Effects of innovation diffusion on the development level for some European regions in the expansion period of the European Union

It is argued that innovation diffusion, in other words the movement of the new ideas or articrafts within an area over a number of time periods could become widespread once introduced in the area. After Schumpeter the role of the innovator has been significant as the inventor, as the developer or as the promoter. It is clear now that a number of economists have one thing in common that profit rates would be pushed to minimal levels in the absence of technical development. In fact, in the new theories of development concepts related to knowledge development and its diffusion take precedence. Moreover, concerning regional disparities and regional convergence issues in the European Union, it is pointed out that R&D investment in lagging areas could be the only way to avoid technology and development divergence between core and periphery. In this connection, it might be worthwhile to consider the enlargement process of the European Union with further expansion period. In this way, the objective of this article will be to find out probable effects of R&D on the development level in a five-years period (1996-2001) in order to examine the efficiency rate of innovation diffusion on the development level and to derive some theoretical and practical results.

An evaluation of tourism activities in Turkey with reference to sustainable regional development

As tourism becomes one of the most significant tools in regional development processes in developing areas, increasing interest turns toward the impact of tourism on environmental concerns. The changing processes and the results of many researches show if natural, historical and cultural environment could not be protected, there would be no expectations for sustainability in tourist destination areas. In this way, relevant policies on sustainable regional development appear to keep an optimality between development and environment when maximization policies for value added rates in tourism activities take priority for development plans in this respect. The main objective in this paper will be to analyse the impact of tourism activities in Turkey in the framework of some case studies on special areas which are involved in the international cultural heritage. It is supposed that intensity of problems changes related to type of tourism and characteristics of the region. In this way, some analytical methods and techniques, e.g. semantic differential testing, factor analysis and cross-table will be used in order to evaluate the contribution of tourism activities on some sample areas in sustainable regional development in Turkey as a Mediterranean country.

Creating a geodemographic classification model within geo-marketing: the case of Eskişehir province

Businesses today face great competition in their operations, making it necessary for them to adopt a “customer-oriented” approach. In this competitive environment, where customers are more valuable, enterprises accrue great advantages from an understanding of the characteristics of the target audience in all dimensions. This is where the importance of geo-marketing and demographic segmentation for enterprises emerges. This study performed a geo-demographic segmentation of the urban neighbourhoods of Eskişehir province and sought to determine the characteristics of the people living in these neighbourhoods at the household level. The Groups created using the SPSS package program as well as Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Clustering Analysis were then mapped on the GIS platform as urban neighbourhoods

Variations on Hammersley's interacting particle process

The longest increasing subsequence problem for permutations has been studied extensively in the last fifty years. The interpretation of the longest increasing subsequence as the longest 21-avoiding subsequence in the context of permutation patterns leads to many interesting research directions. We introduce and study the statistical properties of Hammersleytype interacting particle processes related to these generalizations and explore the finer structures of their distributions. We also propose three different interacting particle systems in the plane analogous to the Hammersley process in one dimension and obtain estimates for the asymptotic orders of the mean and variance of the number of particles in the systems.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Discrete Mathematics Letter

(Dis-)Kontinuitäten in der inklusiven Schulreformentwicklung. Entwicklungslinien in Baden-Württemberg und Südtirol

Die Umsetzung von Inklusion in Bildungssystemen ist maßgeblich von politischen Setzungen und Steuerungsprozessen beteiligter Akteure geprägt. Es entspricht daher dem allgemeinen Interesse zu ermitteln, welche Strategien sich als wirksam für die Implementierung inklusiver Bildungsreformen erwiesen haben. Educational Governance beschäftigt sich als wissenschaftliche Perspektive mit den komplexen Steuerungsprozessen zwischen verschiedenen Akteuren und Ebenen in Bildungssystemen. Anhand des internationalen Vergleichs der Bildungssysteme im Bundesland Baden-Württemberg (Deutschland) und der autonomen Provinz Südtirol (Italien) werden Diskontinuitäten und Kontinuitäten im Rahmen inklusiver Schulreformentwicklungen herausgearbeitet. (DIPF/Orig.)The implementation of inclusion in education systems is decisively shaped by political decisions and steering processes of the actors involved. It, therefore, corresponds to the general interest in finding out which strategies have proven effective for implementing inclusive educational reforms. Educational governance, as a scientific perspective, deals with the complex interactions between different actors and levels of educational systems. Using the international comparison of the education systems in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Italy), discontinuities and continuities in the context of inclusive school reform developments will be elaborated. (DIPF/Orig.

Geomarketing As A Tool For Health Service Business: Private Hospital Application

Geomarketing, a new way of knowledge-based marketing, integrates geographic analysis, reasoning, and technology for the improvement of the business judgmental decision. Geomarketing can help you find out who your best customers are and apply geographic analysis techniques to discover where to find more of them. Solving almost any sales and marketing challenge start with knowing who your customer is. Therefore; private hospitals, as commercial businesses with huge investments, also need to find out their best customers and discover where to find more of them. In other words, private hospitals also need customer profiling with geomarketing tools. In this context, the aim of this study is to analyze spatial density, based on the demographic characteristics of customers of private hospitals. A small private hospital, located in Eskisehir city center was chosen for this study. In one year period, the address locations, frequency of visits, clinic choices and neighborhood concentrations of the patients, due to the demographic characteristics, were examined using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from the hospital patient records

Entropi ve Aras Yöntemleriyle Havayolu İşletmelerinde Hizmet Kalitesinin Değerlendirilmesi Evaluation of Service Quality in Airlines By Entropy and ARAS Methods

Günümüzde havayolu taşımacılığı hızlı ve konforlu ulaşım hizmeti sunarak önemli bir büyüme trendi yakalamıştır. Havacılık sektörünün ekonomik olarak oldukça hassas bir yapıda olması havayolu işletmelerini rekabet avantajı elde edebilmek için hizmet kalitesini ön planda tutmaya zorlamaktadır. Bu çalışmada da hizmet kalitesinin her alanda olduğu gibi havayolu taşımacılığında oldukça önemli bir unsur olmasından hareketle 2016 yılında en fazla yolcu taşıyan 11 havayolu işletmesinin hizmet kalitesi değerlendirilmiştir. Çalışma kapsamında kullanılan veriler ikincil veriler olup Skytrax web sitesinden elde edilmiştir. Bu kapsamda havaalanı hizmetleri, lounge hizmetleri, uçak içi hizmetler ve kabin ekibine ilişkin unsurlara ilişkin yolcu görüşleri değerlendirme kriteri olarak ele alınmıştır. Öncelikle Entropi yöntemi ile kriter ağırlıkları elde edilmiş, ardından ARAS yöntemi ile havayolu işletmelerinin hizmet kalitesine göre değerlendirilerek sıralanmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda en iyi hizmet kalitesi performansını ANA (All Nippon Airways) havayolunun gösterdiği görülmüştür. Nowadays, air transport has achieved a significant growth trend by offering fast and convenient transportation service. The fact that the aviation industry is an economically sensitive structure forces airline companies to prioritize the quality of service in order to gain competitive advantage. In this study, the service quality of 11 airline companies carrying the highest number of passengers in 2016 was evaluated considering that service quality is a very important factor in air transport as it is in all areas. The data used in the study are secondary data and obtained from the Skytrax website. In this context, passenger opinions about airport services, lounge services, inflight services and cabin staff are evaluated as the evaluation criteria. First of all, criteria weights were obtained by Entropy method and then service quality of airline companies was analyzed and ranked by ARAS method. ANA (All Nippon Airways) showed the best service quality performance as a result of the study

Moderate hypothermia and responses to calcium channel blockers – Role of the nitric oxide

Moderate hypothermia (25–31 °C) may have a significant influence on vascular tone. At present, very little is known about the role of endothelial nitric oxide on the hypothermia-induced responses. In this study, we investigated the effect of hypothermia (to 28 °C) on the vasodilatation induced by verapamil, a phenylalkylamine calcium channel blocker (10−9–3 × 10−4 M) and dihydropyridines, amlodipine (10−9–3 × 10−4 M), and benidipine (10−9–10−3 M) on 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT or serotonin) precontracted calf cardiac veins. Furthermore, the role of nitric oxide in the hypothermia-induced responses was analyzed. Ring preparations of veins obtained from calf hearts were suspended in organ baths containing 15 ml of Krebs–Henseleit solution, maintained at 37 °C, and continuously gassed with 95% O2–5% CO2. After a resting period, verapamil, amlodipine, and benidipine were applied cumulatively on serotonin (10−6 M) precontracted calf cardiac vein rings and induced concentration-dependent relaxations. In another part of the study, the medium temperature was decreased to 28 °C after the preparations were contracted with 5-HT, then cumulative concentrations of verapamil, amlodipine, or benidipine were added. During hypothermia, the pIC50 value, but not the maximal response, to all blockers were significantly higher than at 37 °C. Hypothermia in the presence of NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, 10−4 M) decreased the pIC50 and Emax values to verapamil, amlodipine, and benidipine. Only one blocker was tested in each preparation. These results suggest that nitric oxide may play a role in the hypothermia-induced changes in vasodilation caused by verapamil, amlodipine, and benidipine in calf cardiac vein, but further research is needed to explain the complete mechanism

Moderate hypothermia attenuates α₁-adrenoceptor-mediated contraction in human varicose spermatic vein: The role of nitric oxide(Short communication)

The effects of moderate hypothermia (28 °C) on the response of human varicose spermatic vein to α1-adrenoceptor agonist phenylephrine and the role of endothelial nitric oxide (NO) in these effects were studied. Concentration–response curves for phenylephrine (10−9 to 3 × 10−4 M) were recorded in rings with and without endothelium at 37 and 28 °C. To further analyze the role of NO, in the response to phenylephrine during hypothermia, the effects of this agonist in the presence of NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (10−4 M) were also determined. Under every condition tested, phenylephrine produced a marked, concentration-dependent contraction. Sensitivity of intact veins to the agonist was consistently lower at 28 °C than at 37 °C. There was no significant difference in phenylephrine response at 28 and 37 °C in vessels without endothelium but at 28 °C veins without endothelium showed a higher sensitivity than intact veins to phenylephrine. The sensitivity of veins with and without endothelium to nitroprusside (10−9 to 3 × 10−3 M) was significantly decreased during hypothermia, and endothelium removal did not affect the relaxation to this nitrovasodilator. These results suggest that moderate hypothermia decreases the sensitivity of human varicose spermatic vein to phenylephrine probably by increasing the availability of endothelial NO

The Necessity of Inclusive Education for the Renewal of Governance Concepts in Education: Germany and Luxembourg Compared

Die hohe und gestiegene Bedeutung inklusiver Bildung – für Individuen und Gesellschaften gleichermaßen – wird global, national, regional und lokal von verschiedensten Akteur*innen hervorgehoben sowie zunehmend auch wissenschaftlich multidisziplinär diskutiert. Fragen der Steuerung, der Governance, hingegen, sind bisher im deutschsprachigen Raum nur wenig systematisch oder umfassend analysiert worden, obwohl mehrere Wissenschaftsdisziplinen sich zunehmend mit diesen Fragen auseinandersetzen. Während politikwissenschaftliche Analysen die Machtstrukturen, Pfadabhängigkeiten und Entscheidungsprozesse fokussieren haben soziologische Analysen die globale Diffusion von Diskursen und Normen sowie systembedingte Komplexitäten und Umsetzungsschwierigkeiten vielfältiger Reformen verdeutlicht. Die Erziehungswissenschaft, nicht nur in der deutsch-sprachigen Welt, hat sich lange Zeit schwer getan, sich eindeutig zu den brisanten bildungs- als auch sozialpolitischen Fragen der inklusiven Bildung – auch die zentrale Frage der Governance – zu positionieren, weil es das fundamentale Verhältnis von Allgemeiner und Sonderpädagogik hinterfragt sowie in letzter Konsequenz die Transformation des gegliederten und hochgradig selektiven Bildungswesen verlangt. Dieser Band beleuchtet eben dieses Spannungsverhältnis aus verschiedenen Perspektiven; in diesem Beitrag wird deshalb versucht, verschiedene Dimensionen der Governance auf der Forschungsagenda zu platzieren, wie auch in zwei konkreten Fällen – Deutschland und Luxemburg – zu vertiefen