Destination Sabah (Malaysia) : The public and private stakeholders\u27 perspectives on branding

The development of a destination brand for Sabah has been dominated by numerous reports that emphasise the need to develop global awareness of Sabah, but the objectives set to achieve this goal are often idealistic in nature and offer no real solution to problems identified. The challenge, here, is to unify key messages into a consistent, clear and realistic brand and to ensure content in promotional tools accentuates the activities, experiences and key benefits of visiting Destination Sabah . This study will begin to address these challenges by undertaking the processes that underpin destination branding through comparison to a relational network devised by Hankinson (2004). The public and private sector agencies inform this study, and were chosen because they significantly influence both the political and economic environments of the destination; they also have a large impact on the tourism industry at the global, national and local level. This study focuses on the public and private sectors\u27 as stakeholders of the tourism industry, and as part of a relational network. To inform this study, information of a qualitative nature was considered the most appropriate for understanding the consumer relationships identified by Hankinson. In consideration of the need to build on an initial idea, and effectively gather information and opinions on building a strong destination brand, an inductive approach and exploratory research design was used to uncover the purpose of this study (Jennings, 2001). The results, which are study specific, of interviews conducted with 37 public and private sector representatives\u27 of Sabah\u27s tourism industry, emphasised the alignment and misalignment in perceptions conveyed. This led to a range of opinions on how to best brand the tourism product, and gave insight into the challenges faced by key stakeholders in their effort to create a unified branding vision for Destination Sabah . Overall, there is a good understanding of branding theory in Sabah, however, branding is poorly applied in practice. There is no clear future brand and, at the same time, considerable potential for breaking brand promise and causing customer dissatisfaction. The gaps identified between an ideal branding scenario (Hankinson\u27s model) and Destination Sabah specifically were; conflict in identifying a preferred target market (Ecotourism versus Nature-based tourism), lack of integrated destination management (pollution and development in conflict with a Nature-based product), lack of community involvement and controlling, rather than, an involving style of management from the top. It is recommended that Destination Sabah re-assess its direction against its tourism resources, to identify those assets which appeal to clearly defined, well researched, target markets. Furthermore, that key tourism industry stakeholders should help develop and nurture community tourism education in order to achieve a sustainable tourism industry. All stakeholder meetings should be adequately facilitated to manage responsibility and ensure that each stakeholder group is represented. Finally, Destination Sabah has to be well-managed (not controlled) and all efforts must be tied in with professional marketing expertise based on extensive market research

Optimization of the process for sol-gel derived ZnO:Al thin films for transparent conducting oxide applications

Transparent and conducting Al-doped ZnO thin films with c-axis-preferred orientation were prepared on glass substrate via sol-gel route. The physical, optical and electrical properties were investigated to determine an optimal withdrawal speed, aluminum source and treatment in order to obtain a smooth, dense, highly crystalline, conductive and transparent thin film with a high figure of merit for transparent conducting oxide applications. An optimal withdrawal speed was found to be 2.5 cm/min. Optimal aluminum source and concentration was found to be 0.5 at.% using aluminum chloride hexahydrate. An additional treatment in an N2 environment was found to be the best method to improve the electrical properties of the films while maintaining high crystallinity and transparency

Effects of Landslides on Terrestrial Carbon Stocks With a Coupled Geomorphic-Biologic Model: Southeast Alaska, United States

Landslides influence the global carbon (C) cycle by facilitating transfer of terrestrial C in biomass and soils to offshore depocenters and redistributing C within the landscape, affecting the terrestrial C reservoir itself. How landslides affect terrestrial C stocks is rarely quantified, so we derive a model that couples stochastic landslides with terrestrial C dynamics, calibrated to temperate rainforests in southeast Alaska, United States. Modeled landslides episodically transfer C from scars to deposits and destroy living biomass. After a landslide, total C stocks on the scar recover, while those on the deposit either increase (in the case of living biomass) or decrease while remaining higher than if no landslide had occurred (in the case of dead biomass and soil C). Specifically, modeling landslides in a 29.9 km 2 watershed at the observed rate of 0.004 landslides km −2 yr −1 decreases average living biomass C density by 0.9 tC ha −1 (a relative amount of 0.4%), increases dead biomass C by 0.3 tC ha −1 (0.6%), and increases soil C by 3.4 tC ha −1 (0.8%) relative to a base case with no landslides. The net effect is a small increase in total terrestrial C stocks of 2.8 tC ha −1 (0.4%). The size of this boost increases with landslide frequency, reaching 6.5% at a frequency of 0.1 landslides km −2 yr −1. If similar dynamics occur in other landslide-prone regions of the globe, landslides should be a net C sink and a natural buffer against increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, which are forecast to increase landslide-triggering precipitation events

Method and apparatus for selection of content from a stream of data

A main stream contains successive content elements of video and/or audio information that encode video and/or audio information at a first data rate. A computation circuit (144) computes main fingerprints from the successive content elements. A reference stream is received having a second data rate lower than the first data rate. The reference stream defines a sequence of the reference fingerprints. A comparator unit (144) compares the main fingerprints with the reference fingerprints. The main stream is monitored for the presence of inserted content elements between original content elements, where the original content elements have main fingerprints that match successive reference fingerprints and the inserted content elements have main fingerprints that do not match reference fingerprints. Rendering of inserted content elements to be skipped. In an embodiment when more than one content element matches only one is rendered. In another embodiment matching is used to control zapping to or from the main stream. In another embodiment matching is used to control linking of separately received mark-up information such as subtitles to points in the main stream

Method and apparatus for selection of content from a stream of data

A main stream contains successive content elements of video and/or audio information that encode video and/or audio information at a first data rate. A computation circuit (144) computes main fingerprints from the successive content elements. A reference stream is received having a second data rate lower than the first data rate. The reference stream defines a sequence of the reference fingerprints. A comparator unit (144) compares the main fingerprints with the reference fingerprints. The main stream is monitored for the presence of inserted content elements between original content elements, where the original content elements have main fingerprints that match successive reference fingerprints and the inserted content elements have main fingerprints that do not match reference fingerprints. Rendering of inserted content elements to be skipped. In an embodiment when more than one content element matches only one is rendered. In another embodiment matching is used to control zapping to or from the main stream. In another embodiment matching is used to control linking of separately received mark-up information such as subtitles to points in the main strea