Int

This study explores the relationship between travel satisfaction and destination loyalty intention. The research was conducted with 486 tourists visiting Arade, a Portuguese tourist destination. Taking as the basis the use of structural equation modelling (SEM), the results substantiate the importance of tourism satisfaction as a determinant of destination loyalty. Also, a categorical principal components analysis (CATPCA) provides a detailed

Using archival and interview data, this paper uses institutional theory (INT) to analyze the role that accounting played in the operation of voluntary price agreements in the Dundee jute industry (DJI) during the sector's decline from 1945 to 1960. At its peak in the late 19th century, the industry employed almost 50% of the Dundee labour force and its output

Background: Migrant health workers fill care gaps in their destination countries, but they also actively engage in improving living conditions for people of their countries of origin through expatriate professional networks. This paper aims to explore the professional links that migrant health workers from sub-Saharan African United Kingdom) have to their countries of origin. Design: Qualitative interviews were conducted with migrant doctors, nurses, and midwives from sub-Saharan Africa (N66). A qualitative content analysis of the material was performed using the software ATLAS.ti. Results: Almost all migrant health workers have professional ties with their countries of origin supporting health, education, and social structures. They work with non-governmental organizations, universities, or hospitals and travel back and forth between their destination country and country of origin. For a few respondents, professional engagement or even maintaining private contacts in their country ...

A b s t r a c t. This paper deals with a research to study a near infrared spectroscopy as a nondestructive method for discrimination of date fruits according to four main ripening stages. For this purpose, a near infrared spectra of dates were acquired in the range of 900-1700 nm. Principal component analysis was performed to reduce the dimensionality of the spectral data and then the first five principal components were used as the inputs to a back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) to classify the dates based on the ripening stages. The principal component analysis – artificial neural network (PCA-ANN) model provided satisfactory discrimination results with an accuracy of 95.5% for test sample set. Moreover, partial least square method with different data preprocessing methods was applied to predict the moisture content and soluble solids content of date fruits. The best predictive models showed the coefficient of determination values of 0.98 and 0. 0.96 with residual...

Gangliosides have generally been assumed to be localized primarily in the plasma membrane. Analysis of gangliosides from isolated subcellular membrane fractions of rat liver indicated that 76% of the total ganglioside sialic acid was present in the plasma membrane. Mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum fractions, while containing only low levels of gangliosides on a protein basis, each contained approx. 10% of total ganglioside sialic acid. Gangliosides also were present in the Golgi apparatus and nuclear membrane fractions, and soluble gangliosides were in the supernatant. Individual gangliosides were non-homogeneously distributed and each membrane fraction was characterized by a unique ganglioside composition. Plasma membrane contained only 14 and 28% of the total GD1a and GD3, respectively, but 80-90% of the GM1, GD1b, GT1b and GQ1b. Endoplasmic reticulum, when corrected for plasma membrane contamination, contained only trace amounts of GM1, GD1b, GT1b and GQ1b, but 11 and 5% of...

We previously reported unexpectedly robust associations between vascular haemodynamic (VH) anomalies in the principal extracranial cerebral veins, causing chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI), and multiple sclerosis (MS). Aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the VH changes and MRI measures of MS disease severity in a cross sectional survey. The number of anomalous VH criteria were measured using an echo-color Doppler, whereas CSF flow, atrophy and lesion measures were obtained from quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis in sixteen consecutive relapsing-remitting MS patients, (mean age: 36.1+/-SD 7.3 years, disease duration: 7.5+/-1.9 years and median EDSS: 2.5) and in 8 healthy controls (HC) with similar age and sex distributions. All 16 MS patients investigated and none of the HCs met the VH criteria for CCSVI (P<0.0001). MS patients showed significantly lower net CSF flow compared to the HC (P=0.038) that was associated wit...

The goal of this "Habilitation \`a diriger des recherches" is to present two different applications, namely computations of certain partition functions in probability and applications to integrable systems, of the topological recursion developed by B. Eynard and N. Orantin in 2007. Since its creation, the range of applications of the topological recursion has been growing and many results in different fields have been obtained. The first aspect that I will develop deals with the historical domain of the topological recursion: random matrix integrals. I will review the formalism of the topological recursion as well as how it can be used to obtain asymptotic $\frac{1}{N}$ series expansion of various matrix integrals. In particular, a key feature of the topological recursion is that it can recover from the leading order of the asymptotic all sub-leading orders with elementary computations. This method is particularly well known and fruitful in the case of hermitian matrix int...

A glutaminase was purified from the cell-free extract of Debaryomyces spp. CECT 11815 by protamine sulphate treatment and several chromatographic procedures including anion exchange chromatography and gel filtration. The purified enzyme consisted of two subunits, with molecular masses of 65 and 50 kDa, respectively. Activity was optimal at 40 °C and pH 8.5, and the Km value for l-glutamine was 4.5 mM. The glutaminase exhibited activity against l-γ-Glu-methyl ester, l-γ-Glu-hydrazide, and l-albiziin, while l-asparagine, CBZ-l-Gln, CBZ-l-Gln-Gly, glutathione, l-γ-Glu-pNA and l-γ-Glu-AMC were not hydrolysed. The enzyme was not affected by PMSF, DTT and EDTA. However, the enzyme was inhibited by sulfhydryl group reagents, DON, l-albizziin, l-asparagine and high concentrations of l-glutamine and ammonium, while l-aspartate did not affect the activity. Phosphate and acetate did not produce any significant effect on the glutaminase activity, but it was slightly stimulated by lactate and borate.