This project analyzes the evolution of the manufacturing sector in Portugal from 2009 to 2021, focusing on the variations in the number of active companies across various subcategories, such as food, textiles, and metal product industries. The goal of this analysis is to understand the dynamics of growth and contraction within each sector, providing insights for companies to adjust their market and operational strategies. Key objectives include analyzing the overall evolution in the number of companies, identifying subcategories with notable changes, and providing a comprehensive analysis of observed trends and patterns. The study is based on data from PORDATA 2024, and the research employs temporal trend analysis, linear and quadratic regression, and the Pareto representation to identify patterns of growth and decline. By comparing annual data, the project uncovers periods of growth and decline, allowing for a deeper understanding of the sector’s dynamics. The findings also highlight variations in periods of economic crises and during the Covid-19 pandemic, and recommendations for action are presented to support businesses resilience and continuity. These results are valuable for companies within the manufacturing sectors analyzed and policy makers, guiding strategic decisions to navigate the complexities of the market dynamics and to ensuring long-term organizational sustainable success.
Stimuli-responsive, smart, or intelligent polymers are materials that significantly change their physical or chemical properties when there is a small change in the surrounding environment due to either internal or external stimuli. In the last two decades or so, there has been tremendous growth in the strategies to develop various types of stimuli-responsive polymer (SRP) materials/systems that are suitable for various fields, including biomedical, material science, nanotechnology, biotechnology, surface and colloid sciences, biochemistry, and the environmental field. The wide acceptability of SRPs is due to their availability in different architectural forms such as scaffolds, aggregates, hydrogels, pickering emulsions, core-shell particles, nanogels, micelles, membranes, capsules, and layer-by-layer films. The present review focuses on different types of SRPs, such as physical, chemical, and biological, and various important applications, including controlled drug delivery (CDD), stabilization of colloidal dispersion, diagnostics (sensors and imaging), tissue engineering, regenerative medicines, and actuators. The applications of SRPs have immense potential in various fields, and the author hopes these polymers will add a new field of applications through new concepts.
Among major global threats to papaya cultivation, papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) is the most challenging one. In the absence of any PRSV resistant commercial papaya cultivar, PRSV management is restricted to minimizing yield losses. ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Regional Station, Pune has developed PRSV tolerant dioecious papaya lines, Pune Selection (PS)-1, PS-2, PS-3 and PS-5. Being dioecious these lines have limited acceptability among farmers. Gynodioecious population from these lines were developed and characterized. They are numbered PS-1-1, PS-2-1, PS-3-1 and PS-5-1. These lines were characterized against prevailing commercial gynodioecious cultivar, Red Lady, for five generations. The average plant height of PS-2-1 and PS-5-1 (183 cm) was more than Red Lady (158 cm), however, stem girth of all lines was lesser than Red Lady. The fruiting height of all lines was less than Red Lady (87 cm). Length of the fruiting column of all lines was more than Red Lady (37 cm), except in PS-1-1. Fruit yield of all lines was more than Red Lady (16 kg/plant). Intensity of PRSV infection in Red Lady (48%) was considerably more than all lines. These lines can be used for developing PRSV tolerant gynodioecious papaya variety.
Over the past 50 years, urban planning documents have been drawn up in sub-Saharan African cities without any convincing results. The study of secondary towns in Chad shows that these planning documents have been hampered by natural and man-made factors. The aim of this study is to determine the factors hindering the implementation of planning documents in the town of Pala in Chad. To carry out the study, a methodological approach (using quantitative and qualitative data) based on a questionnaire and interview survey was deployed for data collection. With a sample of 300 households surveyed, the main conclusions of the study show that all the factors identified, such as water erosion with a rate of 17.7 T/Ha/year, expose the town to various risks. Demographics, on the other hand, represent a lesser and therefore acceptable challenge. As far as exogenous factors are concerned, the level of education of the head of household is a determining factor in the implementation and acceptance of urban planning documents in Pala. Confirmatory factor analysis and the Chi2 test revealed that consideration of stakeholders’ needs and their inclusion in the process of drawing up these documents are factors that significantly influence their implementation. In contrast, age, gender and other variables did not reveal any significant anomalies in our analyses. Consequently, future efforts to implement Pala’s planning documents must be based on community participation and awareness of the acceptance of these documents, which are necessary in a process of decentralization and urban planning.
Infectious diseases often occur, especially as diseases such as COVID-19 have claimed many lives in the years between 2019–2021. That’s why it’s called COVID-19, considering that this infectious disease outbreak started in 2019, and its consequences and effects are devastating. Like other countries’ governments, the Indonesian government always announces the latest data on this infectious disease, such as death rates and recoveries. Infectious diseases are transmitted directly through disease carriers to humans through infections such as fungi, bacteria, viruses and parasites. In this research, we offer a contagious illness monitoring application to help the public and government know the zone’s status so that people are more alert when travelling between regions. This application was created based on Web Application Programming Interface (API) data and configured on the Google Map API to determine a person’s or user’s coordinates in a particular zone. We made it using the prototype method to help users understand this application well. This research is part of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) research, where the use of mobile technology is an example of implementation options that can be made to implement this system.
With the continuous deepening of education and teaching reform and the rapid development of information technology, more and more educators have paid attention to the effectiveness of computer teaching in universities, and university teachers have included it in the key topics of educational and teaching activity design. The cooperative teaching model stands out among numerous teaching models with its unique advantages, and has been applied by many teachers in the classroom teaching process, playing an important role in promoting the improvement of teaching efficiency. Teachers of computer science in universities should continue to explore effective teaching methods, accelerate the process of organic integration of cooperative teaching models and classroom teaching content, in order to deepen the understanding and cognition of computer knowledge among more students and promote their comprehensive development. This article will study the application strategies of cooperative teaching mode in computer teaching in universities.
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