Polyphase thrust tectonic in the Barberton greenstone belt

In the circa 3.5 by-old Barberton greenstone belt, the supracrustal rocks form a thick and strongly deformed thrust complex. Structural studies in the southern part of the belt have shown that 2 separate phases of over-thrusting (D sub 1 and D sub 2) successively dismembered the original stratigraphy. Thrust nappes were subsequently refolded during later deformations (D sub 3 and D sub 4). This report deals with the second thrusting event which, in the study region appears to be dominant, and (unlike the earlier thrusting), affects the entire supracrustal pile. The supracrustal rocks form a predominantly NE/SW oriented, SE dipping tectonic fan (the D sub 2 fan) in which tectonic slices of ophiolitic-like rocks are interleaved with younger sedimentary sequences of the Diepgezet and malalotcha groups. Structural and sedimentological data indicate that the D sub 2 tectonic fan was formed during a prolonged, multi-stage regional horizontal shortening event during which several types of internal deformation mechanisms were successively and/or simultaneously active. Movement appears to have been predominantly to the NW and to the N. During D sub 2, periods of quiescence and sedimentation followed periods of thrust propagation. Although the exact kinematics which led to the formation of this fan is not yet known, paleoenvironmental interpretations together with structural data suggest that D sub 2 was probably related to (an) Archean collision(s)

Digital Nomadism: the nexus of remote working and travel mobility

As the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, people worldwide started to experience a ‘new normal.’ This ‘new normal’ has normalized remote-working and resulted in the mainstream adoption of technologies to support virtual collaboration, communication, and work from a distance. While the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the restriction of mobility as borders were closed, airlines grounded, and daily commutes limited, visions of a potential future of ‘remote-life’ started to take shape. As professionals (and employers) around the world start to realize that they are no longer physically secured to their desks, offices, or work stations, they may now start to consider a future where they are remote-working from ‘exotic’ locations, often with lower costs of living (Phuket, Bali, or Costa Rica?) instead of working from ‘home.’ Companies around the world have extended their remote-working policies, implemented due to COVID, through 2021 and beyond, and are starting to consider a broader shift towards remote (or hybrid) workforce models as a means for reducing overhead costs while supporting employee productivity and wellbeing

Exploring the relationship between EU political opinion, Euroscepticism, and populist attitudes with destination image perception

This study is a preliminary exploration of the relationship between populist attitudes and destination image perception. The study focused on the relationship between European political opinion and populist attitudes with destination image perception of international destinations. A European context was the focus given recent political landscape in the European Union (EU) due to 'Brexit,' issues surrounding European integration, the unresolved Eurozone and refugee crisis, and the rise right-wing populist parties. The findings suggest that individuals' political opinion about the EU is related to the destination image perception. Confidence in the EU results in a more positive perception of less popular destinations, whereas Euroscepticism results in a more negative perception of less popular destinations

Investigating millennial tourists' attitudes and risk perceptions towards terror attacks: a qualitative case study on France

This study explores millennials' risk perceptions and response to terror attacks and the impact of these attacks on their visitor intentions. A qualitative approach employing interviews and focus groups with twenty-four millennials residing in the United Arab Emirates was conducted. France and the widely publicized attacks in Paris in 2015 and Nice in 2016 provided a case context for the data collection. Both participants who had travelled previously to France and those that had not were sampled. Results suggest that millennials indeed perceived terrorism as a risk. However, it is only one of a wide variety of perceived risks. The study provides insights of the variation in reactions to the attacks and the effects on tourist behaviour and decision-making among the sample

Superspace formulation of general massive gauge theories and geometric interpretation of mass-dependent BRST symmetries

A superspace formulation is proposed for the osp(1,2)-covariant Lagrangian quantization of general massive gauge theories. The superalgebra os0(1,2) is considered as subalgebra of sl(1,2); the latter may be considered as the algebra of generators of the conformal group in a superspace with two anticommuting coordinates. The mass-dependent (anti)BRST symmetries of proper solutions of the quantum master equations in the osp(1,2)-covariant formalism are realized in that superspace as invariance under translations combined with mass-dependent special conformal transformations. The Sp(2) symmetry - in particular the ghost number conservation - and the "new ghost number" conservation are realized as invariance under symplectic rotations and dilatations, respectively. The transformations of the gauge fields - and of the full set of necessarily required (anti)ghost and auxiliary fields - under the superalgebra sl(1,2) are determined both for irreducible and first-stage reducible theories with closed gauge algebra.Comment: 35 pages, AMSTEX, precision of reference

Programmable purification of type-I polarization-entanglement

We suggest and demonstrate a scheme to compensate spatial and spectral decoherence effects in the generation of polarization entangled states by type-I parametric downconversion. In our device a programmable spatial light modulator imposes a polarization dependent phase-shift on different spatial sections of the overall downconversion output and this effect is exploited to realize an effective purification technique for polarization entanglement.Comment: published versio

Toward a unified description of hadro- and photoproduction amplitudes

The near-term objectives of the research program at the Data Analysis Center are established within the context of the existing partial wave analyses available through the online suite of analysis and database codes accessible through SAID, the Scattering Analysis Interactive Database. This presentation reviews the efforts to determine a model independent method to obtain sets of partial wave amplitudes for strong and electromagnetic reactions, the interpretation of the amplitudes in terms of the excited states of the nucleon, the role of new precision unpolarized and polarized data, and new developments aimed at determining the photoproduction mulitpoles in a unitary, coupled-channel approach. The Chew-Mandelstam technique is discussed and applied to the problem of the S-wave pion- and eta-photoproduction amplitudes. The resulting eta production amplitudes exhibit the expected resonant behavior near the eta production threshold. Application of this method to a unified description of the hadro- and photoproduction amplitudes is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, invited talk for the 12th International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU 2010), Williamsburg, Virginia, 31 May - 4 Jun 201

Effect of Sigma-beam Asymmetry Data on Fits to Single Pion Photoproduction off Neutron

We investigate the influence of new GRAAL Sigma-beam asymmetry measurements on the neutron in multipole fits to the single-pion photoproduction database. Results are compared to those found with the addition of a double-polarization quantity associated with the sum rule.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; v2/v3: minor corrections; Presented at the 8th Workshop on the Physics of Excited Nucleons (NSTAR2011), Newport News, USA, May 201