Is friction responsible for the reduction of fusion rates far below the Coulomb barrier?

The fusion of two interacting heavy ions traditionally has been interpreted in terms of the penetration of the projectile into the target. Observed rates well below the Coulomb barrier are considerably lower than estimates obtained from penetration factors. One approach in the analysis of the data invokes coupling to non-elastic channels in the scattering as the source of the depletion. Another is to analyze those data in terms of tunneling in semi-classical models, with the observed depletion being taken as evidence of a ``friction'' under the barrier. A complementary approach is to consider such tunneling in terms of a fully quantal model. We investigate tunneling with both one-dimensional and three-dimensional models in a fully quantal approach to investigate possible sources for such a friction. We find that the observed phenomenon may not be explained by friction. However, we find that under certain conditions tunneling may be enhanced or diminished by up to 50%, which finds analogy with observation, without the invocation of a friction under the barrier.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures embedde

Scenes From a Restaurant: Privacy Regulation in Stressful Situations

Stress results when an individual has less control over an environment or a situation than is desired. One way of regaining control and reducing stress is to regulate privacy by screening the self from spatial, visual or acoustical invasion. This study examined the use of architectural features to regulate privacy under hypothetical situations that are likely to generate low, moderate and high stress, comparing the seating choices of males and females in a variety of dining scenarios in a restaurant. In more stressful circumstances such as those associated with a job interview, participants chose restaurant seating bounded by more architectural features than they did in more relaxed dining situations such as dining with friends. Males and females appeared to be different in their responses to moderate and high stress situations. These results have implications for designers of secondary settings where stressful interactions are likely to take place

Turning the Tables: The Psychology of Design for High-Volume Restaurants

The use of colors, sounds, sights, and smells can be applied to restaurant settings to encourage a high customer volume and fast table turns

Visual Methods: Using Photographs to Capture Customers’ Experience with Design

Traditional guest feedback methods such as surveys or mystery shopping are not ideal for collecting information about customers\u27 reactions to a hotel\u27s physical design. Because design is a visual medium, survey questions may not capture the whole of a guest\u27s reaction to the design. By the same token, the reaction of mystery shoppers to design is not necessarily representative of all guests. Instead, a photography-based approach allows guests to show managers and researchers what they consider to be the hotel\u27s design highlights and failures. A pilot study indicated that guests took notice of design elements that signified that the hotel was being considerate of their needs, as well as providing a functional, high-quality environment

Understanding Consumers’ Inferences from Price and Nonprice Information in the Online Lodging Purchase Decision

The sustained success of variable pricing for revenue management (RM) is dependent on the creation of appropriate price points at which to sell a given product offering. To date, few studies have considered the impact of nonprice information on consumer reaction to price, and none have investigated the relative weights that consumers assign to price and the nonprice information available to them during different phases of the purchase choice process. This exploratory study uses a combination of eye tracking and retrospective think-aloud (RTA) interviews to examine how consumers consider the price and nonprice content generated by the firm and the nonprice information generated by other consumers during two distinct phases of the online choice process: browsing and deliberation. This study’s findings suggest that during browsing, firm-generated content appears to be very influential, particularly the image selected to represent the property in search results. Both firm-generated and user-generated content play a role in hotel choice during deliberation, with the interplay among several types of information being an important indication of value for consumers

Mammographic image restoration using maximum entropy deconvolution

An image restoration approach based on a Bayesian maximum entropy method (MEM) has been applied to a radiological image deconvolution problem, that of reduction of geometric blurring in magnification mammography. The aim of the work is to demonstrate an improvement in image spatial resolution in realistic noisy radiological images with no associated penalty in terms of reduction in the signal-to-noise ratio perceived by the observer. Images of the TORMAM mammographic image quality phantom were recorded using the standard magnification settings of 1.8 magnification/fine focus and also at 1.8 magnification/broad focus and 3.0 magnification/fine focus; the latter two arrangements would normally give rise to unacceptable geometric blurring. Measured point-spread functions were used in conjunction with the MEM image processing to de-blur these images. The results are presented as comparative images of phantom test features and as observer scores for the raw and processed images. Visualization of high resolution features and the total image scores for the test phantom were improved by the application of the MEM processing. It is argued that this successful demonstration of image de-blurring in noisy radiological images offers the possibility of weakening the link between focal spot size and geometric blurring in radiology, thus opening up new approaches to system optimization.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Show Me What You See, Tell Me What You Think: Using Eye Tracking for Hospitality Research

Identifying precisely what consumers are looking at (and by implication what they are thinking) when they consider a web page, an image, or a hospitality environment could provide tremendous insights to the hospitality industry. By using eye tracking technology, one can almost literally see through the eyes of the customer to find out what information is examined at various points during the hotel search process or to assess which property design features attract guests’ attention. When eye tracking is immediately followed by interviews that review a graphical representation of the consumer’s eye movements, the thought processes behind consumers’ visual activity can be uncovered and explored. In this paper we explain how eye tracking works and how it could apply to hospitality research. Today’s eye tracking systems are easy for researchers to set up and use and are virtually transparent to the participant during use, making eye tracking a valuable method for examining consumer choice or facility design, or to develop employee training procedures. We argue that eye tracking would provide rich results and deserves to be considered for a wide range of hospitality applications

Salivary nicotine and cotinine concentrations in unstimulated and stimulated saliva

Salivary nicotine and salivary cotinine is widely used in clinical and epidemiological studies to validate smoking cessation. However, the reported collection for salivary nicotine and salivary cotinine vary by technique and duration. This study investigated the influence of salivary collection by unstimulation and stimulation technique of the concentration of salivary nicotine and salivary cotinine. It was found that unstimulated technique produced the highest salivary nicotine concentration, whereas stimulated technique produced the highest salivary cotinine concentration. The results of this study suggest that it is important to standardise salivary nicotine and cotinine collection technique. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down