Differences in seasonal price patterns among second home rentals and hotels: Empirical evidence and practical implications

Hotels and second home rentals are two of the most important tourist accommodation options in Spain. In terms of seasonality, almost all previous studies have analysed tourism demand from the point of view either of total arrivals or the number of tourists lodged in a single accommodation type (hotels, rural accommodation, etc). However, there are no studies focusing on price seasonality orcomparing seasonality among different accommodation types. By using seasonality indicators and a price index constructed by means of hedonic methods, this paper aims to shed some light on seasonal pricing patterns among second home rentals and hotels. The paper relies on a 2004 database of 144 hotels and 1,002 apartments on the Costa Brava (northeast Spain). The results show that prices for second home rentals display a smoother seasonal pattern than hotels due to reduced price differences between shoulder (May and October) and peak periods (August)

The impact of inbound demand on price levels in tourism municipalities : Empirical evidence from Catalonia

It is usually argued that tourism exerts negative economic impacts in host jurisdictions through the increase in prices linked to increasing demand for basic services and goods from tourists. This paper surveys 149 products in 45 tourism and non-tourism jurisdictions in Catalonia (which represent a total of 18,500 prices) in order to test empirically several hypotheses related to differences in price levels in tourism and non-tourism jurisdictions. The main results show that prices in tourism jurisdictions are not significantly higher than those in non-tourism ones. The analysis suggests that tourists are likely to pay higher prices than natives for some products

Symmetric or asymmetric gasoline prices? A meta-analysis approach

The analysis of price asymmetries in the gasoline market is one of the most studied in the energy economics literature. Nevertheless, the great variability of results makes it very difficult to extract conclusive results on the existence or not of asymmetries. This paper shows through a meta-analysis approach how the industry segment analysed, the quality and quantity of data, the estimator and the model used may explain this heterogeneity of results.

Price rivalry in airline markets: A study of a successful strategy of a network carrier against a low-cost carrier

Competition in airline markets may be tough. In this context, network carriers have two alternative strategies to compete with low-cost carriers. First, they may establish a low-cost subsidiary. Second, they may try to reduce costs using the main brand. This paper examines a successful strategy of the first type implemented by Iberia in the Spanish domestic market. Our analysis of data and the estimation of a pricing equation show that Iberia has been able to charge lower prices than rivals with its low-cost subsidiary. The pricing policy of the Spanish network carrier has been particularly aggressive in less dense routes and shorter routes.

HouSI: Heuristic for delimitation of housing submarkets and price homogeneous areas

This paper seeks to address the problem of the empirical identification of housing market segmentation,once we assume that submarkets exist. The typical difficulty in identifying housing submarkets when dealing with many locations is the vast number of potential solutions and, in such cases, the use of the Chow test for hedonic functions is not a practical solution. Here, we solve this problem by undertaking an identification process with a heuristic for spatially constrained clustering, the"Housing Submarket Identifier" (HouSI). The solution is applied to the housing market in the city of Barcelona (Spain), where we estimate a hedonic model for fifty thousand dwellings aggregated into ten groups. In order to determine the utility of the procedure we seek to verify whether the final solution provided by the heuristic is comparable with the division of the city into ten administrative districts.

Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980: a pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4.4 million participants.

One of the global targets for non-communicable diseases is to halt, by 2025, the rise in the age-standardised adult prevalence of diabetes at its 2010 levels. We aimed to estimate worldwide trends in diabetes, how likely it is for countries to achieve the global target, and how changes in prevalence, together with population growth and ageing, are affecting the number of adults with diabetes. We pooled data from population-based studies that had collected data on diabetes through measurement of its biomarkers. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in diabetes prevalence-defined as fasting plasma glucose of 7.0 mmol/L or higher, or history of diagnosis with diabetes, or use of insulin or oral hypoglycaemic drugs-in 200 countries and territories in 21 regions, by sex and from 1980 to 2014. We also calculated the posterior probability of meeting the global diabetes target if post-2000 trends continue. We used data from 751 studies including 4,372,000 adults from 146 of the 200 countries we make estimates for. Global age-standardised diabetes prevalence increased from 4.3% (95% credible interval 2.4-7.0) in 1980 to 9.0% (7.2-11.1) in 2014 in men, and from 5.0% (2.9-7.9) to 7.9% (6.4-9.7) in women. The number of adults with diabetes in the world increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 (28.5% due to the rise in prevalence, 39.7% due to population growth and ageing, and 31.8% due to interaction of these two factors). Age-standardised adult diabetes prevalence in 2014 was lowest in northwestern Europe, and highest in Polynesia and Micronesia, at nearly 25%, followed by Melanesia and the Middle East and north Africa. Between 1980 and 2014 there was little change in age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adult women in continental western Europe, although crude prevalence rose because of ageing of the population. By contrast, age-standardised adult prevalence rose by 15 percentage points in men and women in Polynesia and Micronesia. In 2014, American Samoa had the highest national prevalence of diabetes (>30% in both sexes), with age-standardised adult prevalence also higher than 25% in some other islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. If post-2000 trends continue, the probability of meeting the global target of halting the rise in the prevalence of diabetes by 2025 at the 2010 level worldwide is lower than 1% for men and is 1% for women. Only nine countries for men and 29 countries for women, mostly in western Europe, have a 50% or higher probability of meeting the global target. Since 1980, age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adults has increased, or at best remained unchanged, in every country. Together with population growth and ageing, this rise has led to a near quadrupling of the number of adults with diabetes worldwide. The burden of diabetes, both in terms of prevalence and number of adults affected, has increased faster in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Wellcome Trust.

Factors influencing the evolution of e-commerce : an empirical analysis in a developed market economy

Peer-reviewed

The effect on prices of the attributes of holiday hotels: a hedonic prices approach

This article examines the effect on price of different characteristics of holiday hotels in the sun-and-beach segment. The effect on price is estimated under the hedonic function perspective by means of random effect models, known also as mixed or panel models. Some 82,000 prices were gathered between 1991 and 1998 from tour operator catalogues. The study reveals huge price differences between 4-star hotels and the rest, coupled with practically no difference between 1-star and 2-star hotels. Other attributes with a significant effect on price are town, hotel size, distance to the beach and availability of parking place. The results can assist hotel managers in shaping pricing and investment strategies

Kevyiden rakennemateriaalien soveltamismahdollisuudet metsäkoneissa

Asiakkaiden ympäristötietoisuus, metsäkoneille asetettavat korkeat vaatimukset ja kiristyvä kilpailu pakottavat metsäkoneiden valmistajat etsimään vaihtoehtoisia valmistusmateriaaleja, joita käyttämällä metsäkoneet kevenevät ja sitä kautta niiden ympäristökuormitukset ja käyttökustannukset alenevat ja kapasiteetti kasvaa. Metsäkoneiden rakenteiden keventämisessä alumiini on yksi varteenotettava vaihtoehto teräksen korvaajaksi, sillä alumiinin ominaisuus/paino -suhde on terästä parempi. Alumiinin käyttöä hitsatuissa rakenteissa ovat rajoittaneet sen korkea hinta ja melko huono väsymiskestävyys. Diplomityön tavoitteena on ollut selvittää mahdollisuuksia korvata metsäkoneiden rakenteista löytyviä teräksestä valmistettuja osia alumiinista valmistetuilla osilla. Diplomityön teoriaosassa on käsitelty rakenteiden keventämistä, metsäkoneille asetettavia vaatimuksia, alumiinien materiaaliominaisuuksia, alumiinirakenteiden valmistuksessa käytettäviä menetelmiä sekä alumiinirakenteiden suunnittelua. Lisäksi teoriaosassa on käsitelty komposiittien materiaaliominaisuuksia ja komposiittirakenteiden suunnittelua. Diplomityön kokeellisessa osassa on vertailtu nykyisiä rakennemateriaaleja ja alumiineja metsäkoneen eri osien rakennemateriaaleina osien vaatimusprofiileihin ja materiaalien ominaisuusprofiileihin perustuen. Vaatimusprofiilien perusteella on laadittu ominaisuusprofiilit alumiineille ja teräksille. Sovittamalla vaatimus- ja ominaisuusprofiilit yhteen arvoanalyysin avulla, metsäkoneista on etsitty mahdollisia kohteita, joissa nykyinen rakennemateriaali voitaisiin korvata alumiinilla. Tältä pohjalta metsäkoneista löytyi rakenteita, joissa alumiinin käyttö rakennemateriaalina teräksen sijaan olisi mahdollista. Diplomityö toimii hyvänä pohjana tutkittaessa mahdollisuuksia metsäkoneiden rakenteiden keventämiseksi.

Formal Power Analysis of Systems-on-Chip

The design methods and languages targeted to modern System-on-Chip designs are facing tremendous pressure of the ever-increasing complexity, power, and speed requirements. To estimate any of these three metrics, there is a trade-off between accuracy and abstraction level of detail in which a system under design is analyzed. The more detailed the description, the more accurate the simulation will be, but, on the other hand, the more time consuming it will be. Moreover, a designer wants to make decisions as early as possible in the design flow to avoid costly design backtracking. To answer the challenges posed upon System-on-chip designs, this thesis introduces a formal, power aware framework, its development methods, and methods to constraint and analyze power consumption of the system under design. This thesis discusses on power analysis of synchronous and asynchronous systems not forgetting the communication aspects of these systems. The presented framework is built upon the Timed Action System formalism, which offer an environment to analyze and constraint the functional and temporal behavior of the system at high abstraction level. Furthermore, due to the complexity of System-on-Chip designs, the possibility to abstract unnecessary implementation details at higher abstraction levels is an essential part of the introduced design framework. With the encapsulation and abstraction techniques incorporated with the procedure based communication allows a designer to use the presented power aware framework in modeling these large scale systems. The introduced techniques also enable one to subdivide the development of communication and computation into own tasks. This property is taken into account in the power analysis part as well. Furthermore, the presented framework is developed in a way that it can be used throughout the design project. In other words, a designer is able to model and analyze systems from an abstract specification down to an implementable specification.

Photometric procedure for quantitative analysis of Aflatoxin B1 in peanuts by thin-layer chromatography using charge coupled device detector

A photometric procedure was developed for determination of aflatoxin B1 in peanuts by TLC-CCD technique. The quantification and detection limit were 1.2 μg kg-1 and 0.4 ng per spot, respectively, with mean recovery of 98%. The CCD camera is sufficiently sensitive to detect small changes in spots fluorescence intensity and the results for performance confirmed the efficiency of the method. Another important property of CCD detector is its linearity for a wide range of luminous stimulus determined by analysis of five-point calibration curves using the intensity of AFB1 fluorescence versus AFB1 concentration (0.8 to 4.8 ng per spot). The method was applied to the analysis of thirty nine peanut samples and aflatoxin B1 levels ranged from 16 to 115 μg kg-1. The TLC-CCD and the photometric procedure developed in this study demonstrated to be a simple and efficient tool for quantitative analyses of AFB1 in peanut samples.

Analysis of Patterns in Electricity Spot Market Time Series

Due to its non-storability, electricity must be produced at the same time that it is consumed, as a result prices are determined on an hourly basis and thus analysis becomes more challenging. Moreover, the seasonal fluctuations in demand and supply lead to a seasonal behavior of electricity spot prices. The purpose of this thesis is to seek and remove all causal effects from electricity spot prices and remain with pure prices for modeling purposes. To achieve this we use Qlucore Omics Explorer (QOE) for the visualization and the exploration of the data set and Time Series Decomposition method to estimate and extract the deterministic components from the series. To obtain the target series we use regression based on the background variables (water reservoir and temperature). The result obtained is three price series (for Sweden, Norway and System prices) with no apparent pattern.

Analysis of the structural and electronic properties of 1-(5-Hydroxymethyl - 4 -[ 5 - (5-oxo-5-piperidin-1-yl-penta-1,3dienyl)-benzo[1,3]dioxol-2-yl] -tetrahydro-furan-2-yl)-5-methyl-1H-pyrimidine-2,4dione molecule

The structural and electronic properties of 1-(5-Hydroxymethyl - 4 -[ 5 - (5-oxo-5-piperidin- 1 -yl-penta- 1,3 -dienyl)-benzo [1,3] dioxol- 2 -yl]-tetrahydro -furan-2 -yl)-5-methy l-1Hpyrimidine-2,4dione (AHE) molecule have been investigated theoretically by performing density functional theory (DFT), and semi empirical molecular orbital calculations. The geometry of the molecule is optimized at the level of Austin Model 1 (AM1), and the electronic properties and relative energies of the molecules have been calculated by density functional theory in the ground state. The resultant dipole moment of the AHE molecule is about 2.6 and 2.3 Debyes by AM1 and DFT methods respectively, This property of AHE makes it an active molecule with its environment, that is AHE molecule may interacts with its environment strongly in solution.

Spare part business analysis and development

The purpose of this Thesis was to comprehensively analyze and develop the spare part business in Company Oy’s five biggest product groups by searching development issues related to single spare parts’ supply chains as well as the spare part business process, make implementation plans for them and implement the plans when possible. The items were classified based on special characteristics of spare parts and on their actual sales volumes. The created item classes were examined for finding improvement possibilities. Management strategies for classified items were suggested. Vendors and customers were analyzed for supporting the comprehensive supply network development work. The effectiveness of the current spare part business process was analyzed in co-operation with the spare part teams in three business unit locations. Several items were taken away from inventories as uselessly stocked items. Price list related to core items with one of the main product group’s core item manufacturer was suggested to be expanded in Town A. Refinement equipment seal item supply chain management was seen important to develop in Town B. A new internal business process model was created for minimizing and enhancing the internal business between Company’s business units. SAP inventory reports and several other features were suggested to be changed or developed. Also the SAP data material management was seen very important to be developed continuously. Many other development issues related to spare parts’ supply chains and the work done in the business process were found. The need for investigating the development possibilities deeper became very clear during the project.

Analysis of private natural heritage reserves as a conservation strategy for the biodiversity of the cocoa region of the southern State of Bahia, Brazil

Brazil was the first country in Latin America to establish and regulate this type of reserve, and there are currently more than 700 Private Nature Heritage Reserves (RPPN in Portuguese) officially recognized by either federal or state environmental agencies. Together, these RPPN protect more than a half million hectares of land in the country. The coastal forests in the southern part of Bahia State extend 100 to 200 km inland, gradually changing in physiognomy as they occupy the dryer inland areas. The coastal forest has been subjected to intense deforestation, and currently occupies less than 10% of its original area. For this work the creation processes of the RPPN were consulted to obtain the data creation time, size of property, the condition of the remaining forest, succession chain and the last paid tax. After that, interviews with the owners were made to confirm this data. Sixteen RPPN have been established in this region until 2005. Their sizes vary from 4.7 to 800 ha. Ten of these RPPN are located within state or federal conservation areas or their buffer zones. In spite of the numerous national and international conservation strategies and environmental policies focused on the region, the present situation of the cocoa zone is threatening the conservation of the region's natural resources. The establishment of private reserves in the cocoa region could conceivably improve these conservation efforts. This type of reserve can be established under a uniform system supported by federal legislation, and could count on private organizations.