Firewood Provisioning in the 17th-Century Ottoman State

Long-term Recovery from Recent Disasters in Japan and the United States

Focused on inbound tourism in Japan, this study examines the development and performance of the policy that foster tourism as a new growth engine. Japan has built its reputation as a manufacturing country represented by Monozukuri, but has recently developed an active inbound tourism policy to cope with population decline and changes in industrial structure. The Japanese government has focused on fostering the tourism industry from former Prime Minister Koizumi, who has been initially promoting tourism, to the current Prime Minister Abe, and the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan and the amount of foreign tourists consumption in Japan have surged. This is a result of the quantitative improvement activities such as eliminating inbound tourists’ concentration of the metropolitan area and expanding major visit areas, as well as the qualitative improvement activities such as raising the visitor re-visit rate. As a result, the inbound tourists that have been concentrated in Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido are spreading to Kyushu, Hokuriku, Nagano, Kanto, Toukai, Tohoku, and Sanyo. Until 1991 in Japan, the emphasis was on Japanese domestic travel and overseas travel, and the importance of attracting inbound tourists did not appear. The “Foreign Visitor Attraction Act” was enacted for the first time in 1997, and since 2000, the importance of inbound tourism has been emphasized, setting an objective for the number of tourists visiting Japan and implementing an active tourism policy to promote visit to Japan in target markets. Former Prime Minister Koizumi declared the policy of “achieving 10 million foreign tourists in Japan” in 2003, and as a result, the “Tourism Nation Promation Basic Law”, which stipulated specific policies for promoting tourism, was enacted in January 2007. In 2008, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism established the Japan Tourism Agency, and in 2012 the Tourism Nation Promotion Basic Plan was implemented based on this law. The “the Tourism Nation Promotion Basic Plan” is part of Abenomics, which used bold monetary policy and fiscal policies aiming to overcome a long-term recession. In the tourism sector, the approach of attracting inbound tourists and linking tourists to shopping has been proposed to revitalize the tourism industry. As a result, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan will continue to increase in 2014 and 2015, exceeding 20 million in 2016. Followings are the points of inbound tourism policy that the Japanese government strongly implemented to revitalize the tourism industry. First, reformed tax exemption system increases foreign visitors consumption in Japan. Since the foreign visitors’ main purpose of their traveling is shopping, tax exemption process has been simplified for the convenience of foreign visitors by 1st and 2nd revisions of consumption tax exemption system. Expanded tax-exempt list and simplified tax exemption process increase foreign visitors consumption dramatically. As duty-free shops spread from the metropolitan area to local area, the regional economy has been revitalized. Second, relaxing visa conditions increases the number of foreign tourists. In case of countries whose GDP per capita is over 3,000 USD, they expected that the demand of outbound tourism is going to increase based on relaxed visa conditions. As a result, the number of visitors from those countries has increased sharply. Finally, Japan developed new air routes by attracting LCC. Inbound tourists can easily access to Japan because of improvement of facilities and policy support for LCC. It is also expected in the future that local economy would be stimulated if the number of foreign tourists goes on increasing when the services of LCC expand to local airports.

The development of geotourism already represents an element that must be taken into consideration by the Administrative Territorial Units (ATUs) in order to obtain a sustainable economy. This study was divided into three main stages. In the first part of the study, an assessment of geomorphosites from the Carpathian and Sub-Carpathian area of Vrancea County was done, resulting in the ranking of geomorphosites. The second stage focussed on an analy- sis of the local economies in the studied area at the level of each ATU and four-digit Classification of National Econom- ic Activities (NACE) code for a period of 19 years (2000–2018) using four economic indicators to determine the share of the tourism sector in the economy of each ATU. The data was used to generate trend matrices and relevant cartograph- ic materials about the contribution of tourism to each ATU’s local economy in the analysed area. The last stage con- sisted in drawing a parallel between the concentration of geomorphosites in the analysed area, the score obtained by them in the evaluation and the tourism sector’s share trend in local economies. This study shows how the ATUs with a positive share trend in the tourism sector of the economy are directly influenced by the presence of geomorphosites in their administrative territory or in their proximity. It also emphasises the significance of geomorphosites in increasing tourism complexity in the study area, as well as in the development of tourism and local economies.

Letters Health AffairsVol. 34, No. 10: Variety Issue Tax Exemptions For Nonprofit HospitalsMark Woodring Affiliations Coffeyville Regional Medical Center Coffeyville, Kansas PUBLISHED:October 2015Free Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1017AboutSectionsView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsDownload Exhibits TOPICSTaxesNonprofit statusValueAffordable Care ActFor-profit status Nonprofit hospital leaders should not be surprised to find policy makers asking them with increasing frequency to make tax concessions since implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For example, in June the Kansas legislature considered implementing a sunset for state tax exemptions, including those for nonprofit hospitals. As Sara Rosenbaum and coauthors (Jul 2015) point out, the value of the tax exemption for charitable hospitals was over $24 billion in 2011. More transparency regarding nonprofit hospital tax exemptions is needed and would be welcomed by the public. 1 Charitable financial support provided by hospitals is decreasing, 2 and the difference between the community benefit provided by nonprofit hospitals and that provided by for-profit hospitals continues to narrow. 3 Hospital community-building programs reported on the Internal Revenue Service’s Form 990 Schedule H, part 2, may be the last legitimate distinction between nonprofit and for-profit hospitals. If hospitals posted the value of their tax exemptions online each year and made payments for community building in lieu of taxes, resources previously spent on charity care could be reinvested in local social economies, strengthening public health. Rosenbaum and coauthors remind the nonprofit hospital industry of its significant inherent value and its obligation to further demonstrate that value in an era of transparency and reform.NOTES1 Woodring M . What role do charitable, nonprofit hospitals have in community-building activities post-2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reforms? [dissertation] . Chapel Hill (NC) : University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ; 2015 . Google Scholar 2 DeLeire T , Joynt K , McDonald R . Impact of insurance expansion on hospital uncompensated care costs in 2014 [Internet]. Washington (DC) : Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation ; 2014 Sep 24 [cited 2015 Jul 27 ]. (ASPE Issue Brief). Available from: http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2014/UncompensatedCare/ib_UncompensatedCare.pdf Google Scholar 3 Byrd JD , Landry A . Distinguishing community benefits: tax exemption versus organizational legitimacy . J Healthc Manag . 2012 ; 57 ( 1 ): 66 – 76 . Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article Metrics History Published online 1 October 2015 Information Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc. PDF download

STUDY OBJECTIVES(1) To identify and to categorise the various city indicators that are related to health levels; (2) to demonstrate the extent of the influence on health of these categorised...

Ottomans placed significant importance on establishing state authority. This study examines the methods employed to establish and maintain state authority in the provinces through various events of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The main objective of the study is to demonstrate that the Ottoman Empire aimed to establish state authority based on reconciliation rather than conflict. To achieve this goal, several exemplary cases from Ahıska, Ayntâb (Tutak), and the Balkans within the specified time frame have been selected. While selecting the sample group, special attention was given to choosing documents from the Ottoman Archives that explicitly contain the term "taahhütname." The study draws from the commitments made in written agreements concerning events occurring in regions with diverse geographical, historical, and cultural dynamics. Declarations of commitment, which are a means of establishing the authority of the state, are very important in terms of providing empirical evidence for this study. While these texts show similarities in certain aspects, they also differ in others. The collection of data obtained from the Ottoman Archives has been evaluated in terms of form, content, similarities, and differences. Additionally, information regarding the social, administrative, and political structures of the regions where the sample events took place has been provided.

Postwar Beirut conjures up contradictory images of remarkable openness and inconceivable violence, of great antiquity and a bright future. The Lebanese capital stands for Arab cosmopolitanism and cultural effervescence but also for its tragedies of destruction. This book examines the historical formation of Beirut as a multiply contested Mediterranean city. Fin de Siècle Beirut is a landmark contribution to the growing literature in Ottoman studies, in Arab cultural history and on Mediterranean cities. Combining urban theory, particularly Henri Lefebvre's work on cities and capitalism, with postcolonial methodology, the central thesis of this book is that modern Beirut is the outcome of persistent social and intellectual struggles over the production of space. The city of Beirut was at once the product, the object, and the project of imperial and urban politics of difference: overlapping European, Ottoman, and municipal civilising missions competed in the political fields of administration, infrastructure, urban planning, public health, education, public morality, journalism, and architecture. Jens Hanssen offers a comprehensive, original account of the emergence of modern Beirut out of an economic shift away from Acre in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. He argues that the Ottoman government’s decision to heed calls for the creation of a new province around Beirut and grant it provincial capital status in 1888 paved the way for fundamental urban and regional reconfigurations long before colonial policies during the French Mandate period. This new Ottoman province came to constitute the territorial embodiment of regional self-determination for Arab nationalists in Beirut until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Drawing on published and unpublished Ottoman government documents, Arabic sources, and European archival material, Hanssen's book traces the urban experience of modernity in the Ottoman Empire. The transformation of everyday life in late nineteenth-century Beirut and the concomitant policies of urban management is vividly set against the devastating civil war in Mount Lebanon and Damascus in 1860.

Acute aneurysmal SAH is a severe disease that requires prompt treatment. Endovascular coiling and neurosurgical clipping are established treatment options. Our intention was to determine the state of current practice in acute aneurysmal SAH treatment in Germany, with emphasis on logistic and temporal aspects. We interviewed 74 German university and nonuniversity hospitals with an anonymous questionnaire comprising 15 questions concerning the practice of treatment and diagnostics of acute aneurysmal SAH at their respective institutions. The response rate was 74% among all institutions (55/74); among university hospitals, 77%; and among nonuniversity hospitals, 72%. The majority of all aneurysms were treated endovascularly (66% of acute aneurysmal SAH, 66% of unruptured aneurysms). Treatment on weekends was provided by 100% of endovascular and 96% of neurosurgical facilities. Average patients with acute aneurysmal SAH were not treated during the night (98%). Seventy percent of endovascular and 78% of neurosurgical treatments were not started later than 8:00 pm. Fifty-three percent of hospitals would not start a same-day diagnostic angiography in acute aneurysmal SAH if treatment was scheduled for the following day. Eighty-two percent of all centers performed DSA after clipping to evaluate the treatment results. Our survey gives a detailed summary of the current practice of endovascular treatment and related topics in acute aneurysmal SAH in Germany and also reveals considerable changes in practice in comparison with older data.

Au Québec, à la fin du 19e siècle et au début du 20e, plusieurs municipalités tentent par divers moyens défaire partie du réseau ferroviaire et d'attirer des industries et Saint-Jean ne fait pas exception à la règle. Investessements, prêts, subventions, concessions de terrains, exemptions de taxes et autres avantages constituent les principaux appâts mis de l'avant par les dirigeants municipaux. Dans le cas de Saint-Jean, à l'instar d'autres villes, les avantages offerts aux entreprises ne produisent que peu de retombées favorables sur l'économie locale et notamment sur le secteur industriel. Cet article vise à éclairer le rôle des élites locales. Il appert que la concurrence d'autres centres urbains plus prospères et la faiblesse économique de Saint-Jean constituent les facteurs principaux qui ont motivé l'action de ses dirigeants. Jusqu'aux années 1870, Saint-Jean est un centre florissant axé sur le négoce canado-américain, mais la construction du Grand Tronc, amorcée en 1850, entraîne le déclin des activités économiques de la ville. Les hommes d'affaires locaux essaient donc de relancer l'économie en favorisant le développement du secteur industriel par l'octroi de généreuses allocations municipales. Toutefois, la plupart de leurs efforts s'avèrent vains en raison de la situation défavorable de la ville.

The current insufficient quantification and evaluation of major functions fundamentally affected regional sustainable management and policy implementation. This study focused on the problem that no effective quantitative accounting relationship has been established between development activities and resource utilization. In order to establish the relationship between major function accounting and natural resource accounting, we analyzed the relevant studies on the evaluation of major functions, natural resource accounting, environmental accounting, ecosystem services, and assets accounting. The efficiency comparison of different functions was completed using the equivalent factor method for ecosystem service value measurement and the input–output method for water footprint measurement. We found that the accounting of major functions and resources can guide regional sustainable management by using function positioning and resource comparative advantages. In addition, administrative units were linked to functional units, providing the possibility of cross-regional comparison of total functional resources, efficiency, and structure of major functions.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, in order to fully recover the economy, support the orderly development of local economy, and coordinate the local industrial structure with the whole social economy, China has issued a number of tax reduction and exemption policies in line with the epidemic, and various localities have thoroughly implemented the tax reduction and exemption policies under the call of the state. Practice has shown that these tax reduction and exemption policies have effectively promoted economic recovery, improved the happiness index of taxpayers, and made important contributions to the fight against the epidemic. However, it is undeniable that during the period of fighting against the epidemic, China's tax reduction and exemption policies still need to be further improved. Therefore, this paper will analyze the effects of tax reduction and exemption policies during the epidemic from four aspects. First of all, this paper introduces the nature of the impact of major public emergencies on the economy and the mechanism of economic action of tax policies, and accurately grasped the tax reduction and exemption at the theoretical level, laying a theoretical foundation for the subsequent evaluation of tax reduction and exemption policies. Secondly, this paper will carry out the interpretation and analysis of the reduction and exemption policies of corporate income tax, personal income tax, value-added tax and consumption tax during the epidemic. Thirdly, we collected data to comprehensively evaluate the effect of tax cuts and exemptions during the epidemic. Finally, we should not only see the positive side of tax reduction policy, but also correctly face its shortcomings and give the author's suggestions.

In his review article of Indian village studies, the author put stress on the significance of the study of hierarchial nesting of life worlds in rural India. Periodic market areas form one of the significant intermediate stages of this nesting between the village at the lowest and the nation at the highest levles. The present article aims at estimating periodic market areas and examining the related research topics mentioned in the above sub-title. The data were collected through field research carried out in 1982 and 1985 in Bangalore and its surrounding districts, in the south-eastern periphery of Karnataka State, South India. The area covered by field research is about 15, 600km2.Number of market places: In the study area, 118 periodic market places are confirmed by field research. 121 periodic markets are held at these market places in the seven-day market cycle. The same kinds of information are also obtainable from two published sources, the Census District Handbook and 1/50, 000 Survey of India Maps. If we compare their descriptions in the study area with the research results, the former contains rather false and unreliable data, although many studies are based on it. We can get more accurate information from the latter source.Spatio-temporal integration: In most of the studies, spatio-temporal integration has been investigated by examining the relationship of spatial (linear distance) spacing and temporal (market day) interval between a set of the nearest neighbour periodic market places without taking into account the so-called boundary problem. In the present article, Thiessen polygons are drawn around each market place in order to avoid boundary problems and to fix the market place whose nearest market place can be confirmed within the study area. The degree of spatio-temporal integration is measured at different levels of examination, namely: 1) adjoining market places which have a common edge of Thiessen polygons, 2) adjoining market places sharing a common edge and connected by major roads within four steps, and 3) the nearst neighbour market places measured by road distance. By changing the levels of examination, principles underlying the spatio-temporal integration in the study area could be examined at both topological and real contiguity levels. The percentage of neighbouring periodic markets held on the same day of the week is as low as 5.3, 2.3, 2.5% in 1), 2), and 3) respectively. On the basis of these findings, we can say a guiding principle in spatiotemporal integration in the study area is a rule of mutual avoidance of the same market day between the neighbouring periodic market places. Peculiarity of the study area is found in the nearly complete realization of the rule, which suggests the presence of some institutional control over the apportionment of market days among periodic markets. It is said that the periodic market system is highly spatio-temporally integrated if there is an inverse relationship between spatial spacing and temporal intervals among the nearest places. The study area shows another peculiar characteristic in this aspect, that is, spatial distance is independent of the increase of temporal intervals. Spatio-temporal integration is examined through the M (market integration) coefficient devised by Henkel (Erdkunde, 38, 1984, pp. 167-68) as well. The value of the M coefficient measured by linear distance in the study area is 0.4609. The figure is the 9th highest out of the total 52 cases cited by Henkel, which means the periodic market system in the study area is highly spatio-temporaly integrated.Estimation of periodic market area: Generally, in the previous studies, the size of market area is measured by dividing the total population by the number of periodic market places located in an administrative unit. In the present article. a market area is assumed to be equal to the area of a Thiessen polygon drawn around each market place.

Travelers' Tales: Their Values and Virtues

This book “Renewable Energy Systems” investigates the cutting-edge developments in renewable energy that offers broad coverage of all major renewable energy systems, resources, and related topics, such as wind turbines, solar energy, biomass, geothermal energy, water related power generation, fuel cells and generators. Students, researchers, and professionals in the subject may find this book beneficial for its detailed explanations of renewable energy technology and their uses. To improve understanding and practical application, the book provides many examples, numerical data that is up-to-date, and extensive explanations.

In the past few years telecommunications technologies have drawn much attention as potential vehicles for revitalizing rural economies. The success of telecommunications as a catalyst for rural development hinges on the ability of small businesses to use the technological infrastructure effectively once it has been deployed. This paper explores the different ways in which small businesses can employ telecommunications technologies to enhance their operations. The impact of telecommunications technologies on local economies is also discussed. Finally, suggestions are made as to how the local telephone company can serve as a major telematics resource for small businesses in rural areas.