Micro-generation Evaluation of the Zero Emissions Technologies in the Portuguese Market

Micro-generation is the small scale production of heat and/or electricity from a low carbon source and can be a powerful driver for carbon reduction, behavior change, security of supply and economic value. The energy conversion technologies can include photovoltaic panels, micro combined heat and power, micro wind, heat pumps, solar thermal systems, fuel cells and micro hydro schemes. In this paper, a small research of the availability of the conversion apparatus and the prices for the micro wind turbines and photovoltaic systems is made and a comparison between these two technologies is performed in terms of the availability of the resource and costs. An analysis of the new legal framework published in Portugal is done to realize if the incentives to individualspsila investment in sustainable and local energy production is worth for their point of view. An economic evaluation for these alternatives, accounting with the governmentpsilas incentives should lead, in most cases, into attractive return rates for the investment. Apart from the attractiveness of the investment there are though other aspects that should be taken into account and those are the benefits that these choices have to us all. The idea is that micro-generation will not only make a significant direct contribution to carbon reduction targets, it will also trigger a multiplier effect in behavior change by engaging hearts and minds, and providing more efficient use of energy by householders. The diversified profile of power generation by micro-generators, both in terms of location and timing, should reduce the impact of intermittency or plant failures with significant gains for security of supply.

Budget constrained expenditure multipliers

We show that standard expenditure multipliers capture economy-wide effects of new government projects only when financing constraints are not binding. In actual policy making, however, new projects usually need financing. Under liquidity constraints, new projects are subject to two opposite effects: an income effect and a set of spending substitution effects. The former is the traditional, unrestricted, multiplier effect; the latter is the result of expenditure reallocation to upheld effective financing constraints. Unrestricted multipliers will therefore be, as a general rule, upward biased and policy designs based upon them should be reassessed in the light of the countervailing substitution effects.

Governments and the Decentralization

The Purpose of This Article Is to Show How Costs and Benefits of Geographical Decentralization of R&D Can Be Identified and Compared. the Benefits for the Region That Receives R&D Activities Are Studied in Section 1. They Stem From the Short-Run Multiplier Effect, the Amelioration of Human Capital and the Possible Modernization of the Local Industrial Structure. on the Cost Side Examined in Section 2, the Observable Impacts of the Decentralization of R&D Concern the Loss of Returns to Scale and of the Production of the R&D Output. It Is Shown, in Section 3, That the Flows of Costs and Benefits Must Be Discounted by the Social Cost of Capital. the Main Conclusion of This Article Is That the Decentralization of R&D in a Large Sparsely Populated Country Entails Social Cost and Would Weaken Its Competitive Position in World Commerce. on the Other Hand, the Issue of Decentralization Is More Crucial for Small Countries (In Terms of Population and Economic Size) Than for Large Ones, Like the U.S., Where Critical Masses of Research Efforts Cna Be Simulataneously Attained in Many Fields and in Many Places.

Military doctrine, command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d’être is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article’s departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as ‘the soul of warfare’. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy. The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy-makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied. Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch’s six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.

The role of UK retailing in urban regeneration

This research examines the role of retailing in urban regeneration nationally and locally in the UK. The research uses data at a national level and local shopping centre case studies to examine the employment and property impacts of retailing. Focusing on schemes built during the first part of the 1990s it shows that retail can bring employment and economic benefits to town centres, but that the impact on the inner city should not be overlooked. Valuable lessons can be learned from the experience of centres built during this period of recession, and new challenges such as eCommerce now face these centres and others being developed today. The research examines the multiplier effect of retail regeneration schemes nationally using National Accounts data, and the local property and employment impacts of shopping centre schemes in the case study towns of Aberdeen, Bristol, Norwich, Bromley, Worcester and Leicester. The report includes valuable statistical sources, a full literature and policy review and will be of interest to those involved in property investment, regeneration and planning. The research was funded by the Office of Science & Technology and the Harold Samuel Educational Trust.

Os efeitos macroeconômicos das transferências sociais: uma abordagem de matriz de contabilidade social

Government transfers to individuals and families play a central role in the Brazilian social protection system, accounting for almost 14 per cent of GDP in 2009. While their fiscal and redistributive impacts have been widely studied, the macroeconomic effects of transfers are harder to ascertain. We constructed a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for 2009 and estimated short-term multipliers for seven different government monetary transfers . The SAM is a double-entry square matrix depicting all income flows in the economy. The data were compiled from the 2009 Brazilian National Accounts and the 2008/2009 POF, a household budget survey. Our SAM was disaggregated into 56 sectors, 110 commodities, 200 household groups and seven factors of production (capital plus six types of labor, according to schooling). Finally, we ran a set of regressions to separate household consumption into ‘autonomous’ (or ‘exogenous’) and ‘endogenous’ components. More specifically, we are interested in the effects of an exogenous injection into each of the seven government transfers outlined above. All the other accounts are thus endogenous. The so-called demand ‘leaks’ are income flows from the endogenous to exogenous accounts. Leaks—such as savings, taxes and imports—are crucial to determine the multiplier effect of an exogenous injection, as they allow the system to go back to equilibrium. The model assumes that supply is perfectly elastic to demand shocks. It assumes that the families’ propensity to save and consumption profile are fixed—that is, rising incomes do not provoke changes in behaviour. The multiplier effects of the on GDP corresponds to the growth in GDP resulting from each additional dollar injected into each transfer seven government transfers. If the government increased Bolsa Família expenditures by 1 per cent of GDP, overall economic activity would grow by 1.78 per cent, the highest effect. The Continuous Cash Benefit, comes second. Only three transfers— the private-sector and public servants’ pensions and FGTS withdrawals—had multipliers lower than unity. The multipliers for other relevant macroeconomic aggregates—household and total consumption, disposable income etc. —reveal a similar pattern. Thus, under the stringent assumptions of our model, we cannot reject the hypothesis that government transfers targeting poor households, such as the Bolsa Família, help foster economic expansion. Naturally, it should be stressed that the multipliers relate marginal injections into government transfers to short-term economic performance either real growth, or inflation if there is no idle capacity which is also useful to analyze. In the long term, there is no doubt that what truly matters is the growth of the country’s productive capacity.

O impacto do pagamento da participação sobre a produção de petróleo e gás natural sobre a renda familiar e a propriedade no Município de Governador Dix-Sept Rosado no período de 1998 a 2004

This scientific study deals about the oil and natural gas production participation payment impact in the county of Governador Dix-sept Rosado, Rio Grande do Norte, between 1998 to 2004, applied to family income and property. To do so, this analysis focus on the ricardian´s theory exposition which merges from the concept of the mineral income, in concern to the legal establishment of royalties. This paper also shows the world evolution oil exploration, inserting Brazil in this scene as a oil and natural gas producter. It identifies the productive site of oil and natural gas in Rio Grande do Norte as the Potiguar Oil Area, characterizing its components in the demographic, physical and social aspects, to reflect in the focus point of observation which is the Governador Dix-sept Rosado county. The participation payment on oil and natural gas is demonstrated in a qualitative analysis both in Brazil as in Rio Grande do Norte. The payments given to the land owners in this federative unity are shown in the period of analysis of this essay. The study tells, based in a field research, the benefaction impact of the payment to the land owners over the income and property. The family income were highly impacted, causing economic social classes change to some land owners. The property had less or none impact. It was found negative externalities as the income utilization to other county uses, not causing a multiplier effect in the studied county. The fact of the not utilization of the properties on productive investments in order to supply the finite characteristic of oil and this source of royalties, contradicts one of the reasons of its establishment which is the payment for its productive exhaustion of a land resource

Economia dos produtos florestais não-madeireiros no estado do Amapá: sustentabilidade e desenvolvimento endógeno

O extrativismo vegetal, baseado na exploração sustentável dos produtos florestais não madeireiros é uma das alternativas mais consistentes ecologicamente, no que tange a Conservação da biodiversidade e cobertura natural da Floresta Amazônica. Mas, há problemas sistêmicos que não têm deixado este segmento desenvolver-se de forma satisfatória. O vazamento da economia regional dos produtos extrativistas da Amazônia é uma variável que contribui para o baixo nível de desenvolvimento social e econômico da região. É imperativo que sejam realizadas análises econômicas sobre as possibilidades desse novo modelo A solução provisória para esta área foi estabelecida em 1841, com a definição do espaço entre os rios Oiapoque e Araguari como “Área do Contestado”. Ficou definido então, que a gestão da referida área seria feita de forma compartilhada entre os dois Países. A questão da disputa entre Brasil e França pelas terras do Amapá, só se resolveu definitivamente com a intermediação do presidente suíço Walter Hauser, que em 1o de dezembro de 1900, através do protocolo conhecido como “Laudo Suíço”, concedeu a referida área ao Brasil. de desenvolvimento, apoiado nas bases de um capitalismo contemporâneo, que tem procurado aprimorar os mecanismos econômicos de inclusão social de variáveis ambientais como elementos endógenos do sistema produtivo na Amazônia. O Amapá é o estado brasileiro mais preservado (97% de sua cobertura florestal original) e possui 72% do território como áreas protegidas. Este trabalho pretende identificar o nível de contribuição que os produtos não-madeireiros, extraídos nas florestas por populações tradicionais têm na economia do Amapá. Como método central de análise, foi utilizado o modelo de matriz insumo-produto desenvolvido por Wassily Leontief. Este procedimento analítico tem relevante destaque como instrumento prático de análise e planejamento econômico. Além das análises de programação do crescimento econômico setorial, é adequado para estimar, mediante os efeitos multiplicadores, os impactos do crescimento econômico na produção trabalho e renda setorial de toda a economia. O objeto central do trabalho são as análises estruturais dos arranjos produtivos locais dos produtos florestais não-madeireiros do estado do Amapá, em níveis regional e local. O método desenvolvido pelo Francisco de Assis Costa (Contas Sociais Ascendentes Alfa - CS_) foi usado na construção das matrízes, tendo como base os procedimentos analíticos ascendentes de agregação progressiva dos dados locais O setor extrativista dos produtos florestais não -madeireiros do estado do Amapá, com um PIB de R$ 204 milhões no ano de 2009 tem uma participação pequena, com somente 3,07% das riquezas produzidas no estado. Todavia, quando é observado que 86,77% do valor total do PIB (6,65 bilhões de reais) é decorrente de atividades do Setor Terciário e que todo o Setor Produtivo (Primário e Secundário), tem participação de apenas 13,24%, conclui-se que o valor da produção dos produtos florestais não-madeireiros é bem significativo no estado do Amapá.

Medroxyprogesterone acetate or long-acting progesterone in the biostimulation of lambs

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Retos del sector de Sociedades de Garantía Recíproca frente a la crisis actual

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar los retos a los que se enfrentan las Sociedades de Garantías Recíprocas (SGR) y su papel en la financiación de la PYME en el contexto actual de crisis financiera en España. Entre las principales conclusiones, destacar que ante las mayores dificultades actuales, las SGR adquieren mayor relevancia para facilitar el acceso al crédito para las PYMES debido a que son un instrumento directo, con su garantía los fondos del sistema bancario llegan hacia estas empresas, y muy eficaz, por el efecto multiplicador de su actividad. Sin embargo, a su vez, estas sociedades están afectadas igualmente por el aumento de la morosidad al que deben enfrentarse y que incide en su actividad avalista. Se analiza, por tanto, la importancia de mantener la solvencia de las SGR y de CERSA (Compañía Española de Reafianzamiento) en niveles adecuados para que puedan cumplir con los retos actuales de ampliar su actividad incluso a un mayor número de PYMES. = The aim of this paper is to analyze the challenges confronted by the Reciprocal Guarantees Societies (SGRs,Spanish acronym), and its role in the financing of SMEs in the current context of financial crisis in Spain. Major findings include, considering the greatest current difficulties of nowadays, that the SGRs acquires greater relevance to facilitate the access to credit for SMEs because they are a direct instrument, with its guarantee funds incoming to these companies from the banking system, and very effective, due to the multiplier effect of its activity. However, in turn, these societies are also affected by the increase in doubtful assets which have to face and that affect his guarantor activity. It is analyzed, therefore, the relevance of maintaining the SGRs and CERSA (Compañía Española de Reafianzamiento) solvency at appropriate levels in order to address the current challenges of expanding its activity, indeed to a larger number of SMEs.

Financial Engineering Instruments and their Assessment Under EU State Aid Rules. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 26/2013

Financial engineering instruments such as guarantees, loans and equity are increasingly used in public funding of enterprises. These instruments have three attractive features: they are repayable, they “leverage” private involvement, and they have a multiplier effect because they generate new income. At the same time, however, they are technically complex and they are subject to state aid rules. Their assessment under EU state aid rules creates two additional problems. First, under certain conditions financial instruments may not contain state aid. This is when public authorities act as “private investors”. This means that state aid cannot be presumed to exist in all financial instruments. It must first be established through market analysis. Second, when state aid is found to be present it is not always possible to quantify it. For this reason the state aid rules that apply to financial instruments differ significantly from other rules. This paper reviews how financial instruments have been assessed by the European Commission and under which conditions the state aid they may contain can be considered to be compatible with the internal market. The paper finds that by and large Member States have succeeded to design measures that have all been approved by the Commission.

Further studies on flow distribution on distillation sieve trays

The thesis describes experimental work on the possibility of using deflection baffles in conventional distillation trays as flow straightening devices, with the view of enhancing tray efficiency. The mode of operation is based on deflecting part of the liquid momentum from the centre of the tray to the segment regions in order to drive stagnating liquid at the edges forward. The first part of the work was a detailed investigation into the two-phase flow patterns produced on a conventional sieve tray having 1 mm hole size perforations. The data provide a check on some earlier work and extend the range of the existing databank, particularly to conditions more typical of industrial operation. A critical survey of data collected on trays with different hole sizes (Hine, 1990; Chambers, 1993; Fenwick, 1996; this work) showed that the hole diameter has a significant influence on the flow regime, the size of the stagnant regions and the hydraulic and mass transfer performance. Five modified tray topologies were created with different configurations of baffles and tested extensively in the 2.44 m diameter air-water pilot distillation simulator for their efficacy in achieving uniform flow across the tray and for their impact on tray loading capacity and mass transfer efficiency. Special attention was given to the calibration of the over 100 temperature probes used in measuring the water temperature across the tray on which the heat and mass transfer analogy is based. In addition to normal tray capacity experiments, higher weir load experiments were conducted using a 'half-tray' mode in order to extend the range of data to conditions more typical of industrial operation. The modified trays show superior flow characteristics compared to the conventional tray in terms of the ability to replenish the zones of exceptionally low temperatures and high residence times at the edges of the tray, to lower the bulk liquid gradient and to achieve a more uniform flow across the tray. These superior flow abilities, however, tend to diminish with increasing weir load because of the increasing tendency for the liquid to jump over the barriers instead of flowing over them. The modified tray topologies showed no tendency to cause undue limitation to tray loading capacity. Although the improvement in the efficiency of a single tray over that of the conventional tray was moderate and in some cases marginal, the multiplier effect in a multiple tray column situation would be significant (Porter et al., 1972). These results are in good agreement with an associated CFD studies (Fischer, 1999) carried out by partners in the Advanced Studies in Distillation consortium. It is concluded that deflection baffles can be used in a conventional distillation sieve tray to achieve better liquid flow distribution and obtain enhanced mass transfer efficiency, without undermining the tray loading capacity. Unlike any other controlled-flow tray whose mechanical complexity impose stringent manufacturing and installation tolerances, the baffled-tray models are simple to design, manufacture and install and thus provide an economic method of retrofitting badly performing sieve trays both in terms of downtime and fabrication. NOTE APPENDICES 2-5 ARE ON A SEPARATE FLOPPY DISK ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT

Gränsdragning mellan arbete & fritid : Närvaro i sin frånvaro

Vårt syfte med denna studie är att ämna beskriva vilken betydelse det gränslösa arbetet får för chefsrollen, utifrån de förändringar som sker i dagens arbetsliv samt hur gränsdragningen mellan arbete och fritid hanteras. Vi valde att utföra vår studie i form av kvalitativa intervjuer, där vi intervjuade sex medarbetare inom en offentlig organisation i Dalarna, Sverige. Det resultat vi erhöll analyserades utifrån tidigare forskning och teorier. Resultaten i vår studie visar att cheferna direkt eller indirekt påverkas av förändringar som sker i arbetslivet och att det även är något som påverkar hur cheferna hanterar gränsdragningen mellan arbete och fritid. Studiens resultat visar vidare att cheferna menar att dessa förändringar bidrar till att förändra deras sätt att agera i chefsrollen och att det ställer andra krav på deras kompetenser. Resultatet visar också att kraven i arbetet måste vara rimliga, för att skapa balans mellan arbets- och privatliv och att det i första hand inte är de kvantitativa faktorerna i förhållande till arbetet som skapar en upplevelse av gränslöshet. Med kvantitativa faktorer menar vi de faktorer som traditionellt beskrivs som mer konkreta faktorer i arbetet, exempelvis arbetets utformning, arbetstiden, tillgängligheten eller antalet arbetsuppgifter att utföra. Istället belyser resultatet att en emotionell känsla av stress kan uppstå i relation till den egna upplevelsen av en känslig situation i arbetet eller när den egna kompetensen inte räcker till i arbetsutförandet och att det kan skapa en otydlig gräns mellan arbetstid och fritid.

The Role of supply constraints in multiplier analysis

Multiplier analysis based upon the information contained in Leontief's inverse is undoubtedly part of the core of the input-output methodology and numerous applications an extensions have been developed that exploit its informational content. Nonetheless there are some implicit theoretical assumptions whose implications have perhaps not been fully assessed. This is the case of the 'excess capacity' assumption. Because of this assumption resources are available as needed to adjust production to new equilibrium states. In real world applications, however, new resources are scarce and costly. Supply constraints kick in and hence resource allocation needs to take them into account to really assess the effect of government policies. Using a closed general equilibrium model that incorporates supply constraints, we perform some simple numerical exercises and proceed to derive a 'constrained' multiplier matrix that can be compared with the standard 'unrestricted' multiplier matrix. Results show that the effectiveness of expenditure policies hinges critically on whether or not supply constraints are considered.