Social welfare with a foreign competitor

In this paper, we consider a mixed market in which a state-owned welfare-maximizing public (domestic) firm competes against a profit-maximizing private (foreign) firm. We suppose that the domestic firm is less eflScient than the foreign firm. However, the domestic firm can lower its marginal costs by conducting cost-reducing R&D investment. We examine the impacts of entry of a foreign firm on decisions upon cost-reducing R&D investment by the domestic firm and how these affect the domestic welfare.

Privatization and entry of a foreign firm with demand uncertainty

We investigate the effects of trade with a foreign firm and privatization of the domestic pubUc firm on an incentive for the domestic firm to reduce costs by undertaking R&D investment, under demand uncertainty. We suppose that the domestic firm is less efficient than the foreign firm. However, the domestic firm can lower its marginal costs by conducting cost-reducing R&D investment. We examine the impacts of entry of a foreign firm, and the effects of demand uncertainty, on decisions upon cost-reducing R&D investment by the domestic firm and how these affect the domestic welfare.

On the analysis of compensation correctness

One fundamental idea of service-oriented computing is that applications should be developed by composing already available services. Due to the long running nature of service interactions, a main challenge in service composition is ensuring correctness of transaction recovery. In this paper, we use a process calculus suitable for modelling long running transactions with a recovery mechanism based on compensations. Within this setting, we discuss and formally state correctness criteria for compensable processes compositions, assuming that each process is correct with respect to transaction recovery. Under our theory, we formally interpret self-healing compositions, that can detect and recover from faults, as correct compositions of compensable processes. Moreover, we develop an automated verification approach and we apply it to an illustrative case study.

Theory and phenomenology of two-higgs-doublet models

We discuss theoretical and phenomenological aspects of two-Higgs-doublet extensions of the Standard Model. In general, these extensions have scalar mediated flavour changing neutral currents which are strongly constrained by experiment. Various strategies are discussed to control these flavour changing scalar currents and their phenomenological consequences are analysed. In particular, scenarios with natural flavour conservation are investigated, including the so-called type I and type II models as well as lepton-specific and inert models. Type III models are then discussed, where scalar flavour changing neutral currents are present at tree level, but are suppressed by either a specific ansatz for the Yukawa couplings or by the introduction of family symmetries leading to a natural suppression mechanism. We also consider the phenomenology of charged scalars in these models. Next we turn to the role of symmetries in the scalar sector. We discuss the six symmetry-constrained scalar potentials and their extension into the fermion sector. The vacuum structure of the scalar potential is analysed, including a study of the vacuum stability conditions on the potential and the renormalization-group improvement of these conditions is also presented. The stability of the tree level minimum of the scalar potential in connection with electric charge conservation and its behaviour under CP is analysed. The question of CP violation is addressed in detail, including the cases of explicit CP violation and spontaneous CP violation. We present a detailed study of weak basis invariants which are odd under CP. These invariants allow for the possibility of studying the CP properties of any two-Higgs-doublet model in an arbitrary Higgs basis. A careful study of spontaneous CP violation is presented, including an analysis of the conditions which have to be satisfied in order for a vacuum to violate CP. We present minimal models of CP violation where the vacuum phase is sufficient to generate a complex CKM matrix, which is at present a requirement for any realistic model of spontaneous CP violation.

Custeio baseado em atividades: concepção e implementação numa empresa de serviços

Trabalho de Projeto apresentado ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Contabilidade e Finanças, sob orientação de Paulino Manuel Leite da Silva

Licensing in an international triopoly

We study the effects of entry of two foreign firms on domestic welfare in the presence of licensing, when the incumbent is technologically superior to the entrants. We consider two different situations: (i) the cost-reducing innovation is licensed to both entrants; (ii) the cost- reducing innovation is licensed to just one of the entrants. We analyse three kind of license: (lump- sum) fixed-fee; (per-unit) royalty; and two-part tariff, that is a combination of a fixed-fee and a royalty. We prove that a two part tariff is never an optimal licensing scheme for the incumbent. Moreover, (i) when the technology is licensed to the two entrants, the optimal contract consists of a licensing with only output royalty; and (ii) when the technology is licensed to just one of the entrants, the optimal contract consists of a licensing with only a fixed-fee.

Análise comparativa de valores de imóveis e de métodos de avaliação

Esta dissertação considera a importância da avaliação imobiliária no mercado imobiliário, nas mais diversas situações. Contudo, cinge-se à determinação de um presumível valor de transação para apartamentos, moradias, lojas e terrenos, para venda ou arrendamento. Os mercados imobiliários escolhidos são dois concelhos conhecidos, da autora, por ser mais fácil a perceção dos locais e preços de venda. Foi escolhido o Concelho de Valongo para apartamentos, moradias e terrenos e o Concelho da Maia para lojas. Para determinarmos os valores em estudo adotaram-se os métodos de avaliação imobiliária mais comuns nomeadamente: o Método Comparativo, Método do Rendimento e o Método do Custo. São apresentados os métodos de avaliação mais utilizados, descrevendo-se a aplicação de cada um deles e as suas condições necessárias. Fez-se uma comparação entre cada um o que permitiu concluir sobre os mesmos. A recolha dos imóveis objeto de estudo foi efetuada em Sites de empresas imobiliárias que dispunham de informação necessária ao âmbito do trabalho. Aplicaram-se os métodos a cada caso recolhido e posteriormente fez-se a comparação dos resultados obtidos. Através de tratamento estatístico, utilizaram-se as técnicas de regressão múltipla para análise de relações entre os métodos de avaliação aplicados. Por fim, retiraram-se conclusões sobre a relação existente entre os três métodos de avaliação.

Desenvolvimento de modelo para a melhoria do planeamento da manutenção

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Low-cost vibration sensors: tendencies and applications in condition monitoring of machines and structures

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

An Ethos Theory of Party Positions on European Integration: Poland and Beyond

Since 1989, five parliamentary elections have been the stage for the foundation and demise of political parties aspiring to govern the new democratic Polish state. The demise of the AWS before the 2001 elections after ten years of attempts to create a centre-right core party resulted in a new splintering of the right-wing, and the centre-right became again devoid of a pivotal formation. While Eurosceptic parties in average gain 8 percent of the vote, in the 2001 Polish parliamentary elections Eurosceptic parties gained around 20 percent of the vote. In Poland right-wing parties show an unusual propensity for Euroscepticism. The persistence and increased importance of nationalism in Poland, which has prevented the development of a strong Christian democratic party, effectively explains the levels of Euroscepticism on the right. After the autumn 2005 parliamentary elections the national conservative party, Law and Justice, formed a governing coalition with the national Catholic League of Polish Families, creating one of the first Eurosceptic governments. Although this work does not intend to provide a theorisation of party systems development, it shows that the context of European integration fostered nationalists’ divisiveness of, and provoked the splitting of the right the unusual propensity of parties for Euroscepticism makes Poland a paradigmatic case of the kind of conflicts over European integration emerging in Central and Eastern European party systems.

A low cost method to produce a gaseous environment for the isolation of Helicobacter pylori

A low cost method (LCM) to produce a gaseous environment for the isolation of Helicobacter pylori, was compared with the standard Gas Park system. The LCM uses a carbonated antacid tablet, a plastic bag with tap water, a candle, and a wide-mouthed glass jar provided with a tight-fitting metalic screw cap and a rubber gasket. Antral gastric biopsies from 153 cases were incubated by duplicate on blood agar plates and treated with the two methods. In 95 cases the agent was isolated from both, and only from the standard method in 10 cases; the opposite condition was found in five cases, and 43 were negative. That difference is not significant (Pearson's X²= 93.25 p > 0,05)

Generalization of Wertheim's theory for the assembly of various types of rings

We generalize Wertheim's first order perturbation theory to account for the effect in the thermodynamics of the self-assembly of rings characterized by two energy scales. The theory is applied to a lattice model of patchy particles and tested against Monte Carlo simulations on a fcc lattice. These particles have 2 patches of type A and 10 patches of type B, which may form bonds AA or AB that decrease the energy by epsilon(AA) and by epsilon(AB) = r epsilon(AA), respectively. The angle theta between the 2 A-patches on each particle is fixed at 601, 90 degrees or 120 degrees. For values of r below 1/2 and above a threshold r(th)(theta) the models exhibit a phase diagram with two critical points. Both theory and simulation predict that rth increases when theta decreases. We show that the mechanism that prevents phase separation for models with decreasing values of theta is related to the formation of loops containing AB bonds. Moreover, we show that by including the free energy of B-rings ( loops containing one AB bond), the theory describes the trends observed in the simulation results, but that for the lowest values of theta, the theoretical description deteriorates due to the increasing number of loops containing more than one AB bond.