Thinking culturally about place

This paper explains the bases for an alternative approach to place branding and marketing, based on the disciplines of Cultural Mapping and Cultural Planning. After an introduction of key cultural mapping and planning concepts and issues, the paper discusses some innovative practical examples of culturally sensitive place branding and marketing from Sweden and the UK, and concludes by outlining some components of a possible future agenda for action

Method to measure off-axis displacements based on the analysis of the intensity distribution of a vortex beam

We study the properties of the Fraunhofer diffraction patterns produced by Gaussian beams crossing spiral phase plates. We show, both analytically and numerically, that off-axis displacements of the input beam produce asymmetric diffraction patterns. The intensity profile along the direction of maximum asymmetry shows two different peaks. We find that the intensity ratio between these two peaks decreases exponentially with the off-axis displacement of the incident beam, the decay being steeper for higher strengths of the optical singularity of the spiral phase plate. We analyze how this intensity ratio can be used to measure small misalignments of the input beam with a very high precision.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in PR

The boundary Riemann solver coming from the real vanishing viscosity approximation

We study a family of initial boundary value problems associated to mixed hyperbolic-parabolic systems: v^{\epsilon} _t + A (v^{\epsilon}, \epsilon v^{\epsilon}_x ) v^{\epsilon}_x = \epsilon B (v^{\epsilon} ) v^{\epsilon}_{xx} The conservative case is, in particular, included in the previous formulation. We suppose that the solutions $v^{\epsilon}$ to these problems converge to a unique limit. Also, it is assumed smallness of the total variation and other technical hypotheses and it is provided a complete characterization of the limit. The most interesting points are the following two. First, the boundary characteristic case is considered, i.e. one eigenvalue of $A$ can be $0$. Second, we take into account the possibility that $B$ is not invertible. To deal with this case, we take as hypotheses conditions that were introduced by Kawashima and Shizuta relying on physically meaningful examples. We also introduce a new condition of block linear degeneracy. We prove that, if it is not satisfied, then pathological behaviours may occur.Comment: 84 pages, 6 figures. Text changes in Sections 1 and 3.2.3. Added Section 3.1.2. Minor changes in other section

Constraints on Cosmological Parameters from the 500 deg² SPTPOL Lensing Power Spectrum

We present cosmological constraints based on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential power spectrum measurement from the recent 500 deg² SPTPOL survey, the most precise CMB lensing measurement from the ground to date. We fit a flat ΛCDM model to the reconstructed lensing power spectrum alone and in addition with other data sets: baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), as well as primary CMB spectra from Planck and SPTPOL. The cosmological constraints based on SPTPOL and Planck lensing band powers are in good agreement when analyzed alone and in combination with Planck full-sky primary CMB data. With weak priors on the baryon density and other parameters, the SPTPOL CMB lensing data alone provide a 4% constraint on σ₈Ω^(0.25)_m = 0.593 ± 0.025. Jointly fitting with BAO data, we find σ₈ = 0.779±0.023, Ω_m = 0.368^(+0.032)_(−0.037), and H₀ = 72.0^(+2.1)_(−2.5)kms⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹, up to 2σ away from the central values preferred by Planck lensing + BAO. However, we recover good agreement between SPTPOL and Planck when restricting the analysis to similar scales. We also consider single-parameter extensions to the flat ΛCDM model. The SPTPOL lensing spectrum constrains the spatial curvature to be Ω_K = −0.0007±0.0025 and the sum of the neutrino masses to be ∑m_ν < 0.23 eV at 95% C.L. (with Planck primary CMB and BAO data), in good agreement with the Planck lensing results. With the differences in the signal-to-noise ratio of the lensing modes and the angular scales covered in the lensing spectra, this analysis represents an important independent check on the full-sky Planck lensing measurement

SBV regularity of Systems of Conservation Laws and Hamilton-Jacobi Equation

We review the SBV regularity for solutions to hyperbolic systems of conservation laws and Hamilton-Jacobi equations. We give an overview of the techniques involved in the proof, and a collection of related problems concludes the paper

Quadratic interaction functional for general systems of conservation laws

For the Glimm scheme approximation u_\e to the solution of the system of conservation laws in one space dimension \begin{equation*} u_t + f(u)_x = 0, \qquad u(0,x) = u_0(x) \in \R^n, \end{equation*} with initial data $u_0$ with small total variation, we prove a quadratic (w.r.t. \TV(u_0)) interaction estimate, which has been used in the literature for stability and convergence results. No assumptions on the structure of the flux $f$ are made (apart smoothness), and this estimate is the natural extension of the Glimm type interaction estimate for genuinely nonlinear systems. More precisely we obtain the following results: \begin{itemize} \item a new analysis of the interaction estimates of simple waves; \item a Lagrangian representation of the derivative of the solution, i.e. a map $\mathtt x(t,w)$ which follows the trajectory of each wave $w$ from its creation to its cancellation; \item the introduction of the characteristic interval and partition for couples of waves, representing the common history of the two waves; \item a new functional $\mathfrak Q$ controlling the variation in speed of the waves w.r.t. time. \end{itemize} This last functional is the natural extension of the Glimm functional for genuinely nonlinear systems. The main result is that the distribution $D_{tt} \mathtt x(t,w)$ is a measure with total mass \leq \const \TV(u_0)^2

Extracellular acidity as favouring factor of tumor progression and metastatic dissemination

The bidirectional interactions between tumor cells and the so-called “host reactive stroma” play a critical role in most of the events characterizing tumor progression and distant organ colonization. This review discusses critical components of tumor environment involved in tumor cell dissemination. More specifically, it addresses some of the experimental evidences providing that acidity of tumor environment facilitates local invasiveness and metastasis formation, independently from hypoxia, with which acidity may be associated. Besides, acidity renders tumor cells resistant to radiation therapy and chemotherapeutic drugs. Therefore, this review examines the strategies for raising the low extracellular pH of tumors that might have considerable potential in cancer therapy