Open Space – a collaborative process for facilitating Tourism IT partnerships

The success of IT projects depends on the success of the partnerships on which they are based. However past research by the author has identified a significant rate of failure in these partnerships, predominantly due to an overly technical mindset, leading to the question: “how do we ensure that, as technological solutions are implemented within tourism, due consideration is given to human-centred issues?” The tourism partnership literature is explored for additional insights revealing that issues connected with power, participation and normative positions play a major role. The method, Open Space, is investigated for its ability to engage stakeholders in free and open debate. This paper reports on a one-day Open Space event sponsored by two major intermediaries in the UK travel industry who wanted to consult their business partners. Both the running of the event and its results reveal how Open Space has the potential to address some of the weaknesses associated with tourism partnerships

Lyapunov exponent and natural invariant density determination of chaotic maps: An iterative maximum entropy ansatz

We apply the maximum entropy principle to construct the natural invariant density and Lyapunov exponent of one-dimensional chaotic maps. Using a novel function reconstruction technique that is based on the solution of Hausdorff moment problem via maximizing Shannon entropy, we estimate the invariant density and the Lyapunov exponent of nonlinear maps in one-dimension from a knowledge of finite number of moments. The accuracy and the stability of the algorithm are illustrated by comparing our results to a number of nonlinear maps for which the exact analytical results are available. Furthermore, we also consider a very complex example for which no exact analytical result for invariant density is available. A comparison of our results to those available in the literature is also discussed.Comment: 16 pages including 6 figure

To swim or not to swim: an interpretation of farmed mink's motivation for a water bath

How an animal’s behavioural (ethological) needs can be met is a pivotal issue in the assessment of welfare for captive animals. The value of swimming water for farmed mink is an example how scientific and societal questions relating to animal welfare can be answered. A number of studies have addressed the issue of the indispensability of swimming water for mink; however, so far with inconclusive evidence. In this paper, the results of these studies and related literature are reviewed. First, the biological definition of need is discussed. Subsequently, attention is paid to the effects of the presence, absence and the removal of swimming water on behavioural and physiological correlates of well-being including stereotypic and anticipatory behaviour and urinary cortisol. Thereafter we discuss individual differences in the use of swimming water, the price animals pay for access to a water bath, and the effect of access to swimming water on juvenile play. The main conclusions of the literature review are that 1) the use of a water bath for mink is most likely related to foraging behaviour (foraging areas: land and water); 2) absence of swimming water, without prior experience, does not lead to consistent changes in level of stereotypic behaviour, or anticipatory responses; 3) removal of a previously experienced water bath may induce short-term stress as indicated by behavioural parameters and elevated cortisol responses; 4) mink work hard for access to a swimming bath and running wheel in consumer demand studies. Other cage modifications such as tunnels and biting objects, may also provide environmental enrichment, if they are added to otherwise impoverished conditions; 5) There are individual differences in the use of swimming water: these are related in part to variation in prior experience of aquatic resources.; 6) As prior experience is important both with respect to individual use of swimming water and the response to deprivation, swimming water can not be described as biological need in the sense of a fixed requirement for survival. As swimming water appears to act as an incentive that induces its own motivation a more accurate term may be an “incentive induced or environmentally facilitated need”. Given the available evidence, it is not possible to conclude whether mink that have never experienced swimming water, suffer as a consequence of its absence. However, it is possible to predict that mink with access to water have improved quality of life, due to increased behavioural opportunities, in comparison to farmed mink without access to swimming water. In practical terms, it is still open to debate whether mink should be provided with swimming water, or if alternative, less valued, but easier to install and maintain forms of environmental enrichment, should be provided in mink housing. To clarify these issues a number of future studies would be valuable. These include; 1) whether specific environmental cues affect motivation to swim, such as the form of drinking water delivery systems ; 2) whether prior experience of swimming water affects its incentive value; in other words “can you miss what you never experienced?”; 3) do behavioural parameters such as stereotypic behaviour; rebound effects and vacuum activity have any general utility in assessing the value of absent resources; 4) what are preferences for and the value of alternative resources which may act as substitutes for swimming water. In addition we would recommend further work investigating: relationship between access to swimming water and positive indicators of welfare such as play and/or anticipatory behaviour; the effects of preventing the performance of rewarding behaviours and deprivation of a previous experienced resource; and health and hygeine issues related to provision of a water bath. In future work, it would be desirable to present be the actual percentages of animals using a water bath during the experiment and the use of power analyses, to aid their interpretation

Dispersal: an alternative mating tactic conditional on sex ratio and body size

Small male milkweed beetles are less successful at obtaining mates than are larger males. Larger males usually win fights and prevent smaller males from obtaining mates and from choosing larger more fecund females as mates. When sex ratios are male-biased, smaller males are particularly likely to experience these mating disadvantages. It follows that smaller males should be especially responsive to their local competitive environment and behave so as to minimize the mating disadvantages of their smaller size. This paper tests the hypothesis that smaller males disperse from host plant patches with male-biased sex ratios and remain in patches with female-biased sex ratios more readily than larger males.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46883/1/265_2004_Article_BF00299931.pd

A 1500 deg2 near infrared proper motion catalogue from the UKIDSS Large Area Survey

The United Kingdom Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) began in 2005, with the start of the UKIDSS programme as a 7 year effort to survey roughly 4000 deg2 at high Galactic latitudes in Y, J, H and K bands. The survey also included a significant quantity of two epoch J band observations, with an epoch baseline greater than 2 years to calculate proper motions. We present a near-infrared proper motion catalogue for the 1500 deg2 of the two epoch LAS data, which includes 135 625 stellar sources and a further 88 324 with ambiguous morphological classifications, all with motions detected above the 5σ level. We developed a custom proper motion pipeline which we describe here. Our catalogue agrees well with the proper motion data supplied for a 300 deg2 subset in the current Wide Field Camera Science Archive (WSA) 10th data release (DR10) catalogue, and in various optical catalogues, but it benefits from a larger matching radius and hence a larger upper proper motion detection limit. We provide absolute proper motions, using LAS galaxies for the relative to absolute correction. By using local second-order polynomial transformations, as opposed to linear transformations in the WSA, we correct better for any local distortions in the focal plane, not including the radial distortion that is removed by the UKIDSS pipeline. We present the results of proper motion searches for new brown dwarfs and white dwarfs. We discuss 41 sources in the WSA DR10 overlap with our catalogue with proper motions >300 mas yr−1, several of which are new detections. We present 15 new candidate ultracool dwarf binary systems

Adjuvant gemcitabine and concurrent radiation for patients with resected pancreatic cancer: a phase II study

The safety and efficacy of gemcitabine and concurrent radiation to the upper abdomen followed by weekly gemcitabine in patients with resected pancreatic cancer was determined. Patients with resected adenocarcinoma of the pancreas were treated with intravenous gemcitabine administered twice-weekly (40 mg m−2) for 5 weeks concurrent with upper abdominal radiation (50.4 Gy in 5½ weeks). At the completion of the chemoradiation, patients without disease progression were given gemcitabine (1000 mg m−2) weekly for two cycles. Each cycle consisted of 3 weeks of treatment followed by 1 week without treatment. Forty-seven patients were entered, 46 of whom are included in this analysis. Characteristics: median age 61 years (range 35–79); 24 females (58%); 73% stage T3/T4; and 70% lymph node positive. Grade III/IV gastrointestinal or haematologic toxicities were infrequent. The median survival was 18.3 months, while the median time to disease recurrence was 10.3 months. Twenty-four percent of patients were alive at 3 years. Only six of 34 patients with progression experienced local regional relapse as a component of the first site of failure. These results confirm the feasibility of delivering adjuvant concurrent gemcitabine and radiation to the upper abdomen. This strategy produced good local regional tumour control

Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134

The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods, one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times $10^{-22}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July 200

Searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars

We present upper limits on the amplitude of gravitational waves from 28 isolated pulsars using data from the second science run of LIGO. The results are also expressed as a constraint on the pulsars' equatorial ellipticities. We discuss a new way of presenting such ellipticity upper limits that takes account of the uncertainties of the pulsar moment of inertia. We also extend our previous method to search for known pulsars in binary systems, of which there are about 80 in the sensitive frequency range of LIGO and GEO 600.Comment: Accepted by CQG for the proceeding of GWDAW9, 7 pages, 2 figure