Economy and Ecology: Encounters and Interweaving

In this editorial text, we point to the importance and development of disciplines that closely link economic sciences with ecology. Drawing on the most important literature in these fields, we have highlighted the trends that are popular today in both fields (double eco features)

Residents’ perceptions of wine tourism on the rural destinations development

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of wine tourism on rural destination development. Consequently, this study attempts to develop contemporary insights on this under-researched area such as residents’ perceptions of wine tourism and its impact on the rural destination development. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the authors used a structured survey questionnaire from a random sample of 318 respondents based on the Fruška Gora Mountain in Serbia. Research also used structural equational modeling for empirical econometric testing in this data sample. This technique is appropriate for multivariate analysis. Findings – Personal resident benefit associated with wineries is positively related to resident perceived economic impact (H1) R2 ¼ 0.624; socio-cultural impact (H2) R2 ¼ 0.685 and environmental impact (H3) R2 ¼ 0.716 of wineries on local communities. Looking at the path diagram, the authors concluded that personal resident benefit associated with wineries is strongly related to resident perceived impact of wineries on local communities as regression weights are higher. Other findings relate those residents’ positive perceptions of wine tourism to increases in sales revenue, environmental protection, intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. Research limitations/implications – The positive attitude of the local population is an essential link of development. Such understanding of residents’ perceptions optimizes destination management in the future and, more importantly, local sustainable development. This has high policy implications. Originality/value – The present study contributes to the scientific circles by connecting perception research with wine tourism

Strategic Design Versus Silent Design: A Reckoning

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Shams, M. and Lam, B. (2016), Strategic Design Versus Silent Design: A Reckoning. Design Management Review, 27: 28-33., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/drev.12034. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Version

¿Influyen las mujeres directivas en el coste de la financiación bancaria? La experiencia de Australia

We investigate the effect of women directors on the cost of bank loans for a sample of Australian listed firms during the period 2002-2017. More women on both boards and committees are associated with lower loan spreads, reduced default risk, and improved financial reporting quality. The reduction in loan spread is seen from when the first female director joins the board, and the effect of that is stronger than the effects of additional (second and subsequent) women joining the board. Moreover, womens leadership status reinforces this effect. Our results are consistent with the idea that female directors exhibit greater risk aversion than male directors, that women are not treated as tokens and are influential even as a minority group on the board and that they enhance corporate governance and reporting quality.Investigamos el efecto de las mujeres consejeras en el coste de los préstamos bancarios para una muestra de empresas australianas que cotizan en bolsa durante el período 2002-2017. Un mayor número de mujeres tanto en los consejos de administración como en los comités se asocia con menores diferenciales de los préstamos, un menor riesgo de impago y una mejor calidad de los informes financieros. La reducción del diferencial de los préstamos se observa desde la primera mujer consejera, y resulta más intensa que los efectos asociados a las siguientes (segunda y siguientes) mujeres incorporadas al consejo. Además, el estatus de liderazgo de la mujer refuerza este efecto. Nuestros resultados son coherentes con las nociones de que las mujeres consejeras muestran una mayor aversión al riesgo que los hombres consejeros, que las mujeres no son tratadas como símbolo siendo influyentes incluso como grupo minoritario en el consejo y que mejoran el gobierno corporativo y la calidad de la información

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms: An exciting era of genome sequence analysis

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019. DNA referred to as blueprint of life codes for the diversity and function of all the living organisms. Determining DNA sequences of the living organisms not only gives an overview of their genetic makeup, but also provides information about their function. Nonetheless it was not easy to determine the genome sequencing of all the diversity around us especially with the technologies available before 2010. Therefore, determining the sequence of humans and some other organisms only was prioritized. Pioneering methods for DNA sequencing given discovered by Maxam and Gilbert, and Sanger although were very powerful and popular but were not high throughput and economic. Therefore, it was necessary to develop new economic and high-throughput methods that can sequence the biodiversity consequently providing better insights of their possible function. New methods were developed and commercialized by Roche Life Sciences, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Illumina, and Applied Biosystems. These methods generally referred to as next-generation sequencing methods have revolutionized the DNA sequencing. Many sequencing platforms employing NGS have been developed including pyrosequencing, Ion Torrent technology, Illumina/Solexa platform, and SOLiD (Sequencing by Oligonucleotide Ligation and Detection). Further optimization has led to innovative third and fourth-generation platforms as single molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing by PacBio, nanopore sequencing, etc. As a consequence there is a sharp increase in the number of genomes being published and other genome-based studies since 2012. This has made it easy even to imagine of sequencing the genomes of individuals. Furthermore, scientists are now looking for third-generation sequencers that may be significantly different from the sequencers that are currently available

Statistical Evaluation of the Shock Wave Boundary Layer Interaction Phenomenon

Turbulent velocity and thermal correlations from direct numerical simulation data of a spatially growing compressible turbulent boundary layer interacting with an impinging shock are discussed. The cross-stream variation of the velocity second-moments and the thermal fluxes one boundary layer thickness upstream of the shock impingement point are discussed. Other correlations are examined to further statistically quantify the effect of the oblique shock-turbulence interaction