Watching narratives of travel-as-transformation in The Beach and The Motorcycle Diaries

The attention recently accorded to feature films in tourism studies has been mostly driven by the idea that cinema has the ability to provoke in the viewer a sense of anticipation regarding a given or potential tourist destination. Films, however, also play an important role in shaping our notions of what a tourist experience should be. One of the most common tropes in travel or tourism-related films has been the trope of the journey as a transformative or ‘life-changing experience’. This paper explores the connections between this recurrent trope and the classical narrative film. Broadly consisting of a character-centred narrative in which events are organised by causal logic, moving towards the resolution of an initial problem or crisis, the classical narrative film relies heavily upon the idea of change (the turning point which prepares the way for denouement) and is, therefore, particularly prone to depictions of tourism as a life-changing experience. Despite innovations introduced from the 1960s onwards, most mainstream travel films still follow this narrative scheme. This paper analyses two of these films, The Beach (2000, dir. Danny Boyle) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004, dir. Walter Salles), which have been widely discussed in relation to tourism, underlining how they support notions of travelling as a source of transformation, sidestepping more banal kinds of experiences. Drawing on a large sample of online film reviews, I argue that viewers are not unaware of this bias, which they often reproduce, comment upon and challenge.     

基于引导文教学法的学生学习效果评价体系的探讨

由德国职教引入的引导文教学法是一种根据行动引导文完成学习的教学方法,其教学优势在物流管理专业中具有广泛的适用性。在引用了该教学法后,对相应的学生评价体系也提出了新的要求。文中主要从当前高职教育在学生评价中存在的问题入手,提出在引导文教学法下应该构建符合高职培养目标的学生评价体系,并结合物流行业和专业教学的特征对构件的学生评价体系进行举例说明。得出强调多样化、过程性和综合性的学生评价才是符合该教学法和高职教育人才培养目标评价方法的结论。教学评价是依据教学目标对教学过程及结果进行价值判断并为教学决策服务的活动。教学评价是研究教师的教和学生的学的价值的过程。教学评价一般包括对教学过程中教师、学生、教学内容、教学方法手段、教学环境、教学管理诸因素的评价,但主要是对学生学习效果的评价和教师教学工作过程的评价。文中只研究学生学习效果的评价体系。     

概率化预测隧道地质条件

为了预测隧道开挖面前方的地质条件,降低施工风险和成本,采用马尔科夫和神经网络构成的模型,既比马尔科夫方法经济,又能实现神经网络方法所不能实现的动态化预测。     

The Role of Public Infrastructure in China's Regional Inequality and Growth: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

Using a simultaneous equations approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of two types of public infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure, on industrial geography, regional income disparities, and growth across 286 cities in China. It is found that an improvement in transportation infrastructure that reduces trade costs on goods increases growth and decreases income gap at the expense of increasing industrial agglomeration between cities. Therefore, this paper confirms the existence of a trade‐off between spatial equity (more even spatial distribution of economic activities) and spatial efficiency (higher growth rate). However, for knowledge infrastructure that reduces trade costs on ideas, it is found that it increases growth but also decreases income gap and industrial agglomeration simultaneously. Moreover, the impact of knowledge infrastructure is found to be larger in the case of high labor mobility.     

e‐Participation Model for Sustainable Cultural Tourism Management: a Bottom‐Up Approach

The paper presents a ‘bottom‐up approach’ for cultural tourism management, based on the development of an e‐participation website for an Italian city, where the stakeholders are placed at the centre of the decisional process. The analysis provides an indication on how to personalize and differentiate the cultural tourism offer according to the stakeholders’ perspectives and to specific territorial characteristics. Innovative techniques of stakeholders’ engagement are offered by information and communication technologies tools that can play a vital role in today's cultural destinations. However, the study shows that the Web is yet to be utilized as an effective tool in stakeholders’ participation processes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mobilising tourism research in emerging world regions: contributions and advances

This commentary reflects on the empirical richness and theoretical possibilities of tourism research from the emerging world. In ‘A mobilities approach to tourism from emerging world regions' Cohen and Cohen [2014. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2014.898617] spare no effort in sketching a comprehensive portrait of non-Western tourism from and within Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a modified mobilities approach to interpret the extant literature, the authors enrich our understanding of tourism mobilities and the fundamental differences between Western and non-Western forms of travel, as well as variations from within the non-Western world. This commentary critiques Cohen and Cohen's contributions and explores how knowledge on emerging world tourism might be better advanced through the mobilities paradigm and its modified form as proposed by the authors.     

Does the Environmental Kuznets Curve Exist in the Chinese Regions?

ABSTRACT

This paper disentangles the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve across the Chinese regions as autonomous areas. First it makes use of the time-varying method to measure that strand for thirty Chinese regions over the period 1997–2012. The influence of income on CO₂ emissions diminishes steadily from Western regions to Middle and Eastern regions. Lastly, we can observe that the validity of Environmental Kuznets Curve is exerted for one region, whilst the N-shaped curve is valid for the majority of the rest of the Chinese regions.     

城市景观生态评价与规划设计探讨——以开封市为例

城市景观生态质量评价可以为城市规划、建设和管理提供重要的依据,也是实现城市可持续发展的有效途径之一;采用层次分析法对开封市景观生态质量进行评价,结果表明,其景观生态状况不容乐观,这主要是由于生态绿地的缺乏及景观布局不合理造成的,在此基础上提出了相应的景观生态建设对策及措施。     

基于农业科研成果推广效应视角的农业 科技推广人员工作积极性分析

[目的]通过确定基于乌鲁木齐耕地资源综合价值的征地补偿标准并与现行标准进行比较,以期为当地后期耕地征收补偿提供借鉴与参考.[方法]基于乌鲁木齐市耕地资源综合价值将耕地征收补偿标准的构成分为经济价值、社会价值以及生态价值,分别采用收益还原法、影子价格法与成本替代法、条件价值评估法对其进行测算,并对基于耕地资源综合价值的征收补偿标准进行实证分析.[结果](1)从农户与集体角度,基于耕地综合价值的征地补偿,能使农户获得的征地补偿金提高,从37.92 万元/hm2提升至了306.97万元/hm2,为现行标准的8.10倍;(2)从补偿范围角度,基于耕地综合价值的补偿标准,兼顾了征地社会价值与生态价值补偿,分别提升至了299.43万元/hm2、10.25万元/hm2.[结论]文章创新构建基于耕地资源综合价值的征地补偿标准,充分考虑了耕地资源具有的社会、经济、生态价值多重效用,不仅计算了耕地资源对于农民的就业价值和农业产出价值,也重点体现了耕地资源对于农民具有的社会保障效用和生态安全效用.     

基于SWOT分析的合肥市水生态文明建设战略

运用SWOT分析方法,对合肥市试点水生态文明建设中具有的优势、劣势、机会和威胁进行评估与总结,在此基础上从政府主导、部门协同、健全相关制度及政策法规;加大财政投入、完善投融资机制、推动新兴产业发展;加强宣传舆论、构建多元化参与模式;注重理论研究及人才培养等角度为城市水生态文明建设提供借鉴和思路。