Tourism is becoming an important sector with a great impact on economic development. Tourists form a heterogeneous group of visitors with significantly different spending patterns. This paper addresses the economic importance of a particular class of tourists, viz. those visiting friends and relatives (VFR). After a review of the literature, this paper offers an empirical case study of VFR tour...

In this paper, we define distributions as a new data type and address the challenges of visualizing spatial distribution data sets. Numerous visualization techniques exist today for dealing with scalar data. That is, there is a scalar value at each spatial location, which may also be changing over time. Likewise, techniques exist for dealing with vector, tensor and multivariate data sets. Howev...

In this paper we present a framework for modelling potential species distribution (PSD) of balsam fir [bF; Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.] as a function of landscape-level descriptions of: (i) growing degree days (GDD: a temperature related index), (ii) landsurface wetness, (iii) incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and (iv) tree habitat suitability. GDD and land-surface wetness are d...

Models for collecting and aggregating categorical data on crowdsourcing platforms typically fall into two broad categories: those assuming agents honest and consistent but with heterogeneous error rates, and those assuming agents strategic and seek to maximize their expected reward. The former often leads to tractable aggregation of elicited data, while the latter usually focuses on optimal eli...

The problem of controlling the margin of a classifier is studied. A detailed analytical study is presented on how properties of the classification risk, such as its optimal link and minimum risk functions, are related to the shape of the loss, and its margin enforcing properties. It is shown that for a class of risks, denoted canonical risks, asymptotic Bayes consistency is compatible with simp...

conclusions real-time pcr and elisa showed high levels of production of 1a/jfh1 chimeric hcv in the huh7.5 cell culture. the constructed virus can be used for future studies, including the development of new hcv drugs and vaccines. background the e2 glycoprotein is an important encoded hepatitis c virus (hcv) protein that contains three different variable regions. objectives the aim of the pres...