Social media use and impact during the holiday travel planning process

Through an empirical study among holiday travellers, residing in the Former Soviet Union Republics, this paper presents a comprehensive view of role and impact of social media on the whole holiday travel planning process: Before, during and after the trip, providing insights on usage levels, scope of use, level of influence and trust. Findings suggest that social media are predominantly used after holidays for experience sharing. It is also shown that there is a strong correlation between perceived level of influence from social media and changes made in holiday plans prior to final decisions. Moreover, it is revealed that user-generated content is perceived as more trustworthy when compared to official tourism websites, travel agents and mass media advertising

Occlusal reduction of unilateral molars influences change of stress-related hormones in rats

In order to investigate the change of stress-related hormones by dental occlusal reduction, we ground  molars in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats and evaluated the effect on hormone levels. Thirteen and 18 weeks  after occlusal reduction, cortisol concentration was increased 2.75 and 2.17 fold respectively, whereas corticosterone  concentration was slightly elevated by 31.2% and 13.5%, respectively. Body weight was slightly  decreased, but feed and water intake, and blood chemistry were the same in the experimental group as  in the control group. Our results suggest that unilateral molar occlusal reduction may influence cortisol and  corticosterone levels and the endocrine system, leading to hormone imbalance through the body.

Quantum transport through a DNA wire in a dissipative environment

Electronic transport through DNA wires in the presence of a strong dissipative environment is investigated. We show that new bath-induced electronic states are formed within the bandgap. These states show up in the linear conductance spectrum as a temperature dependent background and lead to a crossover from tunneling to thermal activated behavior with increasing temperature. Depending on the strength of the electron-bath coupling, the conductance at the Fermi level can show a weak exponential or even an algebraic length dependence. Our results suggest a new environmental-induced transport mechanism. This might be relevant for the understanding of molecular conduction experiments in liquid solution, like those recently performed on poly(GC) oligomers in a water buffer (B. Xu et al., Nano Lett 4, 1105 (2004)).Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Reduction of high reset currents in unipolar resistance switching Pt/SrTiOx/Pt capacitors using acceptor doping

The high reset current, IR, in unipolar resistance switching is an important issue which should be resolved for practical applications in nonvolatile memories. We showed that,during the forming and set processes, the compliance current, Icomp, can work as a crucial parameter to reduce IR. Doping with Co or Mn can significantly reduce the leakage current in capacitors made using SrTiOx film, opening a larger operation window for Icomp. By decreasing Icomp with acceptor doping, we could reduce IR in SrTiOx films by a factor of approximately 20. Our work suggests that the decrease of Icomp by carrier doping could be a viable alternative for reducing IR in unipolar resistance switching.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Impact of Different Trajectory Option Set Participation Levels within an Air Traffic Management Collaborative Trajectory Option Program

This paper presents the methodology and results of a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) simulation study conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. This study is a part of NASA's ongoing research into developing an Integrated Demand Management (IDM) concept, whose aim is to improve traffic flow management (TFM) by coordinating the FAA's strategic Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) with its more tactical Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) system. The purpose of TFM is to regulate air traffic demand so that it is delivered efficiently through constrained airspace resources without exceeding their capacity limits. The IDM concept leverages a new TFMS capability called the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP) to strategically pre-condition traffic demand flowing into a TBFM-managed arrival environment, where TBFM is responsible for managing traffic tactically by generating precise arrival schedules. Unlike other TFM tools, CTOP gives flight operators the option of submitting a set of user-preferred alternative trajectories for each flight. CTOP can then use these trajectory option sets (or TOSs) to find user-preferred alternative routes to reduce demand on an overloaded resource. CTOP's effectiveness in redistributing demand is limited, however, by the availability of flights with alternative routes. The research presented in this paper focuses on evaluating the impact on TFM operations by varying the percentage of flights that submit a multiple-option TOS ('TOS participation levels'). Results show the impact on overall system performance and on the rerouted flights themselves. The simulation used a Newark (EWR) airport arrival scenario, with en route weather affecting traffic inbound from the west. Participants were asked to control each of the three arrival flows (north, west, and south) to meet their individual capacity constraints while simultaneously ensuring efficient utilization of the capacity at the destination airport. A large, permeable convective weather cell located southeast of Chicago severely reduced the capacity of the west flow. The study evaluated the impact of five different TOS participation levels on CTOP's ability to re-allocate traffic from the west and improve TFM performance in terms of delay assignment and traffic delivery rate to the airport. Overall, the results showed that increasing TOS submissions allowed the overall system delays to be reduced and fairly distributed among the three arrival flows, at the same time achieving the airport throughput rate. Moreover, it was found that aircraft who submitted a TOS saw a greater reduction in delay, even when they were assigned longer routes. This was particularly true when fewer aircraft submitted a TOS. The results confirm that the CTOP operations with higher TOS participation levels helped utilize the overall National Airspace System (NAS) resources as well as benefited the users who participated

Small anisotropy of the lower critical field and s±s_\pm-wave two-gap feature in single crystal LiFeAs

The in- and out-of-plane lower critical fields and magnetic penetration depths for LiFeAs were examined. The anisotropy ratio $\gamma_{H_{c1}}(0)$ is smaller than the expected theoretical value, and increased slightly with increasing temperature from 0.6$T_c$ to $T_c$. This small degree of anisotropy was numerically confirmed by considering electron correlation effect. The temperature dependence of the penetration depths followed a power law($\sim$$T^n$) below 0.3$T_c$, with $n$$>$3.5 for both $\lambda_{ab}$ and $\lambda_c$. Based on theoretical studies of iron-based superconductors, these results suggest that the superconductivity of LiFeAs can be represented by an extended $s_\pm$-wave due to weak impurity scattering effect. And the magnitudes of the two gaps were also evaluted by fitting the superfluid density for both the in- and out-of-plane to the two-gap model. The estimated values for the two gaps are consistent with the results of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy and specific heat experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

The revival-collapse phenomenon in the quadrature field components of the two-mode multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model

In this paper we consider a system consisting of a two-level atom in an excited state interacting with two modes of a radiation field prepared initially in $l$-photon coherent states. This system is described by two-mode multiphoton (, i.e., $k_1, k_2$) Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). For this system we investigate the occurrence of the revival-collapse phenomenon (RCP) in the evolution of the single-mode, two-mode, sum and difference quadrature squeezing. We show that there is a class of states for which all these types of squeezing exhibit RCP similar to that involved in the corresponding atomic inversion. Also we show numerically that the single-mode squeezing of the first mode for $(k_1,k_2)=(3,1)$ provides RCP similar to that of the atomic inversion of the case $(k_1,k_2)=(1,1)$, however, sum and difference squeezing give partial information on that case. Moreover, we show that single-mode, two-mode and sum squeezing for the case $(k_1,k_2)=(2,2)$ provide information on the atomic inversion of the single-mode two-photon JCM. We derive the rescaled squeezing factors giving accurate information on the atomic inversion for all cases. The consequences of these results are that the homodyne and heterodyne detectors can be used to detect the RCP for the two-mode JCM.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Effect of synthesis conditions on formation pathways of metal organic framework (MOF-5) Crystals

Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) represent a class of nanoporous crystalline materials with far reaching potential in gas storage, catalysis, and medical devices. We investigated the effects of synthesis process parameters on production of MOF-5 from terephthalic acid and zinc nitrate in diethylformamide. Under favorable synthesis conditions, we systematically mapped a solid formation diagram in terms of time and temperature for both stirred and unstirred conditions. The synthesis of MOF-5 has been previously reported as a straightforward reaction progressing from precursor compounds in solution directly to the final MOF-5 solid phase product. However, we show that the solid phase formation process is far more complex, invariably transferring through metastable intermediate crystalline phases before the final MOF-5 phase is reached, providing new insights into the formation pathways of MOFs. We also identify process parameters suitable for scale-up and continuous manufacturing of high purity MOF-5

On the evolution of superposition of squeezed displaced number states with the multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model

In this paper we discuss the quantum properties for superposition of squeezed displaced number states against multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). In particular, we investigate atomic inversion, photon-number distribution, purity, quadrature squeezing, Mandel $Q$ parameter and Wigner function. We show that the quadrature squeezing for three-photon absorption case can exhibit revivals and collapses typical to those occurring in the atomic inversion for one-photon absorption case. Also we prove that for odd number absorption parameter there is a connection between the evolution of the atomic inversion and the evolution of the Wigner function at the origin in phase space. Furthermore, we show that the nonclassical states whose the Wigner functions values at the origins are negative will be always nonclassical when they are evolving through the JCM with even absorption parameter. Also we demonstrate that various types of cat states can be generated via this system.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure

Revival-collapse phenomenon in the fluctuations of quadrature field components of the multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model

In this paper we consider a system consisting of a two-level atom, initially prepared in a coherent superposition of upper and lower levels, interacting with a radiation field prepared in generalized quantum states in the framework of multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model. For this system we show that there is a class of states for which the fluctuation factors can exhibit revival-collapse phenomenon (RCP) similar to that exhibited in the corresponding atomic inversion. This is shown not only for normal fluctuations but also for amplitude-squared fluctuations. Furthermore, apart from this class of states we generally demonstrate that the fluctuation factors associated with three-photon transition can provide RCP similar to that occurring in the atomic inversion of the one-photon transition. These are novel results and their consequence is that RCP occurred in the atomic inversion can be measured via a homodyne detector. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of the atomic relative phases on such phenomenon.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure