A Visible-light Lyot Coronagraph for SCExAO/VAMPIRES

We describe the design and initial results from a visible-light Lyot coronagraph for SCExAO/VAMPIRES. The coronagraph is comprised of four hard-edged, partially transmissive focal plane masks with inner working angles of 36 mas, 55 mas, 92 mas, and 129 mas, respectively. The Lyot stop is a reflective, undersized design with a geometric throughput of 65.7%. Our preliminary on-sky contrast is 1e-2 at 0.1" to 1e-4 at 0.75" for all mask sizes. The coronagraph was deployed in early 2022 and is available for open use.Comment: Proceedings of SPIE 2022 Astronomical Instrumentation and Telescopes conference (#12184-163

Effects of flood hazard visualization format on house purchasing decisions

We investigated how decision-making is affected by the visual presentation of flood hazard information. We exposed participants to different formats of flood hazard information while they simulated selecting a property to purchase. We compared three flood hazard formats: (i) maps currently used by the UK Environment Agency, (ii) tables that present flood level and frequency information and (iii) graphical representations depicting the level-frequency combination using a cartoon house image as a physical referent. In the experiment participants were presented, via computer screen, side-by-side information about two houses in a series of trials. Participants made a forced choice preference judgement between 108 different pairs of houses to indicate which they would purchase. Our findings indicate that when hazard information is presented in map format, individuals are less accurate in selecting lower-hazard houses, compared to when the same information is presented as a graphic representation of a house or as a table. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Análisis de Contenido de Redes Sociales de Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas del Sector Turístico

Participar activamente en las redes sociales es indispensable especialmente para las Pymes, que buscan posicionarse en la mente del consumidor, generar mejor comunicación y mayor alcance optimizando sus limitados recursos. Para las empresas turísticas es aún más esencial y les permite atraer potenciales clientes dentro del país en el que operan y en diversas partes del mundo. El presente trabajo analiza perfiles y contenidos publicados en Facebook e Instagram, orientado a pequeñas y medianas empresas del sector turístico de España y Guatemala. Como resultado se identificaron características y oportunidades, enfocados a contenidos con mayor impacto y alcance.Participar activament a xarxes socials és indispensable especialment per a les Pimes, que busquen posicionar-se en la ment del consumidor, generar millor comunicació i major abast optimitzant els seus limitats recursos. Per a les empreses turístiques és encara més essencial i els permet atreure potencials clients dins del país en el qual operen i en diverses parts del món. El present treball analitza perfils i continguts publicats en Facebook i Instagram, orientat a petites i mitjanes empreses del sector turístic d'Espanya i Guatemala. Com a resultat es van identificar característiques i oportunitats, enfocats a continguts amb major impacte i abast

Effect of Addition of Diblock Copolymer Nanoparticles on the Evaporation Kinetics and Final Particle Morphology for Drying Aqueous Aerosol Droplets

A deeper understanding of the key processes that determine the particle morphologies generated during aerosol droplet drying is highly desirable for spray-drying of powdered pharmaceuticals and foods, predicting the properties of atmospheric particles, and monitoring disease transmission. Particle morphologies are affected by the drying kinetics of the evaporating droplets, which are in turn influenced by the composition of the initial droplet as well as the drying conditions. Herein, we use polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) to prepare three types of sterically stabilized diblock copolymer nanoparticles comprising the same steric stabilizer block and differing core blocks with z-average diameters ranging from 32 to 238 nm. These well-defined nanoparticles enable a systematic investigation of the effect of the nanoparticle size and composition on the drying kinetics of aqueous aerosol droplets (20–28 μm radius) and the final morphology of the resulting microparticles. A comparative kinetics electrodynamic balance was used to obtain evaporation profiles for 10 examples of nanoparticles at a relative humidity (RH) of 0, 45, or 65%. Nanoparticles comprising the same core block with mean diameters of 32, 79, and 214 nm were used to produce microparticles, which were dried under different RH conditions in a falling droplet column. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine how the drying kinetics influenced the final microparticle morphology. For dilute droplets, the chemical composition of the nanoparticles had no effect on the evaporation rate. However, employing smaller nanoparticles led to the formation of dried microparticles with a greater degree of buckling.<br/