"Foodies" and their travel preferences

This articles examines the propensity of Australian food lovers, or “foodies,” to travel both domestically and internationally for food-related experiences. Data are analyzed from a survey of food lovers in Australia, profiling their characteristics, pertinent travel behavior, desired experiences, trip and destination preferences, with special attention given to isolating characteristics and preferences of those who had already traveled for food-related experiences. In the conclusions we make recommendations for destinations seeking to develop food tourism, in effect providing a demand-based planning and marketing approach. A principal conclusion is that they are highly involved with food, think of themselves as gourmets, and they desire a multifaceted holiday. Core experiences include consumption of authentic cuisine, learning about food/beverages and gastronomic traditions, and socializing. These must be augmented through opportunities for broader cultural, natural, touring, and shopping experiences. Recommendations are made for extending this line of research and theory development

Food events in lifestyle and travel

A large-scale survey of food lovers revealed the critical importance of planned events in their lifestyles and travel. Details provided in this article include participation frequencies for various food-related events, segmentation based on food-event attendance, and the differences between segments in terms of preferences for enjoyment events versus learning events. The small segment most likely to travel for food experiences, called dynamic foodies, prefers specialist learning events. The much larger segment, called active foodies, prefers enjoyment events, suggesting that higher levels of involvement translate into demand for more specialized benefits. Conclusions are drawn for food events and their marketing, and for destination development and marketing to food tourists. Research needs are identified

High Mass Triple Systems: The Classical Cepheid Y Car

We have obtained an HST STIS ultraviolet high dispersion Echelle mode spectrum the binary companion of the double mode classical Cepheid Y Car. The velocity measured for the hot companion from this spectrum is very different from reasonable predictions for binary motion, implying that the companion is itself a short period binary. The measured velocity changed by 7 km/ s during the 4 days between two segments of the observation confirming this interpretation. We summarize "binary" Cepheids which are in fact members of triple system and find at least 44% are triples. The summary of information on Cepheids with orbits makes it likely that the fraction is under-estimated.Comment: accepted by A

The adaptor protein melanophilin regulates dynamic myosin-Va:cargo interaction and dendrite development in melanocytes

Regulation of organelle transport by the cytoskeleton is fundamental for eukaryotic survival. Cytoskeleton motors are typically modular proteins with conserved motor and diverse cargo binding domains. Motor:cargo interactions are often indirect and mediated by adaptor proteins e.g. Rab GTPases. Rab27a, via effector melanophilin (Mlph), recruits myosin-Va to melanosomes and thereby disperses them into melanocytes dendrites. To better understand how adaptors regulate motor:cargo interaction we used single melanosome fluorescence recovery after photo-bleaching (smFRAP) to characterise the association kinetics between myosin-Va, its adaptors and melanosomes. We found that myosin-Va and Mlph rapidly recovered after photo-bleaching, while Rab27a did not, indicating that myosin-Va and Mlph dynamically associate with melanosomes and Rab27a does not. This suggests that dynamic Rab27a:effector interaction rather than Rab27a melanosome:cytosol cycling regulates myosin-Va:melanosome association. Accordingly a Mlph-Rab27a fusion protein reduced myosin-Va smFRAP, indicating that it stabilised melanosomal myosin-Va. Finally, we tested the functional importance of dynamic myosin-Va:melanosome interaction. We found that while a myosin-Va-Rab27a fusion protein dispersed melanosomes in myosin-Va deficient cells, dendrites were significantly less elongated than in wild-type cells. Given that dendrites are the prime sites of melanosome transfer from melanocytes to keratinocytes we suggest that dynamic myosin-Va:melanosome interaction is important for pigmentation in vivo. Movie S1 Movie S1 MVa-tail expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figure 1). Movie S2 Movie S2 MVa-tail expressed in myosin-Va -/- (melan-d) cells (supports Figure S1A). Movie S3 Movie S3 MVa-FL expressed in myosin-Va -/- (melan-d) cells (supports Figure S1C). Movie S4 Movie S4 Rab27a expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figure 2A). Movie S5 Movie S5 Rab27a expressed in Rab27a -/- (melan-ash) cells (supports Figure 2B). Movie S6 Movie S6 Rab27a expressed in Mlph -/- (melan-ln) cells (supports Figure 2C). Movie S7 Movie S7 Rab27aSF1F4 expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figure 2D). Movie S8 Movie S8 Mlph expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figure 3A). Movie S9 Movie S9 Mlph expressed in Mlph -/- (melan-ln) cells (supports Figure 3B). Movie S10 Movie S10 Mlph expressed in myosin-Va -/- (melan-d) cells (supports Figure 3C). Movie S11 Movie S11 MVa-tail co-expressed with mCherry-Mlph expressed in Mlph -/- (melan-ln) cells (supports Figure 4B). Movie S12 Movie S12 MVa-tail co-expressed with mCherry-Mlph-Rab27aSF1F4 expressed in Mlph -/- (melan-ln) cells (supports Figure 4C). Movie S13 Movie S13 GFP-Mlph- Rab27aSF1F4 expressed in Mlph -/- (melan-ln) cells (supports Figure S4). Movie S14 Movie S14 Mlph R27BD expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figure S5). Movie S15 Movie S15 Myo-Rab expressed in myosin-Va -/- (melan-d) cells (supports Figures 5 and S7). Movie S16 Movie S16 Sytl2 (R27BD) expressed in wild-type (melan-a) cells (supports Figures S8).publishersversionpublishe

Dealing with mobility: Understanding access anytime, anywhere

The rapid and accelerating move towards the adoption and use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organisations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterised in terms of access to information and people ‘anytime, anywhere’. This paper presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified from the study: the role of planning, working in ‘dead time’, accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artefact use in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers

A brief introduction to mixed effects modelling and multi-model inference in ecology

Acknowledgements This paper is the result of a University of Exeter workshop on best practice for the application of mixed effects models and model selection in ecological studies Funding Xavier A. Harrison was funded by an Institute of Zoology Research Fellowship. David Fisher was funded by NERC studentship NE/H02249X/1. Lynda Donaldson was funded by NERC studentship NE/L501669/1. Beth S. Robinson was funded by the University of Exeter and the Animal and Plant Health Agency as part of ‘Wildlife Research Co-Operative’. Maria Correa-Cano was funded by CONACYT (The Mexican National Council for Science and Technology) and SEP (The Mexican Ministry of Education). Cecily Goodwin was funded by the Forestry Commission and NERC studentship NE/L501669/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Femtosecond x-ray diffraction from an aerosolized beam of protein nanocrystals

We demonstrate near-atomic-resolution Bragg diffraction from aerosolized single granulovirus crystals using an x-ray free-electron laser. The form of the aerosol injector is nearly identical to conventional liquid-microjet nozzles, but the x-ray-scattering background is reduced by several orders of magnitude by the use of helium carrier gas rather than liquid. This approach provides a route to study the weak diffuse or lattice-transform signal arising from small crystals. The high speed of the particles is particularly well suited to upcoming MHz-repetition-rate x-ray free-electron lasers

350 Micron Dust Emission from High Redshift Objects

We report observations of a sample of high redshift sources (1.8<z<4.7), mainly radio-quiet quasars, at 350 microns using the SHARC bolometer camera at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Nine sources were detected (>4-sigma) and upper limits were obtained for 11 with 350 micron flux density limits (3-sigma) in the range 30-125mJy. Combining published results at other far-infrared and millimeter wavelengths with the present data, we are able to estimate the temperature of the dust, finding relatively low values, averaging 50K. From the spectral energy distribution, we derive dust masses of a few 10^8 M_sun and luminosities of 4-33x10^{12} L_sun (uncorrected for any magnification) implying substantial star formation activity. Thus both the temperature and dust masses are not very different from those of local ultraluminous infrared galaxies. For this redshift range, the 350 micron observations trace the 60-100 micron rest frame emission and are thus directly comparable with IRAS studies of low redshift galaxies.Comment: 5 pages, 2 PS figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter

How to Educate Entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurship education has two purposes: To improve students’ entrepreneurial skills and to provide impetus to those suited to entrepreneurship while discouraging the rest. While entrepreneurship education helps students to make a vocational decision its effects may conflict for those not suited to entrepreneurship. This study shows that vocational and the skill formation effects of entrepreneurship education can be identified empirically by drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior. This is embedded in a structural equation model which we estimate and test using a robust 2SLS estimator. We find that the attitudinal factors posited by the Theory of Planned Behavior are positively correlated with students’ entrepreneurial intentions. While conflicting effects of vocational and skill directed course content are observed in some individuals, overall these types of content are complements. This finding contradicts previous results in the literature. We reconcile the conflicting findings and discuss implications for the design of entrepreneurship courses

An X-ray Spectral Survey of Radio-Loud AGN With ASCA

We present a uniform and systematic analysis of the 0.6-10 keV X-ray spectra of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) observed by ASCA. The sample 10 BLRGs, 5 QSRs, 9 NLRGs, and 10 RGs. At soft X-rays, about half of the NLRGs and all of the RGs exhibit a thermal plasma component, with a bimodal distribution of temperatures and luminosities, suggesting an origin either in a surrounding cluster or loose group or in a hot corona. At energies above 2 keV, a hard power-law component is detected in 90% of cases. The power-law photon indices and luminosities in BLRGs, QSRs, and NLRGs are similar, consistent with orientation-based unification schemes. Significant excess cold absorption is detected in most NLRGs, but also in some BLRGS and QSRs, which was somewhat unexpected. In contrast to Seyfert galaxies, only one object showss the signature of a warm absorber. The nuclear X-ray luminosity is correlated with the luminosity of the [O III] emission line, the FIR emission at 12 microns, and the lobe radio power at 5 GHz. The Fe K line is detected in 50% of BLRGs, one QSR, and a handful of NLRGs. This sample also includes 6 Weak Line Radio Galaxies (WLRGs). Their spectra WLRGs can be generally decomposed into a soft thermal component with hard absrorbed power-law component, which is significantly flatter than any other radio-loud AGNs. Their intrinsic luminosities are two orders of magnitude lower than in other sources of the sample. An interesting possibility is that WLRGs represent an extreme population of radio galaxies in which the central black hole is accreting at a rate well below the Eddington rate.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journal. 72 pages, including many tables and figures. Fig 1 is separate, in TIFF format. Postscript version of fig 1 and postscript version of entire preprint can be obtained from http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/mce/preprint_index.htm