928 research outputs found
Discounting Works in the Hotel Industry: A Structural Approach to Understanding Why
This case study provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between discounting hotel room rates and hotel financial performance. The dynamics of the lodging industry are accounted for through the adoption of an error correction model. Recent research suggests that the use of discounting room rates may not be an effective pricing strategy as it results in increased occupancy rates at decreased average daily rates, thereby reducing a common financial performance indicator – revenue per available room (revPAR). The recommendation made to hotel managers, then, is to avoid discounting and instead adopt an average rate. This study generates opposing findings and reveals that discounting may be a practical short-term pricing solution that may compensate for market disequilibria. The results suggest that using statistical residuals rather than room rate averages may more accurately forecast appropriate hotel room rates and balance supply and demand. Thus, the recommendation of adopting average room rates may provide incorrect implications for managers in the short run
Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions
Original article can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/articles/details.asp?ID=35052 Copyright IGI. Posted by permission of the publisher.This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.Peer reviewe
On the Observability of Meso- and Macro-scopic Quantum Coherence of Domain Walls in Magnetic Insulators
Results are presented of a numerical calculation of the tunneling gap for a
domain wall moving in the double well potential of a pair of voids in a
magnetic insulator. Both symmetric and asymmetric double well potentials are
considered. It is found that, even in the absence of dissipation, the prospects
for observing quantum coherence on a meso- or macro-scopic scale appears
unlikely.Comment: 15 pages, Plain LaTex, UBC TP-93-1
Phase transition between quantum and classical regimes for the escape rate of a biaxial spin system
Employing the method of mapping the spin problem onto a particle one, we have
derived the particle Hamiltonian for a biaxial spin system with a transverse or
longitudinal magnetic field. Using the Hamiltonian and introducing the
parameter where (U_{min})
corresponds to the top (bottom) of the potential and is the energy of the
particle, we have studied the first- or second-order transition around the
crossover temperature between thermal and quantum regimes for the escape rate,
depending on the anisotropy constant and the external magnetic field. It is
shown that the phase boundary separating the first- and second-order transition
and its crossover temperature are greatly influenced by the transverse
anisotropy constant as well as the transverse or longitudinal magnetic field.Comment: 5 pages + 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Instanton picture of the spin tunneling in the Lipkin model
A consistent theory of the ground state energy and its splitting due to the
process of tunneling for the Lipkin model is presented. For the functional
integral in terms of the spin coherent states for the partition function of the
model we accurately calculate the trivial and the instanton saddle point
contributions. We show that such calculation has to be perfomed very accurately
taking into account the discrete nature of the functional integral. Such
accurate consideration leads to finite corrections to a naive continous
consideration. We present comparison with numerical calculation of the ground
state energy and the tunneling splitting and with the results obtained by the
quasiclassical method and get excellent agreement.Comment: REVTEX, 32 pages, 3 figure
Magnon Exchange Mechanism of Ferromagnetic Superconductivity
The magnon exchange mechanism of ferromagnetic superconductivity
(FM-superconductivity) was developed to explain in a natural way the fact that
the superconductivity in , and is confined to the
ferromagnetic phase.The order parameter is a spin anti-parallel component of a
spin-1 triplet with zero spin projection. The transverse spin fluctuations are
pair forming and the longitudinal ones are pair breaking. In the present paper,
a superconducting solution, based on the magnon exchange mechanism, is obtained
which closely matches the experiments with and . The onset of
superconductivity leads to the appearance of complicated Fermi surfaces in the
spin up and spin down momentum distribution functions. Each of them consist of
two pieces, but they are simple-connected and can be made very small by varying
the microscopic parameters. As a result, it is obtained that the specific heat
depends on the temperature linearly, at low temperature, and the coefficient
is smaller in the superconducting phase than in the
ferromagnetic one. The absence of a quantum transition from ferromagnetism to
ferromagnetic superconductivity in a weak ferromagnets and is
explained accounting for the contribution of magnon self-interaction to the
spin fluctuations' parameters. It is shown that in the presence of an external
magnetic field the system undergoes a first order quantum phase transition.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
Nonadiabatic Landau Zener tunneling in Fe_8 molecular nanomagnets
The Landau Zener method allows to measure very small tunnel splittings \Delta
in molecular clusters Fe_8. The observed oscillations of \Delta as a function
of the magnetic field applied along the hard anisotropy axis are explained in
terms of topological quantum interference of two tunnel paths of opposite
windings. Studies of the temperature dependence of the Landau Zener transition
rate P gives access to the topological quantum interference between exited spin
levels. The influence of nuclear spins is demonstrated by comparing P of the
standard Fe_8 sample with two isotopically substituted samples. The need of a
generalized Landau Zener transition rate theory is shown.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Ward identity and optical-conductivity sum rule in the d-density wave state
We consider the role of the Ward identity in dealing with the transport
properties of an interacting system forming a d-wave modulated charge-density
wave or staggered flux phase. In particular, we address this issue from the
point of view of the restricted optical-conductivity sum rule. Our aim is to
provide a controlled approximation for the current-current correlation function
which allows us also to determine analytically the corresponding sum rule. By
analyzing the role of the vertex functions in both the microscopic interacting
model and in the effective mean-field Hamiltonian, we propose a non-standard
low-energy sum-rule for this system. We also discuss the possible applicability
of these results for the description of cuprate superconductors in the
pseudogap regime.Comment: Revised version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Dicke-Type Energy Level Crossings in Cavity-Induced Atom Cooling: Another Superradiant Cooling
This paper is devoted to energy-spectral analysis for the system of a
two-level atom coupled with photons in a cavity. It is shown that the
Dicke-type energy level crossings take place when the atom-cavity interaction
of the system undergoes changes between the weak coupling regime and the strong
one. Using the phenomenon of the crossings we develop the idea of
cavity-induced atom cooling proposed by the group of Ritsch, and we lay
mathematical foundations of a possible mechanism for another superradiant
cooling in addition to that proposed by Domokos and Ritsch. The process of our
superradiant cooling can function well by cavity decay and by control of the
position of the atom, at least in (mathematical) theory, even if there is
neither atomic absorption nor atomic emission of photons.Comment: 15 pages; 8 figure
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