A tourism demand model for Fiji, 1970-2000

Despite the growing importance of the tourism industry, little is known about the determinants of tourism demand in Fiji. The major findings of analyses of the 1970?2000 period are that growth in income in Fiji?s main source countries for tourists leads to an increase in visitor arrivals, while relative prices and substitute prices negatively impact visitor arrivals in the long run. This implies that Fiji needs to maintain price competitiveness. Empirical evidence was also found that coups impede the short-run growth of the industry.

Scale development of individual and organisation infrastructure for heart health promotion in regional health authorities

Objective : The purpose of this study was to validate measures of individual and organisational infrastructure for health promotion within Alberta's (Canada) 17 Regional Health Authorities (RHAs).

Design : A series of phases were conducted to develop individual and organisational scales to measure health promotion infrastructure. Instruments were designed with focus groups and then pre-tested prior to the validation study.

Setting : In 1993 all hospitals and Public Health Units in the province of Alberta were regionalised into 17 RHAs, with responsibility for public health, community health, and acute and long-term care. While regionalisation may offer more opportunity for community participation, reorganisation of the public health system may have fragmented and diluted resources and skills for heart health promotion in some RHAs. Infrastructure (for example, human and financial resources), amongst other items, is believed to contribute to the capacity to promote health.

Method : All 17 RHAs participated in the study, yielding a total of 144 individuals (that is board members, senior/middle management, and front line staff). These representative employees completed a self- administered questionnaire on individual- and organisational-level infrastructure measures.

Results : Psychometric analyses of survey data provided empirical evidence for the robustness of the measures. Principal component analyses verified the construct validity of the scales, with alpha coefficients ranging from 0.75 to 0.95.

Conclusion : The scales can be used by health professionals and researchers to assess individual- and organisational-level infrastructure, and tailor interventions to increase infrastructure for health promotion in health organisations.

Leadership, organisational climate and workplace innovation: a study of factors that enhance workplace innovation in small to medium enterprise

Innovation is a valued organisational asset that may asssist the creation and maintenance of competitive advantage. A number of authors have proposed links between leadership, organisational climate and innovation, and these constructs appear to converge. This convergence led researchers to produce models of the interaction between the three constructs within organisations. It has generally been reported that leadership effects innovation and organisational climate or vise versa. However, to date there is no substantial, direct nor robust empirical evidence to informt his view. This book and detailed study addresses the relationship between leadership, organisational climate and innovation simultaneously. 

Ecological response to environmental flows in two lowland rivers

Environmental disturbances in the Glenelg and Wimmera Rivers have been exacerbated by low flows. Consequently, environmental flows have been recommended although there is little empirical evidence of their effects. This thesis has shown that environmental flows are potentially beneficial in rivers subject to disturbances such as salinisation and sedimentation.

Spam filtering using classification algorithms

This thesis proposes an innovative adaptive multi-classifier spam filtering model, with a grey-list analyser and a dynamic feature selection method, to overcome false-positive problems in email classification. It also presents additional techniques to minimize the added complexity. Empirical evidence indicates the success of this model over existing approaches.

Institutional effects of corporate planning : the case of Australian universities

This thesis presents a longitudinal analysis of the strategic behaviour of Australian universities between 1993 and 2000. The findings suggest that Australian universities enunciate similar goals and objectives in their strategic planning, and that the activities of universities are largely determined by the patterns of activities undertaken in previous years. The empirical evidence suggests there is only a small amount of differentiation in the activities of Australian universities, despite a Government policy platform that identified institutional diversity as a primary goal.

Minimizing the limitations of GL analyser of fusion based email classification

In the last decade, the Internet email has become one of the primary method of communication used by everyone for the exchange of ideas and information. However, in recent years, along with the rapid growth of the Internet and email, there has been a dramatic growth in spam. Classifications algorithms have been successfully used to filter spam, but with a certain amount of false positive trade-offs. This problem is mainly caused by the dynamic nature of spam content, spam delivery strategies, as well as the diversification of the classification algorithms. This paper presents an approach of email classification to overcome the burden of analyzing technique of GL (grey list) analyser as further refinements of our previous multi-classifier based email classification [10]. In this approach, we introduce a “majority voting grey list (MVGL)” analyzing technique with two different variations which will analyze only the product of GL emails. Our empirical evidence proofs the improvements of this approach, in terms of complexity and cost, compared to existing GL analyser. This approach also overcomes the limitation of human interaction of existing analyzing technique.

Multi-tier phishing email classification with an impact of classifier rescheduling

Protecting user's mailbox from infiltration of phishing email is a significant research issue now a day. Many researches are going on filtering phishing using classification based algorithms and achieve substantial performance. It has been studied and investigated with different classification algorithms and observed that the outputs of the classifiers vary from one another with same corpora. This paper presents the impact of classifier rescheduling of multi-tier classification of phishing email to observe the best scheduling in the classification process. In our method, the features of phishing email will be extracted and classified in a sequential fashion by using the multi-tier classification and the outputs will be sent to the decision fusion process. Empirical evidence proofs that the impact of rescheduling of classifiers among the tiers gives diverse outcomes in terms of accuracy as well as number of false positive instances.

Minimizing the drawbacks of grey-list analyser in synthesis based spam filtering

In the last decade, the rapid growth of the Internet and email, there has been a dramatic growth in spam. Spam is commonly defined as unsolicited email messages and protecting email from the infiltration of spam is an important research issue. Classifications algorithms have been successfully used to filter spam, but with a certain amount of false positive trade-offs, which is unacceptable to users sometimes. This paper presents an approach of email classification to overcome the burden of analyzing technique of GL (grey list) analyzer as further refinements of synthesis based email classification technique. In this approach, we introduce a “majority voting grey list (MVGL)” analyzing technique which will analyze the GL emails by using the majority voting (MV) algorithm. We have presented two different variations of the MV system, one is simple MV (SMV) and other is the Ranked MV (RMV). Our empirical evidence proofs the improvements of this approach compared to existing GL analyzer [7].

MVGL analyser for multi-classifier based spam filtering system

In the last decade, the rapid growth of the Internet and email, there has been a dramatic growth in spam. Spam is commonly defined as unsolicited email messages and protecting email from the infiltration of spam is an important research issue. Classifications algorithms have been successfully used to filter spam, but with a certain amount of false positive trade-offs, which is unacceptable to users sometimes. This paper presents an approach to overcome the burden of GL (grey list) analyzer as further refinements to our multi-classifier based classification model (Islam, M. and W. Zhou 2007). In this approach, we introduce a ldquomajority voting grey list (MVGL)rdquo analyzing technique which will analyze the generated GL emails by using the majority voting (MV) algorithm. We have presented two different variations of the MV system, one is simple MV (SMV) and other is the ranked MV (RMV). Our empirical evidence proofs the improvements of this approach compared to the existing GL analyzer of multi-classifier based spam filtering process.

The role of entrepreneurship education in the commercialization of intellectual property at Canadian universities

In this research paper, we explore the relationship between the commercialization of intellectual property created within Canadian universities and academic entrepreneurship education programs. The steady growth and importance of both these activities over the last twenty years highlights the value of empirically examining the linkages that may exist between them. This paper will endeavor to add to the limited research in these areas and provide both empirical evidence and theoretical support to improve definition and distinction of the roles of these two seemingly interrelated activities. The data tested suggest that the main driver of commercialization intensity is derived from the creation of an environment rich in IP. However, further study is required to enhance understanding. In particular, we need to know more about the impact that the development of entrepreneurial capacity within an institution may have upon the spin-out process.

Critical appraisal of health literacy indices revealed variable underlying constructs, narrow content and psychometric weaknesses

Objective
Health literacy refers to an individual's ability to seek, understand, and use health information. A range of indices exist that purport to measure health literacy across individuals and populations. This study aimed to review the development and content of existing indices and to critically appraise their properties.

Study Design and Setting
Using standardized search terms, published generic health literacy indices (1990–2008) were identified. Using a methodological framework, each was evaluated for purpose, validity (face, content, construct), reliability, responsiveness, feasibility, and generalizability.

Results
Nineteen instruments were evaluated. Three measurement approaches were identified: direct testing of individual abilities, self-report of abilities, and population-based proxy measures. Composition of underlying constructs and content varied widely across instruments, and none appeared to fully measure a person's ability to seek, understand, and use health information. The content was focused primarily on reading comprehension and numeracy; scoring categories were poorly defined and may not be mutually exclusive, and few indices had been assessed for reliability.

Conclusion
Health literacy is not consistently measured, making it difficult to interpret and compare health literacy at individual and population levels. Empirical evidence demonstrating validity and reliability of existing indices is required, and more comprehensive health literacy instruments need to be developed.

Post global financial crisis international business strategies

International business strategies are affected by economic conditions, although the resource-based view would suggest that company resources are a more significant factor. This paper identifies differences in the international strategy behaviours of companies located in countries which, as a result of the GFC, entered either a deep recession, a shallow recession or no recession at all. Empirical evidence is provided for companies with home country markets with each of these conditions. The ability of international strategy theories to explain these behaviours is considered. Based on observations of international businesses with home country markets in each of these categories, it is suggested that determinants of international strategy during financial crises (and immediately after) are influenced by the strength of the home country market, foreign market government protectionist behaviour, international exchange rate variations and local levels of rivalry.

Tracking of sedentary behaviours of young people : a systematic review

Objective : To review the empirical evidence concerning the strength of tracking of sedentary behaviours from childhood and adolescence.

Methods : Published English language studies were located from computerised and manual searches in 2009. Included studies were prospective, longitudinal studies with at least one sedentary behaviour for at least two time-points, with tracking coefficients reported, and included children (aged 3–11 years) and adolescents (12–18 years) at baseline.

Results : Based on data from 21 independent samples, tracking coefficients (r) ranged from 0.08 (over 16 years) to 0.73 (over 2 years) for TV viewing, from 0.18 (boys over 3 years) to 0.52 (over 2 years) for electronic game/computer use, from 0.16 (girls over 4 years) to 0.65 (boys over 2 years) for total screen time, and from −0.15 (boys over 2 years) to 0.48 (over 1 year) for total sedentary time. Study follow-up periods ranged from 1 to up to 27 years, and tracking coefficients tended to be higher with shorter follow-ups.

Conclusions : Sedentary behaviours track at moderate levels from childhood or adolescence. Data suggest that sedentary behaviours may form the foundation for such behaviours in the future and some may track slightly better than physical activity.

Brand salience for fast-moving consumer goods : an empirically based model

Brand salience, or the prominence of a brand in memory, has been linked to brand choice and purchase by consumers. The research reported in this paper proposed and tested a model of brand salience for fast-moving consumer goods, which incorporates knowledge, media consumption, and brand image as antecedents. A quasi-experimental method was utilised, where 270 respondents undertook a free recall exercise using category cues, and then completed multiitem measures of brand knowledge, brand associations, and purchase likelihood. Analysis of the data using SEM found support for an empirical model of brand salience where there was a relationship between brand salience and purchase likelihood. The empirical evidence supports building a brand in a primary category, in order to build the depth and breadth of the brand’s associations in consumer memory.