a comparative study of the US and the UK

Rita, P., Brochado, A., & Dimova, L. (2019). Millennials’ travel motivations and desired activities within destinations: a comparative study of the US and the UK. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(16), 2034-2050. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1439902Millennials are one of the largest groups to be targeted by tourism companies. This paper compares the travel motivations of Millennials from both the United States and the United Kingdom by ratings, rankings and perceptual structures of both push and pull factors. This exploratory study used a questionnaire to examine the inner motivations (e.g. push factors) and preferred destination activities (e.g. pull factors) of American and British Millennials (n = 322). Data analysis included the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, an alternating least-squares algorithm (ALSCAL) model and ordinal regression. The results reveal that American and British Millennials are quite homogeneous in their push travel motivations and destination activity preferences. The most important motivational factors for both are ‘to relax’ and ‘to escape from the ordinary’. Both nationalities also agree that the most attractive destination activities are ‘to try local food’ and ‘to go sightseeing’. The findings indicate that the US and UK samples are similar and that there is room for segmentation according to demographics.authorsversionpublishe

The islands of the senses of Cape Verde

Oliveira, C., Brochado, A., Moro, S., & Rita, P. (2019). Consumer perception of tourist experience through online reviews: The islands of the senses of Cape Verde. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 11(6), 696-717. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-09-2019-0052Purpose: Overall, there is a lack of research using online reviews as a proxy of customer experience when addressing the study of tourism in island destinations. Design/methodology/approach: The current investigation aims to fill this gap by focussing on an African small island developing states, i.e. Cape Verde. This paper reports of tourist reviews extracted from TripAdvisor from “two islands of the senses” as coined by this archipelago’s national tourism organization, specifically Santo Antão and Fogo islands. The data analysis was performed through Leximancer software to generate concepts out of words, followed by themes. Findings: The present research focussed on experiences in island tourism to identify their main dimensions based on visitors’ narratives in online reviews. The obtained results are of potential value to the literature by contributing to a better understanding of tourist experience in the context of tourism in islands in an understudied country, Cape Verde. Originality/value: Results are presented and object of discussion vis-à-vis scientific literature and conclusions put forward in this journal paper.authorsversionpublishe

themes in online reviews

Brochado, A., Rita, P., Oliveira, C., & Oliveira, F. (2019). Airline passengers’ perceptions of service quality: themes in online reviews. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(2), 855-873. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-09-2017-0572Purpose: This paper aims to identify the main themes shared in online reviews by airline travellers, as well as which of these themes were linked with higher and lower value for money ratings. Design/methodology/approach: The research used mixed content analyses (i.e. quantitative and qualitative) to examine 1,200 reviews of six airline companies shared by airline travellers in a social media platform. Findings: The analyses revealed nine themes in descriptions of airline travel experiences. These are the core services during “flights”, “airport” operations, crew and ground “staff”, ticket “classes”, “seats”, inflight “services”, “entertainment”, overall experiences of “airlines” and post-purchase recommendations of with which companies to “fly”. Low value for money ratings are linked with the “airport” and “flights” themes. Originality/value: The results offer useful insights into airline travellers’ overall experiences based on social media information and facilitate the identification of the main themes linked with different value for money ratings.authorsversionpublishe

Improved vanillin production in baker's yeast through in silico design

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vanillin is one of the most widely used flavouring agents, originally obtained from cured seed pods of the vanilla orchid <it>Vanilla planifolia</it>. Currently vanillin is mostly produced <it>via </it>chemical synthesis. A <it>de novo </it>synthetic pathway for heterologous vanillin production from glucose has recently been implemented in baker's yeast, <it>Saccharamyces cerevisiae</it>. In this study we aimed at engineering this vanillin cell factory towards improved productivity and thereby at developing an attractive alternative to chemical synthesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expression of a glycosyltransferase from <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>in the vanillin producing <it>S. cerevisiae </it>strain served to decrease product toxicity. An <it>in silico </it>metabolic engineering strategy of this vanillin glucoside producing strain was designed using a set of stoichiometric modelling tools applied to the yeast genome-scale metabolic network. Two targets (<it>PDC1 </it>and <it>GDH1</it>) were selected for experimental verification resulting in four engineered strains. Three of the mutants showed up to 1.5 fold higher vanillin β-D-glucoside yield in batch mode, while continuous culture of the <it>Δpdc1 </it>mutant showed a 2-fold productivity improvement. This mutant presented a 5-fold improvement in free vanillin production compared to the previous work on <it>de novo </it>vanillin biosynthesis in baker's yeast.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Use of constraints corresponding to different physiological states was found to greatly influence the target predictions given minimization of metabolic adjustment (MOMA) as biological objective function. <it>In vivo </it>verification of the targets, selected based on their predicted metabolic adjustment, successfully led to overproducing strains. Overall, we propose and demonstrate a framework for <it>in silico </it>design and target selection for improving microbial cell factories.</p

Proton Motive Force Disruptors Block Bacterial Competence and Horizontal Gene Transfer

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a commensal of the human nasopharynx that can also cause severe antibiotic-resistant infections. Antibiotics drive the spread of resistance by inducing S. pneumoniae competence, in which bacteria express the transformation machinery that facilitates uptake of exogenous DNA and horizontal gene transfer (HGT). We performed a high-throughput screen and identified potent inhibitors of S. pneumoniae competence, called COM-blockers. COM-blockers limit competence by inhibiting the proton motive force (PMF), thereby disrupting export of a quorum-sensing peptide that regulates the transformation machinery. Known chemical PMF disruptors and alterations in pH homeostasis similarly inhibit competence. COM-blockers limit transformation of clinical multi-drug-resistant strains and HGT in infected mice. At their active concentrations, COM-blockers do not affect growth, compromise antibiotic activity, or elicit detectable resistance. COM-blockers provide an experimental tool to inhibit competence and other PMF-involved processes and could help reduce the spread of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. VIDEO ABSTRACT.</p

Efeitos imediatos de uma postura de Stretching Global Ativo na força e na flexibilidade

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Species-specific activity of antibacterial drug combinations

International audienceThe spread of antimicrobial resistance has become a serious public health concern, making once treatable diseases deadly again and undermining breakthrough achievements of modern medicine 1,2. Drug combinations can aid in fighting multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections, yet, are largely unexplored and rarely used in clinics. To identify general principles for antibacterial drug combinations and understand their potential, we profiled ~3,000 dose-resolved combinations of antibiotics, human-targeted drugs and food additives in 6 strains from three Gram-negative pathogens, Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhimurium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Despite their phylogenetic relatedness, more than 70% of the detected drug-drug interactions are species-specific and 20% display strain specificity, revealing a large potential for narrow-spectrum therapies. Overall, antagonisms are more common than synergies and occur almost exclusively between drugs targeting different cellular processes, whereas synergies are more conserved and enriched in drugs targeting the same process. We elucidate mechanisms underlying this dichotomy and further use our resource to dissect the interactions of the food additive, vanillin. Finally, we demonstrate that several synergies are effective against MDR clinical isolates in vitro and during Galleria mellonella infections with one reverting resistance to the last-resort antibiotic, colistin