19,278 research outputs found
Tourism development in Kuwait: examining the political-economic challenges in a unique rentier economy
This article explores the challenges Kuwait faces to develop tourism due to the particularly unique political-economic system of popular rentierism. Kuwait’s tourism industry is relatively underdeveloped in comparison to other Gulf Cooperation Council countries and has not received much attention by tourists, policy-makers, and scholars. This study provides both a macro-level analysis of the political economic obstacles to tourism development in Kuwait and the more micro-level challenges that have resulted, particularly in relation to proposed mega-development projects. While insights from this study are useful for understanding the role of tourism in the rentier economies, this study also further theorises tourism within the field of international relations and political economy and shows how tourism development is of particular importance for public diplomacy in the current global arena
ALLY: An operator's associate for satellite ground control systems
The key characteristics of an intelligent advisory system is explored. A central feature is that human-machine cooperation should be based on a metaphor of human-to-human cooperation. ALLY, a computer-based operator's associate which is based on a preliminary theory of human-to-human cooperation, is discussed. ALLY assists the operator in carrying out the supervisory control functions for a simulated NASA ground control system. Experimental evaluation of ALLY indicates that operators using ALLY performed at least as well as they did when using a human associate and in some cases even better
Spatial Degrees of Freedom in Everett Quantum Mechanics
Stapp claims that, when spatial degrees of freedom are taken into account,
Everett quantum mechanics is ambiguous due to a "core basis problem." To
examine an aspect of this claim I generalize the ideal measurement model to
include translational degrees of freedom for both the measured system and the
measuring apparatus. Analysis of this generalized model using the Everett
interpretation in the Heisenberg picture shows that it makes unambiguous
predictions for the possible results of measurements and their respective
probabilities. The presence of translational degrees of freedom for the
measuring apparatus affects the probabilities of measurement outcomes in the
same way that a mixed state for the measured system would. Examination of a
measurement scenario involving several observers illustrates the consistency of
the model with perceived spatial localization of the measuring apparatus.Comment: 34 pp., no figs. Introduction, discussion revised. Material
tangential to main point remove
Holes in the walls: primordial black holes as a solution to the cosmological domain wall problem
We propose a scenario in which the cosmological domain wall and monopole
problems are solved without any fine tuning of the initial conditions or
parameters in the Lagrangian of an underlying filed theory. In this scenario
domain walls sweep out (unwind) the monopoles from the early universe, then the
fast primordial black holes perforate the domain walls, change their topology
and destroy them. We find further that the (old vacuum) energy density released
from the domain walls could alleviate but not solve the cosmological flatness
problem.Comment: References added; Published in Phys. Rev.
Global monopole, dark matter and scalar tensor theory
In this article, we discuss the space-time of a global monopole field as a
candidate for galactic dark matter in the context of scalar tensor theory.Comment: 8 pages, Accepted in Mod. Phys. Lett.
Differential efficacies of human type I and type II interferons as antiviral and antiproliferative agents.
Self-stabilization of extra dimensions
We show that the problem of stabilization of extra dimensions in Kaluza-Klein
type cosmology may be solved in a theory of gravity involving high-order
curvature invariants. The method suggested (employing a slow-change
approximation) can work with rather a general form of the gravitational action.
As examples, we consider pure gravity with Lagrangians quadratic and cubic in
the scalar curvature and some more complex ones in a simple Kaluza-Klein
framework. After a transition to the 4D Einstein conformal frame, this results
in effective scalar field theories with certain effective potentials, which in
many cases possess positive minima providing stable small-size extra
dimensions. Estimates made in the original (Jordan) conformal frame show that
the problem of a small value of the cosmological constant in the present
Universe is softened in this framework but is not solved completely.}Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, revtex4. Version with additions and corrections,
accepted at Phys. Rev.
Evidence for Cosmic Acceleration is Robust to Observed Correlations Between Type Ia Supernova Luminosity and Stellar Age
Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) are powerful standardizable candles for
constraining cosmological models and provided the first evidence of the
accelerated expansion of the universe. Their precision derives from empirical
correlations, now measured from SNe Ia, between their luminosities,
light-curve shapes, colors and most recently with the stellar mass of their
host galaxy. As mass correlates with other galaxy properties, alternative
parameters have been investigated to improve SN Ia standardization though none
have been shown to significantly alter the determination of cosmological
parameters. We re-examine a recent claim, based on 34 SN Ia in nearby passive
host galaxies, of a 0.05 mag/Gyr dependence of standardized SN Ia luminosity on
host age which if extrapolated to higher redshifts, would be a bias up to 0.25
mag, challenging the inference of dark energy. We reanalyze this sample of
hosts using both the original method and a Bayesian hierarchical model and find
after a fuller accounting of the uncertainties the significance of a dependence
on age to be and after the removal of a single
poorly-sampled SN Ia. To test the claim that a trend seen in old stellar
populations can be applied to younger ages, we extend our analysis to a larger
sample which includes young hosts. We find the residual dependence of host age
(after all standardization typically employed for cosmological measurements) to
be consistent with zero for 254 SNe Ia from the Pantheon sample, ruling out the
large but low significance trend seen in passive hosts.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ
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