Does social contact lessen perceived cultural distance? Evidence from tourist–host social contact

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201804_a bcm

Tourist typology in social contact: An addition to existing theories

Tourist-host social contact, as a unique type of social contact, is not getting sufficient attention in tourism academia considering its remarkable impacts on tourists’ travel attitudes, behaviors and long-term perceptions. The objectives of the current study are to explore the dimensions of tourist-host social contact and to contribute to the theory of tourist typology according to their dynamic nature in tourist-host social interaction. Forty-five in-depth interviews were conducted to generate insightful information. The software of NVivo 10 was applied to examine and code the transcripts. As a result, six dimensions were adopted to describe tourist-host social contact, which are purposes, determinants, activities, intensity, impacts and attitudes. Five types of tourists were pinpointed and theoretical and practical contributions of the study were discussed

Rousseau and Plato on the Legislator and the Limits of Law

Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Plato offer doctrines of the great legislator, that highly virtuous figure who designs foundational laws for a political community, in order to shed light on the problem of legislation. This problem is that positive law is incapable of achieving the ends in political life that are expected of it, even though it is understood to be the chief tool at the disposal of the lawgiver. Close consideration of Rousseau’s and Plato’s political texts reveals that both philosophers are in agreement about the limited function of positive law, insofar as its exclusive purpose is to forestall the ills of human life. But they also agree that the effectiveness of legislation requires something more: the condition of effective laws is a comprehensive system of civic education, directed primarily at the passions, through which individual human beings are turned into good citizens. Taking into account the extreme difficulty of establishing such educational institutions, both Rousseau and Plato put forward doctrines of the legislator to indicate what sort of figure could possibly accomplish this task with success. The study finds that the two philosophers’ conceptions of the legislator are by and large similar, and finally, that they both express pessimism on the capacity of laws to promote the good life.Ph

Louis M. Cusher

Graduating photograph of Louis M. Cusher, Miami Medical College, 1905. This photograph is a part of the Miami Medical College Graduate and Faculty Photograph collection

Rousseau and Plato on the Legislator and the Limits of Law

Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Plato offer doctrines of the great legislator, that highly virtuous figure who designs foundational laws for a political community, in order to shed light on the problem of legislation. This problem is that positive law is incapable of achieving the ends in political life that are expected of it, even though it is understood to be the chief tool at the disposal of the lawgiver. Close consideration of Rousseau’s and Plato’s political texts reveals that both philosophers are in agreement about the limited function of positive law, insofar as its exclusive purpose is to forestall the ills of human life. But they also agree that the effectiveness of legislation requires something more: the condition of effective laws is a comprehensive system of civic education, directed primarily at the passions, through which individual human beings are turned into good citizens. Taking into account the extreme difficulty of establishing such educational institutions, both Rousseau and Plato put forward doctrines of the legislator to indicate what sort of figure could possibly accomplish this task with success. The study finds that the two philosophers’ conceptions of the legislator are by and large similar, and finally, that they both express pessimism on the capacity of laws to promote the good life.Ph

Ideal Lift Distributions and Flap Settings for Adaptive Tailless Aircraft

With ever increasing maturity in the field of subsonic aircraft design, there exists the desire to tailor the performance of an aircraft to suit specific flight conditions. This has led to several adaptive-wing approaches which seek to improve aircraft performance by changing the wing shape in flight, resulting in drag reduction. One such adaptive-wing approach that has gained considerable popularity is the use of multiple spanwise trailing-edge flaps which are used to optimally distribute the lift of the wing such that drag is minimized. Recent research has been conducted utilizing such a technique applied to an aircraft with a wing-tail configuration and discussed the need to extend these methods to tailless, or all-wing, aircraft, thereby improving design possibilities to include unconventional configurations. The current work explores tailless aircraft configurations which utilize multiple trailing-edge flaps for the purpose of wing adaptation and drag reduction. As with all tailless aircraft design, the trailing-edge flap settings, and thus wing lift distribution, must be solved while satisfying a longitudinal-pitching-moment constraint in order to ensure longitudinal stability and trim. This is due to the lack of a secondary horizontal surface, such as a tail or canard, which is typically used for stability and trim purposes. The current work implements a numerical approach which was developed to solve for the optimal flap scheduling of a wing with multiple trailing-edge flaps for various flight conditions. Theory presented by R.T. Jones was used as a starting point to solve for the target lift distribution resulting in minimized induced drag with a pitching moment constraint. Also utilized were the ideas of basic and additional lift, as well as thin airfoil theory relations in order to reduce both induced and profile drag by the redistribution of wing lift along its span. The cases were solved with longitudinal trim and lift constraints. The results were presented for planar, tapered wings with multiple quarter-chord sweep angles as well as multiple airfoil sections in order to verify the theory and gain insight into design capabilities and trends. It has been shown by these results that such adaptive wing methods are applicable and beneficial to tailless aircraft configurations, as reductions in both induced and profile drag have been achieved. In addition, the method is successful for achieving longitudinal trim, and was explored successfully for multiple static margins in order to test the consequence of different longitudinal stability considerations