Tourism policy making: the policymakers' perspectives

This research explores tourism policy making, from the perspectives of policy makers using grounded theory. It focuses on Leeds, a city in the North of England, which is characterized by its turbulent environment. The paper identifies themes around policy making, including low status, lack of clarity, uncertainty, lack of consensus and congruence and complexity. Its findings indicate policy making is essentially a social process, involving communication and negotiation between people in the context of wider change. It suggests a social conceptualization, and further research to investigate the communications involved in producing policy rather than the current research focus on the tangible outputs of the process such as a plan or a physical development.

Law, technology and water conflicts in developing societies: a case study of tank systems in Tamil Nadu

The study examines the relationship between law, technology and water conflicts from colonial days to the present in traditional (water) tank systems in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tanks are man-made water systems developed for irrigation and many other purposes in semi-arid areas. The thesis adopts a historical approach to study the development of law, particularly property rights, and takes an empirical approach to investigate the tank conflicts. Archival documents on irrigation development, Case laws, Focus Group Discussions, Open ended Interviews and Field visits to selected tank chains are used as source material for the discussion. Case studies of conflicts are described and analyzed at three levels - Vaigai river basin for a macro level, Kothai Anicut system in Cauvery basin for a meso level, and twenty other interconnected tanks for a micro-level. The thesis deviates from the conventional understanding that tanks as traditional systems as simple and local technologies but considers them to be complex. It argues that the use of commonly held systems such as tanks within the colonial and post colonial laws as state ownership has been the source of many conflicts. In particular, it finds most tank conflicts are a product of progressive and absolute state control over water and the systems established using colonial land revenue administrative law. The law continues to treat tanks as pieces of landed property held by state and the individuals rather than as technology systems that presupposed the regime of property rights introduced after the colonial times. The modern interventions in water including the reservoir building, and altering the hydraulics of rivers and streams aggravate tank conflicts and lead to their further detriment. The study brings the focus to ground realities, and offers new perspectives on understanding tank systems in dynamic ways.

Post awakening salivary cortisol secretion and trait well-being: The importance of sample timing accuracy

Indices of post awakening cortisol secretion (PACS), include the rise in cortisol(cortisol awakening response: CAR) and overall cortisol concentrations (e.g. area under the curve with reference to ground: AUCg) in the first 30—45 min. Both are commonly investigated in relation to psychosocial variables. Although sampling within the domestic setting is ecologically valid, participant non-adherence to the required timing protocol results in erroneous measurement of PACS and this may explain discrepancies in the literature linking these measures to trait well-being (TWB). We have previously shown that delays of little over 5 min(between awakening and the start of sampling) to result in erroneous CAR estimates. In this study, we report for the first time on the negative impact of sample timing inaccuracy (verified by electronic-monitoring) on the efficacy to detect significant relationships between PACS and TWB when measured in the domestic setting.Healthy females (N = 49, 20.5 ± 2.8 years) selected for differences in TWB collected saliva samples (S1—4) on 4 days at 0, 15, 30, 45 min post awakening, to determine PACS. Adherence to the sampling protocol was objectively monitored using a combination of electronic estimates of awakening (actigraphy) and sampling times (track caps).Relationships between PACS and TWB were found to depend on sample timing accuracy. Lower TWB was associated with higher post awakening cortisol AUCg in proportion to the mean sample timing accuracy (p < .005). There was no association between TWB and the CAR even taking into account sample timing accuracy. These results highlight the importance of careful electronic monitoring of participant adherence for measurement of PACS in the domestic setting. Mean sample timing inaccuracy, mainly associated with delays of >5 min between awakening and collection of sample 1 (median = 8 min delay), negatively impacts on the sensitivity of analysis to detect associations between PACS and TWB.

Information ethics in the age of digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex

Thee rise of computing and the internet have brought about an ethical eld of studies that some term information ethics, computer ethics, digital media ethics, or internet ethics e aim of this contribution is to discuss information ethics’ foundations in the context of the internet’s political economy e chapter rst looks to ground the analysis in a comparison of two information ethics approaches, namely those outlined by Rafael Capurro and Luciano Floridi It then develops, based on these foundations, analyses of the information ethical dimensions of two important areas of social media: one concerns the framing of social media by a surveillance-industrial complex in the context of Edward Snowden’s revelations and the other deals with issues of digital labour processes and issues of class that arises in this context e contribution asks ethical questions about these two phenomena that bring up issues of power, exploitation, and control in the information age It asks if, and if so, how, the approaches of Capurro and Floridi can help us to understand ethico-political aspects of the surveillance-industrial complex and digital labour