Albedo heterogeneity on the surface of (1943) Anteros

We have investigated the effect of rotation on the polarization of scattered light for the near-Earth asteroid (1943) Anteros using the Dual Beam Imaging Polarimeter on the University of Hawaii's 2.2 m telescope. Anteros is an L-type asteroid that has not been previously observed polarimetrically. We find weak but significant variations in the polarization of Anteros as a function of rotation, indicating albedo changes across the surface. Specifically, we find that Anteros has a background albedo of p_v = 0.18 +/- 0.02 with a dark spot of p_v < 0.09 covering < 2% of the surface.Comment: Accepted to Icarus, 15 pages, 3 fig

Breakthroughs on the Dark Matter Issue

Last year observations had a profound impact on our views on the amount and nature of dark matter in the universe. We give a brief review of the recent history of dark matter models beyond the pure cold dark matter universe. In view of the most recent cosmological data, we then go on to discuss models with a positive cosmological constant. Finally we explicitly analyse a class of particle physics models for a dynamical cosmological component with negative pressure (``quintessence''), in the context of supersymmetric theories.Comment: 13 pages; Talk given by Antonio Masiero at the 8^th International Workshop on Neutrino Telescopes, 23-26 Feb. 1999, Venice, Italy. To be published in the Proceeding

A note on the existence of solutions to Markovian superquadratic BSDEs with an unbounded terminal condition

In [Stochastc Process. Appl., 122(9):3173-3208], the author proved the existence and the uniqueness of solutions to Markovian superquadratic BSDEs with an unbounded terminal condition when the generator and the terminal condition are locally Lipschitz. In this paper, we prove that the existence result remains true for these BSDEs when the regularity assumptions on the terminal condition is weakened

Selling Rooms Online: The Use of Social Media and Online Travel Agents

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the reason why hoteliers choose to be present in online travel agent (OTA) and social media web sites for sales purposes. It also investigates the technological and human factors related to these two practices. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey sent to a wide range of hotels in a Swiss touristic region. The empirical analysis involves the specification of two ordered logit models exploring the importance (in terms of online sales) of both social media and the online travel agent, Booking.com. Findings – Findings highlight the constant tension between visibility and online sales in the web arena, as well as a clear distinction in social media and OTA web site adoption between hospitality structures using online management tools and employing personnel with specific skills. Practical implications – The research highlights the need for the hospitality industry to maintain an effective presence on social media and OTAs in order to move towards the creation of a new form of social booking technologies to increase their visibility and sales. Originality/value – This research contributes to understanding the major role played by OTAs and social media in the hospitality industry while underlining the possibility of a major interplay between the two