342 research outputs found
Semantic browsing of digital collections
Visiting museums is an increasingly popular pastime. Studies have shown that visitors can draw on their museum experience, long after their visit, to learn new things in practical situations. Rather than viewing a visit as a
single learning event, we are interested in ways of extending the experience to allow visitors to access online resources tailored to their interests. Museums
typically have extensive archives that can be made available online, the challenge is to match these resources to the visitor’s interests and present them in a manner that facilitates exploration and engages the visitor. We propose the use of knowledge level resource descriptions to identify relevant resources and create structured presentations. A system that embodies this approach, which is in use in a UK museum, is presented and the applicability of the approach to the broader semantic web is discussed
Using tourism free-choice learning experiences to promote environmentally sustainable behaviour: The role of post-visit ‘action resources’
This paper argues the need for the providers of ecotourism and other free‐choice environmental learning experiences to promote the adoption of environmentally sustainable actions beyond their own sites, when visitors return to their home environments. Previous research indicates that although visitors often leave such experiences with a heightened awareness of conservation issues and intentions to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours, only a minority translate these intentions into real actions. Building on research and theory in relation to visitor experiences in free‐choice learning environments, the paper identifies three different stages in the educational process and proposes a strategy for facilitating the translation of visitors' behavioural intentions into the adoption of sustainable actions through the provision of post‐visit action resources
Visitors’ learning for environmental sustainability: Testing short- and long-term impacts of wildlife tourism experiences using structural equation modelling
Wildlife tourism experiences have the potential to positively impact tourists' awareness, appreciation and actions in relation to the specific wildlife they encounter and the environment in general. This paper investigates the extent of such impact across multiple sites, and uses Structural Equation Modelling to identify factors that best predict positive long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Three sets of variables were measured - visitors' entering attributes (including pre-visit environmental orientation and motivation for the visit), salient aspects of the experience, and short- and long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Although attributes such as pre-visit commitment and motivation to learn were among the best predictors of the long-term impact of the experience, there was evidence that aspects of the experience were also important. In particular, reflective engagement which involved cognitive and affective processing of the experience was found to be associated with short- and long-term environmental learning outcomes. The implications for wildlife tourism managers are discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Time Travelers: Mapping Museum Visitors across Time and Space
Open-air museums may encompass structures, buildings, sites, and other types of objects and artifacts that span across space and, because these objects were built and/or used during multiple periods of significance, across time. The multiplicity of storylines can confuse visitors. Thus, this paper introduces Somewhere in Time, a novel installation that integrates a combination of technologies with historic content that allows users to explore both time and space across museum structures/sites. We describe our work conceptualizing and designing a personalized, interactive map (Time Travelers) that allows visitors to explore complex narratives across both time and space
Anomalous acoustic reflection on a sliding interface or a shear band
We study the reflection of an acoustic plane wave from a steadily sliding
planar interface with velocity strengthening friction or a shear band in a
confined granular medium. The corresponding acoustic impedance is utterly
different from that of the static interface. In particular, the system being
open, the energy of an in-plane polarized wave is no longer conserved, the work
of the external pulling force being partitioned between frictional dissipation
and gain (of either sign) of coherent acoustic energy. Large values of the
friction coefficient favor energy gain, while velocity strengthening tends to
suppress it. An interface with infinite elastic contrast (one rigid medium) and
V-independent (Coulomb) friction exhibits spontaneous acoustic emission, as
already shown by M. Nosonovsky and G.G. Adams (Int. J. Ing. Sci., {\bf 39},
1257 (2001)). But this pathology is cured by any finite elastic contrast, or by
a moderately large V-strengthening of friction.
We show that (i) positive gain should be observable for rough-on-flat
multicontact interfaces (ii) a sliding shear band in a granular medium should
give rise to sizeable reflection, which opens a promising possibility for the
detection of shear localization.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Measuring in decays
We develop a method to measure the CKM angle without hadronic
uncertainties from the analysis of and K^\pm \D0bar
followed by singly Cabibbo-suppressed decays to non CP-eigenstates, such as
. This method utilizes the interference between and decays, and we point out several attractive features of
it. All the modes that need to be measured for this method are accessible in
the present data.Comment: 8 page
External Operators and Anomalous Dimensions in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory
It has recently been argued that soft-collinear effective theory for
processes involving both soft and collinear partons contains a new
soft-collinear mode, which can communicate between the soft and collinear
sectors of the theory. The formalism incorporating the corresponding fields
into the effective Lagrangian is extended to include external current and
four-quark operators relevant to weak interactions. An explicit calculation of
the anomalous dimensions of these operators reveals that soft-collinear modes
are needed for correctly describing the ultraviolet behavior of the effective
theory.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Three-Loop Chromomagnetic Interaction in HQET
We compute the three-loop QCD corrections to the quark chromomagnetic moment
and thus obtain the matching coefficient and the anomalous dimension of the
chromomagnetic interaction in HQET. As a byproduct we obtain the three-loop
corrections to the quark anomalous magnetic moment.Comment: 22 page
Plastic Flow in Two-Dimensional Solids
A time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model of plastic deformation in
two-dimensional solids is presented. The fundamental dynamic variables are the
displacement field \bi u and the lattice velocity {\bi v}=\p {\bi u}/\p t.
Damping is assumed to arise from the shear viscosity in the momentum equation.
The elastic energy density is a periodic function of the shear and tetragonal
strains, which enables formation of slips at large strains. In this work we
neglect defects such as vacancies, interstitials, or grain boundaries. The
simplest slip consists of two edge dislocations with opposite Burgers vectors.
The formation energy of a slip is minimized if its orientation is parallel or
perpendicular to the flow in simple shear deformation and if it makes angles of
with respect to the stretched direction in uniaxial stretching.
High-density dislocations produced in plastic flow do not disappear even if
the flow is stopped. Thus large applied strains give rise to metastable,
structurally disordered states. We divide the elastic energy into an elastic
part due to affine deformation and a defect part. The latter represents degree
of disorder and is nearly constant in plastic flow under cyclic straining.Comment: 16pages, Figures can be obtained at
http://stat.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index-e.htm
Lepton Polarization and Forward-Backward Asymmetries in b -> s tau+ tau-
We study the spin polarizations of both tau leptons in the decay b -> s tau+
tau-. In addition to the polarization asymmetries involving a single tau, we
construct asymmetries for the case where both polarizations are simultaneously
measured. We also study forward-backward asymmetries with polarized tau's. We
find that a large number of asymmetries are predicted to be large, >~ 10%. This
permits the measurement of all Wilson coefficients and the b-quark mass, thus
allowing the standard model (SM) to be exhaustively tested. Furthermore, there
are many unique signals for the presence of new physics. For example,
asymmetries involving triple-product correlations are predicted to be tiny
within the SM, O(10^{-2}). Their observation would be a clear signal of new
physics.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures (included). Paper somewhat reorganized,
references greatly expanded, conclusions unchange
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