Search

Water poverty is a multidimensional concept open to a variety of definitions. In this paper, we focus on the affordability component of water poverty which emerges as the most relevant dimension of water poverty in the developed world where an increasing number of households are unable to afford the price of water. As in energy poverty, this degrades the metabolic flows of an essential resource in households threatening the livelihoods of members. We examine water affordability in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona combining quantitative and qualitative information. Using data from Metropolitan Surveys as well as from specific studies, we depart from quantitative assessments of the impact of water affordability for the subgroup of households defined as "at risk of poverty". We complement the quantitative analysis with data on arrears, accumulated debt, and water disconnections, among other variables. Qualitative analyses are drawn from interviews with affected people attending meetings of a social platform, APE, created to fight energy and water poverty, offer a more precise assessment of the impacts of water poverty in vulnerable households and of the coping strategies by the affected and by APE. While some important achievements must be noticed, especially the Catalan law prohibiting disconnections of essential services to vulnerable households as well as the provision of financial help to pay the bills, important problems remain, above all the accumulated debt and the special case of the growing number of families occupying empty flats with no water connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the study of the quality of experience lived by tourists when visiting a cultural heritage destination by using a tourist product based on a virtual tour. The research is justified by the increased demand by tourists to have a memorable experience in a destination as well as the growing offer on virtual reality and augmented reality technologies applied to the tourism sector. The database consists of online comments extracted from those who visited two well-known tourism destinations in Spain, Seville and Barcelona, where the immersive virtual reality technology named Past View is currently used. A total of 119 online comments on the tourists' experience after the use of the Past View smart glasses and posted in the e-WOM community Trip Advisor were valid for the analysis. Using a correspondence analysis of textual data, the results shed light about how virtual reality technologies influence on tourists' quality of experience. The findings drawn from the empirical analysis provide destination marketing organizations suitable and useful information to promote the destination and therefore encouraging entrepreneurs to innovate in tourism sector to attend the desire of tourists to have a memorable tourist experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses transaction data from three time banks located in Barcelona to analyze their potential to generate bonding and bridging social capital for their members. Regarding bonding social capital, the findings are in line with the related literature in terms of the average number of trading partners and the ego-network density. However, reciprocity is a more frequent form of behavior in our data than in other time banks from other countries. Concerning bridging social capital and considering different age groups, the results show slight evidence of homophilic behavior, although intergenerational transactions are also present, being more frequent between more similar age groups. Finally, we explore the influence of age on the time it takes for members to engage in transactions, which could somehow be related to their potential motivations behind joining a time bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cannabis social clubs (CSC) are community‐based non‐profit organisations that aim to minimise cannabis‐related harm for their members. This contribution seeks to: (i) compare the cost of cannabis flower and resin in CSCs to the national average retail price on the illegal market; and (ii) identify possible quantity discounts for cannabis flower and resin distributed to members of CSCs. Methods: Routine data from four CSCs located in Barcelona, Spain, contained information on n = 220,465 collections of cannabis resin and flower (0.01–39 g per collection). The costs for 1 g of cannabis flower and resin per collection were determined. The mean national prices on illicit cannabis were obtained from Spanish police reports. Results: On average, members paid 6.19€ for 1 g flower (median: 6€; interquartile range: 6–7€) and 8.54€ for 1 g resin (median: 7€; interquartile range: 6–9€), with less variations for flower than for resin. Compared to the national average, prices appeared to be higher for cannabis products distributed in CSCs, but comparisons were limited by a lack of data on the variation of national prices. For resin, doubling the quantity was associated with a 20.7% (95% confidence interval 20.4–21.2%; p < 0.001) fee discount. Discussion and conclusions: Cannabis in CSCs may be more costly than the estimated national average for the illicit market. No meaningful price discount could be observed for flower but for resin. Pricing policies pursued by CSCs may help to disincentivise consumption of larger amounts but may also bar socioeconomically disadvantaged users from accessing safer alternatives than the illegal market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water Utilities (WU) are responsible for supplying water for residential, commercial and industrial use guaranteeing the sanitary and quality standards established by different regulations. To assure the satisfaction of such standards a set of quality sensors that monitor continuously the Water Distribution System (WDS) are used. Unfortunately, those sensors require continuous maintenance in order to guarantee their right and reliable operation. In order to program the maintenance of those sensors taking into account the health state of the sensor, a prognosis system should be deployed. Moreover, before proceeding with the prognosis of the sensors, the data provided with those sensors should be validated using data from other sensors and models. This paper provides an advanced data analytics framework that will allow us to diagnose water quality sensor faults and to detect water quality events. Moreover, a data-driven prognosis module will be able to assess the sensitivity degradation of the chlorine sensors estimating the remaining useful life (RUL), taking into account uncertainty quantification, that allows us to program the maintenance actions based on the state of health of sensors instead on a regular basis. The fault and event detection module is based on a methodology that combines time and spatial models obtained from historical data that are integrated with a discrete-event system and are able to distinguish between a quality event or a sensor fault. The prognosis module analyses the quality sensor time series forecasting the degradation and therefore providing a predictive maintenance plan avoiding unsafe situations in the WDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte is the property of Cuadernos de Psicologia del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos de Turismo is the property of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Social media communication has become a fundamental tool for hospitality companies, especially for marketing and customer engagement purposes. Facebook is the social network most used by hotels, both to interact and to establish relationships with their customers, and to provide them with relevant content and information, which may contribute to a positive travel experience and overall satisfaction. In general, content hotels post on Facebook either emphasizes hotels' services (hotel-level or internal information) or aspects related to where the hotels are located (destination-level or external information) while conveying emotional attributes. Thus, this study aims to unveil the content strategy of these two types of content levels for hotels in the two most-visited cities in Spain, as well as to explore the emotional aspect of hotel Facebook posts. To do so, 4725 Facebook messages posted by 189 hotels in Barcelona and 1175 posted by 47 hotels in Madrid were analyzed using compositional data analysis, which accounts for the relative importance (shares) of different types of contents. Results show that hotels in Barcelona post more content related to hotel services and hotels in Madrid post more content related to the destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the recent increase observed in crime related to football matches, we determine the extent to which this private leisure activity is responsible for negative crime externalities. We conduct an Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis and spatial regressions at the census tract level drawing on data for the matches played by Football Club Barcelona and geocoded crime data for the city of Barcelona (Spain); focusing on thefts (mainly pick pocketing) and assaults (interpersonal violence or hooliganism). We find an increase in the number of thefts across the whole city but, especially, in those census tracts within a 700-m radius of the stadium. These results are confirmed by the low number of crimes committed during away matches in the census tracts around the stadium. A similar spatial pattern is found for assaults. Our results provide evidence of a displacement effect of violent supporters (hooligans) towards the stadium on football days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Substance Use & Misuse is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a discussion on the use of outlier detection in function data analysis (FDA) to determine abnormal levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx). It is noted that NOx are one of the most significant pollutants in the environment as it contribute to global warming. Combustion processes in industries, motor vehicles and electric utilities produce NOx. Several Monte Carlo experiments were conducted. Data of NOx emission levels at an industrial site in Barcelona, Spain were used.