Spiritual hosting: An exploration of the interplay between spiritual identities and tourism

The facilitation of tourism experiences based on shared ideology is increasingly being seen to contribute to tourism worldwide. However, these studies have not considered informal networks that promote shared religious or spiritual ideology, such as that offered by the New Zealand HIT (Hosting Israeli Travellers) network. Whilst pilgrimage for spiritual goals has been given considerable attention by tourism researchers, these studies have exclusively focused on religion and spirituality as a motivation among travellers, rather than hosts or the effect of hosts\u27 spiritual motivations on the host-tourist encounter. Drawing on exploratory qualitative research applying the Value-Stretch Gap-Analysis Model, this paper analyses the ideological characteristics of the New Zealand HIT network and provides insights into the motivations of HIT hosts. As such, this paper seeks to contribute insights into the interplay between tourism and spiritual identities by exploring the conceptual power of faith and spirituality in potentially shaping tourism production and consumption. The notion of spiritual hosting is introduced as an appropriate conceptualisation of the performance and construction of hosted experiences facilitated by the HIT network in New Zealand

Master plan : Greenport Shanghai Agropark

Greenport Shanghai is the innovative and ambitious exploration of how Chinese metropolitan agriculture will jump into the 21st century: circular, sustainable and profitable

Study program for encapsulation materials interface for low cost silicon solar array

An atmospheric corrosion model was developed and verified by five months of corrosion rate and climatology data acquired at the Mead, Nebraska LSA test site. Atmospheric corrosion rate monitors (ACM) show that moisture condensation probability and ionic conduction at the corroding surface or interface are controlling factors in corrosion rate. Protection of the corroding surface by encapsulant was shown by the ACM recordings to be maintained, independent of climatology, over the five months outdoor exposure period. The macroscopic corrosion processes which occur at Mead are shown to be reproduced in the climatology simulator. Controlled experiments with identical moisture and temperature aging cycles show that UV radiation causes corrosion while UV shielding inhibits LSA corrosion

tert-Butyl­dimethyl­silanol hemihydrate

The crystal structure of the title compound, C6H16OSi·0.5H2O, reveals an asymmetric unit containing two mol­ecules of the silanol and a single water mol­ecule. There is evidence of hydrogen bonding between the three mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The H atoms of the silanol OH groups and the water H atoms are each disordered equally over two positions

Spin Wave Diffraction and Perfect Imaging of a Grating

We study the diffraction of Damon-Eshbach-type spin waves incident on a one-dimensional grating realized by micro slits in a thin permalloy film. By means of time-resolved scanning Kerr microscopy we observe unique diffraction patterns behind the grating which exhibit replications of the spin-wave field at the slits. We show that these spin-wave images, with details finer than the wavelength of the incident Damon-Eshbach spin wavelength, arise from the strongly anisotropic spin wave dispersion.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Efficient and gentle delivery of molecules into cells with different elasticity via Progressive Mechanoporation

Intracellular delivery of cargo molecules such as membrane-impermeable proteins or drugs is crucial for cell treatment in biological and medical applications. Recently, microfluidic mechanoporation techniques have enabled transfection of previously inaccessible cells. These techniques create transient pores in the cell membrane by shear-induced or constriction contact-based rapid cell deformation. However, cells deform and recover differently from a given extent of shear stress or compression and it is unclear how the underlying mechanical properties affect the delivery efficiency of molecules into cells. In this study, we identify cell elasticity as a key mechanical determinant of delivery efficiency leading to the development of “progressive mechanoporation” (PM), a novel mechanoporation method that improves delivery efficiency into cells of different elasticity. PM is based on a multistage cell deformation, through a combination of hydrodynamic forces that pre-deform cells followed by their contact-based compression inside a PDMS-based device controlled by a pressure-based microfluidic controller. PM allows processing of small sample volumes (about 20 μL) with high-throughput (>10 000 cells per s), while controlling both operating pressure and flow rate for a reliable and reproducible cell treatment. We find that uptake of molecules of different sizes is correlated with cell elasticity whereby delivery efficiency of small and big molecules is favoured in more compliant and stiffer cells, respectively. A possible explanation for this opposite trend is a different size, number and lifetime of opened pores. Our data demonstrates that PM reliably and reproducibly delivers impermeable cargo of the size of small molecule inhibitors such as 4 kDa FITC-dextran with >90% efficiency into cells of different mechanical properties without affecting their viability and proliferation rates. Importantly, also much larger cargos such as a >190 kDa Cas9 protein–sgRNA complex are efficiently delivered high-lighting the biological, biomedical and clinical applicability of our findings

Efficient and gentle delivery of molecules into cells with different elasticity via Progressive Mechanoporation.

Intracellular delivery of cargo molecules such as membrane-impermeable proteins or drugs is crucial for cell treatment in biological and medical applications. Recently, microfluidic mechanoporation techniques have enabled transfection of previously inaccessible cells. These techniques create transient pores in the cell membrane by shear-induced or constriction contact-based rapid cell deformation. However, cells deform and recover differently from a given extent of shear stress or compression and it is unclear how the underlying mechanical properties affect the delivery efficiency of molecules into cells. In this study, we identify cell elasticity as a key mechanical determinant of delivery efficiency leading to the development of "progressive mechanoporation" (PM), a novel mechanoporation method that improves delivery efficiency into cells of different elasticity. PM is based on a multistage cell deformation, through a combination of hydrodynamic forces that pre-deform cells followed by their contact-based compression inside a PDMS-based device controlled by a pressure-based microfluidic controller. PM allows processing of small sample volumes (about 20 μL) with high-throughput (>10 000 cells per s), while controlling both operating pressure and flow rate for a reliable and reproducible cell treatment. We find that uptake of molecules of different sizes is correlated with cell elasticity whereby delivery efficiency of small and big molecules is favoured in more compliant and stiffer cells, respectively. A possible explanation for this opposite trend is a different size, number and lifetime of opened pores. Our data demonstrates that PM reliably and reproducibly delivers impermeable cargo of the size of small molecule inhibitors such as 4 kDa FITC-dextran with >90% efficiency into cells of different mechanical properties without affecting their viability and proliferation rates. Importantly, also much larger cargos such as a >190 kDa Cas9 protein-sgRNA complex are efficiently delivered high-lighting the biological, biomedical and clinical applicability of our findings