Are the sungrazing comets the inner source of pickup ions and energetic neutral atoms?

We present arguments that at least part of the inner source of pickup ions in the solar wind might be the material released by sungrazing comets. Based on a statistical analysis of sungrazing comets detected over almost eight years of LASCO operation (1996 -- September 09 2004) an overwhelming majority of the observed sungrazers belong to the Kreutz group of comets, follows tightly clumped orbits and break up at $\sim 40 - 4$ solar radii in a well defined region of space. The material released from these comets could be (after ionization) an important portion of the inner source of pickup ions (PUIs), as the local mass flux of the inner source and cometary PUIs seem comparable. We indicate time intervals during the year when the cometary PUIs could be observed from a spacecraft on the Earth's orbit (from the end of July until the end of the year) and show three time intervals when they should be observable by Ulysses (from its launch time until the end of 1990, from the end of November 1994 until mid-May 1995 and from February 2001 until the end of July, 2001). We argue that the PUIs from the inner source should include both singly and doubly charged ions and that this cometary hypothesis alleviates some difficulties (in particular, the issue of hydrogen deficit) in the interpretation of the inner source as solar wind neutralized on dust grains close to the Sun.Comment: accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic

The ties that bind: an attachment theory perspective of social bonds in tourism

The management of personal business-to-business (B2B) relationships is an important yet under-researched issue in tourism. Social bonds which develop for a business partner when individuals work together can impact positively on maintaining the relationship with the business partner’s organization and prevent switching to a competitor. The literature suggests that the management of social bonds is especially significant for small tourism businesses. However there has been limited use of theory to explain what social bonds are and how they can be created. Attachment theory has been used extensively in researching personal relationships but in tourism, its application has been mainly limited to studies on place attachment. This research combines existing knowledge of social bonds and attachment theory to develop a multidimensional social bonds scale which was tested in three separate studies involving tourism and hospitality professionals. The results confirmed the existence of two distinct social bonds: the security bond and the closeness bond, and the scale items provide useful guidance for creating personalized strategies to manage B2B relationships with tourism partners. The new scale is proposed as an important tool to measure the strength of social bonds and recommendations are given on further tourism contexts where the scale could be tested

UVSat: a concept of an ultraviolet/optical photometric satellite

Time-series photometry from space in the ultraviolet can be presently done with only a few platforms, none of which is able to provide wide-field long-term high-cadence photometry. We present a concept of UVSat, a twin space telescope which will be capable to perform this kind of photometry, filling an observational niche. The satellite will host two telescopes, one for observations in the ultraviolet, the other for observations in the optical band. We also briefly show what science can be done with UVSat.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the PAS (Proc. of the 2nd BRITE Science conference, Innsbruck

Surface science of soft scorpionates

The chemisorption of the soft scorpionate Li[PhTmMe] onto silver and gold surfaces is reported. Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy in combination with the Raman analysis of suitable structural models, namely, [Cu(κ3-S,S,S-PhTmMe)(PCy3)], [Ag(κ3-S,S,S-PhTmMe)(PCy3)], [Ag(κ2-S,S-PhTmMe)(PEt3)], and [Au(κ1-S-PhTmMe)(PCy3)], are employed to identify the manner in which this potentially tridentate ligand binds to these surfaces. On colloidal silver surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) spectra are consistent with PhTmMe binding in a didentate fashion to the surface, holding the aryl group in close proximity to the surface. In contrast, on gold colloid, we observe that the species prefers a monodentate coordination in which the aryl group is not in close proximity to the surface