Perfect weddings abroad

Approximately 16% of UK couples are currently married abroad. However, academic or practitioner focused research that explores the complex nature of a couple’s buying preferences or the development of innovative marketing strategies by businesses operating within the weddings abroad niche sector, is almost non-existent. This exploratory paper examines the role and relevance of marketing within the weddings abroad sector. The complex nature of customer needs in this high emotional and involvement experience, are identified and explored. A case study of Perfect Weddings Abroad Ltd highlights distinctive features and characteristics. Social networking and the use of home-workers, with a focus on reassurance and handholding are important tools used to develop relationships with customers. These tools and techniques help increase the tangibility of a weddings abroad package. Clusters of complementary services that are synergistic and provide sources of competitive advantage are identified and an agenda for future research is developed

Examining the Moderating Role of Rational-Versus Emotional-Focused Websites: The Case of Boutique Hotels

This article examines whether emotional or rational advertising appeals are more effective for website hospitality services. Specifically, it considers how attitudes towards websites, service expectations and attitudes towards boutique hotels may influence the two different types of advertising appeals and purchase intention. Results show that websites using emotional appeals tend to show a positive relationship between attitude towards hotels and attitude towards websites and purchase intention. It also indicates that emotional advertisements are better at gaining and retaining interest and attention, and as such can be highly beneficial for small boutique hotels. This article provides several marketing and business policy implications to aid practitioners and strategists in making better decisions

The Procedural Index for Mortality Risk (PIMR): an index calculated using administrative data to quantify the independent influence of procedures on risk of hospital death

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Surgeries and other procedures can influence the risk of death in hospital. All published scales that predict post-operative death risk require clinical data and cannot be measured using administrative data alone. This study derived and internally validated an index that can be calculated using administrative data to quantify the independent risk of hospital death after a procedure.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>For all patients admitted to a single academic centre between 2004 and 2009, we estimated the risk of all-cause death using the Kaiser Permanente Inpatient Risk Adjustment Methodology (KP-IRAM). We determined whether each patient underwent one of 503 commonly performed therapeutic procedures using Canadian Classification of Interventions codes and whether each procedure was emergent or elective. Multivariate logistic regression modeling was used to measure the association of each procedure-urgency combination with death in hospital independent of the KP-IRAM risk of death. The final model was modified into a scoring system to quantify the independent influence each procedure had on the risk of death in hospital.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>275 460 hospitalizations were included (137,730 derivation, 137,730 validation). In the derivation group, the median expected risk of death was 0.1% (IQR 0.01%-1.4%) with 4013 (2.9%) dying during the hospitalization. 56 distinct procedure-urgency combinations entered our final model resulting in a Procedural Index for Mortality Rating (PIMR) score values ranging from -7 to +11. In the validation group, the PIMR score significantly predicted the risk of death by itself (c-statistic 67.3%, 95% CI 66.6-68.0%) and when added to the KP-IRAM model (c-index improved significantly from 0.929 to 0.938).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We derived and internally validated an index that uses administrative data to quantify the independent association of a broad range of therapeutic procedures with risk of death in hospital. This scale will improve risk adjustment when administrative data are used for analyses.</p

Virtual cultural tourism: six pillars of VCT using co-creation, value exchange and exchange value

This paper examines antecedents to the successful use of Virtual Cultural Tourism and the ways in which virtual realities can add value to Cultural Tourism offers. Success can be seen to derive from the deeper understanding of consumers’ preferences and motivations to engage with Virtual Cultural Tourism. It is also necessary to see these initiatives from the perspective of multiple stakeholders: the armchair traveller, the frequent flyer and the service provider at destinations. The latter include public sector providers such as park site managers, museum curators, interpretation and information services for tourism as well as the private sector developers

Quantitative imaging of concentrated suspensions under flow

We review recent advances in imaging the flow of concentrated suspensions, focussing on the use of confocal microscopy to obtain time-resolved information on the single-particle level in these systems. After motivating the need for quantitative (confocal) imaging in suspension rheology, we briefly describe the particles, sample environments, microscopy tools and analysis algorithms needed to perform this kind of experiments. The second part of the review focusses on microscopic aspects of the flow of concentrated model hard-sphere-like suspensions, and the relation to non-linear rheological phenomena such as yielding, shear localization, wall slip and shear-induced ordering. Both Brownian and non-Brownian systems will be described. We show how quantitative imaging can improve our understanding of the connection between microscopic dynamics and bulk flow.Comment: Review on imaging hard-sphere suspensions, incl summary of methodology. Submitted for special volume 'High Solid Dispersions' ed. M. Cloitre, Vol. xx of 'Advances and Polymer Science' (Springer, Berlin, 2009); 22 pages, 16 fig

Relation between body mass index and depression: a structural equation modeling approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity and depression are two major diseases which are associated with many other health problems such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure in patients with systolic hypertension, low bone mineral density and increased mortality. Both diseases share common health complications but there are inconsistent findings concerning the relationship between obesity and depression. In this work we used the <it>structural equation modeling </it>(SEM) technique to examine the relation between body mass index (BMI), as a proxy for obesity, and depression using the Canadian Community Health Survey, Cycle 1.2.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this SEM model we postulate that 1) BMI and depression are directly related, 2) BMI is directly affected by the physical activity and, 3)depression is directly influenced by stress. SEM was also used to assess the relation between BMI and depression separately for males and females.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results indicate that higher BMI is associated with more severe form of depression. On the other hand, the more severe form of depression may result in less weight gain. However, the association between depression and BMI is gender dependent. In males, the higher BMI may result in a more severe form of depression while in females the relation may not be the same. Also, there was a negative relationship between physical activity and BMI.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In general, use of SEM method showed that the two major diseases, obesity and depression, are associated but the form of the relation is different among males and females. More research is necessary to further understand the complexity of the relationship between obesity and depression. It also demonstrated that SEM is a feasible technique for modeling the relation between obesity and depression.</p

Is Genetic Background Important in Lung Cancer Survival?

BACKGROUND:In lung cancer, a patient's survival is poor with a wide variation in survival within the stage of disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the familial concordance in lung cancer survival by means of analyses of pairs with different degrees of familial relationships. METHODS:Our population-based Swedish family database included three million families and over 58,100 lung cancer patients. We modelled the proband (parent, sibling, spouse) survival utilizing a multivariate proportional hazard (Cox) model adjusting for possible confounders of survival. Subsequently, the survival in proband's relative (child, sibling, spouse) was analysed with a Cox model. FINDINGS:By use of Cox modelling with 5 years follow-up, we noted a decreased hazard ratio for death in children with good parental survival (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.51 to 0.99), compared to those with poor parental survival. Also for siblings, a very strong protective effect was seen (HR = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.030 to 0.65). Finally, in spouses no correlation in survival was found. INTERPRETATION:Our findings suggest that genetic factors are important in lung cancer survival. In a clinical setting, information on prognosis in a relative may be vital in foreseeing the survival in an individual newly diagnosed with lung cancer. Future molecular studies enhancing the understanding of the underlying mechanisms and pathways are needed

The Impact of Worry on Attention to Threat

Prior research has often linked anxiety to attentional vigilance for threat using the dot probe task, which presents probes in spatial locations that were or were not preceded by a putative threat stimulus. The present study investigated the impact of worry on threat vigilance by administering this task during a worry condition and during a mental arithmetic control condition to 56 undergraduate students scoring in the low normal range on a measure of chronic worry. The worry induction was associated with faster responses than arithmetic to probes in the attended location following threat words, indicating the combined influence of worry and threat in facilitating attention. Within the worry condition, responses to probes in the attended location were faster for trials containing threat words than for trials with only neutral words, whereas the converse pattern was observed for responses to probes in the unattended location. This connection between worry states and attentional capture by threat may be central to understanding the impact of hypervigilance on information processing in anxiety and its disorders

Improved accuracy of co-morbidity coding over time after the introduction of ICD-10 administrative data

BACKGROUND: Co-morbidity information derived from administrative data needs to be validated to allow its regular use. We assessed evolution in the accuracy of coding for Charlson and Elixhauser co-morbidities at three time points over a 5-year period, following the introduction of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), coding of hospital discharges.METHODS: Cross-sectional time trend evaluation study of coding accuracy using hospital chart data of 3'499 randomly selected patients who were discharged in 1999, 2001 and 2003, from two teaching and one non-teaching hospital in Switzerland. We measured sensitivity, positive predictive and Kappa values for agreement between administrative data coded with ICD-10 and chart data as the 'reference standard' for recording 36 co-morbidities.RESULTS: For the 17 the Charlson co-morbidities, the sensitivity - median (min-max) - was 36.5% (17.4-64.1) in 1999, 42.5% (22.2-64.6) in 2001 and 42.8% (8.4-75.6) in 2003. For the 29 Elixhauser co-morbidities, the sensitivity was 34.2% (1.9-64.1) in 1999, 38.6% (10.5-66.5) in 2001 and 41.6% (5.1-76.5) in 2003. Between 1999 and 2003, sensitivity estimates increased for 30 co-morbidities and decreased for 6 co-morbidities. The increase in sensitivities was statistically significant for six conditions and the decrease significant for one. Kappa values were increased for 29 co-morbidities and decreased for seven.CONCLUSIONS: Accuracy of administrative data in recording clinical conditions improved slightly between 1999 and 2003. These findings are of relevance to all jurisdictions introducing new coding systems, because they demonstrate a phenomenon of improved administrative data accuracy that may relate to a coding 'learning curve' with the new coding system

Clustering cliques for graph-based summarization of the biomedical research literature

BACKGROUND: Graph-based notions are increasingly used in biomedical data mining and knowledge discovery tasks. In this paper, we present a clique-clustering method to automatically summarize graphs of semantic predications produced from PubMed citations (titles and abstracts). RESULTS: SemRep is used to extract semantic predications from the citations returned by a PubMed search. Cliques were identified from frequently occurring predications with highly connected arguments filtered by degree centrality. Themes contained in the summary were identified with a hierarchical clustering algorithm based on common arguments shared among cliques. The validity of the clusters in the summaries produced was compared to the Silhouette-generated baseline for cohesion, separation and overall validity. The theme labels were also compared to a reference standard produced with major MeSH headings. CONCLUSIONS: For 11 topics in the testing data set, the overall validity of clusters from the system summary was 10% better than the baseline (43% versus 33%). While compared to the reference standard from MeSH headings, the results for recall, precision and F-score were 0.64, 0.65, and 0.65 respectively