Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2023-07-13"
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- Strategic alliances for the development of sport tourism products: the case of the Portuguese nautical stationsPublication . Aghdash, Vahid Mokhtarnezhad; Pereira, Elsa Cristina SacramentoNautical tourism is a tourist product with great development in the European space and a lot of potential to promote and develop tourist destinations. The aim of this study was to analyses the strategic alliances for the development of the offer of nautical tourism products, namely to analyses the decision-making, the value proposal, communication strategy and the selling process adopted by nautical stations (NS) in Portugal. This study is classified as applied descriptive research through the use of qualitative methods. Between September and December 2021, 17 Portuguese nautical stations application forms were collected and all 17 certified NS application forms were imported to NVivo for content analysis as a new standalone project created for this purpose named Nautical Project. Results show that decision-making processes are taken by the majority of partners in a Nautical Station Council, but the dynamics vary between NS. In terms of value proposition, the NS' main value for the NS stakeholders were the aggregation, diversity, and distinctiveness of the region's tourism offer, as well as innovation, reduction of seasonality, and increased spending per visitor. The communication strategies focus was organizing press trips, creating a NS tab in the municipality platform, and developing websites. In the majority of the NS the selling process was done through direct reservations with the different companies of the destination. Future studies could further examine the role of strategic alliances in enhancing destination competitiveness, explore how digital marketing strategies can support the creation of innovative products and services in NS and investigated about the evaluation of the costs and benefits of a communication and selling strategy in the context of the strategic alliances. An analysis of the models of decision-making process in the NS, as case studies, could improve the knowledge related with strategic process in sport tourism. It is worth mentioning that future research must go into the field to observe strategic alliances in action.
- Terapêutica anti-TNF alfa no tratamento da artrite reumatoidePublication . Inácio, Débora Raquel Duarte; Estêvão, M. DulceA artrite reumatoide (AR) é uma doença autoimune inflamatória crónica, que tem como principal característica a inflamação das membranas sinoviais articulares, o que origina dor, inchaço, rigidez das articulações e limitação do movimento. A sua evolução causa deformação articular e, consequentemente, eventual incapacidade locomotora. Outros tecidos também podem ser afetados, como os pulmões, coração e olhos. O diagnóstico e tratamento precoces são essenciais para abrandar a evolução da patologia. Estão disponíveis várias classes de fármacos que podem ser utilizadas no seu tratamento, porém apenas os fármacos modificadores do curso da doença (DMARDs, do inglês, Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs) previnem a danificação articular e deformação. Estes são classificados como sintéticos/clássicos ou biológicos. Os DMARDs biológicos são fármacos mais recentes, que constituem uma alternativa à ausência de resposta aos fármacos clássicos verificada em alguns pacientes. Têm modos de ação que têm como objetivo diminuir a inflamação, através da inibição dos recetores de interleucina-6 (IL-6), da inibição dos fatores de necrose tumoral alfa (TNF-α), da depleção de linfócitos B e da inibição da co estimulação de células T. Os TNF-α são citocinas que provocam a apoptose de células tumorais e estimulam a resposta inflamatória, pelo que a sua inibição diminui a inflamação sistémica. Os inibidores destas citocinas foram os primeiros DMARDs biológicos aprovados para o tratamento da artrite reumatoide. Atualmente estão aprovados cinco fármacos: etanercept, infliximab, adalimumab, certolizumab pegol e golimumab. Nesta monografia apresentam-se capítulos introdutórios ao tema, incluindo as características da patologia, o diagnóstico, e o tratamento, entre outros. Segue-se a apresentação das características dos inibidores de TNF-α aprovados pela Agência Europeia dos Medicamentos (EMA) e das perspetivas futuras desta classe de fármacos no tratamento da artrite reumatoide.
- Non-invasive monitoring of kiwifruit ripeningPublication . Afonso, Andreia M.; Guerra, Rui; Antunes, Maria DulceThis thesis aims to explore the use of Visible and Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (VisNIR-DRS) in monitoring the ripening of two kiwifruit species, a yellow- (Actinidia chinensis Planch 'Jintao') and a green-fleshed (Actinidia deliciosa Liang et Ferguson 'Hayward'). The technique used in this study relies on correlating spectra with fruit internal quality attributes (IQA). However, low correlations in VisNIR-DRS causes problems in generalizing calibration models to new data. Therefore, the study was designed to test VisNIR-DRS in difficult real field conditions. Two orchards were monitored for each cultivar over two years, enabling internal (IV) and external validation (EV) on four independent datasets. The first part of the study focused on characterizing the time evolution of IQA during ripening. The second part involved developing calibration models for each IQA, based on the data from the first year. The results showed that it is possible to obtain highquality predictions for the IQA's daily averages from medium-quality models. The third part involved the two years' data. Variable selection and orthogonal signal correction were employed to improve the performance of the models, although only the IV performance improved, indicating that these widely recommended techniques are of little value in the context of stringent EV. Usual calibration transfer between the spectrometers used in each year was impossible in the absence of common samples. Therefore, a normalization approach based on daily average spectra was used, resulting in improved model performance. Lastly, the fourth part addressed the time variation of IQA in cold-stored kiwifruit, along with sensory data and their correlation with the spectra. According to the results of this study, VisNIR-DRS is a promising and important tool for kiwifruit industry since can be used to follow non-destructively the kiwifruit ripening, either on-tree or during storage, in a higher number of fruit samples and in less time.