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This chapter examines the main methodological issues involved in the comprehension of the cost structure of the airport industry and suggests considerations for future airport cost analyses. Such understanding has become a crucial concern for policy makers, regional planners, and managers in order to deal with optimal market design (e.g., regulation and market configuration) and airport strategies (e.g., pricing, investments, and alliances). An in-depth analysis of the economics of cost functions is presented, together with a description of the relevant multi-output cost economies measures (average incremental costs, scale and scope economies, and cost complementarities). We also discuss the assumptions underlying estimates of total versus variable cost functions and the importance of estimating a sufficiently flexible functional form. Moreover, we provide a critical survey of the international empirical literature on the cost structure of the airport industry, which highlights how econometric estimates strongly depend on the sample choice and the empirical model considered. Indeed, while econometric studies on international samples based on long-run cost function estimates show that long-run scale economies are never exhausted, single country studies mostly estimate variable cost functions and find lower values for scale economies at median sample points that tend to decrease with size. We discuss why we believe that studies based on the estimation of short-run variable cost functions offer more reliable results, given the reasonable assumption of airport overcapitalization in the short run. We conclude our work by noting that underlying policy issues related to planning and regulation, as well as to the optimal market structure of the airport sector, need to take into account the role played by vertical relationships between airports and airlines.

For policymakers and academics alike, gentrification – the renovation of socially and economically marginal inner-city areas by higher status social groups – has become an issue of rising importance in the changing social structures of developed-world cities (Smith, 1979; Rose, 1984; Hamnett, 1991). In the regeneration of deprived inner-urban areas, it is seen as a double-edged sword, its potential to reinvigorate local property markets and provide much-needed investments of social capital matched by its tendency towards displacement of ‘less desirable’ extant populations and social division between middle-class newcomers and incumbent working-class residents (Smith, 1992; Blokland, 2002; Butler, 2003).

It is demonstrated how an analysis of airports’ cost structures and the calculation of long-run marginal costs (MCs) of serving passengers and airplanes can be used as a basis for setting airport charges according to the principles of welfare economics. Based on Norwegian data, the MC for an extra passenger (PAX) and extra air traffic movement (ATM) are used to set airport charges under the assumption that the charges should be equal for all airports in the country. When adjusting the estimates to meet revenue restrictions and comparing the estimates to current charges, we observe that PAX should be charged more and ATM less. This finding is in line with recommendations from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). When allowing charges to vary between airports, we demonstrate how a Ramsey pricing approach can be applied to set differentiated PAX and ATM charges, considering both the supply side (the competitive conditions between the airlines operating at the airports) and the demand side (the passengers’ price elasticity of demand).

Purpose – Using Whitehead's notion of prehension in a critical reappraisal of phenomenology, a different kind of understanding of subjectification and objectification is being proposed in which subjectification is that which enables action as a multiplicity or virtuality, and objectification enables actuality.

Approach – A critical engagement with literature on objects, including Gabriel de Tarde, Alfred North Whitehead, Martin Heidegger and Graham Harman, is used to develop an original conception of objectification and subjectification. This is applied to debates about objectification in pornography.

Findings – This approach enables us to better understand the theoretical underpinnings of empirical philosophies such as Actor Network Theory in support of the argument that objects are capable of action. While subjectification is folded within the process of prehension as the opening of the virtual, it is logically possible to argue that objects are a matter of concern for ethics. This also means that in terms of the pornography debate, the pornographic object as such can be held accountable. We do not have to accept the instrumentalist argument that ‘what you do with it defines its ethics’.

Originality/value – The argument that objects are capable of action has thus far not been pursued in relation to questions of ethics as opposed to politics.

The aims of this study were (1) to examine the relationships among achievement goals, self-concept, learning strategies and self-regulation for post-secondary Indigenous Australian and Native American students and (2) to investigate whether the relationships among these key variables were similar or different for the two groups.

Students from the two Indigenous groups answered questionnaires assessing the relevant variables. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. Structure-oriented analysis was used to compare the two groups in terms of the strengths of the pathways, while level-oriented analysis was used to compare mean level differences.

Self-concept was found to positively predict deep learning and self-regulated learning, and these effects were mediated by achievement goals. Students who pursued mastery and social goals had more positive educational outcomes. Both structure and level-oriented differences were found.

Drawing on two distinct research traditions – self-concept and achievement goals – this study explored the synergies between these two perspectives and showed how the key constructs drawn from each framework were associated with successful learning.

To improve learning outcomes, interventions may need to target students’ self-concept, mastery-oriented and socially oriented motivations.

Supporting Indigenous students in their post-secondary education is an imperative. Psychologists have important insights to offer that can help achieve this noble aim.

Research on Indigenous students has mostly adopted a deficiency model. In contrast, this study takes an explicitly positive perspective on Indigenous student success by focusing on the active psychological ingredients that facilitate successful learning.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of including emotional intelligence training with programs related to providing mentorship to others. Formal mentoring programs, established with specific goals and objectives, need foundation work for context in order to be successful. This chapter pulls from professional literature, important basic components of both emotional intelligence skills and attributes for successful mentoring. By demonstrating the relationship between emotional intelligence and mentors who are successful, future programs and activities within the workplace regarding formal mentorship structures can be influenced positively. There is a relationship between having good emotional intelligence skills by people who mentor and being successful within the mentoring relationship. Mentors who are more self-aware of their own emotions are more likely to manage a mentoring relationship more positively and with better outcomes. Library and information science professionals are undergoing tremendous change within the professional environment, the establishment of mentoring networks can greatly influence professional turnover. The opinions and concepts presented from professional literature has been used and adapted by the author in various workshops and presentations. It is this practitioner’s opinion that any formal mentoring program should start with providing a foundation of emotional intelligence skills for the mentors.

Long-term care (LTC) homes are highly regulated settings that provide care to people living with complex health conditions who are often at the end of their lives. Mental health and quality of life are important concepts in LTC given the inherent poor health and diminished autonomy of residents living in this setting. The COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to further compound these issues through lockdowns limiting movement within and outside of LTC homes, increased fear of severe COVID-19 infections, staff shortages, and impaired communication through personal protective equipment. However, the evidence describing the effect of the pandemic on mental health and quality of life is mixed, with some studies describing increased rates of mental health concerns and others presenting modest increases or decreases. Creative strategies to mitigate negative mental health consequences of lockdown included technology supported and window or outdoor visits, increased access to volunteers, and supports for families. However, the evidence in this area continues to evolve as subsequent waves of the pandemic progress. Future research may present new evidence about other strategies that became important in different stages of the pandemic.

We examine the effects of pre-play communication in an experimental game with conflicting risk-dominant and payoff-dominant equilibria. We find that most players condition their choices on the messages received, and do so in an intuitive way, announcing an intention to play the payoff-dominant action, and choosing the payoff-dominant action if the opponent expresses the same intention. However, a significant minority of players misrepresent their intentions. In some sessions where these players appear, behavior converges to an equilibrium in which subjects misrepresent their intentions and play the risk-dominant equilibrium.

This chapter, together with those that follow, builds upon the ideas presented in the previous volume in this series (Maginn, Thompson, & Tonts, 2008). There we outlined our vision for a ‘pragmatic renaissance’ in contemporary qualitative research in urban studies. We argued that to survive as an effective and frequently used tool for policy development, a more systematic approach is needed in the way that qualitative-informed applied urban research is conceptualised and undertaken. In opening this volume we build on these initial ideas using housing as a meta-case study to progress the case for a systematic approach to qualitative research methods. We do this to both stimulate broad debate about the ways, in which qualitative research in urban/housing scholarship might be of greater use to policymakers and practitioners, as well as to suggest a way forward in realising the ‘pragmatic renaissance’.