The Empowerment Zone is a federal program designed to incentivize investment in economically blighted communities. The Empowerment Zone provides a combination of federal grant money for community development initiatives along with tax incentives for private sector firms that locate in zone...

As use of the Internet becomes pervasive, user interface design of web sites becomes increasingly important. Consumers must be able to easily and quickly perform the functions they desire. Travel industry applications have a large market potential on the Internet. Because of the geographical...

Virginiaâs temperate climate is suitable for several mosquito species capable of transmitting pathogens to humans. In southwest Virginia, La Crosse encephalitis and West Nile fever are most prominent. The objective of this research, which uses the Health Belief Model (HBM) as a theoretical...

Input users and producers seek to increase their profitability by locating near each other. This self-reinforcing relationship between input producers and users can be views as a basic agglomeration force to enable the modeling of agglomeration economies based on a standard monopolistic...

Traditional theory of international trade has been developed on the assumption of homogeneous country in which identical consumers and production factors are all uniformly distributed. In the real world, however, most countries are composed of heterogeneous regions, and in accordance the above...

This dissertation focuses on two topics that are important to regional economists. The first is the development of a hybrid method for input-output table compilation which distinguishes between economic relationships that need to be surveyed and those that can be obtained by other means. The...

The South African Weather Service rainfall seasonal forecasts are verified for the period of January-February-March to October-November-December 1998-2004. These forecasts are compiled using different models from different institutions. Probability seasonal forecasts can be evaluated using...

Poverty is the single greatest burden of the South African nation, with estimates that at least seventeen million of the population survives below the minimum basic income level. The socio-economic and environmental impacts of these alarming poverty levels are worsened by ineffective service...