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The images of tourist destinations significantly influence travel choices. Accordingly, destination marketers make great efforts to inform their potential consumers about their destinations using deliberately designed projected images. This research focuses on a Chinese tourism destination, Qingdao, exploring the relationships between the images projected by Qingdao government agencies and those perceived by current visitors and by residents. It also examines the factors that influence the image formation of visitors and residents. Three sources of information are used in this research: promotional materials issued by the Qingdao municipal government and the Qingdao Tourism Administration, key informant interview transcripts and a questionnaires survey. The promotional materials were collected from the aforementioned agencies in May 2009. Key informant interviews were conducted in April and May 2009. Self-administered surveys of 578 visitors and 337 residents of Qingdao were administered throughout May and June 2009. The image construct was conceptualized as having three dimensions: cognitive, affective and overall images. The cognitive image attributes included seafood, scenery, beaches, local people, green space, special events, ethnic attractions, weather, squares, architecture, relaxing atmosphere, resorts, hygiene and cleanliness, cultural attractions, golf course, highway system, accommodation, public transport, shopping, fashion shows, value for money, transportation cost, nightlife, football games, airline schedules, and traffic congestion. The affective image attributes included arousing-sleepy, exciting-gloomy, pleasant-unpleasant, and relaxing-distressful. Qualitative evaluation suggested greater congruence between the images projected by Qingdao government agencies and those perceived by visitors than quantitative correlation analysis. The projected images of Qingdao and images perceived by visitors were consistent in their emphases on certain image themes. However, the correlations between these two types of images suggested that the extent to which these image themes were emphasized differed. Similar results were found in the comparison between the images projected by Qingdao and those perceived by residents. Furthermore, most visitors and residents held positive images of Qingdao. Both similarities and differences were discovered in the cognitive, affective and overall images perceived by visitors and residents. Residents were generally more positive than visitors in their cognitive and affective images. It was found that sex, education, place of residence, and previous travel experience only significantly affected visitors’ images of one or two attributes, while age, occupation, primary motivation, most important information source used and number of sources used significantly influenced visitors’ images of between 5 and 8 attributes. Additionally, place attachment and importance of the 2008 Olympic Games were significantly positively correlated with most of the image attributes examined in this study, while importance of German Heritage and Qingdao International Beer Festival were significantly positively correlated with fewer attributes (8 and 6 attributes, respectively). With regard to the factors influencing resident images, it was discovered that sex, education, age, occupation, length of residence, most important source used and number of sources used significantly affected residents’ images to different degrees, ranging from 7 to 18 attributes. Furthermore, place attachment and the importance of German heritage, the 2008 Olympic Games and Qingdao International Beer Festival were significantly positively correlated with the majority of the image attributes examined in this research. This study is one of very few that compares projected and perceived images although methodological challenges for undertaking such research remain. It is also innovative in that it encompasses both tourists’ and residents’ images. Very few such studies have been undertaken in China which has a massive domestic tourism industry and is a major player in international tourism.

Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) are the primary tool for modelling global climate change in the future. However, their coarse spatial resolution does not permit direct application for local scale impact studies. Therefore, either dynamical or statistical downscaling techniques are used for translating AOGCM outputs to local scale climatic variables. The main goal of this study was to improve our understanding of the historical and future climate change at local-scale in the Canadian Prairie Provinces (CPPs) of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, comprising 47 diverse watersheds. Given the vast nature of the study area and paucity of recorded data, a novel approach for identifying homogeneous regions for regionalization of precipitation characteristics for the CPPs was proposed. This approach incorporated information about predictors ― large-scale atmospheric covariates from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis-I, teleconnection indices and geographical site attributes that impact spatial patterns of precipitation in order to delineate homogeneous precipitation regions using a combination of multivariate approaches. This resulted in the delimitation of five homogeneous climatic regions which were validated independently for homogeneity using statistics computed from observations recorded at 120 stations across the CPPs. For multisite multivariate statistical downscaling, an approach based on the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) framework was developed to downscale daily observations of precipitation and minimum and maximum temperatures from 120 sites located across the CPPs. First, the aforementioned predictors and observed daily precipitation and temperature records were used to calibrate GLMs for the 1971–2000 period. Then the calibrated GLMs were used to generate daily sequences of precipitation and temperatures for the 1962–2005 historical (conditioned on NCEP predictors), and future period (2006–2100) using outputs from six CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase-5) AOGCMs corresponding to Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP): RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios. The results indicated that the fitted GLMs were able to capture spatiotemporal characteristics of observed climatic fields. According to the downscaled future climate, mean precipitation is projected to increase in summer and decrease in winter while minimum temperature is expected to warm faster than the maximum temperature. Climate extremes are projected to intensify with increased radiative forcing.

Orientador: Maria Cristina Dias Tavares / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-25T10:45:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maciel_RenandePaula_M.pdf: 20862313 bytes, checksum: 8d33d7f791ddf8189e35795948116d81 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Neste trabalho é proposto um método de otimização para maximizar a potência característica de linhas de transmissão constituída por condutores em feixe. O método iterativo, baseado na minimização pelo gradiente, altera, a cada passo, a posição dos condutores dada na silhueta da torre construindo uma nova configuração dos feixes. Tal configuração corresponde a uma pequena modificação dos feixes deslocando os condutores na direção que leva à máxima redução da função objetivo. São avaliadas a redução da impedância característica e a otimização do campo elétrico superficial. A primeira busca o aumento da potência característica atuando diretamente no caminho de máxima redução da impedância característica. A segunda atua na uniformização do campo elétrico superficial dos condutores, cujo valor limite representa a principal restrição eletromagnética frente à elevação da potência característica na concepção de linhas de transmissão. A última se mostrou predominante, resultando em linhas otimizadas com maior potência característica, porém, levando a feixes com dimensões mais elevadas / Abstract: This work presents an optimization method aiming to maximize the surge impedance loading of bundled transmission lines. The iterative method, based on gradient optimization, changes, on each step, the conductors position generating a new bundle configuration. Such configuration matches a small change on bundles geometry by shifting conductors on the direction that leads to the maximum reduction of the objective function. Both the reduction of natural impedance and the optimization of conductor¿s superficial electric field are evaluated. The former seeks the increase of surge impedance loading actuating directly on the maximal surge impedance reduction path. The second acts on the uniformization of conductor¿s superficial electric field, whose upper bound is the main electromagnetic restriction on the surge impedance loading increase when conceiving transmission lines. The last one was most effective, resulting in greatest natural power transmission lines, yet, leading to most expanded bundles / Mestrado / Energia Eletrica / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

Orientadores: Gisele Busichia Baioco, Antonio Carlos Zambon / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Tecnologia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T15:53:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Magrin_DiegoHenrique_M.pdf: 4704743 bytes, checksum: cd0c8f6e54316061a8c808a2d38e5cc1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A necessidade de aquisição e organização do conhecimento para posterior compartilhamento representa um grande problema nas organizações humanas. Para se produzir efetivamente conhecimento compartilhado, é necessário considerar a estrutura do pensamento dos agentes que possuem e compartilham conhecimento. Desse modo, visando ao compartilhamento efetivo do conhecimento por parte das organizações humanas, este trabalho considera o conhecimento representado por meio de modelos mentais de acordo com o Modelo Orientado à Representação do Pensamento Humano - MORPH, propondo consultas por similaridade a essas representações de modelos mentais. O trabalho também desenvolveu um Sistema de Gerenciamento de Conhecimento que implementa as regras do MORPH para representação e armazenamento do conhecimento e as consultas por similaridades para manipulação desse conhecimento. O sistema desenvolvido foi utilizado em um estudo de caso que teve como objetivo analisar em um grupo de empresas, quais seguiam as recomendações da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo - BOVESPA com relação as práticas de governança sustentável / Abstract: The need for acquisition and organization knowledge for further sharing represents a major problem in human organizations. In order to produce effectively shared knowledge, is necessary to consider the structure of thought of the agents that have and share knowledge. Thus, in order to obtain an effective sharing of knowledge by the human organizations, this work considers the knowledge represented by mental models according to the Human Thinking Representation Oriented Model, called MORPH, and proposes similarity queries to these mental model representations. The work also developed a Knowledge Management System that implements the rules of MORPH for knowledge representation and storage, and similarity queries to manipulate this knowledge. The developed software was used in a case study that aimed to analyze in a group of companies, which followed the recommendations of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange - BOVESPA concerning sustainable governance practices / Mestrado / Tecnologia e Inovação / Mestre em Tecnologia

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The value of tourism as a driver of economic and social development in Africa cannot be overstated. Tourism is regarded as a source of foreign currency, employment creation and more importantly, a means of achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Notwithstanding its contributions, many African countries are yet to reap the full benefits of the industry. While the current pandemic has adversely affected tourism across the continent, it has also created opportunities for rural tourism. Rural destinations in Southern Africa could tap from this new trend as local and international visitors seek to experience open spaces and rural settings. Succeeding in these highly competitive tourist markets, however, requires effective destination promotion which can be achieved by ensuring that the projected image of a destination reflects its identity. By focusing on Nyanga, a typical rural tourist destination in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, this study sought to analyse the projected destination image against its identity as perceived by the local community. To establish the projected image, a content analysis was done for Nyanga’s images as portrayed on the online platforms of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), the official destination promoter. A total of 44 pictures were analysed from the ZTA website, Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter handle. The destination identity was evaluated through semi-structured interviews with seven residents who were purposively selected through snowball sampling. Participants were also asked to give their opinion on the images of Nyanga that were showcased on the online platforms of the ZTA. This was done to ascertain whether the images were reflecting the true identity of Nyanga, from the perspective of the local community. The findings of the study reveal that there is a gap between the projected image and Nyanga’s identity. While the projected image emphasises on the natural environment and the portrayal of humans interacting with nature and each other, the identity is hinged on culture and religion. Elements relating to history, authenticity, and knowledge also shape the identity of Nyanga even though these aspects are not incorporated in the projected image. The study provides important insights for enhancing the promotion of Nyanga and creating opportunities for sustainable development.

Thesis / Master of Science (MS)