An Empirical Taxonomy of Tourist Information Search Strategies

An empirical taxonomy of tourists’ information search strategies is developed based on a survey of a large sample of tourists. The taxonomy reveals five different information search strategies. Each search strategy consists of the combination of individual information sources used by tourists in pre-trip planning. The five information search strategies are related to select tourist demographic characteristics, trip activities, accommodation choices, and general media preferences. The results indicate a multivariate relationship between tourist demographics and information search strategies. Furthermore, information search strategies are related to tourists’ preferred trip activities and choice of accommodations. Implications of the taxonomy for tourism marketing and research are discussed

Largest Lyapunov Exponent for Many Particle Systems at Low Densities

The largest Lyapunov exponent $\lambda^+$ for a dilute gas with short range interactions in equilibrium is studied by a mapping to a clock model, in which every particle carries a watch, with a discrete time that is advanced at collisions. This model has a propagating front solution with a speed that determines $\lambda^+$, for which we find a density dependence as predicted by Krylov, but with a larger prefactor. Simulations for the clock model and for hard sphere and hard disk systems confirm these results and are in excellent mutual agreement. They show a slow convergence of $\lambda^+$ with increasing particle number, in good agreement with a prediction by Brunet and Derrida.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 2 Figures (encapsulated postscript). Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Loss of monomorphic and polymorphic HLA antigens in metastatic breast and colon carcinoma.

MHC class I antigens are intimately involved in intercellular communication, and recognition by cytotoxic T cells. Thus tumour cells that fail to express them may be at a growth or metastatic advantage. A series of ten colorectal and ten breast carcinomas, and their respective lymph node metastases, were examined immunohistologically using monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against both monomorphic and A2 polymorphic determinants, and beta-2-microglobulin (beta 2m). Four colon polypoid adenomas stained positively throughout, but 6/10 primary tumours had partial or complete loss of expression of monomorphic determinants using mAb W6/32: two node and the liver metastasis showed less, four more expression. Similar results were seen for beta 2m. HLA-A2 expression was absent or reduced in 4/4 colon tumours and all their metastases. Among the breast tumours, W6/32 staining was absent or reduced in 2/10, and node deposits showed two with less reactivity than their primary. Beta 2m staining was reduced or absent in 8/10 primaries and all the node metastases; in every case in which beta 2m was detected in the primary tumour their corresponding lymph node metastasis showed a decreased expression. HLA-A2 expression was absent or reduced in 3/4 primary breast carcinomas, and all their metastases. These results show that individual human colon and breast carcinomas often have a reduced HLA class I antigen expression, which apparently confers a metastatic advantage

Between international donors and local faith communities: Intermediaries in humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon

This paper explores the crucial part that faith‐based organisations (FBOs) play in acting as intermediaries between international donors and local faith communities (LFCs) implementing humanitarian relief projects for Syrian refugees. Humanitarian responses to the mounting Syrian refugee crisis have coincided with greater collaboration between international donors and LFCs. This cooperation often is facilitated by a complex web of non‐state intermediaries at the international, national, and local level. This study probes the breadth of roles of these intermediaries, drawing on primary data from case studies of two Christian intermediaries supporting Christian LFCs as they deliver aid primarily to Muslim Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The results of the study are connected to the wider literature on LFCs in humanitarian response, revealing how intermediaries address issues of accountability, capacity‐building, impartiality, neutrality, and professionalism. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for further research on intermediaries as key actors in the localisation of humanitarian assistance

Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations

A fully self-consistent treatment of short-range correlations in nuclear matter is presented. Different implementations of the determination of the nucleon spectral functions for different interactions are shown to be consistent with each other. The resulting saturation densities are closer to the empirical result when compared with (continuous-choice) Brueckner-Hartree-Fock values. Arguments for the dominance of short-range correlations in determining the nuclear-matter saturation density are presented. A further survey of the role of long-range correlations suggests that the inclusion of pionic contributions to ring diagrams in nuclear matter leads to higher saturation densities than empirically observed. A possible resolution of the nuclear-matter saturation problem is suggested.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Phys.Rev.Let

Spelling in adolescents with dyslexia: errors and modes of assessment

In this study we focused on the spelling of high-functioning students with dyslexia. We made a detailed classification of the errors in a word and sentence dictation task made by 100 students with dyslexia and 100 matched control students. All participants were in the first year of their bachelor’s studies and had Dutch as mother tongue. Three main error categories were distinguished: phonological, orthographic, and grammatical errors (on the basis of morphology and language-specific spelling rules). The results indicated that higher-education students with dyslexia made on average twice as many spelling errors as the controls, with effect sizes of d ≥ 2. When the errors were classified as phonological, orthographic, or grammatical, we found a slight dominance of phonological errors in students with dyslexia. Sentence dictation did not provide more information than word dictation in the correct classification of students with and without dyslexia

COVID-19 publications: Database coverage, citations, readers, tweets, news, Facebook walls, Reddit posts

© 2020 The Authors. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00066The COVID-19 pandemic requires a fast response from researchers to help address biological, medical and public health issues to minimize its impact. In this rapidly evolving context, scholars, professionals and the public may need to quickly identify important new studies. In response, this paper assesses the coverage of scholarly databases and impact indicators during 21 March to 18 April 2020. The rapidly increasing volume of research, is particularly accessible through Dimensions, and less through Scopus, the Web of Science, and PubMed. Google Scholar’s results included many false matches. A few COVID-19 papers from the 21,395 in Dimensions were already highly cited, with substantial news and social media attention. For this topic, in contrast to previous studies, there seems to be a high degree of convergence between articles shared in the social web and citation counts, at least in the short term. In particular, articles that are extensively tweeted on the day first indexed are likely to be highly read and relatively highly cited three weeks later. Researchers needing wide scope literature searches (rather than health focused PubMed or medRxiv searches) should start with Dimensions (or Google Scholar) and can use tweet and Mendeley reader counts as indicators of likely importance

Impact of a physician intervention program to increase breast cancer screening

In order to improve compliance with the National Cancer Institute\u27s breast cancer screening guidelines, we developed a multifaceted intervention designed to alter physician screening practice. A pre-post test, two-community design was used. Primary care physicians in one community served as the control. Data were collected by two mailed surveys (1987 and 1990). Response rates were 61% and 64%, respectively. The physician intervention program consisted of a hospital-based continuing medical education program and an outreach component which focused on implementing a reminder system. Outcome measures were self-reported attitudinal, knowledge, and screening practices changes. In spite of an impressive change in comparison community physicians\u27 practice, the difference in change over time in the intervention community physicians\u27 ordering of annual mammography compared to the change in the comparison community physicians\u27 ordering was significant (P = 0.04). The adjusted odds ratio is nearly 8. We conclude that our in-service continuing medical education program was successful in improving breast cancer screening practices among primary care physicians

Processing and Transmission of Information

Contains reports on seven research projects