A Study of Satisfaction Level of Hong Kong Tourists with Hot Springs Hotels and Resorts in Guangdong, China

The research reported here aimed at examining Hong Kong tourists’ level of satisfaction with hot springs hotels and resorts in Guangdong, China. Primary data were collected and service quality and tourist satisfaction levels were measured using the SERVQUAL model. The empirical findings indicate that most tourists are satisfied with the service quality of these hotels and resorts. Among the different dimensions of service quality, empathy receives the highest score. Overall satisfaction receives a score only slightly better than average. The results also reveal significant relationships among customer satisfaction level, loyalty, and recommendation.

The Beacon, November 8, 2010

Vol. 24, Issue 33, 12 pages

Florida International University Summer August 6, 2013 Commencement Ceremony Session 6

Florida International University Commencement Ceremony August 6,2013 at US Century Bank Arena ( Session 6) Colleges graduated: College of Buiness

The effects of government disability benefits, accessibility laws and rehabilitation on employment choices by individuals with spinal cord injuries

Greater inclusion of individuals with disabilities into mainstream society is an important goal for society. One of the best ways to include individuals is to actively promote and encourage their participation in the labor force. Of all disabilities, it is feasible to assume that individual with spinal cord injuries can be among the most easily mainstreamed into the labor force. However, less that fifty percent of individuals with spinal cord injuries work. This study focuses on how disability benefit programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, and Worker's Compensation, the Americans with Disabilities Act and rehabilitation programs affect employment decisions. The questions were modeled using utility theory with an augmented expenditure function and indifference theory. Statically, Probit, Logit, predicted probability, and linear regressions were used to analyze these questions. Statistical analysis was done on the probability of working, ever attempting to work after injury, and on the number of years after injury that work was first attempted and the number of hours worked per week. The data utilized were from the National Spinal Cord Injury Database and the Spinal Cord Injuries and Labor Database. The Spinal Cord Injuries and Labor Database was created specifically for this study by the author. Receiving disability benefits decreased the probability of working, of ever attempting to work, increased the number of years after injury before the first work attempt was made, and decreased the number of hours worked per week for those individuals working. These results were all statistically significant. The Americans with Disabilities Act decrease the number of years before an individual made a work attempt. The decrease is statistically significant. The amount of rehabilitation had a significant positive effect for male individuals with low paraplegia, and significant negative effect for individuals with high tetraplegia. For women, there were significant negative effects for high tetraplegia and high paraplegia. This study finds that the financial disincentives of receiving benefits are the major determinants of whether an individual with a spinal cord injury returns to the labor force. Policies are recommended that would decrease the disincentive.

Data compilation on the biological response to ocean acidification: environmental and experimental context of data sets and related literature

The exponential growth of studies on the biological response to ocean acidification over the last few decades has generated a large amount of data. To facilitate data comparison, a data compilation hosted at the data publisher PANGAEA was initiated in 2008 and is updated on a regular basis (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.149999). By January 2015, a total of 581 data sets (over 4 000 000 data points) from 539 papers had been archived. Here we present the developments of this data compilation five years since its first description by Nisumaa et al. (2010). Most of study sites from which data archived are still in the Northern Hemisphere and the number of archived data from studies from the Southern Hemisphere and polar oceans are still relatively low. Data from 60 studies that investigated the response of a mix of organisms or natural communities were all added after 2010, indicating a welcomed shift from the study of individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. The initial imbalance of considerably more data archived on calcification and primary production than on other processes has improved. There is also a clear tendency towards more data archived from multifactorial studies after 2010. For easier and more effective access to ocean acidification data, the ocean acidification community is strongly encouraged to contribute to the data archiving effort, and help develop standard vocabularies describing the variables and define best practices for archiving ocean acidification data.

Adapting Arthur: The transformations and adaptations of Wirnt von Graffenberg's Wigalois

The stories of King Arthur and his noble knights have fascinated audiences for many centuries and continue to being retold and fashioned to attract modern audiences. Amongst these stories is the tale of Wigalois, the son of the reputable Gawain. This dissertation traces the story of Wigalois across different languages, cultures, and media in order to show how this is a shared German-Yiddish narrative. Furthermore, this dissertations challenges traditional understanding of adaptation within a diachronic and teleological framework by uncovering dialogical and dynamic processes inherent in this narrative tradition. Using the theoretical framework of a combined Adaptation Studies and Medieval Literature Studies’ notions of unstable texts my argumentation focuses on eight specific examples: Wirnt von Grafenberg’s Wigalois (1st half 13th ct.), Italian murals from the fourteenth century, Wigoleis von dem Rade (1483/93), Viduvilt (Yiddish, 16th ct.), Johann Christoph Wagenseil’s Belehrung der Jüdisch-Teutschen Red- und Schreibart (Yiddish and German, 1715), Gabein (Yiddish, 1789), the illustrations by Ludwig Richter (before 1851), and Die phantastischen Abenteuer der Glücksritters Wigalois (Comic, German, 2011).

(Table 1) TOC content, BIT, TEX86 and UK'37 indices, and sea surface temperature reconstruction for the middle Miocene to Pliocene of ODP Hole 175-1085A

The initiation of the Benguela upwelling has been dated to the late Miocene, but estimates of its sea surface temperature evolution are not available. This study presents data from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1085 recovered from the southern Cape Basin. Samples of the middle Miocene to Pliocene were analyzed for alkenone-based (UK'37, SSTUK) and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) based (TEX86, TempTEX) water temperature proxies. In concordance with global cooling during the Miocene, SSTUK and TempTEX exhibit a decline of about 8°C and 16°C, respectively. The temperature trends suggest an inflow of cold Antarctic waters triggered by Antarctic ice sheet expansion and intensification of Southern Hemisphere southeasterly winds. A temperature offset between both proxies developed with the onset of upwelling, which can be explained by differences in habitat: alkenone-producing phytoplankton live in the euphotic zone and record sea surface temperatures, while GDGT-producing Thaumarchaeota are displaced to colder subsurface waters in upwelling-influenced areas and record subsurface water temperatures. We suggest that variations in subsurface water temperatures were driven by advection of cold Antarctic waters and thermocline adjustments that were due to changes in North Atlantic deep water formation. A decline in surface temperatures, an increased offset between temperature proxies, and an increase in primary productivity suggest the establishment of the Benguela upwelling at 10 Ma. During the Messinian Salinity Crisis, between 7 and 5 Ma, surface and subsurface temperature estimates became similar, likely because of a strong reduction in Atlantic overturning circulation, while high total organic carbon contents suggest a "biogenic bloom." In the Pliocene the offset between the temperature estimates and the cooling trend was reestablished.

Ultra Compact Inline E-Plane Waveguide Bandpass Filters Using Cross Coupling

This paper presents novel ultra-compact waveguide bandpass filters that exhibit pseudo elliptic responses with ability to place transmission zeros on both sides of the passband to form sharp roll offs. The filters contain E plane extracted pole sections cascaded with cross-coupled filtering blocks. Compactness is achieved by the use of evanescent mode sections and closer arranged resonators modified to shrink in size. The filters containing non-resonating nodes are designed by means of the generalized coupling coefficients (GCC) extraction procedure for the cross-coupled filtering blocks and extracted pole sections. We illustrate the performance of the proposed structures through the design examples of a third and a fourth order filters with center frequencies of 9.2 GHz and 10 GHz respectively. The sizes of the proposed structures suitable for fabricating using the low cost E plane waveguide technology are 38% smaller than ones of the E plane extracted pole filter of the same order.

O risco e os consumos de performance na população jovem: entre as conceções e as práticas

Objetivos - O foco deste artigo centra‐se na realidade emergente do consumo de medicamentos e/ou produtos terapêuticos naturais para finalidades de gestão do desempenho pessoal (aqui designados consumos de performance), e tem como objetivo analisar a relação entre as práticas de consumo e as perceções do risco e da eficácia atribuídas aos produtos farmacológicos e naturais para finalidades de melhoria e bem‐estar, por parte da população jovem portuguesa (18‐29 anos). Metodologia - A análise dos resultados empíricos de carácter extensivo resulta da aplicação de um inquérito por questionário a uma amostra de âmbito nacional (n=1.483). Do vasto conjunto de indicadores do questionário aplicado, aqueles que são aqui especificamente mobilizados são os que dizem respeito às perceções de risco associadas a estes consumos; aos escalonamentos de risco atribuídos aos diferentes recursos terapêuticos para finalidades de performance; bem como às experiências (e formas de gestão) do risco e da eficácia resultantes das práticas efetivas de consumo. Resultados - Constata‐se que, apesar de os posicionamentos relativamente ao risco dos consumos de performance fazerem salientar uma visão de valorização da segurança, há variações e diferenciações concretas que são indiciadoras não só de permeabilidades e predisposições ao consumo, mas também de conceções que se redefinem no quadro das experiências de uso, das circunstâncias do consumo e das finalidades da utilização dos diferentes produtos terapêuticos. Conclusões - As conceções sobre o risco associado a estes consumos traduzem uma certa plasticidade social, no sentido em que a ancoragem na experiência e a familiaridade com o próprio consumo constituem‐se como aspetos decisivos para a perceção de um maior controlo na gestão do risco. Torna‐se, por isso, importante aprofundar o conhecimento sobre as especificidades contextuais dos segmentos juvenis onde se constroem as modalidades de gestão prática do risco e da eficácia associadas a estes consumos.

Carlyle on heroes, hero-worship : and the heroic in history /

Six lectures.

Die weisheit d. Martin Luther's ...

1. t. Auslegung des Magnificat.-Psalm 37, 62, 82, 117, 111, 127, 147, 118. Jeremia kap. 23. Esaja kap. 9. Habakuk kap. 1, 3. Die zehn gebote. Die bergpredigt. Evangel. Joh. kap. 14-16. Das Vaterunser.--2. t. Auslegung des ersten buches Mose. Auslegung des ersten briefes Petri, sammt dem ersten kapitel des andern briefes. Auslegung des fünfzehnten kapitels des ersten briefes Pauli an die Corinther.

Lo virtual en la era del autismo intelectual

El presente texto ofrece algunas reflexiones teóricas y visionesdel autor sobre la relación del hombre de hoy con el fenómeno dela comunicación digital, también conocida como comunicaciónvirtual, a través de Internet, unas reflexiones que aparecen deltrabajo investigativo sobre el modelo convergente del canalde televisión pública Telemedellín, y en las que se explora elpanorama de las relaciones del hombre con el otro, consigomismo y con las cosas, desde la mediación de la computadora.Por otro lado, indaga sobre la composición de las redes socialesy su producto, la comunidad virtual, lugar en el que se producenlos intercambios e interrelaciones humanas. Y finalmente,intenta mostrar el desasosiego del hombre de la época actual,encontrándolo como un ser solitario que lucha por un lugar enel mundo.

Martin Luther : vom Katholizismus zur Reformation /

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.