Applications of Social Media in the Tourism Industry: A Review

Purpose- This study aims to review and analyze the articles related to social media applications and their impact on the tourism industry. Methodology- For conducting this study, three leading databases named Google Scholar, Science Direct, and EBSCO Host were used for data collection purposes, and the research was conducted in three phases. Selecting the database for collecting data was the first phase, which was carried out during the period between November 2020 to December 2020. In the second phase, screening of the collected data was done, and in the final stage, 46 articles were selected to conduct this study. Discussion- Over the last decade, the rapid advancements in information and communication technology (ICTs) have had reflective impacts on the global tourism sector. Both researchers and professionals have acknowledged that social media applications have a significant impact on both suppliers and consumers of the tourism industry. Findings- Based on the reviewed articles from the perspectives of the tourism consumers as well as the tourism suppliers, this study has found that consumers use social media in pre-during-post travel for searching different information and suppliers generally use social media for promotion, communication, management, research purposes

Human development focusing on access to health care of South Asian immigrants living in the Greater Toronto area (GTA)

Immigrant populations enter Canada hoping for a better quality of life and usually with higher health status because of the Canadian immigration process which screens out those who have health problems. However, after living in Canada for a time, visible minority immigrants experience barriers/challenges to accessing health care and their health declines. Visible minority immigrants are more likely to reach their full potential when they have equal and appropriate access to health-care opportunities in their host society. The objective of this study is to investigate the challenges/barriers South Asian immigrants face in accessing the appropriate health-care opportunities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) needed for maximizing their human development. Using the convenience sampling technique, a sample of 307 self-administered survey questionnaires and five focus groups of South Asian immigrants living in the GTA were collected. To analyze and measure human development, this research used Amartya Sen's capability and freedom approach that considers human development as a process of expanding people’s choices and opportunities which could enhance their capabilities and freedoms for their quality of life and human development. Access to health care is one of the significant components contributing directly to that quality of life. Using the SPSS software, this research tested the hypotheses, conducted cross-tabulation, chi-square tests and Cramer’s V; the results show that there are statistically significant associations between South Asian immigrants' self-rated health before and after coming to Canada; between self-rated health and access barriers; and between access barriers and capabilities and freedom variables. The results also show that South Asian immigrants’ self-rated health declined after living some time in Canada because of the barriers/challenges to accessing health-care opportunities in the GTA. The study also confirmed that access to health care challenges/barriers is limiting the South Asian immigrants’ growth of capabilities and freedoms and quality of life. For good quality of life and building of capabilities they need access to culturally appropriate health-care services.Doctoral These

Long Memory Features in Return and Volatility of the Malaysian Stock Market

This study aims to investigate the existence of long memory in the Malaysian stock market utilizing daily stock price index from the period 1998:09 to 2009:12. Various ARFIMA-G(ARCH)-type models have been taken into consideration to address this issue, which has led to several interesting conclusions. Firstly, the long memory property exists in both the return and volatility, with and without incorporating the crisis impact. Secondly, the stock volatility is found to be experiencing significant leverage effect especially with the inclusion of the impact of crisis. This implies that the volatility has the tendency to respond to bad news more than good news as compared to the other periods under study. Thirdly, among the various G(ARCH)-type models with different innovation distributions, the Student-t distribution provides better specifications in terms of the long memory volatility processes. In summary, ARFIMA-FIAPARCH model is found to be the most appropriate method of presenting the stylized facts of stock return and volatility in Malaysia.long memory property, leverage effect, ARFIMA-G(ARCH) models

Wideband L-Probe Fed Inverted Hybrid E-H Microstrip Patch Antennas For IMT-2000 Band

This Paper Presents A Novel Wideband L-Probe Fed Inverted Hybrid E-H Shaped Microstrip Patch Antenna (LIEH) Covering The International Mobile Telecommunications - 2000 (IMT-2000) Band. The Design Adopts Contemporary Techniques; L-Probe Feeding, Inverted Patch Structure With Air-Filled Dielectric, And Slotted Patch. The Composite Effect Of Integrating These Techniques And Introducing The Novel E-H Patch Shaped Offers A Low Profile, Broadband, High Gain, Low Crosspolarization, And Compact Antenna Element. Measurement Result Showed Satisfactory Performance With An Achievable Bandwidth Of 17.20% At 14 Db Return Loss (SWR = 1.5), Maximum Achievable Gain Of 8 Dbi With 1 Db Gain Variations, And Crosspolarization Level Of 23 Db Below The Main Lobe Level. The LIEH Patch Has A Compact Dimension Of 79 × 41 Mm2. The Design Is Suitable For Array Applications Especially For IMT-2000 Base Station Antenna

Fusing spatial and temporal components for real-time depth data enhancement of dynamic scenes

The depth images from consumer depth cameras (e.g., structured-light/ToF devices) exhibit a substantial amount of artifacts (e.g., holes, flickering, ghosting) that needs to be removed for real-world applications. Existing methods cannot entirely remove them and perform slow. This thesis proposes a new real-time spatio-temporal depth image enhancement filter that completely removes flickering and ghosting, and significantly reduces holes. This thesis also presents a novel depth-data capture setup and two data reduction methods to optimize the performance of the proposed enhancement method

Methodology for managing shipbuilding projectby integrated optimality

PhD ThesisSmall to medium shipyards in developing shipbuilding countries face a persistent challenge to contain project cost and deadline due mainly to the ongoing development in facility and assorted product types. A methodology has been proposed to optimize project activities at the global level of project planning based on strength of dependencies between activities and subsequent production units at the local level. To achieve an optimal performance for enhanced competitiveness, both the global and local level of shipbuilding processes must be addressed. This integrated optimization model first uses Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) to derive an optimal sequence of project activities based on Triangularization algorithm. Once optimality of project activities in the global level is realized then further optimization is applied to the local levels, which are the corresponding production processes of already optimized project activities. A robust optimization tool, Response Surface Method (RSM), is applied to ascertain optimum setting of various factors and resources at the production activities. Data from a South Asian shipyard has been applied to validate the fitness of the proposed method. Project data and computer simulated data are combined to carry out experiments according to the suggested layout of Design of Experiments (DOE). With the application of this model, it is possible to study the bottleneck dynamics of the production process. An optimum output of the yard, thus, may be achieved by the integrated optimization of project activities and corresponding production processes with respect to resource allocation. Therefore, this research may have a useful significance towards the improvement in shipbuilding project management