As estratégias empresariais face à política de turismo em Portugal

Doutoramento em Gestão IndustrialO presente trabalho tem por objectivo preencher uma lacuna que existe em Portugal no domínio das estratégias das empresas do sector do turismo e na relação destas empresas com o Estado. Existem problemas e desfasamentos entre as estratégias empresariais, traçadas pelos empresários e gestores das empresas, e a política de turismo protagonizada pelos sucessivos governos, em Portugal, no período de 1993-2004. Para tentar resolver o problema central da presente investigação, foram percorridas várias etapas de investigação. Na primeira etapa, foi feita uma revisão bibliográfica, em Portugal, no Reino Unido e em Espanha. A partir da consolidação de alguns conceitos e da operacionalização de algumas definições, foi feito um pequeno questionário com fins exploratórios, que foi distribuído e recolhido em Lisboa e Madrid. Responderam a este questionário 40 empresários e gestores das empresas do sector do turismo. Após a redefinição do problema em análise, novas variáveis foram introduzidas na pesquisa, o que levou a nova revisão bibliográfica. A partir dos contributos de numerosos autores, de fontes secundárias e da análise documental foi possível construir e deduzir um modelo teórico, proposto pelo autor da Tese. Neste modelo, constam variáveis relativas aos modelos de competitividade, à estratégia empresarial numa perspectiva de marketing estratégico e à política de turismo. Deste modelo, resultaram a formulação de 7 hipóteses teóricas e a elaboração de um novo inquérito por questionário. Foram recolhidos 415 questionários, os quais foram preenchidos pelos principais empresários e gestores das empresas do sector do turismo português. Na etapa seguinte, os principais elementos da amostra, forneceram os Relatórios e Contas ou fotocópias do Balanço e da Demonstração de Resultados das suas empresas. A análise documental permitiu a consulta de documentos fornecidos pelos organismos nacionais de turismo, nas seguintes vertentes: política de promoção da imagem de Portugal junto dos mercados emissores de turistas; apoios financeiros do Estado português às empresas do sector do turismo; actividade legislativa aplicada ao sector do turismo; informação estatística do sector do turismo; indicadores económico-financeiros calculados pela Central de Balanços do Banco de Portugal, a partir da recolha dos questionários obtidos pelo Banco de Portugal, junto das empresas do sector do turismo português. A análise das informações obtidas permitiu o cruzamento de informação, a partir da análise de dados em SPSS e da consulta de mapas fornecidos pelas empresas, pelos organismos oficiais de turismo e pela Central de Balanços do Banco de Portugal. O confronto entre as hipóteses teóricas e os resultados obtidos no trabalho empírico, permitiu identificar a relação existente entre variáveis, entre factores, entre variáveis e factores e propor às empresas e aos poderes públicos uma nova abordagem, teórica e prática, pela conjugação – através da análise factorial -, de 4 tipos de factores: os segmentos de mercado; as vantagens competitivas do destino; as condições do ambiente externo das empresas; e as estratégias empresariais. Finalmente, são sugeridas uma série de implicações para a gestão estratégica dos destinos turísticos, envolvendo as empresas e as Organizações Nacionais de Turismo, e são feitas recomendações para investigações futuras.The present research has the goal to fulfil the existing gap in Portugal in the area of corporate strategies in the tourism sector and in the relation between these enterprises and the State. Problems and gaps exist between the corporate strategies, delineated by the entrepreneurs and managers of the enterprises and the tourism policy performed by the successive governments, in Portugal, from 1993 to 2004. For try to solve the central problem of the present research, various steps of this research were made. In the first step, it was made the literature review, in Portugal, in United Kingdom and in Spain. Since the consolidation of some concepts and the operationalization of some definitions, it was made a small questionnaire with exploratory goals, that was distributed and received at Lisbon and Madrid. Answered to this questionnaire 40 entrepreneurs and managers of the enterprises of the tourism sector. After the redefinition of the analysing problem, new variables were introduced in the research, that led to a new literature review. Since the new contributors of numerous authors, the secondary sources and the documental analysis, it was possible to build and to deduct a theoretical model, proposed by the thesis´ author. This model, has variables related with competitiveness models, corporate strategy in a perspective of strategic marketing and tourism policy. Since this model, had resulted the formulation of 7 theoretical hypotheses and the elaboration of a new questionnaire. I had received 415 questionnaires, that were answered by the main entrepreneurs and managers of the enterprises of the Portuguese tourism sector. In the following step, the main sample elements sent to me the Annual Reports and Accounts or copies of the Balance Sheet and Income Statement of their enterprises. The documental analysis permitted the consultation of the documents provided by national tourism offices, in the following perspectives: promotion of Portugal image policy near the tourists emission markets; state financial supports to the enterprises of the tourism sector; legislative activity applied to the tourism sector; statistics information of the tourism sector; economic and financial indicators calculated by the Central de Balanços of Banco de Portugal, since the gathering of the questionnaires obtained by the Banco de Portugal, in the enterprises of Portuguese tourism sector. The analysis of the obtained informations had permited to cross the information, since SPSS data analysis and the consultation of tables sent by the enterprises, by national tourism offices, and by Central de Balanços of Banco de Portugal. The confrontation between the theoretical hypotheses and the obtained results in the empirical work, had permited to identify the existing relation between variables, between factors and between variables and factors, and to propose a new theoretical and empirical approach to the enterprises and the State, through the conjugation – of factor analysis – of 4 types of factors: the market segments, the competitive advantage of the tourist destinations; the external environmental conditions of the enterprises; and the corporate strategies. Finally, are suggested a series of implications on the strategic management of tourist destinations, involving the private enterprises and the National Tourism Organizations, and are made recommendations for the future research

Sustainable production of porous chitosan microparticles by energy-efficient membrane emulsification

Funding Information: This research was supported by \u201CAntiviralNADES\u201D project (Ref. Number: 2022.08919.PTDC) funded by FCT and the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry - LAQV which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (10.54499/LA/P/0008/2020, 10.54499/UIDP/50006/2020 and 10.54499/UIDB/50006/2020). Funding Information: SM acknowledges financial support from Funda\u00E7\u00E3o para a Ci\u00EAncia e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for PhD grant SFRH/BD/146967/2019. Funding Information: MT acknowledges financial support from Funda\u00E7\u00E3o para a Ci\u00EAncia e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for the post-doctoral contract within the \u201CMembraneNanoDelivery\u201D project, reference FCT 2017 02/SAICT/2017. Funding Information: SM acknowledges financial support from Funda\u00E7\u00E3o para a Ci\u00EAncia e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for PhD grant SFRH/BD/146967/2019. MT acknowledges financial support from Funda\u00E7\u00E3o para a Ci\u00EAncia e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for the post-doctoral contract within the \u201CMembraneNanoDelivery\u201D project, reference FCT 2017 02/SAICT/2017. This research was supported by \u201CAntiviralNADES\u201D project (Ref. Number: 2022.08919. PTDC) funded by FCT and the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry - LAQV which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (10.54499/LA/P/0008/2020, 10.54499/UIDP/50006/2020 and 10.54499/UIDB/50006/2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2024In drug delivery, it is common to use porous particles as carrier media, instead of dense particles, due to their high specific surface area and available entrapment volume, which allows a higher amount of drug to be encapsulated and then released. Chitosan microparticles are extensively used in drug delivery, but porous chitosan microparticles are scarcely reported. In this work, the preparation of porous chitosan microparticles using membrane emulsification is addressed, a technology that involves mild operating conditions and less energy consumption than traditional methods (such as ultrasound), and with higher control of the particle size. The dense structure is obtained by a water-in-oil emulsion. The porous structure is obtained by a gas-in-water-in-oil G/W/O double emulsion, where argon bubbles get entrapped in an aqueous chitosan solution that is further emulsified in a paraffin/petroleum ether mixture. Porous chitosan particles were obtained with sizes of 7.7 ± 1.6 μm, which was comparable with dense chitosan particles (6.2 ± 2.3 μm). The pore structure was optimized by varying the argon flow rate, being optimized at 0.24 L h−1. The impact of drug loading by adsorption or encapsulation, and of the drug release behaviour when using porous and dense particles were assessed, using the protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model drug. The results showed that by encapsulating BSA the loading efficiency was above 95 % for both types of particles, with the release being slightly slower for the dense particles. As for the adsorbed BSA, the loading efficiency was significantly higher for porous particles – 70 % - against the 40 % for dense particles. Porous chitosan particles were successfully obtained using the membrane emulsification technology and showed that these carriers are advantageous regarding drug loading and release.publishersversionpublishe

As estruturas organizacionais e a cultura de empresa num contexto de competitividade : estudos de casos

Mestrado em Sistemas Sócio-Organizacionais da Actividade EconómicaNa primeira parte da Tese foi feita uma reflexão teórica sobre as doutrinas e estruturas organizacionais, desde o taylorismo, do início do século XX, até ao novo paradigma actual, salientando as abordagens ao nível das estruturas organizacionais e seus reflexos na produtividade e competitividade. Assim, foi dada especial ênfase às doutrinas das organizações, á estrutura, ao papel da cultura, da tecnologia, do modelo flexível, das novas competências, da competitividade, dos novos modelos de produção, das novas formas de organização do trabalho e das novas exigências dos mercados. Na segunda parte, foi possível analisar, com base nos modelos teóricos, expostos e discutidos na primeira parte da Tese, duas empresas industriais, em concreto, tendo-se procedido à caracterização das organizações X e Y e feito uma análise qualitativa e quantitativa da informação das mesmas, nomeadamente, pelo recurso á análise factorial. Pretende-se concluir até que ponto as duas empresas estudadas já assimilaram o novo paradigma da gestão das organizações.In the first part of this dissertation we made a theoretical reflection on organizational doctrines and structures, from taylorism, in the beginning of the XX century, till the new real paradigm, refering in special the aproach on the organizational structures and its consequences through productivity and competitiveness. So, we emphasized in special the organizational doctrines, the structure, the cultures' function, the technology, the flexible model, the new skills, the competitiveness, the new production models, the new work organization and new market exigences. In the second part, it was possible to analyze, with support of the theoretical models, presented and discussed in the first part, two industrial firms, in concrete, and we characterized the X and Y organizations and we made a qualitative and quantitative analysis of its information, namely, using factor analysis. We want to conclude to what extent the two studied firms assimilated the new management paradigminfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Proteins and peptides extraction from fish by-products

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparative Analysis of Bio-Vanillin Recovery from Bioconversion Media Using Pervaporation and Vacuum Distillation

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.The increasing demand for natural products has led to biotechnological vanillin production, which requires the recovery of vanillin (and vanillyl alcohol at trace concentrations, as in botanical vanillin) from the bioconversion broth, free from potential contaminants: the substrate and metabolites of bioconversion. This work discusses the recovery and fractionation of bio-vanillin, from a bioconversion broth, by pervaporation and by vacuum distillation, coupled with fractionated condensation. The objective was to recover vanillin free of potential contaminants, with maximised fluxes and selectivity for vanillin against water and minimised energy consumption per mass of vanillin recovered. In vacuum distillation fractionated condensation, adding several consecutive water pulses to the feed increased the percentage of recovered vanillin. In pervaporation-fractionated condensation and vacuum distillation-fractionated condensation processes, it was possible to recover vanillin and traces of vanillyl alcohol without the presence of potential contaminants. Vacuum distillation–experiments presented higher vanillin fluxes than pervaporation fractionated condensation experiments, 2.7 ± 0.1 g·m−2 h−1 and 1.19 ± 0.01 g·m−2 h−1, respectively. However, pervaporation fractionated condensation assures a selectivity of vanillin against water of 4.5 on the pervaporation step (acting as a preconcentration step) and vacuum distillation fractionated condensation requires a higher energy consumption per mass of vanillin recovered when compared with pervaporation– fractionated condensation, 2727 KWh kgVAN−1 at 85 °C and 1361 KWh kgVAN−1 at 75 °C, respectively.publishersversionpublishe

Valorization of fish by-products: Purification of bioactive peptides from codfish blood and sardine cooking wastewaters by membrane processing

SFRH/BD/149347/2019 UID/QUI/50006/2019 POCI-01 -145-FEDER-016403.Codfish blood and sardine cooking wastewaters were processed using membrane ultrafiltration that allowed for the preparation of bioactive peptides enriched fractions. The raw materials and corresponding permeates were characterized chemically and in terms of biological properties. The fractionation process was evaluated by analyzing the selective permeation of small peptides (10 kDa was achieved for both raw materials with the studied membranes. Also, low values of rejection of peptides <1 kDa were accomplished, namely 2% with UP010 from codfish blood and 23% when operated at minimum pressure (1.0 bar) with GH from sardine wastewaters. The peptide fractions from codfish blood with MW and UP010 exhibited the highest ABTS+ and ORAC values. Peptide fractions from sardine wastewaters with GH demonstrated no improvement in antioxidant activity compared to sardine wastewaters. The antimicrobial results showed that the peptide fractions from codfish blood with UP010 and from sardine with GH at 1.0 bar were capable of inhibiting Escherichia coli growth.publishersversionpublishe

Decolorization of a corn fiber arabinoxylan extract and formulation of biodegradable films for food packaging

UID/AGR/04129/2020Corn fiber from the corn starch industry is a by-product produced in large quantity that is mainly used in animal feed formulations, though it is still rich in valuable components, such as arabinoxylans, with proven film-forming ability. During arabinoxylans’ recovery under alkaline extraction, a dark-colored biopolymer fraction is obtained. In this work, a purified arabinoxylan extract from corn fiber with an intense brownish color was decolorized using hydrogen peroxide as the decolorizing agent. Biodegradable films prepared by casting the decolorized extract exhibited a light-yellow color, considered more appealing, envisaging their application in food packaging. Films were prepared with glycerol as plasticizer and citric acid as cross-linker. Although the cross-linking reaction was not effective, films presented antioxidant activity, a water vapor permeability similar to that of non-decolorized films, and other polysaccharides’ and mechanical properties that enable their application as packaging materials of low-water-content food products.publishersversionpublishe

Structural diversity of marine anti-freezing proteins, properties and potential applications: a review

POCI-01 -145-FEDER-016403Cold-adapted organisms, such as fishes, insects, plants and bacteria produce a group of proteins known as antifreeze proteins (AFPs). The specific functions of AFPs, including thermal hysteresis (TH), ice recrystallization inhibition (IRI), dynamic ice shaping (DIS) and interaction with membranes, attracted significant interest for their incorporation into commercial products. AFPs represent their effects by lowering the water freezing point as well as preventing the growth of ice crystals and recrystallization during frozen storage. The potential of AFPs to modify ice growth results in ice crystal stabilizing over a defined temperature range and inhibiting ice recrystallization, which could minimize drip loss during thawing, improve the quality and increase the shelf-life of frozen products. Most cryopreservation studies using marine-derived AFPs have shown that the addition of AFPs can increase post-thaw viability. Nevertheless, the reduced availability of bulk proteins and the need of biotechnological techniques for industrial production, limit the possible usage in foods. Despite all these drawbacks, relatively small concentrations are enough to show activity, which suggests AFPs as potential food additives in the future. The present work aims to review the results of numerous investigations on marine-derived AFPs and discuss their structure, function, physicochemical properties, purification and potential applications. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].publishersversionpublishe

A New Microbial Polysaccharide Membrane for Ethanol Dehydration by Pervaporation

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Modelling of Fractionated Condensation for Off-Flavours Reduction from Red Wine Fermentation Headspace

Funding Information: Maria João Pereira acknowledges Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for PhD fellowship SFRH/BD/119018/2016. This work was supported by the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry—LAQV, which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/50006/2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.A mathematical model of fractionated condensation is proposed for predicting the recovery and fractionation of target aromas from red wine fermentation headspaces in order to remove off-flavours. The applicability of the model is assessed for two different alternative processes: fractionated condensation and vapour permeation–fractionated condensation. The aromas of the headspace of red wine fermentation are commonly lost through the fermenter venting system and are enhanced by the stripping effect of the produced CO2. To mimic the operating conditions during the red wine fermentation, all experiments were performed at 30 °C with a red wine model solution containing relevant red wine aromas, the cosolvent ethanol at representative concentrations, and CO2. Both studied processes allow for a good recovery of esters in the 2nd condenser, with over 80% of ethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate recovery when using vapour permeation–fractionated condensation and a recovery of 84–96% of all esters when using fractionated condensation. However, only the integrated process of vapour permeation–fractionated condensation achieves a significant decrease in the amount of ethyl phenols (off-flavours compounds) in the 1st condenser, above 50%, as expected due to the use of an organophilic membrane. The developed model was validated experimentally for the integrated process, proving to be a highly valuable tool for the prediction of aroma fractionation, aiming at the removal of off-flavours.publishersversionpublishe