The influence of sensory reference cues in the willingness to visit a destination

The present study is based on a study by Gosh and Sarkar (2016), adapted to a different environment and culture: Porto – Portugal. Following the suggestions of the authors, this study includes a new variable: consumer personality traits. Summing up, the present study aims to understand the relevance of sensory reference cues in destination emotion, which subsequently influences the willingness to visit the destination under promotion. Personality traits are treated as a moderator for the relevance of sensory cues in destination emotion. This study presents also relevant differences relatively to Ghosh and Sarkar’s (2016): the destination promotion is now done through video promotion and not static image; it is applied to the Best European Destination in 2016, with a bright new place branding, and includes a sample with more than 40 nationalities. The results of the study did not confirm two of the hypothesis stated, namely that sensory information positively influences individual’s destination emotion and that the relationship between sensory information and destination emotion is positively influenced by individual’s personality trait. Although these hypotheses were not statistically confirmed, results reveal that the data consistently point in the direction of the hypothesized relations

EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION ON THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE PATTERN FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Influence of Provenance, Subspecies, and Site on Wood Density in Eucalyptus Globulus Labill.

The wood density of Eucalyptus globulus was measured as basic density in 7-year-old trees from 37 provenances grown in three sites, on cores taken at breast height. The wood density was highly significantly influenced by provenance and very significantly by site. The across-site range of variation of wood density in the different provenances was between 486 kg/m3 and 430 kg/m3. The provenances of subspecies maidenii had a significantically higher density in relation to those from spp. globulus and bicostata (472 kg/m3 vs. 448 kg/m3 and 443 kg/m3). No correlation between growth and density was found

The Variation of Chemical Composition and Pulping Yield With Age and Growth Factors in Young Eucalyptus Globulus

The wood quality of 2-, 3-, and 6-year old Eucalyptus globulus trees was assessed in relation to chemical composition and pulping for two growth conditions: a control (C) and optimized growth (IL) through a weekly nutrient supply and irrigation.The wood chemical composition did not show statistically significant differences between C and IL trees. With age an increase was found for lignin and extractives, especially ethanol and water-solubles.The overall average pulp yield was 56.5% at a Kappa number of 15. No differences in pulp yield or delignification degree could be associated with fertilization and irrigation or with tree age. In these conditions, intensively grown trees and shorter rotations may be used for pulping without loss of raw-material quality

Brazilian biofuels policies and impacts on world agricultural trade

Agricultural and Food Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

The portuguese pharmaceutial market in the near future - A time series exploration approach

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de InformaçãoUsing a novel exploratory technique for time series analysis, Single Spectrum Analysis (SSA), it was possible to develop a comprehensive study of the Portuguese pharmaceutical market. In the introductory chapter this technique is described in detail, for the decomposition step, homogeneity structure testing and forecasting. A bibliography review was conducted on the technique. To the best of our knowledge this was the first time that SSA was applied to any pharmaceutical market, so it was not possible to compare results with other published work. A detailed explanation on the Portuguese pharmaceutical market is provided in order to allow comprehensiveness of the work. The Portuguese pharmaceutical market is divided in 15 classes, which aggregates all drugs sold in the country. The technique was applied to those 15 time series plus the “Total Market” time series. Applying SSA, time series were decomposed in the respective components, which can be described as trend, cyclical movements and seasonality. The structure of all time series was tested for homogeneity. With those steps concluded, a monthly forecast, for the years 2008 and 2009 (with the respective confidence bounds) were produced for all the 16 time series. As a complex methodology, decisions need to be taken in several steps of the study. Even if not all possible choices are presented in the work, lengthy analyses were done to reach the best possible results. In fact, choosing between possible window lengths, Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) approaches, and eigentriples to be grouped together is sometimes more an “art” than a science; experience and previous knowledge of the actual phenomena can and should help. For confidentiality reasons the raw data is not provided in this work, but both forecast values and confidence bounds are presented

The transitional functions of mapping: psychoanalytic perspectives on a research with maps

This thesis explores the working with maps and the agency and effects of mapping. It aims to inspect on what basis mapping qualifies as one critical spatial practice. The theory of participatory mapping tends to overlook its account for the functioning of mapping as experience. This account is crucial since maps and mapping can assign the power they are assumed to have. It means to ask, from the standpoint of a transdisciplinary perspective informed by the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, what are the functions of mapping and the work of and with maps. To make sense of these functions, I devise categories through which to approach maps, mapping and their effects. A better knowledge of these enables researchers, educators, and academics to grasp the complexities and potentials of mapping as a method for participatory initiatives. From a practice of mapping in which the dwellers of an informal urban settlement became mapmakers, I glimpsed the functioning of mapping as chinks and catalysts through which to transform realities. This thesis shows mapping being applied as a practice of space and as a dialogic participatory method. This research applied three methods: i) semi-structured mapping interviews in which the respondent interacts with a paper basemap; ii) transect walks; iii) participatory photography. These methods form a descriptive, experimental, qualitative research focused on the discovery and observation of phenomena. The significance of this study is that it improves the theoretical and empirical grasp of how maps and mapping function. It shows that they catalyse the representations in space, channelling, along the process, the mapmakers’ recognition of their objective and subjective circumstances. The categories outlined here about the transitional functions of mapping provide to future applications in which the agency of maps and mapping can contribute to the mapmakers’ transformation of their realities

Building clusters for CRM strategies by mining airlines customer data

Trabalho de Projeto apresentado como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação, especialização em Estudos de Mercado e Gestão de Relacionamento com o ClienteAs airlines strive to gain market share and sustain profitability in today’s economically challenging environment, they should develop new ways to optimize their frequent flyer programs while increase revenues. Aware of the challenges, airlines want to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy based on customer analytics and data mining techniques to support marketing decisions. So, to achieve this goal, we have to apply clustering techniques to the company customer databases and develop a single view of customer across their demographic and behavioral characteristics as well as their value for the company. This will enable the company to identify the most profitable customers and run marketing campaigns more efficiently

A Gaussian random field model for similarity-based smoothing in Bayesian disease mapping

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Statistics and EconometricsConditionally specified Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) models with adjacency- or distance-based neighbourhood weight matrix, commonly known as neighbourhood- based GMRF models, have been the mainstream approach to spatial smoothing in Bayesian Disease mapping (DM). In the present work, we propose a conditionally specified Gaussian random field (GRF) model with a similarity-based non-spatial weight matrix to facilitate non-spatial smoothing in Bayesian DM. The model, named similarity-based GRF, is motivated for modeling DM data in situations where the underlying small area relative risks and the associated determinant factors do not varying systematically in space, and the similarity is defined by “similarity” with respect to the associated disease determinant factors. The neighbourhood-based GMRF and the similarity-based GRF are compared and assessed via a simulation study and by two case studies, using new data on alcohol abuse in Portugal collected by the World Mental Health Survey Initiative (WMHSI) and the well-known lip cancer data in Scotland. In the presence of disease data with no evidence of positive spatial correlation, the simulation study showed a consistent gain in efficiency from the similarity-based GRF, compared with the adjacency-based GMRF with the determinant risk factors as covariate. This new approach broadens the scope of the existing Conditional autocorrelation (CAR) models