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This paper examines the position of crafts within the creative industries and considers how this has been affected by the growing links between the creative industries and tourism. A review of the creative industries concept indicates that crafts occupy an ambiguous position between art and tradition, which problematises their relationship with the creative industries. This is gradually changing at the creative and tourism sectors become more closely linked, and craft has become an important element of the development of creative tourism experiences. We review the role of craft in creative tourism, including case studies from Brazil, Finland, and Thailand, to examine how tourism can support the creative development of crafts. This analysis indicates that craft can be an important aspect of creative tourism development in different contexts and can provide a strong basis for placemaking initiatives.

Leisure has been undergoing a transformation that requires strategic design approaches open for imagination, inspiration and diverse organisational structure and behavioural models. The stakeholders within and the participants (not anymore defined just through the notion of consumers) have opened up the spectrum of what leisure could mean and sustain.This paper provides a detailed overview of the existence, essence and specifics of multifunctional leisure organizations, their principles and structures while relating them to two real-life cases from the Netherlands. Challenges, as well as future development scenarios, are presented and discussed.

PurposeThis paper aims to stimulate the discussion in the fields of hospitality, tourism and leisure on what exactly constitutes “an experience” and how to measure it; the authors unpack the experience construct into its core constituent elements, namely, emotions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience that define experiences as a fine-grained temporal succession of emotions that occur during an experiential episode. Limitations of current methods for measuring experiences are discussed, after which biometric and neuroscientific methods are reviewed that are optimally geared toward measuring emotions, as they occur during an experience with fine temporal detail.FindingsAn overview is presented of the available studies within the fields of hospitality, tourism and leisure that use these methodologies. These studies show that using these methodologies provides a fruitful methodological approach to measuring experiences in real time.Practical implicationsCompanies are constantly seeking to create memorable experiences for their customers. The proposed research methodologies allow companies to get a more fine-grained image of what impacts customers over the course of their experience and to actively integrate the use of emotions into creating experiences, as emotions are key to making them memorable.Originality/valueThe paper sketches the contours of a rapidly emerging framework that unpacks memorable experiences into their constituent element – emotions. It is proposed that this will contribute to a deeper understanding of how consumers experience offerings in the hospitality, tourism and leisure industry.

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the development of research on gastronomic tourism experiences and chart its relationship to foundational management and marketing literature as well as the tourism and hospitality field. Design/methodology/approach The author develops a literature review of papers in specialist journals and the SCOPUS database to identify major research themes and the evolution of experience and gastronomic experience research. Findings Gastronomy is an increasingly important element of tourism experiences. Gastronomic experience research in tourism mirrors the evolution in management and marketing theory from rational information processing approaches to emotional and hedonistic approaches and analysis of relationality and co-creation. The paper sketches a development from Experience 1.0 (producer-orientated) to Experience 2.0 (co-creation) to Experience 3.0 (foodscapes) in gastronomic experiences in tourism research. Research limitations/implications Increasing complexity of gastronomic experiences requires a more holistic analytic approach, including more attention for relational and co-creational processes. Linking together different experience elements and experience phases requires more holistic and contextual research approaches. Practical implications Hospitality organizations should recognize the differentiated and complex nature of gastronomic experiences, the different touchpoints within the customer journey and their relationship to experience outcomes. The development of hybrid gastronomic experiences offers both opportunities and challenges for the future. Originality/value This quantitative and qualitative literature analysis underlines the need for a more holistic approach to gastronomic experiences, covering different experiential phases and contexts of production and consumption.

We explore the role of restaurants and food events in promoting local and regional gastronomy in the Minho region in Northern Portugal. Interviews with restaurant owners and event organizers in this mainly rural region reveal that innovation is driven mainly by changing consumer tastes, but also constrained by consumer expectations of low prices. Restaurants maintain a family-run structure, also due to a lack of human resources. The main thrust of innovation lies in creating a convivial atmosphere, but there is less emphasis on locally produced food ingredients. In the long run this may undermine the regional food culture and its authenticity, despite the perceived importance of tradition.

This conceptual paper re-evaluates the concept of niches in tourism markets. As many regions are now attempting to address niche markets in tourism as a development strategy, understanding of the dynamics of niche markets is crucial. Current approaches are often limited to seeing niche markets as simple subsectors of larger consumer markets. We argue for a broader view of market niches as forms of social rituals involving both consumers and producers with a mutual focus of attention. Based on the work of Randall Collins we examine how interaction rituals are produced and maintained, and how these are also reflected in niche markets, such as backpacking. We illustrate the how backpacking produces a mutual focus of attention and boundaries to outsiders, helping to sustain the niche over the longer term. This analysis has implications for producers hoping to tap into niche markets, as they too need to become part of the niche community.

This article analyzes how a city can generate instrumental, intrinsic, and institutional value from its event-related networks and platforms, based on the Hieronymus Bosch 500 program in the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch). Interviews with key stakeholders traced program dynamics over more than a decade to reveal processes of network and platform development, encapsulated in a conceptual model of strategic value creation. The results indicate that networks served to generate flows of resources, while programming helped develop platforms for knowledge generation and dissemination, helping to focus attention on the city. The Bosch 500 Foundation managing the program played an effective role in developing and supporting networks, which in turn generated significant short-term instrumental and intrinsic value. However, the failure to establish a sustainable city-wide platform related to the Bosch program caused institutional value destruction, which many saw as a missed opportunity. The study of networks and platforms can benefit from a longitudinal approach as well as a broader, contextual view of event networks.

The use of events as policy tools in cities has become widely recognized. However, most studies concerning this topic do not capture the complex interrelationships that underpin the development of an eventful city. This study applies a practice approach, in order to analyze the dynamics of the eventful city practice. It places the urban event practice centrally in the analysis and focuses on the actual "sayings and doings" of the practice. The event practice of the 2015 Incubate festival in Tilburg, the Netherlands, is analyzed by means of ethnographic methods, including participant observation and interviews. Incubate illustrates how both the city and the event are performed within the practice: the event shapes the city and the city shapes the event. However, the integration of the festival into alternative spaces in the city means that it does not increase the visibility of Tilburg, and therefore fails to deliver value to its eventful city policy.

Creative tourism is a young and dynamic field that has already spawned a wide range of topics for investigation, theoretical reflections, methodological frameworks, and empirical approaches. While creative tourism does not fit well within traditional tourism research paradigms, we are observing a growing range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives brought to creative tourism, including many researchers from outside the tourism field, producing an interdisciplinary nexus. In this closing chapter, the editors provide an overview of the main themes for future research that have been suggested in this volume and point out potentially fruitful future research avenues within the tourism field and related to it. Accordingly, they have organized the chapter into nine thematic areas: The creative tourist, creative tourism experiences, creative supply, marketing creative tourism, the development of creative tourism experiences and destinations, assessing creative tourism development, the role of local communities in creative tourism, placemaking through creative tourism, and creative tourism networks and platforms.

Contains fulltext : 169280.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) In this study, we used electroencephalography to investigate the influence of discourse-level semantic coherence on electrophysiological signatures of local sentence-level processing. Participants read groups of four sentences that could either form coherent stories or were semantically unrelated. For semantically coherent discourses compared to incoherent ones, the N400 was smaller at sentences 2-4, while the visual N1 was larger at the third and fourth sentences. Oscillatory activity in the beta frequency range (13-21 Hz) was higher for coherent discourses. We relate the N400 effect to a disruption of local sentence-level semantic processing when sentences are unrelated. Our beta findings can be tentatively related to disruption of local sentence-level syntactic processing, but it cannot be fully ruled out that they are instead (or also) related to disrupted local sentence-level semantic processing. We conclude that manipulating discourse-level semantic coherence does have an effect on oscillatory power related to local sentence-level processing. 17 p.

Relatively little empirical research has been conducted on impacts of volunteer tourism in local communities. This paper therefore focuses on the local consequences of volunteer tourism for two projects in Tamale, Ghana: Zion Primary School and Tamale Children's Home. A practice approach provides a useful theoretical framework to investigate how volunteers and local actors interact in these projects. In a practice approach, interactions become central to the analysis, highlighting the ways in which volunteers, local people and the local context mutually influence one another. Observations and interviews with volunteers and local actors were used to identify positive and negative consequences of their interactions, which are strongly interlinked and depend on routines, backgrounds and positions of the actors, and contextual conditions. The consequences of volunteer practices are also linked to other current and future practices. A practice approach provides insights into complex situations and may be more suited to analysing the impacts of volunteer tourism than a traditional mono-disciplinary focus.

Item does not contain fulltext The current electroencephalography study investigated the relationship between the motor and (language) comprehension systems by simultaneously measuring mu and N400 effects. Specifically, we examined whether the pattern of motor activation elicited by verbs depends on the larger sentential context. A robust N400 congruence effect confirmed the contextual manipulation of action plausibility, a form of semantic congruency. Importantly, this study showed that: (1) Action verbs elicited more mu power decrease than non-action verbs when sentences described plausible actions. Action verbs thus elicited more motor activation than non-action verbs. (2) In contrast, when sentences described implausible actions, mu activity was present but the difference between the verb types was not observed. The increased processing associated with a larger N400 thus coincided with mu activity in sentences describing implausible actions. Altogether, context-dependent motor activation appears to play a functional role in deriving context-sensitive meaning. 11 p.

Our current dependency on the oil and gas (O&G) industry for economic development and social activities necessitates research into the sustainability of the industry's supply chains. At present, studies on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices in the industry do not include firm-internal factors that affect the sustainability strategies employed by different functional areas of its supply chains. Our study aims to address this gap by identifying the relevant internal factors and exploring their relationship with SSCM strategies. Specifically, we discuss the commitment to and preparedness for sustainable practices of companies that operate in upstream and downstream O&G supply chain. We study the impact of these factors on their sustainability strategies of four key supply chain functions: supplier management, production management, product stewardship and logistics management. The analyses of data collected through a survey among 81 companies show that management preparedness may enhance sustainable supply chain strategies in the O&G industry more than commitment does. Among the preparedness measures, management of supply chain operational risks is found to be vital to the sustainability of all supply chain functions except for production management practices. The findings also highlight the central importance of supplier and logistics management to the achievement of sustainable O&G supply chains. Companies must also develop an organizational culture that encourages, for example, team collaboration and proactive behaviour to finding innovative sustainability solutions in order to translate commitment to sustainable practices into actions that can produce actual difference to their SSCM practices.

This paper proposes a framework for understanding the contextual factors of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices in the O&G industry. It is based on a literature review of studies related to SSCM of O&G topics. The review reveals that there is a lack of SSCM research specific to the industry. Present studies focus on individual stages of its supply chain and do not consider all dimensions of sustainable development, namely economic, environmental and social factors. In addition, existing frameworks lack important contextual aspects of the industry's business and organizational environment. To address these gaps, our research develops an overarching framework operationalizing the internal and external contextual factors of the O&G industry environment that can influence the outcome of its SSCM practices. The proposed framework is useful as a tool in the formulation and implementation of SSCM strategy that enables alignment of a company's internal capabilities with its external environment.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the sustainability reporting practices of oil and gas (O & G) companies and the integration of sustainability in the management of their supply chain. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis of sustainability report of 30 companies was conducted based on the Pacific Sustainability Index that contains 21 topics on social and environmental reporting. An analysis was also conducted on supply chain management (SCM) topics related to supplier management, product stewardship and logistics management. Findings – There is inconsistency in the sustainability reporting practices among the O & G companies studied. While 63 percent of the companies expressed higher environmental intent compared to social intent, their reporting of environmental performance is lagging behind social performance reporting. There is also a lack of supply chain indicators in the sustainability reporting guidelines. This affects the companies ability to report their supply chain practices objectively. Practical implications – The findings of this study can be used as a guideline to improve the sustainability reporting practices and to identify relevant supply chain indicators that can be incorporated in a sustainability reporting index. Originality/value – There is a lack of research on sustainability reporting practices in the O & G industry context, especially in terms of SCM. Previous studies focussed on companies in specific countries and/or do not incorporate all sustainability dimensions, namely, economic, environmental and social factor. We think that this is the first comprehensive study on the sustainability reporting practices and the integration of sustainability in SCM in the O & G industry.

This paper empirically explores the relationship between the external factors within the oil and gas (O&G) industry business environment and supply chain sustainability goals to understand the factors that could drive or hinder its adoption of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. It examines the relationships between six external factors (political stability, economic stability, stakeholder pressure, competition, energy transition and regulations) and sustainability goals through multiple regression analysis, using survey data from companies that operate in the O&G industry. Data analyses reveal that there are two types of sustainability goals namely strategic goals (SGO), which are conditional for long term survival, and functional goals (FGO), which are closely related to the companies' operational processes. The analyses also show that stakeholder pressure and economic stability are the most influential factors that could affect the goals. While competition within the O&G industry has a positive effect on the FGO, competition from the broader energy industry results in a negative effect on the SGO. The influence of energy transition relates to a higher focus on SGO. The results are useful in designing SSCM strategy that could help the O&G industry address the pressure from the external factors for more sustainable supply chain practices to achieve its sustainability goals.

In spite of renewed attention for practices in tourism studies, the analysis of practices is often isolated from theories of practice. This theoretical paper identifies the main strands of practice theory and their relevance and application to tourism research, and develops a new approach to applying practice theory in the study of tourism participation. We propose a conceptual model of tourism practices based on the work of Collins (2004), which emphasises the role of rituals in generating emotional responses. This integrated approach can focus on individuals interacting in groups, as well as explaining why people join and leave specific practices. Charting the shifting of individuals between practices could help to illuminate the dynamics and complexity of tourism systems., Highlights • The analysis of tourism practices often remains isolated from practice theories. • The main strands of practice theory show attendant strengths and weaknesses. • An integrated practice theory can be relevant in tourism research. • An integrated practice theory can help to explain tourism participation. • An integrated practice theory aims to explain the dynamics in tourism practices.

Cultural tourism has been identified as an important economic and social contributor worldwide. Main drivers have been linked to an increasing desire for cultural awareness, meaning-creation and learning. An increasing body of research explores the application of VR and AR in this context. While previous studies outline VR and AR as promising technologies to positively influence the visitor experience, these typically do not focus on how such technologies should be built to suit the context or add value to tourists. This study investigates elements affecting the tourist experience in the cultural tourism context from a theoretical perspective by discussing the impact of VR and AR technology on the visitor’s learning experience. It offers contributions in the area of cultural tourism and consumer psychology, discussing tourist sites mediated by engaging technologies to enhance the visitor experience. Further research is highlighted in the area of VR and AR development through purpose-driven design.

Having its origins in the 1970s and being fielded on a large scale for the first time in 1981, the European Values Study is one of the longest existing ongoing survey data collection projects. Its core aim is to map the values, beliefs, and attitudes that people living in the various European countries hold in important spheres of their private and social lives. This entry provides an overview of the goals and research design of this unique survey project and its historical development. It concludes with a discussion of the project's value for sociological research on human values structures and for advancing our knowledge of what Europeans ideationally have in common and what separates them.

This chapter presents the process that led to the development of a virtual experience for the church in Etten-Leur, which is part of the heritage related to Vincent van Gogh and which hosts a permanent exhibition related to the artist’s life in the area. As such, it is one of the elements in the Becoming Vincent project. This chapter highlights the complexity of the heritage ecosystem underlying the project, consisting of various stakeholders with diverse, sometimes diverging or even incompatible, interests and goals. In this chapter, we discuss how we coped with this diversity and we draw some of the lessons we learnt from this process for future use. The most important lesson is the need to involve all stakeholders from the start of the process and to treat them equally, despite visible differences in their relative interest in the outcome of the project, in order to give them the feeling to have ownership on the expected outcome, and therefore to enhance the chances that they will still support the project after its completion. At the same time, it is important to keep the network structure simple and clear in order to avoid unnecessary or redundant passages in the knowledge transmission within this web of relations. While not specific for museums but prone to be applied to any complex networked situation, this approach has helped us cope with a complex cultural ecosystem.

This study examines the relationship between tourism and the creative economy. An increasing number of countries, regions and cities are developing policies to link tourism and creativity to economic growth and support cultural and creative activities. As a result, different models of “creative tourism” have emerged. Case studies of creative tourism development are described from different parts of the world, and their effects are examined. Particular attention is paid to the role of knowledge, which the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sees as central to the development of creative tourism. Because tourism can be a tool for the circulation of knowledge and creation of links between creative individuals, it can arguably support the development of the creative economy.

In this contribution, we evaluate the degree of measurement equivalence between countries and over time for a measure of experienced holiday quality that has repeatedly been included in a public opinion survey series of high policy relevance: the Flash Eurobarometer survey series (2014–2016). The results indicate that using the measurement instrument for cross-national comparisons between 35 countries may be quite problematic, as neither metric nor scalar measurement equivalence was established. The longitudinal analyses show that for 19 out of 28 countries, scalar measurement equivalence holds between the waves. For the countries for which longitudinal scalar measurement equivalence was established, the comparison of the mean overall score of satisfaction with the holiday shows a very high level of stability. In general, the findings underscore the importance of assessing measurement equivalence of empirical tourism and leisure-related constructs when making systematic comparisons between groups or over time.

Item does not contain fulltext There is a growing literature investigating the relationship between oscillatory neural dynamics measured using electroencephalography (EEG) and/or magnetoencephalography (MEG), and sentence-level language comprehension. Recent proposals have suggested a strong link between predictive coding accounts of the hierarchical flow of information in the brain, and oscillatory neural dynamics in the beta and gamma frequency ranges. We propose that findings relating beta and gamma oscillations to sentence-level language comprehension might be unified under such a predictive coding account. Our suggestion is that oscillatory activity in the beta frequency range may reflect both the active maintenance of the current network configuration responsible for representing the sentence-level meaning under construction, and the top-down propagation of predictions to hierarchically lower processing levels based on that representation. In addition, we suggest that oscillatory activity in the low and middle gamma range reflect the matching of top-down predictions with bottom-up linguistic input, while evoked high gamma might reflect the propagation of bottom-up prediction errors to higher levels of the processing hierarchy. We also discuss some of the implications of this predictive coding framework, and we outline ideas for how these might be tested experimentally. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

EEG mu rhythms (8–13 Hz) recorded at fronto-central electrodes are generally considered as markers of motor cortical activity in humans, because they are modulated when participants perform an action, when they observe another's action or even when they imagine performing an action. In this study, we analyzed the time-frequency (TF) modulation of mu rhythms while participants read action language (“You will cut the strawberry cake”), abstract language (“You will doubt the patient's argument”), and perceptive language (“You will notice the bright day”). The results indicated that mu suppression at fronto-central sites is associated with action language rather than with abstract or perceptive language. Also, the largest difference between conditions occurred quite late in the sentence, while reading the first noun, (contrast Action vs. Abstract), or the second noun following the action verb (contrast Action vs. Perceptive). This suggests that motor activation is associated with the integration of words across the sentence beyond the lexical processing of the action verb. Source reconstruction localized mu suppression associated with action sentences in premotor cortex (BA 6). The present study suggests (1) that the understanding of action language activates motor networks in the human brain, and (2) that this activation occurs online based on semantic integration across multiple words in the sentence.

Humanitarian logistics is regarded as a key area for improved disaster management efficiency and effectiveness. In this study, a multi-objective integrated logistic model is proposed to locate disaster relief centers while taking into account network costs and responsiveness. Because this location problem is NP-hard, we present a genetic approach to solve the proposed model.

Evaluation and monitoring have become major issues for cultural events. On the one hand, more detailed information is needed to satisfy event sponsors, on the other hand, the nature of events is increasingly developing towards inclusive concepts (from consumer-oriented delivery to more experiential and social values). The focus on visitor experience presents event organizers with a need to go beyond traditional measurement instruments to evaluate their events. Qualitative approaches are therefore increasingly valued for the insight they provide into visitor experience. The use of visitor journeys and thematic analysis for evaluating, monitoring and improving cultural events will be discussed on the basis of research in cooperation with ‘Rotterdam Festivals’, an umbrella organization for festivals in the city of Rotterdam. On the basis of these results, the visitor journey method allows for better insight into consumer experiences. Apart from contributing to knowledge about the event experience, the method has also proven to be a powerful tool for event design (i.e. developing new strategies and concepts), and thus it can bridge the gap identified in the literature between event evaluation and design. This paper will serve three goals: to present the outcomes of the visitor journey approach, to discuss strengths and weaknesses when compared to other evaluation approaches, and discuss the value of visitor journeys for evaluation and event design.

Traditional approaches in healthcare have been challenged giving way to broader forms of users’ participation in treatment. In this article we present the Health 2.0 movement as an example of relational and participatory practices in healthcare. Health 2.0 is an approach in which participation is the major aim, aspiring to reshape the system into more collaborative and less hierarchical relationships. We offer two illustrations in order to discuss how Health 2.0 is related and can contribute to a positive uptake of patient’s knowledge, which implies challenging healthcare practices exclusively focused on scientific expertise. In contrast, the illustrations we discuss focus on relations and cultural practices, searching for responsive and context-sensitive interventions, entertaining multiple views and allowing space for creativity. Finally we introduce two relational resources to contribute with the development and sustainability of Health 2.0 practices: Relational being and edge of fluidity. Those are resources aiming to engage professionals in a type of conversation with their clients, which is different from the hierarchical, linear and fact-oriented approach. This conversation aims at creating a space where the voices of all involved are welcomed, raising different opinions and points of view, bringing up new light and possibilities to the problem being investigated. These resources may be useful for those who are interested in improving quality in healthcare by investing in collaboration, contextual sensitivity and relational engagement.

Contains fulltext : 156319.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Oscillatory neural dynamics have been steadily receiving more attention as a robust and temporally precise signature of network activity related to language processing. We have recently proposed that oscillatory dynamics in the beta and gamma frequency ranges measured during sentence-level comprehension might be best explained from a predictive coding perspective. Under our proposal we related beta oscillations to both the maintenance/change of the neural network configuration responsible for the construction and representation of sentence-level meaning, and to top down predictions about upcoming linguistic input based on that sentence-level meaning. Here we zoom in on these particular aspects of our proposal, and discuss both old and new supporting evidence. Finally, we present some preliminary magnetoencephalography data from an experiment comparing Dutch subject- and object-relative clauses that was specifically designed to test our predictive coding framework. Initial results support the first of the two suggested roles for beta oscillations in sentence-level language comprehension. 6 p.

Whereas investments in new attractions continue to rise within the theme park industry, knowledge regarding the effects of new attractions on theme park performance and attendance remains scarce. In this article results from a research amongst general managers of theme parks in Europe will be presented. Different methods were used to investigate what the impact of adding a new attraction on the number of visitors to a theme park would be, according to the general management. The managers first responded to a written survey and then answered some detailed, elaborative questions by email or telephone. The majority of managers also participated in an in-depth interview. Results show that investing in new attractions is considered to be the most important (controllable) factor on the number of visitors in both the short and long run. Most theme parks in Europe invest in major new attractions once every three years, combining it with a minor investment every year. Large differences in effects were found between parks. Parks that invest once every three years showed the highest effect on number of visitors for their latest new attraction.

PurposeThe European Alpine region is an important tourism destination that at the same time faces environmental challenges. In aiming for a sustainable development of Alpine tourism, tourism boards and municipalities of 22 villages cooperate in the Alpine Pearls (AP) association. The main goal of the AP association is to develop an integrated, continuous passage for sustainable tourism mobility, which improves the possibilities for environmentally friendly travel to, between, and in the Alpine Pearls villages. This paper aims to focus on whether and how this “passage” enables tourists to travel smoothly, problem‐free and environmentally friendly to and in the Alpine region.Design/methodology/approachTo analyse the Alpine Pearls holiday, the authors use a theoretical framework based on the social practices approach (SPA), which offers a contextual approach to consumption behaviour. The dynamics between travellers and providers of sustainable tourism and travel services along the passage of the Alpine Pearls holiday are the main interest. Data have been gathered through participant observation and interviews with informants.FindingsThe research points, among other things, to the fact that the creation of a passage for environmental‐friendly Alpine holidays is complicated by the nationally organised railway infrastructures and the sectorially organised tourism industry.Originality/valueEvaluating sustainable tourism mobility passages on the level of holiday practices is a new contextual approach that can be of value to both tourism scholars and the tourism industry.

Culture and tourism have a symbiotic relationship that has the potential to make places more attractive and competitive. This review of the OECD report on The Impact of Culture on Tourism analyzes the ways in which culture and tourism can act as drivers of attractiveness, paying particular attention to the role of potential policy interventions to strengthen this process, including the development of partnerships, funding issues, product development, and marketing. A number of key future issues are identified, and evolving debates in the relationship between culture and tourism are outlined.

Contains fulltext : 90335.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) There is growing evidence suggesting that synchronization changes in the oscillatory neuronal dynamics in the EEG or MEG reflect the transient coupling and uncoupling of functional networks related to different aspects of language comprehension. In this work, we examine how sentence-level syntactic unification operations are reflected in the oscillatory dynamics of the MEG. Participants read sentences that were either correct, contained a word category violation, or were constituted of random word sequences devoid of syntactic structure. A time-frequency analysis of MEG power changes revealed three types of effects. The first type of effect was related to the detection of a (word category) violation in a syntactically structured sentence, and was found in the alpha and gamma frequency bands. A second type of effect was maximally sensitive to the syntactic manipulations: A linear increase in beta power across the sentence was present for correct sentences, was disrupted upon the occurrence of a word category violation, and was absent in syntactically unstructured random word sequences. We therefore relate this effect to syntactic unification operations. Thirdly, we observed a linear increase in theta power across the sentence for all syntactically structured sentences. The effects are tentatively related to the building of a working memory trace of the linguistic input. In conclusion, the data seem to suggest that syntactic unification is reflected by neuronal synchronization in the lower-beta frequency band.

The consumer electronics (CE) industry has high turnovers and a growing demand, such as on the home entertainment segment. At the same time, it generates e-waste of the order of a dozen million tons, about one quarter of the world's total. With the purpose of improving the environmental performance of businesses, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive was put in place in Europe. Given the high competitive environment of this industry, WEEE could be a clue for competitive edge. To create an environmental and economic win-win situation, however, companies have to master reverse logistics (RL). This is particularly challenging in fast clockspeed environments, as it is the case for the CE industry. In this paper, we develop a theoretically and empirically grounded diagnostic tool for assessing a CE company's RL practices and identifying potential for RL improvement, from a business perspective. To theoretically ground the tool, we combine specific CE literature with general theory on reverse logistics management and performance improvement. To empirically ground the tool, we collect field data by combining quantitative (a multiactor survey) with qualitative (interviews and company visits) methods. We demonstrate how our tool can be used to create awareness at senior management about the reverse logistics maturity state.

The paper summarizes the results of a fundamental research project to understand the perception of high-end products by consumers. The first part consisted of a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with over 75 global leaders of luxury and premium companies, star designers and thought leaders. The analysis of the collected data identified five dimensions of high-end offerings, with each dimension having a unique set of four factors. The second part included a massive quantitative (based on Rule Developing Experimentation) survey conducted in the US, UK, Italy and China with about 1800 qualified middle- to upper-class respondents participating in a total of 20 distinct conjoint-based surveys to discover the driving forces behind their perceptions of high-end products. This paper considers in depth one of the five dimensions — leadership and innovation. The analysis of the quantitative part includes mind-set segmentation and demographic subgroups. The research addresses one aspect of today's big question: "How can global brands migrate from being cost-driven commodities to higher margins and profits?" The answer is in the high-end.

Generating research findings, which make sense in today's society and can be appreciated as such by both the academic and the business worlds, requires reframing not only the core of how research is being developed but also questions the relevance of organizational survival. The Imagineering Methodology developed within the framework of the NHTV University of Applied Sciences provides a complementary perspective on management research and design. This article aims to present the essence and the specifics of how research is evolving today, using the aforementioned methodological stance and showing certain outcomes, already achieved in practice.

Item does not contain fulltext By analyzing event-related changes in induced band power in narrow frequency bands of the human electroencephalograph, the present paper explores a possible functional role of the alpha and theta rhythms during the processing of words and of sentences. The results show a phasic power increase in the theta frequency range, together with a phasic power decrease in the alpha frequency range, following the presentation of words in a sentence. These effects may be related to word processing, either lexical or in relation to sentence context. Most importantly, there is a slow and highly frequency-specific increase in theta power as a sentence unfolds, possibly related to the formation of an episodic memory trace, or to incremental verbal working memory load.

RTs in conversation, with average gaps of 200 msec and often less, beat standard RTs, despite the complexity of response and the lag in speech production (600 msec or more). This can only be achieved by anticipation of timing and content of turns in conversation, about which little is known. Using EEG and an experimental task with conversational stimuli, we show that estimation of turn durations are based on anticipating the way the turn would be completed. We found a neuronal correlate of turn-end anticipation localized in ACC and inferior parietal lobule, namely a beta-frequency desynchronization as early as 1250 msec, before the end of the turn. We suggest that anticipation of the other's utterance leads to accurately timed transitions in everyday conversations.

This study examines the automaticity of processing the emotional aspects of words, and characterizes the oscillatory brain dynamics that accompany this automatic processing. Participants read emotionally negative, neutral and positive nouns while performing a color detection task in which only perceptual-level analysis was required. Event-related potentials and time frequency representations were computed from the concurrently measured EEG. Negative words elicited a larger P2 and a larger late positivity than positive and neutral words, indicating deeper semantic/evaluative processing of negative words. In addition, sustained alpha power suppressions were found for the emotional compared to neutral words, in the time range from 500 to 1000 ms post-stimulus. These results suggest that sustained attention was allocated to the emotional words, whereas the attention allocated to the neutral words was released after an initial analysis. This seems to hold even when the emotional content of the words is task-irrelevant. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: Designing events, events as a design strategy Greg Richards, Lenia Marques and Karen Mein 2. Imagineering events as interaction ritual chains Greg Richards 3. Service design methods in event design Satu Miettinen, Anu Valtonen and Vesa Markuksela 4. The Role of imagineering as an event design strategy in the business event industry Frank Ouwens 5. From visitor journey to event design Dorothe Gerritsen and Ronald van Olderen 6. The Discourse of design as an asset for the city: From business innovation to vernacular event Marco Bevolo 7. How to slay a dragon slowly: Applying slow principles to event design Ilja Simons 8. Designing events for socio-cultural impacts: The Holy Week in Puglia (Italy) Anna Trono and Katia Rizzello 9. Design processes around dynamic marketing communications for event organizations Anne-Marie Hede and Pamm Kellett 10. Co-creative events: Analysis and illustrations Phil Crowther and Chiara Orefice 11. Classical music, liveness and digital technologies Arthur Maria Steijn 12. The Transformation of leisure experiences in music festivals: New ways to design imaginative, creative and memorable leisure experiences through technology and social networks June Calvo-Soraluze and Roberto San Salvador del Valle 13. Traditional gastronomy events as tourist experiences: The Case of Santarem Gastronomy Festival (Portugal) Marta Cardoso, Goretti Silva and Carlos Fernandes 14. Event design: Conclusions and future research directions Greg Richards, Lenia Marques and Karen Mein

Objectives: A problem with the topographic mapping of MEG data recorded with axial gradiometers is that field extrema are measured at sensors located at either side of a neuronal generator instead of at sensors directly above the source. This is problematic for the computation of event-related desynchronization (ERD) on MEG data, since ERD relies on a correspondence between the signal maximum and the location of the neuronal generator. Methods: We present a new method based on computing spatial derivatives of the MEG data. The limitations of this method were investigated by means of forward simulations, and the method was applied to a 150-channel MEG dataset. Results: The simulations showed that the method has some limitations. (1) Fewer channels reduce accuracy and amplitude. (2) It is less suitable for deep or very extended sources. (3) Multiple sources can only be distinguished if they are not too close to each other. Applying the method in the calculation of ERD on experimental data led to a considerable improvement of the ERD maps. Conclusions: The proposed method offers a significant advantage over raw MEG signals, both for the topographic mapping of MEG and for the analysis of rhythmic MEG activity by means of ERD.

There are many different ways in which people organise themselves in their free time. The variety of subjects, ideas and interests that lie at the heart of informal associations are infinite and range from those whose pursuit of collective interests have given rise to labour unions and political parties to the stamp collector who initiates a philatelist association. Clubs, informal groups pursuing joint leisure goals, groups involved in voluntary or welfare work, pressure groups and the many groups that plan their free-time activities collectively, form a multifacetted world. In this article we make an attempt to summarize the main theoretical approaches useful in explaining and under- standing the complex phenomenon of leisure groups or voluntary associations. From this overview we draw a theoretical synthesis which defines the specific character of these groups and their relation to society and processes of social change.

Item does not contain fulltext Particle verbs (e.g., look up) are lexical items for which particle and verb share a single lexical entry. Using event-related brain potentials, we examined working memory and long-term memory involvement in particle-verb processing. Dutch participants read sentences with head verbs that allow zero, two, or more than five particles to occur downstream. Additionally, sentences were presented for which the encountered particle was semantically plausible, semantically implausible, or forming a non-existing particle verb. An anterior negativity was observed at the verbs that potentially allow for a particle downstream relative to verbs that do not, possibly indexing storage of the verb until the dependency with its particle can be closed. Moreover, a graded N400 was found at the particle (smallest amplitude for plausible particles and largest for particles forming non-existing particle verbs), suggesting that lexical access to a shared lexical entry occurred at two separate time points. 11 p.

Contains fulltext : 102503.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) When an adult claims he cannot sleep without his teddy bear, people tend to react surprised. Language interpretation is, thus, influenced by social context, such as who the speaker is. The present study reveals inter-individual differences in brain reactivity to social aspects of language. Whereas women showed brain reactivity when stereotype-based inferences about a speaker conflicted with the content of the message, men did not. This sex difference in social information processing can be explained by a specific cognitive trait, one's ability to empathize. Individuals who empathize to a greater degree revealed larger N400 effects (as well as a larger increase in gamma-band power) to socially relevant information. These results indicate that individuals with high-empathizing skills are able to rapidly integrate information about the speaker with the content of the message, as they make use of voice-based inferences about the speaker to process language in a top-down manner. Alternatively, individuals with lower empathizing skills did not use information about social stereotypes in implicit sentence comprehension, but rather took a more bottom-up approach to the processing of these social pragmatic sentences. 11 p.

Item does not contain fulltext The relationship between the evoked responses (ERPs/ERFs) and the event-related changes in EEG/MEG power that can be observed during sentence-level language comprehension is as yet unclear. This study addresses a possible relationship between MEG power changes and the N400m component of the event-related field. Whole-head MEG was recorded while subjects listened to spoken sentences with incongruent (IC) or congruent (C) sentence endings. A clear N400m was observed over the left hemisphere, and was larger for the IC sentences than for the C sentences. A timefrequency analysis of power revealed a decrease in alpha and beta power over the left hemisphere in roughly the same time range as the N400m for the IC relative to the C condition. A linear regression analysis revealed a positive linear relationship between N400m and beta power for the IC condition, not for the C condition. No such linear relation was found between N400m and alpha power for either condition. The sources of the beta decrease were estimated in the LIFG, a region known to be involved in semantic unification operations. One source of the N400m was estimated in the left superior temporal region, which has been related to lexical retrieval. We interpret our data within a framework in which beta oscillations are inversely related to the engagement of task-relevant brain networks. The source reconstructions of the beta power suppression and the N400m effect support the notion of a dynamic communication between the LIFG and the left superior temporal region during language comprehension. Hum Brain Mapp 33:2898-2912, 2012. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 15 p.

This study provides ERP and oscillatory dynamics data associated with the comprehension of narratives involving counterfactual events. Participants were given short stories describing an initial situation (“Marta wanted to plant flowers in her garden….”), followed by a critical sentence describing a new situation in either a factual (“Since she found a spade, she started to dig a hole”) or counterfactual format (“If she had found a spade, she would have started to dig a hole”), and then a continuation sentence that was either related to the initial situation (“she bought a spade”) or to the new one (“she planted roses”). The ERPs recorded for the continuation sentences related to the initial situation showed larger negativity after factuals than after counterfactuals, suggesting that the counterfactual's presupposition – the events did not occur – prevents updating the here-and-now of discourse. By contrast, continuation sentences related to the new situation elicited similar ERPs under both factual and counterfactual contexts, suggesting that counterfactuals also activate momentarily an alternative “as if” meaning. However, the reduction of gamma power following counterfactuals, suggests that the “as if” meaning is not integrated into the discourse, nor does it contribute to semantic unification processes.

Item does not contain fulltext Semantic unification, the process by which small blocks of semantic information are combined into a coherent utterance, has been studied with various types of tasks. However, whether the brain activations reported in these studies are attributed to semantic unification per se or to other task-induced concomitant processes still remains unclear. The neural basis for semantic unification in sentence comprehension was examined using event-related potentials (ERP) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The semantic unification load was manipulated by varying the goodness of fit between a critical word and its preceding context (in high cloze, low cloze and violation sentences). The sentences were presented in a serial visual presentation mode. The participants were asked to perform one of three tasks: semantic congruency judgment (SEM), silent reading for comprehension (READ), or font size judgment (FONT), in separate sessions. The ERP results showed a similar N400 amplitude modulation by the semantic unification load across all of the three tasks. The brain activations associated with the semantic unification load were found in the anterior left inferior frontal gyrus (aLIFG) in the FONT task and in a widespread set of regions in the other two tasks. These results suggest that the aLIFG activation reflects a semantic unification, which is different from other brain activations that may reflect task-specific strategic processing. 8 p.

Using Vermunt's model [Vermunt, J. D. (1998). The regulation of constructive learning processes. British Journal of Educational psychology , 68, 149–171] of self-regulated learning as a conceptual framework, this study aims to contribute to the development of finer grained models of higher education students' learning by (1) investigating causal relationships between three student cognitions which feature prominently in the research literature: self-efficacy, conceptions of learning and attributions for academic success and by (2) researching both the direct and indirect effects of these student cognitions on first year university students' study strategies. To that end a model was developed, respecified, tested, and cross validated using path analyses. Results show that within an educational context learning conceptions are fundamental student cognitions since they directly and/or indirectly influence students' self-efficacy, attributions for academic success, and study strategy.