197 research outputs found
Habitat-dependent outdoor recreation and conservation organizations can enable recreational fishers to contribute to conservation of coastal marine ecosystems
Stakeholder engagement is essential to conserve ecosystems and associated biodiversity. Outdoor recreation specialists represent stakeholder groups that often rely on specific healthy ecosystems and have unique incentives to contribute to conservation and stewardship. We introduce the concept of habitat-dependent outdoor recreation conservation organizations (HDORCOs) and their potential to harness outdoor recreation enthusiasm to achieve ecosystem-scale conservation objectives. We identify potential roles for HDORCOs in nurturing pro-environmental attitudes and facilitating stewardship behavior among recreationists, focusing on examples from recreational fishing specialists and coastal marine ecosystems. While HDORCOs have achieved conservation outcomes in a range of settings, transferability across recreational specializations and ecological, cultural, socioeconomic, and governance contexts could remain challenging and potentially requires further development of the HDORCO concept. Communication with HDORCOs is one strategy to enhance engagement of recreationists, stakeholder groups not traditionally associated with pro-environmental behavior, in ecosystem-scale conservation efforts
Self-Similarity in Random Collision Processes
Kinetics of collision processes with linear mixing rules are investigated
analytically. The velocity distribution becomes self-similar in the long time
limit and the similarity functions have algebraic or stretched exponential
tails. The characteristic exponents are roots of transcendental equations and
vary continuously with the mixing parameters. In the presence of conservation
laws, the velocity distributions become universal.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Local influence of boundary conditions on a confined supercooled colloidal liquid
We study confined colloidal suspensions as a model system which approximates
the behavior of confined small molecule glass-formers. Dense colloidal
suspensions become glassier when confined between parallel glass plates. We use
confocal microscopy to study the motion of confined colloidal particles. In
particular, we examine the influence particles stuck to the glass plates have
on nearby free particles. Confinement appears to be the primary influence
slowing free particle motion, and proximity to stuck particles causes a
secondary reduction in the mobility of free particles. Overall, particle
mobility is fairly constant across the width of the sample chamber, but a
strong asymmetry in boundary conditions results in a slight gradient of
particle mobility.Comment: For conference proceedings, "Dynamics in Confinement", Grenoble,
March 201
Lesbian and bisexual women's human rights, sexual rights and sexual citizenship: negotiating sexual health in England.
Lesbian and bisexual women's sexual health is neglected in much Government policy and practice in England and Wales. This paper examines lesbian and bisexual women's negotiation of sexual health, drawing on findings from a small research project. Themes explored include invisibility and lack of information, influences on decision-making and sexual activities and experiences of services and barriers to sexual healthcare. Key issues of importance in this respect are homophobic and heterosexist social contexts. Drawing on understandings of lesbian, gay and bisexual human rights, sexual rights and sexual citizenship, it is argued that these are useful lenses through which to examine and address lesbian and bisexual women's sexual health and related inequalities
On the study of jamming percolation
We investigate kinetically constrained models of glassy transitions, and
determine which model characteristics are crucial in allowing a rigorous proof
that such models have discontinuous transitions with faster than power law
diverging length and time scales. The models we investigate have constraints
similar to that of the knights model, introduced by Toninelli, Biroli, and
Fisher (TBF), but differing neighbor relations. We find that such knights-like
models, otherwise known as models of jamming percolation, need a ``No Parallel
Crossing'' rule for the TBF proof of a glassy transition to be valid.
Furthermore, most knight-like models fail a ``No Perpendicular Crossing''
requirement, and thus need modification to be made rigorous. We also show how
the ``No Parallel Crossing'' requirement can be used to evaluate the provable
glassiness of other correlated percolation models, by looking at models with
more stable directions than the knights model. Finally, we show that the TBF
proof does not generalize in any straightforward fashion for three-dimensional
versions of the knights-like models.Comment: 13 pages, 18 figures; Spiral model does satisfy property
Deconstructing classical water models at interfaces and in bulk
Using concepts from perturbation and local molecular field theories of
liquids we divide the potential of the SPC/E water model into short and long
ranged parts. The short ranged parts define a minimal reference network model
that captures very well the structure of the local hydrogen bond network in
bulk water while ignoring effects of the remaining long ranged interactions.
This deconstruction can provide insight into the different roles that the local
hydrogen bond network, dispersion forces, and long ranged dipolar interactions
play in determining a variety of properties of SPC/E and related classical
models of water. Here we focus on the anomalous behavior of the internal
pressure and the temperature dependence of the density of bulk water. We
further utilize these short ranged models along with local molecular field
theory to quantify the influence of these interactions on the structure of
hydrophobic interfaces and the crossover from small to large scale hydration
behavior. The implications of our findings for theories of hydrophobicity and
possible refinements of classical water models are also discussed
Cosmic microwave background anisotropies in multi-connected flat spaces
This article investigates the signature of the seventeen multi-connected flat
spaces in cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. For each such space it
recalls a fundamental domain and a set of generating matrices, and then goes on
to find an orthonormal basis for the set of eigenmodes of the Laplace operator
on that space. The basis eigenmodes are expressed as linear combinations of
eigenmodes of the simply connected Euclidean space. A preceding work, which
provides a general method for implementing multi-connected topologies in
standard CMB codes, is then applied to simulate CMB maps and angular power
spectra for each space. Unlike in the 3-torus, the results in most
multi-connected flat spaces depend on the location of the observer. This effect
is discussed in detail. In particular, it is shown that the correlated circles
on a CMB map are generically not back-to-back, so that negative search of
back-to-back circles in the WMAP data does not exclude a vast majority of flat
or nearly flat topologies.Comment: 33 pages, 19 figures, 1 table. Submitted to PR
Recommended from our members
Design, testing, and installation of a high-precision hexapod for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX)
Engineers from The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics and McDonald Observatory have designed, built, and laboratory tested a high payload capacity, precision hexapod for use on the Hobby-Eberly telescope as part of the HETDEX Wide Field Upgrade (WFU). The hexapod supports the 4200 kg payload which includes the wide field corrector, support structure, and other optical/electronic components. This paper provides a recap of the hexapod actuator mechanical and electrical design including a discussion on the methods used to help determine the actuator travel to prevent the hexapod payload from hitting any adjacent, stationary hardware. The paper describes in detail the tooling and methods used to assemble the full hexapod, including many of the structures and components which are supported on the upper hexapod frame. Additionally, details are provided on the installation of the hexapod onto the new tracker bridge, including design decisions that were made to accommodate the lift capacity of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope dome crane. Laboratory testing results will be presented verifying that the performance goals for the hexapod, including positioning, actuator travel, and speeds have all been achieved. This paper may be of interest to mechanical and electrical engineers responsible for the design and operations of precision hardware on large, ground based telescopes. In summary, the hexapod development cycle from the initial hexapod actuator performance requirements and design, to the deployment and testing on the newly designed HET tracker system is all discussed, including lessons learned through the process.Center for Electromechanic
What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works
This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment
Theoretical description of phase coexistence in model C60
We have investigated the phase diagram of the Girifalco model of C60
fullerene in the framework provided by the MHNC and the SCOZA liquid state
theories, and by a Perturbation Theory (PT), for the free energy of the solid
phase. We present an extended assessment of such theories as set against a
recent Monte Carlo study of the same model [D. Costa et al, J. Chem. Phys.
118:304 (2003)]. We have compared the theoretical predictions with the
corresponding simulation results for several thermodynamic properties. Then we
have determined the phase diagram of the model, by using either the SCOZA, or
the MHNC, or the PT predictions for one of the coexisting phases, and the
simulation data for the other phase, in order to separately ascertain the
accuracy of each theory. It turns out that the overall appearance of the phase
portrait is reproduced fairly well by all theories, with remarkable accuracy as
for the melting line and the solid-vapor equilibrium. The MHNC and SCOZA
results for the liquid-vapor coexistence, as well as for the corresponding
critical points, are quite accurate. All results are discussed in terms of the
basic assumptions underlying each theory. We have selected the MHNC for the
fluid and the first-order PT for the solid phase, as the most accurate tools to
investigate the phase behavior of the model in terms of purely theoretical
approaches. The overall results appear as a robust benchmark for further
theoretical investigations on higher order C(n>60) fullerenes, as well as on
other fullerene-related materials, whose description can be based on a
modelization similar to that adopted in this work.Comment: RevTeX4, 15 pages, 7 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
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