Understanding tourists' itineraries in emerging rural tourism regions: the application of paper-based itinerary mapping methodology to a wine tourism region in Michigan

In recent years, many rural areas have turned to tourism as a way of reviving their communities. One challenge to such efforts is that community leaders in these areas often have limited experience with tourism and consequently lack the knowledge and resources to best facilitate sustainable tourism initiatives. Moreover, an influx of tourists to an area puts new demands on infrastructure. Information about tourists' itineraries can help communities to address new challenges that result from tourism, however using emerging technologies such as GPS and Internet-based map surveys can be expensive and require expertise many rural tourism planners do not have. Paper-based itinerary mapping methodology can be a cost effective way of providing local officials, tourism planners, and businesses with important information to inform decisions about how to invest limited resources. This study applies paper-based itinerary mapping to an emerging wine tourism area in a rural county in the US state of Michigan. Because it involves tourists travelling from place to place within a region, wine tourism is particularly well-suited for itinerary mapping. Results provide specific recommendations to local officials, tourism planners, and businesses. Moreover, the study offers an example to researchers interested in conducting studies that use paper-based itinerary mapping methodology.     

A Tutorial on Reversible Jump MCMC with a View toward Applications in QTL-mapping

A tutorial derivation of the reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is given. Various examples illustrate how reversible jump MCMC is a general framework for Metropolis-Hastings algorithms where the proposal and the target distribution may have densities on spaces of varying dimension. It is finally discussed how reversible jump MCMC can be applied in genetics to compute the posterior distribution of the number, locations, effects, and genotypes of putative quantitative trait loci.     

高速列车车头曲面造型及网格生成

文章设计了高速列车车头曲面的造型流程,构造了复杂的高速列车车头曲面,提出了一种基于映射法的网格划分的方法,阐述了具体实施过程,编制了高速列车车头曲面的网格生成程序,由该程序生成的网格规整、实用。     

探究矿山测量中测绘新技术的特点和应用

本文首先对现阶段矿山测量发展的基本情况作出了分析,重点探讨了矿山测量中测绘新技术的具体应用,为今后的矿山测量提供参考依据。     

Modeling time series information into option prices: An empirical evaluation of statistical projection and GARCH option pricing model

This paper compares the empirical performances of statistical projection models with those of the Black–Scholes (adapted to account for skew) and the GARCH option pricing models. Empirical analysis on S&P500 index options shows that the out-of-sample pricing and projected trading performances of the semi-parametric and nonparametric projection models are substantially better than more traditional models. Results further indicate that econometric models based on nonlinear projections of observable inputs perform better than models based on OLS projections, consistent with the notion that the true unobservable option pricing model is inherently a nonlinear function of its inputs. The econometric option models presented in this paper should prove useful and complement mainstream mathematical modeling methods in both research and practice.     

The failure of agri-environment measures to promote and conserve grassland biodiversity in Slovenia

The effectiveness of four grassland-specific agri-environment measures (AEM), implemented in the frame of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) in the period 2007–2013 in Slovenia was studied. We questioned whether the measures – “extensive grassland maintenance”; “preservation of special grassland habitats”; “preservation of grassland habitats for butterflies” and “bird conservation in humid extensive meadows in Natura 2000 sites” did genuinely support the conservation (maintenance or improvement) of high nature value (HNV) grasslands in Slovenia. The HNV grasslands were defined on the basis of national fine-resolution field mapping of habitat types. Two main outcomes emerged: AEM did not reach the vast majority of HNV grasslands in Slovenia (only 3%); the proportion of HNV grassland area included in AEM was negligibly low (1). Moreover, even this very limited interest in AEM did not target only grasslands of HNV, but any permanent grasslands regardless of their conservation value: forty-one percent (41%) of the grassland areas included in the AEM were actually non-HNV grasslands (2). The absence of pre-selection criteria for grasslands along with an absence of monitoring of the effectiveness and efficiency of the measures and low interest in the subsidies among farmers, led to almost complete failure of the AEM to promote and conserve species-rich extensive grasslands in Slovenia between 2007 and 2013. Even with some minor differences, the same concept was maintained for the currently running EAFRD 2014–2020, which raises serious concern.     

Adoption of volunteered geographic information into the formal land administration system in Kenya

Individualization of tenure through title registration programmes introduced in many African countries after independence with the promise of security of tenure and increased agricultural productivity has, instead, had the opposite effect. Informal land arrangements continue to emerge as a result of the slow pace of land adjudication (formalization) and updating of land information systems. The trend towards computerization of land information systems has only put focus on already existing formal land tenure arrangements, leaving out the informal social tenure arrangements. As a result, there are now many efforts worldwide motivated by the introduction of the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM), and freely-available and easy-to-use technology tools to identify, document and map land in support of informal land administration arrangements. Actions are made towards the use of community-generated information to support land administration. Using theories from the interplay between formal and informal institutions, this paper discusses the potential outcomes in adopting Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in land administration in Kenya. Two case studies are presented that demonstrate the complementary-accommodating, versus the substitutive-competing approaches. These are then compared with the formal land adjudication process in Kenya. It is established that because of the direct involvement of the national mapping agency in land adjudication where VGI is utilized, the outcome is a case of formal adoption of VGI, while in the other case, where there is little or no involvement by the national mapping agency, the outcome is more of competition and substitution. The latter is an example in which the VGI is used just like any other information to inform policy making, rather than taking it as the authoritative source. We argue that since informality is – and will always be – part and parcel of land administration in many African countries as a result of ingrained social relations and power structures, adopting crowdsourced land information into existing formal land administration systems should consider the particular land administration process, satisfying innate demands and requirements, thus re-engineered to accommodate VGI.     

中国土地整治研究热点与发展趋势——基于CiteSpace的知识图谱分析

[目的]利用Cite Space可视化文献分析软件,对1985~2015年CNKI总库中文核心期刊和CSSCI中文社会科学引文数据库中土地整治研究的5 309篇文献进行可视化分析,得出当前土地整治研究热点、作者群以及主要研究机构的知识结构图谱。[方法]文章采用了文献计量可视化方法和对比分析法。[结果](1)自中国土地学会成立以来,中国土地整治研究主要围绕"土地整理"、"土地整治"、"国土资源"等展开;(2)国土资源部、西南大学、中国地质大学(北京)等是主要的研究机构;(3)《中国土地》是土地整治相关研究刊载论文数量最多的期刊,《中国土地科学》、《农业工程学报》以及《资源科学》是刊载土地整治研究论文重要的核心期刊。[结论]除了传统的土地整治视角下,建设用地减量化,城乡建设用地增减挂钩项目区设置,农村居民点用地整治潜力评价、布局和空间结构优化以及农户整治意愿影响因素、未利用土地开发适宜性评价、工矿区土地复垦等研究外,在新的国内形势影响下,资源经济效益评价以及绩效评价等也是重点的研究方向。     

Object-based,multi-sensor habitat mapping of successional age classes for effective management of a 70-year secondary forest succession

Multi-temporal change detection over decades including the pre-satellite era is challenging due to the different image types available over time, and this explains the scarcity of long-term studies of vegetation succession which can play a pivotal role in the restoration of biodiversity in regenerating forests. This study describes a semi-automated, object-based habitat classification method for change detection of tropical forest succession since 1945. The study uses a set of black and white aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images which differ in quality and resolution, to investigate forest successional patterns and their implications for informed ecosystem and land rehabilitation management. For optimized habitat boundary delineation from black and white aerial photographs and panchromatic satellite images, three levels of hierarchical image object primitives were created. The minimum object sizes of 50 m², 500 m², and 1000 m² maximized inter-object and minimized intra-object variability according to the scale of habitat patches and imagery used. Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) provided additional Grey-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) textural features of segmented objects which helped to incorporate knowledge-based rule-sets into the final habitat classification which was done manually. Results show accuracies for grassland greater than 94%, monoculture plantations were distinguished from natural forest with 95% accuracy, and isolated mature stands of natural forest achieved 75% accuracy. Consideration of multi-date images increased the accuracy of distinguishing between mixed plantations and natural forest as well as between shrubland and young secondary forest. The resulting maps of vegetation structure at five time periods from 1945 to present gave new insights into the ecological processes of secondary forest succession. These include the surprising rapid rate of natural forest regeneration, at an annual rate of 7.7% from 1945 to 2014, and an even faster rate of 11% during a period when hill fires were controlled. The last areas to succeed to forest are those which are still, or at some time have been under exotic mono-cultural plantations. This suggests that long term protection from hill fire would be a better option for assisting natural succession in the landscape than plantations, which are both costly, and act as barriers to natural succession. Overall, with more than 92% mapping accuracy, the method can be adapted for other multi-temporal, multi-sensor studies as it enables inclusion of spatial theories by dividing the satellite image into time-consistent geographic entities according to the scale of target objects and image resolution. The accurate maps of forest cover patches at different successional stages can also help in site specific management of the recovering forest, such as introduction of shrub seedlings to bridge bottlenecks in seed dispersal according to shrub density and dispersal distances for forest birds. Late successional tree species can also be introduced in areas where only early successional species are present after 50 years of succession.     

Understanding the intellectual structure and evolution of Competitive Intelligence: a bibliometric analysis from 1984 to 2017

ABSTRACT

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a relatively novel discipline that is generating a growing interest in the field of strategic management. Its novelty, approach and origin have meant that the definition of the CI entails different interpretations and utilities depending on the audience. This research develops a conceptual analysis of CI in literature by quantifying the bibliometric performance indicators, identifying the main authors, countries, journals and research areas and evaluating the intellectual structure and evolution of the discipline using SciMAT as bibliometric analysis software. The bibliometric performance analysis is focused on the citation-based impact of the scientific output, while the science mapping illustrates the evolution of the research themes that build the discipline through the use of bibliometric network analysis techniques. To this purpose, the publications related to CI from 1984 to 2017 available at Scopus have been retrieved (5,275 publications). Finally, it offers a framework to support future researches.