Collaborative Strategies and Tourist Competitiveness in Medium Mountain Destinations: Study on the Positioning of Tourist Actors in the Natural Park of Serra da Estrela

The tourism sector, due to its specificities, is one area of economic activity where collaborative strategies can most contribute to increasing productivity and competitiveness. The need for immediate responses to customer interests and requirements has led companies to become more proactive, which in turn leads to the pursuit of external collaboration to develop business networks that increase business dynamism and the operational flexibility of partners. Encouraging collaboration lies in the pressures brought on by globalization and increased competitiveness, supported by the development of information and communications technologies. Collaboration promoting strategic and organizational alignments in the field of tourism is revealed to be decisive for the qualification and sustainability of destinations, promoting new markets, and facilitating synergies of larger dynamism between companies. Serra da Estrela corresponds to a medium mountain destination, classified as a UNESCO World Geopark, where the development of collaborative relationships is valued as a resource for businesses and as expanding the offer of tourist products, as well as a source of competitive advantage.

Collaborative Strategies for Teacher-Led Professional Development among Teachers of English

This article reports on an action research study that involved teachers of English leading their own professional development, while establishing the collaborative strategies that they can use to do this. Teachers collaborating in professional development is a departure from the traditional modes where teachers are taken through presentations that are meant to equip them with what facilitators feel they need to know about classroom practices. In this study, the teachers identified their individual challenges with practice and then worked in collaboration with a colleague to overcome them. This was done through the use of a number of collaborative strategies that find support in research studies on teacher learning. The findings bring out practical collaborative strategies that can improve the classroom practices of teachers as well as their collegial relationships.

Beton Ltd.: A Case Study

The paper focuses on Beton Ltd., a theatre collective comprised of three actors, Primož Bezjak, Branko Jordan and Katarina Stegnar, established in 2010. Beton Ltd. emerged on the Slovenian performing arts scene with a collective approach to theatre-making and is thus a special case as far as non-hierarchical and collective production models in Slovenia are concerned. In the last ten years, Beton Ltd. has created seven performances: So Far Away: Introduction to Ego-logy (2010); I Say What I am Told to Say (2012); Everything We’ve Lost, While We’ve Gone on Living (2013); Revolting Man (2014); Ich kann nicht anders (2016); Große Erwartungen/Great Expectations (2018) and Mahlzeit (2019). Through introspective self-analysis, the paper elaborates on the necessary preconditions for the formation of a collective, as well as the conditions necessary for effective collaboration in performance making, combining a short historical overview of the case in question, including specific collaborative strategies developed by Beton Ltd. during the past decade.

The Influence of Cell Cycle Regulation on Chemotherapy

Cell cycle regulation is orchestrated by a complex network of interactions between proteins, enzymes, cytokines, and cell cycle signaling pathways, and is vital for cell proliferation, growth, and repair. The occurrence, development, and metastasis of tumors are closely related to the cell cycle. Cell cycle regulation can be synergistic with chemotherapy in two aspects: inhibition or promotion. The sensitivity of tumor cells to chemotherapeutic drugs can be improved with the cooperation of cell cycle regulation strategies. This review presented the mechanism of the commonly used chemotherapeutic drugs and the effect of the cell cycle on tumorigenesis and development, and the interaction between chemotherapy and cell cycle regulation in cancer treatment was briefly introduced. The current collaborative strategies of chemotherapy and cell cycle regulation are discussed in detail. Finally, we outline the challenges and perspectives about the improvement of combination strategies for cancer therapy.

Monitoring and evaluation using digital tools

Data collection and monitoring and evaluation (M and E) efforts will take a remarkable deal of time and methodical planning and implementation. In the past, these were finished with paper and pen, which made them susceptible to error, difficult to conduct on a big scale, and immoderate in transaction charges. Information and communication era (ICT) tools, which includes hardware like mobile phones and tablets, applications with the functionality to create digital surveys and software programme application that allows clients to upload the data to storage facilities have reduced the conventional annoying conditions associated with far off data collection and M and E. New knowledge base does not or takes too long time to reach to the farmers, and the needs of practical farming are not communicated sufficiently to the research community. Thus, new collaborative strategies and ICT may be crucial tools to remedy some of the gaps with the useful resource of the use of improving get right of entry to to consequences, know-how trade and communication further to upkeep and schooling. This paper summarizes how digital tools can play major role in extension for monitoring and evaluation and the key troubles, annoying conditions and experiences derived from literature and different case studies.

From the eye-body to the embodied-eye. The use of images in performance-research strategies.

This article discusses the use of images in socio-anthropological research and their contribution to the development of performance-research methodological strategies. By bringing three research-creation collaborative experiences developed in different violent and/or traumatic socio-political contexts in Argentina (a video workshop conducted with indigenous toba-qom teachers, a video-dance in the ruins of Villa Epecuén and a performatic installation about the feminist movement NiUnaMenos) it reflects on different relationships between performance-camera-corporalities and explores the poetic-epistemological-political potential of the images to (re)present sensitive corporalities. In dialogue with other embodied research methods, the analysis suggests how the use of images in a cross-disciplinary approach can contribute to the development of participatory-collaborative strategies and enable a space for decolonizing our gaze(s) and micropolitical transformation.

Immigrants in America

Chapter 4 illustrates how the immigrant experience is a key dimension of American life. Heather Koball uses national data to understand how policies shape the lives of immigrants. She describes two studies that analyze the impacts of policies on the health well-being of low-income immigrant families. In her look at Mexican-origin families in Phoenix, Airín D. Martínez examines the effects of racism and antagonistic immigration enforcement policies on health and stress. Kate Vickery illustrates the importance of collaborative strategies to promote a vibrant immigrant community. The chapter ends with Francesca Menes’s perspectives on Black immigrants, a diverse and understudied population. Menes illustrates how exclusionary public policies and institutional racism criminalize Black immigrants, drawing from her work in Miami to suggest an agenda for action and research.

Blue Economy and collaborative strategies: A critique of multi-national enterprises

The concept of blue economy has been advanced by many countries as a new economic frontier aimed at development and utilization of blue ocean resources. To effectively develop a blue economy, capital intensive infrastructure, human and intellectual resources are required although they have been found to vary between countries or regions due economic or natural endowments. A theoretical analysis of relevant theories including: Foreign Direct Investment and eclectic model, Transaction Cost, and Stakeholder theories was undertaken. Further, a critical conceptual analysis covering fifty-five articles on blue economy and collaborative strategies with multinational enterprises (MNEs) was conducted to in an attempt to develop appreciation of the blue economy and collaborative strategies with MNEs. The conceptual analysis was carried out under conceptual, contextual, theoretical, and methodological lenses to establish if any gaps exist and if they do, how they can be addressed. From the analysis it was established that 24 of the 55 articles reviewed discussed maritime and blue economy related subjects. The other 31 articles covered subjects related to collaborative strategies with respect to MNEs confirming that the concept is still developing. The analysis concluded that the concept of blue economy adopts a multi-dimensional approach borrowing from strategic management, finance, and economics. Moreover, it was concluded that collaborative strategies could contribute to development of countries through leveraging of blue economy resources. Further research was proposed to address the gaps identified from the synthesis of the paper.