BACKGROUND The study was developed in order to find a subset of potential factors, which affect birth distance pattern, regarding consideration on correlation of events of birth in a family and correlation within clusters/centers which other studies omit these correlations. METHODS Referring to documents that were registered for family in the health care centers on socio-economical zone, we c...

As tourism is becoming one of the most important sources of economic growth at the local level, it is crucial to identify and assess the relevant determinants of tourism flows. This paper investigates this issue by carrying out an econometric analysis of tourism flows for the 107 Italian provinces based on the origin-destination (OD) spatial interaction models, which fully account for the spati...

Coal is the major primary energy which fuels the economic growth in China. The Soviet-style institution of the coal sector was adopted after the People’s Republic was founded in 1949. But since the end of 1970s there have been major changes: the market mechanism was introduced to the coal sector and the Major State Coal mines were transferred from central to local governments. This paper explai...

Theoretical models have long shown that spillovers from knowledge investments are of great economic importance to sustained economic growth and innovation and that these spillovers may be facilitated by physical and technological proximity. However, such localized spillovers have not been identified using data from developing countries. In this paper, we use a general measure of knowledge and a...

For the last five years an average 14,761 ha of white clover has been grown for seed, with 77%, 8% and 15% sown in public cultivars, New Zealand and overseas proprietary cultivars, respectively. The area presently contaminated by proprietaries is estimated at 20,000 ha. New Zealand requirements for cultivar-change are more effective than OECD requirements. The five-year break period enables suc...

Data from the national databases about the population and education shows that about 283 693 under 5-year old children stepped into the Finnish educational system in 2004. Their future learning, a lifelong interaction amid developing and decision-making people, is supported with the education that promotes understanding the decisions and knowledge related to them. In Europe, the demand for a hi...

This research highlights the precipitation trends and presents the results of the study in temporal and spatial scales. Precise predictions of precipitation trends can play imperative part in economic growth of a state. This study examined precipitation inconsistency for 23 stations at the Dongting Lake, China, over a 52-years study phase (1961–2012). Statistical, nonparametric Mann-Kendall (MK...

Planning new transit routes and refining existing routes often requires the calculation of the transit dependant socio-economic characteristics of potential passengers. The most common method used to derive the social profile for potential passengers is to create buffers around the transit routes and use Census data collected by the statistics bureau, which in this case is the Australian Bureau...