Promoting a local brand: Assessing the Economic Benefits of the Texas Superstar® and Earth-Kind® Promotion on Place (POP) Program

This paper aims to evaluate consumer’s awareness and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for two ornamental brands in Texas: Texas Superstar® and Earth-Kind®, after a Promotion on Place (POP) Program was developed by the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA). Consumer’s characteristics that are more likely to influence brand awareness and WTP are identified.Brand recognition, Willingness to pay, Consumer preferences, Ornamentals, Consumer/Household Economics, Marketing,

The implementation of social and employment programs: Rationale and perspectives of Argentine civil servants

[Abstract] This paper investigates the speeches of public civil servants responsible for the implementation of eight social programs on the local neighborhood, Altos de San Lorenzo, located in the city of La Plata, a province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. This articles aims to identify the underlying logic and rationale according to the conditions of implementation of each intervention, placing special attention to those programs focused on employment. The conceptual frame includes a typology of social programs, drawn from two main ideas: nature or programmability of the tasks and the interaction that the intervention promotes between program officials and beneficiaries. In addition, taking the following types of rationale into consideration: technical, bureaucratic, political and user-oriented. The objective was to establish, according to a methodological analysis of speech, the degree of rationale to which the officials of each program has, identifying with special attention the perspectives and rationales placed on the selected labor programs. The main findings point to the idea that, even though important variations exist between the rationalities most used by type of program, it is worth highlighting the centrality of rationality political and useroriented.[Resumen] El artículo indaga en los discursos de los funcionarios públicos responsables de la ejecución de ocho programas sociales ejecutados en el espacio local -Altos de San Lorenzo ubicado en la ciudad de La Plata, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina-, a fin de identificar lógicas y racionalidades subyacentes según las condiciones de implementación de cada intervención, poniendo especial énfasis en aquellos programas enfocados en el empleo. El marco conceptual incluyó la utilización de una tipología de programas sociales, elaborada a partir de dos ejes: la naturaleza o programabilidad de la tarea y la interacción que la intervención promueve entre operadores y beneficiarios; además, consideró cuatro tipos de racionalidad: técnica, burocrática, política y orientada al destinatario. El objetivo fue establecer, a partir de una metodología de análisis del discurso, el grado de racionalidad del que dan cuenta los ejecutores de cada programa, identificando con especial atención las perspectivas y racionalidades puestas en juego en los programas laborales seleccionados. Las conclusiones principales señalan que, aunque existen variaciones importantes entre las racionalidades más influyentes según el tipo de programa, es destacable el lugar central y la preponderancia que ocupan la racionalidad política y la orientada al destinatario, las que se enfatizan aún más en los programas de emple

Octopus fishermen have a high rate of allergy sensitization to this species

Food allergy is an increasing worldwide problem. Food sensitization can occur by skin contact due to professional exposure and lead to clinical allergy, but data are sparse. In the Portuguese population diet, Octopus is usually fished and consumed. The major allergen (Oct v 1) in the muscle of the octopus Octopus vulgaris is tropomyosin, a highly conserved muscle protein with cross-reactivity between molluscs (bivalves, cephalopods, or gastropod) and also with arthropods (crustacea, insects and dust mites). The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of allergic sensitization to Octopus vulgaris on fishermen that captures it and establish its clinical relevance of it. It was applied a survey concerned to respiratory and food allergy. Skin prick tests with aeroallergens extracts and prick -to- prick skin tests with octopus were performed. The sample was 17 fishermen from a village that mainly capture of octopus, using pots and traps. Like in general population, 29% of fishermen have dust mite sensitization, but 35% of them has octopus sensitization, instead of the expected sensitization rate lower than 5%. Also, there was no significant correlation with dust mites sensitization (spearman rank order correlation p˂0,05). Our results show a higher prevalence rate, unrelated with dust mites sensitization, and probably due to professional exposure. This is the first study with octopus’ fishermen in Portugal. Larger studies with a molecular profile should be performed in order to establish the clinical relevance of this data and the healthcare impact of it.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Patterns of Iberian economic growth in the early modern period

Around 1500 Spain and Portugal were among the most affluent nations in the world, and had income levels which were similar to those of other Western European countries. Three hundred years later the Iberian economies had lost their economic supremacy and fell behind all the main European powers. When did the first two global empires in history lose their hegemony to become secondary actors? What were the foundations of the collapse that explains the divergence from northwestern Europe? In this chapter we address these issues and describe what we now know about the long-term trends of Iberian economies between 1500 and 1800.We are thankful to António Henriques, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Jaime Reis and Joan Rosés for discus-sions. The usual disclaimer applies. Nuno Palma gratefully acknowledges funding from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (CEECIND/04197/2017

Investigating the knowledge of octopus fishermen about allergies to Octopus vulgaris manipulation and ingestion and testing whether if their daily practices can lead to cross-reaction with other captures species

Nowadays, the allergies in humans, that consuming marine products, are increasing and cephalopods are not an exception. Octopus is a food which may result in allergy symptoms because of essentially to tropomyosin in composition. Another problem is cross-allergy provoked by manipulation during fishing of different species from different groups (crustacean, fishes, molluscs) and manipulation of animals captured and recipients used aboard. For this study two Portuguese zones were chosen that were famous for octopus fishing by using pots and traps. The methodology used consisted in a presential survey/interview and observation method. The results demonstrated that the majority haven't heard about seafood or cephalopods allergy. Some procedures aboard aren’t avoided cross reaction allergy and can even promote the occurrence of it. Is necessary and urgent to give in-formation to the fishermen about allergen problems and correct some behaviors aboard.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identities for subspaces of the Weyl algebra

In this note we described the polynomial identities of degree 4 for the certain subspace of the Weyl algerbra A_1 over an infinite field of arbitrary characteristic.Comment: 9 page

Predicting successful "PER" reorganizations: Testing the applicability of Altman Z-Score on Portuguese companies

The main objective of this dissertation is to test the applicability of Altman's bankruptcy prediction model of private companies in differentiating between companies that enter into “PER” and are successful in having an approved recovery plan and those that are unsuccessful. For this, the universe of companies that entered “PER” between May 2012 and December 2016 was collected, which translated into a viable sample of work consisting of 2,189 companies. The conclusions obtained allow us to state that when applied to the selected sample, the Altman model for private companies, in its initial formulation does not allow a proper distinction between the two groups of companies identified. Through the re-estimation of the Altman model, it was possible to obtain models that achieved results that were more positive. However, it is not possible to state that the model could robustly differentiate between companies with an approved plan and those without a plan approved without a significant error margin.A presente dissertação tem como principal objectivo testar a aplicabilidade do modelo de previsão de falências de Altman para empresas privadas na diferenciação entre as empresas que entram em “PER” e conseguem obter um plano de recuperação aprovado e aquelas que não o conseguem. Para tal, foi recolhido o universo de empresas que entraram em “PER” entre Maio de 2012 e Dezembro de 2016, no que se traduziu numa amostra viável de trabalho constituída por 2,189 empresas. As conclusões obtidas permitem afirmar que quando aplicado à amostra seleccionada, o modelo de Altman para empresas privadas, na sua formulação inicial, não permite distinguir correctamente entre os dois grupos de empresas identificados. Através da re-estimação dos coeficientes do modelo de Altman, foi possível obter modelos que obtivessem melhores resultados sem, no entanto, se poder afirmar que se obteve um modelo que cumprisse robustamente com o objectivo proposto de diferenciação entre empresas com plano aprovado e sem plano aprovado