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- Interpretation of many-valuedness in quality-of-life instrumentsPublication . Ribeiro, Luís Pedro; Eklund, Patrik; Gomes Alves Ferreira, Maria Augusta; Magalhães Ribeiro, Anabela de; Farinha, Maria Conceição; Paiva, Maria Adelaide; Gonçalves, Tânia; de Almeida Fontes, Ana Paula; Pinheiro, JoãoAssessment instruments for functioning in general and quality of life in particular often involve discrete scales with three, four, or five values, or Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) with a range 0–100. VAS scales often need to be downsized and discretized using intervals or clusters. Cutoff points for these intervals/clusters need to be carefully selected and justified. Our objective was to underline the importance of providing clear interpretations of many-valuedness appearing in quality-of-life (QoL) instruments, and to present a methodology for the provision of such clearness. Doing so, we view QoL scales as originating within the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Effectiveness of Generative AI for Post-Earthquake damage assessmentPublication . Estêvão, João Manuel CarvalhoAfter an earthquake, rapid assessment of building damage is crucial for emergency response, reconstruction planning, and public safety. This study evaluates the performance of various Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) models in analyzing post-earthquake images to classify structural damage according to the EMS-98 scale, ranging from minor damage to total destruction. Correct classification rates for masonry buildings varied from 28.6% to 64.3%, with mean damage grade errors between 0.50 and 0.79, while for reinforced concrete buildings, rates ranged from 37.5% to 75.0%, with errors between 0.50 and 0.88. Fine-tuning these models could substantially improve accuracy. The practical implications are significant: integrating accurate GAI models into disaster response protocols can drastically reduce the time and resources required for damage assessment compared to traditional methods. This acceleration enables emergency services to make faster, data-driven decisions, optimize resource allocation, and potentially save lives. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of GAI models can enhance resilience planning by providing valuable data for future infrastructure improvements. The results of this work demonstrate the promise of GAI models for rapid, automated, and precise damage evaluation, underscoring their potential as invaluable tools for engineers, policymakers, and emergency responders in post-earthquake scenarios.
- A Place where texts brew: the foreign writers who shaped the Algarve tourist and literary landscapePublication . Baleiro, Rita; Baleiro, Rita; Arcos-Pumarola, JordiThis chapter examines foreign writers’ escape or holiday travel events to the Algarve (Portugal) between the 1950s and the 2010s to reflect on their experience of this destination. The authors’ biography and bibliography were analysed concerning connections to this southern European territory. The findings suggest that the presence of these writers creates literary places and adds literary meaning to the Algarvian landscape.
- Literary tourism at holiday and escape destinationsPublication . Baleiro, Rita; Arcos-Pumarola, JordiWe have edited this volume as members of the Research Group on Literary Tourism (TULE), and each chapter was double-blind reviewed. This volume aggregates chapters written by nineteen researchers on literary tourism, and it focuses on two critical concepts in tourism studies: holiday and escape. Thus, this book serves as a catalogue of updated research on these constructs and aims to inspire researchers to expand the study of literary tourism. A holiday destination may be a village, a town, a city, a region, a country, or a site, and the motivations to travel to these destinations may include a wish to explore new places, experience culture, participate in leisure and recreation activities or escape. Escape is the second key concept of this book, and it is often indicated as one of the most predominant tourist motivations. Escape compasses the need to interrupt the flow of daily routine, seek new landscapes, avoid something, or experience a temporary change in individual roles or social structures. The literature on this topic distinguishes between «escaping from [e.g., the self]» and «escaping to [e.g., new locations]», and it identifies routine escapes, restorative escapes and dramatic escapes (e.g., as when fleeing a war zone). The desire to escape does not always result from a state of unhappiness. It may also originate in a need fostered by curiosity to experience new landscapes, i.e., new holiday destinations, or it may happen that change is an aim itself. That is why the need for escape is a propeller of various touring shapes, e.g., pilgriming or travelling to visit a particular geographical or cultural attribute. According to Cova and colleagues,3 this array of travelling shapes makes it difficult to make a cohesive and comprehensive theoretical background to describe all the shades of the phenomena.
- Metaforizações dos mitos do ciclo cretense na poesia de Ana Luísa Amaral: desafios didáticosPublication . Nogueira, AdrianaPartindo de uma base mitológica, este artigo organiza-se em duas partes, precedidas de uma introdução, na qual se remete para vários aspetos da tradição e receção do mito de Ariadne: na primeira parte, pretende-se perceber o papel da metaforização dos mitos do ciclo de Creta na poesia de Ana Luísa Amaral; na segunda, partir dos desafios que estes mitos nos colocam e descobrir as suas potencialidades para o ensino da poesia contemporânea, nomeadamente no Ensino Secundário, mas a ele não limitado.
- Fortification of wheat white bread: assessing the suitability of Beta vulgaris trough technological, nutritional, and sensory evaluationPublication . Issaoui, Manel; Oueslati, Samia; Flamini, Guido; Romano, Anabela; Delgado, AméliaAs societies undergo shifts in dietary patterns, there is often an increase in nutrition-related issues. This is particularly evident in the case of wheat bakery products, which have evolved in an unsustainable way. The fortification of wheat flour with vegetables has emerged as a strategy to mitigate the imbalanced composition of white bread. The objective of this study is to address existing knowledge gaps regarding nutritional quality and technological characteristics of food-to-food fortified bakery products. A blend of Beta vulgaris powder (up to 5% of the total weight) was incorporated into commercial wheat white flour, and the resulting composition and technological parameters were analysed throughout the bread-making process, using standard methods (e.g., AAAC, ISO). The sensory assessment of the tested fortified baking products formulations was conducted. The 178 volunteer consumers noted the differences conveyed by B. vulgaris, but scored the taste and colour as acceptable (6 out of 9). Formulations containing moderate amounts of chard (e.g., 2%) were most appreciated. This study demonstrates that B. vulgaris can be employed to enrich white bread, particularly in minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, and iron, in a readily actionable manner that is well accepted by consumers. Furthermore, the use of flour blends contributes to mitigate the impact of fluctuations in wheat availability, thereby enhancing food security.
- Spatio-temporal dynamics of early somite segmentation in the chicken embryoPublication . Ana Martins-Jesus; Borralho-Martins, Nísia; Tomás Pais-de-Azevedo; Magno, Ramiro; Maia-Fernandes, Ana C; Borralho Martins, Nísia; Pais de Azevedo, Tomás; dos Santos Duarte, Guilhermina Isabel; Varzielas Pego de Andrade, Raquel GláuciaDuring vertebrate embryo development, the body is progressively segmented along the anterior-posterior (A-P) axis early in development. The rate of somite formation is controlled by the somitogenesis embryo clock (EC), which was first described as gene expression oscillations of hairy1 (hes4) in the presomitic mesoderm of chick embryos with 15–20 somites. Here, the EC displays the same periodicity as somite formation, 90 min, whereas the posterior-most somites (44–52) only arise every 150 minutes, matched by a corresponding slower pace of the EC. Evidence suggests that the rostral-most somites are formed faster, however, their periodicity and the EC expression dynamics in these early stages are unknown. In this study, we used time-lapse imaging of chicken embryos from primitive streak to somitogenesis stages with high temporal resolution (3-minute intervals). We measured the length between the anterior-most and the last formed somitic clefts in each captured frame and developed a simple algorithm to automatically infer both the length and time of formation of each somite. We found that the occipital somites (up to somite 5) form at an average rate of 75 minutes, while somites 6 onwards are formed approximately every 90 minutes. We also assessed the expression dynamics of hairy1 using half-embryo explants cultured for different periods of time. This showed that EC hairy1 expression is highly dynamic prior to somitogenesis and assumes a clear oscillatory behaviour as the first somites are formed. Importantly, using ex ovo culture and live-imaging techniques, we showed that the hairy1 expression pattern recapitulates with the formation of each new pair of somites, indicating that somite segmentation is coupled with EC oscillations since the onset of somitogenesis.