The tourist experience of heritage urban spaces : Valletta as a case study

This article provides an understanding of how tourists experience heritage urban spaces by investigating features that influence tourist experiences most. It is framed within urban design literature which refers to three elements of urban space namely physical setting (or form), activity, and meaning. These elements are used to explore how urban spaces are experienced by tourists. Its findings are derived from an in-depth qualitative analysis of interviews with tourists to Valletta, Malta. The research suggests that the intrinsic qualities of the space are relevant to the tourist experience but what is even more relevant are the interactions of the tourist with different elements within that space, namely interactions with surroundings, interactions with others, and interactions with self/meaning. Within this broad conceptual model, the research identifies important sub-themes. Some of these reinforce the findings of existing work on tourist experiences, but others are often under-estimated or neglected.peer-reviewe

The Influence of Medicare Home Health Payment Incentives: Does Payer Source Matter?

During the late 1990s, an interim payment system (IPS) was instituted to constrain Medicare home health care expenditures. Previous research has largely focused on the implications of the IPS for Medicare patients, but our study broadens the analysis to consider patients with other payer sources. Using the National Home and Hospice Care Survey, we found similar effects of the IPS across payer types. Specifically, the IPS was associated with a decrease in access to care for the sickest patients, less agency assistance with activities of daily living, and shorter length-of-use. However, these changes did not translate into worse discharge outcomes.Medicare, health, incentives

Developing our claims employees

The Insurance Reserve Fund under the State Fiscal Accountability Authority provides property and liability insurance to all State agencies and various local governmental entities, including Counties, Municipalities, School Districts and special purpose Political Subdivisions. When employees from the private sector come to work for the agency they must transition to governmental claims work. This project seeks to create a standardization of the employee transition process to best provide property and liability insurance products that meet the needs of the governmental customers

The interaction of knowledge sources in word sense disambiguation

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is a computational linguistics task likely to benefit from the tradition of combining different knowledge sources in artificial in telligence research. An important step in the exploration of this hypothesis is to determine which linguistic knowledge sources are most useful and whether their combination leads to improved results. We present a sense tagger which uses several knowledge sources. Tested accuracy exceeds 94% on our evaluation corpus.Our system attempts to disambiguate all content words in running text rather than limiting itself to treating a restricted vocabulary of words. It is argued that this approach is more likely to assist the creation of practical systems

Violence Against Women: Effective Interventions and Practices with Perpetrators – A literature Review

First paragraph: This report presents a review of literature on effective interventions and practices to deal with perpetrators of violence against women. The key focus is with those interventions and practices which are aimed at reducing re-offending, rather than primary prevention and or public education work. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Government in order to inform development of Scotland's strategy for preventing the causes and consequences of violence against women

The Demand for Carbon Offsets in the United States: A Snapshot of U.S. Buyers on the Global Voluntary and California Compliance Markets

While the supply-side of carbon markets is relatively well documented, understanding of demand is more elusive. This report aims to shed light on the demand for carbon offsets in the United States, both among companies purchasing offsets voluntarily and California entities purchasing offsets as part of their compliance obligations under the new greenhouse gas regulation in the state. Our research focuses on three key areas of inquiry: (1) Motivations: Why are firms choosing to purchase carbon offsets? (2) Processes: How are firms navigating the carbon markets? What decision-making processes are firms using when purchasing offsets? What barriers and challenges are firms facing? (3) Preferences: What preferences do buyers exhibit when purchasing offsets? What factors do firms consider when investing in an offset project or portfolio of projects? To answer these questions, we surveyed compliance companies in California, did case studies of five major companies purchasing offsets on the voluntary market, and interviewed dozens of buyers and other market participants. On the voluntary side, we found that companies were motivated largely by corporate social responsibility and public relations. Although each company had different goals for their offsetting program, they all reaped benefits in terms of both environmental sustainability and improved branding. The case studies of Ford, Macmillan, Interface, General Motors, and British Petroleum illustrate several different approaches toward offsetting. In terms of process, we found that most voluntary buyers purchase offsets as part of larger sustainability efforts and spend considerable time and effort quantifying their emissions and defining program goals. They then work with NGOs, consultants, and other advisors to build their offset strategies accordingly. Lastly, in terms of preferences, we found that companies in the voluntary market prefer offsets that are highly visible, have an immediate impact, and pose a low public relations risk. They tend to buy a diverse portfolio of offsets, some of which are “charismatic” and others that are cheaper and/or available in bulk. In the California compliance market, companies are motivated entirely by the AB32 regulation, which requires them to meet an emissions cap. To do so, they have the option to reduce their emissions, purchase allowances, purchase offsets, or do a combination of the three to comply with the law. Since offsets are cheaper than allowances, many compliant entities plan to purchase offsets as a way to reduce costs; however, there may be hidden transaction costs in figuring out how to navigate the offset marketplace. We found that overall, compliance entities are very price-sensitive, with recommendations from partners being a secondary consideration. The projected supply of offsets and differentiated risk across project types may also influence demand for offsets on the California market.Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97426/1/Carbon Offset Demand in the US_Final_April 2013.pd

A pan-Canadian dataset of neighbourhood retail food environment measures using Statistics Canada's Business Register.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to create the Canadian Food Environment Dataset (Can-FED) and to demonstrate its validity. DATA AND METHODS: Food outlet data were extracted from Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR) in 2018. Retail food environment access measures (both absolute and relative measures) were calculated using network buffers around the centroid of 56,589 dissemination areas in Canada. A k-medians clustering approach was used to create categorical food environment variables that were easy to use and amenable to dissemination. Validity of the measures was assessed by comparing the food environment measures from Can-FED with measures created using Enhanced Points of Interest data by DMTI Spatial Inc. and data from a municipal health inspection list. Validity was also assessed by calculating the geographic variability in food environments across census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and assessing associations between CMA-level food environments and CMA-level health indicators. RESULTS: Two versions of Can-FED were created: a researcher file that must be accessed within a secure Statistics Canada environment and a general-use file available online. Agreement between Can-FED food environment measures and those derived from a proprietary dataset and a municipal health inspection list ranged from rs=0.28 for convenience store density and rs=0.53 for restaurant density. At the CMA level, there is wide geographic variation in the food environment with evidence of patterning by health indicators. INTERPRETATION: Can-FED is a valid and accessible dataset of pan-Canadian food environment measures that was created from the BR, a data source that has not been explored fully for health research

The Ursinus Weekly, March 12, 1962

Nobel Prize-winner here tonight: Dr. Linus Pauling to address special forum on Science and international relations • Book No more war! Dr. Pauling\u27s credo • Local high school pupils invited to PSEA panel • UC students attend I.C.G. convention • Student-faculty talent show to finish Campus Chest charity drive Friday • College\u27s concert band to perform next Thursday • Lauderdale braces for Spring influx • Civil liberty\u27s Cox visits U.C. campus • Campus Chest activities continue this week • Ursinus invites public to use College Library • St. Pat\u27s twist theme of frosh dance Saturday • Pre-med club to see films depicting Caesarian birth • Editorial: Just this once • Penna. folk festival planned for Harrisburg • Ursinus in the past • Curtain Club offers two plays; One-act shows given last Thursday • Women\u27s hairbreadth victories mark basketball play; Sansenbach stars • High scoring continues; Intramural finish nears • Mermaids win two in week\u27s action • Sports publicist evaluates season • Intramural corner • Cindermen seem strong as five lettermen return • Chief McClure hustles vagrant to county jail • Collegeville tops Phoenix YMCA basketball league • Collegeville firemen take part in Phila. exhibit • Faculty hoopsters triumph in benefit against girls • Graduate grantshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1314/thumbnail.jp