Reciprocity between soccer events and visited destination in a border context

ABSTRACT

The study proposes a conceptual model based on hypothesized relationships among team fanship, satisfaction with the event, and host city as antecedents of behavioral intentions in the United States–Mexico border context. The analysis used data from 290 visitors who attended three soccer games of the Xoloitzcuintles team of Tijuana. The results revealed (1) the emotions felt at the visited destination had significant influences on fanship, satisfaction with event venue, and intentional behavior; (2) fanship and event satisfaction do not seem to influence the visitors’ intentions to return and recommend the visited place; (3) gender and duration of the stay showed a significant moderating function.     

Statistical estimate of the proportional hazard premium of loss

The well known Proportional Hazard Premium Principle, introduced by Wang (1996), depends upon the survival function of the insured risk and a risk aversion index. Using this premium principle, we propose an asymptotically normal semi-parametric estimator for the net-premium of a high-excess loss layer of heavy-tailed claim amounts. An algorithm to compute confidence bounds is given. Moreover, a comparison between this estimator and the non-parametric estimator, proposed by Necir & Boukhetala (2004), is carried out.     

Erratum to: ‘Statistical estimate of the proportional hazard premium of loss’

The asymptotic variance of the risk premium estimator, proposed by Necir et al. (2007), is revised, by using the right asymptotic approximation of the uniform empirical quantile process.     

Transportation in disaster response operations

Disasters are extraordinary situations that require significant logistical deployment to transport equipment and humanitarian goods in order to help and provide relief to victims. An efficient response helps to reduce the social, economic and environmental impacts. In this paper, we define and formulate a practical transportation problem often encountered by crisis managers in emergency situations. Since optimal solutions to such a formulation may be achieved only for very small-size instances, we developed an efficient genetic algorithm to deal with realistic situations. This algorithm produces near optimal solutions in relatively short computation times and is fast enough to be used interactively in a decision-support system, providing high-quality transportation plans to emergency managers.     

Organizational Commitment to Ethics and International Ethical Perspectives: United Arab Emirates (UAE) Banks as a Case Study

This paper advocates the importance of the emergent concept of organizational ethics, defines it and connects it to scholarly literature in organizational sciences. One of the most important findings is the strongly correlated relationship between ethics and both perceived and measurable organizational performance. The findings validate the two major functions played by ethics in organizations, first, an amplifying function that creates self-reinforcing positive spirals, and second, a buffering function that strengthens and protects organizations from adverse organizational change.     

Exploring the impact of destination attachment on the intentional behaviour of the US visitors familiarized with Baja California,Mexico

This study focuses on exploring the existing relationship of destination attachment within the US visitor's intentional behaviour towards border places in Baja California, Mexico. The research consists in formulating a set of hypotheses for a model sustained by empirical data obtained from a telephone survey and analysed with Partial Least Squares path modelling. This study found a positive impact of destination attachment on intentional behaviour and visitor experiences, which influences significantly both mentioned constructs. In this context, characterized by the importance of cross-border flows and a stigmatization due to safety issues as well as other kinds of personal visit inhibitors, the study shows that familiarity with destination allows reverting and transforming this impression to a positive perception of the visited place.     

Satisfaction with botulinum toxin treatment in post-stroke spasticity: results from two cross-sectional surveys (patients and physicians)

Objective:

To characterize patient and physician satisfaction with current standard-of-care botulinum toxin treatment regimens for symptom control in patients with post-stroke spasticity using structured interviews with patients and physicians.

Research design and methods:

Two cross-sectional surveys were conducted in Canada, France, Germany, and the US. The patient survey included patients with post-stroke spasticity who had undergone at least two botulinum toxin A injection cycles. Information on patients’ current and prior botulinum toxin treatment cycles and quality of life was collected. The physician survey included physicians treating post-stroke spasticity with botulinum toxins and collected information regarding physician satisfaction with botulinum toxin treatment for post-stroke spasticity.

Results:

Of 79 participating patients with post-stroke spasticity, 61 (77%) received treatment with onabotulinumtoxinA, 15 (19%) with abobotulinumtoxinA, and three (4%) with incobotulinumtoxinA. Overall, 40.5% of patients were very satisfied, 48.1% were somewhat satisfied, and 11.4% were not at all satisfied with botulinum toxin treatment. Patient satisfaction was lowest just before injection and highest at the time of peak effect. The mean injection interval was 13.7 (SD?=?3.5) weeks; however, 43.4% of patients expressed a preference for intervals of ≤10 weeks. Most of the 105 participating physicians’ were moderately (57.7%) or very (36.5%) satisfied with botulinum toxin treatment. However, physicians estimated that 16.2% of their patients with post-stroke spasticity could benefit from shorter injection intervals, and that 24.6% of patients could benefit from higher doses than those permitted by current country directives.

Study limitations:

Patients’ responses were based on subjective recollections and physicians’ responses were based on general impressions.

Conclusions:

These surveys indicate that patients’ and physicians’ satisfaction with botulinum toxin therapy for post-stroke spasticity is overall very good. However, patients’ satisfaction over the treatment cycle varied with onset, peak, and trough of treatment effects and patients and physicians expressed a need for treatment individualization.