The solitary traveller: why do people travel on their own?

A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Luton.This thesis focuses on an under-researched area of tourism - individualised travel - by examining non-institutionalised solitary travellers. The purpose of the study is to discover precisely why non-institutionalised solitary travellers travel alone. In order to understand the travel behaviour and motivation of solitary travellers, they are contrasted with group tourists. To be able to tackle this research problem, Grounded Theory is chosen as the most appropriate approach, for the following reasons. First, Grounded Theory is a methodology which makes its greatest contribution in areas about which little is known. Second, its aim is to generate rather than to test theory. Based on the computer-assisted content analysis and interpretation of relatively neglected qualitative data obtained from interviews and diaries, sixteen socio-psychological justifications for solo travel are empirically identified. From these responses, a taxonomy of non-institutionalised solitary travellers is inductively constructed. It consists of two basic types. First, there are those who travel alone because they simply have no available travel companion, referred to as "solitary travellers by default". Second, there are those individuals who deliberately travel on their own, and who are regarded as "solitary travellers by choice". The elaboration of such a distinction is the primary contribution made by this research to tourism knowledge. A secondary contribution is realised by confronting the data on solitary travellers and group tourists with the extant literature on tourist typologies - an exercise that raises a number of issues about the mythical status of the former. As a result, an alternative taxonomy is generated that consists of two distinct types of tourists - individualistic and collectivistic. The individualistic tourist is someone for whom internal personal values. (e.g., sense of accomplishment) are the most important principles in life, who has motives stemming from ego-enhancement (e.g., personal development), and for whom travel means the investment of personal cultural capital. The collectivistic tourist, on the other hand, is someone who assigns greater priority to external personal values (e.g., sense of belonging), whose motives originate in the anomic conditions of society, and for whom travel is little more than a short break from routine

Analog Multiple Descriptions: A Zero-Delay Source-Channel Coding Approach

This paper extends the well-known source coding problem of multiple descriptions, in its general and basic setting, to analog source-channel coding scenarios. Encoding-decoding functions that optimally map between the (possibly continuous valued) source and the channel spaces are numerically derived. The main technical tool is a non-convex optimization method, namely, deterministic annealing, which has recently been successfully used in other mapping optimization problems. The obtained functions exhibit several interesting structural properties, map multiple source intervals to the same interval in the channel space, and consistently outperform the known competing mapping techniques.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 201

Genomic and proteomic analysis of chemoresistance in breast cancer cell lines: MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231

In this study, cisplatin-resistant adenocarcinoma breast cancer cell lines, labeled MCF-7/R6 and MDA-MB-231/R2 were established by 6 replicative sequential treatment of low doses (1 micromolar) over high doses (30 micromolar) of cisplatin and chemoresistance was evaluated as apoptotic response to 30 micromolar cisplatin for 48 hours. Throughout the study parental cells were used as control. RNA was isolated to conduct microarray study to analyze 48000 gene probes (Illumina Human WG-6 BeadChip). Gene expression data was analyzed by MATLAB 2009 and identification of differentially expressed genes were further studied by proteomic analysis to understand the drug resistance mechanisms. Our data indicated that transcription of drug resistant marker genes, such as GSTP1 and ABCB6 were upregulated in MCF-7/R6 cell line. Both intrinsically resistant cell line: MDA-MB-231 and acquired resistant cell line: MCF-7/R6 were similar in activating NF- kappa-B pathway but not MAP kinase pathway. In MCF-7/R6 cell line NF-kappa-B pathway was transactivated through p50 subunit, as well as translocation of Foxo3a transcription factor into the nucleus. Genes responsible for cell death, Foxo family and MAPK levels were found to change significantly at protein and genetic level in MCF-7/R6 and MDA-MB-231/R2 cells. Phosphorylation levels in transcription factor Foxo1 and Foxo3a were found to change MCF-7/R6 cells, indicating resistance to apoptosis. Moreover, cell cycle, tumor suppressor and estrogen receptor levels were found to be altered in MCF-7/R6 cell line. Our data clearly identify several proteins and pathways which have distinct roles in chemoresistance mechanism. This knowledge can be further validated in a clinical setting

Norwegian Men and Women Value Similar Mate Traits in Short-Term Relationships

Previous research has provided evidence that females are generally the more selective sex in humans. Moreover, both sexes have been found to be more selective in long-term mating compared to short-term mating. In this study, we have examined the effects of sex, mating strategy (preferred relationship length) and their interaction on mate preferences (i.e., mate selection criteria) in an egalitarian Nordic society, namely Norway. The study sample consisted of 1,000 individuals, 417 of whom were male and 583 female respondents. According to our findings, men were more selective in physical appearance, whereas women were more selective in all the other mate preferences (e.g., understanding, dominant, kind, intellectual etc.). The respondents that were seeking short-term relationships had higher preference for physical appearance, humorousness and sociability. On the other hand, the respondents that were seeking long-term relationships were more selective in most of the other mate preferences (i.e., understanding, kind, cultivated, domestic, reliable, and similar). Interestingly, no interaction effect was found between sex and mating strategy in that differences between long-term and short-term seekers in mate preferences did not change depending on sex. This suggests that men and women value the same traits in short-term relationships.Peer reviewe

A Deterministic Annealing Approach to Witsenhausen's Counterexample

This paper proposes a numerical method, based on information theoretic ideas, to a class of distributed control problems. As a particular test case, the well-known and numerically "over-mined" problem of decentralized control and implicit communication, commonly referred to as Witsenhausen's counterexample, is considered. The method provides a small improvement over the best numerical result so far for this benchmark problem. The key idea is to randomize the zero-delay mappings. which become "soft", probabilistic mappings to be optimized in a deterministic annealing process, by incorporating a Shannon entropy constraint in the problem formulation. The entropy of the mapping is controlled and gradually lowered to zero to obtain deterministic mappings, while avoiding poor local minima. Proposed method obtains new mappings that shed light on the structure of the optimal solution, as well as achieving a small improvement in total cost over the state of the art in numerical approaches to this problem.Comment: submitted to ISIT'1

Linking Social Values of Wild Reindeer to Planning and Management Options in Southern Norway

Norway is home to the last remaining populations of wild mountain reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) in Europe. Concerns over anthropogenic and natural drivers have led to change in the management regime from a population-based model to an area-based model. More complex management goals, increasing involvement of stakeholders, and larger management units call for improved knowledge about reindeer-related values. We examined the responses of 1000 respondents to 39 statements of attitudes and values associated with wild reindeer presence and the management situation in two reindeer regions of southern Norway. We used a partial least-squares path modeling approach to examine the nexus between the attraction of wild reindeer, sustainability concerns, utilitarian and non-utilitarian values, conflicts, and attitudes toward hunting. The results show that local concepts of the sustainability of reindeer are based on opinions about the ecological requirements as well as the roles reindeer can play in the social and economic development of the communities. The attraction of reindeer is a function of consumptive as well as non-consumptive objectives. Segments of the community with different consumptive orientations can share ideas about the attraction of reindeer, but diverge in their interpretation of the sustainability of the species. Improved knowledge about the diversity and complexity of value orientations associated with wild reindeer can be a useful tool for developing multi-objective management frameworks with a diversity of stakeholders who may share similar values and interests, although they have different experience and knowledge bases.Les toutes dernières populations de rennes sauvages des montagnes (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) de l’Europe se trouvent en Norvège. Des préoccupations sur le plan des motifs anthropiques et des motifs naturels ont donné lieu à la modification du régime de gestion, qui est passé d’un modèle axé sur la population à un modèle axé sur la région. En raison des objectifs de gestion plus complexes, de l’influence accrue des parties prenantes et de secteurs de gestion plus grands, il y a lieu de se doter de meilleures connaissances au sujet des valeurs liées aux rennes. Nous avons examiné les réponses de 1 000 répondants à 39 énoncés relatifs aux attitudes et aux valeurs liées à la présence des rennes sauvages et à la situation de la gestion dans deux régions où évoluent les rennes, dans le sud de la Norvège. Nous avons fait la modélisation du parcours au moyen de la régression partielle par les moindres carrés dans le but d’examiner la connexion entre l’attraction du renne sauvage, les inquiétudes en matière de durabilité, les valeurs utilitaires et non utilitaires, les conflits et les attitudes vis-à-vis de la chasse. Selon les résultats, les concepts locaux de la durabilité du renne reposent sur des opinions au sujet des exigences écologiques ainsi que sur les rôles que peuvent jouer les rennes dans le développement social et économique des collectivités. L’attraction du renne dépend des objectifs de consommation et des objectifs de non-consommation. Les segments de la collectivité ayant des orientations de consommation différentes peuvent partager des idées au sujet de l’attraction du renne, mais leur interprétation de la durabilité de l’espèce diverge. Il serait utile de posséder de meilleures connaissances au sujet de la diversité et de la complexité des orientations de la valeur liées au renne sauvage, car cela pourrait permettre d’élaborer des cadres de gestion à maints objectifs avec une diversité de parties prenantes susceptibles d’avoir des valeurs et des intérêts semblables, bien que leurs connaissances et leurs expériences diffèrent

Angling destination loyalty – A structural model approach of freshwater anglers in Trysil, Norway

For many Nordic winter destinations attracting customers in the summer is a challenge. Angling is one of the summer activities that can help develop year-round tourism at a destination. Knowing which factors influence angling destination loyalty and how to manage these factors for different market segments is therefore important. We investigated how destination image, place attachment and satisfaction influenced anglers’ destination loyalty through a structural equation model. Data are from a survey of 379 tourist anglers at the popular winter destination Trysil in southeast Norway. Our results show that increasing loyalty to an angling destination managers and tourism development actors can foremost influence the image and satisfaction level of anglers. This could be done through information campaigns to anglers combined with improving angling quality. On a larger area like in Trysil one should manage for diversity in regulations to avoid marginalizing certain angler groups and create conflicts.publishedVersio