An Analysis of Research Topics in Event Management Research

In spite of the increasing number of publication and newly established journals in event management, investigation of research topics by analyzing titles and abstracts of articles did not draw much attention among event scholars. This study is to find the trend of topics of research published in event management journals and suggest for future research. A total of 403 research papers published in the four event management journals were collected. The content analysis was performed with 4,087 words from titles of articles. The most frequently used words in the titles of articles are “event(s)” and “festival(s)” published in event management journals. The frequently used words in different journals and different time periods will be presented. Study limitations and future directions are discusse

Determinants of Downtown Image and Retail Patronage: A Case of Fargo, North Dakota

We sought to identify determinants of downtown image and retail patronage, which contribute to tourism development in small and mid-sized communities. The purpose of our research was twofold: (a) to understand how visitors perceive the business mix, safety, and atmosphere of the Fargo, North Dakota, downtown and (b) to identify what factors influence their perceptions of the downtown and patronage of the downtown retail businesses. A total of 155 visitors to Fargo\u27s downtown participated in our survey. Although we investigated one specific downtown, our findings may be relevant to Extension professionals in other small and mid-sized cities

Exploring Unplanned/Impulsive Travel Decision Making

Travelers are often open to the possibility of spontaneous decisions and changing specific plans en route, because of personal impulsiveness, sensation seeking desire, certain travel contexts, new information obtained during the trip, diverse preferences of travel party member, or the occurrence of unexpected constraints. Many decisions about travel components, hence, may be made without prior planning. However, the study of unplanned or impulsive travel behavior has drawn little attention. This study tries to fill this gap in the literature. The results show that travelers who are male, who travel to visit family/friends, shop, or who are without past experience to the destinations make a majority of their decisions after arrival at the destination. Implications of the study’s results and recommendations for future research are discussed

Host Residents’ Perceptions and Attitudes toward an Event

This study investigates the structural relationship among perceived impacts, benefit perceptions, and supports for the event. Local residents in the Black Hills area in South Dakota, where the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held, were invited to participate in the study. A total of 190 responses were collected using convenience sampling and structural equation modeling was performed to identify the relationship. The findings indicate that the perceived positive impact significantly affects both benefit perceptions and supports while perceived negative impact is not a significant predictor of residents’ benefit perception. In order to maximize community supports, it is recommended that event organizers emphasize on positive economic impacts

Dynamic Vehicular Route Guidance Using Traffic Prediction Information

We propose a dynamic vehicular routing algorithm with traffic prediction for improved routing performance. The primary idea of our algorithm is to use real-time as well as predictive traffic information provided by a central routing controller. In order to evaluate the performance, we develop a microtraffic simulator that provides road networks created from real maps, routing algorithms, and vehicles that travel from origins to destinations depending on traffic conditions. The performance is evaluated by newly defined metric that reveals travel time distributions more accurately than a commonly used metric of mean travel time. Our simulation results show that our dynamic routing algorithm with prediction outperforms both Static and Dynamic without prediction routing algorithms under various traffic conditions and road configurations. We also include traffic scenarios where not all vehicles comply with our dynamic routing with prediction strategy, and the results suggest that more than half the benefit of the new routing algorithm is realized even when only 30% of the vehicles comply

Association between use of hydrochlorothiazide and nonmelanoma skin cancer: Common data model cohort study in Asian population

Although hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) has been suggested to increase skin cancer risk in white Westerners, there is scant evidence for the same in Asians. We analyzed the association between the use of hydrochlorothiazide and non-melanoma in the Asian population using the common data model. METHODS: A retrospective multicenter observational study was conducted using a distributed research network to analyze the effect of HCTZ on skin cancer from 2004 to 2018. We performed Cox regression to evaluate the effects by comparing the use of HCTZ with other antihypertensive drugs. All analyses were re-evaluated using matched data using the propensity score matching (PSM). Then, the overall effects were evaluated by combining results with the meta-analysis. RESULTS: Positive associations were observed in the use of HCTZ with high cumulative dose for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) in univariate analysis prior to the use of PSM. Some negative associations were observed in the use of low and medium cumulative doses. CONCLUSION: Although many findings in our study were inconclusive, there was a non-significant association of a dose-response pattern with estimates increasing in cumulative dose of HCTZ. In particular, a trend with a non-significant positive association was observed with the high cumulative dose of HCTZ

Microvasculature remodeling in the mouse lower gut during inflammaging

Inflammaging is defined as low-grade, chronic, systemic inflammation in aging, in the absence of overt infection. Age-associated deterioration of gastrointestinal function could be ascribed to the inflammaging, although evidence is yet to emerge. Here we show that microvessels in aging mouse intestine were progressively deprived of supportive structures, microvessel-associated pericytes and adherens junction protein vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin, and became leaky. This alteration was ascribed to up-regulation of angiopoetin-2 in microvascular endothelial cells. Up-regulation of the angiopoietin-2 was by TNF-α, originated from M2-like residential CD206 + macrophages, proportion of which increases as animal ages. It was concluded that antigenic burdens encountered in intestine throughout life create the condition of chronic stage of inflammation, which accumulates M2-like macrophages expressing TNF-α. The TNF-α induces vascular leakage to facilitate recruitment of immune cells into intestine under the chronic inflammatory setting. © Author(s) 2017.1

Cloning and Characterization of a Flavonol Synthase Gene from Scutellaria baicalensis

Flavonols are the most abundant of all the flavonoids and play pivotal roles in a variety of plants. We isolated a cDNA clone encoding flavonol synthase from Scutellaria baicalensis (SbFLS). The SbFLS cDNA is 1011 bp long, encodes 336 amino acid residues, and belongs to a family of 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases. The overall structure of SbFLS is very similar to that of Arabidopsis thaliana anthocyanidin synthase (AtANS), with a β jelly-roll fold surrounded by tens of short and long α-helices. SbFLS was constitutively expressed in the roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, with particularly high expression in the roots and flowers. SbFLS transcript levels in the roots were 376-, 70-, and 2.5-fold higher than in the leaves, stems, and flowers. The myricetin content was significantly higher than that of kaempferol and quercetin. Therefore, we suggest that SbFLS mediates flavonol formation in the different organs of S. baicalensis. Our study may contribute to the knowledge of the role of FLS in S. baicalensis