Destroying the Ethnosphere? How Tourism Has Impacted the Sherpas of Nepal

Tourism is perhaps the most salient and impactful process of globalization today. As we are increasingly more mobile, traveling with endless comfort and ease, we explore the far reaches of the planet as ambassadors of our own culture and as agents of change. In this process we potentially threaten the cultural diversity of the planet. So how can we reduce the impact of tourism on the cultures of the world? In order to answer this question I examine the implications of cultural and adventure tourism, especially as they relate to the Sherpas of Nepal. Sherpas have been involved with both kinds of tourism for over 60 years, yet they have been successful in retaining much of their cultural identity and heritage. Because they have taken an active role in the tourism industry and have been the providers of the tourist experience, they have created a working relationship that fosters a cultural exchange and sharing, instead of one culture taking over the other. Through cultural and adventure touristic ventures in areas where the local community is the provider of the experience, we can better understand cultural diversity and improve cultural fluency for all people who travel the world. This is a reconsideration of tourism as a process of globalization as one for improving understanding, not for eliciting harmful change

Alternative Education: A Continued Examination of How States Are Addressing Alternative Education in Their Schools

In an attempt to understand the current preparation level of Arkansas for the Leave No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002, the current project conducts a preliminary literature and web search to record what other states have done and are doing to prepare for NCLB. A brief synopsis of the history of alternative policies is also included. Results indicate that of the twelve states examined, most states are following a similar pattern with regard to preparing for their “at risk” students and passing similar alternative education policies. Three common characteristics found across the states: defining what alternative education is and who it provides for, legislation providing for each state’s plan, and finally a discussion of the various funding methods

Renormalization of Entanglement Entropy and the Gravitational Effective Action

The entanglement entropy associated with a spatial boundary in quantum field theory is UV divergent, with the leading term proportional to the area of the boundary. For a class of quantum states defined by a path integral, the Callan-Wilczek formula gives a geometrical definition of the entanglement entropy. We show that, for this class of quantum states, the entanglement entropy is rendered UV-finite by precisely the counterterms required to cancel the UV divergences in the gravitational effective action. In particular, the leading contribution to the entanglement entropy is given by the renormalized Bekenstein-Hawking formula, in accordance with a proposal of Susskind and Uglum. We show that the subleading UV-divergent terms in the entanglement entropy depend nontrivially on the quantum state. We compute new subleading terms in the entanglement entropy and find agreement with the Wald entropy formula for black hole spacetimes with bifurcate Killing horizons. We speculate that the entanglement entropy of an arbitrary spatial boundary may be a well-defined observable in quantum gravity.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures. v2: minor corrections and clarification