A Tourism Satellite Account assessment of the impact of cruise industry on the greek economy

The cruise industry is a sub-sector of maritime tourism and it constitutes a dynamic market with substantial investments being made world-wide mainly on port facilities as well on the shipbuilding of luxurious cruisers. Cruising is a Special Interest Tourism showing robust growth rates during the last two decades worldwide. The cruise is a multi-complex concept and combines a large part of the so called “tourist chain”: transport, catering/provisioning, tourism, entertainment, and travel (Wild & Dearing 2000). Greek cruising originated already in the decade of 1930, when the first Greek cruise companies offer cruises in the Aegean and the wider area of the Mediterranean. By 2003 there were nine ships under Greek flag and almost 25 Greek owned. The Greek cruise sector operated under cabotage protection till 1999. The abolishment of cabotage was confronted in contradictory ways by Greek ship owners as well as by other Europeans. The E.U policy aimed at establishing markets free from the state’s interventionism and protectionism and at the same time at creating more competitive conditions in order to facilitate the access by all companies (Lekakou et al. 2003). Nevertheless, Greek cruising is present and follows international trends The contribution of the sector to the national economy depends on the level of expenditures realized by the “producers” and “consumers” of the cruise industry. The questions therefore that need to be answered through this research are: • What do visitors buy and which industries are most affected by these purchases? • Who are the main visitors (that is. households, businesses, government employees or non-residents)? • How many people are employed in the cruise and related tourism industries? • How much capital formation has been undertaken by the cruise industry? The paper examines the contribution of the Cruise sector to the Greek Economy and estimates the economic impacts on the major macroeconomic values for the year 2004. The aim of the analysis is to investigate the way and the degree in which the cruise activity contributes to the national economy. The research reveals a basic problem: the relevant weakness of public services and private sector in providing data, concerning specific shipping activities, such as the cruise sector. The data obstacle became higher since cruising is not an immiscible activity but a combination of other sectors (Wild & Dearing, 2000). That’s why the overall estimation and evaluation of the sector demands data from different but related sources. The breadth of data is wide and specialized. The implementation of a suitable methodological tool, such as the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), will allow a thorough and accurate evaluation of cruising economic impact on the major macroeconomic values, and finally will reveal to useful results. Since the TSA tables require information with economic value, primary researche has been conducted in order to collect necessary data. The paper concludes by presenting the impacts of Cruising on the major macroeconomic values of the Greek economy

Yachting in Greece: Economic Impacts

The aim of this paper is the investigation of the Tourism Satellite Account implementation for the estimation of Yachting economic impacts to the Greek Economy. The method has been applied by several countries for the estimation of economic effects of tourism globally (Welsh Economy Research Unit, 2004: vi), no however for the economic effects of an alternative form of tourism, as yachting. The method up to today has not been applied in Greece neither for the total of tourist activity, nor for a specific type of alternative tourism. For the research needs satisfaction, the adaption of Tourism Satellite Account tables is essential, under the condition of maintaining the harmonization with the OECD directives and definitions which are approved and accepted internationally. For the achievement of research’s aim, the theoretical and empirical frame of Yachting in Greece, is investigated. The paper is concluded by presenting the provisional and expected results

Possibilities for a Greek Tourism Satellite Account development

The increasingly important role of tourism in the economy, its growth and potential for job creation, the fragmentation of this business sector, and the cross-sectoral nature of tourism policies are all elements that have led the OECD's Tourism Committee to design a new economic instrument for tourism which provides insights into the socio-economic impact, structure and development of activities related to tourism. The Tourism Satellite Accounts method, initially proposed by French researchers and first successfully applied to tourism by Canadian statisticians, provides a way to describe and measure the magnitude of tourism as a form of economic activity in a way that is consistent and comparable to conventional industries (Smith, 2000: 530). Since the Ottawa conference in 1991, several countries have published their own TSA and even more, are in the stage of creating their national TSA. The aim of this paper is to examine the possibilities for a Greek TSA development, taking into consideration the worldwide experience and the country’s statistical systems’ strengths and weaknesses

Detailed ab initio first-Principles study of the magnetic anisotropy in a family of trigonal pyramidal iron(II) pyrrolide complexes

A theoretical, computational, and conceptual framework for the interpretation and prediction of the magnetic anisotropy of transition metal complexes with orbitally degenerate or orbitally nearly degenerate ground states is explored. The treatment is based on complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) wave functions in conjunction with N-electron valence perturbation theory (NEVPT2) and quasidegenerate perturbation theory (QDPT) for treatment of magnetic field- and spin-dependent relativistic effects. The methodology is applied to a series of Fe(II) complexes in ligand fields of almost trigonal pyramidal symmetry as provided by several variants of the tris-pyrrolylmethyl amine ligand (tpa). These systems have recently attracted much attention as mononuclear single-molecule magnet (SMM) complexes. This study aims to establish how the ligand field can be fine tuned in order to maximize the magnetic anisotropy barrier. In trigonal ligand fields high-spin Fe(II) complexes adopt an orbitally degenerate ⁵E ground state with strong in-state spin–orbit coupling (SOC). We study the competing effects of SOC and the ⁵E⊗ε multimode Jahn–Teller effect as a function of the peripheral substituents on the tpa ligand. These subtle distortions were found to have a significant effect on the magnetic anisotropy. Using a rigorous treatment of all spin multiplets arising from the triplet and quintet states in the d⁶ configuration the parameters of the effective spin-Hamiltonian (SH) approach were predicted from first principles. Being based on a nonperturbative approach we investigate under which conditions the SH approach is valid and what terms need to be retained. It is demonstrated that already tiny geometric distortions observed in the crystal structures of four structurally and magnetically well-documented systems, reported recently, i.e., [Fe(tpa®)]⁻ (R = tert-butyl, Tbu (1), mesityl, Mes (2), phenyl, Ph (3), and 2,6-difluorophenyl, Dfp (4), are enough to lead to five lowest and thermally accessible spin sublevels described sufficiently well by S = 2 SH provided that it is extended with one fourth order anisotropy term. Using this most elementary parametrization that is consistent with the actual physics, the reported magnetization data for the target systems were reinterpreted and found to be in good agreement with the ab initio results. The multiplet energies from the ab initio calculations have been fitted with remarkable consistency using a ligand field (angular overlap) model (ab initio ligand field, AILFT). This allows for determination of bonding parameters and quantitatively demonstrates the correlation between increasingly negative D values and changes in the σ-bond strength induced by the peripheral ligands. In fact, the sigma-bonding capacity (and hence the Lewis basicity) of the ligand decreases along the series 1 > 2 > 3 > 4

Correction to: Two years later: Is the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still having an impact on emergency surgery? An international cross-sectional survey among WSES members

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is still ongoing and a major challenge for health care services worldwide. In the first WSES COVID-19 emergency surgery survey, a strong negative impact on emergency surgery (ES) had been described already early in the pandemic situation. However, the knowledge is limited about current effects of the pandemic on patient flow through emergency rooms, daily routine and decision making in ES as well as their changes over time during the last two pandemic years. This second WSES COVID-19 emergency surgery survey investigates the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on ES during the course of the pandemic. Methods: A web survey had been distributed to medical specialists in ES during a four-week period from January 2022, investigating the impact of the pandemic on patients and septic diseases both requiring ES, structural problems due to the pandemic and time-to-intervention in ES routine. Results: 367 collaborators from 59 countries responded to the survey. The majority indicated that the pandemic still significantly impacts on treatment and outcome of surgical emergency patients (83.1% and 78.5%, respectively). As reasons, the collaborators reported decreased case load in ES (44.7%), but patients presenting with more prolonged and severe diseases, especially concerning perforated appendicitis (62.1%) and diverticulitis (57.5%). Otherwise, approximately 50% of the participants still observe a delay in time-to-intervention in ES compared with the situation before the pandemic. Relevant causes leading to enlarged time-to-intervention in ES during the pandemic are persistent problems with in-hospital logistics, lacks in medical staff as well as operating room and intensive care capacities during the pandemic. This leads not only to the need for triage or transferring of ES patients to other hospitals, reported by 64.0% and 48.8% of the collaborators, respectively, but also to paradigm shifts in treatment modalities to non-operative approaches reported by 67.3% of the participants, especially in uncomplicated appendicitis, cholecystitis and multiple-recurrent diverticulitis. Conclusions: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still significantly impacts on care and outcome of patients in ES. Well-known problems with in-hospital logistics are not sufficiently resolved by now; however, medical staff shortages and reduced capacities have been dramatically aggravated over last two pandemic years

Diversity and ethics in trauma and acute care surgery teams: results from an international survey

Background Investigating the context of trauma and acute care surgery, the article aims at understanding the factors that can enhance some ethical aspects, namely the importance of patient consent, the perceptiveness of the ethical role of the trauma leader, and the perceived importance of ethics as an educational subject. Methods The article employs an international questionnaire promoted by the World Society of Emergency Surgery. Results Through the analysis of 402 fully filled questionnaires by surgeons from 72 different countries, the three main ethical topics are investigated through the lens of gender, membership of an academic or non-academic institution, an official trauma team, and a diverse group. In general terms, results highlight greater attention paid by surgeons belonging to academic institutions, official trauma teams, and diverse groups. Conclusions Our results underline that some organizational factors (e.g., the fact that the team belongs to a university context or is more diverse) might lead to the development of a higher sensibility on ethical matters. Embracing cultural diversity forces trauma teams to deal with different mindsets. Organizations should, therefore, consider those elements in defining their organizational procedures. Level of evidence Trauma and acute care teams work under tremendous pressure and complex circumstances, with their members needing to make ethical decisions quickly. The international survey allowed to shed light on how team assembly decisions might represent an opportunity to coordinate team member actions and increase performance

It is time to define an organizational model for the prevention and management of infections along the surgical pathway : a worldwide cross-sectional survey

Background The objectives of the study were to investigate the organizational characteristics of acute care facilities worldwide in preventing and managing infections in surgery; assess participants' perception regarding infection prevention and control (IPC) measures, antibiotic prescribing practices, and source control; describe awareness about the global burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and IPC measures; and determine the role of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic on said awareness. Methods A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted contacting 1432 health care workers (HCWs) belonging to a mailing list provided by the Global Alliance for Infections in Surgery. The self-administered questionnaire was developed by a multidisciplinary team. The survey was open from May 22, 2021, and June 22, 2021. Three reminders were sent, after 7, 14, and 21 days. Results Three hundred four respondents from 72 countries returned a questionnaire, with an overall response rate of 21.2%. Respectively, 90.4% and 68.8% of participants stated their hospital had a multidisciplinary IPC team or a multidisciplinary antimicrobial stewardship team. Local protocols for antimicrobial therapy of surgical infections and protocols for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis were present in 76.6% and 90.8% of hospitals, respectively. In 23.4% and 24.0% of hospitals no surveillance systems for surgical site infections and no monitoring systems of used antimicrobials were implemented. Patient and family involvement in IPC management was considered to be slightly or not important in their hospital by the majority of respondents (65.1%). Awareness of the global burden of AMR among HCWs was considered very important or important by 54.6% of participants. The COVID-19 pandemic was considered by 80.3% of respondents as a very important or important factor in raising HCWs awareness of the IPC programs in their hospital. Based on the survey results, the authors developed 15 statements for several questions regarding the prevention and management of infections in surgery. The statements may be the starting point for designing future evidence-based recommendations. Conclusion Adequacy of prevention and management of infections in acute care facilities depends on HCWs behaviours and on the organizational characteristics of acute health care facilities to support best practices and promote behavioural change. Patient involvement in the implementation of IPC is still little considered. A debate on how operationalising a fundamental change to IPC, from being solely the HCWs responsibility to one that involves a collaborative relationship between HCWs and patients, should be opened.Peer reviewe