Quality and satisfaction: The case of nautical tourist services in the Region of Alto Douro Vinhateiro – Portugal

Purpose – Organizations of tourist services, in the context of económica and financial crisis, seeking to combine the concept of quality to the satisfaction of internal customers (employees) and external customers (tourists), so as to ensure the provision of a personalized service excellence. This paper aims to provide an overview of the quality of the tourist services effected in the nautical Alto Douro Vinhateiro (ADV) – Portugal. Design/methodology/approach – This project work was applied to 117 internal customers (employees), through the application of a survey of various nautical tourist services organizations in the ADV. Findings – The results obtained demonstrate that there are aspects to be improved in these organizations, so that employees feel satisfied, namely: concern for employees; specific training; working conditions; greater dialogue between supervisors and employees; allocation of workload and time off. Originality/value – The employees´ satisfaction (internal customers) hasn´t been studied in nautical tourist services, due to the fact that the main approach has been to analys the external customers satisfaction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Antimicrobial natural products

Our ethnopharmacological studies, in several Angolan regions, showed that Cymbopogon citratus (DC) Stapf., it´s applied in folk medicine to treat several diseases In order to validate antibacterial activity several studies were performed using 12 bacterial strains. The essencial oil samples of Cymbopogon citratus, obtained by hydro-distillation, were analysed by GC and GC-MS. Constituents were identified and tested for their antimicrobial activity by the disc agar diffusion technique and the dilution technique against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (ATCC 12228) and other bacterial strains. Broad spectrum antibacterial activity was exhibited by the Cymbopogon citratus essential oil against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria as well as for MRSA that exhibited more sensitive towards the test substance compared to the non-MRSA. Our work was the first to show that Cymbopogon citratus essential oil has higher antibacterial activity against MRSA strains, than commercial antibiotics. These discover opens a new hope to fight against nosocomial infection.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Qualidade físico-química e microbiológica da água de piscinas do distrito de Bragança

A piscina é utilizada para fins recreativos, formativos, terapêuticos ou desportivos e de forma a impedir que a sua água seja um veiculo de infeções é importante a sua desinfeção. Por conseguinte, os utilizadores de piscinas e os vários grupos profissionais que aí desempenham atividades podem estar sujeitos a diversos perigos, nomeadamente biológicos e químicos. A contaminação biológica relaciona-se com o desenvolvimento de diferentes microrganismos onde se pode distinguir os de origem fecal e origem não-fecal. Quanto aos perigos químicos, estes estão relacionados principalmente com a exposição a substâncias químicas tóxicas presentes na água

Angolan cymbopogon citratus used for therapeutic benefits: nutritional composition and influence of solvents in phytochemicals content and antioxidant activity of leaf extracts

Folk medicine is a relevant and effective part of indigenous healthcare systems which are, in practice, totally dependent on traditional healers. An outstanding coincidence between indigenous medicinal plant uses and scientifically proved pharmacological properties of several phytochemicals has been observed along the years. This work focused on the leaves of a medicinal plant traditionally used for therapeutic benefits (Angolan Cymbopogon citratus), in order to evaluate their nutritional value. The bioactive phytochemical composition and antioxidant activity of leaf extracts prepared with different solvents (water, methanol and ethanol) were also evaluated. The plant leaves contained ~60% of carbohydrates, protein (~20%), fat (~5%), ash (~4%) and moisture (~9%). The phytochemicals screening revealed the presence of tannins, flavonoids, and terpenoids in all extracts. Methanolic extracts also contained alkaloids and steroids. Several methods were used to evaluate total antioxidant capacity of the different extracts (DPPH; NO; and H2O2 scavenging assays, reducing power, and FRAP). Ethanolic extracts presented a significantly higher antioxidant activity (p < 0.05) except for FRAP, in which the best results were achieved by the aqueous extracts. Methanolic extracts showed the lowest radical scavenging activities for both DPPH; and NO; radicals

The Effect of Light Wavelength on CO2 Capture, Biomass Production and Nutrient Uptake by Green Microalgae: A Step Forward on Process Integration and Optimisation

Microalgae have drawn the attention of several researchers as an alternative to the traditional physicochemical CO2 capture methods, since they can convert CO2 and water into organic matter and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Microalgal growth can be improved by changing light supply, such as light intensity, wavelength, and photoperiod. In this study, the effect of different light wavelengths on CO2 capture, nutrient removal from a synthetic effluent and biomass production of Chlorella vulgaris, Tetradesmus obliquus and Neochloris oleoabundans was studied. The experiments were conducted with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with different wavelengths: 380-750 nm (white), 620-750 nm (red) and 450-495 nm (blue). The maximum specific growth rate was obtained by N. oleoabundans with white LEDs (0.264 +/- 0.005 d(-1)), whereas the maximum biomass productivity (14 +/- 4 mg(dw) L-1 d(-1)) and CO2 fixation rate (11.4 mg(CO2) L-1 d(-1)) were obtained by C. vulgaris (also with white LEDs). Nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiencies obtained under white light conditions were also the highest for the three studied microalgae

Analysis of DNA damage and repair in saccharomyces cerevisiae using the comet assay in the characterization of antigenotoxicity of plant extracts and phytochemicals

In this work we used the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae to characterise the biological activity and the mechanism of action of phytochemicals. One of the goals is to use mutant strains affected in basic mechanisms of oxidative stress response and DNA repair in order to uncover the molecular targets of phytochemicals. We have assessed DNA damage and repair using the comet assay, evaluated as “comet tail length”, which displayed a dose-response relationship with different DNA-damaging agents1. Subsequently, we used this system to assess the antigenotoxic properties of a leaf extract from Ginkgo biloba (GBE). Typical experiments involved incubation of yeast cells, or spheroplasts, with GBE before and during oxidative shock with hydrogen peroxide. Our results obtained with the comet assay show that DNA damage was significantly decreased upon GBE treatment in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, DNA repair kinetics was significantly improved in cells incubated with GBE. However, in the mutant strain affected in CDC9, encoding a DNA ligase involved in the mechanisms of nucleotide excision repair and base excision repair, oxidative DNA damage repair kinetics was unchanged with GBE, suggesting that the activity of this extract involves one of these mechanisms, or both. Hydrogen peroxide-induced cell cycle arrest in G2 was abolished when cells were incubated with GBE after oxidative shock, suggesting that the improved repair kinetics allows progression of the cell cycle and/or GBE can have a direct effect on its regulation. As expected, GBE treatment improved survival of yeast cells when challenged with oxidative shock with H2O2 and intracellular oxidation was considerably decreased upon pre-treatment with GBE as revealed by flow cytometry. Reference(s) 1. Azevedo F., Marques, F., Fokt, H., Oliveira, R. and Johansson, B. (2011) Measuring oxidative DNA damage and DNA repair using the yeast comet assay. Yeast, 28, 55-6