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Relative Economic Importance of Tourism over time; applying Input-Output analysis and Indicator Decomposition

Resultaten in ontwikkeling, een simplistische voorstelling van zaken

Burgers en politici hebben behoefte aan verantwoording over ingezette middelen voor ontwikkelingshulp en de bereikte doelen. De resultatenrapportage van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken biedt in theorie een mooi overzicht dat ten dele inzicht verschaft. Het rapport schetst echter een te mooi beeld. Met behulp van de kwantitatieve analyse op performance indicatoren wordt een causale relatie verondersteld die in werkelijkheid niet zomaar kan worden aangenomen. Zo is bij de doelstelling 'succesvolle lobby op het gebied van goed bestuur…' niet duidelijk wat er onder succesvol wordt verstaan. Het wordt zo wel erg makkelijk om te zeggen: het is gelukt! In de resultaatketen is bovendien geen ruimte voor alle andere partijen die aan dezelfde doelstellingen werken. Er wordt dus een relatie verondersteld tussen de output van Nederland en het totale maatschappelijke effect. Doordat overheden op basis van kwantitatieve monitoring effecten claimen, ontstaat mogelijk een schijnwerkelijkheid die burgers en Kamerleden tevreden moet stellen en die de legitimatie zou moeten zijn voor toekomstige toekenning van middelen. Het rapport besteedt eveneens geen aandacht aan het samenspel van effecten of de mogelijk tegengestelde effecten als outcome van het handelen. In dit artikel wordt beargumenteerd dat op basis van de kwantitatieve resultaten alleen niet zomaar conclusies getrokken mogen worden over behaalde effecten onder meer omdat dat de kwantitatieve resultaten zoals die zijn voorgesteld weinig zeggen over de kwaliteit ervan. Bovendien komt naar voren dat de kwantitatieve verantwoording over de resultaten bij alle donorlanden uitnodigt tot interne attributie waar het om positieve maatschappelijke effecten gaat en uitnodigen tot strategisch gedrag. Tot slot is modelmatig weergegeven dat de verhouding tussen input van het donorland en de maatschappelijke effecten zoals in het rapport wordt voorgesteld veel te simplistisch is. ABSTRACT Citizens and politicians need information on the used resources for development aid and the reached goals. The result report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives a nice overview that gives insight to a certain extent. However, the picture is painted too optimistic. Using the quantitative analysis based on performance indicators a causal relation is assumed that in reality may not exist. One of the issues is the limited objective quantifiability of the output. The goal "creating a successful lobby for good governance …" doesn't specify what would be considered successful. This makes it very easy to say: we did it! The result chain doesn't show all other parties striving for the same goals. A relation is assumed between the Dutch output and the total changes in society. Because governments make claims based on quantitative monitoring alone, a false view on reality that should satisfy both citizens and politicians and that should be a legitimation for future investments, may arise. The report doesn't acknowledge the combination of effects or the possible counterproductive effects as outcome of the actions. This article argues that no conclusions may be drawn on realized effects based on quantitative information alone, among other reasons because the quantitative date as presented give no view of the achieved quality. Moreover the article shows that the quantitative way of accounting for the investment of resources with all donor countries invites strategic behavior and internal attribution as far as the positive results are concerned. A model was drawn to show that the relation between input from the donor country and societal effects as the proclaimed in the report are way too simplistic.

Modelling Complex Relationships Between Sustainable Competitiveness and Digitalization

Digitalization is the core component of future development in the 4.0 industrial era. It represents a powerful mechanism for enhancing the sustainable competitiveness of economies worldwide. Diverse triggering effects shape future digitalization trends. Thus, the main research goal in this study is to use sustainable competitiveness pillars (such as social, economic, environmental and energy) to evaluate international digitalization development. The proposed empirical model generates comprehensive knowledge of the sustainable competitiveness-digitalization nexus. For that purpose, a nonlinear regression has been applied on gathered annual data that consist of 33 European countries, ranging from 2010 to 2016. The dataset has been deployed using Bernoulli’s binominal distribution to derive training and testing samples and the entire analysis has been adjusted in that context. The empirical findings of artificial neural networks (ANN) suggest strong effects of the economic and energy use indicators on the digitalization progress. Nonlinear regression and ANN model summary report valuable results with a high degree of coefficient of determination (R2>0.9 for all models). Research findings state that the digitalization process is multidimensional and cannot be evaluated as an isolated phenomenon without incorporating other relevant factors that emerge in the environment. Indicators report the consumption of electrical energy in industry and households and GDP per capita to achieve the strongest effect.

Real-time feedback on mechanical power output

PURPOSE: Athletes require feedback in order to comply with prescribed training programs designed to optimize their performance. In rowing, current feedback parameters on intensity are inaccurate. Mechanical power output is a suitable objective measure for training intensity, but due to movement restrictions related to crew rowing, it is uncertain whether crew rowers are able to adjust their intensity based on power-output feedback. The authors examined whether rowers improve compliance with prescribed power-output targets when visual real-time feedback on power output is provided in addition to commonly used feedback.METHODS: A total of 16 crew rowers rowed in 3 training sessions. During the first 2 sessions, they received commonly used feedback, followed by a session with additional power-output feedback. Targets were set by their coaches before the experiment. Compliance was operationalized as accuracy (absolute difference between target and delivered power output) and consistency (high- and low-frequency variations in delivered power output).RESULTS: Multilevel analyses indicated that accuracy and low-frequency variations improved by, respectively, 65% (P > .001) and 32% (P = .024) when additional feedback was provided.CONCLUSION: Compliance with power-output targets improved when crew rowers received additional feedback on power output. Two additional observations were made during the study that highlighted the relevance of power-output feedback for practice: There was a marked discrepancy between the prescribed targets and the actually delivered power output by the rowers, and coaches had difficulties perceiving improvements in rowers' compliance with power-output targets.

Mechanical power output in rowing should not be determined from oar forces and oar motion alone

Mechanical power output is a key performance-determining variable in many cyclic sports. In rowing, instantaneous power output is commonly determined as the dot product of handle force moment and oar angular velocity. The aim of this study was to show that this commonly used proxy is theoretically flawed and to provide an indication of the magnitude of the error. To obtain a consistent dataset, simulations were performed using a previously proposed forward dynamical model. Inputs were previously recorded rower kinematics and horizontal oar angle, at 20 and 32 strokes∙min−1. From simulation outputs, true power output and power output according to the common proxy were calculated. The error when using the common proxy was quantified as the difference between the average power output according to the proxy and the true average power output (P̅residual), and as the ratio of this difference to the true average power output (ratiores./rower). At stroke rate 20, P̅residual was 27.4 W and ratiores./rower was 0.143; at stroke rate 32, P̅residual was 44.3 W and ratiores./rower was 0.142. Power output in rowing appears to be underestimated when calculated according to the common proxy. Simulations suggest this error to be at least 10% of the true power output.

Enhancing target language output through synchronous online learner-learner interaction

In this study, we compared the impact of audio-, video-, and text-chat interaction on target language use during online learner-learner interaction and on learner affect amongst adolescent learners of German as a foreign language. Repeated measures and ANOVA analyses revealed a high percentage of target language output in all conditions for all four tasks, especially in text- chat. Audio-chatters produced the most output and used the most meaning negotiation, compensation strategies, self-repair and other-repair strategies. Learners in all conditions gained in enjoyment, willingness to communicate and self-efficacy. Anxiety reduced for text-chatters. Task effects partly determined the quantity of L2 output, while condition effects determined meaning-oriented and form-focused processing.