Mapping spatial tourism and hospitality employment clusters: An application of spatial autocorrelation

This article analyzes the characteristics and spatial clustering of tourism and hospitality employment clusters in Victoria, Australia. Using cluster theory as the theoretical base, three interrelated research questions are specifically addressed: What industries constitute the tourism and hospitality sector? What broader "groupings" does the sector exhibit? Are these tourism and hospitality industries clustered around strategic areas of economic and resource advantage? Using the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (at the four-digit level), industries explicitly related to tourism and hospitality were first identified and total numbers of individuals working within these industries were aggregated at a level of Statistical Local Area (similar to a suburb or a neighborhood). Results show that in 2006 employment in tourism and hospitality equate to 7.74% of total employment in Australia. "Cafés and restaurants" (22%) is the single largest tourism and hospitality-related employer, followed by "takeaway food services" (20%) and "accommodation" (16%). Using factor analysis, four broader functions were extracted to characterize the underlying structure and functional interdependency among tourism and hospitality industries. These functions include: tourism operational services, hospitality services, entertainment services, and infrastructure operational facilities services. Spatial autocorrelation measures have identified five established tourism and hospitality spatial clusters in Victoria, which we argue hold the potential to act as tourism growth foci to create business synergy and generate spill-over effects through regional collaboration, competition, and sharing of pooled resources between firm

Agro-Morphological Variability Assessment of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Genotypes in High Hill Jumla, Nepal

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most important leguminous crop widely grown from Terai to high hills of Nepal covering 10,529 hectare land producing 15550 mt with the productivity of 1477 kgha-1 and Jumla occupies almost 21% of the total bean cultivated area of the country. For the experiment, twelve genotypes of common bean were collected from different locations of Nepal. The experiment was conducted at Agricultural Research Station Vijayanagar, Jumla Nepal from July, 2016 to October, 2016 in Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications and twelve treatments. Different agro-morphological characters were observed and wide variability was recorded in growth habit, flower color, seed color, seed shape, seed length (0.76-1.7cm), pod color, pod length(9.1-14.3 cm), plant height (57.1-116.5 cm), days to flowering (38-52 days) and maturity (74-90 days), number of pods plant-1 (9-22 seeds), number of seeds pod-1 (4-8 pods), hundred grain weight (18.3-54.7gm) and yield (2339-4164KgHa-1). Significant differences were found among genotypes for days to flowering, pod length, no of seeds pod-1 and yield hectare-1.The coefficients of determination illustrate the positive and significant association of grain yield hectare-1 with number of seeds pods-1, therefore these traits should be considered for genetic improvement through breeding

Falling through the Cracks: Deaf New Americans and Their Unsupported Educational Needs

Members of the Deaf New American community reported they arrived in the United States with no formal education, unable to read or write in their native language, and had zero fluency in English. Efforts to educate them have floundered, and the study aims to find out why and how to fix the problem. Interviews of eight Deaf New Americans yielded rich data that demonstrates how education policy in the form of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other laws fail to address their needs, because these laws do not include them in their coverage. The study’s main findings are the deleterious effect of the home country’s failure to educate their Deaf citizens, America’s failure to provide accessible and effective instruction, and the combined effect of these institutional failures on the ability of Deaf New Americans to master English and find gainful employment. This article is an argument for a change in education policy that recognizes the unique nature of this community and provides for a role of Deaf educators in teaching Deaf New Americans

Organisational resilience and emergency management

The concept of resilience figures prominently in discussions of disaster risk reduction, emergency management and community safety. Overwhelmingly, such discussions view resilience as a highly desirable characteristic of communities. Policies and practices of emergency services organisations imply that a major role of such organisations is to promote and foster community resilience. Yet there is little appreciation of the importance of resilience as a necessary characteristic of emergency services organisations. In this paper we argue that emergency services organisations need to address their own resilience issues in order to properly fulfil their community protection responsibilities. The concept of organisational resilience in relation to Australia's volunteer-based emergency services organisations is discussed and the importance of organisational climate and organisational culture in relation to organisational resilience is stressed

Modelling spatial tourism and hospitality employment clusters using geographical information systems

Tourism is considered a mechanism for regional development with the potential to increase economic growth in regional and remote areas. Tourism however tends to spatially cluster to areas of resource advantage (i.e. tourism attractions) or of strategic importance such as transportation hubs. This is often referred to as the ‘agglomeration effect’, where related firms locate near one another to take advantage of pooled market and pooled resource supply allied to reduced service costs. An integrated cluster based approach is arguably well suited to assist regional development policies to gear towards achieving the geostrategic dispersal of tourism across regional and remote areas. The advocacy of cluster theory as a policy tool for tourism development however requires a thorough examination before it can be transmuted into public policy. Drawing on cluster theory as the theoretical base, this thesis develops a spatial framework to examine the geographic clustering of tourism and hospitality employment in Victoria, Australia. It aims to answer four interrelated research questions: i) what industries represent the tourism and hospitality sector and what are its key components; ii) where are the tourism and hospitality-related employment clusters in Victoria; iii) what are the location-specific factors that drive the clustering of tourism and hospitality employment and iv) what strategic geo-targeted cluster-based policy can be formulated to improve evidence to guide destination planning? Using the 4-digit Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) data, the sub-industries that ‘explicitly’ relate to tourism and hospitality were first individually identified and then the numbers of people working in these industries were aggregated. Results show that total employment in the tourism and hospitality sector in Australia for 2006 is 7.74 per cent. ‘Cafes and Restaurants’ (22.34%) are the largest employer of labour force, followed closely by ‘Takeaway Food Services’ (20.53%) and ‘Accommodation’ (16 %). Using principal component analysis, four key ‘components’ that define and characterise the underlying structure of the tourism and hospitality industry are identified. These include ‘Tourism Operational Services’; ‘Hospitality Services’; ‘Entertainment Services’; and ‘Infrastructure Operational Facilities Services’. The highly correlated component analysis indicates the functional interdependence of inter-related industries within the sector. The results show that the ‘tourism operational services’ are more widely distributed across the state, whilst ‘hospitality services’ are more concentrated in Melbourne and other regional cities/towns. The Melbourne central business district emerged as a hub for the ‘entertainment services’; however there are also other pockets in regional areas that offer such services. Employment in ‘infrastructure operational facility services’ is largely segregated around airports and transit hubs to support tourist movements. There is evidence of a high concentration of employment along the coast and a few isolated pockets particularly along the Great Ocean Road, Phillip Island and areas around the alpine region. The Local Indicator of Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA) technique was employed to identify five established spatial tourism and hospitality clusters in Victoria, consisting of a total of 28 Statistical Local Areas. Spatial econometric techniques were drawn on to identify location-specific factors that stimulate clustering of tourism and hospitality employment. Five contextual factors of geographic space that positively and significantly impact on T&H employment clustering were identified in Victoria. These include: the tourism potential index, proximity to coast, density of road network, gross regional product and index of economic resources. These variables collectively explained about 55 percent of variability in T&H employment. The tests indicated the improved fit for the added variable (i.e. spatially lagged dependent variable) and confirmed the significance of spatial autoregressive coefficient, suggesting the better fit of the spatial lag model over ordinary least square or spatial error model. The significant effect of the spatial lag variable also suggests the prevalence of a ‘spill-over effect’, meaning a higher concentration of T&H employment in an area exerts positive externalities on its neighbouring areas. These spatial clusters could potentially act as growth foci to create synergy and foster spill-over effects through sharing of resources between inter-related and interdependent firms operating supply chains within the tourism sector. The adoption of an integrated cluster-based spatial planning framework was shown to have the potential to permit tourism-led economic growth to be better spatially dispersed across Victoria. It is anticipated that through further investment in these employment clusters, the quality of tourism service can be improved, the tourism destinations can be better connected, the labour supply and tourism infrastructure can be better utilised and shared. The benefits associated with economies of scale and agglomeration will strengthen the competitive advantage and strategic positioning of Victoria as a leading international tourist destination. However, the successful implementation of clustering as a policy would require a stronger government stimulus to ignite the synergy towards creating vibrant tourism and hospitality employment clusters of global significance

Multi-objective decision analytics for short-notice bushfire evacuation: An Australian case study

This paper develops a multi-objective optimisation model to compute resource allocation,shelter assignment and routing options to evacuate late evacuees from affected areas to shelters.Three bushfire scenarios are analysed to incorporate constraints of restricted time-window and potential road disruptions.Capacity and number of rescue vehicles and shelters are other constraints that are identical in all scenarios.The proposed mathematical model is solved by ?-constraint approach.Objective functions are simultaneously optimised to maximise the total number of evacuees and assigned rescue vehicles and shelters.We argue that this model provides a scenario-based decision-making platform to aid minimise resource utilisation and maximise coverage of late evacuees

Renal Transplantation and Pregnancy

Introduction: Although pregnancy after kidney transplantation is feasible, complications are relatively common and this needs to be considered in patient counseling and clinical decision making.Review: Fertility generally returns after renal transplantation. Approximately 74% of pregnancies in kidney transplant recipients end successfully in life births. Published reports suggest that pregnancy has no adverse affects on graft survival although patients with higher pre-pregnancy serum creatinine have a trend toward increased post-pregnancy serum creatinine. There is, however, a significantly increased risk of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, cesarean section and preterm delivery compared to the general population. Almost half life births are preterm, and low birth weight is very common. Immunosuppressive medications are required to be continued during pregnancy in transplant recipients to prevent graft rejection, except for  sirolimus and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) which are contraindicated during pregnancy. The incidence of birth defects in the live born is similar to the general population, except for pregnancies exposed to MMF which have a high incidence of birth defects. Every female in the reproductive age group should be counseled regarding pregnancy including the potential risks to the graft, to the mother and to the child. Timing pregnancy should be based upon whether graft function is optimal, but the general recommendation is to wait one year post transplantation before conception.Conclusion: Pregnancy in renal transplant patients should be planned with combined care from surgeons, nephrologists, obstetricians, pediatricians and dietitians which offers the best chance of a favorable outcome in the mother and the fetus

Effect of micelles on hydrolysis of di-2,3-dichloroaniline phosphate

551-562The effect of anionic surfactant, di-octylsodium sulphosuccinate (AOT) and nonionic surfactant, polyoxyethylene sorbitanmonooleate (Tween-80) on the hydrolysis of di-2,3-dichloroaniline phosphate was studied spectrophotometrically at 303 K. The influence of inorganic salts on the reaction rate was studied. The added salts viz. KCl, KNO3, and K2SO4 accelerated the rate of the reaction in the presence of anionic and nonionic micelles. The role of anionic and non-ionic micelle has been explained by the Menger-Portnoy, and Piszkiewicz models. The binding constant (Ks), rate constant (kψ) in the micellar phase, co-operativity index (n) and various thermodynamic activation parameters viz. ∆Ea, ∆S≠, ∆H≠, ∆G≠ etc. have been evaluated. Possible reaction mechanism has been proposed on the basis of the observed kinetic data

Consumption of rice, acceptability and sensory qualities of fortified rice amongst consumers of social safety net rice in Nepal

INTRODUCTION: Micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent in Nepal where starchy foods constitute a large proportion of diets and consumption of micronutrient-rich foods is inadequate. We conducted a study to determine whether rice would be an appropriate vehicle for micronutrient fortification in Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In Bajura in remote rural Nepal, we conducted a household survey to characterize rice intakes in 195 households, and a double-blinded acceptability test with 177 social safety net rice consumers ≥18 years of age. Of these, 168 tasted fortified and unfortified rice to assess whether respondents could differentiate between fortified and non-fortified rice and their sensory properties. Rice was fortified by blending hot extruded kernels containing 6 micronutrients together with non-fortified rice at a 1:99 ratio. We used binomial tests to assess whether participants could correctly differentiate fortified rice, from non-fortified rice and paired t-tests to compare scores for sensory qualities of cooked fortified and non-fortified rice. We used multiple regression to test associations between per capita consumption and age, gender, wealth and food security. RESULTS: Per capita consumption of rice (median 216g/day, IQR 144.0, 288.0) did not vary by wealth but was +52.08g, (95% CI 10.43, 93.72) higher amongst moderately to severely food insecure households compared with food secure / mildly food insecure. Most respondents could not differentiate fortified rice from non-fortified rice: 37.5% identified uncooked fortified rice and 39.3% cooked rice, which was not different from the 33% expected by chance (p = 0.22 and p = 0.09 respectively). The sensory qualities of fortified rice were acceptable (scoring 3.9 out of 5) and did not differ from non-fortified rice (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: A rice fortification programme implemented through the Nepal Food Corporation's social safety nets has potential because purchase and consumption of rice is high and fortified rice is acceptable among consumers in remote food insecure areas of Nepal