Modeling Chinese post-90\u272 tourism loyalty to the ex-rival state using the perceived value approach

Purpose – A recent trend in tourism research involves the study of independent Chinese tourists. Yet while post-90s or Generation Z (i.e., born in the 1990s) comprises an important share of nondomestic visitors to Taiwan and other tourist destinations, this segment of the tourist population is currently under-analyzed. As a pioneering piece of research in this area, this survey attempts to understand Chinese tourists of this cohort visiting the long-divided state. Design – This research incorporates the social dimension of perceived value in the ordinarily employed perceived-value model to better understand why Chinese post-90s would like to recommend Taiwan. Methodology – This study samples Chinese students from 12 universities located in the northern, central, southern, and western regions of Taiwan. They were investigated with the selfadministered survey which is composed of five constructs, for a total of 17 questions. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the collected data and testify the hypotheses. Findings – The finding provides insights in the specific tourism behaviors of this cohort and how they are found distinct from their predecessors. The emotional dimension of the post-90s’ tourismrelated perceived value is a strong determinant of their loyalty to Taiwan as a tourist destination. The prior-rival situation between both sides of the Taiwan Strait might signify that social dimension significantly predict their loyalty, through the mediator of satisfaction. Originality – This research provides important information for tourism businesses regarding place management and marketing strategies, enabling them to receive this new generation of Chinese customers

Dynamical Instability of Holographic QCD at Finite Density

In this paper we study the dynamical instability of Sakai-Sugimoto's holographic QCD model at finite baryon density. In this model, the baryon density, represented by the smeared instanton on the worldvolume of the probe D8-\overline{D8} mesonic brane, sources the worldvolume electric field, and through the Chern-Simons term it will induces the instability to form a chiral helical wave. This is similar to Deryagin-Grigoriev-Rubakov instability to form the chiral density wave for large N_c QCD at finite density. Our results show that this kind of instability occurs for sufficiently high baryon number densities. The phase diagram of holographic QCD will thus be changed from the one which is based only on thermodynamics. This holographic approach provides an effective way to study the phases of QCD at finite density, where the conventional perturbative QCD and lattice simulation fail.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures;v2. add thermodynamics discussion; v4. Treatment of the instanton energy changed and QGP analysis added. Some figures replaced and added, including the phase diagra

Examining the Effects of Ecotourism Involvement and Tourism Benefits on Florida Tour Operators' Conservation Contributions to Wetland Ecosystems

Ecotourism is considered an effective agent to conserve environmentally fragile areas while bringing economic opportunities to local communities at the same time. In the past decades, empirical studies about ecotourism's conservation effects on wetland ecosystems attracted relatively less academic attention than rainforests and coral reefs. Florida, listed as one of the states with the greatest share of wetland loss in the U.S. due to rapid growth in agriculture, tourism, and urban development, has a small number of existing wetlands under the protection of the park and reserve system. To generate long-term positive environmental impacts, ecotourism stakeholders' contributions to planning and management activities could be an alternative beyond land use controls for conserving Florida wetlands. The major objective of this study is to explore the relationship between ecotourism and wetland conservation contributions which lead to long-term environmental sustainability. The study surveyed 97 nature-based tour operators in Florida on their activeness in a set of wetland planning and management behavior, the proportion of tourism revenue from ecotourism, and the perceived tourism benefits regarding economic, socio-cultural, and ecological aspects. Factor analysis was employed to identify indicators for the composite factors, such as the conservation contributions and incentives (i.e., economic benefits, socio-cultural benefits, and ecological benefits). The effects of ecotourism involvement and conservation incentives on tour operators' participation in wetland conservation practices were statistically modeled. The results demonstrated the business characteristics, degrees of the perceived tourism benefits, and frequency of participation in wetland conservation activities of responding tour operators. On average, tour operators were not as active in wetland management and planning approaches leading to the long-term environmental health as theories suggest they should be. Generally, the regression analysis results illustrated the significant association between ecotourism involvement and tour operators' conservation contribution. It is noteworthy that the effects of ecotourism involvement on tour operators' participation in environmental planning and water management processes were relatively important. In addition, the incentive of the perceived socio-cultural benefits was identified as the leading factor by regression analysis. The findings lent to the policy suggestions in expanding the incentives to drive major stakeholders' active engagement in wetland conservation planning and management, which is critical for collaborative and adaptive management

Remaining As A Leader or Not? Technology Spillover Answers

Much has been discussed about the advantages and disadvantages of being a first mover. However, discussion regarding the incentives encouraging a firm to remain as leader is absent in most studies. This paper aims to fill this gap and provide theoretical and empirical evidences vis-à-vis the incentives of remaining as a leader, by comparing profits between leader and follower when taking technology spillover and technological efficiency into consideration. The findings show that in regard to effective technological efficiency: (i) under the condition of a weak (strong) technology spillover, retaining the position of leader firm is (not) a dominant strategy because of higher (lower) profits than a follower; (ii) the half-shared technology spillover leads to an equal profit between firms, and implies a critical time of action for the leader firm to break the evenly-matched status by reconsidering first mover advantages; (iii) an empirical study on a data set of 352 high-tech and non-high-tech SMEs in manufacturing industry from 1999 until 2006 lends strong support to these results and may also provide useful clues for technology managers or practitioners to make better policies to benefit their market competitiveness

Ischaemic stroke and influenza A H1N1 vaccination: a case report

We report a 75-year-old male patient who suffered posterior circulation ischaemia after influenza A/H1N1 vaccination. Vaccination provokes a variable magnitude of inflammatory and immunological response that modifies the risk for ischaemic stroke. Whereas a causal relation between vaccination and ischaemic stroke is still unsettled, an inflammatory/immunological response after vaccination may trigger thrombosis superimposing a pre-existing prothrombotic state. Careful monitoring is strongly suggested for individuals who received H1N1 vaccine, especially those with high ischaemic stroke risk

Bacteria in the apical root canals of teeth with apical periodontitis

Background/PurposeBacteria in the tooth root canal may cause apical periodontitis. This study examined the bacterial species present in the apical root canal of teeth with apical periodontitis. Antibiotic sensitivity tests were performed to evaluate whether these identified bacterial species were susceptible to specific kinds of antibiotics.MethodsSelective media plating and biochemical tests were used first to detect the bacterial species in samples taken from the apical portion of root canals of 62 teeth with apical periodontitis. The isolated bacterial species were further confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry.ResultsWe found concomitant presence of two (32 teeth) or three species (18 teeth) of bacteria in 50 (80.6%) out of 62 tested teeth. However, only 34 bacterial species were identified. Of a total of 118 bacterial isolates (83 anaerobes and 35 aerobes), Prophyromonas endodontalis was detected in 10; Bacteroides, Dialister invisus or Fusobacterium nucleatum in 9; Treponema denticola or Enterococcus faecalis in 8; Peptostreptococcus or Olsenella uli in 6; and Veillonella in 5 teeth. The other 25 bacterial species were detected in fewer than five teeth. Approximately 80–95% of bacterial isolates of anaerobes were sensitive to ampicillin/sulbactam (Unasyn), amoxicillin/clavulanate (Augmentin), cefoxitin, and clindamycin. For E. faecalis, 85–90% of bacterial isolates were sensitive to gentamicin and linezolid.ConclusionRoot canal infections are usually caused by a mixture of two or three species of bacteria. Specific kinds of antibiotic can be selected to control these bacterial infections after antibiotic sensitivity testing

Evolution of Hepatitis B Virus in a Chronic HBV-Infected Patient over 2 Years

Mutations in full-length HBV isolates obtained from a chronic HBV-infected patient were evaluated at three time points: 1 day, 6 months, and 31 months. While 5 nucleotides variation, and an 18 bp deletion of preS1 have been kept in during at least the first two years, C339T mutation occurring in the hydrophilic region of HBsAg and T770C that caused polymerase V560A substitution were the new point mutations found existing in sequenced clones of the 3rd time point. Internal deletion of coding region obviously appeared in the 3rd time point. The splicers included two new 5′-splice donors and three new 3′-splice acceptors besides the reported donors and acceptors and may have produced presumptive HBV-spliced proteins or truncated preS proteins. ALT, HBeAg and viral DNA load varied during the follow-up years. These data demonstrated the diversity of genomes in HBV-infected patient during evolution. Combined with clinical data, the HBV variants discovered in this patient may contribute to viral persistence of infection or liver pathogenesis