Local Food in Tourism: An investigation into food offerings at Irish visitor attractions—Are we telling the right story?

This study’s aim is to investigate food offerings at visitor attractions in Ireland. Recent comments by Fáilte Ireland regarding food at visitor attractions has called on operators to localise their food offerings. A sample of eleven providers of food at visitor sites were invited to participate in qualitative interviews, to conceptualise their experiences with the provision of local food. The results showed that the sector had an overall interest in local food with most of the participants recognising that not enough emphasis was being placed on its promotion. The results of the study reveal that provision of local food provides meaningful connections with tourists through storytelling and place making. The participants also associated local food with continuity within a site, particularly within sites with multiple attractions. Providers found that it was important to support local producers, but faced challenges with supply chains, reliability, and price. The study concludes that overall, providers of food offerings at tourist sites do not recognise their roles as potential promoters of local food, and their power as agents within a national food tourism network is underestimated

Analysis of the conical piezoelectric acoustic emission transducer

Analyses of the properties of conical piezoelectric acoustic emission transducer are presented here. The conical piezoelectric transducer is used to scanning normal displacement on a surface of testing constructions in NDT methods, such as acoustic emission. The simplified one-dimensional analysis based on the equivalent circuit of conical waveguide is recapitulated. FEM analysis on this transducer is presented. Both the frequency response characteristic of the transducer and his time response on pulse excitation are results of this analysis. All of computations are done for various cone angles of piezoceramic (PTZ-H5) element and various sizes of the cylindrical backing of the sensor

The problems at investigation of state of stress of thick orthotropic plate

The determination of state of stress of thick orthotropic plate is outlined here. The analytical formulations of dispersion curves for arbitrary direction of wave propagation in orthotropic plate, which we defined earlier, are used to obtain results. The false roots appearing in the numerical computation of thick plate dispersion curves from orthotropic materials are mentioned. The displacements and the stresses of the thick orthotropic plate are presented too

Contribuição das folhas de lianas na produção de serapilheira em um fragmento de floresta estacional semidecidual em São Carlos, SP.

(Contribuição das folhas de lianas na produção de serapilheira em um fragmento de floresta estacional semidecidual em São Carlos, SP). A produção de serapilheira em um fragmento de floresta estacional semidecidual foi analisada durante 12 meses, sendo o material recolhido separado em frações de: galhos, material reprodutivo, folhas de espécies de lianas e folhas de demais espécies. O total de material produzido foi de 12.221 kg ha-1 ano-1, sem diferença significativa entre os meses observados e sem relação significativa também com o período seco. A fração das folhas teve a maior contribuição com 7.750 kg ha-1 ano-1, da qual 2.317 kg ha-1 ano-1 (19%), correspondem às folhas de lianas, que apresentam ampla distribuição no fragmento. A maioria das lianas contudo, não a presentaram deciduidade marcante como ocorre com algumas espécies arbóreas desse tipo florestal. A produção de folhas de lianas para a serapilheira é constante, porém uma maior queda foi relacionada com a alta evapotranspiração real ocorrida no período de estud

Extinction and emergence of genomic haplotypes during the evolution of Avian coronavirus in chicken embryos

Avian coronavirus (AvCoV) is ubiquitously present on poultry as a multitude of virus lineages. Studies on AvCoV phenotypic traits are dependent on the isolation of field strains in chicken embryonated eggs, but the mutant spectrum on each isolate is not considered. This manuscript reports the previously unknown HTS (high throughput sequencing)-based complete genome haplotyping of AvCoV isolates after passages of two field strains in chicken embryonated eggs. For the first and third passages of strain 23/2013, virus loads were 6.699 log copies/mu L and 6 log copies/mu L and, for 38/2013, 5.699 log copies/mu L and 2.699 log copies/mu L of reaction, respectively. The first passage of strain 23/2013 contained no variant haplotype, while, for the third passage, five putative variant haplotypes were found, with > 99.9% full genome identity with each other and with the dominant genome. Regarding strain 38/2013, five variant haplotypes were found for the first passage, with > 99.9% full genome identity with each other and with the dominant genome, and a single variant haplotype was found. Extinction and emergence of haplotypes with polymorphisms in genes involved in receptor binding and regulation of RNA synthesis were observed, suggesting that phenotypic traits of AvCoV isolates are a result of their mutant spectrum

The simulation of a wave propagation in a bcc iron crystal with a crack

We present a large-scale molecular dynamic simulations of a wave propagation in a bcc iron based on a N-body potential model which gives a good description of an anisotropic elasticity. A crack is embedded in a bcc iron crystal having a basic cubic orientation. We consider a central pre-existing Griffith (through) crack. The crystal is loaded on its front face and the response is detected on its opposite face. The acquired results are very important for the new NDT nano scale methods

On-the-fly Computation Method in Field-Programmable Gate Array for Analog-to-Digital Converter Linearity Testing

This paper presents a new approach to linearity testing of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) through on-the-fly computation in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware. The proposed method computes the linearity while it is processing without compromising the accuracy of the measurement, so very little overhead time is required to compute the final linearity. The results will be displayed immediately after a single ramp is supplied to the device under test. This is a cost-effective chip testing solution for semiconductor companies, achieved by reducing computing time and utilization of low-cost and low-specification automatic test equipment (ATE). The experimental results showed that the on-the-fly computation method significantly reduced the computation time (up to 44.4%) compared to the conventional process. Thus, for every 100M 12-bit ADC tested with 32 hits per code, the company can save up to 139,972 Php on electricity consumption