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Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educação is the property of Jose Luis Bizelli, editor of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on the tourism sector. Economies with a large weight of external tourism were especially affected, as was the case with the Azores region. This paper aims to analyse the level of this crisis and the resilience of tourism recreation companies specializing in canyoning in the Azores region, and whether these reactions led to more sustainable business models. The adopted methodology considered the analysis of recent statistical data on tourism and the available information on COVID-19 pandemic-related impacts. In parallel, questionnaires were applied to all tourism recreation companies in Portugal, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with all the canyoning providers in the Azores region. Results show that all companies survived the crisis, and some have made significant changes to their business models. Furthermore, some degree of success was observed in how services adapted to new demand characteristics, given the small size of most of these businesses and the specialization of their products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper follows the recent areas of interest trucked by Google Trends to investigate the importance of the customers' technological savviness and firm's social media communication at creation of brand equity. A special attention is paid at the so called 'Net generation' and its behavior during COVID-19 pandemic. The data was collected through an online survey distributed in Portugal with the assistance of Qualtrics online survey platform and counted with respondents that had a prior experience in following or engaging with brands on social media. To understand the relationships between Customer Technology Savviness (CTS), firm's Social Media Communication (SMC) and Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE), this study applies the Partial Last Squares method of Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results of the multigroup analysis show that customers who used social media more heavily during pandemic denoted a stronger relationship between CTS and CBBE, CTS and SMC and between SMC and CBBE, of which the last was not confirmed in case of customers who made less use of social media since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to analyse how people's perceived employability was affected during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study explores individuals' perceived financial threat, age and work situation as factors that shape perceived employability. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected via a survey at three different times between October 2020 and May 2021, which were chosen to reflect the evolution of the pandemic. The participants (n = 124) reported participants' perceived employability and financial threat during the pandemic in Portugal. Perceived employability is a multidimensional concept, as this includes the following scales: employment protective behaviour, employment risk, job-seeking behaviour, self-control and self-learning. Findings: Participants' overall perceived employability failed to record significant variance over the period under analysis. Nevertheless, perceived employment protective behaviour decreased the most, especially in the case of young adults (aged 18 to 24). Individuals' perceived financial threat varied according to the external context, being lower during the last moment of data collection, which corresponded to the less-socially and economically restrictive period. Employees with the most stable work condition, i.e. with a permanent employment contract, were those who felt less financially threatened when compared to other respondents. A negative relationship between perceived employability and perceived financial threat was identified during the third moment of data collection. Originality/value: The research informs about how individuals perceive themselves in a highly unpredictable and unstable context. The longitudinal approach shows how the external context affected people's perceived employability and financial threat throughout the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The periods 1918–1920 and 2019–2021 were characterized by epidemic moments. The COVID-19 pandemic recalled the crises associated with the Spanish flu, exanthematic typhus, and smallpox of the 1920s. However, few works have focused on a comparative task of these episodes in local newspapers. Through the analysis of the daily editions of Commercio do Minho and its successor, Correio do Minho, we fill this gap with this work. It was possible to portray the socioeconomic reach of these pandemics in a community in the northern coastal region of Portugal. Using time series analysis of the number of news items as well as the number of deaths from each of the episodes in the periods 1918 and 1920 and 2020 and 2021 (namely using Autoregressive Distributed Lag models), we conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic exhibited a greater focus on the problem in the local press. Other results made it possible to view the differentiated response of the number of news items regarding each epidemic episode depending on the number of deaths in the population, both between 1918 and 1920 and between 2020 and 2021. Thus, our work came to demonstrate three pieces of evidence in the relationship between news and epidemic processes. Firstly, COVID-19, as an example of the most recent pandemic, brought a reactivity of the local press resulting in a greater number of news, even compared to the number of fatalities. Secondly, the number of news published on epidemic/pandemic issues tends to follow the evolution of the severity of the event—there is more news in the months that follow periods of greater severity of the disease. Finally, the "disappearance" of published news faster in 1918–1920 also reveals a lesser focus that newsrooms perceived on society of that time in the face of the reported pandemic (Nie et al. 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Viruses are the major cause of acute respiratory infections in children, causing important morbimortality. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in temperate regions, respiratory viruses displayed a typical seasonality in transmission. A disruption in this pattern was observed in several countries during the pandemic, with low prevalence during the typical season, and an interseasonal rise. We evaluated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the epidemiology of non-COVID viral respiratory infections in children, in a tertiary care hospital in Portugal. Methods: Between March 2020 and August 2022, nasopharyngeal samples from children with respiratory symptoms in the Emergency Department (ED) and the Pediatric Ward were tested for RSV, influenza and other respiratory viruses, by real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR). Results: A seasonal variation was observed from 2018 to 2020, with prevalence increasing in winter (mainly RSV and influenza). In the winter of 2020/21, when measures to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission were stricter, there was a disruption of the seasonal pattern, with unusually low numbers. In the summer of 2021, when measures were being relaxed, there was an atypical rise. In June 2021, RSV was first detected and peaked in October. Influenza (Influenza A H3) was detected for the first time in February 2022, peaking in March/April. Conclusions: These findings show a disruption of the seasonality of viral respiratory infections in children during the pandemic, with a virtual elimination during the months of usually higher prevalence, and a subsequent out-of-season increase, coinciding with variations in the measures implemented to control the SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and confirming their efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The goal of this study was to assess the impact of COVID-19 on Portuguese dental students on their depression, anxiety, temporomandibular dysfunction, academic degree, and oral behaviors. Methods: The target of this population study was to enroll third-, fourth-, and fifth-year students of the Integrated Master's degree in Dental Medicine at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa—Faculty of Dental Medicine (Viseu, Portugal) in the academic year 2021–2022. Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) symptoms, oral behaviors, anxiety, and depression were assessed using validated questionnaires. The variables under study were (a) age, gender, marital status, academic level, academic degree, medication, and any existing pathologies; (b) questions related to taste changes or thoughts that would indicate (or not) worsening psychological conditions (anxiety and depression). After data collection (Google Forms®), data were transferred to an Excel file and entered into SPSS® software. A chi-square test allowed the independence between ordinal or nominal variables. The Spearman correlation test was used to analyze the relationship between variables in the study (significant if p ≤ 0.05). Results: 98.2% of the students answered the questionnaire. TMD had a prevalence of 35%, and anxiety and depression a prevalence of 29% and 24%, respectively. The results showed that the female gender was the most affected by psychological and temporomandibular disorders. Statistically significant correlations were identified between variables, such as gender and anxiety, TDM, and depression (respectively, p = 0.0001, p = 0.014, and p = 0.026); between TDM and anxiety and depression (respectively, p = 0.001 and p < 0.001); and between performing oral behaviors and TMD, anxiety, and depression (respectively, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001, and p = 0.006). The variables, such as age and academic degree, did not establish a statistically significant relationship with TMD, oral behaviors, and the two psychological conditions. Conclusions: It was possible to conclude that there was a moderate prevalence of TMD, anxiety, and depression in the period studied. Moreover, a statistically significant relationship was found between TMD, anxiety, and depression with gender and frequency of OBs; however, no significant association was found for TMD, anxiety, and depression with the age of students and with the academic degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Innovar: Revista de Ciencias Administrativas y Sociales is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic remains a global problem that affects the health of millions of people and the world economy. Identifying how the movement of people between regions of the world, countries, and municipalities and how the close contact between individuals of different age groups promotes the spread of infectious diseases is a pressing concern for society, during epidemic outbreaks and pandemics, such as COVID-19. Networks and Graph Theory provide adequate and powerful tools to study the spread of communicable diseases. In this work, we use Graph Theory to analyze COVID-19 transmission dynamics between municipalities of Aveiro district, in Portugal, and between different age groups, considering data from 2020 and 2021, in order to better understand the spread of this disease, as well as preparing actions for possible future pandemics. We used a digraph structure that models the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus between Aveiro's municipalities and between age groups. To understand how a node fits over the contact digraphs, we studied centrality measures, namely eigencentrality, closeness, degree, and betweenness. Transmission ratios were also considered to determine whether there were certain age groups or municipals that were more responsible for the virus's spread. According to the results of this research, transmissions mostly occur within the same social groupings, that is, within the same municipalities and age groups. However, the study of centrality measures, eliminating loops, reveals that municipalities such as Aveiro, Estarreja and Ovar are relevant nodes in the transmission network of municipalities as well as the age group of 40–49 in the transmission network of age groups. Furthermore, we conclude that vaccination is effective in reducing the virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence suggests that both personality traits (PT) and emotion regulation (ER) strategies play an important role in the way people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was two folded. First, to longitudinally investigate the psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and stress levels) taking in consideration PT and ER strategies in 3 different moments: during the first lockdown period (April/20), at the first deconfinement (May/20) and 1-month after the first deconfinement (Jun/20)–Experiment I. Second, to cross-sectionally evaluate the impact of the pandemic in psychological distress and the correlates with PT and ER 6-months after the first deconfinement November/20 to February/21 –Experiment II. A total of 722 volunteers (Experiment I = 180; Experiment II = 542) aged 18 years or older participated in this online survey. The findings from Experiment I show that psychological distress decreased after the lockdown period, however, neuroticism traits predicted higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, while difficulties in ER strategies were identified as a risk factor for depression and stress. For experiment II, neuroticism traits and being infected with COVID-19 were associated to higher levels of symptomatology, while unemployment and the use of emotional suppression strategies to cope with emotional situations were associated to depressive and anxiety symptoms. Although the psychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak decreased over time in our sample, the current findings suggest that difficulties in emotional regulation and high levels of neuroticism traits might be potential risk factors for psychiatric symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, people with difficulties in ER and neuroticism traits would benefit from psychological interventions that provide personality-appropriate support and promote emotion regulation skills during stressful events, such as the case of the global pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporeal travel has been highly problematized during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to the curtailment of many previously taken-for-granted mobilities. This includes the circulation of international students; individuals undertaking short duration credit mobility exchanges alongside those who have migrated for an entire degree course. The objective of this article is to look at how the pandemic has affected credit and degree mobility students from inside and outside Europe, focusing on the example of Portugal during the lockdown of Spring 2020. Using evidence from qualitative interviews, we illustrate the unfolding impact of the pandemic on the lives and learning habits of these students, showing how the international learning experience changed from being a relatively positive and carefree experience to one characterized by risk and uncertainty. This apparent inversion extends to a potential devaluation of their mobility capital, somewhat undermining the raison d'être of much student mobility. In conclusion, we argue that whether temporary or permanent, during the pandemic we have witnessed a turn towards immobility in tertiary education, and perhaps in the broader field of mobilities, creating an imperative to open up debate on the impact of the limitations that affect student mobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on past pandemics, scholars have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic will bring about fertility decline. Evidence from actual birth data has so far been scarce. This brief report uses data on vital statistics from a selection of high-income countries, including the United States. The pandemic has been accompanied by a significant drop in crude birth rates beyond that predicted by past trends in 7 out of the 22 countries considered, with particularly strong declines in southern Europe: Italy (-9.1%), Spain (-8.4%), and Portugal (-6.6%). Substantial heterogeneities are, however, observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]