Tourists’ real-time destination image of Kuala Lumpur

Purpose This paper aims to capture real-time images of tourists during their visitation. This effort is to clarify a debate among scholars that there is a lack of current effort to genuinely represent an accurate image of the tourist experience during their visit. Previous studies on destination image focused on measuring and successfully capturing the tourists' perceived image using the perspective of “before and after” visitation. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies volunteer-employed photography and questionnaire methods to capture real-time tourist images. The paper was conducted in Kuala Lumpur, involving 384 international tourists. The data are analysed by supplemental photo analysis, was categorised into manifest and latent content. Findings The paper provides empirical insights into the changes in tourists' image when visiting an urban destination. The insights suggest that a city's image during visitation continuously changes based on the tourists' movement and preferences. Practical implications The findings of this paper are critical in assisting tourism agencies and authorities in portraying an accurate image to achieve greater tourism satisfaction. Originality/value This paper contributes to the interpretation and portrayal of the real-time image of Kuala Lumpur based on the manifest and latent content of the photos taken.

Bioeconomic Approach for Assessing Status of Trawl Fishery in the Straits of Malacca

The Straits of Malacca provides half of Malaysia’s total marine fish and seafood supply. Due to depleted fish stock, the Malaysian Government has established a comprehensive legal framework to reduce overfishing in the Straits over the last five decades. However, there are limited scientific studies on the current status of stock recovery. This paper aims to use bioeconomic approach to determine the current trawl fishery status in the Straits. Various statistical tests showed that the Clarke-Yoshimoto-Pooley model was better than the Schnute model in predicting and thus used to estimate the crucial bioeconomic parameters. The current yield and standardised effort of 239,692 tonnes and 931,692 standard fishing days were very close to the estimated biological maximum sustainable yield (239,915 tonnes) and above 18 % of the standardised effort (763,649 standard fishing days) to achieve it. The maximum economic yield was estimated at 201,542 tonnes while the corresponding standardised effort was 396,799 standard fishing days indicating serious economic overfishing in the Straits. If the current effort can be reduced by 57 %, fish biomass and economic rent will increase by 97 % and 835 %, respectively. A price sensitivity analysis predicted that demand-pull fish price inflation could exacerbate the overfishing problem, particularly under unrestrained environment. A 50 % increase in price could lead to a 132 % increase in fishing effort from the base case. The findings of this paper provide valuable insights for fishery managers to refine their existing fishery management program to achieve sustainable fishery for the future.

Property Determination, FA Composition and NMR Characterization of Palm Oil, Used Palm Oil and Their Methyl Esters

The search for a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and sustainable feedstock for biodiesel production has attracted attention among researchers. After frying, palm oil may become thermally degraded and unsuitable for consumption. In the current effort, neat palm oil (NPO), waste palm oil earlier utilized for frying fish and chips (WPOFC) and waste palm oil previously utilized to fry sausage and chips (WPOSC) were transesterified into waste palm oil methyl ester, namely, WPOMEFC and WPOMESC, respectively. The PO, WPOs and their ester derivatives were subjected to physicochemical properties, fatty acid (FA) compositions and 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses. The thermal degradation, transesterification process and the foods the palm oil was used to fry affected the density, kinematic viscosity, acid value, pH, iodine value and FA profile of the samples. The outcome of the characterization reveals that the 1H and 13C NMR spectra of NPO, WPOFC and WPOSC show clear similarity, but NPO exhibits different intensities from that of the WPO samples. The absence of the peaks between δ 4.6 ppm and 5.0 ppm in the 1H NMR spectrum signifies the complete transformation of triglycerides in the WPO samples into biodiesel. The 13C NMR spectrum indicates the presence of ester carbonyl carbon (C=O) in WPOMEFC and WPOMESC, peculiar to ester, at a chemical shift ranging from 174.8 ppm to 174.9 ppm.

Set-Theoretic Formalism for Treating Ligand-Target Datasets

Data on ligand–target (LT) interactions has played a growing role in drug research for several decades. Even though the amount of data has grown significantly in size and coverage during this period, most datasets remain difficult to analyze because of their extreme sparsity, as there is no activity data whatsoever for many LT pairs. Even within clusters of data there tends to be a lack of data completeness, making the analysis of LT datasets problematic. The current effort extends earlier works on the development of set-theoretic formalisms for treating thresholded LT datasets. Unlike many approaches that do not address pairs of unknown interaction, the current work specifically takes account of their presence in addition to that of active and inactive pairs. Because a given LT pair can be in any one of three states, the binary logic of classical set-theoretic methods does not strictly apply. The current work develops a formalism, based on ternary set-theoretic relations, for treating thresholded LT datasets. It also describes an extension of the concept of data completeness, which is typically applied to sets of ligands and targets, to the local data completeness of individual ligands and targets. The set-theoretic formalism is applied to the analysis of simple and joint polypharmacologies based on LT activity profiles, and it is shown that null pairs provide a means for determining bounds to these values. The methodology is applied to a dataset of protein kinase inhibitors as an illustration of the method. Although not dealt with here, work is currently underway on a more refined treatment of activity values that is based on increasing the number of activity classes.

Social Connection in Times of Physical Distancing

COVID-19 has been especially devastating to older adults. To prevent the spread of the virus, physical distancing has become the norm. As a result, there are fewer opportunities available for face-to-face interaction and social activities, which may be particularly harmful to older adults, given their existing loneliness levels. Thus, this symposium brings together a collection of papers that exemplify the interplay of social connection, activities, and mental health outcomes among older adults facing loneliness. The first paper will discuss how activity diversity is linked to higher loneliness and depressive symptoms among heterosexual and LGBTQ older adults. The second paper will present findings on the changes in social connectedness due to physical distancing and their associated impact on the mental health outcomes among older adults. The third paper will present qualitative findings on the effect of physical distancing on older adults' social connectedness using a mixed-method study. The final paper discusses the challenges faced by older adults in their use of digital media for social connection in the present pandemic and highlights some of the population's untapped strengths, which can be leveraged to help them live prosperous online lives. All papers will address practical tips and recommendations for actions, which key stakeholders can take to support older adults during the pandemic. The discussant, Dr. Kahana, will integrate the four papers and highlight the potential and limits of the current effort to address these issues and consider future inquiry routes.

Epsilon-Efficiency in a Dynamic Partnership with Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard

For a dynamic partnership with adverse selection and moral hazard, we design a direct profit division mechanism that satisfies ϵ-efficiency, periodic Bayesian incentive compatibility, interim individual rationality, and ex-post budget balance. In addition, we design a voting mechanism that implements the profit division rule associated with this direct mechanism in perfect Bayesian equilibrium. For establishing these possibility results, we assume that the partnership exhibits intertemporal complementarities instead of contemporaneous complementarities; equivalently, an agent’s current effort affects other agents’ future optimal efforts instead of current optimal efforts. This modelling assumption fits a wide range of economic settings.

A method to estimate probability of disease and vaccine efficacy from clinical trial immunogenicity data

Vaccine efficacy is often assessed by counting disease cases in a clinical trial. A new quantitative framework proposed here (“PoDBAY,” Probability of Disease Bayesian Analysis), estimates vaccine efficacy (and confidence interval) using immune response biomarker data collected shortly after vaccination. Given a biomarker associated with protection, PoDBAY describes the relationship between biomarker and probability of disease as a sigmoid probability of disease (“PoD”) curve. The PoDBAY framework is illustrated using clinical trial simulations and with data for influenza, zoster, and dengue virus vaccines. The simulations demonstrate that PoDBAY efficacy estimation (which integrates the PoD and biomarker data), can be accurate and more precise than the standard (case-count) estimation, contributing to more sensitive and specific decisions than threshold-based correlate of protection or case-count-based methods. For all three vaccine examples, the PoD fit indicates a substantial association between the biomarkers and protection, and efficacy estimated by PoDBAY from relatively little immunogenicity data is predictive of the standard estimate of efficacy, demonstrating how PoDBAY can provide early assessments of vaccine efficacy. Methods like PoDBAY can help accelerate and economize vaccine development using an immunological predictor of protection. For example, in the current effort against the COVID-19 pandemic it might provide information to help prioritize (rank) candidates both earlier in a trial and earlier in development.

Gene Sets and Mechanisms of Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria Biofilm Formation and Quorum Sensing With Impact on Corrosion

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) have a unique ability to respire under anaerobic conditions using sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor, reducing it to hydrogen sulfide. SRB thrives in many natural environments (freshwater sediments and salty marshes), deep subsurface environments (oil wells and hydrothermal vents), and processing facilities in an industrial setting. Owing to their ability to alter the physicochemical properties of underlying metals, SRB can induce fouling, corrosion, and pipeline clogging challenges. Indigenous SRB causes oil souring and associated product loss and, subsequently, the abandonment of impacted oil wells. The sessile cells in biofilms are 1,000 times more resistant to biocides and induce 100-fold greater corrosion than their planktonic counterparts. To effectively combat the challenges posed by SRB, it is essential to understand their molecular mechanisms of biofilm formation and corrosion. Here, we examine the critical genes involved in biofilm formation and microbiologically influenced corrosion and categorize them into various functional categories. The current effort also discusses chemical and biological methods for controlling the SRB biofilms. Finally, we highlight the importance of surface engineering approaches for controlling biofilm formation on underlying metal surfaces.

Stereotypical Processing of Emotional Faces: Perceptual and Decisional Components

People tend to associate anger with male faces and happiness or surprise with female faces. This angry-men-happy-women bias has been ascribed to either top-down (e.g., well-learned stereotypes) or bottom-up (e.g., shared morphological cues) processes. The dissociation between these two theoretical alternatives has proved challenging. The current effort addresses this challenge by harnessing two complementary metatheoretical approaches to dimensional interaction: Garner's logic of inferring informational structure and General Recognition Theory—a multidimensional extension of signal detection theory. Conjoint application of these two rigorous methodologies afforded us to: (a) uncover the internal representations that generate the angry-men-happy-women phenomenon, (b) disentangle varieties of perceptual (bottom-up) and decisional (top-down) sources of interaction, and (c) relate operational and theoretical meanings of dimensional independence. The results show that the dimensional interaction between emotion and gender is generated by varieties of perceptual and decisional biases. These outcomes document the involvement of both bottom-up (e.g., shared morphological structures) and top-down (stereotypes) factors in social perception.

Major Constraints for Regional Hegemony: Nigeria and South Africa in Perspective

The quest for a complementary regional hegemonic dispensation has been an enduring component in Africa. While studies have recognised the increase in power assets of some states within the continent, literature is replete with the idea that no state can equal or defeat Nigeria and South Africa in contesting for regional powers. Though, this impression appears plausible. However, there are limited scholarly contributions to the devastating conditions that undermined the regional powers’ influential position to enhance legitimacy and positive image-making for African rebirth in global politics. It is against this backdrop that the current effort examines the constraints that hinder the credibility and attractive assets of the two regional powers in African policy. Relying on key-informant interview and secondary sources for the collection of data and the interpretive qualitative method for data analysis, the findings reveal that domestic limitations are major impediments to regional hegemonic powers’ dispensation. This article argues that possession of remarkable material capabilities without corresponding legitimacy and diplomatic means of ‘appealing’ to other states is not enough in the pursuit of hegemonic status. It, therefore, concludes that Nigeria and South Africa must tackle the domestic crises that consistently decline the credibility and continental leadership to curb the global inequality against Africa.