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The development of smart cities (SCs) is a costly process as it requires the implementation of physical infrastructure to meet the demand for data collection. On the other hand, there are open government data (OGD) that are open and free, and can be a first step from the current city evolution to SCs at a more affordable cost. However, these data are available in a decentralized way, in different formats and granularities. To date, the authors have not found any literature work that performs the centralization of OGDs on a single platform. The purpose of this paper is provide a centralized OGD platform.

This work investigates the state-of-the-art literature from the OGD, establishes the research question, design and develop the platform for OGD and accomplish the validation of the platform.

Through the validations of the platform, advantages were observed in relation to productivity gain for the development of solutions, in the SC context, using the proposed platform.

The data have been collected in a manual way but for future works, the authors will use the web-crawler for the collection of data.

One town hall (Sorocaba) is interested in using the platform to analyze the data usage in the simple way and compare with the other nearby towns.

It is a recent work in literature using OGD, and there is no work that centralizes the information about several town halls to provide comparison between them and improve the decision-making.

À la carte restaurants have faced increasing challenges in meeting the needs and desires of new food consumers. The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model for evaluating the consumers’ perceived quality of à la carte restaurants and to review the impact on their attitudes and behavioural intentions.

A survey was conducted with 508 university students in Brazil, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The results showed that global perceived quality (GPQ), which is a multidimensional construct with nine dimensions, directly impacted emotions, the satisfaction and perceived value by consumers. This satisfaction positively affected word-of-mouth (WOM) communication and the propensity for loyalty. Price did not have a statistically significant impact on customer satisfaction.

This paper, based on the structural model herein proposed and tested, is the most complete of all available articles in the literature about à la carte restaurants, as this study contemplates a greater number of perceived quality factors. In addition, both tangible and intangible perceived quality factors were included in this tested model, which goes beyond what is typically contemplated in other such. Moreover, none of the existing articles in the existing literature simultaneously observed the relationship between perceived quality, positive and negative emotions, price, perceived value, satisfaction, WOM communication and propensity to loyalty. Finally, the questionnaire developed in this study could be used both by academics in future studies and by restaurant managers.

This research seeks to provide methodological bases for the identification, documentation and critical reflection of good practices of architectural design in built heritage. These are applied explicitly to the School of Porto architects, which express a high sense of pedagogy and community practice in this field. The methodological approach defines the selection criteria for a georeferenced inventory and the procedures for in-depth analysis of adaptive reuse strategies.

The works included in the inventory were selected according to geographical, chronological, typological, qualitative and quantitative criteria. The cases chosen for in-depth analysis have been studied along four thematic axes to dissect all the intervention processes (previous state, design/construction and final state). This approach is supported by a cross-analysis of different sources (oral, written, graphic) and using drawing as a fundamental research tool.

The research has collected and disseminated up to 150 works by 44 architects, providing a comprehensive portrait of heritage intervention by the School of Porto over the past decades. The selection of 22 buildings for in-depth documentation reveals a particular sensibility toward the cultural values through a case-by-case approach based in deep knowledge of the preexisting context and the introduction of contemporary additions in continuity and harmonious relation with the environmental and sociocultural context.

This work provides a novel methodology suitable for further extension and adaptation to other case studies, as a first contribution to a more comprehensive “Atlas of Architectural Design in Built Heritage” with European case studies. The research aims to introduce new and deeper perspectives on reference works that may constitute pedagogy for the future practice of architects within contextual, inclusive and sustainable approaches.

Service operations are currently growing in importance, with a consequent increase in academic interest in the matter. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to systematise the concept associated with the service experience by drawing from the definitions which have been established in the relevant scientific literature.

A systematic search in the literature was conducted, aiming to identify the main articles, journals, references, and keywords on the subject of customer experience. Using bibliometric content and analysis a number of articles are analysed towards a concept of service experience.

The study verifies that service experience and service quality are distinct concepts that have to be analysed separately. The construction of this proposed concept has been oriented by content analysis of the reviewed articles. Dimensions and components that categorise this concept in a singular manner have been identified. The service experience, which can be thought of as a process, is composed of the interdependent and complementary dimensions of “predispositions”, “interactions”, and “reactions”, which condition the perception of quality and affect current as well as future purchasing decisions. As a result of their strategic importance for service organisations, customer experiences therefore warrant careful analysis.

This work is theoretical so empirical studies are necessary in order to validate or reject the proposed concept.

Very few systematic literature reviews of the characterisation and conceptualisation on service experience concept are available.

Race scholars often refer to the colonization of Indigenous peoples in the Americas and the enslavement of Africans as a founding moment in the making of today's racial hierarchies. Yet their narrative of this initial moment often mischaracterizes early European states, erases Indigenous and African states, and naturalizes racial group belonging. Such practices are counterproductive to the antiracist project. Following the lead of decolonial scholarship, much recent work by historians has sought to recover and reconstruct the institutions, social structures, and agency of African and Indigenous peoples, as well as revisit assumptions about European power, institutions, and agency in their historical encounters with their continental “others.” I highlight the potential of this approach for sociologists of “race” by narrating two significant historical events in the making of the modern Atlantic world: the conquest of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire, and the transatlantic enslavement of subjects of the kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo (in today's Angola) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I analyze how particular European, Indigenous, and African actors made decisions in the context of their own and others' historically situated and dynamic political and social structures. I read these historical events through the lens of decolonial scholarship, and sociological literatures on group-making, state formation, and the emergence of capitalism, to make sense of the violent social process that led to the breakup of African, Indigenous, and European political and social structures and the making of colonial and racially hierarchical social structures in the Atlantic world.

This chapter examines the integration between Brazilian migrants in Japan and other Brazilians living in the United States and Europe. It focuses on the role played by some big ethnic Brazilian events as the most visible and palpable facets of the transnational diasporic networks. These diasporic, cross-border events might be creating consistent transnational social spaces among Brazilians throughout the world. The author has done participant observation at four key diasporic events: a media event (Brazilian Day), a political event (Brasileiros no Mundo), a business event (Expo Business), and a cultural event (Focus Brasil). The goal was to map the flow of information, influence, and intersection among these events and their promoters. The study found that these events are deeply interdependent and the synergy among them – along with the role played by diasporic media – has strengthened a diaspora consciousness, a sense of belonging to the same diaspora, despite the peculiarities of Brazilians who live in different countries or regions. The chapter also discusses how do these new diasporic developments affect the integration of Brazilians who live in Japan. The cases shown in this chapter prove that there are vibrant interactions besides the “home country” versus “host country” dichotomy.