Suchergebnisse

Using Brazil as a case study, we examine ways in which radical right activists and leaders actively participate in world politics through religious nationalist narratives which operate on both national and transnational levels. We propose the existence of a particular subcategory of populist radical right (PRR) politics, which we call religious-populist radical right. Our argument is divided into three parts. First, we argue that religion provides ideational and material capabilities that have allowed the PRR to capture state institutions through elections. Second, we claim that once in power, the PRR's governing strategy is conducted through transnational culture wars with religious overtones. Third, we argue that the PRR establishes novel patterns of international alliances to advance their vision of a new world order based on independent ethno-religious communities. By exploring the entanglements between the PRR and religious nationalism, we conclude that religion provides the radical right with the ideas, means, and social power to transform both state forms and world orders.

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Information Analysis and Management ; Portugal is conscious that the economic growth and development of its regions can be attained by investing in everything that boosts international tourism activity. The Government Program and the National's Strategic Plan for Tourism shows that, besides the government, other tourism stakeholders such as passenger transport companies, accommodation establishments, restaurants, recreational businesses, among others, rely on tourism demand indicator's forecasts to make decisions. Most of tourism demand forecasting models are time-series and econometric based. A real-world system like tourism industry is dynamic, thus not linear. Machine Learning methods have proven to be quite suitable for non-linear modelling. These methods are part of an interdisciplinary field named "Data Mining" which is known by the process of knowledge discovery in databases (KDD). The core drive of this project work is to enhance the available public sources of tourism forecast information and contribute to the tourism stakeholder's strategy in Portugal. More specifically, to develop a multivariate model to forecast international tourism demand through a Data Mining approach. The model development was constrained to publicly available data and machine learning methods. The forecasted demand variable was the nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in Lisbon's region, one of the country's main foreign tourist destinations. Instead of revealing a best forecasting method or model, as most of previous research sought to, the current project aimed at building the most accurate multivariate forecasting model, based on a database with minimum data assumptions. The objectives were achieved, as the selected model (SMOReg) was successful in generalization capability. The accuracy of the produced forecasts provides some evidence of the reliability of the proposed forecasting model. If institutions and decision makers have information regarding the evolution of the explanatory variables used in this model, the impact on Lisbon's tourism demand can be assessed, even in case of an emerging recession.

A large-scale energy renovation intervention in existing buildings has been consistently presented as the most significant opportunity to contribute to achieving the European targets for 2030 and 2050. One of the key points for such achievement is the cost-effectiveness of the interventions proposed, which is also closely related to decent housing affordability. Prefabricated modular solutions have been pointed out as a pathway, but there are knowledge gaps regarding both its cost-effectiveness and its environmental performance. Considering a social housing multi-family building in Porto, Portugal, as a case study, this research employs energy simulations, a cost-optimal methodology and a life cycle analysis approach to assess the influence of considering embodied energy and emissions in cost-effectiveness calculations. In general terms, the hierarchical relation between calculated renovation scenarios remain identical, as well as the choice of the cost-optimal combination, which can reduce primary energy needs by 226 kWh/(y.m 2 ). However, embodied carbon emissions and embodied energy of the materials used in the calculations, which are indicative of the sustainability of such interventions, increase the energy and carbon emissions associated to each renovation package by an average of 43 kWh/(y.m 2 ) and 9.3 kgCO 2eq /(y.m 2 ), respectively. ; This research was funded by European Union's H2020 framework programme for research and innovation project "Development and advanced prefabrication of innovative, multifunctional building envelope elements for MOdular REtrofitting and CONNECTions" under grant agreement no ...

It is increasingly recognised that the energy renovation of the existing building stock will be determinant for achieving 2030 and 2050 decarbonisation targets in Europe. As operational energy is being dramatically reduced through regulatory efforts and funding from the European Union, the relevance of the environmental performance of these interventions becomes higher, namely regarding embodied energy and carbon emissions associated with the materials that compose the renovation solutions. Although some studies address these impacts in buildings, the range of studies focusing on the neighbourhood scale is limited. This article presents a methodological framework combining a life cycle cost assessment (LCC) and a life cycle assessment (LCA). The purpose is to assess the relevance of embodied energy and carbon emissions on the cost-effectiveness of building renovation solutions towards nZEB at the neighbourhood scale by comparing an operational energy approach and a whole life cycle approach in a case study of a social housing neighbourhood in Braga, Portugal. The results suggest an increase in indicators values demonstrating a negative impact on the achievable reduction of both energy and emissions when the whole life cycle approach is considered, which can constitute a critical point for policy formulation in the decarbonisation of the built environment. ; FCT / MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) under the R&D Unit Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE), under reference UIDB/04029/2020. Currently, Raúl Briones-Llorente is a Research Teaching Staff at the University of Burgos, thanks to a postdoctoral contract co-financed by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León and the Operational Programme of the European Social Fund.

It is increasingly recognised that the energy renovation of the existing building stock will be determinant for achieving 2030 and 2050 decarbonisation targets in Europe. As operational energy is being dramatically reduced through regulatory efforts and funding from the European Union, the relevance of the environmental performance of these interventions becomes higher, namely regarding embodied energy and carbon emissions associated with the materials that compose the renovation solutions. Although some studies address these impacts in buildings, the range of studies focusing on the neighbourhood scale is limited. This article presents a methodological framework combining a life cycle cost assessment (LCC) and a life cycle assessment (LCA). The purpose is to assess the relevance of embodied energy and carbon emissions on the cost-effectiveness of building renovation solutions towards nZEB at the neighbourhood scale by comparing an operational energy approach and a whole life cycle approach in a case study of a social housing neighbourhood in Braga, Portugal. The results suggest an increase in indicators values demonstrating a negative impact on the achievable reduction of both energy and emissions when the whole life cycle approach is considered, which can constitute a critical point for policy formulation in the decarbonisation of the built environment. ; This work was partly financed by FCT / MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) under the R&D Unit Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE), under reference UIDB/04029/2020. Currently, Raúl Briones-Llorente is a Research Teaching Staff at the University of Burgos, thanks to a postdoctoral contract co-financed by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León and the Operational Programme of the European Social ...

The APC was funded by the COST Action 'European Energy Poverty: Agenda Co-Creation and Knowledge Innovation' (ENGAGER 2017-2021, CA16232) funded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology-www.cost.eu"(accessed 5 December 2020), and the EPIU-Energy poverty intelligence unit (Funded by UE-European Regional Development Fund, UIA04-212 (EPIU)-https://hogaressaludables.getafe.es/(accessed 5 December 2020). ; The intensity and duration of hot weather and the number of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, are increasing, leading to a growing need for space cooling energy demand. Together with the building stock's low energy performance, this phenomenon may also increase households' energy consumption. On the other hand, the low level of ownership of cooling equip-ment can cause low energy consumption, leading to a lack of indoor thermal comfort and several health-related problems, yet increasing the risk of energy poverty in summer. Understanding future temperature variations and the associated impacts on building cooling demand will allow mitigat-ing future issues related to a warmer climate. In this respect, this paper analyses the effects of change in temperatures in the residential sector cooling demand in 2050 for a case study of nineteen cities across seven countries: Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain, by estimating cooling degree days and hours (CDD and CDH). CDD and CDH are calculated using both fixed and adaptive thermal comfort temperature thresholds for 2020 and 2050, understanding their strengths and weaknesses to assess the effects of warmer temperatures. Results suggest a noticeable average increase in CDD and CDH values, up to double, by using both thresholds for 2050, with a particular interest in northern countries where structural modifications in the building stock and occupants' behavior should be anticipated. Furthermore, the use of the adaptive thermal comfort threshold shows that the projected temperature increases for 2050 might affect people's capability to adapt their comfort band (i.e., indoor habitability) as temperatures would be higher than the maximum admissible values for people's comfort and health. ; publishersversion ; published