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Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2021-10-26"

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  • Maping customer experience tips: insights from online museum reviews
    Publication . Coelho, Catarina Gonzaga; Guerreiro, Manuela; Sequeira, Bernardete
    To understand the main attributes with impact on museum’s visitors’ experience, this study analyses the e-WOM communication in the form of the reviews shared by customers on TripAdvisor. A qualitative and exploratory approach was applied through a thematic content analysis on 1403 reviews from five Portuguese museums with a presence on that online platform. The results revealed the attributes and sub-attributes with more impact on the visitor’s experience. Exhibition’s Quality and Ambient Conditions greatly influence the reviewers, and Staff Behaviour and Signs & Signage are the attributes with less impact on the experience. Given the recognized lack of research regarding the museums’ atmospherics features, this study provides contributions to literature and practice by giving continuity to the gaps identified in previous studies. This research brings useful light tips for museums’ management to explore and improve their services and take advantage of e-WOM as a marketing tool. Due to the recognizable increase of technology in museums, the sub-attribute Multimedia Displays arise reveals the importance of exploring this feature in future research.
    2021-10-26Master thesis Open access Show more
  • Evaluation of the antitumour and antiproliferative effect of Xanthohumol-Loaded PLGA nanoparticles on melanoma
    Publication . Fonseca, Magda; Macedo, Ana S.; Lima, Sofia A. Costa; Reis, Salette; Soares, Raquel; Fonte, Pedro
    Cutaneous melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer and current treatment is still inadequate, with low patient survival rates. The polyphenol xanthohumol has been shown to inhibit tumourigenesis and metastasization, however its physicochemical properties restrict its application. In this work, we developed PLGA nanoparticles encapsulating xanthohumol and tested its antiproliferative, antitumour, and migration effect on B16F10, malignant cutaneous melanoma, and RAW 264.7, macrophagic, mouse cell lines. PLGA nanoparticles had a size of 312 ± 41 nm and a PdI of 0.259, while achieving a xanthohumol loading of about 90%. The viability study showed similar cytoxicity between the xanthohumol and xanthohumol-loaded PLGA nanoparticles at 48 h with the IC50 established at 10 µM. Similar antimigration effects were observed for free and the encapsulated xanthohumol. It was also observed that the M1 antitumor phenotype was stimulated on macrophages. The ultimate anti-melanoma effect emerges from an association between the viability, migration and macrophagic phenotype modulation. These results display the remarkable antitumour effect of the xanthohumol-loaded PLGA nanoparticles and are the first advance towards the application of a nanoformulation to deliver xanthohumol to reduce adverse effects by currently employed chemotherapeutics.
    2021-10-26Journal article Open access Show more