Satisfação e retenção de praticantes em contexto universitário: estudo de caso das atividades aquaticas do programa UPFIT

A qualidade do serviço tem sido referida como determinante para satisfação do consumidor, que por sua vez é decisiva na sua retenção no consumo de um serviço. A satisfação resulta habitualmente da avaliação feita pelo consumidor sobre o serviço adquirido com base nas suas necessidades e expectativas, resultando num sentimento de satisfação ou insatisfação. O estudo da satisfação do consumidor poderá dar à instituição indicações válidas sobre a sua intenção futura de retenção que, por sua vez, influenciará o desempenho financeiro da instituição. Na indústria do desporto, esta realidade é ainda mais vincada devido às baixas taxas de retenção que a caraterizam. Especificamente na natação, uma das modalidades de eleição dos portugueses, este estudo da satisfação do consumidor é ainda mais preponderante, já que as piscinas são infraestruturas de gestão complexa, que deverá ser eficiente garantindo a sua sustentabilidade, e justificando o investimento efetuado na sua construção. O presente estudo surge exatamente na necessidade de melhorar continuamente a qualidade dos serviços prestados nas atividades aquáticas do Programa de Fitness da UPorto, conhecendo-se cada vez mais os comportamentos de consumo dos utentes, e tendo como objetivo a gestão eficaz dos recursos visando reter o utente. Neste sentido, o objetivo principal do presente estudo consiste em efetuar uma análise comparativa da satisfação sobre a qualidade do serviço (limpeza e arrumação, temperatura, manutenção, técnicos, e aulas) e retenção (razões para não frequentarem mais; recomendação; e aspetos a melhorar para aumento dos serviços) dos utentes das atividades aquáticas do Programa de Fitness da UPorto, em 2015 e 2016.Foi aplicado um questionário, em dois momentos distintos (2015 e 2016), no Programa de Fitness da UPorto, a 151 utentes (52 e 99, em 2015 e 2016, respetivamente) que frequentam as atividades aquáticas. O questionário de 7 questões foi inicialmente desenvolvido para responder a questões da prática da gestão e posteriormente revisto por dois professores universitários que adequaram a estrutura e conteúdo. Os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que a satisfação dos utentes com a imagem e simpatia dos técnicos aumentou. Todavia, a satisfação com a limpeza da piscina, temperatura ambiente da piscina e balneários, tratamento da água da piscina, atendimento dos rececionistas, feedbacks e dinamismo durante as aulas, e utilização do material pelos professores diminuiu de 2015 para 2016. Este estudo permitiu ainda concluir na análise da retenção, que nenhum dos itens avaliados parece ser a causa de menor assiduidade dos utentes; que de forma global que “não há nada a melhorar” nas atividades aquáticas; e que todos os utentes avaliados, têm a intenção de aconselhar as atividades aquáticas a um amigo/familiar.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Colostro fermentado naturalmente, um alimento alternativo no aleitamento de vitelos

Palesta proferida durante a XVIII reunião G-TEMCAL que decorreu de 28 a 29 de Setembro de 2001 em Lisboa.Avaliar o comportamento produtivo, durante o período de aleitamento de vitelos Holstein Friesian, sujeitos a regimes alimentares que incluem três alimentos lácteos diferentes

Identification of the sirohaem biosynthesis pathway in Staphylococcus aureus

Sirohaem is a modified tetrapyrrole and a key prosthetic group of several enzymes involved in nitrogen and sulfur metabolisms. This work shows that Staphylococcus aureus produces sirohaem through a pathway formed by three independent enzymes. Of the two putative sirohaem synthases encoded in the S. aureus genome and annotated as cysG, one is herein shown to be a uroporphyrinogen III methyltransferase that converts uroporphyrinogen III to precorrin-2, and was renamed as UroM. The second cysG gene encodes a precorrin-2 dehydrogenase that converts precorrin-2 to sirohydrochlorin, and was designated as P2D. The last step was found to be performed by the gene nirR that, in fact, codes for a protein with sirohydrochlorin ferrochelatase activity, labelled as ShfC. Additionally, site-directed mutagenesis studies of S. aureus ShfC revealed that residues H22 and H87, which are predicted by homology modelling to be located at the active site, control the ferrochelatase activity. Within bacteria, sirohaem synthesis may occur via one, two or three enzymes, and we propose to name the correspondent pathways as Types 1, 2 and 3, respectively. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that Type 1 is the most used pathway in Gammaproteobacteria and Streptomycetales, Type 2 predominates in Fibrobacteres and Vibrionales, and Type 3 predominates in Firmicutes of the Bacillales order. Altogether, we concluded that the current distribution of sirohaem pathways within bacteria, which changes at the genus or species level and within taxa, seems to be the result of evolutionary multiple fusion/fission events.preprintpublishe

Accessing gelling ability of vegetable proteins using rheological and fluorescence techniques

This work aims to present a comprehensive study about the macroscopic characteristics of globular vegetable proteins, in terms of their gelling ability, by understanding their molecular behaviour, when submitted to a thermal gelling process. The gels of soy, pea and lupin proteins were characterized by rheological techniques. Gelation kinetics, mechanical spectra, as well as the texture of these gels were analyzed and compared. Additionally, capillary viscometry, steady-state fluorescence and fluorescence anisotropy were used to monitor the structural changes induced by the thermal denaturation, which constitutes the main condition for the formation of a gel structure. Based on these techniques it was possible to establish a relationship between the gelling ability of each protein isolate and their structural resistance to thermal unfolding, enabling us to explain the weakest and the strongest gelling ability observed for lupin and soy proteins isolates, respectivel

The relationship of anthropometrical characteristics and front crawl performance in male age-group swimmers

Swimming performance is affected by several factors including the swimming technique, the swimmer’s functional and metabolic characteristics and the level of training accomplishment. However, performance is also depending on the swimmer’s anthropometrical characteristics. The body shape, body size and body composition can play an important role to achieve higher performances

Electron spin as a spectrometer of nuclear spin noise and other fluctuations

This chapter describes the relationship between low frequency noise and coherence decay of localized spins in semiconductors. Section 2 establishes a direct relationship between an arbitrary noise spectral function and spin coherence as measured by a number of pulse spin resonance sequences. Section 3 describes the electron-nuclear spin Hamiltonian, including isotropic and anisotropic hyperfine interactions, inter-nuclear dipolar interactions, and the effective Hamiltonian for nuclear-nuclear coupling mediated by the electron spin hyperfine interaction. Section 4 describes a microscopic calculation of the nuclear spin noise spectrum arising due to nuclear spin dipolar flip-flops with quasiparticle broadening included. Section 5 compares our explicit numerical results to electron spin echo decay experiments for phosphorus doped silicon in natural and nuclear spin enriched samples.Comment: Book chapter in "Electron spin resonance and related phenomena in low dimensional structures", edited by Marco Fanciulli. To be published by Springer-Verlag in the TAP series. 35 pages, 9 figure

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis: a rare pulmonary toxicity of sirolimus.

Transpl Int. 2007 Mar;20(3):291-6. Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis: a rare pulmonary toxicity of sirolimus. Pedroso SL, Martins LS, Sousa S, Reis A, Dias L, Henriques AC, Sarmento AM, Cabrita A. Nephrology Department, Hospital Geral de Santo António, Porto, Portugal. [email protected] Abstract The aim of our paper is to describe an unusual pulmonary toxicity of sirolimus (SRL) in a kidney transplant recipient. We present a 34-year-old woman with a second renal transplantation, complicated with steroid-resistant acute rejection and chronic allograft dysfunction. Two years after initiating SRL, she presented complaints of progressive dyspnoea, nonproductive cough, chest pain and low-grade fever of 1 month duration. She had chronic allograft nephropathy and slight elevation of lactic dehydrogenase levels. After exclusion of common reasons of this condition, a computed tomography (CT) of the thorax and bronchoscopy was performed, revealing ground-glass opacification with polygonal shapes on CT and an opaque appearance with numerous macrophages on bronchoalveolar lavage. The alveolar macrophages stained positive by Periodic acid-Schiff. Diagnosis of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) was made and drug-induced toxicity was suspected. SRL was withdrawn with marked improvement in the patients' clinical and radiological status. PAP resolved within 3 months without further therapy. PAP is a very rare complication of SRL therapy with only a few cases described. Withdrawal of SRL with conversion to another immunosuppressant seems to be an appropriate procedure in this condition. PMID: 17291222 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLIN

In Campylobacter jejuni, a new type of chaperone receives heme from ferrochelatase

Funding Information: JZ is a recipient of the MSCA-IF-2019 Individual Fellowship H2020-WF-02-2019, 101003441. FS acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program (grant agreement 803768). This work was also financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal) through PTDC/BIA-BQM/28642/2017 grant (LS), the MOSTMICRO-ITQB R&D Unit (UIDB/04612/2020 and UIDP/04612/2020), and the LS4FUTURE Associated Laboratory (LA/P/0087/2020). Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2023 Zamarreño Beas, Videira, Karavaeva, Lourenço, Almeida, Sousa and Saraiva.Intracellular heme formation and trafficking are fundamental processes in living organisms. Bacteria and archaea utilize three biogenesis pathways to produce iron protoporphyrin IX (heme b) that diverge after the formation of the common intermediate uroporphyrinogen III (uro’gen III). In this study, we identify and provide a detailed characterization of the enzymes involved in the transformation of uro’gen III into heme in Campylobacter jejuni, demonstrating that this bacterium utilizes the protoporphyrin-dependent (PPD) pathway. In general, limited knowledge exists regarding the mechanisms by which heme b reaches its target proteins after this final step. Specifically, the chaperones necessary for trafficking heme to prevent the cytotoxic effects associated with free heme remain largely unidentified. In C. jejuni, we identified a protein named CgdH2 that binds heme with a dissociation constant of 4.9 ± 1.0 µM, and this binding is impaired upon mutation of residues histidine 45 and 133. We demonstrate that C. jejuni CgdH2 establishes protein–protein interactions with ferrochelatase, suggesting its role in facilitating heme transfer from ferrochelatase to CgdH2. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis reveals that C. jejuni CgdH2 is evolutionarily distinct from the currently known chaperones. Therefore, CgdH2 is the first protein identified as an acceptor of intracellularly formed heme, expanding our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying heme trafficking within bacterial cells.publishersversionpublishe

Aerodynamic analysis of human walking, running and sprinting by numerical simulations

The drag in walking, running, and sprinting locomotion can be assessed by analytical procedures and experimental techniques. However, assessing the drag variations by these three main locomotion’s (i.e., walking, running, and sprinting) were not found using computational fluid dynamics. (CFD). Thus, the aim of this study was two-fold: (1) to assess the aerodynamics of human walking, running, and sprinting by CFD technique; 2) compare such aerodynamic characteristics between walking and running. Three 3D models were produced depicting the walking, running, and sprinting locomotion techniques, converted to computer aided design models and meshed. The drag varied with 4 locomotion type. Walking had the lowest drag, followed-up by running and then sprinting. At the same velocities, the drag was larger in walking than in running and increased with velocity. In conclusion, drag varied with locomotion type. Walking had the lowest drag, followed-up by running and then sprinting. At the same velocities, the drag was larger in walking than in running and increased with velocity.This project was founded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (project UIDB04045/2020)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio