Abstract
Macroeconomic forecasting is a fundamental domain for policy decisions, directly impacting the whole population of a country. The use of machine learning (ML) approaches in economics forecasting has been studied in several types of research in the academic field, aiming to improve or even replace traditional econometric approaches. However, the use of ML in forecasting is now getting closer to policy markers, which are the institutions that make policy decisions. Three relevant studies are presented and analyzed in this work; all focused on forecasting using ML of different macroeconomic variables in several economies. The studies were compared, including aspects of methodologies and results, as well as similarities and differences. In addition, several technical, legal, and philosophical questions were raised regarding the effective use of data from ML forecasting in public policies, including topics related to the standardization of the research on this topic, the explanation of the model's output, protection of trust, and ethics issues.

Abstract
Many strategies have been developed to monitor the volume of volume of Above Ground Biomass (AGB) in forest areas as a fundamental step for managing carbon concentration. This study explores the use of use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data obtained through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to estimate height values in a vegetation colony composed of oaks (Quercus pyrenaica Willd.) in northern Portugal. The extraction of pertinent information from LiDAR data was facilitated by using the LAStools extension within the Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) software framework. The generated raster and image information were used to calculate the height values of the vegetation. Following this extraction, the information was meticulously organized into datasets, which were then employed in Deep Learning (DL) algorithms. The VGG16 model was selected as the underlying framework for the present study. Height predictions were made using dimensions of 16 x 16, 32 x 32, and 64 x 64 pixels for the Red, Green and Blue (RGB) images. The data was estimated and compared using both the standard format of the VGG16 model and a superficially adapted version of its convolution layers. The algorithm's efficacy was validated by comparing the forecast results with the data obtained from QGIS, which revealed minimal discrepancies. It was observed that using 64 x 64 pixel scale images yielded enhanced accuracy, resulting in reduced values for the Mean Absolute Error (MAE). The study demonstrates the viability of applying DL techniques to accurately capture information about a forest area using RGB images.

Abstract
Olive cultivation is a pillar of Mediterranean agriculture, deeply rooted in both tradition and economic importance. This paper presents a novel two-phase methodology for the automated preprocessing of olive leaf images to facilitate accurate cultivar classification. Leveraging the state-of-the-art YOLO11 framework, two models (YOLO11n and YOLO11s) were employed for detection and segmentation tasks. A comprehensive dataset, combining in-situ captured images with publicly available data, was meticulously annotated using both manual and semi-automatic processes. The detection model identifies individual olive leaves, while the segmentation model isolates the leaves by replacing the background with a uniform white, thereby simulating laboratory conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that YOLO11n outperforms YOLO11s in terms of mean Average Precision and F1-score, confirming the feasibility of deploying the system on mobile devices for real-time, in-field classification.

Abstract
This study explores the impact of hyper-parameter optimization on the performance of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for olive cultivar classification using transfer learning. Pre-trained ImageNet models such as VGG16, InceptionV3, and ResNet50 were adapted to a proprietary dataset, with VGG16 selected for detailed evaluation. Key hyper-parameters, including layer count, neurons per layer, dropout rate, learning rate, and batch size, were tuned using random search. The best configuration achieved a validation accuracy of 87.5%, significantly outperforming the control model. Sensitivity analyses with Morris and Sobol methods identified the number of layers as the most influential factor, followed by dropout and learning rates through interaction effects. These findings demonstrate the importance of tailoring CNN architecture and regularization settings to the problem domain. These results underscore the importance of tuning architectural depth and regularization mechanisms for performance optimization. As a practical guideline, models with fewer layers and intermediate dropout levels demonstrated higher robustness and generalization, offering an effective strategy for adapting CNNs to agricultural classification tasks.