This study analyses how political and institutional factors affected the performance of municipalities in improving social welfare in Brazil in the period from 1990 to 2000. The model adopts a stochastic production frontier, conditioned by variables related to the provision costs of services and those that can affect municipal efficiency. The results indicated that we can not reject:1) economie...

Ecological engineering was defined as the practice of joining the economy of society to the environment symbiotically by fitting technological design with ecological self design. The boundary of ecological engineering systems includes the ecosystems that self organize to fit with technology, whereas environmental engineering designs normally stop at the end of the pipe. For example, the coastal...

Estonia has one of the most established e-voting systems in the world. Internet voting remote e-voting using the voter’s own equipment was piloted in 2005 [12] (with the first real elections using e-voting being conducted the same year) and has been in use ever since. So far, the Estonian internet voting system has been used for the whole country in three sets of local elections, two European P...

Successful merging of chemical and biotechnological operations is essential to achieve cost-efficient industrialization of bio-based processes. The demonstration of the use of syngas, derived from microwave assisted pyrolysis of municipal solid waste, for the improved growth and poly-3-hydroxybutyrate production in Rhodospirillium rubrum, stands out as an example of the synergistic contribution...

We compare the interactive experiences of two public infrastructures — situated displays and a municipal wireless network — using a conceptual framework of place, experience and embodiment. Using the framework as a point of reference, we can begin to address some inherent design issues in these technologies. Consequently, we argue that urban technologies which take into account their environmen...