The impact of in-store activations (communication) in the consumer's emotions: Consumer behavior

Consumer behavior: Sport Zone. The analysis of "The impact of in-store activations (communication) in the consumer's emotions" Several studies have been conducted on the consumer behavior. This study aims to analyze and understand which factors are important to consumers’ emotions when the purchase decision occurs, the brand awareness, brand loyalty and the campaigns/activations’ impact in the above factors. Two research surveys were conducted to realize this study, the first online and the other was an interview to the Agency Up Partner who conceived and put into practice this Fitness campaign. First of all, was the consumer’s survey, a survey with 100 answers, to understand which factors are taken into account when a campaign in-store is held, in which the atmosphere is mainly used to arouse consumer’s desire to purchase, and also emotions. Second, the interview with the agency was realized to find out on what they were based on when they delineate it, and if the raise of emotions was taken into account in the origin of it. Concluding, emotions have a significant impact on formation of consumer in-store behavior, satisfaction and loyalty. As we could assay through of how this Fitness campaign was carried out as well as the optimal feedback received by consumers, improved attention over in-store marketing activity strongly influences consumer behavior at the point of purchase. “Sport Zone: A new store concept where the love for sports is combined with functionality

The fair value of employee stock options : Nestlé’s case study

The issuance of IFRS 2 – Share-based payment, in 2004, raised several criticisms, mostly related with one specific type of share-based payment transaction – employee stock options (ESO). The mandatory recognition and disclosure of its fair value impacted not only profitability, but also a corporate governance related issue – executives’ remuneration. Given the specificities of this particular type of call options, entities are faced with some difficulties in applying option pricing models to its valuation, but are also faced with opportunities to exercise managerial discretion over the model inputs. This thesis analyses and comments IFRS 2 guidelines in detail, supported by existing literature. It also applies the guidelines provided by this standard to a specific case study – Nestlé’s employee stock options granted in 2011 - to truly understand the difficulties and opportunities that an entity faces when estimating fair value of ESO. After providing 28 valid alternative valuations for the same ESO grant, we conclude that, in 2011, Nestlé apparently understated the amount expensed with regard to the ESO granted, possibly due to opportunistic motivations to reduce the perceived executives’ remuneration and to increase the perceived entity’s profitability. To finalise, we provide recommendations on additional disclosures, which would improve the transparency and quality of the information provided by the financial statements

The good, the bad and the ugly: three faces of social media usage by local governments

This article explores the determinants of local governments' use of social networking sites. It does so by analysing the relative impact of institutional, political and social determinants, while controlling for the impact of mayors' traits and social characteristics of municipalities on local governments levels of activity on Facebook. Empirically, this article presents a within-case analysis of Portuguese municipalities' activity on social media, aiming to shed light on the strategic use of social media by local governments. A coherent picture associated with politically pro-active local governments emerges from the results: higher levels of social media activity appear in municipalities with more competitive local elections and higher commitment to transparency. Moreover, findings suggest that local governments tend to be concerned with the low levels of voter turnout, potentially resorting to social media as a powerful tool to increase civic engagement and (offline) political participation. Levels of Facebook activity are significantly higher in larger and wealthier municipalities. The results indicate that Facebook official pages of municipalities are part of a larger arsenal of tools to promote political engagement and activity levels signal a propensity to involve citizens pro-actively.This research received funding from the project “SmartEGOV: Harnessing EGOV for Smart Governance (Foundations, methods, Tools)/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037”, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (EFDR) and from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds [Grant No. UID/CPO/0758/2019]

Trajetória da videoarte no Brasil / Trajectory of video art in Brazil

Este artigo percorre de forma breve, as três primeiras gerações da videoarte no Brasil no século XX, com destaque para a produção realizada em Minas Gerais e analisa a perda do status da videoarte enquanto forma de expressão autônoma e sua incorporação na contemporaneidade, à formatos híbridos, como as performances audiovisuais; a arte generativa; a web-arte; a visual music; a vídeo-dança; os videoclips, bem como formas hegemônicas como o cinema e a televisão

Meu corpo, minha vida: O filme como agente para o debate / My body, my life: The film as an agent for debate

Este artigo analisa o mais recente filme da cineasta brasileira Helena Solberg, o documentário Meu corpo, minha vida, lançado em 2017 e seu potencial como propulsor do debate sobre o direito da mulher de tomar decisões sobre seu próprio corpo e se posicionar frente a um tema tabu na sociedade brasileira: o aborto

Oportunidades Económicas dos Mercados Voluntários de Carbono no Contexto das Políticas Agrícola e Florestal

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Impact of cherry, acacia and oak chips on red wine phenolic parameters and sensory profile

Aim: The evolution of global phenolic parameters and the sensory profile of a Portuguese red wine aged for 90 days in contact with wood chips from different species were evaluated. Methods and results: For this purpose, wood chips from cherry (Prunus avium), acacia (Robinia pseudoacacia) and two oak species (Quercus petraea and Quercus pyrenaica) were added to a Portuguese red wine. Various global phenolic parameters of red wines were studied during the aging process (90 storage days). In addition, a sensory analysis was made after the 90-day aging period to determine the impact of the use of different wood chip species on red wine sensory profile. The results showed that during the aging period, only a few differences were detected between the wines. However, after 90 aging days, in general the wines aged in contact with cherry wood tended to have the lowest values for several phenolic parameters. For sensory parameters, the wine aged in contact with French oak chips showed significantly higher scores for several aroma descriptors, while for visual and taste descriptors no statistical significant differences were found between the wines. Conclusion: At the concentration used (3 g wood chips/L wine), the different wood chip species studied had no clear influence on the evolution of the majority of the red wine phenolic parameters. However, from a sensory point of view, the use of different wood species induced greater differentiation, especially for aroma descriptors. Significance and impact of the study: The outcomes of this study would be of practical interest to winemakers and regulatory institutions since they could improve the knowledge of the impact of alternative wood chip species, namely acacia and cherry, on red wine qualityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A novel methodology to restrict the range of motion of human articulations

The human movement has long been a subject of extensive investigation by many authors, involving a vast interest in both clinical and sports applications. The use of biomechanical models of the human body can greatly contribute to the advancement of the body of knowledge in this scientific field as they provide rigorous information on several key biomechanical parameters. Thus, the modeling of human articulations must realistically reproduce their behavior and, therefore, to consider a restricted range of motion (RoM). The RoM is influenced by the bony structures adjacent to the articulations and by the physiological characteristics of the connective tissues, such as muscles and ligaments, surrounding them. This parameter varies amongst subjects and according to the type and anatomical location of each articulation. However, in the multibody systems methodology, the violation of the RoM for a particular joint can be clearly noted if geometrically ideal joints are used. This occurs since no additional constraints are introduced in the joint’s formulation to prevent it from acquiring unfeasible positions. To provide a solution for this problem, in this work, a novel methodology to restrict the RoM of human articulations is proposed within the framework of multibody systems methodologies. Joint resistance moments are applied to simulate the passive resistant behavior of the connective tissues existing around human articulations and to prevent physiologically unfeasible positions of the contiguous bony structures. A three-dimensional biomechanical model of the human lower leg and foot is used as a demonstrative example of application of the proposed methodology, focusing on the ankle articular complex. The results compare the dynamic behavior of the model with and without the application of the joint resistance moments and lead to the conclusion that the proposed methodology allows the correct restriction of the joints’ RoM, while preserving the mechanical energy of the system

Current evidence on biomechanical modeling for the analysis of crutch-assisted gait

Crutches are utilized as a mean of locomotion by patients with a variety of long-term disabilities, such as cerebral palsy or spinal cord injury. These assistive devices help reducing the load imposed on the injured lower extremities, while allowing an upright posture. However, crutch-assisted gait places a considerable repetitive effort on the upper extremities (UE), which are not adapted to weight-bearing tasks, thus contributing to the onset of secondary health conditions. Due to the raising significance of this problem, the research on biomechanical modeling strategies for the analysis of the loads imposed on the UE during crutch-assisted gait has been growing. The resulting scientific knowledge may provide promising options for the improvement of crutch design based on patients’ biomechanical outcomes and, thus, a detailed evaluation of this topic is strongly warranted. This has been the main motivation for preparing this review, which provides a comprehensive discussion and summary of the biomechanical modeling strategies currently available in the literature used to study crutch-assisted gait. PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science electronic databases were searched on July 2021, and 18 studies, dated from 1985 to 2021, were included. Six studies used commercial software (OpenSim or Anybody), while the remaining developed in-house codes. Fifteen studies considered three-dimensional biomechanical models, among which six focused on the UE, eight modeled the entire human body and one did not provide this information. Musculoskeletal models were considered only in 17% of all studies. Three strategies were used to incorporate crutches on the biomechanical models, namely defining this assistive devices as a rigid body independent of the forearm/hand, imposing a position constraint on the glenohumeral joint, and using an arm/crutch or forearm/crutch system as a single rigid body. Forces exerted on the glenohumeral, elbow and wrist articulations during swing-through crutch gait were double the ones during reciprocal gait

A foot-ground contact model for human motion analysis

Over the last decades, there has been a growing interest in the area of contact-impact modeling and analysis in the context of multibody system dynamics. However, it remains a difficult task to accurately model the contact mechanics when the geometric and material properties are of complex natures, such as in the case of the human foot-ground interaction. Bearing that in mind, the foot is the main source of interaction with the surrounding environment for most people, since it is the only part of the human body that is in contact with the ground and, therefore, contact models that describe the human foot-ground interaction are of extreme importance for biomechanical analysis. Thus, to accurately replicate the human motion during the analysis of biomechanical multibody systems, the computational models must consider realistic representations of the foot and appropriate numerical descriptions of its interaction with the ground surface. In this sense, the main purpose of this work is to present a two-dimensional biomechanical multibody model to describe the foot-ground contact. The interaction between the foot and the ground is geometrically defined by circles positioned at specific locations on the foot plantar surface, and a plane, describing the ground. The contact is detected based on the relative interpenetration of the surfaces, and appropriate constitutive laws associated with the normal and tangential forces developed during the contact are applied. With the purpose of correctly determining the contact forces, an optimization process is implemented to obtain the most suitable values for the geometric and contact parameters of the proposed model. Finally, the results obtained from computational and experimental analysis are compared using a multibody model of the right side of human body, with the aim of validating the proposed approach.This work has been supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the national support to R&D units grant, with the reference project UIDB/04436/2020 and UIDP/04436/2020, as well as through IDMEC, under LAETA, project UIDB/50022/2020. The second author expresses her gratitude to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology through the PhD grant (2021.04840.BD)