Wine and gastronomy: experiences in Lisbon

Nowadays, wine tourism helps to create unforgettable experiences that involve tourists with the local culture, landscape, leisure activities, gastronomy and wine. Memorable enogastronomic experiences drive tourists’ destination choices and their attitudes at the destination. These emergent experiences, considered nowadays as tourism in its essence, have been the realm of the competitiveness position of some regions in Portugal and outside. This research aims to contribute to the understanding of how and why a region with wines could pave its way to being recognized as a wine tourism destination. The study was conducted in the Lisbon wine region. Lisbon has a very rich and diverse local cuisine which is complemented by the wines produced in the newly created wine region. However, there is still a lack of well-defined enogastronomic routes that could help to promote this type of tourism as well as the Lisbon brand image. As a starting point, the study adopted the Pine and Gilmore Economic Experience Model as the framework defined in order to respond to the research problem. Firstly, the study reviews and discusses the existing literature devoted to wine tourism, with a special focus on the wine tourism experience that the guest faces when coming into contact with the elements comprising the wine tourism experience. The literature review leads us to a conceptual model where the traits of the enogastronomic experience which were depicted to represent the Guest-Host-Place interaction. Secondly, the conceptual model was tested in an emergent wine region – Lisbon. To achieve this goal, a survey was applied to a convenience sample of wine tourists who visited Lisbon (Portugal). Considering a binomial distribution with maximum dispersion, a sample of 314 respondents were used to test the model. The statistical analysis for the study followed three phases: firstly, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed to define the structure of the traits which were most significant in explaining enogastronomic experiences; secondly, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to further confirm the structure of the identified factors; and finally, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses and to validate the conceptual model. As an experience has a personal meaning for those involved in it, content analysis was undertaken to reveal dimensions of this experience that the items tested could be hiding. The qualitative results of the interview analysis reveal that gastronomy and wines play a major role in the way that visitors experience a destination and indicate that some tourists would return to the same destination to savour its unique gastronomy and wines. The contributions of this study to the body of knowledge are discussed, as well as the strategical implications, together with the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.Hoje em dia, o enoturismo ajuda a criar experiências inesquecíveis que envolvem o turista com a cultura local, a paisagem, as atividades de lazer, a gastronomia e o vinho. As experiências enogastronómicas memoráveis direcionam as escolhas de destino dos turistas e suas atitudes no destino. Estas experiências emergentes, consideradas hoje como turismo na sua essência, têm sido o domínio da posição de competitividade de algumas regiões, em Portugal e no exterior. Esta pesquisa visa contribuir para a compreensão de como e porquê uma região vitivinícola pode ser reconhecida como um destino de turismo de vinhos. O estudo foi realizado na região vitivinícola de Lisboa, com uma gastronomia local muito rica e diversificada que é complementada pelos vinhos produzidos na região vinícola recentemente criada. No entanto, ainda faltam rotas enogastronómicas bem definidas que possam ajudar a promover este tipo de turismo, bem como a imagem de Lisboa. Como ponto de partida, o estudo adotou o Modelo da Experiência Económica de Pine e Gilmore como a estrutura definida para responder ao problema de pesquisa. Em primeiro lugar, o estudo analisa e discute a literatura existente dedicada ao enoturismo, com especial enfoque na experiência enoturística com que o convidado se depara quando entra em contacto com os elementos que compõem a experiência do enoturismo. A revisão de literatura conduz-nos a um modelo conceptual onde os traços da experiência enogastronómica foram representados para caraterizar a interação Convidado-Anfitrião-Lugar. Em segundo lugar, o modelo conceptual foi testado numa região de vinhos emergentes - Lisboa. Para atingir este objetivo, esta tese desenvolve-se com base numa conveniência de turistas que visitaram Lisboa (Portugal). Considerando uma distribuição binomial com máxima dispersão, foi usada uma amostra de 314 participantes para testar o modelo. A análise estatística para o estudo seguiu três fases: em primeiro lugar foi realizada uma análise fatorial exploratória (EFA), para definir a estrutura dos atributos que foram mais significativos na explicação das experiências enogastronómicas, em segundo lugar, foi realizada uma Análise Fatorial Confirmatória (CFA) para confirmar a estrutura dos fatores identificados e, finalmente foi utilizado um Modelo de Equações Estruturais (SEM) para testar as hipóteses e validar o modelo conceptual.Como uma experiência tem um significado pessoal para os envolvidos, a análise de conteúdo foi realizada para revelar dimensões dessa experiência que os itens testados poderiam esconder. Os resultados qualitativos obtidos da análise das entrevistas, revelam que a gastronomia e os vinhos desempenham um papel importante na forma como os visitantes experimentam um destino e indicam que alguns turistas regressariam ao mesmo destino para saborear a sua gastronomia e vinhos únicos. As contribuições deste estudo são discutidas numa perspetiva científica e metodológica. São apresentados os contributos e implicações estratégicas, juntamente com as limitações e sugestões para futuras pesquisas

The power of Dionysus—Effects of red wine on consciousness in a naturalistic setting

There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (� 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were examined in a naturalistic study taking place in a wine bar located in one of the most touristic areas of Lisbon, Portugal. One hundred two participants drank in one of three conditions: alone, in dyad, or in groups up to six people. Red wine increased pleasure and arousal, decreased the awareness of time, slowed the subjective passage of time, increased the attentional focus on the present moment, decreased body awareness, slowed thought speed, turned imagination more vivid, and made the environment become more fascinating. Red wine increased insightfulness and originality of thoughts, increased sensations of oneness with the environment, spiritual feelings, all-encompassing love, and profound peace. All changes in consciousness occurred regardless of volunteers drinking alone, in dyad or in group. Men and women did not report different changes in consciousness. Older age correlated with greater increases in pleasure. Younger age correlated with greater increases in fascination with the environment of the wine bar. Drinking wine in a contemporaneous Western environment designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience may trigger changes in consciousness commonly associated with mystical-type statesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

BiGGEsTS: integrated environment for biclustering analysis of time series gene expression data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ability to monitor changes in expression patterns over time, and to observe the emergence of coherent temporal responses using expression time series, is critical to advance our understanding of complex biological processes. Biclustering has been recognized as an effective method for discovering local temporal expression patterns and unraveling potential regulatory mechanisms. The general biclustering problem is NP-hard. In the case of time series this problem is tractable, and efficient algorithms can be used. However, there is still a need for specialized applications able to take advantage of the temporal properties inherent to expression time series, both from a computational and a biological perspective.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>BiGGEsTS makes available state-of-the-art biclustering algorithms for analyzing expression time series. Gene Ontology (GO) annotations are used to assess the biological relevance of the biclusters. Methods for preprocessing expression time series and post-processing results are also included. The analysis is additionally supported by a visualization module capable of displaying informative representations of the data, including heatmaps, dendrograms, expression charts and graphs of enriched GO terms.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>BiGGEsTS is a free open source graphical software tool for revealing local coexpression of genes in specific intervals of time, while integrating meaningful information on gene annotations. It is freely available at: <url>http://kdbio.inesc-id.pt/software/biggests</url>. We present a case study on the discovery of transcriptional regulatory modules in the response of <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>to heat stress.</p

The influence of wine storytelling on the global wine tourism experience

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of wine storytelling as an antecedent in the wine tourism experience, namely on other constructs such as winescape attributes, sensorial attraction, wine excitement and cultural experience. Th is study analyses the combined use of fi ve wine tourism experience dimensions as well the infl uence of storytelling as a key antecedent of the wine experience. Th is study extends existing knowledge by identifying new key drivers which focus on wine tourist behavioural responses within visits to the wine cellars. Data were collected within two wine tourism settings in Madeira and Porto wine cellars, from two convenience samples of 647 international wine tourists. Using partial least square structural equation modelling, the results reveal a direct impact of wine storytelling on the several dimensions of the wine tourism experiences. Furthermore, storytelling was found to directly infl uence wine excitement, and indirectly both outcome variables (wine excitement and cultural experience), trough the mediating eff ect of winescape attributes and sensorial attraction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Robot Coworkers: The Vision of Future Hoteliers

The purpose of this study is to understand how future employees in the hospitality and tourism industry envision the use of artificial intelligence in the organizations where they wish to work in the future. Through open-ended questions applied to undergraduate and master’s students in the area of tourism and hospitality, we capture their opinions when thinking about the partial or total use of robots in hospitality. Despite the increasing implementation of artificial intelligence in hospitality and tourism, existing research mainly focuses on current hoteliers and/or customers. However, anticipating how digital generations expect their future roles in a close engagement with robots allows researchers to predict and focus their attention on future problems. Their statements were subjected to a qualitative content analysis methodology, based on themes and sentiment. Participants expressed a negative view of the presence of robots in hospitality, mostly associated with a fear of job loss. Many also reported that interacting with robots is negative for both staff and customers due to robots’ lack of emotions. However, there is some division concerning the impact of robots on service quality: some believe that the service will be more efficient and with fewer failures; others believe that the limitations of robots will lead to worse service. The findings suggest that the acceptability and desirability of robotization may vary depending on the level of robotization in hotels, on the type of customer, and on the level of service provided.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Encouraging wine storytelling in the tourist experience: a preliminary study

Wine tourism has long since ceased to be just a visit to wine producing regions and wineries, just to taste or buy wine. In fact, wine tourism has become more complex as a tourist product, due to the requirement of visitors to obtain a differentiated experience, composed of multiple elements Wine tourism activities consist of, above all, wine tastings and cellar, wine house and wine museum visits. Currently, and in the future, wine tourism has provided and boosted the creation of genuine and unique tourist experiences, more and more differentiated tailor-made. This preliminary approach aims to evaluate the role of wine storytelling as an antecedent in the wine tourism experience, namely on other constructs as winescape attributes, sensorial attraction, wine excitement and cultural experience. A range of practical implications are provided for wine tourism managers, marketers and wine guided tours namely on the importance on the training the storytelling skill by the wine cellars staff. The new vogue of wine tourism forces us to challenge and re-visit the power relationships that exist within contemporary tourism and the host–guest relationship. As an interdisciplinary approach, this research contributes positively to the development of theory in relationship marketing and tourism contexts in wine management (theoretical implications). At the end, guidelines for future work will be presented.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A polynomial time biclustering algorithm for finding approximate expression patterns in gene expression time series

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ability to monitor the change in expression patterns over time, and to observe the emergence of coherent temporal responses using gene expression time series, obtained from microarray experiments, is critical to advance our understanding of complex biological processes. In this context, biclustering algorithms have been recognized as an important tool for the discovery of local expression patterns, which are crucial to unravel potential regulatory mechanisms. Although most formulations of the biclustering problem are NP-hard, when working with time series expression data the interesting biclusters can be restricted to those with contiguous columns. This restriction leads to a tractable problem and enables the design of efficient biclustering algorithms able to identify all maximal contiguous column coherent biclusters.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this work, we propose <it>e</it>-CCC-Biclustering, a biclustering algorithm that finds and reports all maximal contiguous column coherent biclusters with approximate expression patterns in time polynomial in the size of the time series gene expression matrix. This polynomial time complexity is achieved by manipulating a discretized version of the original matrix using efficient string processing techniques. We also propose extensions to deal with missing values, discover anticorrelated and scaled expression patterns, and different ways to compute the errors allowed in the expression patterns. We propose a scoring criterion combining the statistical significance of expression patterns with a similarity measure between overlapping biclusters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present results in real data showing the effectiveness of <it>e</it>-CCC-Biclustering and its relevance in the discovery of regulatory modules describing the transcriptomic expression patterns occurring in <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>in response to heat stress. In particular, the results show the advantage of considering approximate patterns when compared to state of the art methods that require exact matching of gene expression time series.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The identification of co-regulated genes, involved in specific biological processes, remains one of the main avenues open to researchers studying gene regulatory networks. The ability of the proposed methodology to efficiently identify sets of genes with similar expression patterns is shown to be instrumental in the discovery of relevant biological phenomena, leading to more convincing evidence of specific regulatory mechanisms.</p> <p>Availability</p> <p>A prototype implementation of the algorithm coded in Java together with the dataset and examples used in the paper is available in <url>http://kdbio.inesc-id.pt/software/e-ccc-biclustering</url>.</p

Agricultura orgânica: características básicas do seu produtor.

A agricultura orgânica é ainda pouco expressiva no Brasil. Sua relevância é, no entanto, crescente, seguindo tendência observada em outros países, em especial na Europa. Este estudo analisa as características básicas do produtor de produtos orgânicos, contribuindo para preencher uma lacuna existente na literatura de economia rural. Utilizando informações primárias sobre agricultores orgânicos da região próxima à cidade de Curitiba, Paraná, identificamos as suas características pessoais e econômicas, por meio de estatística descritiva, análise de correlação e regressão linear múltipla. Os produtores foram divididos em dois grupos: o primeiro com aqueles que ainda estão em conversão para a agricultura orgânica e o segundo grupo composto por produtores orgânicos que já obtiveram a certificação de seus produtos. Os resultados obtidos indicam que alta participação de capital próprio no financiamento da produção e elevado nível de escolaridade são duas das características mais marcantes dos produtores rurais orgânicos paranaenses. Outras características que influenciam o resultado líquido da atividade são a disponibilidade de mão de obra e a integração de atividades agrícolas, pecuárias e florestais