Recession as an agent in the restructuring of tourist accommodation

Academic research into economic restructuring in the tourist industry has solely focused on the strategies adopted by large chain hotel companies and little attention has been paid to the strategies adopted by small scale, family-run accommodation establishments. This sector is particularly significant for traditional resort areas in the UK. For example, in Torbay, Devon (as in most seaside resorts), there is an absence of large chain hotels and small-scale accommodation establishment pl ay an integral role in the local tourism economy.Consequently, an understanding of the competitive pressures and restructuring strategies in this sector is essential in maintaining the long-term health and prosperity of the resort. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the restructuring process occurring in the hotel industry and, in particular, to focus on the restructuring strategies in the small-scale accommodation s ector. To do so, this study will draw on empirical data obtained from a number of sources including a commercial register, holiday accommodation brochures, planning applications and a major questionnaire survey of all serviced and self-catering accommodation establishments o perating in Torbay. This study will show that the restructuring process within the accommodation sector has been influenced by a combination of factors within the internal and external resort environment, including free market forces and public sector intervention. Restructuring strategies have concentrated on the development of ensuite and leisure facilities, although provision has been influenced by the structural and locational characteristics of accommodatione stablishments. A review of the entrepreneurial characteristics of the accommodation providers highlights the complexity of the decision-making process and that business strategy is influenced by highly personalised and individualistic operating characteristics that are difficult to isolate and analyse. Therefore, any policy directives to guide the future development of the resort will depend on dealing with individual managemen strategies and business objectives

Visual cortical plasticity after the termination of the critical period: A review and experimental test

A literature review is presented in which stimulus deprivation amblyopia is discussed. Additionally, the review of literature covers aspects of attentional and motivational effects on stimulus deprivation amblyopia. Although the experimental design originally intended to induce amblyopia in six kittens born June 14, 1992, only two survived to become subjects in the study. The two kittens were monocularly deprived of light stimulation by wearing an opaque contact lens on the right eye during six hours of light exposure per day, five days per week, beginning at four weeks of age. At all other times, including the first four weeks of life, they were kept in the dark. Beginning at eleven weeks of age, the kittens were motivationally trained to recognize grating acuity patterns, and then acuity testing in the non-deprived eye began at twenty-two weeks of age. Reverse occlusion and acuity testing after the critical period, for the purpose of exploring any motivational visual function recovery, began at thirty-seven weeks of age

Fast regridding of large, complex geospatial datasets

In the earth sciences, data are commonly cast on complex grids in order to model irregular domains such as coastlines, or to evenly distribute grid points over the globe. It is common for a scientist to wish to re-cast such data onto a grid that is more amenable to manipulation, visualization, or comparison with other data sources. The complexity of the grids presents a significant technical difficulty to the regridding process. In particular, the regridding of complex grids may suffer from severe performance issues, in the worst case scaling with the product of the sizes of the source and destination grids. We present a mechanism for the fast regridding of such datasets, based upon the construction of a spatial index that allows fast searching of the source grid. We discover that the most efficient spatial index under test (in terms of memory usage and query time) is a simple look-up table. A kd-tree implementation was found to be faster to build and to give similar query performance at the expense of a larger memory footprint. Using our approach, we demonstrate that regridding of complex data may proceed at speeds sufficient to permit regridding on-the-fly in an interactive visualization application, or in a Web Map Service implementation. For large datasets with complex grids the new mechanism is shown to significantly outperform algorithms used in many scientific visualization packages

Fathers report experiencing negative feelings and psychological difficulties during the perinatal period

The perinatal period is the time from the start of pregnancy to 1 year after the child has been born.1 During the perinatal period, an estimated 5%–10% of fathers will develop above-threshold symptoms of paternal depression.2 During this period, fathers can experience a high level of stress which can have negative effects on themselves and their families.3 This review aims to explore the needs and experiences associated with the mental health of fathers during this perinatal period.

The Gaussian Plasma Lens in Astrophysics. Refraction

We consider the geometrical optics for refraction of a distant radio source by an interstellar plasma lens, with application to a lens with a Gaussian electron column density profile. The refractive properties of the lens are specified completely by a dimensionless parameter, alpha, which is a function of the wavelength of observation, the lens' electron column density, the lens-observer distance, and the transverse diameter of the lens. Relative motion of the observer and lens produces modulations in the source's light curve. Plasma lenses are diverging so the light curve displays a minimum, when the lens is on-axis, surrounded by enhancements above the unlensed flux density. Lensing can also produce caustics, multiple imaging, and angular position wander of the background source. If caustics are formed, the separation of the outer caustics can constrain alpha, while the separation of the inner caustics can constrain the size of the lens. We apply our analysis to 0954+654, a source for which we can identify caustics in its light curve, and 1741-038, for which polarization observations were obtained during and after the scattering event. We find general agreement between modelled and observed light curves at 2.25 GHz, but poor agreement at 8.1 GHz. The discrepancies may result from a combination of lens substructure or anisotropic shape, a lens that only grazes the source, or unresolved source substructure. Our analysis places the following constraints on the lenses: Toward 0954+654 (1741-038) the lens was 0.38 AU (0.065 AU) in diameter, with a peak column density of 0.24 pc cm^{-3} (1E-4 pc cm^{-3}) and an electron density of 1E5 cm^{-3} (300 cm^{-3}). The angular wander caused by the lens was 250 mas (0.4 mas) at 2.25 GHz. For 1741-038, we place an upper limit of 100 mG on the lens' magnetic field.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX2e using AASTeX macro aaspp4, 11 PostScript figures; to be published in Ap

Spectrum Sharing Dynamic Protection Area Neighborhoods for Radio Astronomy

To enforce incumbent protection through a spectrum access system (SAS) or future centralized shared spectrum system, dynamic protection area (DPA) neighborhood distances are employed. These distances are distance radii, in which citizen broadband radio service devices (CBSDs) are considered as potential interferers for the incumbent spectrum users. The goal of this paper is to create an algorithm to define DPA neighborhood distances for radio astronomy (RA) facilities with the intent to incorporate those distances into existing SASs and to adopt for future frameworks to increase national spectrum sharing. This paper first describes an algorithm to calculate sufficient neighborhood distances. Verifying this algorithm by recalculating previously calculated and currently used neighborhood distances for existing DPAs then proves its viability for extension to radio astronomy facilities. Applying the algorithm to the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) with customized parameters results in distance recommendations, 112 kilometers for category A (devices with 30 dBm/10 MHz max EIRP) and 144 kilometers for category B (devices with 47 dBm/10MHz max EIRP), for HCRO's inclusion into a SAS and shows that the algorithm can be applied to RA facilities in general. Calculating these distances identifies currently used but likely out-of-date metrics and assumptions that should be revisited for the benefit of spectrum sharing.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables, published to WCNC 202