From nudism and naturism tourism to "natourism": defining natourism and exploring natourists' motivations

This article reviews previous attempts to define nudist and naturist tourism, and it elaborates detailed definitions through analyzing and discussing views of numerous natourist/nudist associations worldwide. Out of this process, the term “natourism” emerged, which includes the notion of “social nudity” as a main reason for traveling as well as a wide variety of ancillary stereotypical activities. As a term, “natourism” was tested after exploring the motivations of 1,508 natourists from all over the world. Although initially this study, through a literature review, identified three general motivation groups of natourism—namely, human motivations, motivations to travel, and nudism/naturism motivations—factor analysis made it possible to identify additional factors of natourists’ motivations, which included Naturalism and Relaxation, Sexuality, Stereotypical Travel Motivations, and Personal and Family Motivations. Despite the limitations of the study, findings confirm the appropriateness of the term “natourism” to establish parameters for further research

Hosts, guests and politics: coastal resorts morphological change

Resort morphology goes through a predictable sequence of stages: from pre-tourism low through high-density development to an urbanized state. Three elements are considered essential in such coastal resorts change: hosts, guests, and politics. Using historical data from the mass-developed Greek island of Crete, ten principal characteristics are identified as determinants of the morphological change of coastal resorts. A temporal model of unplanned change is also proposed. Although the study was constrained by limited data availability, the proposed model is deemed able to represent the morphological change of Cretan mass-developed coastal resorts

Brits behaving badly: template analysis of newspaper content

This study explores the ways in which public debates about the sexual, drinking and risk taking behaviour of young British travellers, who participate in trips organized to Greek summer resorts exclusively by Club 18-30, have been interpreted, and framed, within print media (British newspapers). Using a template analysis approach four themes emerged, namely binge drinking, sexual behaviour, risk taking and host reactions. These themes are discussed in relation to the methodology adopted, and the findings of previous research, and policies for risk-taking decrease, and solutions to reduce the problems posed by young tourists’ antisocial behaviour in summer Greek resorts, are provided

Micromechanical model of bovine Haversian bone predicts strain amplification through soft interfaces

Context. Recent observations of brown dwarf spectroscopic variability in the infrared infer the presence of patchy cloud cover. Aims. This paper proposes a mechanism for producing inhomogeneous cloud coverage due to the depletion of cloud particles through the Coulomb explosion of dust in atmospheric plasma regions. Charged dust grains Coulomb-explode when the electrostatic stress of the grain exceeds its mechanical tensile stress, which results in grains below a critical radius a < aCoulcrit being broken up. Methods. This work outlines the criteria required for the Coulomb explosion of dust clouds in substellar atmospheres, the effect on the dust particle size distribution function, and the resulting radiative properties of the atmospheric regions. Results. Our results show that for an atmospheric plasma region with an electron temperature of Te = 10 eV (≈ 105 K), the critical grain radius varies from 10-7 to 10-4 cm, depending on the grains’ tensile strength. Higher critical radii up to 10-3 cm are attainable for higher electron temperatures. We find that the process produces a bimodal particle size distribution composed of stable nanoscale seed particles and dust particles with a ≥ aCoulcrit , with the intervening particle sizes defining a region devoid of dust. As a result, the dust population is depleted, and the clouds become optically thin in the wavelength range 0:1 - 10 μm, with a characteristic peak that shifts to higher wavelengths as more sub-micrometer particles are destroyed. Conclusions. In an atmosphere populated with a distribution of plasma volumes, this will yield regions of contrasting radiative properties, thereby giving a source of inhomogeneous cloud coverage. The results presented here may also be relevant for dust in supernova remnants and protoplanetary disks.PostprintPeer reviewe

Nonlinear Analysis of Frame Structures based on Augmented Total Potential Energy Minimization

Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) "Analysis and Design of Earthquake Resistant Structures