Determinants of tourism destination competitiveness in the countries most visited by international tourists: Proposal of a synthetic index

Tourism destination competitiveness is a multidimensional concept that is widely studied in the academic literature, but multiple factors make its measurement a difficult task. In this article, we design a synthetic index to rank the 80 countries that attract the majority of international tourists by level of tourism competitiveness. In order to do this, we use all of the simple variables included in the 2017 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index, proposing a new methodology for the construction of this synthetic index, which it solves the problems of aggregation of variables expressed in different measures, arbitrary weighting and duplicity of information; issues that remain unresolved by the TTCI. Likewise, we analyse the most influential dimensions in tourism competitiveness. Air transport infrastructures, cultural resources and ICT readiness are the key dimensions that explain the main disparities.Funding Agency Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness State Research Agency (SRA) European Union (EU) ECO2017-86822-Rinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Seasonal concentration of cruise tourism in the Mediterranean

This research delves into analyzing the seasonality of cruise tourism in the Mediterranean by using the decomposition of the Gini index, used in the field of cruise tourism for the first time in literature. This study specifically used the decomposition to evaluate the contribution degree of each port to the global seasonal concentration of each Mediterranean region. Moreover, a cluster analysis technique (bootstrapped bagged clustering) was applied to classify the ports into homogeneous groups according to their seasonal patterns given the significant heterogeneity revealed in the major regions of the Mediterranean. The methodology applied can serve as a control and monitoring tool for measuring seasonal concentration levels in cruise tourism, allowing for policies against seasonality to be tailored in the cruise tourism segment.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Programa de FPU del Ministerio de Educació

Optimising Humanness: Designing the best human-like Bot for Unreal Tournament 2004

This paper presents multiple hybridizations of the two best bots on the BotPrize 2014 competition, which sought for the best humanlike bot playing the First Person Shooter game Unreal Tournament 2004. To this aim the participants were evaluated using a Turing test in the game. The work considers MirrorBot (the winner) and NizorBot (the second) codes and combines them in two different approaches, aiming to obtain a bot able to show the best behaviour overall. There is also an evolutionary version on MirrorBot, which has been optimized by means of a Genetic Algorithm. The new and the original bots have been tested in a new, open, and public Turing test whose results show that the evolutionary version of MirrorBot apparently improves the original bot, and also that one of the novel approaches gets a good humanness level.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Caracterización físico-química de los morteros y de las pinturas murales de la villa romana de El Ruedo (Almedinilla, Córdoba)

In the present survey, we have proceeded to the analysis of Roman mortars and paintings in two rooms from a villa at El Ruedo (Almedinilla, Cordoba ). They were used different techniques or procedures, such as: analysis granules size, X ray diffraction and scattering reflection. It has been noticed that materials of the different decorations correspond to different compositions provenient from different sites (different canters). As far as colours are concerned, they were established the different parameters which define them in every international system. The scattering reflection techniques allowed us to identify the pigments, emphasizing that their mixtures are usually based upon only in one colour, lighter or darker.En el presente trabajo se ha procedido al análisis de los morteros y pinturas romanas de dos estancias de la villa de El Ruedo (Almedinilla, Córdoba). Se han utilizado diferentes técnicas, tales como análisis granulométrico, difracción de rayos X y reflectancia difusa. Se ha podido constatar que los materiales de las diferentes decoraciones presentan diferentes composiciones y por tanto provienen de sitios diferentes (canteras diferentes). Con respecto al color se han obtenido los parámetros que lo definen en los distintos sistemas internacionales. La técnica de reflectancia difusa ha permitido la identificación de los pigmentos, poniendo de manifiesto que sus mezclas se basan normalmente en uno solo, aclarado o oscurecido

'Ephemerality’ in game development: opportunitiees and challenges

Ephemeral Computation (Eph-C) is a newly created computation paradigm, the purpose of which is to take advantage of the ephemeral nature (limited lifetime) of computational resources. First we speak of this new paradigm in general terms, then more specifically in terms of videogame development. We present possible applications and benefits for the main research fields associated with videogame development. This is a preliminary work which aims to investigate the possibilities of applying ephemeral computation to the products of the videogame industry. Therefore, as a preliminary work, it attempts to serve as the inspiration for other researchers or videogame developers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Performance evaluation of the Hilbert–Huang transform for respiratory sound analysis and its application to continuous adventitious sound characterization

© 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The use of the Hilbert–Huang transform in the analysis of biomedical signals has increased during the past few years, but its use for respiratory sound (RS) analysis is still limited. The technique includes two steps: empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and instantaneous frequency (IF) estimation. Although the mode mixing (MM) problem of EMD has been widely discussed, this technique continues to be used in many RS analysis algorithms. In this study, we analyzed the MM effect in RS signals recorded from 30 asthmatic patients, and studied the performance of ensemble EMD (EEMD) and noise-assisted multivariate EMD (NA-MEMD) as means for preventing this effect. We propose quantitative parameters for measuring the size, reduction of MM, and residual noise level of each method. These parameters showed that EEMD is a good solution for MM, thus outperforming NA-MEMD. After testing different IF estimators, we propose Kay¿s method to calculate an EEMD-Kay-based Hilbert spectrum that offers high energy concentrations and high time and high frequency resolutions. We also propose an algorithm for the automatic characterization of continuous adventitious sounds (CAS). The tests performed showed that the proposed EEMD-Kay-based Hilbert spectrum makes it possible to determine CAS more precisely than other conventional time-frequency techniques.Postprint (author's final draft

Evolving Aesthetic Maps for a Real Time Strategy Game

Artículo publicado en congreso SEED'2013 (I Spanish Symposium on Entertainment Computing), Septiembre 2013, Madrid.This paper presents a procedural content generator method that have been able to generate aesthetic maps for a real-time strategy game. The maps has been characterized based on several of their properties in order to de ne a similarity function between scenarios. This function has guided a multi-objective evolution strategy during the process of generating and evolving scenarios that are similar to other aesthetic maps while being di erent to a set of non-aesthetic scenarios. The solutions have been checked using a support-vector machine classi er and a self-organizing map obtaining successful results (generated maps have been classi ed as aesthetic maps)