questions about the origin of singularity = nothing

Does the no-boundary proposal require a closed universe as a starting assumption? I was under the impression that all the observational evidence pointed towards an open universe?PE

Confused. How can W < 1 in a Universe where the expansion is accelerating? Can W change with time (could we be undergoing another inflationary period)?PE

Thanks cavediver, I appreciate you taking the time out to answer these.That doesn't mean I understood you by the way, I always understood closed and Big Crunch to be pretty much synonymous. I guess you're telling me they aren't. What does a closed Universe mean in this context?Incidentally, doing a bit of digging on the web and I found this interview with Neil Turok (do you know him?): Part I
Part IIPart II discusses how Hawking and Turok came up with a no-boundary proposal for open universes. It posits something called an instanton, which contains a much "nicer" singularity than the traditional Big Bang singularity. According to the Cambridge Quantum Gravity site this should be testable in the next few years when MAX and the Planck Surveyor are launched. I'd never heard of any of this and I thought I was reasonably up to date.PE