O aumento da producao distribuida nas redes eletricas em geral, e da energia solar fotovoltaica e... more O aumento da producao distribuida nas redes eletricas em geral, e da energia solar fotovoltaica em particular, colocam novos desafios na utilizacao da energia, na operacao do sector eletrico e de planeamento das redes. Em relacao ao primeiro, os consumidores deixaram de ter apenas esse papel e assumem tambem um papel de produtores de energia, tornando-se ativos nos sistemas eletricos de energia, ou seja, tornam-se prosumidores. Neste contexto, apresenta-se neste trabalho uma alternativa para que os prosumidores possam tirar proveito da energia que produzem para cobrir parte das suas necessidades de eletricidade. De forma a gerir estas necessidades apresentam-se as caracteristicas de diversos equipamentos e sistemas eletricos do sector residencial que permitem o tracado de um perfil de cargas e otimiza-lo adequando-o a disponibilidade diaria de producao, em particular a de origem fotovoltaica. Para a identificacao dessas caracteristicas recorreu-se a Serie de Fourier para aproximar a...
We examine selection incentives by health plans while refining the selection index of McGuire et ... more We examine selection incentives by health plans while refining the selection index of McGuire et al. (2014) to reflect not only service predictability and predictiveness but also variation in cost sharing, risk-adjusted profits, profit margins, and newly-refined demand elasticities across 26 disaggregated types of service. We contrast selection incentives, measured by service selection elasticities, across six plan types using privately-insured claims data from 73 large employers from 2008 to 2014. Compared to flat capitation, concurrent risk adjustment reduces the elasticity by 47%, prospective risk adjustment by 43%, simple reinsurance system by 32%, and combined concurrent risk adjustment with reinsurance by 60%. Reinsurance significantly reduces the variability of individual-level profits, but increases the correlation of expected spending with profits, which strengthens selection incentives.
How cells maintain their size has been extensively studied under constant conditions. In the wild... more How cells maintain their size has been extensively studied under constant conditions. In the wild, however, cells rarely experience constant environments. Here, we examine how the 24-hour circadian clock and environmental cycles modulate cell size control in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus using single cell time-lapse microscopy. Under constant light, WT cells follow an apparent sizer-like principle. Closer inspection reveals that the clock generates two subpopulations, with cells born in the subjective day or night following different division rules. A stochastic model explains how this behaviour emerges from the interaction of size control with the clock. Combining modelling and experiments, we go onto show how under physiological light-dark cycles, the clock shifts cell division away from dusk and dawn, causing division to occur in more energetically favourable conditions.
We estimate within-year price elasticities of demand for detailed health care services using an i... more We estimate within-year price elasticities of demand for detailed health care services using an instrumental variable strategy, in which individual monthly cost shares are instrumented by employer-year-plan-month average cost shares. A specification using backward myopic prices gives more plausible and stable results than using forward myopic prices. Using 171 million person-months spanning 73 employers from 2008 to 2014, we estimate that the overall demand elasticity by backward myopic consumers is -0.44, with higher elasticities of demand for pharmaceuticals (-0.44), specialists visits (-0.32), MRIs (-0.29) and mental health/substance abuse (-0.26), and lower elasticities for prevention visits (-0.02) and emergency rooms (-0.04). Demand response is lower for children, in larger firms, among hourly waged employees, and for sicker people. Overall the method appears promising for estimating elasticities for highly disaggregated services although the approach does not work well on ser...
Organisms use circadian clocks to generate 24-h rhythms in gene expression. However, the clock ca... more Organisms use circadian clocks to generate 24-h rhythms in gene expression. However, the clock can interact with other pathways to generate shorter period oscillations. It remains unclear how these different frequencies are generated. Here, we examine this problem by studying the coupling of the clock to the alternative sigma factor sigC in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus Using single-cell microscopy, we find that psbAI, a key photosynthesis gene regulated by both sigC and the clock, is activated with two peaks of gene expression every circadian cycle under constant low light. This two-peak oscillation is dependent on sigC, without which psbAI rhythms revert to one oscillatory peak per day. We also observe two circadian peaks of elongation rate, which are dependent on sigC, suggesting a role for the frequency doubling in modulating growth. We propose that the two-peak rhythm in psbAI expression is generated by an incoherent feedforward loop between the clock, sigC and psb...
Abstract This article assesses the European Union (EU)’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian ... more Abstract This article assesses the European Union (EU)’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and highlights the unintended consequences of the policies pursued by Brussels on this matter. While stressing that Palestinians and Israelis interested in peace face the danger of the banalization of the conflict, the article argues that the current status quo is unacceptable and unstainable in the long run, and this demands new policies from the actors involved with the conflict or its resolution. The EU policies’ overall rationale must be to treat the Israeli‒Palestinian dispute as a normal, non-exceptional conflict, in which economic and legal tools can be employed to create new legal facts on the ground. An alternative EU approach to the conflict must recognize the insufficiency of recent initiatives and should be built upon two pillars: the legalization of the main contending issues and the empowerment of the civil society actors and initiatives that foster dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
Armed drones – and their usage – are a topic extremely relevant for the EU. Several developments ... more Armed drones – and their usage – are a topic extremely relevant for the EU. Several developments testify to this argument: the recent emergence of targeted killings as a common counter-terrorism technique; the existence of several EU member states using armed and surveillance drones in military scenarios; the presence of member states troops in areas where armed drones have been active; the US use of European-originated intelligence to execute targeted killings; and the broader status of international law, to mention a few. Yet, the EU still does not have an official position on armed drones. In 2014 the European Parliament recognized that this is problematic, adopting a Resolution that expressed “grave concern over the use of armed drones outside the international legal framework” and that urged the EU to “develop an appropriate policy response at both European and global level”. This Forum answers the European Parliament Resolution's call for the development of strategies for enhancing the international regulation of armed drones. It is composed of six articles that expand the contours of this debate aiming at presenting concrete ideas and policy recommendations for an EU position on armed drones, which in turn could contribute to the international regulation of this contending issue.
Much of our knowledge of microbial life is only a description of average population behaviours, b... more Much of our knowledge of microbial life is only a description of average population behaviours, but modern technologies provide a more inclusive view and reveal that microbes also have individuality. It is now acknowledged that isogenic cell-to-cell heterogeneity is common across organisms and across different biological processes. This heterogeneity can be regulated and functional, rather than just reflecting tolerance to noisy biochemistry. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of microbial heterogeneity, with an emphasis on the pervasiveness of heterogeneity, the mechanisms that sustain it, and how heterogeneity enables collective function.
While it is known that the Si-(7×7) is a conducting surface, measured conductivity values differ ... more While it is known that the Si-(7×7) is a conducting surface, measured conductivity values differ by 7 orders of magnitude. Here we report a combined STM and transport method capable of surface conductivity measurement of step-free or single-step containing surface regions and having minimal interaction with the sample, and by which we quantitatively determine the intrinsic conductivity of the Si-(7×7) surface. We found that a single step has a conductivity per unit length about 50 times smaller than the flat surface. Our first principles quantum transport calculations confirm and lend insight into the experimental observation.
The complexity of analysing EU foreign policy can be perceived by the myriad of important issues ... more The complexity of analysing EU foreign policy can be perceived by the myriad of important issues that puzzle its landscape. In order to address such a vast subject, academics use concepts like coherence, consistency or even actorness and test them in different scenarios with different results. What Costanza Musu does in this excellent book is precisely such an exercise: she uses a concrete test case not only to assess the effectiveness of the instruments developed by the EU to implement its foreign policy, but also to understand the different vectors involved in its implementation. The so-called Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) is relevant to the EU for several reasons: it impacts directly on the stability of neighbouring areas; it is decisive in shaping the international security environment to which the EU is exposed; it takes place in an area with a very important (but often academically neglected) economic dimension. All these factors not only make harmonisation of the foreign policies of different member states vis-à-vis this issue a challenge (different geostrategic backgrounds lead EU member states to have very different positions), but also test the strength of the transatlantic relationship. The book opens with a remark Henry Kissinger made in 1974: ‘‘The Europeans will be unable to achieve anything in the Middle East in a million years.’’ Although hyperbolic, to some extent this sentence expresses the way the US views the EU’s engagement in the MEPP. At the same time, the caustic phrasing used by the former US Secretary of State makes it possible to imagine the importance the US attaches to the EU’s deeper involvement in these negotiations. As described very accurately in this work, the roots of EC/EU foreign policy and its further development proceed in parallel with the rhetorical will to engage in the MEPP: the issue can be found in the first European Political Cooperation (EPC) meeting in 1970 as it can be found forty years later, in a period that goes beyond the
To clarify the link between anomalous letter processing and developmental dyslexia, we examined t... more To clarify the link between anomalous letter processing and developmental dyslexia, we examined the impact of surrounding contours on letter vs. pseudo-letter processing by three groups of children - phonological dyslexics and two controls, one matched for chronological age, the other for reading level - and three groups of adults differing by schooling and literacy - unschooled illiterates and ex-illiterates, and schooled literates. For pseudo-letters, all groups showed congruence effects (CE: better performance for targets surrounded by a congruent than by an incongruent shape). In contrast, for letters, only dyslexics exhibited a CE, strongly related to their phonological recoding abilities even after partialling out working memory, whereas the reverse held true for the pseudo-letter CE. In illiterate adults, the higher letter knowledge, the smaller their letter CE; their letter processing was immune (to some extent) to inference from surrounding information. The absence of a letter CE in illiterates and the positive CE in dyslexics have their origin in different aspects of the same ability, i.e. phonological recoding.
O aumento da producao distribuida nas redes eletricas em geral, e da energia solar fotovoltaica e... more O aumento da producao distribuida nas redes eletricas em geral, e da energia solar fotovoltaica em particular, colocam novos desafios na utilizacao da energia, na operacao do sector eletrico e de planeamento das redes. Em relacao ao primeiro, os consumidores deixaram de ter apenas esse papel e assumem tambem um papel de produtores de energia, tornando-se ativos nos sistemas eletricos de energia, ou seja, tornam-se prosumidores. Neste contexto, apresenta-se neste trabalho uma alternativa para que os prosumidores possam tirar proveito da energia que produzem para cobrir parte das suas necessidades de eletricidade. De forma a gerir estas necessidades apresentam-se as caracteristicas de diversos equipamentos e sistemas eletricos do sector residencial que permitem o tracado de um perfil de cargas e otimiza-lo adequando-o a disponibilidade diaria de producao, em particular a de origem fotovoltaica. Para a identificacao dessas caracteristicas recorreu-se a Serie de Fourier para aproximar a...
We examine selection incentives by health plans while refining the selection index of McGuire et ... more We examine selection incentives by health plans while refining the selection index of McGuire et al. (2014) to reflect not only service predictability and predictiveness but also variation in cost sharing, risk-adjusted profits, profit margins, and newly-refined demand elasticities across 26 disaggregated types of service. We contrast selection incentives, measured by service selection elasticities, across six plan types using privately-insured claims data from 73 large employers from 2008 to 2014. Compared to flat capitation, concurrent risk adjustment reduces the elasticity by 47%, prospective risk adjustment by 43%, simple reinsurance system by 32%, and combined concurrent risk adjustment with reinsurance by 60%. Reinsurance significantly reduces the variability of individual-level profits, but increases the correlation of expected spending with profits, which strengthens selection incentives.
How cells maintain their size has been extensively studied under constant conditions. In the wild... more How cells maintain their size has been extensively studied under constant conditions. In the wild, however, cells rarely experience constant environments. Here, we examine how the 24-hour circadian clock and environmental cycles modulate cell size control in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus using single cell time-lapse microscopy. Under constant light, WT cells follow an apparent sizer-like principle. Closer inspection reveals that the clock generates two subpopulations, with cells born in the subjective day or night following different division rules. A stochastic model explains how this behaviour emerges from the interaction of size control with the clock. Combining modelling and experiments, we go onto show how under physiological light-dark cycles, the clock shifts cell division away from dusk and dawn, causing division to occur in more energetically favourable conditions.
We estimate within-year price elasticities of demand for detailed health care services using an i... more We estimate within-year price elasticities of demand for detailed health care services using an instrumental variable strategy, in which individual monthly cost shares are instrumented by employer-year-plan-month average cost shares. A specification using backward myopic prices gives more plausible and stable results than using forward myopic prices. Using 171 million person-months spanning 73 employers from 2008 to 2014, we estimate that the overall demand elasticity by backward myopic consumers is -0.44, with higher elasticities of demand for pharmaceuticals (-0.44), specialists visits (-0.32), MRIs (-0.29) and mental health/substance abuse (-0.26), and lower elasticities for prevention visits (-0.02) and emergency rooms (-0.04). Demand response is lower for children, in larger firms, among hourly waged employees, and for sicker people. Overall the method appears promising for estimating elasticities for highly disaggregated services although the approach does not work well on ser...
Organisms use circadian clocks to generate 24-h rhythms in gene expression. However, the clock ca... more Organisms use circadian clocks to generate 24-h rhythms in gene expression. However, the clock can interact with other pathways to generate shorter period oscillations. It remains unclear how these different frequencies are generated. Here, we examine this problem by studying the coupling of the clock to the alternative sigma factor sigC in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus Using single-cell microscopy, we find that psbAI, a key photosynthesis gene regulated by both sigC and the clock, is activated with two peaks of gene expression every circadian cycle under constant low light. This two-peak oscillation is dependent on sigC, without which psbAI rhythms revert to one oscillatory peak per day. We also observe two circadian peaks of elongation rate, which are dependent on sigC, suggesting a role for the frequency doubling in modulating growth. We propose that the two-peak rhythm in psbAI expression is generated by an incoherent feedforward loop between the clock, sigC and psb...
Abstract This article assesses the European Union (EU)’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian ... more Abstract This article assesses the European Union (EU)’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and highlights the unintended consequences of the policies pursued by Brussels on this matter. While stressing that Palestinians and Israelis interested in peace face the danger of the banalization of the conflict, the article argues that the current status quo is unacceptable and unstainable in the long run, and this demands new policies from the actors involved with the conflict or its resolution. The EU policies’ overall rationale must be to treat the Israeli‒Palestinian dispute as a normal, non-exceptional conflict, in which economic and legal tools can be employed to create new legal facts on the ground. An alternative EU approach to the conflict must recognize the insufficiency of recent initiatives and should be built upon two pillars: the legalization of the main contending issues and the empowerment of the civil society actors and initiatives that foster dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
Armed drones – and their usage – are a topic extremely relevant for the EU. Several developments ... more Armed drones – and their usage – are a topic extremely relevant for the EU. Several developments testify to this argument: the recent emergence of targeted killings as a common counter-terrorism technique; the existence of several EU member states using armed and surveillance drones in military scenarios; the presence of member states troops in areas where armed drones have been active; the US use of European-originated intelligence to execute targeted killings; and the broader status of international law, to mention a few. Yet, the EU still does not have an official position on armed drones. In 2014 the European Parliament recognized that this is problematic, adopting a Resolution that expressed “grave concern over the use of armed drones outside the international legal framework” and that urged the EU to “develop an appropriate policy response at both European and global level”. This Forum answers the European Parliament Resolution's call for the development of strategies for enhancing the international regulation of armed drones. It is composed of six articles that expand the contours of this debate aiming at presenting concrete ideas and policy recommendations for an EU position on armed drones, which in turn could contribute to the international regulation of this contending issue.
Much of our knowledge of microbial life is only a description of average population behaviours, b... more Much of our knowledge of microbial life is only a description of average population behaviours, but modern technologies provide a more inclusive view and reveal that microbes also have individuality. It is now acknowledged that isogenic cell-to-cell heterogeneity is common across organisms and across different biological processes. This heterogeneity can be regulated and functional, rather than just reflecting tolerance to noisy biochemistry. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of microbial heterogeneity, with an emphasis on the pervasiveness of heterogeneity, the mechanisms that sustain it, and how heterogeneity enables collective function.
While it is known that the Si-(7×7) is a conducting surface, measured conductivity values differ ... more While it is known that the Si-(7×7) is a conducting surface, measured conductivity values differ by 7 orders of magnitude. Here we report a combined STM and transport method capable of surface conductivity measurement of step-free or single-step containing surface regions and having minimal interaction with the sample, and by which we quantitatively determine the intrinsic conductivity of the Si-(7×7) surface. We found that a single step has a conductivity per unit length about 50 times smaller than the flat surface. Our first principles quantum transport calculations confirm and lend insight into the experimental observation.
The complexity of analysing EU foreign policy can be perceived by the myriad of important issues ... more The complexity of analysing EU foreign policy can be perceived by the myriad of important issues that puzzle its landscape. In order to address such a vast subject, academics use concepts like coherence, consistency or even actorness and test them in different scenarios with different results. What Costanza Musu does in this excellent book is precisely such an exercise: she uses a concrete test case not only to assess the effectiveness of the instruments developed by the EU to implement its foreign policy, but also to understand the different vectors involved in its implementation. The so-called Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) is relevant to the EU for several reasons: it impacts directly on the stability of neighbouring areas; it is decisive in shaping the international security environment to which the EU is exposed; it takes place in an area with a very important (but often academically neglected) economic dimension. All these factors not only make harmonisation of the foreign policies of different member states vis-à-vis this issue a challenge (different geostrategic backgrounds lead EU member states to have very different positions), but also test the strength of the transatlantic relationship. The book opens with a remark Henry Kissinger made in 1974: ‘‘The Europeans will be unable to achieve anything in the Middle East in a million years.’’ Although hyperbolic, to some extent this sentence expresses the way the US views the EU’s engagement in the MEPP. At the same time, the caustic phrasing used by the former US Secretary of State makes it possible to imagine the importance the US attaches to the EU’s deeper involvement in these negotiations. As described very accurately in this work, the roots of EC/EU foreign policy and its further development proceed in parallel with the rhetorical will to engage in the MEPP: the issue can be found in the first European Political Cooperation (EPC) meeting in 1970 as it can be found forty years later, in a period that goes beyond the
To clarify the link between anomalous letter processing and developmental dyslexia, we examined t... more To clarify the link between anomalous letter processing and developmental dyslexia, we examined the impact of surrounding contours on letter vs. pseudo-letter processing by three groups of children - phonological dyslexics and two controls, one matched for chronological age, the other for reading level - and three groups of adults differing by schooling and literacy - unschooled illiterates and ex-illiterates, and schooled literates. For pseudo-letters, all groups showed congruence effects (CE: better performance for targets surrounded by a congruent than by an incongruent shape). In contrast, for letters, only dyslexics exhibited a CE, strongly related to their phonological recoding abilities even after partialling out working memory, whereas the reverse held true for the pseudo-letter CE. In illiterate adults, the higher letter knowledge, the smaller their letter CE; their letter processing was immune (to some extent) to inference from surrounding information. The absence of a letter CE in illiterates and the positive CE in dyslexics have their origin in different aspects of the same ability, i.e. phonological recoding.
Uploads
Papers by Bruno Martins