Volunteer tourism : the new ecotourism?

One of the more recent forms of tourism to emerge is what has become known as Volunteer Tourism, the practice of individuals going on a working holiday, volunteering their labour for worthy causes. While volunteering is a well-established activity, the combination with tourism is relatively new and has already changed considerably over a very short period. This paper reviews the process by which volunteer tourism has developed, focusing on its transformation from an individual altruistic endeavour to a more commercial form of conventional tourism. The paper reviews the growth in number of websites devoted to volunteer tourism, and discusses the changes that have taken place in the content and focus of these websites, the locations used as destinations and the organisations they represent over the last two decades. It is apparent that over the last two decades the organisations offering volunteer tourist vacations have increasingly focused their attention on conventional commercial tourism markets which is a similar pattern of evolution to that of ecotourism. The paper concludes that volunteer tourism is likely to become increasingly diverse in scale, distribution and focus in the future, in the same way as ecotourism has broadened its market and appeal, but in so doing, will lose more of the distinctive features that characterized its initial form

Classifying pupils by where they live : how welldoes this predict variations in their GCSE results?

Classifying consumers according to the type of neighbourhood in which they live isnow standard practice among most of Britain?s successful consumer facingorganisations. In recent years these ?geodemographic? classifications have becomeincreasingly used in public sector applications. Their use has made it possible notjust to gain a clearer understanding of the level of inequalities that exist betweendifferent types of neighbourhood but also to understand which policy interventionsare likely to be most successful in different localities throughout the country.This paper summarises key findings resulting from the appending of the UK Mosaicneighbourhood classification system to the records of the Pupil Level Annual SchoolCensus. The most significant of these findings is that other than the performance ofthe pupil at an earlier key stage test the type of neighbourhood in which a pupil livesis a more reliable predictor of a pupil?s GCSE performance than any otherinformation held about that pupil on the PLASC database.Analysis then shows the extent to which the performance of pupils from anyparticular type of neighbourhood is also incrementally affected by theneighbourhoods from which the other pupils in the school they attend are drawn. Itfinds that whilst a pupil?s exam performance is affected primarily by the socialbackground of people he or she may encounter at home, the social background offellow school pupils is of only marginally lower significance.These findings suggest that so long as pupils? GCSE performances are so stronglyaffected by the type of neighbourhood in which they live, a school?s league positionbears only indirect relationship to the quality of school management and teaching. Abetter measurement of the latter would be a league table system which took intoaccount the geodemographic profile of each school?s pupil intake.The paper concludes with discussion of the relevance of these findings to thesociology of education, to the debate on consumer choice in public services, to thegeneral appropriateness of adjusting public sector performance metrics to take intoaccount the social mix of service users and to parental strategies in the educationalsector in particular. Classifying consumers according to the type of neighbourhood in which they live isnow standard practice among most of Britain?s successful consumer facingorganisations. In recent years these ?geodemographic? classifications have becomeincreasingly used in public sector applications. Their use has made it possible notjust to gain a clearer understanding of the level of inequalities that exist betweendifferent types of neighbourhood but also to understand which policy interventionsare likely to be most successful in different localities throughout the country.This paper summarises key findings resulting from the appending of the UK Mosaicneighbourhood classification system to the records of the Pupil Level Annual SchoolCensus. The most significant of these findings is that other than the performance ofthe pupil at an earlier key stage test the type of neighbourhood in which a pupil livesis a more reliable predictor of a pupil?s GCSE performance than any otherinformation held about that pupil on the PLASC database.Analysis then shows the extent to which the performance of pupils from anyparticular type of neighbourhood is also incrementally affected by theneighbourhoods from which the other pupils in the school they attend are drawn. Itfinds that whilst a pupil?s exam performance is affected primarily by the socialbackground of people he or she may encounter at home, the social background offellow school pupils is of only marginally lower significance.These findings suggest that so long as pupils? GCSE performances are so stronglyaffected by the type of neighbourhood in which they live, a school?s league positionbears only indirect relationship to the quality of school management and teaching. Abetter measurement of the latter would be a league table system which took intoaccount the geodemographic profile of each school?s pupil intake.The paper concludes with discussion of the relevance of these findings to thesociology of education, to the debate on consumer choice in public services, to thegeneral appropriateness of adjusting public sector performance metrics to take intoaccount the social mix of service users and to parental strategies in the educationalsector in particular

An abstract specification language for Markov reliability models

Markov models can be used to compute the reliability of virtually any fault tolerant system. However, the process of delineating all of the states and transitions in a model of complex system can be devastatingly tedious and error-prone. An approach to this problem is presented utilizing an abstract model definition language. This high level language is described in a nonformal manner and illustrated by example

Cooperative efforts by industry and government to develop geothermal resources

The Federal government's current plans for participation in the geothermal field appear to affect four major areas of interest: (1) resources exploration and assessment, (2) resources utilization projects, (3) advanced research and technology, and (4) environmental, legal, and institutional research. Private industry is also actively involved in these same areas of interest. Because of lack of coordination and communication between the private and public sector, it appears that there will be considerable duplication of effort, and, in some cases, serious conflict. It is also likely that this lack of coordination and communication may result in lack of effort in some key areas. Close coordination and communication between government and industry may resolve some of the major problems that are clearly evident

The SURE Reliability Analysis Program

The SURE program is a new reliability analysis tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The program is based on computational methods recently developed for the NASA Langley Research Center. These methods provide an efficient means for computing accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. Once a semi-Markov model is described using a simple input language, the SURE program automatically computes the upper and lower bounds on the probability of system failure. A parameter of the model can be specified as a variable over a range of values directing the SURE program to perform a sensitivity analysis automatically. This feature, along with the speed of the program, makes it especially useful as a design tool

An assessment of the real-time application capabilities of the SIFT computer system

The real-time capabilities of the SIFT computer system, a highly reliable multicomputer architecture developed to support the flight controls of a relaxed static stability aircraft, are discussed. The SIFT computer system was designed to meet extremely high reliability requirements and to facilitate a formal proof of its correctness. Although SIFT represents a significant achievement in fault-tolerant system research it presents an unusual and restrictive interface to its users. The characteristics of the user interface and its impact on application system design are assessed

The semi-Markov unreliability range evaluator program

The SURE program is a design/validation tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The system uses simple algebraic formulas to compute accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. The mathematical formulas used in the program were derived from a mathematical theorem proven by Allan White under contract to NASA Langley Research Center. This mathematical theorem is discussed along with the user interface to the SURE program

Development and integration of the capillary pumped loop GAS and Hitchhiker flight experiments

The Capillary Pumped Loop (CPL) is a thermal control system with high density heat acquisition and transport capability. A small spaceflight version of the CPL was built and flown as a GAS experiment on STS 51-D in April 1985 and STS 51-G in June 1985, and as a Hitchhiker-G experiment on STS 61-C in January 1986. The purpose of the experiments was to demonstrate the capability of a capillary pumped system under microgravity conditions for use in the thermal control of large scientific instruments, advanced orbiting spacecraft, and space station components. The development, integration, and test activities of the CPL are described