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Tourism in Coimbra today is influenced by the fact that the Univer(s)city was distinguished as a World Heritage Site in 2013. The number of visits has grown very significantly in recent years, but the diversification of the tourist offer is still weak and unable to take advantage of existing resources. This paper aims to present genealogy tourism as an alternative urban cultural tourism in Coimbra.

Methodology involved mapping the Jewish culture elements in the city of Coimbra, and a route was outlined and proposed.

Genealogy tourism resources are identified in the historic centre of the city. These alternative spaces need urban rehabilitation and (re)functionalisation, which allowed the authors to rethink tourism in Coimbra. They are the motivation to visit for all urban cultural tourists, especially Israelis/Jews, and provide contact with places where the experiences of ancestors combine with the history and memory of places, with recent discoveries and the elements of Jewish culture in the city.

It is concluded that the quantity, diversity, authenticity and singularity of the heritage resources that bear witness to the Jewish presence in Coimbra are sufficient assets to create a route, to enrich the tourist experience in the city and to include the destination in the Sephardic routes.

This paper seeks to understand kaizen in practice as it travels through time and space in the organisational setting.

A qualitative case study was carried out at a multinational company using mainly interviews for the data collection that were analysed from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective.

This paper finds that the company deals with a series of paradoxes while managing the kaizen process. Efficiency and quality paradoxes are the basis for starting kaizen projects. Furthermore, intrinsic, and extrinsic motivation, emerge in these processes, and paradoxes relate to how spontaneous ideas emerge in a deliberated context of cost-saving objectives. The supply chain finance team coordinates kaizen projects with the collaboration of plant managers, promoting the paradox of autonomy and control. In addition, as kaizen mobilises and enrols the actors, some trials of strength emerge, showing actors who oppose the kaizen network and create competing networks that mutually exist in the firm.

This study presents valuable insights for professionals to successfully implement kaizen methodologies that take advantage of developing a network for problem-solving in organizations.

This study highlights the supply chain finance team's role in enrolling the actors within a network built by practitioners engaged in kaizen projects. Usually, engineers, quality, or manufacturing teams lead kaizen projects, and only occasionally, accounting and financial teams participate, including multidisciplinary teams.

The purpose of this paper is to present a surgical robot for spinal fusion and its control framework that provides higher operation accuracy, greater flexibility of robot position control, and improved ergonomics.

A human‐guided robot for the spinal fusion surgery has been developed with a dexterous end‐effector that is capable of high‐speed drilling for cortical layer gimleting and tele‐operated insertion of screws into the vertebrae. The end‐effector is position‐controlled by a five degrees‐of‐freedom robot body that has a kinematically closed structure to withstand strong reaction force occurring in the surgery. The robot also allows the surgeon to control cooperatively the position and orientation of the end‐effector in order to provide maximum flexibility in exploiting his or her expertise. Also incorporated for improved safety is a “drill‐by‐wire” mechanism wherein a screw is tele‐drilled by the surgeon in a mechanically decoupled master/slave system. Finally, a torque‐rendering algorithm that adds synthetic open‐loop high‐frequency components on feedback torque increases the realism of tele‐drilling in the screw‐by‐wire mechanism.

Experimental results indicated that this assistive robot for spinal fusion performs drilling tasks within the static regulation errors less than 0.1 μm for position control and less than 0.05° for orientation control. The users of the tele‐drilling reported subjectively that they experienced torque feedback similar to that of direct screw insertion.

Although the robotic surgery system itself has been developed, integration with surgery planning and tracking systems is ongoing. Thus, the screw insertion accuracy of a whole surgery system with the assistive robot is to be investigated in the near future.

The paper arguably pioneers the dexterous end‐effector appropriately designed for spinal fusion, the cooperative robot position‐control algorithm, the screw‐by‐wire mechanism for indirect screw insertion, and the torque‐rendering algorithm for more realistic torque feedback. In particular, the system has the potential of circumventing the screw‐loosening problem, a common defect in the conventional surgeon‐operated or robot‐assisted spinal fusion surgery.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Brazilian strategy of regional insertion with the support of the Marxist Theory of Dependency (MTD), represented by the work of Ruy Mauro Marini because it allows for the consideration of relations of power within the national scenario and policies resulting from class alliances embedded in the domestic structure of dependency.

The paper discusses the main positions concerning the Varieties of Capitalism approach, arguing that the MTD and specifically Marini’s work can contribute to overcoming some of its limits. These arguments are illustrated through the analysis of the Brazilian strategy of regional competitive insertion focusing on the IIRSA project and the Brazilian Multinational Companies directly involved.

The concept of sub-imperialism has helped to understand the logic behind the Brazilian strategy of regional insertion as part of a historical trajectory that includes the re-edition of a political drive for being the regional leader; the privilege of class fractions benefiting from the access to public funds and new markets (necessary to guarantee their continued and increased profitability); the reinforcement of regional inequalities and, at the same time, the reproduction of Brazilian dependency.

A renewed MTD can contribute to understanding the specific politico-economic strategies of peripheral countries. It can also overcome the limits of the Varieties of Capitalism approach by articulating the economic and political dimensions; by avoiding the structural – functionalist constrains of the institutional perspective; and by allowing the consideration of marginalized voices, rather than considering only the institutionalized ones.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel actuator with adaptable compliance for robotic applications.

In order to achieve limb actuation similar to that of human muscles, a novel actuator with adaptable compliance is proposed. Three principal design paradigms currently exist in the development of artificial muscles that have been adopted at several research centres, universities and commercial organizations around the world. The first approach consists of using compliant actuator systems such as pneumatic actuators. The second approach undertakes the development of electroactive polymers that deform when a voltage is applied. The third approach involves electromechanical devices typically comprising an electrical actuator and an elastic element in combination. The proposed actuator extends on the third approach. It comprises an electrical DC motor in serial configuration and a novel elastic device exhibiting variable stiffness.

The novel elastic device complements the mechanical structure of the device, enabling adaptation to the dynamic effects of external forces.

Several applications for the actuator with adaptable compliance have been identified in the field of human‐like robotics.

Prototypic experimentation has successfully demonstrated the variable stiffness of the device.

Implant surgery is generally accepted as the best technique for complete teeth replacement. However, it is also the most demanding technique to implement and the most onerous to the client. It would be helpful to reduce costs and simplify procedures in order that the general public could benefit from implant dentistry. This paper reports a robotic system developed with the objective of studying stress/strain distribution caused by implants inserted in blocks of a polymer. The polymer exhibits the same mechanical properties of the human mandible bone.

The system includes an industrial robot manipulator, a data acquisition board, strain gauges for stress/strain evaluation and a force/torque sensor (equipped with accelerometers) placed on the robot wrist. The objective is to optimize the number of implants and their placement/orientation, contributing in this way to reduce the overall cost of implant surgery. The system is presented in detail and explored for drilling and implant insertion.

The preliminary results are encouraging and indicate the usefulness of the system. The three presented situations correspond to general clinical procedures and, as can be concluded from the preliminary results, the intensity of the applied forces increase with the inclination of the drilling tool. Since, the depth of the holes is the same, it can be also concluded that the dissipated energy is superior in the 30° hole. Apart from inclination all the other properties remain constant during the force evaluation; therefore, we expected that during the perforation of the 30° hole the temperature should raise more than in the other types of holes. This aspect will be addressed in detail in the near future (just by carefully monitoring the temperature) because living tissues should not be submitted to temperatures greater than 42°C. The observed fluctuation in the modulus of the force during a drilling cycle suggests that the material is not homogeny. The results indicate that the strain is larger in the vertical load. This might be related with the fact that inclined applied forces imply a distribution of the strain/stress forces at least for two directions.

Further work will include more sensors to obtain all the data.

This will be of interest to the implant industry, since low prices will significantly increase the market and consequently the need for implant products. Currently, implant surgery as well as teeth replacements are based on a few general rules that, very often, do not take into account the specific needs of the patient. This happens independently of clinician expertise, which does not have enough biomechanical information to plan the number, location and orientation of implants in a specific surgery. Consequently, in most of the cases the needs are overestimated, to guarantee long‐term success, which implies expensive procedures and more discomfort for patients.

This work reports on a robotic system to simplify implant procedures.

The innovation process demands an interaction between environment agents, knowledge generators and policies of incentive for innovation and not only development by companies. Universities have gradually become the core of the knowledge production system and, therefore, their role regarding innovation has become more important and diversified. This study is aimed at identifying the mechanisms of university–industry (U–I) collaboration, as well as the operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process.

This study is aimed at identifying, based on a systematic literature review, the mechanisms of university–industry (U–I) collaboration, as well as the operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process.

The analysis of the 72 selected articles enabled identifying 15 mechanisms of U–I collaboration, proposing a new classification for such mechanisms and developing a framework presenting the operationalization steps of the interaction process.

In this paper, the authors screened nearly 1,500 papers and analyzed in detail 86 papers addressing U–I collaboration, mechanisms of U–I collaboration and operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process. This paper provides a new classification for such mechanisms and developing a framework presenting the operationalization steps of the interaction process. This research contributes to both theory and practice by highlighting managerial aspects and stimulating academic research on such timely topic.