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The purpose of this paper is to propose a maintenance programme for flat roofs in existing buildings, based on the inspection of 26 buildings in-service conditions, located in the Lisbon region, in Portugal. A proactive maintenance of flat roofs in existing buildings allows reducing their pathology, thus improving their performance and service life.

The maintenance plan was established based on the degradation state of the maintenance source elements (MSEs) analysed, the aggressiveness of the surrounding environment and the age of the roofs and maintenance actions carried out during the roofing systems’ life cycle.

The maintenance plan proposed in this study includes the prioritization of the interventions, the definition of the required maintenance operations and the definition of the frequency of the intervention, considering the service lives of the MSEs.

The study addresses only roofs located in the Lisbon area. Even though a relatively large sample of 26 roofs was used, the findings and conclusions can clearly be extrapolated for a much wider scope.

The maintenance plan proposed in this study considers a planning of proactive maintenance operations to continuously and effectively monitor all the relevant MSE.

This plan allows minimizing the incidence and spread of defects, thus enabling the optimization of resources, reducing the costs of the entire maintenance system and improving the quality of the built environment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse two parameters relevant to the physical‐mechanical performance of external renders, mainly, bulk density and apparent or open porosity, by performing laboratory tests on samples collected under real in‐service conditions.

The test procedure (sample preparation and techniques used) and its relationship with the overall performance characteristics and with any anomalies are discussed for each parameter. The analysis of the results covers seven case studies and 15 walls with renders made on site (cementitious and cement‐lime based) and non‐traditional or pre‐mixed renders.

It was concluded that reliable relationships could be established between the test results and other physical parameters relevant to the mechanical and water‐related behaviour of different types of cementitious renders. Notwithstanding the usual drawbacks of laboratory tests (more time‐consuming, higher costs and greater destruction of the walls), the use of small samples and the additional data obtained in terms of in‐service performance justify the use of this type of test.

The originality of this approach comes from the advantage of conducting both laboratory tests (reliability and standardization) and in situ tests (testing real materials subjected to in‐service conditions). Current practice is either to test virgin materials in quasi‐perfect laboratory conditions (therefore far from reality) or to test materials on site using standard in situ techniques sensitive to subjectivity and in far from ideal environmental conditions.

The inspection of flexible risers is a critical activity to ensure continuous productivity and safety in oil and gas production. The purpose of this paper is to present the design and development of a novel automatic underwater tool for riser inspection that fits the most commonly used riser diameters and significantly improves inspection quality and reduces its operating costs.

The mechanical and electronic design of the inspection system is discussed, as well as its embedded sensors and control system. The tool is equipped with a suspension system that is able to adapt to the riser diameter and negotiate obstacles on the pipe wall. Numerical simulations were carried out to analyze the mechanical design, and a hardware-in-the-loop simulation was developed for tuning the control system. Further, experimental results are presented and discussed.

Experimental tests in laboratory tanks and shallow seawater have confirmed the effectiveness of the tool for detailed real-time inspection of underwater pipelines.

The use of the proposed tool will potentially reduce the time and costs for riser inspection, currently performed by divers or high-cost ROVs.

The authors present a reliable tool able to perform automatic inspections up to 250 m deep in less than 30 min, equipped with a high-definition visual inspection system, composed of full-HD cameras and lasers and a suspension mechanism that can negotiate sharp obstacles in the pipe wall up to 25 mm high. The tool uses a comprehensive control system that autonomously performs a full inspection, collecting sensors data and returning safely to the surface. Its robust design can be used as basis for several other nondestructive techniques, such as ultrasound and X-ray.

With fierce competition in capturing tourists, it is crucial that destinations be prepared to adapt and to refresh their event portfolio. The purpose of this paper is to look into the decision-making process that led to the development of a new festival in a middle-sized city, Tomar, in Portugal.

This study analyses the creation process of the Knights Templar Festival, in Tomar, a new event focusing on the Templar history of the city. A retrospective outlook on the evolution of the event is given. Primary data were collected via quantitative survey analysis and semi-structured interviews. The theoretical scope is events and placemaking.

The strengths and weaknesses of the region influenced the conception and setting up of this particular event. This awareness is important for cities in meeting the challenges and opportunities that event portfolio diversification calls for.

This paper helps us to understand the motives and challenges in establishing a new event in the city, through the analysis of a single case study of a European middle-sized city. Simultaneously, it is a longitudinal in-depth case of the first editions of a new historically focused event.

Several practical implications can be derived to the case of Tomar. Overall, it is key that cities align the focus of new events with the city’s identity (as Tomar did).

This paper presents an in-depth and longitudinal case study, from the moment of the creation of a new event to its fourth edition, mapping the decision-making process, highlighting the learning curve of the decision makers.

Women entrepreneurs face several challenges in creating and running ventures, especially in emerging and developing countries. In this sense, by aiming to generate inputs capable of helping overcome them, this study aims to categorize the policy, managerial and practical implications of articles whose empirical research was in one or more of the 155 emerging and developing countries. Further, although scholars have addressed female entrepreneurship in developed economies, there is scant literature in the context explored here. This article provides suggestions for new studies, helping academics fill gaps in the literature.

This article adopts a systematic literature review approach, performing content analysis and bibliometric description for the sample. The study comprises 77 articles selected from the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Research concentrates on Asian countries, with lower incidences in Latin America and Africa. The policy implications focus mainly on the executive rather than legislative spheres. The practical implications focus mainly on entrepreneurial development agencies and women entrepreneurs. Among the suggestions for novel studies, those focusing on methodological choices and female enterprises stand out.

This paper maps and categorizes the policy, managerial and practical implications, helping to raise governments’, policymakers’ and practitioners’ awareness of the preferred strategies to overcome the challenges of female entrepreneurship.

This paper emphasizes reflections of mutual interest to researchers, policymakers and practitioners, filling gaps in studies that prioritize an academic audience. Regarding the academic audience, this paper contributes to innovatively categorizing suggestions for future research and building an extensive research agenda capable of guiding research in this area.

The study aims to understand the meaning of event-based and place-based community practices, as well as the resulting social impacts.

An ethnomethodological approach was followed (participant observation and interviews were supplemented by secondary data), with the analysis being exploratory and interpretative.

The festival and the place reinforce the community’s social practices, which have impacts beyond the festival, benefiting individuals, the community and the place, becoming a means for valorisation and diffusion of the rural way of life, and placemaking.

In this study the authors focus on social practices in the context of an event and of a place (the village where the event occurs). The authors connect to theories of practice, which they apply in the analysis. The value of the study lies on the underlying mechanisms (how communities exercise social practices in the context of festivals, and what social impacts may lead to) rather than its context-dependent specific results.

National and regional authorities can play a role in providing local communities with adequate tools to overcome the challenges they encounter. This can be done by issuing appropriate (events) plans and policies while giving room for the locals to voice their opinions.

Community-based festivals are key social practices that can strategically impact placemaking, strengthening community bonding, forging connections with outsiders and promoting well-being practices that discourage rural depopulation.

There is a scarcity of research that deepens the understanding of the role of festivals in placemaking and their social impacts, particularly in the rural context. This study contributes to closing this gap by focussing on the social practices of a community-based festival in a village in the interior of Portugal.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology in order to improve inspections' diagnosis during façades' service life through in‐service criteria. On‐site performance assessment and deciding on the maintenance of renders can only be improved if quantitative parameters are pre‐established at the design stage and monitored under service conditions.

The methodology is based on a set of in‐service parameters inferred from visual observation and measurements and their methods of assessment (based on visual inspections, auxiliary techniques, in‐situ and laboratorial testing). These have been arrived at by inspecting the façade rendering on 44 buildings (cement‐based renders), of different ages and types of degradation.

This paper focuses on 23 proposed mechanical and physical‐chemical parameters that can complement the ones already established by standards or technical data, obtained in lab conditions, using standard specimens or small models. They are assessed by techniques that have been applied to renders or other façade elements such as concrete or timber structures. The reliability of this in‐service performance assessment is discussed together with its potential as an aid to deciding on predictive maintenance action after an inspection's diagnosis.

The originality of this approach stems from the fact that in‐service parameters derived from both laboratory and in‐situ measurements can improve understanding of the behaviour of façade rendering, which is an important step in planning and monitoring maintenance. Two aspects are emphasised: the behaviour of materials/systems is assessed in real conditions, and the subjectivity of in‐service diagnosis is reduced when more than one performance parameter is assessed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of contemporary architecture in heritage protection, reinterpretation and reuse, an issue that has become increasingly relevant due to the recognition of architectural heritage as a key factor for cultural and economic development.

In Portugal, as elsewhere in Europe, cultural heritage management has often been associated with the creation of new museum spaces, namely, within national monuments and archaeological sites. Drawing on restoration theories and international charters, this paper analyses and compares two parallel interventions recently built inside São Jorge Castle, in Lisbon: the Museum Centre (Victor Mestre and Sofia Aleixo, 2007-2008) and the Archaeological Site (João Luís Carrilho da Graça, 2008-2010). This approach offers insight on the complexity of addressing and reconfiguring the profusion of past transformations within a single monument.

These two complementary museum spaces are representative of different attitudes towards heritage appropriation, substantiating the thesis that musealizing always entails the creation of narratives, which translate history and heritage into architectural and curatorial discourses. Besides meeting the functional requirements of specific museum programmes, such interventions frequently deal with the challenge of opening up new perspectives on the past.

Considering the central role of communication in contemporary museums, this paper discusses how heritage musealization can contribute to the translation of historical evidence into updated iconographies, narratives and dialogues. Furthermore, the unique characteristics of this twofold case study can provide an insightful contribution for a broader debate on the reinterpretation of iconic monuments and sites.

The purpose of this paper is to explore marketing analysis by developing a customer loyalty approach for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the service sector, based on customer relationship management (CRM) in the context of an emerging economy.

This study analyzes different models of CRM in the literature and defines a loyalty approach for SMEs in the service sector. It is characterized as exploratory research, with a qualitative approach. A systematic review of the literature is undertaken as the starting point for achieving the main objective of the study.

The need to develop a framework for an approach to customer loyalty for SMEs based on CRM and to make it operational.

It is a qualitative and exploratory study, applied only to a company’s two main clients.

The contribution of this study is that it offers SMEs consistent guidelines on how best to conduct relationship management with their customers by using a systemic methodology that can be adapted to the requirements of more effective interaction between a company and its customers. It also provides coherence to the purpose of meeting customers’ needs. This is an action strategy that focuses especially on the use of tools, such as SERVQUAL, Kano and SWOT analysis, and thereby increases the competitive profile of organizations in this sector.

This study is a new approach to customer loyalty for SMEs in the service sector, which integrates elements of CRM strategy and implementation.