551 research outputs found
Exploring a developing tourism industry: A resource-based view approach.
This exploratory study examines dimensions related to tourism development in the case of Uruguay. Internal and external analyses were conducted to identify key resources to maximise opportunities and minimise threats to the country’s tourism development. The study, which adopts the resource-based view of the firm, is based on the perspectives of key tourism stakeholders. Unstructured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with eight key informants, three representing government institutions, three private, and two public-private. The interviews revealed opportunities in various fronts, primarily consolidating and expanding international markets, and developing additional offerings, including convention/event and heritage tourism to minimise the effects of seasonality. Strong dependence on neighbouring markets, marginal airline connectivity and knowledge of Uruguay internationally were main perceived barriers to further development. The value of employing the resource-based framework in guiding understanding of the themes under investigation was confirmed. Implications emerging from the findings are discussed, and future research directions suggested
On Kaluza's sign criterion for reciprocal power series
T. Kaluza has given a criterion for the signs of the power series of a
function that is the reciprocal of another power series. In this note the
sharpness of this condition is explored and various examples in terms of the
Gaussian hypergeometric series are given. A criterion for the monotonicity of
the quotient of two power series due to M. Biernacki and J. Krzy\.z is applied.Comment: 13 page
Temperature dependent surface relaxations of Ag(111)
The temperature dependent surface relaxation of Ag(111) is calculated by
density-functional theory. At a given temperature, the equilibrium geometry is
determined by minimizing the Helmholtz free energy within the quasiharmonic
approximation. To this end, phonon dispersions all over the Brillouin zone are
determined from density-functional perturbation theory. We find that the
top-layer relaxation of Ag(111) changes from an inward contraction (-0.8 %) to
an outward expansion (+6.3%) as the temperature increases from T=0 K to 1150 K,
in agreement with experimental findings. Also the calculated surface phonon
dispersion curves at room temperature are in good agreement with helium
scattering measurements. The mechanism driving this surface expansion is
analyzed.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B (May 1998). Other
related publications can be found at
http://www.rz-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm
First-principles calculation of the thermal properties of silver
The thermal properties of silver are calculated within the quasi-harmonic
approximation, by using phonon dispersions from density-functional perturbation
theory, and the pseudopotential plane-wave method. The resulting free energy
provides predictions for the temperature dependence of various quantities such
as the equilibrium lattice parameter, the bulk modulus, and the heat capacity.
Our results for the thermal properties are in good agreement with available
experimental data in a wide range of temperatures. As a by-product, we
calculate phonon frequency and Grueneisen parameter dispersion curves which are
also in good agreement with experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B April 30, 1998). Other
related publications can be found at
http://www.rz-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm
Ab initio study of the volume dependence of dynamical and thermodynamical properties of silicon
Motivated by the negative thermal expansion observed for silicon between 20 K
and 120 K, we present first an ab initio study of the volume dependence of
interatomic force constants, phonon frequencies of TA(X) and TA(L) modes, and
of the associated mode Gruneisen parameters. The influence of successive
nearest neighbors shells is analysed. Analytical formulas, taking into account
interactions up to second nearest neighbors, are developped for phonon
frequencies of TA(X) and TA(L) modes and the corresponding mode Gruneisen
parameters. We also analyze the volume and pressure dependence of various
thermodynamic properties (specific heat, bulk modulus, thermal expansion), and
point out the effect of the negative mode Gruneisen parameters of the acoustic
branches on these properties. Finally, we present the evolution of the mean
square atomic displacement and of the atomic temperature factor with the
temperature for different volumes, for which the anomalous effects are even
greater.Comment: 24 pages, Revtex 3.0, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev.
Simultaneous model-based clustering and visualization in the Fisher discriminative subspace
Clustering in high-dimensional spaces is nowadays a recurrent problem in many
scientific domains but remains a difficult task from both the clustering
accuracy and the result understanding points of view. This paper presents a
discriminative latent mixture (DLM) model which fits the data in a latent
orthonormal discriminative subspace with an intrinsic dimension lower than the
dimension of the original space. By constraining model parameters within and
between groups, a family of 12 parsimonious DLM models is exhibited which
allows to fit onto various situations. An estimation algorithm, called the
Fisher-EM algorithm, is also proposed for estimating both the mixture
parameters and the discriminative subspace. Experiments on simulated and real
datasets show that the proposed approach performs better than existing
clustering methods while providing a useful representation of the clustered
data. The method is as well applied to the clustering of mass spectrometry
data
A cross-national study on the antecedents of work–life balance from the fit and balance perspective
Drawing on the perceived work–family fit and balance perspective, this study investigates demands and resources as antecedents of work–life balance (WLB) across four countries (New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain), so as to provide empirical cross-national evidence. Using structural equation modelling analysis on a sample of 870 full time employees, we found that work demands, hours worked and family demands were negatively related to WLB, while job autonomy and supervisor support were positively related to WLB. We also found evidence that resources (job autonomy and supervisor support) moderated the relationships between demands and work–life balance, with high resources consistently buffering any detrimental influence of demands on WLB. Furthermore, our study identified additional predictors of WLB that were unique to some national contexts. For example, in France and Italy, overtime hours worked were negatively associated with WLB, while parental status was positively associated with WLB. Overall, the implications for theory and practice are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Changes in Arterial Oxygen Tension Correlate with Changes in End-expiratory Carbon Monoxide Level
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