Aquaponics as a sustainable and healthy food production system for Portugal

The aquaponics biological cycle Aquaponics has enormous potential in the regulation and recycling of valuable nutrients, otherwise lost to the environment with pollution potential. Aquaponics integrates freshwater aquaculture and hydroponics in a mini ecosystem. It uses the water of a Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) in soilless plant farming. The process includes a biofilter where nitrifying bacteria oxidize ammonia, resulting from fish excreta or uneaten feed, into nitrates and nitrites. While fish are extremely sensitive to ammonia, they are more tolerant to nitrates and nitrites. Nevertheless, these need also to be removed from the fish environment before accumulation to toxic levels. This is where hydroponics may come in as a useful manner of disposing nitrogen off the RAS. Nitrogen is the main macronutrient for plant growth, therefore an indispensable element in fertilization. The advantages of combining a RAS with hydroponics becomes therefore evident as a win-win solution for the problematic nitrates of the RAS and the expensive nitrogen fertilizers of plant production.N/

Consumption of honey in Portugal: consumers’ attitudes, perceptions and trends

Consumers’ attitudes about reveal important information about the production and supply chain of food and the commercialisation process (Unnevehr et al., 2010). To fully understand a consumption market, it is important to study the symbolic representations of consumption habits (Bekker et al., 2017). The consumer perceives consumption accordingly to social norms and values, and consumption habits cannot be analyzed as individual phenomena. Choices are under the influence of norms, values, taboos, permissions, prohibitions, and beliefs (Andorfer & Liebe, 2013). The consumers’ attitudes have been considered important determinants of their behaviour. The Ajzen’s Planned Behaviour Theory (APBT) (Ajzen, 1991) is based in the presumption that people behave in a sensible way, consider the information available, and consider the implications of their actions. The theory postulates that a person’s interest to perform or not a certain behaviour is a direct function of individually and socially related variables. The individual component is based in the individual attitude or mood to react favourably or unfavourably to an object, individual, institution, or event (Kim and Hunter, 1993). The social component includes the subjective norms determined by the perception of the social pressures acting on the individual, to perform or not a certain behaviour (Ajzen 1991N/

European citizens’ evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is crucial in ensuring food safety and security in Europe. Providing a stable and diverse food supply also supports rural economies and promotes social, environmental and economic sustainability. However, as CAP consumes approximately 30% of the EU budget, debates regarding its pertinence have arisen. This paper aimed to understand European citizens’ perceptions of CAP, its associated benefits and their level of agreement regarding the allocation of the EU budget. Ultimately, the goal was to gain insights into EU citizens’ attitudes and perceptions towards the CAP. Information and data come from the European Survey Eurobarometer. The methods include statistical inferential techniques adjusted to the nature of the variables and goals. The findings confirm that European citizens generally perceive the CAP positively and have positive attitudes about the CAP. While some differences among various social groups may exist, the results did not identify any specific group strongly opposing the CAP. Overall, European citizens hold a favorable attitude towards the CAP, its associated benefits and budget allocation. This paper brings new insights into new European CAP measures and programs to promote food security and the sustainability of agriculture among European countries and citizens. These insights may be useful for public decision-makers to define better policies and measures adjusted to European citizens and to promote food security and sustainability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy: Cause of a Cardiogenic Shock

A miocardiopatia de Takotsubo, de etiologia desconhecida, caracteriza-se pela disfunção sistólica súbita e transitória dos segmentos médio-apicais do ventrículo esquerdo, sem doença coronária significativa, com total normalização das alterações segmentares. É mais frequente em mulheres de meia-idade, implicando diagnóstico diferencial com a sindrome coronária aguda. Apresentamos o caso de uma mulher de 59 anos que recorreu ao Serviço de Urgência por dispneia súbita e dor torácica. À admissão apresentava-se em edema pulmonar agudo hipotensivo com necessidade de suporte aminérgico e ventilação invasiva. A avaliação analítica demonstrava elevação dos marcadores cardíacos. Electrocardiogramas seriados em ritmo sinusal com inversão progressiva da onda T nas derivações precordiais (v2 - v6). Ecocardiogramas de controlo revelando acinésia apical com diminuição da função sistólica global, e reversão total das alterações em duas semanas. Admitido choque cardiogénico de etiologia não esclarecida foi excluída doença coronária, sustentando o diagnóstico de miocardiopatia de Takotsubo

Sustainable consumption and the drivers of product boycott in Europe

Institutional sustainability is a dynamic and multifaceted concept that relies on the contributions of various institutions, including the legal and the scientific system. On the other side, consumers boycotts are an expression of political consumerism by which consumers can use their market power to attain sustainability objectives. This article explores institutional trust on the legal system and trust on scientists as potential drivers for consumers’ boycotts. Using data retrieved from the European Social Survey covering twenty-five countries, the study employs binary logistic regression to assess the importance of institutional trust and other potential drivers of product boycotts in Europe. Results confirm that boycotting behaviour is affected by institutional trust, as well as other individual variables including gender, age and life-cycle effects, education, interest in politics and level of satisfaction with the political system, generalized trust, personal well-being, and consumers’ use and perceptions of information and communication technologies. The results of this study enrich the literature on consumer boycotts and have implications for policymakers involved in sustainability initiatives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Crowdfunding as entrepreneurial funding for investigative journalism in Portugal

Artigo baseado na comunicação proferida no 19th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance, Bayes Business School, University of London, UK, 23-24 novembro 2023The 2007 financial and economic subprime crisis arising from the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Bank in the USA had severe impacts on all the economic sectors. Journalism in Portugal was highly affected, and the most remarkable impacts led to editorial budget cuts. These cuts led to a drastic decrease in human resources in newsrooms, leading to a consequent breach of investigative journalism. These aspects resulted in a surge in unemployment for many experienced journalists, a decrease in the quality of information, and the consequent impoverishment and reduction of research journalism, with losses for the entire Portuguese society. Considering this context there is the need to explore alternative sources of funding for research journalism. Crowdfunding has been portrayed as an alternative to traditional models of financing research journalism, capable of generating a new dynamic, to provide for a more skilled and informed society. The main goal of this paper is to analyze crowdfunding as a tool to fund Portuguese investigative journalism. The methods include a narrative literature review on the causes, impacts, and consequences of the decrease in Portuguese investigative journalism and a case study methodology focused on the Portuguese platform of journalism crowdfunding ‘I Fund News’. In addition, qualitative research was applied to analyze the curricula of Portuguese journalism degrees with minors in entrepreneurship, business, and economics. The results show that the number of ECTS courses in entrepreneurship, business, and economics in journalism and communication degrees is very low in the Portuguese higher education sector. A relationship between entrepreneurship, business, economics, and the capacity for journalists to readapt and find the necessary funding sources is established. These results may be of interest to Portuguese police makers and higher education stakeholders, to promote the development of study programs with increased entrepreneurship, business, and economics courses. More literate journalists in the referred subjects may enhance their entrepreneurial potential and, consequently, their freelance potential to develop investigative journalism projects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Smart cities through urban short supply chains of food

The cities around the world in general and in the Mediterranean area in particular are facing tremendous challenges at the environmental, social, economic and institutional levels (Fernandez-Anez et al., 2020). Currently, cities need to be sustainable and smart (Silva et al., 2018). An economically important and innovative sector in urban areas is food security. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of the literature explores the concept of smart cities from the point of view of information and communications technology, and the connection with sustainability aspects remains unsolved. This study tries to overcome this gap in the literature. The main aim is to analyse the contribution of urban short-supply chains of foods in terms of sustainability of smart cities. The study reports the conclusions of a revision of the literature and the preliminary results of four research projects in this area, including the SGDsCONSUM project. The results confirm positive impacts of short supply chains of food in urban areas in the four dimensions of sustainable development and smart and sustainable cities. The conclusions of this study will be helpful for producers, consumers, traders, importers, exporters, tourists, financial institutions, and particularly for government sectors related to agricultural economic activities, projects, and programs in policy development.N/

Sustainable consumption in urban short supply chains

The United Nations, national and regional public decision-makers, and the academy are increasingly paying attention to sustainable development. They are debating the main institutional ways and the respective restrictions to achieve a compromise solution among the economic, social, environmental, and institutional dimensions of sustainable development (Kumar, 2022). Sustainable food production and sustainable consumption in urban short-supply chains are dependent on the links between various stakeholders, including companies, consumers and public decision-makers (Govindan, 2018). Previous literature lacks a systematic and holistic view of these actors and corresponding dependencies, limiting our understanding of how to leverage sustainable innovation and design sustainable strategies and policies for food production and consumption. Based on a systematic literature review of a large sample of representative publications included in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, this study tries to overcome this gap in the literature by exploring the relationship between ethical and sustainable consumption and production in short supply chains and offers an agenda for future research. This study, which was developed under the SDGsConsum project, proposes a holistic model of integrative development. The main results confirm that, despite the huge development in SDGs literature, and sustainable development of consumption, the focus on urban shortly supply chains of production in the literature is modest in general, and in particular in food sectorial activities. Moreover, the motivations and constraints that drive and restrain consumers and companies toward sustaina- ble consumption and how these two dimensions complement each other or overlap remain a topic that needs to be further investigated. The results of this study can help shape policies that are adequate to promote a better adjustment of sustainable food supply and demand. Moreover, it might also bring new approaches to integrate and promote short supply chains of foods in urban areas for a more sustainable development of the world.N/

Long-Term Maraviroc Use As Salvage Therapy in HIV-2 Infection

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