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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of design awareness on consumers’ purchase intention.

The experiment consisted of showing a new beer package design to 185 participants who evaluated it using a self‐administered questionnaire.

Using an Item Response Theory approach, results show that there are two dimensions of consumer design awareness: basic design and differential design. These findings are, to some extent, consistent with the theoretical discussion within design literature. Moreover, a multiple regression model estimates the effect of both dimensions on consumers’ purchase intention, and the paper concludes that both dimensions have a similar effect (p<0.05). The sign of the effects are consistent with the theoretical discussion.

The design of new products must consider attributes associated to the basic and practical use of a product as well as those attributes that mark a comparative difference in the product category.

This paper conceptually and empirically combines two different areas of knowledge (design and consumer behavior) under the design awareness construct. This concept evaluates consumers’ perceptions about new products, facilitating more accurate decisions in cases of innovation.

The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.

One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.

The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.

The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.

The growing consumer demand for microbiologically safe and quality products with sensory properties similar to those of natural products has spurred the search for natural flavourings with an antimicrobial effect on foods. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the in vitro antimicrobial activity of “malagueta” chili pepper and “dedo de moça” hot pepper on Minas Frescal cheese supplemented with Escherichia coli strains.

Each cheese contained 0, 10, 15 and 20 per cent concentrations of “malagueta” chilli pepper and “dedo de moça” hot pepper supplemented with 200 µL of E. coli/kg cheese. The cheeses were stored under refrigeration at 7 °C for 28 days. The E. coli, pH and titratable acidity were analysed for this cheese.

“Dedo de moça” hot pepper showed a bacteriostatic effect on E. coli strains being more efficient on day 1. However, the “malagueta” hot pepper showed bactericidal effect and was efficient during the 28 days of storage. The pH showed a gradual decrease (p = 0.000) throughout the storage period; therefore, the acidity was increased even when the CFU/g count remained constant. The peppers had an antimicrobial effect on E. coli strains, and thus might be an alternative to extend the shelf life of Minas frescal cheese.

The study of natural condiments as an antimicrobial alternative is important because they prevent infections and food infections, increase shelf life and make it possible to offer differentiated products in the market.

The Colombian Government proposed a reverse mortgage mechanism to complement retirement income in Colombia. This paper aims to study its feasibility by valuing its premia.

Under a reverse mortgage scheme, banks issue put options on an owner’s home. To value the option, the authors apply a risk-neutral canonical approach modeling its three sources of risk: home future value, interest rate levels and homeowner life expectancy.

In all, premia values do not seem too high. However, if future interest rates are above the simulations or home appreciation is below its historical behavior, the premia could sharply increase, jeopardizing the system viability. Limiting the loan-to-home-value ratio or fixed-term annuities are feasible alternatives to keep premium increases at bay. Complementary mechanisms may also help.

The home price and interest rate path estimation do not include inflation dynamics; in recent years inflation level was very low. However, the future does not offer any warrants. Future research also should cap the maximum loss the bank can endure. The pandemic may cause demographic changes affecting the viability of the reverse mortgage (R.M.) program in Colombia.

Based on the analysis, this work suggests possible government policies to help creditors and to maintain bank risks at a reasonable level.

An adequate reverse mortgage program may help the policymakers in Colombia to face the adverse environment for Colombia’s housing market and the pressure of its pension system. A good R.M. program generates incentives to purchase homes, given the possibility of receiving an additional rent after retirement.

The paper develops an econometrical improvement over previous work. The authors present a time-series analysis that includes stationarity and co-integration information to model the data-generation process of house prices and interest rates in a multivariate fashion. The authors also improve the valuation formula. Moreover, the paper presents a novel application to Colombia. The authors obtain our demographic data from the United Nations Population Division applying the Lee-Carter method to model mortality rates, which provides ample possibilities to extend reverse mortgage assessment to additional. Finally, this is the first scholarly effort to evaluate the R.M. for the Colombian case.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between coopetition and organisational innovation in EU countries. As coopetition is usually studied from an inter-company perspective, this work looks in detail at the “ad intra” dynamics of the coopeting companies to understand how they adjust their organisation or implement organisational innovation to successfully adopt this original approach.

Using data from the Eurostat (CIS2014), this research offers a quantitative study into coopeting companies, relating coopetition to organisational innovation. The analysis technique used in this study is logistic regression with maximum likelihood estimation, where the dependent variable is the location of the coopeting companies.

The findings highlight specific characteristics and differences according to whether a company coopetes domestically or in other more complex geographic environments. It also incorporates variables into the analysis, such as the use of price marketing, employee training and company size.

This study provides insights into the relationship between coopetition and organisational innovation, in a research field that usually focusses on inter-company analysis. Several little-studied factors are included in the analysis, such as the role of employee qualifications and differences in coopetition in different geographic areas. The authors observe that, in certain locations, coopetition could be related to a “market entry” effect.

This research focuses on establishing relationships between eco-innovation and organisational innovation and innovation in general to characterise organisational eco-innovation in European Union companies. We also aim to investigate the forms of innovations that eco-innovative companies use as well as the factors or determinants of eco-innovation in the corporate environment that impel the use of organisational innovation.

We use the estimation of different binary logistic regression models with maximum likelihood applied to a sample obtained from the Eurostat's Community Innovation Survey 2014 database as a starting point.

The results suggest that the type of organisational innovation most closely related to eco-innovation is found in work responsibility and decision-making methods. Some less frequently studied significant factors are highlighted, such as training or aspects related to intellectual capital and knowledge management, since significant indications of the importance and acquisition of existing know-how have appeared, in contrast to internal knowledge generation.

The study seeks to observe what specific quantitative drivers (external or internal) are used for organisational eco-innovation, as a specific subtype of eco-innovation. This can improve our understanding of the ways in which organisational innovation can be used by corporations to provide environmental benefits. The academic literature provides information on the drivers and determinants for both organisational innovation and eco-innovation separately, but we believe this article offers a new approach by looking at the specific eco-innovation drivers achieved through organisational innovation.

The paper aims to present a literary itinerary inspired in Julio Dinis’ novel An English Family (Uma Família Inglesa) through a comparative analysis of the places identified in the novel and the touristic attraction proposed by Visit Porto website. This novel is representative of the cultural identity and society of Porto city in the 19th century. Developing an itinerary based on this novel can facilitate the reading and understanding of the historical and cultural development of Porto.

This case study is based on the reading of the Julio Dinis’ novel An English Family (Uma Família Inglesa), whose storyline takes place in Porto city, Portugal in the 19th century. It used QGIS v. 3.12 software, a geographical information system to identify the places, to produce the maps and to create the itinerary.

The comparison between the places identified in the novel and the tourist attraction in Visit Porto website revealed that only 6 points in the novel are referenced on Visit Porto website. These points correspond to the ones in the historical city centre of Porto. However, the creation of an itinerary that brings together all the points mentioned by Julio Dinis in his novel, will allow the development of a new touristic itinerary, alternative to existing itineraries in the city and that can be seen as a distinguish offer that allows a different view of the urban space of Porto.

There are some limitations to this study that can be highlighted. First, it was difficult to find the correct location of some points identified in the novel, due to difficulty of finding historical maps with quality of the data. At the same time, as tourist information is dispersed by several sources, and most of those data is not georeferenced, it was time consuming the integration of all the information in the same geodatabase. The choice of the shortest path can also be considered as a limitation, rather than the route followed by the author in the novel, but geographic information systems operates on spatial and temporal scale, which can present a limitation in tourism analysis. In the case of this project, we have chosen the shortest path, assuming that tourist would prefer that.

This research allowed to address two areas of knowledge that are emerging in the study of urban centres as tourist areas: the use of GIS and literary tourism. Despite the fact that there are already articles on this subject, the originality focuses on the approach made around one of the greatest writers of Portugal in the 19th century, allowing to present a tourist itinerary about one of his literary works, and the comparison made between the places identified in the novel and the tourist points identified on the Visit Porto website.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the yield, physico-chemical and microbiological parameters during the shelf life of the Minas Frescal cheese hand-manufactured by family farms.

In the milk, analyses of total bacterial counts, somatic cell counts and centesimal composition were performed. The milk coagulation was analyzed, with different curd times (40, 80 and 120 min), with respect to the proximate composition, pH, titratable acidity, yield and microbiological counts. The means were compared using the Tukey test with a significance level of 5 per cent. The most probable number of microorganisms were also determined in water.

The results for milk quality were within the requirements established in Normative Instruction 62, except for total dry extract. It was found that curd time did not influence the protein and fat in dry matter contents; however, the ash content in cheese of 40 min of curd time (2.8 g/100g) is significantly higher (p = 0.02) than the values found for the other curd times. The same behavior was observed for moisture content (p = 0.04). The parameters determining the cheese quality were outside the standards for human consumption, but this result is directly related to the water conditions, which were outside of potability levels. To meet the requirements established in the legislation, dairy products must follow strict standards of quality hygiene, both the raw material (water, milk) and their employees who act directly in the process.

For the preparation of the Minas Frescal cheese, it takes several steps, from obtaining the milk to the product ready to be consumed, so the importance of doing this monitoring and evaluating its quality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse data from routine quality control samples of beer over a ten year period to provide comparisons with a previous study in 2006 and apply interpretations to the contemporary beer market.

Data from laboratory analysis of 1,469 beers submitted for due diligence quality assurance from commercial microbreweries were analysed. Additional commercial samples were taken for analysis of sour beers and cask conditioned beers as examples of niche product areas.

Style characteristics were summarized as a reference for industry evaluation and as a basis for comparisons. Differences were noted between the characteristics found and those of a similar study in 2006. Average alcohol by volume increased by 1.2 per cent, bitterness levels increased by 6.1 per cent while colour decreased by 22 per cent. These differences suggest that standard UK beers are undergoing change. A study of sour beers indicated specific features in this recently popular style and confirmed the use of a different microbiology. Analysis of cask ales indicated some variability in quality suggesting the need for greater quality control.

The comparison with the previous study has limitations as the samples were not individually comparable but were from major established microbreweries and so representative of the industry. The work analysed UK beers only but will act as a base line for comparison to other markets. Moreover, the data may be relevant to other forms of market analysis seeking to identify factors associated to consumer preferences.

The data presented have relevance to breweries looking to develop their portfolios and product descriptions, to the drinking public and to regulatory bodies in providing a benchmark for comparisons and for assisting in defining the recently promoted term “craft beer”.

The findings are relevant to beverage development and consumer education of alcoholic beverages by allowing discrimination between styles with different characteristics affecting consumer choice and when assessing styles for industrial, legislative and health research. Beers today appear to be more varied than in past decades but show lower colour and higher bitterness characteristics. As these features particularly relate to ingredients they may have implications in their contributions to diet and health.

The work has value in replicating the previous study to illustrate changes and trends. It presents novel data on recently popular sour beers and assesses traditional cask beer with implications for product quality.

This study aims to estimate the overall SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and evaluate the accuracy of an antibody rapid test compared to a reference serological assay during a COVID-19 outbreak in a prison complex housing over 13,000 prisoners in Brasília.

The authors obtained a randomized, stratified representative sample of each prison unit and conducted a repeated serosurvey among prisoners between June and July 2020, using a lateral-flow immunochromatographic assay (LFIA). Samples were also retested using a chemiluminescence enzyme immunoassay (CLIA) to compare SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and 21-days incidence, as well as to estimate the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) and determine the diagnostic accuracy of the LFIA test.

This study identified 485 eligible individuals and enrolled 460 participants. Baseline and 21-days follow-up seroprevalence were estimated at 52.0% (95% CI 44.9–59.0) and 56.7% (95% CI 48.2–65.3) with LFIA; and 80.7% (95% CI 74.1–87.3) and 81.1% (95% CI 74.4–87.8) with CLIA, with an overall IFR of 0.02%. There were 78.2% (95% CI 66.7–89.7) symptomatic individuals among the positive cases. Sensitivity and specificity of LFIA were estimated at 43.4% and 83.3% for IgM; 46.5% and 91.5% for IgG; and 59.1% and 77.3% for combined tests.

The authors found high seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within the prison complex. The occurrence of asymptomatic infection highlights the importance of periodic mass testing in addition to case-finding of symptomatic individuals; however, the field performance of LFIA tests should be validated. This study recommends that vaccination strategies consider the inclusion of prisoners and prison staff in priority groups.