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The protein adsorption capacity of different materials was evaluated to assess their potential efficacy as alternative adsorbents for the removal of proteins from wines, with the purpose of finding suitable low-swelling materials that could be used in a percolated bed. The adsorbents tested were thermally treated sodium bentonite, low-swelling adsorbing clays, ion exchange resins and other protein adsorbents (silica gel, hydroxyapatite and alumina). The materials were evaluated by analysing both the capacity to stabilize untreated white wines, according to a heat test, and by characterizing the adsorption isotherms of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in a model wine (water, ethanol and K-bitartrate). Breakthrough curves in a packed bed were determined experimentally for some materials, showing the influence of the adsorption isotherm shape. Some ion-exchange resins showed a favourable behaviour and have good potential as alternative adsorbents.
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This article explores how state and society relations have been affected by the development of information technology in China over the past 20 years. It argues that despite all the transformative changes that such technology has helped bring about, ?benefits? have to be weighed in terms of both empowerment of society and strengthening of state capacity. Ultimately, the digital challenge has not translated into a weakening of the authoritarian state, and this can be explained by the very nature of the party-state in China and how it has managed to make use of communication tools that prove to be both constructive and divisive.
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Objective: Over the past decade, arbitration has grown in popularity as a method of resolving commercial disputes worldwide. However, this practice is relatively new in Macao SAR. Recently, official plans were announced to make Macao as a seat of arbitration for commercial disputes between China and Portuguese-speaking countries (Hereinafter PSCs). This article is dedicated to explores the possibility of Macao undertaking and implementing such a role. Accordingly, this article addresses the following issues: What are the strengths and weaknesses of Macao as a seat and eventually as venue for hosting international commercial arbitration between Chinese and PSCs entrepreneurs?Methodology: A mixed-method approach of legal doctrinal and empirical research was used in this article. We first included a thorough study of the concept of arbitration followed by analysis of various legal journals and legislations, including Macao, China, and PSCs’ arbitration laws. An empirical research was then used to collect data by surveying and interviewing with both lawyers and arbitration practitioners from Macao, China and PSCs.Results: This article argues that the strength of Macao resides in the similarities between its legal system and that of the China and PSCs and the languages advantage (Chinese and Portuguese both official languages). In spite of this, arbitration is still relatively underutilized in the region, and there is a limited number of arbitrators and legal professionals with bilingual proficiency.Contributions: This article contributes to the identification of the opportunities and challenges that Macao faces in its potential future development as a seat/venue of arbitration between China and the PSCs.
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Monitoring signals such as fetal heart rate (FHR) are important indicators of fetal well-being. Computer-assisted analysis of FHR patterns has been successfully used as a decision support tool. However, the absence of a gold standard for the building blocks decision-making in the systems design process impairs the development of new solutions. Here we propose a prognostic model based on advanced signal processing techniques and machine learning algorithms for the fetal state assessment within a comprehensive evaluation process. Feature-engineering-based and time-series-based machine learning classifiers were modeled into three data segmentation schemas for CTU-UHB, HUFA, and DB-TRIUM datasets and the generalization performance was assessed by a two-way cross-dataset evaluation. It has been shown that the feature-based algorithms outperformed the time-series ones on data-limited scenarios. The Support Vector Machines (SVM) obtained the best results on the datasets individually: specificity (85.6% ) and sensitivity (67.5%). On the other hand, the most effective generalization results were achieved by the Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) with a specificity of 71.6% and sensitivity of 61.7%. The overall process provided a combination of techniques and methods that increased the final prognostic model performance, achieving relevant results and requiring a smaller amount of data when compared to the state-of-the-art fetal status assessment solutions.
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Hydrology modeling became a relevant topic for the Cidade da Praia, Cabo Verde, Africa, due to negative impact risk to local population and its assets. The modeling via Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can help the decision-making process of space occupation and characterization for this type of risk. Under the municipalities of Praia, the phenomenon of flash flood is common, causing soil erosion and landslide. This constitutes a risk for the local habitat, particularly in districts with a lack of strong human infrastructures. To simulate, analyze and generate risk maps using GIS to help this county governance authorities for decision-making, thus, becomes the main aim of this article.
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Hydrology modeling became a relevant topic for the Cidade da Praia, Cabo Verde, Africa, due to negative impact risk to local population and its assets. The modeling via Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can help the decision-making process of space occupation and characterization for this type of risk. Under the municipalities of Praia, the phenomenon of flash flood is common, causing soil erosion and landslide. This constitutes a risk for the local habitat, particularly in districts with a lack of strong human infrastructures. To simulate, analyze and generate risk maps using GIS to help this county governance authorities for decision-making, thus, becomes the main aim of this article.
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Fishes show remarkably diverse aggressive behaviour. Aggression is expressed to secure resources; adjusting aggression levels according to context is key to avoid negative consequences for fitness and survival. Nonetheless, despite its importance, the physiological basis of aggression in fishes is still poorly understood. Several reports suggest hormonal modulation of aggression, particularly by androgens, but contradictory studies have been published. Studies exploring the role of chemical communication in aggressive behaviour are also scant, and the pheromones involved remain to be unequivocally characterized. This is surprising as chemical communication is the most ancient form of information exchange and plays a variety of other roles in fishes. Furthermore, the study of chemical communication and aggression is relevant at the evolutionary, ecological and economic levels. A few pioneering studies support the hypothesis that aggressive behaviour, at least in some teleosts, is modulated by “dominance pheromones” that reflect the social status of the sender, but there is little information on the identity of the compounds involved. This review aims to provide a global view of aggressive behaviour in fishes and its underlying physiological mechanisms including the involvement of chemical communication, and discusses the potential use of dominance pheromones to improve fish welfare. Methodological considerations and future research directions are also outlined.
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The identification of barriers for e-commerce to thrive in specific countries is a topic of great interest. This work proposes two models to study the barriers to B2C e-commerce adoption in Portugal, highlighting obstacles less exploited by previous research: the impact of offline shopping pleasure and the influence of the distance to shopping malls on online shopping intent. An online survey was conducted based on different constructs. A multivariate OLS hierarchical regression was used to analyse the proposed models regarding the intention to buy online and the number of online purchases. The results revealed that customer satisfaction is a strong predictor of intent to buy online and that perceived product risk remains a barrier to e-commerce. Consumers living in high urbanised areas have more propensity to buy online. Helpful information is provided regarding the impact of context, culture, product, and individual barriers, showing that multichannel strategies are best suited for success.
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Abstract: The Portuguese language poses several challenges for children in the initial phase of learning how to read, particularly in the case of letters that may correspond to more than one phoneme, two letters that correspond to a single phoneme and in the case of words containing complex syllabic structures. The objective of this study was to perform a psycholinguistic analysis of the reading errors of children, attending the 1st (n=175) and 2nd year (n=137) of schooling, specifically in the case of words containing digraphs or complex syllabic structures and to analyse the differences between children’s reading errors in these two years. An oral reading test was used for data collection. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the type of reading errors was conducted using words with consonant digraphs (ch, nh, lh, gu, rr, ss), and words with complex syllables <CVC and CCV>. This analysis showed that children presented greater difficulties in some specific digraphs and tended to simplify complex syllables, either by adding or deleting phonemes. The quantity and quality of the reading errors of children attending both grades were discussed in light of reading acquisition theories and children’s phonological development.
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The various volumes coordinated by Pierre Nora to pursue a history of the places of memory in France have become a multidisciplinary theoretical reference for those who, like us, seek to reconstruct the memories with which the land of the Potiguara aborigines of Brazil is organized today. In the introduction to the voluminous work that he directed for eight years, Nora explained his epistemic understanding of the notion of “places of memory”, stressing that a “lieu de mémoire” is any significant entity that, material or immaterial in nature, through a human will or the wear and tear of time, has become a symbolic element of a community's memorial heritage. The French historian also added that, since memory is the fundamental structure of this generally lengthy process, it was convenient to understand it as a phenomenon of emotions and magic that only accommodates the facts that feed it. Strictly speaking, memory is always vague, and reminiscent, stirring both general impressions and fine symbolic details. Furthermore, memory is always vulnerable to transference, repressed and imagined memories, censorship, and all kinds of projections. (Nora, 1984). In this article, we try to understand that the places of memory are also almost always what comes to us, stays, and selects the past. The reserve where they live appears as a symbolic locus to which the Potiguara aborigines cling with all their strength to preserve what remains of their past.
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últimos assumidos remanescentes provavelmente de um território cultural antes bem mais vasto vivem atualmente nos municípios de Baía da Traição, Marcação e Rio Tinto, no litoral setentrional da Paraíba - nem sobre s seus espaços, culturas e gentes. É preciso dobrar a primeira metade do século XX para se encontrar nos títulos gerais de histórias da Paraíba alguma atenção pelos Potiguara e a sua movimentação histórica no processo longo e contraditório de formação da capitania e da instalação portuguesa na região, enfrentando primeiro a concorrência comercial e militar francesa, depois no século XVII a ocupação holandesa e sempre, até quase meados de seiscentos, a oposição muitas vezes feroz e brutal de vários grupos e milícias potiguaras. A arqueologia confirma um processo recente de formação histórica dos espaços atualmente reivindicados como originais e tradicionais pelos Potiguara. Os estudos linguísticos disponíveis sobre os Potiguara também não destacam a memória rigorosa de um espaço cultural arcano e pré-colonial. Os espaços Potiguara de hoje com este sistema de organização agrícola quase binário são tudo menos naturais. Trata-se, antes, de um espaço em recorrentes transformações históricas, demográficas, económicas e sociais que desafia qualquer ideia de um espaço ‘natural’, ‘original’ ou ‘essencial’ dos Potiguara. Seja como for, estas polarizações estruturais são historicamente aquelas que presidiram à exata produção dos espaços que atualmente os Potiguara apresentam como seus, originais, antigos e tradicionais seguindo, afinal, um modelo colonial de ocupação de espaços e especialização das gentes do Brasil.
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eoi/doi Deposit-Electronic Object Identifierhttp://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11248/ehum.v6i2.1385RESUMO: A aldeia dos índios Potiguara não é somente um aglomerado de casas e pessoas. Trata-se de um espaço social muito mais complexo, somando ao habitat modelos de parentesco, cruzando práticas culturais e economicas, juntando aos humanos bichos e plantas, rotinas de trabalhos e “libertações” de lazeres. A aldeia Potiguara embora se apresente como singular, ela comunicava e continua a comunicar hoje com redes mais amplas de aldeias rurais e indígenas, gerando transformações culturais e sociais profundas. Embora as alterações marquem as mudanças nos habitos da aldeia Potiguara acredita-se que as práticas culturais que se estendem das festas ao turismo das suas aldeias são tão tradicionais como singulares.PALAVRAS-CHAVES: Aldeia indígena – Espaço social – Práticas culturais – TransformaçõesABSTRACT:The village of Potiguara Indians is not only a cluster of houses and people. This is a social space much more complex, adding to habitat kinship models, crossing cultural and economic practices, joining human animals and plants, work routines and "releases" of leisure.The Potiguara village despite presenting as singular, she communicated and continues to communicate today with wider networks of rural and indigenous villages, generating deep cultural and social transformations. Although the changes mark the changes in the habits of the village Potiguara is believed that cultural practices that extend parties to tourism from their villages are so traditional and unique.KEYWORDS: Indian Village - social area - Cultural practices - TransformationsRecebido: 31/08/2014 Aceito: 01/10/2014
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The land of the potiguara indians of Brazil: a social and political construction The space in which the potiguaras of Brazil live is, today as in the past, the result of a longterm process, many negotiations and well-managed refuges. Paradoxically, despite their recurrent discourse invoking the ancestry of their lands of origin, the Potiguara fight and continue to fight politically for the return to the spaces where their colonial refuge took place.
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Comunicar é tornar comum e informar é dar forma à comunicação. Entre um e outro vai frequentemente uma distancia que nem sempre é possível eliminar. O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que tanto a comunicação como a informação são um espaço ao sentido da vida. Pese embora as contrariedades e obstáculos, a conivência com os poderes, os imperativos de rentabilidade, a pressão do tempo e a aceleração, os media oferecem um espaço ao espaço público, ao sentido dos fatos, à interpelação; um espaço ao sentido da vida.
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In Macao, Special Autonomous Region of China, there are two professional codes of journalists: one by the Portuguese and English Press Association of Macao and the other by the Macao Journalists’ Association, and there is no regulator in the territory or anyone who administers the rules or sanctions the journalists activity. here’s also no cases of known or reported censorship. However, according to the latest human rights report for this small region of Asia, “the Government has taken steps to limit the coverage of unfavorable news”, admitting the practice of self-censorship by the media.
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