Measuring the spatial accessibility to fire stations using enhanced floating catchment method

Enhancing the spatial accessibility of population to fire services is a key strategy to help improve emergency response, minimise property loss, and reduce injuries and deaths. Given its significance for fire service policy and strategic planning, we draw on small area population forecasts, fire station locations and the road network, and employ the enhanced two-step floating catchment method to compute the levels of spatial accessibility of population to fire services in relation to current and future population growth in Brisbane, Australia. Results show that lower levels of spatial accessibility to fire services exist in the most populated areas compared to those that are least populated. Further, we reveal that some areas are more likely to suffer a reduction in spatial accessibility than others. Spatial accessibility of population to fire services over the period to 2036 is likely to reduce as a consequence of rising demand for service. The identification of locales that experience lower levels of accessibility to fire services will enable fire services agencies to strategically plan infrastructure investment and help enhance the operational efficiency of emergency response.     

我国企业导入CIS面临的问题及其对策

我国企业在导入CIS的过程中,虽然也不乏成功者,但整体现状不容乐观。适时导入CIS战略,实施品牌战略,加强与公众的沟通等,是保证成功导入CIS的重要措施。     

Understanding the vulnerability of blind consumers: adaptation in the marketplace,personal traits and coping strategies

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to examine the vulnerability perceived by blind consumers in the marketplace. By analysing the narratives of 16 people that have acquired blindness, we develop an understanding of the internal and external factors that affect their degree of vulnerability and identify their coping strategies. Data analysis consisted of content interpretation and a search for the meaning of the particular experiences, events and states reported by the respondents. Results show how emotional well-being, consumption-facilitating social support, acceptance, autonomy and perceptions about marketplace difficulties all relate to coping mechanisms.     

Distorted representation in visual tourism research

Tourism research has recently been informed by non-representational theories to highlight the socio-material, embodied and heterogeneous composition of tourist experiences. These advances have contributed to further reflexivity and called for novel ways to animate representations. On this background, this article develops the notion ‘distorted representation’ to illustrate that blurred and obscure photos can in fact be intelligible and sensible in understanding tourism. Through an exploration of the overwhelmed and unintended practices of visual fieldwork, distorted representation illustrates how photographic materialities, performativities and sensations contribute to new tourism knowledges. While highlighting the potential of distorted representation, the article posits a cautionary note in regards to the influential role of academic journals in determining the qualities of visual data. The article exemplifies distorted representation through three impressionistic tales derived from ethnographic research on the European rail travel phenomenon: interrail.     

Paid work,life-work and leisure: a study of wellbeing in the context of academic lives in higher education

Living, working, leisure, and well-being are of increasing concern to educators, policy-makers, governments and people generally. The aim of this research note is to investigate the relationships between paid work, life work and leisure in terms of well-being associated with activity. The research used a modified experience sampling method for a one-week period with a staff group based in an educational institution. The data collection period included a bank holiday (three days holiday and four days work). A mobile phone was used to collect data eight times a day, over seven days, on activity, enjoyment, interest, visual interest, challenge, skill and happiness. Data analysis showed a significant correlation between enjoyment and happiness; enjoyment and interest; and visual interest, which also correlated with happiness. Enjoyment and happiness were experienced more in leisure than in paid work and life work. Level of enjoyment was greatest when skills were greater than moderate challenge in activity, though high enjoyment was more frequent when moderate and high challenge were met with equal skills (satisfying conditions of ‘flow’). High enjoyment came as much from paid work as from leisure. The findings replicate and extend earlier research, and the research note emphasises the importance of measures of enjoyment in the investigation of national wellbeing.     

Patterns of social capital associated with transit oriented development

In policy circles, transit oriented development (TOD) is believed to enhance social capital, however empirical evidence of this relationship is lacking. This research compares levels of social capital between TOD vs. non-TOD areas in Brisbane, Australia. Using a Two Step cluster analysis technique, three types of neighbourhood groupings were identified based on net employment density, net residential density, land use diversity, intersection density, and public transport accessibility: TODs, transit adjacent development (TADs) and traditional suburbs. Two dimensions of social capital were measured (trust and reciprocity, connections with neighbours) based on factor analysis of eight items representing elements of social capital. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to identify links between the distributions of the dimensions of social capital on areas defined as TODs, TADs, and traditional suburbs controlling for socio-demographics and environmental factors. Results show that individuals living in TODs had a significantly higher level of trust and reciprocity and connections with neighbours compared with residents of TADs. It appears that TODs may foster the development of social sustainability.     

Advance transit oriented development typology: case study in Brisbane,Australia

Internationally, transit oriented development (TOD) is characterised by moderate to high density development with diverse land use patterns and well connected street networks centred around high frequency transit stops (bus and rail). Although different TOD typologies have been developed in different contexts, they are based on subjective evaluation criteria derived from the context in which they are built and typically lack a validation measure. Arguably there exist sets of TOD characteristics that perform better in certain contexts, and being able to optimise TOD effectiveness would facilitate planning and supporting policy development. This research utilises data from census collection districts (CCDs) in Brisbane with different sets of TOD attributes measured across six objectively quantified built environmental indicators: net employment density, net residential density, land use diversity, intersection density, cul-de-sac density, and public transport accessibility. Using these measures, a Two Step Cluster Analysis was conducted to identify natural groupings of the CCDs with similar profiles, resulting in four unique TOD clusters: (a) residential TODs, (b) activity centre TODs, (c) potential TODs, and (d) TOD non-suitability. The typologies are validated by estimating a multinomial logistic regression model in order to understand the mode choice behaviour of 10,013 individuals living in these areas. Results indicate that in comparison to people living in areas classified as residential TODs, people who reside in non-TOD clusters were significantly less likely to use public transport (PT) (1.4 times), and active transport (4 times) compared to the car. People living in areas classified as potential TODs were 1.3 times less likely to use PT, and 2.5 times less likely to use active transport compared to using the car. Only a little difference in mode choice behaviour was evident between people living in areas classified as residential TODs and activity centre TODs. The results suggest that: (a) two types of TODs may be suitable for classification and effect mode choice in Brisbane; (b) TOD typology should be developed based on their TOD profile and performance matrices; (c) both bus stop and train station based TODs are suitable for development in Brisbane.     

Informal tourism entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion

ABSTRACT

This article examines informal entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion in the Thai tourism sector. On the Bourdieusian assumption that people perpetually transform tangible and intangible forms of capital, this study seeks to answer how informal tourism entrepreneurs transform intangible capital into tangible capital, and vice versa, at different stages of their development process. A visual dataset of 78 filmed interviews and of 426 photographs of informal entrepreneurs in three tourist-island destinations in Thailand was compiled and analysed using thematic qualitative analysis. The results show the importance of diversification of capital mix at informal entrepreneurs’ different development stages. Whereas cultural and symbolic capital are more salient for freelancers and small-size entrepreneurs, economic and social capital are more important for mid-size and large informal entrepreneurs. Furthermore, this study introduces dream capital as a new form of capital. Developing countries are recommended to introduce a policy on profiling informal tourism entrepreneurs so that the appropriate level of regulation can be applied in order to maintain or increase their benefits to society.     

Haptic routes and digestive destinations in cooking series: images of food and place in Keith Floyd and The Hairy Bikers in relation to art history

Taking modern television travel cookery series as a starting point, the article investigates the cultural significance of food and place in visual culture. The examples are, respectively, The Keith Floyd Cookery Collection: Floyd Around The Med [2000. BBC DVD, 2007] and The Hairy Bikers Cookbook Series 1 & 2 [BBC DVD, 2006]. The series illustrate the strong connection between travel, food and place in tourist consumer culture, as well as the way motion and emotion are related to sensuous and digestive aspects of touristic food. The series also illustrate the emblematic connection between food and the media in which aesthetical, cultural and symbolic values are related to the way food is mediatised. The main argument is that cooking television series produce haptic images of place and food that include a specific sensuous and emotional relation between screen and viewer. The haptic imagery is reflected in popular visual culture and tourism as well as in art history and aesthetics.     

Mediating touristic dangerscapes: the semiotics of state travel warnings issued to Israeli tourists

Official ‘travel warnings’ are recurrently published by the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in Israeli media, with the aim of informing potential tourists about the dangers of terrorism aimed at Israelis who travel abroad. These travel warnings, which juxtapose menacing warnings with tranquil visual representations of touristic vacationscapes, have recently gained a considerable public attention and have sprouted discussions around local tourism and identities. In this article, we offer a discursive and semiotic analysis of 55 travel warning articles, which appeared between 1998 and 2010 in printed and digital Hebrew press in Israel. We address visual and textual aspects of the articles and ask how they represent and mediate touristic vacationscapes. Following recent developments (‘turns’) in both tourism studies and media studies, we argue that these warnings articles construct multilayered spatial–visual representations of tourist destinations, which amount to a unique genre of tourism imagery in and of itself. Focussing on travel warnings addressing Israeli tourists who travel to the Eastern shores of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, we find that these combined or hybrid images and spaces present a convergence of two contemporary systems of representation, related to tourism and mass media, respectively, and construct a charged and mediated cultural space in Israeli collective imagination.