An Assessment of Visitor Use Experience with the Implementation of the First-Year Cadillac Mountain Summit Road Vehicle Timed-Entry Reservation System in Acadia National Park, Maine

In 1916, the National Park Service (NPS) was established to preserve and protect the national parks for future generations, as stipulated in the Organic Act of 1916. Since then, the national parks have become a prominent tourist attraction in the United States (U.S.) and continue to draw significant numbers of visitors annually. Among these parks, Acadia National Park (ANP), located in the northeast corner of the U.S., stands out as a particularly distinctive example, having been founded in 1901 by private landowners with the aim of preserving the land. Cadillac Mountain, one of Acadia’s main visitor attractions, is the tallest mountain on the northeastern seaboard. The popular section of the park attracts numerous visitors, causing the parking lots at the top of Cadillac Mountain to become full, resulting in traffic congestion on both the lots and the summit road network. In 2015, ANP managers began planning efforts to create a Transportation Management Plan (TMP), with the assistance of the public, to provide a document that identifies the optimal means of offering secure and effective transportation services and a range of high-quality experiences for visitors, to protect park resources and values. Implemented in May 2021, the Cadillac Mountain timed-entry reservation system regulates personal vehicle usage on the Cadillac Summit Road during peak season through designated date and time entries. Since the start of the timed-entry reservation system, it has had a significant impact on traffic congestion and visitor experience. By regulating the number of personal vehicle entries daily, the managed access system has helped reduce traffic volume, alleviate most of the parking congestion, and enhance the safety of the visitor experience in parking lots. The system allows visitors to plan their trips in advance, enabling a better experience for those who plan ahead and prepare. This system, however, is not without tradeoffs; the reservation process requires cellular connectivity or wireless internet to book a reservation, there may be limited availability during the peak season, and traffic congestion at the summit still may exist during certain times causing vehicles to spillover and park along the roadside. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the reservation system affects visitors\u27 user experience and to provide park managers with valuable insights to make adaptive management changes to the system. Two objectives guided the study: first, to identify key areas of importance from the visitor experience, such as parking availability and safety, that the reservation system was intended to address. Second, to examine the relationships between visitor experience quality and first-time and returning visitors, and between those who experienced issues with the managed access system and those who did not. The study used a multistage cluster sampling design to systematically sample Cadillac Mountain visitors. The survey was administered using two main techniques: on-site through an in-person questionnaire and by email using the Qualtrics survey platform. The results provide insight into visitor satisfaction and importance to the reservation system and highlight areas for improvement. The top three rated attributes visitors were most important and satisfied with were the opportunity to explore at their own pace, an unobstructed view of the scenery from the summit, and finding a parking spot at the summit. Visitors rated finding a parking spot as more important than their sense of safety and the number of visitors. The study highlights that the timed-entry reservation system addresses a long-standing issue of parking and congestion and is a favorable alternative to no management action. However, our study acknowledges that tradeoffs occur with a managed access system. These tradeoffs may initially have visitors reject the notion of access but will quickly find these attributes to be an asset to their visit. The evidence suggests that visitors now have a more satisfying experience on Cadillac Mountain because of the managed access system. This study gives valuable insights for park managers regarding visitor satisfaction with the reservation system. The results indicate that visitors prioritize exploring transportation-related attributes over social-related attributes. These findings can be used to inform future managed access systems and improve visitor experiences at Cadillac Mountain

Partisan narratives on the 2016 US presidential election: a critical geopolitical analysis of Russian interference

As the Cold War drew to a close, the German sociologist Ulrich Beck coined the concept of reflexive modernization to describe the structural risks inadvertently produced by modernity’s progress. Through the approach of critical geopolitics, such risks radically began to transform traditional understanding of space and territory, allegedly deterritorializing traditional spatial structures, such as nation-states. However, scholars maintain that the process of reterritorialization, defined as the “inscription of new boundaries” reattaching space to “newly imagined visions of state, territory, and community,” cyclically follow deterritorialization (Albert 1991, 61; Ó Tuathail 1996, 230). Nevertheless, few scholars in the field of International Relations (IR), have seriously analyzed the process of reterritorialization. However, following the 2016 US presidential election, popular discourse in the US on Russian interference appeared to reterritorialize previously deterritorialized space, such as cyber and information space, by likening Russian hacks, leaks and collusion to the violation of the sovereign territory of the US. Thus, this thesis aims to research how US popular discourse reterritorializes Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, while comparing and contrasting the partisan narratives constructed in light of the political polarization of the US in recent years. To achieve this goal, a discourse analysis is conducted on storylines from 30 online news articles, from three right-wing and three left-wing media outlets. As hypothesized, the analysis confirms that both partisan narratives reterritorialize previously deterritorialized risks associated with reflexive modernization, transcribe the storylines into traditional US geopolitical culture, and call for assertive measures towards Russia which violated US territory, as well as towards internal Others, which weakened US territory.http://www.ester.ee/record=b5147583*es

Discourse analysis of naturally occurring data: the relational development of mindfulness

Discourse analysis allows qualitative researchers to investigate the ways people relationally construct realities through language use, especially through speaking and writing. To understand talk and text as relational practices, we pay close attention to the active dimensions of discourse: its construction, function and variation in specific social and historical contexts. The data used in this exemplar is provided by Dr Steven Stanley from Cardiff University and Dr Rebecca Crane from the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University and is taken from a project investigating the social construction of mindfulness within Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). The project received ethical clearance from the research ethics and governance committee of the School of Psychology at Bangor University and the North Wales Research Ethics Committee. The project contributes findings to developing traditions of mindfulness research, training of mindfulness teachers, and qualitative research on education, training, health, medicine and psychotherapy. The data comprises a transcription of institutional interaction between a MBCT teacher and her students. In this session there are just three participants present – the other three course members are absent due to illness. The course is held in an outpatient oncology unit. The students meet weekly for 2-hour sessions. MBCT is an eight-week psychoeducational course and our data is an extract taken from week two of a course for people with cancer. Six people are enrolled on the course and three female participants are present during this class. The exemplar will help you to analyse naturally occurring interaction, think about power dynamics and teacher dilemmas in pedagogy, and the possible functions of psychological terms in interaction such as ‘mind’

Garden Profile: Auckland Botanic Gardens

Auckland Botanic Gardens is a relatively young botanic garden that opened in 1982 and covers 64 hectares in Manurewa, South Auckland. The plant collections include both exotic and New Zealand (NZ) native plants. The native plant collections are described and illustrated. The use of native plants for environmental and ecological enhancement is also explained

Modelling the contribution of walking between home and school to daily physical activity in primary age children

Background The purpose of this study was to identify the independent association of frequency of walking trips between home and school with daily physical activity in a sample of school-aged children. Methods Participants were 109 children (mean age = 12.05 years [±0.71]) attending nine primary schools in Adelaide, South Australia. Physical activity was derived from accelerometers with total counts as the outcome variable. Transport patterns were self-reported for each of the previous five school days. Walking trips were summed for each day and across the school week. The relationship between the number of active transport journeys and individual school day and school week physical activity was modelled separately in boys and girls using multiple linear regression. Results Frequency of walking was positively associated with school day and school week accelerometer counts in boys, accounting for 6% and 12% of the explained variance in total counts, respectively. There were no significant associations among girls. Conclusion Despite sex-specific differences in associations between active transport to school and total physical activity, active transport is likely to have important ancillary benefits for development of independence and physical activity habits, and should continue to be promoted

Conceptual design of a manned orbital transfer vehicle

With the advent of the manned space station, man now requires a spacecraft based on the space station with the ability to deploy, recover, and repair satellites quickly and economically. Such a craft would prolong and enhance the life and performance of many satellites. A basic design was developed for an orbital tansfer vehicle (OTV). The basic design criteria are discussed. The design of the OTV and systems were researched in the following areas: avionics, crew systems, electrical power systems, environmental control/life support systems, navigation and orbital maneuvers, propulsion systems, reaction control systems (RCS), servicing systems, and structures. The basic concepts in each of the areas are summarized

An adjudicated hermeneutic single-case efficacy design study of experiential therapy for panic/phobia

This paper illustrates the application of an adjudicated form of Hermeneutic Single Case Efficacy Design (HSCED), a critical-reflective method for inferring change and therapeutic influence in single therapy cases. The client was a 61 year-old European-American male diagnosed with panic and bridge phobia. He was seen for 23 sessions of individual Process-Experiential/Emotion-Focused Therapy. In this study, affirmative and skeptic teams of researchers developed opposing arguments regarding whether the client changed over therapy and whether therapy was responsible for these changes. Three judges representing different theoretical orientations then assessed data and arguments, rendering judgments in favor of the affirmative side. We discuss clinical implications and recommendations for the future interpretive case study research

Two designs for an orbital transfer vehicle

The Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) and systems were researched in the following areas: avionics, crew systems, electrical power systems, environmental control/life support systems, navigation and orbital maneuvers, propulsion systems, reaction control systems (RCS), servicing systems, and structures

Leadership Adaptability Within Higher Education

Dynamism in the higher education industry (HEI) has created unprecedented complexity and uncertainty for leaders at colleges and universities across the globe. The challenges to competitive advantage and sustainability created by dynamic conditions have been exacerbated and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and health crisis. HEI leaders are struggling to adapt antiquated and traditionally held methods and practices to navigate the rapid changes and survive the resulting chaos. The ability of leaders to adapt to dynamism in contemporary industry conditions is influenced by the external and internal environments; in term, these leaders’ capacity for change impacts the adaptability of the institutions they serve. This study examines how senior- and mid-level leaders at small private liberal arts colleges and universities are engaging in adaptive behaviors to help their organizations better compete despite challenges