1,359 research outputs found
Segmenting and Profiling Visitors to the Ulaanbaatar Naadam Festival by Motivation
The analysis of visitor motivation for attending festivals, as a basis for segmentation, is an important prerequisite for targeting markets, planning festival programmes and product positioning. This study identified five motivation dimensions for visitors attending the 2005 Naadam cultural festival in Mongolia, using factor analysis. A cluster analysis on the five factors produced five stable motivation segments: multipurpose seekers; indifferent; culture and sport seekers; togetherness, socialisation and sports seekers; and socialisation and local event seekers. Significant associations between motivation clusters and visitor age and type were identified, although there was no significant interaction between the clusters and visitor type with respect to overall satisfaction. The results are generally consistent with the outcomes of previous research on festival and event motivation in Europe and North America, suggesting universality of core themes. However, unique combinations of motivation dimensions suggests that further research is required to develop understanding of variable interaction
Handbook of low cost airlines: strategies, business processes and market environment
The author reviews the book: S. Groβ and A. Schröder, Editors, Handbook of Low Cost Airlines: Strategies, Business Processes and Market Environment, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin (2007) ISBN 978-3-503-10081-1 Euro 49,95. 319 pp. (pbk)
Vortex pinning in high-Tc materials via randomly oriented columnar defects, created by GeV proton-induced fission fragments
Extensive work has shown that irradiation with 0.8 GeV protons can produce
randomly oriented columnar defects (CD's) in a large number of HTS materials,
specifically those cuprates containing Hg, Tl, Pb, Bi, and similar heavy
elements. Absorbing the incident proton causes the nucleus of these species to
fission, and the recoiling fission fragments create amorphous tracks, i.e.,
CD's. The superconductive transition temperature Tc decreases linearly with
proton fluence and we analyze how the rate depends on the family of
superconductors. In a study of Tl-2212 materials, adding defects decreases the
equilibrium magnetization Meq(H) significantly in magnitude and changes its
field dependence; this result is modeled in terms of vortex pinning. Analysis
of the irreversible magnetization and its time dependence shows marked
increases in the persistent current density and effective pinning energy, and
leads to an estimate for the elementary attempt time for vortex hopping, tau ~
4x10^(-9) s.Comment: Submitted to Physica C; presentation at ISS-2001. PDF file only, 13
pp. tota
Applications of proxy system modeling in high resolution paleoclimatology
AbstractA proxy system model may be defined as the complete set of forward and mechanistic processes by which the response of a sensor to environmental forcing is recorded and subsequently observed in a material archive. Proxy system modeling complements and sharpens signal interpretations based solely on statistical analyses and transformations; provides the basis for observing network optimization, hypothesis testing, and data-model comparisons for uncertainty estimation; and may be incorporated as weak but mechanistically-plausible constraints into paleoclimatic reconstruction algorithms. Following a review illustrating these applications, we recommend future research pathways, including development of intermediate proxy system models for important sensors, archives, and observations; linking proxy system models to climate system models; hypothesis development and evaluation; more realistic multi-archive, multi-observation network design; examination of proxy system behavior under extreme conditions; and generalized modeling of the total uncertainty in paleoclimate reconstructions derived from paleo-observations
No Significant Evidence of Cognitive Biases for Emotional Stimuli in Children At-Risk of Developing Anxiety Disorders.
This paper explores whether the increased vulnerability of children of anxious parents to develop anxiety disorders may be partially explained by these children having increased cognitive biases towards threat compared with children of non-anxious parents. Parents completed questionnaires about their child’s anxiety symptoms. Children aged 5–9 (n = 85) participated in two cognitive bias tasks: 1) an emotion recognition task, and 2) an ambiguous situations questionnaire. For the emotion recognition task, there were no significant differences between at-risk children and children of non-anxious parents in their cognitive bias scores for reaction times or for accuracy in identifying angry or happy facial expressions. In addition, there were no significant differences between at-risk children and children of non-anxious parents in the number of threat interpretations made for the ambiguous situations questionnaire. It is possible that these cognitive biases only become present subsequent to the development of an anxiety disorder, or only in older at-risk children
Entanglement and four wave mixing effects in the dissipation free nonlinear interaction of two photons at a single atom
We investigate the nonlinear interaction between two photons in a single
input pulse at an atomic two level nonlinearity. A one dimensional model for
the propagation of light to and from the atom is used to describe the precise
spatiotemporal coherence of the two photon state. It is shown that the
interaction generates spatiotemporal entanglement in the output state similar
to the entanglement observed in parametric downconversion. A method of
generating photon pairs from coherent pump light using this quantum mechanical
four wave mixing process is proposed.Comment: 10 pages, including 3 figures, correction in eq.(7), updated
references, final version for publication in PR
Single-filament Composite MgB2/SUS Ribbons by Powder-In-Tube Process
We report the successful fabrication of single-filament composite MgB2/SUS
ribbons, as an ultra-robust conductor type, employing the powder-in-tube (PIT)
process, by swaging and cold rolling only. The remarkable transport critical
current (Ic) of the non-sintered MgB2/SUS ribbon has observed, as an unexpected
result. Transport critical currents Ic ~ 316 A at T = 4.2 K and Ic ~ 82 A at T
= 20 K were observed at self-field, for the non-sintered composite MgB2/SUS
ribbon. In addition, the persistent current density Jp values, that were
estimated by Bean formula, were more than ~ 7  105 A/cm2 at T = 5 K,
and ~ 1.2  105 A/cm2 at T = 30 K, for the sintered composite MgB2/SUS
ribbon, at H = 0 G.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Endothelial function and insulin sensitivity during acute non-esterified fatty acid elevation: effects of fat composition and gender
Background and Aims: We have reported that adverse effects on flow-mediated dilation of an acute elevation of non-esterified fatty acids rich in saturated fat (SFA) are reversed following addition of long-chain (LC) n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), and hypothesised that these effects may be mediated through alterations in insulin signalling pathways. In a subgroup, we explored the effects of raised NEFA enriched with SFA, with or without LC n-3 PUFA, on whole body insulin sensitivity (SI) and responsiveness of the endothelium to insulin infusion.
Methods and Results: Thirty adults (mean age 27.8 y, BMI 23.2 kg/m2) consumed oral fat loads on separate occasions with continuous heparin infusion to elevate NEFA between 60-390 min. For the final 150 min, a hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp was performed, whilst FMD and circulating markers of endothelial function were measured at baseline, pre-clamp (240 min) and post-clamp (390 min). NEFA elevation during the SFA-rich drinks was associated with impaired FMD (P=0.027) whilst SFA+LC n-3 PUFA improved FMD at 240 min (P=0.003). In males, insulin infusion attenuated the increase in FMD with SFA+LC n-3 PUFA (P=0.049), with SI 10% greater with SFA+LC n-3 PUFA than SFA (P=0.041).
Conclusion: This study provides evidence that NEFA composition during acute elevation influences both FMD and SI, with some indication of a difference by gender. However our findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that the effects of fatty acids on endothelial function and SI operate through a common pathway.
Trial registered at clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01351324
Influence of nonlocal electrodynamics on the anisotropic vortex pinning in
We have studied the pinning force density Fp of YNi_2B_2C superconductors for
various field orientations. We observe anisotropies both between the c-axis and
the basal plane and within the plane, that cannot be explained by usual mass
anisotropy. For magnetic field , the reorientation structural
transition in the vortex lattice due to nonlocality, which occurs at a field
, manifests itself as a kink in Fp(H). When , Fp is
much larger and has a quite different H dependence, indicating that other
pinning mechanisms are present. In this case the signature of nonlocal effects
is the presence of a fourfold periodicity of Fp within the basal plane.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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