Changing regional images; are regional marketing campaigns successful?

An important element in the urban and regional development strategy of many local and regional governments is geographical marketing. The process of geographical marketing combines promotional, spatial and organisational activities, and can be aimed at various groups. In 1989 a marketing campaign was started by the province of Groningen, in the northern part of the Netherlands. This campaign, which is still being carried on, has used various means of communication: advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and radio and television commercials. It has been aimed at entrepreneurs and at the general public as well. An ex ante study of the public image of Groningen was carried out before the start of the campaign. For this purpose a random sample of the Dutch population was inquired by telephone. Since then similar inquiries were carried out every two years, in order to measure the effects of the campaign. In these inquiries the image of the provinces of Friesland and Noord-Brabant was measured along with that of Groningen, and used for reference. The availability of this kind of data for a period of twelve years, measured at regular intervals, provides an opportunity to study the development of regional images through time. In this paper the data of the inquiries will be analysed. One of the main questions to be answered in the paper relates to the pace and the nature of the changes in image, observed in all three provinces. The second question specifically deals with the influence of the marketing campaign on the image of Groningen.

The mental map of Dutch entrepreneurs. Changes in the subjective rating of locations in the Netherlands, 1983-1993-2003

Empirical studies on firm location and migration show that actual location decisions are often based on incomplete and inaccurate information about potential locations. Decision makers seem to be guided by their subjective interpretation of reality, not so much by reality itself. Twenty years ago this fundamental idea was the starting point for a research program of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences of the University of Groningen that focussed on the subjective rating of locations by Dutch entrepreneurs. The first picture of this subjective valuation, based on an extensive postal enquiry, was taken in 1983 (Pellenbarg 1985) and repeated by an identical project in 1993 (Meester 1999). A third enquiry, again identical to the first and second, was held in 2003. On the basis of the three projects a true comparison can now be made of the mental maps of Dutch entrepreneurs in the years 1983, 1993, and 2003. This paper describes and analyses the three mental maps. Moreover, the data are used in a factor analysis, to try to establish the basic influences that form the entrepreneurial mental maps. It shows that the basic shape of the mental maps (a dome with centrally located Utrecht as a summit) did not change much in twenty years. A closer look however, reveals that the dome is flattening. In the first period (1983-1993) we witness a decrease of appreciation of the locations on its West flank (the ‘old’ Randstad) while in the second period (1993-2003) this decrease extends to the Eastern parts of the Randstad. The factor analysis suggests that three fundamental dimensions determine the entrepreneurs’ judgments: potency, activity, and evaluation. Potency may be understood as centrality of location. Activity is correlated to agglomeration. It is hypothesized that landscape and culture determine the evaluative dimension.

The origins of the Southern African mammal fauna

Zoologica Africana 1 (1): 87-9

Food deprivation and drinking in two African rodents, Mastomys natalensis and Rhabdomys pumilio

Mastomys natalensis and Rhabdomys pumilio from the moist Natal Midlands, South Africa, were deprived of food in the laboratory. Both species exhibited hypodipsia while fasting and, in terms of a hypothesis proposed by Wright (1976), therefore appear to be primarily mesophilic. R. pumilio tolerated up to five days without food and M. natalensis up to three days. R. pumilio appears adapted to occupy drier microhabitats than M. natalensis, and pre-adapted to colonize arid regions.S. Afr. J. Zool.1987, 22(3

Throughput of ADSL modems

This paper considers the throughput of ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) modems, used for high-speed data transmission over relatively unreliable connections, e.g. copper telephone wires. The modem technique uses an error correcting code and interleaving. The settings include a grouping factor $S$ which affects the amount of data per code word, the number $R$ of redundant bytes per code word and the interleave depth $D$. The influence of these parameters on both the effective data transmission rate and the resulting error rate in the received signal are determined for two error situations: random errors and bursts of errors. An approximate analysis for the random error case of the throughput of a TCP (Transport Control Protocol) connection using an ADSL modem shows that maximum throughput is obtained for the highest values of $S$ and $R$

Scaling relation for determining the critical threshold for continuum percolation of overlapping discs of two sizes

We study continuum percolation of overlapping circular discs of two sizes. We propose a phenomenological scaling equation for the increase in the effective size of the larger discs due to the presence of the smaller discs. The critical percolation threshold as a function of the ratio of sizes of discs, for different values of the relative areal densities of two discs, can be described in terms of a scaling function of only one variable. The recent accurate Monte Carlo estimates of critical threshold by Quintanilla and Ziff [Phys. Rev. E, 76 051115 (2007)] are in very good agreement with the proposed scaling relation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

A vocabulary-independent generation framework for DBpedia and beyond

The dbpedia Extraction Framework, the generation framework behind one of the Linked Open Data cloud’s central hubs, has limitations which lead to quality issues with the dbpedia dataset. Therefore, we provide a new take on its Extraction Framework that allows for a sustainable and general-purpose Linked Data generation framework by adapting a semantic-driven approach. The proposed approach decouples, in a declarative manner, the extraction, transformation, and mapping rules execution. This way, among others, interchanging different schema annotations is supported, instead of being coupled to a certain ontology as it is now, because the dbpedia Extraction Framework allows only generating a certain dataset with a single semantic representation. In this paper, we shed more light to the added value that this aspect brings. We provide an extracted dbpedia dataset using a different vocabulary, and give users the opportunity to generate a new dbpedia dataset using a custom combination of vocabularies

Injector Feeder for Plot Combine Pneumatic Conveyor

The pneumatic grain conveyor on a plot combine was evaluated and its crosstube grain injector redesigned to increase material throughput to a rate that would avoid plugging during operation in high-moisture corn. The new design allowed a throughput of 77 kg/min (169 lb/min) of high-moisture corn during tests