Do DMOs Promote the Right Aspects of the Destination? A Study of Instagram Photography with a Visual Classifier

As global travel emerges from the pandemic, pent up interest in travel will lead to consumers making their choice between global destinations. Instagram is a key source of destination inspiration. DMO marketing success on this channel relies on projecting a destination image that resonates with this target group. However, usual text-based marketing intelligence on this channel does not work as content is consumed first and foremost as a visual projection. The author has built a deep learning based visual classifier for destination image measurement from photos. In this paper, we compare projected and perceived destination images in Instagram photography for four of the most Instagrammed destinations worldwide. We find that whereas the projected destination image aligns well to the perceived image, there are specific aspects of the destinations that are of more interest to Instagrammers than reflected in the current destination marketing.

Landslide investigations during pandemic restrictions: initial assessment of recent peat landslides in Ireland

Landslides involving peat are relatively common in Ireland, upland areas of Great Britain and subantarctic islands. Bogflows and bog slides are less common types of peat failure and almost unknown outside Ireland. Unusually, three of these occurred in 2020 including one bogflow at a windfarm that gained much adverse media attention, and a small but damaging peat slide was also reported. The aim of this paper is to determine the extent to which the new bog slide and bogflows are consistent with previous examples in terms of their contexts, characteristics and possible causes, particularly relating to commercial forestry operations. Aerial video footage of all three landslides obtained by local people using drones, and ground-based footage of one of them in progress, allowed a detailed examination of their characteristics and contexts to be made despite the global travel and activity restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The windfarm bogflow appears to have resulted from removal of toe support by an earlier peat flow that was itself probably caused by construction of an access road; the other two landslides were most likely triggered by rainfall. All three are consistent with previous examples of their respective types in their general characteristics and appear to be associated with well-known causal factors including hydrological, topographic and/or forestry influences. Forestry operations probably contributed to the occurrence of two of the landslides and restricted the expansion of two of them.

Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Mutations on Global Travel and the Increasing Number of Re-Infections: A Risk-Assessment Perspective

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has stunned the world owing to the surreal, unprecedented, and completely unbelievable manner in which it has spread globally within a short span of time. This spread has led to the common combination of variety and has promoted the passage of species blockade and genetic combination of these types of viruses. Despite the short history of the COVID-19 outbreak, with its global spread and frequent mutations, it has impacted the whole world and has become a worrying threat to the society. Scientific reports have disclosed that members of the coronavirus family, such as SARS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, and HKU1 have infected the humans earlier too and that mutations in these viruses have resulted in the more complex severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the present review, we have discussed how scientists keep track of the genetic tweaks to SARS-CoV-2 as it spreads globally. Currently, the only way to prevent more such outbreaks is maintaining social distancing, adhering to the World Health Organization guidelines and de-globalizing the world. Genetic variations/mutations reported to date in coronaviruses hint at their cryptic spread. Scientists are scouring the viral genome for mutations that might reveal how dangerous the pathogen is or how fast it spreads. Cases have been documented in almost all countries, and the mutations in the virus have created problems for the researchers in formulating effective vaccines. Furthermore, global travel has been severely affected after the new mutants have been detected. Therefore, more scientific investigations are necessary to understand how SARS-CoV-2 is likely to mutate in the future.

Celebrating Outstanding Science at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology’s 30th Anniversary Congress

THE ANNIVERSARY edition of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology’s (EADV) 30th Congress was held between 29th September and 2nd October 2021. As COVID-19 remains a barrier to global travel, the EADV’s 30th Anniversary Congress was staged virtually, providing access to the latest research, breakthroughs, and scientific advances to dermato-venereology professionals.

García Márquez’s Global Travel Writing beyond the Iron Curtain, 1955–1959

From the foundation of Macondo to the successive arrivals of Melquíades, from countryside to modern cities, from exilic destinations to the global circuits of world literary stardom, and from Aracataca, Barranquilla, Sucre, Bogotá, and Cartagena to Rome, Paris, London, Caracas, New York, Barcelona, Mexico City, and beyond, travel, displacement, and dislocated conditions of literary production have always been at the center of García Márquez’s fiction and nonfiction, as both topics and constructive principles. This chapter analyzes García Márquez’s writing of travel during the second half of the 1950s, a period marked by the writer’s own experimental displacements. The essay focuses on the chronicles García Márquez wrote about his journeys to Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1955, and through the German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union, and Hungary in 1957, including his visits to Auschwitz and Lenin’s and Stalin’s tombs. His travelogues were published in the Venezuelan magazine Momentos (1958) and the Colombian magazine Cromos (1959, under the title “90 días tras la cortina de hierro”), and they can be read as a laboratory before and against magical realism, before and against the emergence of the Latin Americanist cultural politics at the center of García Márquez’s literary and intellectual project.

The Past, Present, and Future of Global Health Law Beyond Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic generated wide interest in global health law (GHL). The ease of its spread, and its eruption at a time of massive global travel in a city that is a major transport hub, turned it into an unprecedented event in the post-World War II era.

Global Travel Restriction's Effect on The Number of Deaths from COVID - 19: An Analysis on Global COVID-19 Data

<p><a>Our initial sample size includes 221 countries which includes 195 United Nations (UN) member countries and some dependent territories for which independent data are available. </a>Some of the countries included in the analysis are dependent territories under some independent countries such as The United Kingdom, which has 14 overseas territories under its jurisdiction. Though they are not independent countries but most of them are internally self-governing with the UK keeping responsibility for protection and foreign affairs. However, we have excluded two countries as the data were missing for many variables for these two territories. The two omitted countries are MS Zaandam and Diamond Princess. So, the final sample size includes 219 countries and territories for which we collected data on COVID-19 as well as their geographic and demographic aspects. More details of the variables included are provided in the table 1. A list of all countries included in the analysis is provided in the appendix. All data from all sources including Wikipedia, World population review and Worldometer are collected during the period of Feb 1, 2021, to Feb 07, 2021.</p>

Global Travel Restriction's Effect on The Number of Deaths from COVID - 19: An Analysis on Global COVID-19 Data

<p><a>Our initial sample size includes 221 countries which includes 195 United Nations (UN) member countries and some dependent territories for which independent data are available. </a>Some of the countries included in the analysis are dependent territories under some independent countries such as The United Kingdom, which has 14 overseas territories under its jurisdiction. Though they are not independent countries but most of them are internally self-governing with the UK keeping responsibility for protection and foreign affairs. However, we have excluded two countries as the data were missing for many variables for these two territories. The two omitted countries are MS Zaandam and Diamond Princess. So, the final sample size includes 219 countries and territories for which we collected data on COVID-19 as well as their geographic and demographic aspects. More details of the variables included are provided in the table 1. A list of all countries included in the analysis is provided in the appendix. All data from all sources including Wikipedia, World population review and Worldometer are collected during the period of Feb 1, 2021, to Feb 07, 2021.</p>

Climate crisis and ecological emergency: why they concern (neuro)scientists, and what we can do

Our planet is experiencing severe and accelerating climate and ecological breakdown caused by human activity. As professional scientists we are better placed than most to understand the data that evidence this fact. However, like most other people, we ignore this inconvenient truth and lead our daily lives, at home and at work, as if these facts weren’t true. In particular, we overlook that our own neuroscientific research practices, from our laboratory experiments to our often global travel, help drive climate change and ecosystem damage. We also hold privileged positions of authority in our societies but rarely speak out. Here, we argue that to help society create a survivable future, we neuroscientists can and must play our part.In April 2021, we delivered a symposium at the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) meeting outlining what we think neuroscientists can and should do to help stop climate breakdown. Building on our talks, we here outline what the climate and ecological emergencies mean for us as neuroscientists. We highlight the psychological mechanisms that block us from taking action, and then outline what practical steps we can take to overcome these blocks and work towards sustainability. In particular, we review environmental issues in neuroscience research, scientific computing, and conferences. We also highlight the key advocacy roles we can all play in our institutions, and in society more broadly. The need for sustainable change has never been more urgent, and we call on all (neuro)scientists to act with the utmost urgency.

Human seasonal influenza under COVID-19 and the potential consequences of influenza lineage elimination

Annual epidemics of seasonal influenza cause hundreds of thousands of deaths, high levels of morbidity, and substantial economic loss. Yet, global influenza circulation has been heavily suppressed by public health measures and travel restrictions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, the influenza B/Yamagata lineage has not been conclusively detected since April 2020, and A(H3N2), A(H1N1), and B/Victoria viruses circulate with considerably less genetic diversity. Travel restrictions have largely confined regional outbreaks of A(H3N2) to South and Southeast Asia, B/Victoria epidemics in China, and A(H1N1) in West Africa. Seasonal influenza transmission lineages continue to perish globally, except in select hotspots, which will likely seed future epidemics. Waning population immunity and sporadic case detection will further challenge influenza vaccine strain selection and epidemic control. We offer perspective on the potential short- and long-term evolutionary dynamics of seasonal influenza and discuss potential consequences and mitigation strategies as global travel gradually returns to pre-pandemic levels.