西部国内旅游远程市场旅游产品开发

旅游产品的开发水平是西部旅游业发展的制约因素.在西部国内旅游营销中,要把东部客源市场作为远程旅游目标市场,远程旅游产品的开发要以市场为导向.在分析东部客源市场特点的基础上,提出了西部国内旅游远程市场旅游产品的开发策略:①体现西部特色,与东部旅游产品形成互补;②以资源保护为前提,开发生态型旅游产品;③整合西部旅游资源,开发跨区域旅游精品;④协调好各旅游要素的功能,形成不同等级的旅游服务系统;⑤针对东部地区客源市场特点设计旅游产品;⑥重视老年旅游和青少年学生旅游产品的开发.     

我国温泉旅游资源的开发与利用

我国温泉旅游资源丰富,目前已经形成了一批成熟的温泉旅游度假区,但是当前我国对温泉旅游资源的稀缺性和脆弱性认识不足,温泉旅游项目建设存在贵族化、劣势产品"搭便车"趋向、旅游功能单一等问题.提出充分重视温泉旅游资源的价值,根据市场状况合理选择开发模式,对本地洗浴客人和外来公务游客作重点营销,保持温泉旅游产品的价格优势,开发多元化旅游产品.     

乡村旅游产品提质升级策略探析

近年来,我国乡村旅游市场发展迅猛,涌现出大批乡村旅游接待点。但由于专业经营管理和市场理念不成熟,我国乡村旅游市场在产品品质、服务质量、经营管理等方面存在诸多问题,需要从乡村旅游产品系统出发,以文化提升、整合提升、体验提升和服务提升策略进行乡村旅游产品提质升级,保障乡村旅游市场的健康发展。     

我国医疗保健旅游产品开发初探

随着中国旅游业的快速发展，医疗保健旅游作为一种专项旅游应运而生。在初步分析我国医疗保健旅游产品的开发现状和优势的基础上，细分出相应的需求市场，针对性地提出了我国医疗保健旅游产品开发的相关对策和建议。     

淮南市旅游市场定位与营销策略分析

旅游市场是实现旅游产品的价值,保证旅游经济顺利运行的重要环节。旅游业的竞争主要目标是争夺客源。通过对淮南市旅游市场现状的分析,确立了目标客源市场,提出了相应的营销策略,为淮南市旅游发展提供决策依据。     

旅游规划中的目的地竞合分析——以芜湖市为例

经过多年旅游开发实践的驱动，我国旅游规划工作有了长足发展，但目前仍存在旅游规划模式化，忽视规划区的“地方性”，缺乏规划区的区际与区内旅游空间竞争与合作关系研究等，使规划区功能、产品、市场等定位不准，策划的项目与周边区域雷同等问题突出。在旅游规划中加强目的地竞合分析是寻求目的地特色、准确定位、优化线路、创新产品体系等的前提和重要、有效的技术手段。阐述了旅游目的地竞合分析的内容和方法，并以芜湖市为例，对芜湖市的区内和区际旅游空间竞合进行分析，提出了芜湖市旅游功能定位、战略目标与空间布局。     

体育旅游产品消费的文化背景

人们的消费具有社会性,因而具有很强的时代性。在国内外兴起并迅速发展的体育旅游产品是时代的产物,它是休闲时代人们消费的主体产品,是体验经济时代旅游产品的升级换代产品。人们通过消费体育旅游产品,不但能休闲、娱乐、健身、交际,还能发展自己、完善自己、实现自我价值,从而迎合了知识经济时代人们消费的价值观。我国有极其丰富优越的体育旅游资源,关注并开发体育旅游市场是我国旅游业可持续发展的重要战略。     

城市旅游市场分类研究及其意义--以汕头市为例

运用旅游市场分类法，通过对旅游流、旅游市场细分和旅游者行为等方面分析，以及对汕头市旅游市场的实证研究，作者初步认证了旅游市场分类法的科学性和有效性。区分城市旅游者与景点旅游者两类市场，对比这两类市场旅游者的空间结构、出游目的结构、时间分配结构的差异，对分析汕头旅游发展的主导旅游吸引、旅游需求趋势和需求预测以及确定区域旅游发展的动力模型、旅游发展动力机制，制定产品战略和市场战略具有重要的意义。     

高速铁路与城市旅游发展研究——以武汉市武广高铁旅游发展为例

我国高速铁路的快速发展将深刻影响城市旅游的市场辐射能力与转型.2009年末开通的武广高铁兼具快速交通和全新旅游产品的功能,为武汉市带来了难得的高铁旅游发展机遇.武汉市高铁旅游发展以珠三角市场的客流输入为主,行程以“三日游”居多,客源层次高、消费高、要求高,但武汉市的高铁旅游在城市旅游产品、产品布局、城市环境和旅游接待水平等方面存在不足.为了实现武汉城市旅游与高铁通道资源协调发展,必须加强武汉市城市旅游产品开发,提高城市旅游综合供给能力,强化高铁与城市旅游的协同能力,强化武汉高铁旅游的目标市场营销,构建武汉市在华中的旅游集散中心地地位.     

开发河南旅游资源的市场导向

本文指出,把旅游资源优势转化为经济优势是河南旅游业发展的关键,转化的方式是将旅游资源变为旅游产品,转化的原则是市场的需求,转化的步骤是根据市场需求,对旅游资源进行筛选,加工成适销对路的产品再推向旅游市场．     

BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS AND BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ESTUARINE/COASTAL POLLUTION1

ABSTRACT: Sustained interest in and concern about the health status of the aquatic environment has resulted in extensive research focused on (1) effects of pollution on survival, growth, and reproduction of resource species at all life stages; (2) diseases of fish and shellfish, as they may be related to pollution and as they may serve as indicators of environmental stress; and (3) contaminant body burdens in fish and shellfish - their effects on the aquatic animals and their potential effects on humans. Effects, lethal and sublethal, of pollutants on life history stages of fish and shellfish have been documented, as have impacts on local stocks in badly degraded habitats, but as yet there has been no adequate quantitative demonstration of effects on entire aquatic species - probably because of the difficulty in sorting out relative effects of the many environmental factors that influence abundance. Sublethal effects, especially those that result in disease, have been examined intensively, and some diseases and disease syndromes have been associated statistically with pollution. Other pollution indicators (biochemical, physiological, genetic, behavioral, and ecological) have also received some attention, as have body burdens of contaminants in aquatic species. Research, especially that conducted during the past decade, has done much to clarify the many pathways and toxic effects of contaminants on aquatic animals, and has also helped to identify mechanisms for survival of fish and shellfish in the presence of environmental changes caused by human activities.     

Definition Procedures Have Little Effect on Performance of Environmental Classifications of Streams and Rivers

Mapped environmental classifications are defined using various procedures, but there has been little evaluation of the differences in their ability to discriminate variation in independent ecological characteristics. We tested the performance of environmental classifications of the streams and rivers of France that had been defined from the same environmental data using geographic regionalization and numerical classification of individual river valley segments. Test data comprised invertebrate assemblages, water chemistry, and hydrological indexes obtained from sites throughout France. Classification performance was measured by analysis of similarity (ANOSIM). Geometric regions defined by a regular grid and without regard to environmental variables and a posteriori classifications based on clustering the test datasets defined lower and upper bounds of performance for a given number of classes. Differences in classification performances were generally small. The ANOSIM statistics for the a posteriori classifications were around twice that of all environmental classifications, including geometrically defined regions. The hydro-ecoregions performed slightly better for the invertebrate data and the network classification performed slightly better for the chemistry and hydrological data. Our results indicate that environmental classifications that are defined using different procedures can be comparable in terms of their ability to discriminate variation of ecological characteristics and that alleged differences in performance arising from different classification procedures can be small relative to unexplained variation. We conclude that definition procedures might have little effect on the performance of large-scale environmental classifications and decisions over which procedures to use should be based primarily on pragmatic considerations.     

Journalists' views of advertiser pressures on agricultural news

All major journalism ethical codes explicitly state that journalists should protect editorial copy from undue influence by outside sources. However, much of the previous research on agricultural information has concentrated on what information various media communicate (gatekeeping studies) or communication's role in increasing innovation adoption (diffusion studies). Few studies have concentrated specifically on organizational and structural constraints that might adversely affect agricultural journalists' ethical standards; those that have, focus largely on farm magazines. A study of newspaper reporters who cover agricultural news found that the most pressing ethical concern is the effect of advertiser (agri-business) pressure on editorial copy, and that their concerns in general parallel those of farm magazine writers and editors. The majority reported being in situations in which they might be exposed to advertiser pressure, including pressures to change or withhold editorial copy. Large minorities suggested that advertising pressures affect the overall environment in which agricultural journalists work, and more than one in ten said they allow advertiser pressures to influence editorial decisions. The newspaper reporters who cover agricultural beats showed slightly more resistance to advertiser pressure than did farm magazine editors in a parallel study.     

Provincial development plans in Zimbabwe: an analysis of their content,structure and methodology

Zimbabwean provincial plans were instituted to help in the achievement of the national goal of the creation of an egalitarian, socialist and integrated society. The national goal itself was adopted as an antithesis to the dualist society characterised by spatial, economic, social, politican and technological inequalities that Zimbabwe inherited from colonialism. This meant that provincial plans had to play both a functional (or growth allocating/distribution) and a territorial (or redistribution) role.

This paper reviews their role in achieving the national goal by examining their functions, content, structure and methodology. The paper concludes that because of their nature, provincial plans are not suitable tools for the achievement of the national goal.     

Effect of Light on Biodegradation of Estrone, 17β‐Estradiol,and 17α‐Ethinylestradiol in Stream Sediment

Biodegradation of [A‐ring ¹⁴C] Estrone (E1), 17β‐estradiol (E2), and 17α‐ethinylestradiol (EE2) to ¹⁴CO₂ was investigated under light and dark conditions in microcosms containing epilithon or sediment collected from Boulder Creek, Colorado. Mineralization of the estrogen A‐ring was observed in all sediment treatments, but not epilithon treatments. No difference in net mineralization between light and dark treatments was observed for ¹⁴C‐E2. Net mineralization of ¹⁴C‐E1 and ¹⁴C‐EE2 was enhanced in light treatments. Extents of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were significantly greater for E2 than E1 under dark conditions, but were comparable under light conditions. These results indicate substantial differences in the uptake and metabolism of E1 and E2 in the environment and suggest biorecalcitrance of E1 relative to E2 in light‐limited environments. The extent of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rate of mineralization for EE2 in dark treatments were less than half of that observed for E2 and generally lower than for E1, consistent with previous reports of EE2 biorecalcitrance. However, ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were comparable for EE2, E2, and E1 under light conditions. These results indicate photoactivation and/or phototransformation/photodegradation processes can substantially enhance heterotrophic biodegradation of estrogens in sunlit environments and may play an important role in estrogen transport and attenuation.     

Bioremediation of Soils by Plant–Microbe Systems

Abstract

Sustainable ecosystems can be designed to eliminate environmental toxins and reduce pathogen loads through the direct and indirect consequences of plant and microbial activities. We present an approach to the bioremediation of disturbed environments, focusing on petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) contaminants. Treatment consists of incorporating a plant-based amendment to enhance ecosystem productivity and physiochemical degradation followed by the establishment of plants to serve as oxidizers and foundations for microbial communities. Promising amendments for widespread use are entire plants of the water fern Azolla and seed meal of Brassica napus (rapeseed). An inexpensive byproduct from the manufacture of biodiesel and lubricants, rapeseed meal is high in nitrogen (6% wt/wt), stimulates >100-fold increases in populations of resident Streptomyces species, and suppresses fungal infection of roots subsequently cultivated in the amended soil. Synergistic enzymatic and chemical activities of plant and microbial metabolism in root zones transform and degrade soil contaminants. Emphasis is given to mechanisms that enable PHC functionalization via reactive molecular species.     

National minerals policies and stakeholder participation for broad-based development in the southern African development community (SADC)

This paper explains how the well-accepted concept of improved stakeholder participation during mineral policy development leads to a national mineral policy that accommodates the diverging views and interests that allows wide acceptance of decisions, enhancing the success of implementation and, ultimately, national benefits. This process is based on lessons learnt during the South African experience and has been successfully applied in the development of the Namibian and Malawian national minerals policies. An effective policy in the SADC will engineer the delicate balance between poverty reduction and an internationally competitive minerals sector. This balance enhances the possibility of long-term economic growth and development in the SADC region. The overriding advantage of this strategy is that it generates ‘home-grown’ policy instruments and implementation of mineral law with which stakeholders can identify. This process presents a new challenge to traditional policy formulation strategies in emerging economies and the bottom-up approach, linked to wide political support, allows the potential realisation of national objectives.     

Energetics and environmental costs of agriculture in a dry tropical region of India

The present article, based on a study of five village ecosystems, assesses the energy efficiency of rain-fed agriculture in a dry tropical environment and the impact of agricultural activity on the surrounding natural ecosystems. Agronomic yield is insufficient to meet the food requirement of the human population, hence 11.5%–49.7% of the required amount of food grains are imported from the market. Energy requirements of five studied agroecosystems are subsidized considerably by the surrounding forest in the form of fodder and firewood. Natural ecosystems supply about 80%–95% of fodder needs and 81%–100% of fuelwood needs. The output-input ratio of agriculture indicated that, on average, 4.1 units of energy are expended to obtain one unit of agronomic energy. Of this, 3.9 units are supplied by the natural ecosystem. In addition, 38% of the extracted firewood is marketed. The illegal felling and lopping of trees result in ever-increasing concentric circles of forest destruction around the villages and together with excessive grazing results in savannization. The forests can be conserved by encouraging fuelwood plantations (0.7 ha/ha cultivated land) and developing village pastures (1.6 ha/ha cultivated land) and reducing the livestock numbers. Agricultural production in the region can be stabilized by introducing improved dry farming techniques such as intercropping, planned rainwater management, and adequate use of fertilizers.     

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “METROPOLITAN WATER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTIONS?”1

ABSTRACT The term “institution” and several variants are used frequently in the literature on metropolitan water management. The state-of-the art investigation on which this paper is based revealed that 1) many uses of the term do not include careful definitions; 2) many users of the term seemed unaware of the general, theoretical literature on the subject of institutions; 3) there was little consistency among uses, either in the practical literature dealing with water or in the conceptual literature dealing with theories of institutions or institutionalization; 4) some usages were without significant meaning; 5) in many cases the term was used as a kind of “black box” to account for behavioral, societal, or managerial factors; 6) the term was often used as a synonym for “organization”. This latter use is frequently found in federal reports, including National Water Commission studies, and is most unfortunate because it tends to slight significant social-psychological factors. A suggested definition is: “An institution is the structured result or outcome of a process by which values are articulated, arranged, and communicated, having continuity over time, and influencing behavior of persons who did not necessarily participate in formulating those values (norms).”     

Waste minimisation in practice

One of the major hindrances to waste minimisation on a construction site is the difficulty in establishing a methodology and using this methodology to benchmark future construction projects. This paper introduces SMARTWaste, a software tool that has been used to audit, reduce and target waste arisings on a construction site. This tool tries to link the construction process and the waste hierarchy. That is reducing waste on a construction site rather than landfilling it. Three applications of the SMARTWaste software will be discussed using case studies from three different types of construction. An evaluation of these case studies shows that, by implementing a waste minimisation scheme on-site, you can improve material recovery for reuse. Also, by using the waste arisings as a benchmark you can reduce your waste arisings on future sites. Application of SMARTWaste or a similar waste minimisation tool on a wider basis could reduce waste arisings and could result in a built environment that consumed less natural resources and energy, and also produced less pollution and waste. Such a built environment would be environmentally and socially more responsive and responsible.