Abstract
This study provides an extensive examination of tourist perceptions during a visit to China, conducted within the framework of the Erasmus+ TourX project. The project includes participants from Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Belgium, and Portugal. Tourism is widely acknowledged as a mechanism for cultural exchange, fostering intercultural learning and broadening global perspectives. This research aims to empirically analyze the experiences and behaviors of tourists within an unfamiliar cultural environment. The findings contribute to the broader academic discourse on the role of tourism in facilitating cross-cultural engagement and its implications for the tourism industry in China. 

Abstract
Integrating citizen science with digital twin technology represents a significant development in oceanographic research and marine management. This paper examines how the Iliad project has successfully developed a comprehensive suite of digital twins of the ocean (DTOs) that leverage citizen science contributions to enhance data coverage, improve modelling accuracy, and foster public engagement with marine ecosystems. Through innovative technological solutions, including semantic interoperability frameworks, mobile applications, knowledge graphs, and gamification approaches, the project demonstrates the reciprocal benefits between citizen scientists, scientific research and digital twin ecosystems. The developments presented in this work illustrate how engaging the public in scientific research not only broadens the data foundation for digital twins but also creates pathways for citizens to gain valuable insights from these sophisticated digital representations of ocean environments.

Abstract

Abstract
Whispers are common and essential for secondary communication. Nonetheless, individuals with aphonia, including laryngectomees, rely on whispers as their primary means of communication. Due to the distinct features between whispered and regular speech, debates have emerged in the field of speech recognition, highlighting the challenge of effectively converting between them. This study investigates the characteristics of whispered speech and proposes a system for converting whispered vowels into normal ones. The system is developed using multilayer perceptron networks and two types of generative adversarial networks. Three metrics are analyzed to evaluate the performance of the system: mel-cepstral distortion, root mean square error of the fundamental frequency, and accuracy with f1-score of a vowel classifier. Overall, the perceptron networks demonstrated better results, with no significant differences observed between male and female voices or the presence/absence of speech silence, except for improved accuracy in estimating the fundamental frequency during the conversion process. © 2025, Universidade do Porto - Faculdade de Engenharia. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Abstract
In the modern digital age, organizations face unprecedented challenges and possibilities while managing the intricacies of digital transformation. Accelerated technological developments, changing customer preferences, heightened competition, and dynamic regulatory environments necessitate companies to synchronize their business goals with technological innovations. Leadership is crucial in steering businesses through changes, requiring a deep understanding of change processes and the capacity to adjust leadership accordingly. This research addresses the central question: How does leadership effectively promote organizational digital transformation? The study examines how leaders can effectively promote the adoption of advanced technologies and the promotion of innovation, by first exploring the nature of digital transformation within organizations and then analyzing the evolving dynamics of leadership in this context. An integrative review of the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases was conducted, using the search terms: Leadership and Digital Transformation. The findings emphasize that effective leadership is crucial for managing the minutiae of digital transformation, integrating technology into organizational processes to facilitate learning, collaboration, and agility, enabling companies to adapt to market shifts, reduce uncertainty, and enhance decision-making for sustainable growth. By using the right tools and with the right frequency, leaders may develop team cohesion-even at a distance. Attentive digital-age leaders will know how to leverage the right mechanisms, and herein, we hope to give some indication of how that may be achieved, so that digital transformation increases rather than decreases team motivation levels.