Millennials’ travel motivations and desired activities within destinations: A comparative study of the US and the UK

Millennials are one of the largest groups to be targeted by tourism companies. This paper compares the travel motivations of Millennials from both the United States and the United Kingdom by ratings, rankings and perceptual structures of both push and pull factors. This exploratory study used a questionnaire to examine the inner motivations (e.g. push factors) and preferred destination activities (e.g. pull factors) of American and British Millennials (n?=?322). Data analysis included the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, an alternating least-squares algorithm (ALSCAL) model and ordinal regression. The results reveal that American and British Millennials are quite homogeneous in their push travel motivations and destination activity preferences. The most important motivational factors for both are ‘to relax’ and ‘to escape from the ordinary’. Both nationalities also agree that the most attractive destination activities are ‘to try local food’ and ‘to go sightseeing’. The findings indicate that the US and UK samples are similar and that there is room for segmentation according to demographics.     

冷凝热回收的研究

空调制冷系统中普遍存在着散热耗能的情况,为了减少大量热量的浪费,介绍一种现有制冷系统中的设备改造方案。在冷却塔末端串联热泵机组,以冷却塔中的冷凝水作为热泵的低品位热源,热泵本身做为热水供应的热源,可以将制冷系统工作时冷却塔散失的冷凝热加以回收利用,生产出65℃的热水供用户使用,达到了显著节能降耗的作用。     

Do social networking sites contribute for building brands? Evaluating the impact of users' participation on brand awareness and brand attitude

Social networking sites (SNSs) have attracted increasing attention from brands, which look at the platform as a privileged communication channel to reach their audiences. Despite their growing adoption, few research efforts have been devoted to evaluate SNSs' concrete implications for the brands. The current study addresses this opportunity, proposing a model that evaluates the impact of users' participation in SNSs on brand awareness and brand attitude, the two main pillars of brand knowledge. The study focuses on brand like pages in Facebook, the most used SNSs platform for brands. An online quantitative survey with brand like page users of leading brands in Facebook was implemented. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the measurement model and structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed research hypotheses. The results identify a significant, positive and direct impact of users' participation on brand awareness. Brand attitude also substantially benefits from users' participation, but this relationship is mediated by brand awareness. The findings help to validate SNSs' significant role on building brand knowledge and to position users' participation at the core of brands' SNSs objectives. Furthermore, the study provides a practical research framework, easily adapted for monitoring purposes and managerial guidance. Future research directions are discussed.     

An integrated production–distribution model for the dynamic location and allocation problem with safety stock optimization

The design and management of a multi-stage production–distribution system is one of the most critical problems in logistics and in facility management. Companies need to be able to evaluate and design different configurations for their logistic networks as quickly as possible. This means coordinating the entire supply chain effectively in order to minimize costs and simultaneously optimize facilities location, the allocation of customer demand to production/distribution centers, the inbound and outbound transportation activities, the product flows between production and/or warehousing facilities, the reverse logistics activities, etc.Full optimization of supply chain is achieved by integrating strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making in terms of the design, management, and control of activities. The cost-based and mixed-integer programming model presented in this study has been developed to support management in making the following decisions: the number of facilities (e.g. warehousing systems, distribution centers), the choice of their locations and the assignment of customer demand to them, and also incorporate tactical decisions regarding inventory control, production rates, and service-level determination in a stochastic environment. This paper presents an original model for the dynamic location–allocation problem with control of customer service level and safety stock optimization. An experimental analysis identifies the most critical factors affecting the logistics cost, and to finish, an industrial application is illustrated demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed optimization approach.     

IPO重启前后影响其抑价率相关因素的比较分析

文章对全流通体制下IPO重启前后影响其抑价水平的相关因素分别进行了回归分析,其研究结论表明,IPO重启后新股抑价状况得到显著改善,并且IPO重启前后影响其抑价率的相关因素有明显不同,市场行情的转变和相关制度的修订在影响IPO押价因素的变化过程中可能发挥了重要作用.     

Fair Valuation of a Guaranteed Life Insurance Participating Contract Embedding a Surrender Option

In this article we deal with the problem of pricing a guaranteed life insurance participating policy, sold in the Italian market, which embeds a surrender option. This feature is an American‐style put option that enables the policyholder to sell back the contract to the insurer at the cash surrender value. Employing a recursive binomial formula patterned after the Cox, Ross, and Rubinstein (1979) discrete option pricing model we compute, first of all, the total price of the contract, which also includes a compensation for the participation feature (“participation option,” henceforth). Then this price is split into the value of three components: the basic contract, the participation option, and the surrender option. The numerical implementation of the model allows us to catch some comparative statics properties and to tackle the problem of suitably fixing the contractual parameters in order to obtain the premium computed by insurance companies according to standard actuarial practice.     

Behavioural factors in young people's fruit consumption

This study aims to find out the determinant factors affecting fruit consumption behaviour in Portuguese young people, based on the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model, and determine if this model explains differences according to gender, age and rural/urban environments. This research is innovative because it tests the HAPA model with young people, and because it adds social support to the HAPA model as an extra predictor of young people's behaviour. To gather the data, a questionnaire survey was applied in two public schools, one in a rural area and the other in a city. The survey was answered by 266 Portuguese young people, aged 15–21 years, from the 10th to the 12th grades. Authorization for the survey was given in advance, from the Ministry of Education, schools and parents, after which the survey was performed. Before applying the questionnaire, two pre‐tests were carried out, each with ten participants and with similar characteristics to the population studied. This study analyses action self‐efficacy, outcome expectancies, action planning, risk perception, intention, maintenance self‐efficacy and social support variables. The result was obtained through a two‐step process, by determining the measurement and structural model, using Smart PLS 2.0. The results show that young females have more factors determining fruit consumption, with greater social support for action self‐efficacy, greater maintenance self‐efficacy through action self‐efficacy, and greater perception of risk regarding fruit consumption. In terms of age, young people over 16 years present greater outcome expectations for the intention, greater perception of risk and action self‐efficacy for fruit consumption. The multi‐group analysis referring to differences between young people living in rural or urban environments did not show proof of the model giving a better explanation of one situation or the other. It can be concluded that the HAPA model is appropriate to the investigation of behaviour factors that influence young people's fruit consumption. The results also indicate that in the scope of the behaviour analysed the proposed model gives a better explanation for females and for those over 16 years.     

Fundamental ratios as predictors of ESG scores: a machine learning approach

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Sustainable and responsible finance incorporates Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into business decisions and investment strategies. In...     

Determinants of the income velocity of money in Portugal: 1891–1998

This paper performs a long-run time series analysis of the behaviour of the income velocity of money in Portugal between 1891 and 1998 by assessing the importance of both macroeconomic and institutional factors and looking for particularities in the Portuguese case. We estimate two cointegration vectors for the income velocity of money, macroeconomic variables and institutional variables. It is apparent that one of these vectors reflects the relationship between income velocity and macroeconomic variables, while the other reflects the relationship between income velocity and institutional variables. Moreover, a regression analysis reveals that the usual U-shaped pattern is displayed with a relatively late inflection point located around 1970, which is consistent with the Spanish case. It is further noted that this is a feature of countries with a late economic and institutional development process.