expected returns to land. Finally, in the presence of irreversibility, forestland conversion decisions should be done using real option theory rather than net present value analysis

Industrial symbiosis potential of the Sines oil refinery – environmental and economic evaluation

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente – Perfil Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais

Innovation and environmental policy: Clean vs. dirty technical change

We study a two sector endogenous growth model with environmental quality with two goods and two factors of production, one clean and one dirty. Technological change creates clean or dirty innovations. We compare the laissez-faire equilibrium and the social optimum and study first- and second-best policies. Optimal policy encourages research toward clean technologies. In a second-best world, we claim that a portfolio that includes a tax on the polluting good combined with optimal innovation subsidy policies is less costly than increasing the price of the polluting good alone. Moreover, a discriminating innovation subsidy policy is preferable to a non-discriminating one.

Optimização do processo de devolução de medicamentos fora do prazo de validade

RESUMO - Durante todo o seu ciclo de vida, o medicamento está sujeito a padrões de qualidade, segurança e eficácia, alicerçados numa atuação conjunta dos responsáveis pela sua colocação no mercado, das autoridades competentes nacionais e comunitárias. Os diferentes intervenientes estão sujeitos a um conjunto de obrigações e procedimentos que englobam também a sua fase final de retirada do mercado, devolução, recolha e valorização ou reciclagem. Neste trabalho é caracterizada a cadeia de distribuição do medicamento assim como o seu fluxo físico no sentido inverso, ou seja, o processo de devolução e de tratamento ambientalmente adequado para os resíduos de medicamentos. A maioria da literatura a respeito das devoluções de medicamentos enfatiza a vertente ecológica do sistema de logística inversa. Neste trabalho, as questões ambientais são discutidas , mas o objectivo primário focaliza questões económicas relacionadas com o processo de devoluções. São apresentadas as possíveis vantagens teóricas da criação de um sistema centralizado de gestão de devoluções, por oposição ao atual sistema de circuitos dispersos. Com a aplicação de um inquérito a armazenistas com larga responsabilidade no processo de devoluções, pretendeu-se avaliar os custos inerentes ao atual modelo. Os resultados obtidos indicam que existe margem potencial para reduzir custos neste processo, para a grande maioria dos armazenistas. Na área específica dos medicamentos fora de prazo de validade, o crescente desenvolvimento e aperfeiçoamento dos processos de devolução poderá direcionar-se no sentido da criação de centrais de devolução centralizadas.

Web Processing Services for Forestry and Environmental Applications

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Corporate social responsibility levels and firm performance: Evidence from countries in crisis

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Essays in environmental and happiness economics

A PhD Dissertation, presented as part of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the NOVA - School of Business and Economics

Corporate social responsibility: How internal and external CSR perceptions influence employee outcomes

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Environmental sanitation conditions and health impact: a case-control study

This epidemiological investigation examines the impact of several environmental sanitation conditions and hygiene practices on diarrhea occurrence among children under five years of age living in an urban area. The case-control design was employed; 997 cases and 999 controls were included in the investigation. Cases were defined as children with diarrhea and controls were randomly selected among children under five years of age. After logistic regression adjustment, the following variables were found to be significantly associated with diarrhea: washing and purifying fruit and vegetables; presence of wastewater in the street; refuse storage, collection and disposal; domestic water reservoir conditions; feces disposal from swaddles; presence of vectors in the house and flooding in the lot. The estimates of the relative risks reached values up to 2.87. The present study revealed the feasibility of developing and implementing an adequate model to establish intervention priorities in the field of environmental sanitation.

InnovationCity Ruhr: a prime example for social and technological innovation

The project “InnovationCity Ruhr” deals with the reconstruction of the city of Bottrop with regard to energy saving measures. The aim is to make the city more environmental friendly in order to create a model for other industrial cities. Until the conclusion of the project in the year 2020, it is planned to change the surface of Bottrop in several positive ways. This paper focuses on the description of the project to give the reader an example of what exactly is done within the scope of InnovationCity Ruhr. Besides that, the link to the subject of sociology shall be given in order to show that the project is a prime example for social innovation.

Epidemiological study on leishmaniasis in an area of environmental tourism and ecotourism, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, 2006-2007

The aims of this study were to carry out a serological survey of canine leishmaniasis and identify the phlebotomine fauna in the urban area of Bonito, Mato Grosso do Sul. The serological survey was conducted on a sample of 303 dogs, by means of the indirect immunofluorescence test. Phlebotomines were captured using automated light traps. The serological survey found that 30% of the dogs were seropositive, both from the center and from all districts of the town. A total of 2,772 specimens of phlebotomines were caught and the species most found was Lutzomyia longipalpis (90.4%), which corroborated its role as the vector of for canine visceral leishmaniasis in the region. Phlebotomines of the species Bichromomyia flaviscutellata (the main vector for Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis) and Nyssomyia whitmani (the vector for Leishmania (Viannia) brasiliensis) were also caught. The findings indicate the need for continuous epidemiological surveillance, with attention towards diminishing the vector breeding sites and the transmission of these diseases in that region.

Genomic and environmental factors influence Wolbachia-Drosophila symbiosis

Intracellular, vertically transmitted bacteria form complex and intimate relationships with their hosts. Wolbachia, maternally transmitted α- proteobacteria, live within the cells of numerous arthropod species. Wolbachia are famous master manipulators of insect reproduction: to favour their own spread they can induce male killing, parthenogenesis or cytoplasmic incompatibility. Wolbachia can also protect various insects from pathogens, which makes them a promising tool for the control of vector-borne diseases. Mosquitoes with Wolbachia have already been released in the wild to eliminate dengue. Yet, how Wolbachia manipulate their hosts remains largely unknown.(...)