12,808 research outputs found

    Spartan Daily, November 8, 1978

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    Volume 71, Issue 47https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6406/thumbnail.jp

    High-Energy Neutrino Astronomy: A Glimpse of the Promised Land

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    In 2012, physicists and astronomers celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the detection of cosmic rays by Viktor Hess. One year later, in 2013, there was first evidence for extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos, i.e. for signal which may contain key information on the origin of cosmic rays. That evidence is provided by data taken with the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole. First concepts to build a detector of this kind have been discussed at the 1973 International Cosmic Ray Conference. Nobody would have guessed at that time that the march towards first discoveries would take forty years, the biblical time of the march from Egypt to Palestine. But now, after all, the year 2013 has provided us a first glimpse to the promised land of the neutrino universe at highest energies. This article sketches the evolution towards detectors with a realistic discovery potential, describes the recent relevant results obtained with the IceCube and ANTARES neutrino telescopes and tries a look into the future.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures. Talk given at the session of the Russian Academy of Science dedicated to Bruno Pontecorvo, Dubna, Sept. 201

    Gravitational energy and cosmic acceleration

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    Cosmic acceleration is explained quantitatively, as an apparent effect due to gravitational energy differences that arise in the decoupling of bound systems from the global expansion of the universe. "Dark energy" is a misidentification of those aspects of gravitational energy which by virtue of the equivalence principle cannot be localised, namely gradients in the energy due to the expansion of space and spatial curvature variations in an inhomogeneous universe. A new scheme for cosmological averaging is proposed which solves the Sandage-de Vaucouleurs paradox. Concordance parameters fit supernovae luminosity distances, the angular scale of the sound horizon in the CMB anisotropies, and the effective comoving baryon acoustic oscillation scale seen in galaxy clustering statistics. Key observational anomalies are potentially resolved, and unique predictions made, including a quantifiable variance in the Hubble flow below the scale of apparent homogeneity.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. An essay which received Honorable Mention in the 2007 GRF Essay Competition. To appear in a special issue of Int. J. Mod. Phys.

    Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews\ud

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    The scientific worldview is based on laws, which are supposed to be certain, objective, and independent of time and context. The narrative worldview found in literature, myth and religion, is based on stories, which relate the events experienced by a subject in a particular context with an uncertain outcome. This paper argues that the concept of “agent”, supported by the theories of evolution, cybernetics and complex adaptive systems, allows us to reconcile scientific and narrative perspectives. An agent follows a course of action through its environment with the aim of maximizing its fitness. Navigation along that course combines the strategies of regulation, exploitation and exploration, but needs to cope with often-unforeseen diversions. These can be positive (affordances, opportunities), negative (disturbances, dangers) or neutral (surprises). The resulting sequence of encounters and actions can be conceptualized as an adventure. Thus, the agent appears to play the role of the hero in a tale of challenge and mystery that is very similar to the "monomyth", the basic storyline that underlies all myths and fairy tales according to Campbell [1949]. This narrative dynamics is driven forward in particular by the alternation between prospect (the ability to foresee diversions) and mystery (the possibility of achieving an as yet absent prospect), two aspects of the environment that are particularly attractive to agents. This dynamics generalizes the scientific notion of a deterministic trajectory by introducing a variable “horizon of knowability”: the agent is never fully certain of its further course, but can anticipate depending on its degree of prospect

    Spartan Daily October 3, 2011

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    Volume 137, Issue 19https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1073/thumbnail.jp

    Tourists’ motivations, learning, and trip satisfaction facilitate pro-environmental outcomes of the Antarctic tourist experience

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    Tourism in Antarctica has been growing and diversifying. While Antarctic tourists are purported to have meaningful interactions with the Antarctic environment, little empirical research exists to understand how motivations and trip characteristics of the Antarctic journey shape tourists' experiential outputs, which may in turn influence their pro-environmental outcomes. To examine these relationships, we conducted exploratory analyses using 242 pre-and post-trip surveys collected during the 2019–2020 Antarctic season. We identified four motivation types of Antarctic tourists: experience & learning, adventure into Antarctica, social bonding, and trip of a lifetime. Following the interactional model of tourist experience, we associated this motivation typology and trip characteristics with experiential outputs (Perceived Learning, Measured Learning, and Satisfaction) and pro-environmental outcomes (Environmental Concerns, Management Preferences, and Behavior Intentions). Our results indicated most tourists traveling to Antarctica already possessed high levels of pro-environmental attitudes and behavior intentions, leading to few significant changes after the journey. However, we found that the specific inputs of motivations and trip characteristics influenced experiential outputs in different ways -especially Perceived Learning and Satisfaction-, which were strongly associated with pro-environmental outcomes. Findings reinforce the importance of meaningful and transformative Antarctic tourist experiences in promoting sustainable human-environment interactions and provide new insights regarding tourists’ learning and experiential outcomes. Management implications: Tourists traveling to Antarctica hold a diversity of expectations and motivations. These motivations interact with trip characteristics to influence tourists’ experiences. Enhanced understanding of these relationships could contribute to the Antarctic tourism industry efforts to develop strategic promotion, programming, and communication strategies that produce meaningful experiences and foster pro-environmental outcomes. As tourism diversifies, we should reflect on how the Antarctic tourist experience could become more customized and participatory, effectively inspiring Antarctic tourists to serve as stewards and ambassadors for the Last Frontie

    Invasions and Inversions: Representations of Otherness in the Writings of Bram Stoker

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    Bram Stoker has long been defined by a single text: Dracula. The elements that drove this unparalleled success – foremost among them a perverse interest in ‘otherness’ – frequently manifest in Stoker’s other works, however. Building on the exemplary writings of Stokerian scholars such as William Hughes and David Glover, this study aims to expand its literary horizons, providing a comprehensive look at depictions of otherness across the author’s entire literary canon. This study finds its focal point in the twin faces of invasion and inversion. Within these terms are encapsulated many meanings: the balance of what is ‘out there’ and what is ‘in here,’ of what is trying to get out and what is trying to get in, of that which is on the surface and that which resides beneath. This thesis draws on all manner of Stoker’s work – novels, short stories, and non-fiction work – to map the author’s perception of otherness. And although the study may be anchored by region, the ‘representations of otherness’ extend far beyond geographical concerns: the ‘foreignness’ that so unsettles Stoker is far-reaching, often being tied up in wider questions of gendered, religious, or sexual otherness. This thesis forges a connection between a preoccupation with otherness and the author’s own complex national identity, identifying a distinct literary persona created as a form of camouflage. Stoker’s hegemonic performance allows him to engage with questions of otherness from a place of assumed safety, ostensibly identifying as a member of a perceived elite – yet it is doomed to remain incomplete. At heart, Stoker knows the divisions he propagates to be false constructs; after all, he has manipulated them himself in the creation of his authorial persona. For Stoker the true horror exists in his interior: not what is ‘out there’ trying to get in, but what is ‘in here’ trying to get out
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