Destination India: Investigating the impact of Goa\u27s attributes on families\u27 leisure travel experience

The recent discourse of tourism development among officials within the Government of India has included the state of Goa, mainly because it has consistently witnessed positive economic impacts from tourism. However, in view of competition from other destinations, Goan tourism planners will need to identify important attributes of Goa that will positively affect tourists\u27 destination loyalty. This study examines the correlation between five attributes of Goa and tourists\u27 loyalty to Goa. Families traveling to Goa are targeted in this research because they represent a significant portion (39.5%) of the overall tourist arrivals in 2012. A sample of 258 families was collected, through convenience sampling, at the departure hall of Goa\u27s Dabolim Airport between September and October 2012. The findings of the study revealed that all the attributes investigated have exerted destination loyalty. Moreover, price and accessibility are found to the least significant influence on the loyalty to Goa, These findings contradict those from past studies on individual travelers. Implications of the findings along with suggestions for future research for the tourism industry are also presented in the final section of this paper

RENTQUAL: a new measurement scale for car rental services

Service quality perception is one of the key determinants of customer satisfaction and repeat purchase. As such, it has received considerable attention in the marketing literature. Quality issues in the car rental industry, however, have received less attention. Furthermore, there is lack of a scale developed to measure service quality in car rental services. This paper aims to develop a measurement scale in accordance with the procedure recommended by Churchill (1979) and Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988). Empirical studies were conducted in two waves. First, qualitative research was undertaken in the form of 23 in-depth interviews that produced 61 items describing tourists’ perceptions. Then, a quantitative study was used to purify the scale items and to examine dimensionality, reliability, factor structure and validity. Finally, an 18-item RENTQUAL scale with the following six factors emerged: comfort, delivery, safety, handing over, ergonomics and accessibility. Results show that safety is the most important factor in car rental services. Paper also presents scale development procedure, discussion, implications and limitations

Mapping Out Factors Constraining Tourist Complaints: Hints For Managers Who Wish To Hear More

Abstract: Present study aims (i) to review how unique features of the tourism industry that may shape its consumers' complaining behaviors and (ii) to find out possible constraints of tourist complaining. Given that tourism is comparatively a new discipline most theories being used to explain this phenomenon are borrowed from mainstream disciplines. Perhaps for this reason many scholars directly use consumer behavior theories to examine tourist behaviors without considering the unique features of the tourism industry. In tourism industry where service failures are unavoidable due to its inherent nature success of any company requires hearing from their unhappy customers. To do so, managers need to understand factors stopping their customers to voice their dissatisfaction. In this vein, results of a thorough literature review suggested that there are five constraints (time, involvement, communication, familiarity and holiday mood) that managers should be mindful, if they want to receive complaints. Section on major findings of the relevant literature is followed by definitions of these constructs and presentation of the implications for the academia and industry

Reversible Electrical Reduction and Oxidation of Graphene Oxide

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We demonstrate that graphene oxide can be reversibly reduced and oxidized using electrical stimulus. Controlled reduction and oxidation in two-terminal devices containing multilayer graphene oxide films are shown to result in switching between partially reduced graphene oxide and graphene, a process which modifies the electronic and optical properties. High-resolution tunneling current and electrostatic force imaging reveal that graphene oxide islands are formed on multilayer graphene, turning graphene into a self-assembled heterostructure random nanomesh. Charge storage and resistive switching behavior is observed in two-terminal devices made of multilayer graphene oxide films, correlated with electrochromic effects. Tip-induced reduction and oxidation are also demonstrated. Results are discussed in terms of thermodynamics of oxidation and reduction reactions

Relationship of the bovine IGF1, TG, DGAT1 and MYF5 genes to meat colour, tenderness and cooking loss

ΔΕΝ ΔΙΑΤΙΘΕΤΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗBovine insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), thyroglobulin (TG), diacylglycerol-O-acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) and myogenic factor 5 (MYF5) genes play an important role in the physiology of lipid and muscle metabolism and are therefore considered as candidate genes for meat production traits in farm animals. The objectives of this study were to investigate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in IGF1, TG, DGAT1 and MYF5 genes and to evaluate whether these polymorphisms affected meat colour, tenderness and cooking loss in Holstein cattle. Initially, the SNPs were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method. Meat samples (N= 50) derived from M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) were used in the current study. Significant differences in variations of meat colour parameters were observed at 24 hours post-mortem. IGF1 was associated with colour parameters of a* and chroma values. In addition, effects of TG were statistically significant on L* and a* values, while, effects of MYF5 were significant on a* value. There was no association of the tested SNPs with meat pH, tenderness and cooking loss. The results presented here may give the valuable information for improving meat colour in cattle

Carcass and meat quality of Karacabey Merino and Kivircik lambs under an intensive finishing system

Carcass and meat quality traits of male and female lambs are important considerations in planning gender-based production and developing a marketing strategy for the product. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the effects of sex on carcass and meat quality of Kivircik and Karacabey Merino lambs. Twenty male and 17 female lambs were used. Lambs were weaned at 45 days old and then fed ad libitum with concentrates and roughage until slaughter at 120 days. The study was carried out in two experiments at three-month intervals. Kivircik lambs had greater dressing percentage (47.96% vs 46.49%, P <0.05) and omental-mesenteric fat proportion (1.71% vs 1.10%, P <0.01), while Karacabey Merino lambs had a greater proportion of skin (11.14% vs 9.42%, P =0.001). Breed had no influence on water-holding capacity, shear force, L* and hue values (P >0.05). The meat of Karacabey Merino lambs had greater a*, b* and chroma values after blooming for 24 hours than meat from Kivircik lambs. Male lambs had greater proportions of head (5.39% vs 4.62%, P <0.001), feet (2.65% vs 2.46%, P <0.01) and visceral organs (4.53% vs 4.15%, P <0.05), while females had a greater proportion of visceral fat (1.76% vs 1.05%, P =0.001). Meat from female lambs was darker than meat from male lambs. In conclusion, under intensive conditions, the indigenous Kivircik breed had similar carcass and meat quality characteristics to the Karacabey Merino, a wool and meat breed. Keywords: breed effect; carcass quality; sex; lamb; meat qualit

Grating coupler integrated photodiodes for plasmon resonance based sensing

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this work, we demonstrate an integrated sensor combining a grating-coupled plasmon resonance surface with a planar photodiode. Plasmon enhanced transmission is employed as a sensitive refractive index (RI) sensing mechanism. Enhanced transmission of light is monitored via the integrated photodiode by tuning the angle of incidence of a collimated beam near the sharp plasmon resonance condition. Slight changes of the effective refractive index (RI) shift the resonance angle, resulting in a change in the photocurrent. Owing to the planar sensing mechanism, the design permits a high areal density of sensing spots. In the design, absence of holes that facilitate resonant transmission of light, allows an easy-to-implement fabrication procedure and relative insensitivity to fabrication errors. Theoretical and experimental results agree well. An equivalent long-term RI noise of 6.3 x 10(-6) RIU/root Hz is obtained by using an 8 mW He-Ne laser, compared to a shot-noise limited theoretical sensitivity of 5.61 x 10(-9) RIU/root Hz. The device features full benefits of grating-coupled plasmon resonance, such as enhancement of sensitivity for non-zero azimuthal angle of incidence. Further sensitivity enhancement using balanced detection and optimal plasmon coupling conditions are discussed

Raman Enhancement on a Broadband Meta-Surface

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Plasmonic metamaterials allow confinement of light to deep subwavelength dimensions, while allowing for the tailoring of dispersion and electromagnetic mode density to enhance specific photonic properties. Optical resonances of plasmonic molecules have been extensively investigated; however, benefits of strong coupling of dimers have been overlooked. Here, we construct a plasmonic meta-surface through coupling of diatomic plasmonic molecules which contain a heavy and light meta-atom. Presence and coupling of two distinct types of localized modes in the plasmonic molecule allow formation and engineering of a rich band structure in a seemingly simple and common geometry, resulting in a broadband and quasi-omni-directional meta-surface. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering benefits from the simultaneous presence of plasmonic resonances at the excitation and scattering frequencies, and by proper design of the band structure to satisfy this condition, highly repeatable and spatially uniform Raman enhancement is demonstrated. On the basis of calculations of the field enhancement distribution within a unit cell, spatial uniformity of the enhancement at the nanoscale is discussed. Raman scattering constitutes an example of nonlinear optical processes, where the wavelength conversion during scattering may be viewed as a photonic transition between the bands of the meta-material

Electrochemically tunable ultrafast optical response of graphene oxide

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We demonstrate reversible and irreversible changes in the ultrafast optical response of multilayer graphene oxide thin films upon electrical and optical stimulus. The reversible effects are due to electrochemical modification of graphene oxide, which allows tuning of the optical response by externally applied bias. Increasing the degree of reduction in graphene oxide causes excited state absorption to gradually switch to saturable absorption for shorter probe wavelengths. Spectral and temporal properties as well as the sign of the ultrafast response can be tuned either by changing the applied bias or exposing to high intensity femtosecond pulses. © 2011 American Institute of Physics