University of Waterloo

About: University of Waterloo is a education organization based out in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 36093 authors who have published 93906 publications receiving 2948139 citations. The organization is also known as: UW & uwaterloo.

Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector.

Abstract: This article explores the emergence of Airbnb, a company whose website permits ordinary people to rent out their residences as tourist accommodation. The company was just recently established, but it has grown extremely rapidly and is now selling many millions of room nights annually. This rise is examined through the lens of disruptive innovation theory, which describes how products that lack in traditionally favoured attributes but offer alternative benefits can, over time, transform a market and capture mainstream consumers. The concepts of disruptive innovation are used to consider Airbnb's novel business model, which is built around modern internet technologies, and Airbnb's distinct appeal, which centres on cost-savings, household amenities, and the potential for more authentic local experiences. Despite Airbnb's growing popularity, many Airbnb rentals are actually illegal due to short-term rental regulations. These legality issues and their corresponding tax concerns are discussed, with an overview...

Spin ice state in frustrated magnetic pyrochlore materials.

Abstract: A frustrated system is one whose symmetry precludes the possibility that every pairwise interaction (“bond”) in the system can be satisfied at the same time. Such systems are common in all areas of physical and biological science. In the most extreme cases, they can have a disordered ground state with “macroscopic” degeneracy; that is, one that comprises a huge number of equivalent states of the same energy. Pauling9s description of the low-temperature proton disorder in water ice was perhaps the first recognition of this phenomenon and remains the paradigm. In recent years, a new class of magnetic substance has been characterized, in which the disorder of the magnetic moments at low temperatures is precisely analogous to the proton disorder in water ice. These substances, known as spin ice materials, are perhaps the “cleanest” examples of such highly frustrated systems yet discovered. They offer an unparalleled opportunity for the study of frustration in magnetic systems at both an experimental and a theoretical level. This article describes the essential physics of spin ice, as it is currently understood, and identifies new avenues for future research on related materials and models.

An Introduction to Splines for Use in Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling

Abstract: 1 Introduction 2 Preliminaries 3 Hermite and Cubic Spline Interpolation 4 A Simple Approximation Technique - Uniform Cubic B-splines 5 Splines in a More General Setting 6 The One-Sided Basis 7 Divided Differences 8 General B-splines 9 B-spline Properties 10 Bezier Curves 11. Knot Insertion 12 The Oslo Algorithm 13 Parametric vs. Geometric Continuity 14 Uniformly-Shaped Beta-spline Surfaces 15 Geometric Continuity, Reparametrization, and the Chain Rule 16 Continuously-Shaped Beta-splines 17 An Explicity Formulation for Cubic Beta-splines 18 Discretely-Shaped Beta-splines 19 B-spline Representations for Beta-splines 20 Rendering and Evaluation 21 Selected Applications

Heating Hot Atmospheres with Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract: High resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the hot gas in galaxy clusters has shown that the gas is not cooling to low temperatures at the predicted rates of hundreds to thousands of solar masses per year. X-ray images have revealed giant cavities and shock fronts in the hot gas that provide a direct and relatively reliable means of measuring the energy injected into hot atmospheres by active galactic nuclei (AGN). Average radio jet powers are near those required to offset radiative losses and to suppress cooling in isolated giant elliptical galaxies, and in larger systems up to the richest galaxy clusters. This coincidence suggests that heating and cooling are coupled by feedback, which suppresses star formation and the growth of luminous galaxies. How jet energy is converted to heat and the degree to which other heating mechanisms are contributing, e.g., thermal conduction, are not well understood. Outburst energies require substantial late growth of supermassive black holes. Unless all of the ∼10 62 erg required to suppress star formation is deposited in the cooling regions of clusters, AGN outbursts must alter large-scale properties of the intracluster medium.