EMERGING INFLUENCERS PROMOTING TRAVEL: THE CASE OF LOCAL TOURISM IN LATVIA

The presence of social networks has given a chance for social media influencers to emerge. Social media influencers creating and sharing content, endorsed or not, has become a growing marketing trend used by companies, as well as destinations. This article focuses on travel influencers who, with a help of social networks, particularly Instagram, are promoting local travel in Latvia. In this study, four emerging travel influencers and their posts were retrieved and analysed. The study results show that emerging travel influencers are trying to attract their followers by mostly sharing posts with landscapes and nature, art objects/statues, and nature activities/facilities. However, traditional artwork/objects, religious buildings/objects, and traditional or historic buildings are the pictures achieving the highest engagement rates. Finally, the study also relieved that influencers with a lower number of followers have a higher level of engagement. It is concluded that authenticity and individuality of account, as well as its organic, rather than paid growth, are the key aspects in creating a travel account that followers would engage (like, share and comment on the content). The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

EFFECTS OF AUTHORITARIAN AND ETHICAL LEADERSHIP ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: MEDIATING ROLE OF EMPLOYEE COMPETENCIES AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN ZIMBABWEAN BANKS

The purpose and objective of this paper is to identify the effects from key selected independent variables namely Authoritarian Leadership (AL), Ethical Leadership (EL), towards a chosen dependent variable Employee Performance (EP). It also studies the mediating roles of two independents that is Employee Competencies (EC), and Performance Management Practices (PMP) when introduced to the model. A survey questionnaire for data gathering was used and issued to respondents that were bank employees on selected commercial banks located in Harare capital City of Zimbabwe, and total of 390 valid responses were gathered. SPSS version 24 was used to analyse the collected data on each variable through demographic, reliability tests, regression analysis, correlation and factor analysis during the validation process of the gathered data.  The data analysis outcome showed that all the identified variables were predictors and influential to employee performance, when analysed as individual variables. Management of companies are required to focus on mixing both the leadership element and the competency as a prerequisite practices and action towards achieving higher performance

Introduction : what are the challenges and opportunities for tourism sustainability in Cyprus?

Purpose: This paper provides an overview and explains the context of this theme issue. The paper outlines the theme issue approach and profiles the articles written in response to the strategic question that aims to explore the challenges and opportunities for sustainable tourism development in Cyprus. Design/methodology/approach: The paper outlines the theme issue approach to exploring challenges and opportunities for sustainable tourism development in Cyprus. The strategic question is tackled in a series of articles that contain literature reviews, reviews of data and evidence, interactions with practitioners and practical solutions. Findings: The findings of the theme issue focus on sustainability challenges and opportunities in Cyprus and provide insights into the history, current state of development and progress made in implementing sustainable development in its tourism and hospitality industry. Originality/value: This theme issue outlines the challenges that the tourism industry faces in a small island state that is highly dependent on income generated by conventional tourism activity. In turbulent times where all stakeholders actively demand more sustainable, balanced tourism activity, the articles in this theme issue provide insights on stakeholder involvement, support availability, residents' perceptions of tourism activity, opportunities to develop innovative, technologically advanced solutions, themed tourism activities in remote regions and destinations and the implementation of sustainability concepts in tourism and hospitality education

Technostress Creators and Job Performance Among Frontliners: Theorizing the Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy

Technostress is evolving as an imperative area of academic research amid the “new normal” settings of working remotely. Research has investigated the relationships between technostress and job outcomes and proposed individual- and organizational-level approaches to manage it. However, insights into the influence of dynamic personality differences on this relationship are limited. This study ties the concept of self-efficacy to the transactional model of stress and coping, and investigates to what extent computer and social self-efficacy moderate the relationships between technostress creators and frontline employee’s job performance. Findings shift the focus from the negative aspects of technostress and outcomes to both positive and negative aspects. This study’s contributions and implications for theory and practice are discussed

Sustainable Place Branding and Visitors’ Responses: A Systematic Literature Review

Admittedly, tourism stakeholders become more aware of the negative impacts of tourism, and it has become increasingly important to brand and position destinations towards sustainability. The main concern is emphasizing economic, social, and environmental awareness and implementation at the destination level regarding planning and development. This paper identifies the importance of sustainable place branding as part of destination social responsibility in the current global context. The main focus is identifying visitors’ responses as part of sustainable destination marketing. The study conducts a systematic literature review by rigorously selecting 26 related articles from the 106 search results for further analysis. The study results highlight the emergence of sustainable place branding concepts in academic literature, especially after the post-pandemic period. The themes identified in the literature analysis revolve around sustainable place branding in creating unique tourism experiences and engagement that resonates with the visitors’ self-perceptions and expectations of a destination. Sustainable place branding positively impacts destination image, trust, value, and loyalty. Moreover, it can create positive visitor outcomes, such as an intention to revisit because of positive word of mouth. The article concludes with suggestions for future research, emphasizing the need to explore further sustainable place branding and its influence on visitors’ responses in the evolving landscape of global tourism

Eocene intra-plate shortening responsible for the rise of a faunal pathway in the northeastern Caribbean realm

Intriguing latest Eocene land-faunal dispersals between South America and the Greater Antilles (northern Caribbean) has inspired the hypothesis of the GAARlandia (Greater Antilles Aves Ridge) land bridge. This landbridge, however, should have crossed the Caribbean oceanic plate, and the geological evolution of its rise and demise, or its geodynamic forcing, remain unknown. Here we present the results of a land-sea survey from the northeast Caribbean plate, combined with chronostratigraphic data, revealing a regional episode of mid to late Eocene, trench-normal, E-W shortening and crustal thickening by ∼25%. This shortening led to a regional late Eocene–early Oligocene hiatus in the sedimentary record revealing the location of an emerged land (the Greater Antilles-Northern Lesser Antilles, or GrANoLA, landmass), consistent with the GAARlandia hypothesis. Subsequent submergence is explained by combined trench-parallel extension and thermal relaxation following a shift of arc magmatism, expressed by a regional early Miocene transgression. We tentatively link the NE Caribbean intra-plate shortening to a well-known absolute and relative North American and Caribbean plate motion change, which may provide focus for the search of the remaining connection between ‘GrANoLA’ land and South America, through the Aves Ridge or Lesser Antilles island arc. Our study highlights the how regional geodynamic evolution may have driven paleogeographic change that is still reflected in current biology

Enhancing Biopharmaceutical Attributes of Phospholipid Complex-loaded Nanostructured Lipidic Carriers of Mangiferin: Systematic Development, Characterization and Evaluation

Mangiferin (Mgf), largely expressed out from the leaves and stem bark of Mango, is a potent antioxidant. However, its in vivo activity gets tremendously reduced owing to poor aqueous solubility and inconsistent gastrointestinal absorption, high hepatic first-pass metabolism and high P-gp efflux. The current research work, therefore, was undertaken to overcome the biopharmaceutical hiccups by developing the Mgf-phospholipid complex (PLCs) loaded in nanostructured lipidic carriers (NLCs). The PLCs and NLCs were prepared using refluxing, solvent evaporation and hot emulsification technique, respectively with various molar ratios of Mgf and Phospholipon 90 G, i.e., 1:1; 1:2; and 1:3. The complex was evaluated for various physicochemical parameters like drug content (96.57%), aqueous solubility (25-fold improved) and oil-water partition coefficient (10-fold enhanced). Diverse studies on the prepared complex using FTIR, DSC, PXRD and SEM studies ratified the formation of PLCs at 1:1 ratio. The PLCs were further incorporated onto NLCs, which were systematically optimized employing a face centered cubic design (FCCD), while evaluating for particle size, zeta potential, encapsulation efficiency and in vitro drug release as the CQAs. Caco-2 cell line indicated insignificant cytotoxicity, and P-gp efflux, bi-directional permeability model and in situ perfusion studies specified enhanced intestinal permeation parameters. In vivo pharmacokinetic studies revealed notable increase in the values of Cmax (4.7-fold) and AUC (2.1-fold), respectively, from PLCs-loaded NLCs vis-à-vis Mgf solution. In a nutshell, the promising results observed from the present research work signified boosted biopharmaceutical potential of the optimized PLCs-loaded NLCs for potentially augmenting the therapeutic efficacy of Mgf

Pharmacological Effects of Asiatic acid in Glioblastoma Cells under Hypoxia

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and malignant primary brain tumor in adults. Despite current treatment options including surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ) and cisplatin, the median survival rate remains low (<16 months). Combined with increasing drug resistance and the inability of some compounds to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB), novel compounds are being sought for the treatment of this disease. Here, we aimed to examine the pharmacological effect of Asiatic acid (AA) in glioblastoma under hypoxia. To investigate the effects of AA on cell viability, proliferation, apoptosis and wound healing, SVG p12 fetal glia and U87-MG grade IV glioblastoma cells were cultured under normoxic (21% O2) and hypoxic (1% O2) conditions. In normoxia, AA reduced cell viability in U87-MG cells in a time and concentration-dependent manner. A significant decrease in viability, compared to cisplatin, was observed following 2hrs of AA treatment with no significant changes in cell proliferation or cell cycle progression observed. Under hypoxia, a significantly greater number of cells underwent apoptosis in comparison to cisplatin. While cisplatin showed a reduction in wound healing in normoxia, a significantly greater reduction was observed following AA treatment. An overall reduction in wound healing was observed under hypoxia. The results of this study show that AA has cytotoxic effects on glioma cell lines and has the potential to become an alternative treatment for glioblastoma

Expanding Stereochemical and Skeletal Diversity Using Petasis Reactions and 1,3-Dipolar Cycloadditions

A short and modular synthetic pathway using intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions and yielding functionalized isoxazoles, isoxazolines, and isoxazolidines is described. The change in shape of previous compounds and those in this study is quantified and compared using principal moment-of-inertia shape analysis.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog