A imagem das marcas portuguesas de vestuário

Comunicação apresentada na Global Fashion International Conference que ocorreu entre 11 a 13 de Novembro de 2010 no Porto.The success of national fashion brands seems to be vital for the competitiveness of the Portuguese Apparel Sector. This sector continues to play an important role for the country. Recent years have assisted to significant changes due to total liberalization of trade of textiles and clothing, the process of relocation of production to countries where manpower is cheaper, the increase of global competition and lower consumer prices, the market maturity and saturation of demand, the fast development of the new technologies, particularly in the field of information and the deep changes in the structure of markets (Lourenço, 2005). Consumers, in turn, have become more selective in spending, looking for better design, better quality and best price (Ramos, 2003). To address this scenario, the Portuguese apparel sector has invested in his own brand, in fashion and design, distribution and internationalization, with the creation of retail networks owned or franchised that allow the relationship with the consumer. Thus, several domestic fashion brands have appeared with structured communication and image, with great professionalism (Bessa e Vaz, 2007) that may be considered "serious cases of successful distribution of fashion" (Bessa e Vaz, 2007:9). Many efforts have been held either by government initiatives, both individual and business, to improve the image of Portuguese fashion brands. But have these initiatives proven effective? It was considered, therefore quite relevant to develop this study, which sought to find out the image that Portuguese consumers have about Portuguese fashion brands in the market today. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze and characterize, based in a number of factors, the image of Portuguese fashion brands from the point of view of the Portuguese consumer. To achieve the goal of this investigation was chosen a non-probabilistic sampling method by quota, considering as universe the Portuguese population located in Portugal in 2005, aged between 15 and 39 years. The instrument used for gathering data was the questionnaire. To analyze the image the respondents have about Portuguese fashion brands, we used descriptive statistics and analysis of frequency. To analyze the set of characteristics associated 2 with this image a factorial analysis was made, to group the variables most correlated. From the obtained factors a cluster analysis was carried out. To validate this analysis a discriminant analysis was carried out. As a general conclusion, and in order to provide to companies relevant information that can help them to make the right strategic decisions about fashion brands it was found that respondents were divided into two groups. Those belonging to Group 1 - The Positivists (79.70%) have a very positive image of Portuguese clothing brands. They characterize the Portuguese brands as leaders and charismatic, with a young spirit, proud of their origin, innovative, unique and with communication skills. Respondents in Group 2 - The Negativists (13.73%), consider that the Portuguese clothing brands have quality and are reliable, but consider them too old-fashioned, out of fashion, with no style, ordinary and banal, and assume to have a negative image of Portuguese clothing brands

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol�which is a marker of cardiovascular risk�changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95 credible interval 3.7 million�4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

A new mutation (1062 del 16) of iduronate-2-sulfatase gene from a Chinese patient with Hunter syndrome*

Objective: To identify the mutations of iduronate-2-sulfatase (IDS) gene, to reveal its mutation features, and to establish a basis for genetic counseling and prenatal gene diagnosis of Hunter syndrome. Methods: Urine glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) assay, PCR and DNA sequencing were performed to detect mutation of IDS gene of the patient and his parents. Results: The result showed that the patient was: DS(++), HS(++), KS(−), CS(−), and that both of his parents were negative. A frame-shift deletion mutation (1062 del 16) was identified in exon 7 of the patient’s IDS gene. His parents’ genotypes were normal. Conclusion: The patient’s mutation was not inherited by his parents but a novel one. The mutation probably altered the primary structure and tertiary structure of IDS enzyme protein remarkably and lowered the activity of IDS enzyme greatly. Therefore it is supposed to be the direct cause of the disorder