”ROMA POLITICAL REPRESENTATION STRUGGLES. EDUCATION AS EXAMPLE OF FAILED OFFICIAL POLITICAL DISCOURSE”

Thisarticle will discuss Roma social political integration in the context of rapidpolitical transformation after the collapse of Soviet Union in the Eastern and Central Europe. The reasons of failed Roma politicalmobilization will be discussed referring the concept “framing” (R. D. Benford,D.A.Snow, 2000). Both internal and external frame constructions will bediscussed in detail in order to understand the underlying factors that hadinfluenced the failure of Roma political mobilization, paying special attentionto education as an example of failed official political discourse.KEYWORDS:Roma, Ethnic identity ‘frames’, Political mobilization, Education

Tourists' perceptions of beach quality improvement during the off-peak season: a segmentation approach

Recently coastal tourism has increased rapidly and has negatively affected environmental, social and cultural sustainability. The Algarve is the main sun-and-sea tourism destination in Portugal, with a large number of beautiful beaches. Due to negative tourism impacts and climate change, coastal tourism management tools need to be assessed and implemented. Most beach areas have the dual mandate of conserving coastal natural resources and providing opportunities for recreation and tourism. This paper aims to identify off-peak season beach users' profiles and to segment them according to their priorities for sustainable beach management in the face of climate change and seasonality balance. Four beaches with different types were chosen in the municipality of Albufeira as case studies: an urban, a rural, a resort and a remote beach. A cluster analysis was applied to data collected through a survey applied to 200 tourists through face-to-face interviews. The survey aimed to measure beach visitors' opinion about beach environment and services, as well as about the importance of 25 quality beach attributes. The cluster analyses generated three segments of beach users with the following profiles: comfort and food lovers, young and active environmentalists and sustainable minimalists. The results provide valuable information and insights for both academics and beach managers, who can adjust their management tasks to suit market segments and their preferences, fulfilling emerging environmental policies.UIDP/SOC/04020/2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The economic impact of recreational trails: a systematic literature review

Recreational trails are a type of nature-based tourism providing various activities such as hiking, biking, rafting or horseback riding. Increasing investment in infrastructure and touristic services development has resulted in higher visitor expenditure and thus contributed to economic development. This study aims to review the current economic impact assessment studies on recreational trail tourism and to extract the main economic impact determinants. A systematic literature review analysis was applied in a quantitative approach about economic models, study cases of nature-based tourism, comparison of economic impacts. A qualitative analysis was then applied with an inductive approach to compare the economic impacts of nature-based tourism forms and identify the main determinants of economic impact. This study suggests that I-O is the most suitable theoretical approach to study the economic impact of long-distance trails, while the Keynesian multiplier approach and Ad hoc model are the most suitable approaches to study the economic impact of short-distance trails.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Framework for environmental risk assessment and management of deep-sea mineral mining of massive seafloor sulfide deposits

The global interest in exploiting deep-sea minerals has increased over the last couple of decades due to the rising demand for valuable metals required for technological development. However, due to significant scientific and technological knowledge gaps and uncertain economic risks, no commercial exploitation of deep-sea resources has yet been initiated (Jak et al., 2014). To help develop appropriate environmental management and monitoring plans and to assist in establishing necessary standards and guidelines for future environmental impact assessments, this thesis provides a comprehensive list of potential hazards of seafloor-massive-sulfide mining with risk-related and other environmental management factors. It also includes evaluations of the importance and priority of the hazards for inclusion in the ecological risk framework. From the list of identified hazards, the essential ones were further elaborated in terms of consequences for the marine environment. The rest of the hazards were grouped into scale-dependent and knowledge-dependent for future evaluations of importance, relevance, and priority. It is, at present, difficult to predict the relevance and importance of scale-dependent and knowledge-dependent hazards. Once more knowledge about the physical effects of particles and their ecological and toxicological effects is gathered, the decision of whether these hazards should be included in the environmental risk assessment framework may be made

Approximation performance of model functions for blind deconvolution of ultrasonic reflections

Comparison of the approximation performance of the ultrasonic reflections by simple model functions used in blind deconvolution is presented. New model function was proposed where causality of the signal is easily modelled without the need for piecewise-linear equations. Parameter estimation technique was developed. Performance investigation was done for three model functions using four experimentally collected ultrasonic signals under different signal filtering conditions

Recreational trail development within different geographical contexts as a determinant of income multiplier and local economic impact

The development of recreational trails has gained popularity in recent years and therefore many scholars have studied various aspects of them. However, the recreational trail theoretical framework lacks an understanding of the relationship between the stage of trail development and income multiplier value. This research aims to examine this relationship and thus advance the traditional theory of recreational trail economic impact by providing an explanation of the relationship between the stage of trail development and the income multiplier. This study applied a combined approach of Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) to assess the stage of trail development and the Ad hoc model to estimate the income multiplier and economic impact. The results of this study reveal that there is a strong correlation between the stage of trail development and income multiplier and provide a novelty in traditional recreational trail management and economic impact theory thus enriching the topical literature.Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) EAPA_797/2018info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Market inefficiency identified by both single and multiple currency trends

Many studies have shown that there are good reasons to claim very low predictability of currency nevertheless, the deviations from true randomness exist which have potential predictive and prognostic power [J.James, Quantitative finance 3 (2003) C75-C77]. We analyze the local trends which are of the main focus of the technical analysis. In this article we introduced various statistical quantities examining role of single temporal discretized trend or multitude of trends corresponding to different time delays. Our specific analysis based on Euro-dollar currency pair data at the one minute frequency suggests the importance of cumulative nonrandom effect of trends on the forecasting performance

From Pioneer to Repressor: Bimodal foxd3 Activity Dynamically Remodels Neural Crest Regulatory Landscape In Vivo

The neural crest (NC) is a transient embryonic stem cell-like population characterized by its multipotency and broad developmental potential. Here, we perform NC-specific transcriptional and epigenomic profiling of foxd3-mutant cells in vivo to define the gene regulatory circuits controlling NC specification. Together with global binding analysis obtained by foxd3 biotin-ChIP and single cell profiles of foxd3-expressing premigratory NC, our analysis shows that, during early steps of NC formation, foxd3 acts globally as a pioneer factor to prime the onset of genes regulating NC specification and migration by re-arranging the chromatin landscape, opening cis-regulatory elements and reshuffling nucleosomes. Strikingly, foxd3 then gradually switches from an activator to its well-described role as a transcriptional repressor and potentially uses differential partners for each role. Taken together, these results demonstrate that foxd3 acts bimodally in the neural crest as a switch from "permissive" to "repressive" nucleosome and chromatin organization to maintain multipotency and define cell fates

A blood atlas of COVID-19 defines hallmarks of disease severity and specificity.

Treatment of severe COVID-19 is currently limited by clinical heterogeneity and incomplete description of specific immune biomarkers. We present here a comprehensive multi-omic blood atlas for patients with varying COVID-19 severity in an integrated comparison with influenza and sepsis patients versus healthy volunteers. We identify immune signatures and correlates of host response. Hallmarks of disease severity involved cells, their inflammatory mediators and networks, including progenitor cells and specific myeloid and lymphocyte subsets, features of the immune repertoire, acute phase response, metabolism, and coagulation. Persisting immune activation involving AP-1/p38MAPK was a specific feature of COVID-19. The plasma proteome enabled sub-phenotyping into patient clusters, predictive of severity and outcome. Systems-based integrative analyses including tensor and matrix decomposition of all modalities revealed feature groupings linked with severity and specificity compared to influenza and sepsis. Our approach and blood atlas will support future drug development, clinical trial design, and personalized medicine approaches for COVID-19