Term Time Horizon Research Articles

The Future Role of the Nuclear Energy in Brazil in a Transition Energy Scenario

This paper discusses and presents figures about the future power consumption in the world and, especially in Brazil, based on the current world and Brazilian’s energy scenarios. Emphasis is given to the scenarios of nuclear power and uranium resources demand. A discussion on the future roles of thorium and uranium fuels in the replacement of the traditional resources like oil and gas is also presented, as it is the role of the new nuclear power plants, planned to be built in a short term time horizon. This paper considers two different indexes for future projections, and the results obtained indicated a strong dependence on them. The time horizon for the analysis was fixed on the time estimated for Brazil to reach its maximum in population, and parameters evaluated were taken from the Brazilian’s governmental and world data on the population growth, energy consumption and energy consumption per capita. Calculations show that the power consumption projections for Brazil, for the adopted time horizon and working with global indexes, become overestimated, when compared with the results considering the national indexes. According to our approach, power consumption estimates using global indexes becomes approximately 4.5 times higher than the estimates presented by the Brazilian indexes. This was the motivation to the discussion between the Brazilian and world energy demand scenarios, and also the roles of nuclear energy in the future transition from the current conventional to alternative sources.

The Effect of International Trade on Rule of Law

In this paper, we look at the relationship between international trade and the rule of law, using the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, which include index figures on human rights, limits on government powers, transparency and regulatory efficiency. Based on regression analyses using the rule of law index figures and international trade figures (merchandise trade, service trade, exports and imports as percentage of GDP,) international trade and basic human rights seem to have little relationship; but trade has a close positive relationship with strong order and security. Somewhat surprisingly, regulatory transparency and effective implementation seems to have little or no effect on international trade and vice versa. International trade shows a clear positive relationship with the country’s criminal justice system, but the relationship with the civil justice system is not as clear as such. For regulatory implementation and civil justice, services trade positively affect these institutions, but these institutions in turn affect exports more strongly than services trade. Finally, the effect of trade on rule of law is stronger on a medium to long term (10-20 year) time horizon.

Economic Growth and Income Distribution: Linking Macro- economic Models with Household Survey Data at the Global Level

This paper describes in detail the analytical structure of the Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) model, a global macro-micro modelling framework, and provides some examples of its recent applications. GIDD is the first macro-micro global simulation model focused on long-term, global growth and distribution dynamics. GIDD has been applied in analyzing the effects of multilateral trade liberalization or mitigation of climate change damages, among others. It also explicitly considers long term time horizons during which changes in the demographic structure are crucial components of both growth and distribution dynamics. The challenges of assessing plausible worldwide distributional implications of growth, large shocks, and policy changes are daunting. Although addressing these issues in a macro-micro framework is subject to great uncertainty, a clearly superior alternative is not yet available.

Health economics of asthma: assessing the value of asthma interventions

The aim of this systematic review was to summarize and assess the quality of asthma intervention health economic studies from 2002 to 2007, compare the study findings with clinical management guidelines, and suggest avenues for future improvement of asthma health economic studies. Forty of the 177 studies met our inclusion criteria. We assessed the quality of studies using The Quality of Health Economic Studies validated instrument (total score range: 0-100). Six studies (15%) had quality category 2, 26 studies (65%) achieved quality category 3, and the remaining eight (20%) studies were scored as the highest quality level, category 4. Overall, the findings from this review are in line with the Global Initiative for Asthma clinical guidelines. Many asthma health economic studies lacked appropriate long term time horizons to match the chronic nature of the disease and suffered from using effectiveness measures that did not capture all disease related risks and benefits. We recommend that new asthma simulation models: be flexible to allow for long term time horizons, focus on using levels of asthma control in their structure, and estimate both long term asthma specific outcomes like well-controlled time as well as generic outcomes such as quality adjusted survival.

Sustainable development of the protected areas with the reference to the Sicevo gorge

The goal of this paper is to test the topical and possible application of sustainable development principles in the protected areas. The sustainable development is observed as a goal and the flexible mechanism for reaching the consensus set by the fundamental postulates of the Agenda 21, among all the relevant factors in the decision making and enforcement of regulations. It is unquestionable that the spatial planning possesses the necessary integrative potentials for management of changes, long term time horizon and the catalytic position in reconciliation of public, social and private interest. The road towards sustainability is a long and complex process, because it requires the change of the way of thinking and behavior of all the social factors, that is, establishment of the understanding the environmental effect of the development is as important as the economic one. The main guidelines of this reconciliation must be the vision and the aims of preservation of natural resources, but not as the ultimate requirement of the authorities, but as the argument-supported and articulated public interest. This paper refers to the Spatial plan of the special area of Sicevo gorge through the review of basic regimes of natural resources protection, restrictions and prohibitions. It also pays attention to the measures which will allow to achive sustainability of development as well as apply protective regimes.

Invited Commentary—The Day After Tomorrow: Longer Run Issues in Theatrical Exhibition

The authors do an excellent job of summarizing issues and trends that will play out in the very short run, perhaps the most pressing topics for immediate research. In addition to expanding on some of their themes, I would argue that there remain a number of issues that will arise in the slightly longer run. Given the industry’s history of stunted technology acceptance, changes when they come, may come quickly. Parallels with the music industry, facing similar challenges 5–10 years ahead of movies, can be especially insightful, and I will conclude with thoughts along that longer term time horizon. Whether countries are overscreened from a profit or social perspective is of interest to both marketers and economists, and the authors fairly frame the trends in the data and the questions. This, however, seems to be an issue that could be greatly informed with more micro-level data. The authors point out that, while admissions grew by 17% from 1989 to 1999, the number of screens increased by 62% over the same period. It seems reasonable, however, to claim that dividing a 400-seat auditorium into two 200-seat auditoria (a common step preceding the multiplex) does nothing to capacity. Given that U.S. auditorium sizes have decreased with the shift to the multiplex and megaplex, the more relevant (if harder to assemble) measure would be the number of seats. How does this seat-versus-screen perspective affect our perception of the observed trends? Is a similar trend at work in European exhibition? While admittedly harder to answer with readily gathered data, these questions

EMBEDDED SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATION VISUAL TESTING OF ELECTRONIC MODULES

The subsystem of a visual functional test is an embedded system, which is an integral part of testing equipment for functional testing of electronic modules of dashboards of vehicles after their installation. The flexible solution of structure of measuring an information subsystem chain with a CCD camera and its interconnection with a controlling PC of testing equipment enables measurement and also analysis, in a long term time horizon, the functional characteristics of electro-optical parts installed generally in electronic modules produced. The solution is proposed with respect to reliability, the flexibility of re-installation also for other type of the electronic module measured, removal of the human factor from the process of visual functional tests and harmonization of the testing period with the period of production line.

The economic determinants of land degradation in developing countries

The following paper investigates the economic determinants of land degradation in developing countries. The main trends examined are rural household's decisions to degrade as opposed to conserve land resources, and the expansion of frontier agricultural activity that contributes to forest and marginal land conversion. These two phenomena appear often to be linked. In many developing areas, a poor rural household's decision whether to undertake long–term investment in improving existing agricultural land must be weighed against the decision to abandon this land and migrate to environmentally fragile areas. Economic factors play a critical role in determining these relationships. Poverty, imperfect capital markets and insecure land tenure may reinforce the tendency towards short–term time horizons in production decisions, and may bias land use decisions against long–term land management strategies. In periods of commodity booms and land speculation, wealthier households generally take advantage of their superior political and market power to ensure initial access to better quality resources, in order to capture a larger share of the resource rents. Poorer households are confined either to marginal environmental areas where resource rents are limited, or only have access to resources once they are degraded and rents dissipated.Overall trends in land degradation and deforestation are examined, followed by an overview of rural household's resource management decisions with respect to land management, frontier agricultural expansion, and migration from existing agricultural land to frontiers. Finally, the discussion focuses on the scope for policy improvements to reduce economic constraints to effective land management.

A BREAKEVEN PROCEDURE FOR A MULTI-PERIOD PROJECT

ABSTRACT Breakeven analysis is often limited to the analysis of a project with a short term time horizon. This paper presents a solution technique for the analysis of a project with a multi-period planning horizon. The solution procedure considers variations in production rates and variations in prices and costs. The solution methodology is used to find out how much output is to be produced for a project's life or sub-period, and how much time is taken for a project to breakeven. The proposed solution technique also provides insight to the relationship between NPV and breakeven quantity. This illustrates the difference of the solution methodology from conventional breakeven analysis. A sensitivity analysis in the procedure is as valid as the one in conventional breakeven analysis.