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Selected AbstractsIntroduction: Researching Democracy and Social Change with Violence in the ForegroundIDS BULLETIN, Issue 3 2009Jenny Pearce There are many studies of violence within specific fields of the social sciences, but the next stage in our evolving understanding of violence may lie with interdisciplinary approaches. By traversing traditional academic categories, violence as a variable may become more visible in its multiple modes. It is through our ability to see the linkages between interpersonal, cultural, collective, political, state, interstate and structural violences that we can gain a better understanding of its persistence in human interactions. Researchers for this IDS Bulletin set out not only to understand contemporary dynamics of violence, but also to work with people trapped in violent places, spaces and histories who were willing to talk about and act upon their situation. Researching violence in an interactive way with those living in the thick of it posed many ethical, safety, epistemological and methodological challenges. These are documented in this IDS Bulletin alongside findings on the dimensions and impact of violence in different contexts. [source] Live Video Montage with a Rotating CameraCOMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 7 2009Zilong Dong Abstract High-quality video editing usually requires accurate layer separation in order to resolve occlusions. However, most of the existing bilayer segmentation algorithms require either considerable user intervention or a simple stationary camera configuration with known background, which is difficult to meet for many real world online applications. This paper demonstrates that various visually appealing montage effects can be online created from a live video captured by a rotating camera, by accurately retrieving the camera state and segmenting out the dynamic foreground. The key contribution is that a novel fast bilayer segmentation method is proposed which can effectively extract the dynamic foreground under rotational camera configuration, and is robust to imperfect background estimation and complex background colors. Our system can create a variety of live visual effects, including but not limited to, realistic virtual object insertion, background substitution and blurring, non-photorealistic rendering and camouflage effect. A variety of challenging examples demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. [source] Legibility evaluation using point-of-regard measurementELECTRICAL ENGINEERING IN JAPAN, Issue 4 2008Daisuke Saito Abstract Web site visibility has become important because of the rapid dissemination of the World Wide Web, and combinations of foreground and background colors are crucial in providing high visibility. In our previous studies, the visibilities of several web-safe color combinations were examined using a psychological method. In those studies, simple stimuli were used because of experimental restriction. In this paper, legibility of sentences on web sites was examined using a psychophysiological method, point-of-regard measurement, to obtain other practical data. Ten people with normal color sensations ranging from ages 21 to 29 were recruited. The number of characters per line in each page was arranged in the same number, and the four representative achromatic web-safe colors, that is, #000000, #666666, #999999, and #CCCCCC, were examined. The reading time per character and the gaze time per line were obtained from point-of-regard measurement, and the normalized with the reading time and the gaze time of the three colors were calculated and compared. It was found that the time of reading and gaze become long at the same ratio when the contrast decreases by point-of-regard measurement. Therefore, it was indicated that the legibility of color combinations could be estimated by point-of-regard measurement. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(4): 35,42, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20612 [source] Legibility evaluation with oculomotor analysis.ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATIONS IN JAPAN, Issue 9 2010The relationship between contrast, legibility Abstract Web page legibility is important because of the widespread use of the World Wide Web, and color combinations between the foreground and background are crucial to assuring sufficient legibility. In our previous studies, the visibilities of several web-safe color combinations were examined using a psychological method. In those studies, simple stimuli were used because of experimental restrictions. In this study, the legibility of sentences on Web sites was examined using an oculomotor-based psychophysiological method, and the effect of achromatic color combinations, that is, the contrast, was examined in terms of the calculated reading time. The presentation stimuli were positive colorations, whose font color luminance was lower than the background color, and negative colorations, whose font color luminance was higher than the background color. The number of characters per line was arranged to be the same on each page, and four levels of achromatic contrast (the contrast between the background color and the font color), namely, 92.5%, 75.0%, 50.0%, and 25.0%, were examined. It was shown that the reading time increased when the contrast decreased. However, with negative coloration, there were great differences between individuals. Therefore, considering web accessibility, legibility is found to be improved when using a positive coloration. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 93(9): 27,33, 2010; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10243 [source] On the Problem of Empathy: The Case of Yap, Federated States of MicronesiaETHOS, Issue 4 2008C. Jason Throop After briefly examining foundational philosophical definitions of empathy, the article advances a number of differing cultural phenomenological orientations implicated in the experience and expression of empathy. These orientations are understood to help to foreground the place of empathy in what may otherwise be viewed as a general reluctance to engage in empathetic attunement in Yapese society. [empathy, cultural phenomenology, morality, suffering, Yap] [source] Entorhinal cortex contributes to object-in-place scene memoryEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 11 2004David P. Charles Abstract Four rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained preoperatively in a test of object-in-place scene memory. They were presented daily with lists of unique computer-generated scenes each containing a spatial array of multiple individual objects. Within each scene, objects to be discriminated appeared in the foreground, each occupying a unique location, and monkeys were required to correctly discriminate the rewarded object to receive a food reward. Once this preoperative criterion was attained, the monkeys received bilateral entorhinal cortex ablation performed as either one or two surgical operations with a period of testing following each. Postoperatively, they were significantly impaired in learning new object-in-place scene problems. These results show that the entorhinal cortex, like anatomically related structures including the perirhinal cortex and the fornix, contributes to object-in-place scene learning. [source] Rat anterodorsal thalamic head direction neurons depend upon dynamic visual signals to select anchoring landmark cuesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 2 2004Michaël B. Zugaro Abstract Head direction cells, which are functionally coupled to ,place' cells of the hippocampus, a structure critically involved in spatial cognition, are likely neural substrates for the sense of direction. Here we studied the mechanism by which head direction cells are principally anchored to background visual cues [M.B. Zugaro et al. (2001) J. Neurosci., 21, RC154,1,5]. Anterodorsal thalamic head direction cells were recorded while the rat foraged on a small elevated platform in a 3-m diameter cylindrical enclosure. A large card was placed in the background, near the curtain, and a smaller card was placed in the foreground, near the platform. The cards were identically marked, proportionally dimensioned, subtended the same visual angles from the central vantage point and separated by 90°. The rat was then disoriented in darkness, the cards were rotated by 90° in opposite directions about the center and the rat was returned. Preferred directions followed either the background card, foreground card or midpoint between the two cards. In continuous lighting, preferred directions shifted to follow the background cue in most cases (30 of the 53 experiments, Batschelet V -test, P < 0.01). Stroboscopic illumination, which perturbs dynamic visual signals (e.g. motion parallax), blocked this selectivity. Head direction cells remained equally anchored to the background card, foreground card or configuration of the two cards (Watson test, P > 0.1). This shows that dynamic visual signals are critical in distinguishing typically more stable background cues which govern spatial neuronal responses and orientation behaviors. [source] Self-Healing Polymers: Self-Healing Polymer Coatings (Adv. Mater.ADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 6 20096/2009) Dramatic reduction in corrosion of a steel plate coated with a self-healing coating (right) as compared to a conventional coating is demonstrated. Two samples were scratched and placed in 5% NaCl for 5 days. The background is an optical image (2× magnification), in the foreground is an SEM image of the scratch. In the self-healing sample, the scratch has almost completely self-healed, while in the control sample, the scratch remains all the way down to the substrate, as reported by Paul Braun and co-workers on p.645. [source] Power allocation in the context of dimensioning the air-interface of third generation W-CDMA-based cellular systemsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, Issue 5 2002P. Demestichas Abstract The adoption of W-CDMA as an essential component of the air-interface of third-generation cellular systems brings to the foreground the need for new planning methodologies and software tools. In this perspective, this paper addresses planning problems that are important to the dimensioning of W-CDMA-based cellular networks. The problems aim at finding the optimal feasible allocation of transmission power to the sets of uplink and downlink connections that should be supported by the system, so as to cope with a corresponding traffic load scenario. The problems are concisely defined, mathematically formulated and solved by means of two computationally efficient, novel algorithms. The solutions of the problems may be seen as operating points at which the system performance should be driven. Finally, numerical results are presented and concluding remarks are drawn. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Bridging Research and Practice: The Challenge of ,Normal Operations' StudiesJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2002Mathile Bourrier The article will present some possible explanations of the difficulty to bridge research and practice in the domain of risk management. A first block of reasons has to do with the very content of the analyses themselves. Of great importance is also the time chosen for them to be carried out. The second argument will bring to the foreground the difficulty for a lot of fruitful research to permeate into management spheres. One way to reconcile experts, scholars and decision makers may come from new attention devoted to organisational design and formal structures. This calls for the study of normal operations as opposed to relying too exclusively on accident cases and crisis situations. We believe that this perspective can help us improve our level of understanding of complex organisations, because it focuses on the duality of organisational life: the dark side and the bright side, always tightly coupled. [source] Color Separation in Forensic Image ProcessingJOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, Issue 1 2006Charles E. H. Berger Ph.D. ABSTRACT: In forensic image processing, it is often important to be able to separate a feature from an interfering background or foreground, or to demonstrate colors within an image to be different from each other. In this study, a color deconvolution algorithm that could accomplish this task is described, and it is applied to color separation problems in document and fingerprint examination. Subtle color differences (sometimes invisible to the naked eye) are found to be sufficient, which is demonstrated successfully for several cases where color differences were shown to exist, or where colors were removed from the foreground or background. The software is available for free in the form of an Adobe® Photoshop® -compatible plug-in. [source] Social relationships and shifting languages in Northern Thailand1JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 3 2010Kathryn M. Howard This paper explores how speakers' understandings of the conduct of social relationships mediate changing and socially distinctive syncretic language practices in a Northern Thai community. Although a shift away from vernacular (Kam Muang) speech styles to Standard Thai was emblematically tied to young and urban speakers in nostalgic discourses, syncretic speech styles and metalinguistic discourses also reflected local and socially positioned understandings of institutional roles and social relationships. I argue that scholars of language change and shift should foreground the mediating role of social relationships in speakers' uses and understandings of their communicative repertoires across multiple timescales. [source] Prisoners' Adjustment, Correctional Officers, and Context: The Foreground and Background of Punishment in Late ModernityLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 2 2008Mike Vuolo Past research indicates that front-line criminal justice workers are the critical players in determining whether innovations in penal policy are realized. Recent attempts to understand the diversity in the application of the penal harm movement have, however, sidestepped the primary audience of these policies, the population of convicted offenders. This article uses data from two prisons to examine the effects of correctional officers on women prisoners' adjustment to prison life. Using regression models and interview data, we find that correctional officer behavior has a profound impact on women's ability to adjust to prison, and this effect is largely independent of the prisoners' characteristics and the institutions in which they are housed. On a theoretical level, the findings speak to recent calls to examine the background and foreground of penal culture. On a practical level, they highlight the need to understand the environments from which women are emerging, not just the communities into which they are released. [source] The Bishops' Ban of 1599 and the Ideology of English SatireLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2010William R. Jones On June 1, 1599, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London banned the further printing of satires, epigrams, and unlicensed histories and plays. Furthermore, the order demanded the immediate recall and burning of specific works, many of which were verse imitations of the Roman satirist Juvenal. Although the order itself lacks specific motivational language, current explanations tend to foreground the potentially obscene and/or libelous nature of the recalled works. Comparatively little attention has been paid, however, to the internal ideologies of the banned satires themselves and to the dialogue between the satires and the cultural and political conditions that inspired them. Instead of an ad hoc response to any one particular transgression, this essay argues for the Ban as an attempt to stem the growing cultural influence of a particularly unorthodox mode of Juvenalian imitative satire expressed most forcefully in John Marston's banned work, The Scourge of Villanie. Marston's rejection of all established belief systems, especially the conservative literary traditions of native English and Horatian imitative satire, in favor of a highly individualistic and indecorous mode of social representation, was simply too ideologically destabilizing for the bishops to tolerate. In support of this reading, two relatively underexplored pieces of evidence are examined: first, the reprieve granted to Joseph Hall's imitative satire entitled Virgidemiarum, which attempts to negotiate an ideologically safe middle-ground between the radical Juvenalian mode and the conservative Horatian tradition; and second, the contemporary reflections on the bishops' prohibition within John Weever's 1599 Epigrams, his 1600 pastoral Faunus and Melliflora, and his 1601 direct attack on Marston in The Whipping of the Satyre. Weever's support of the bishops' actions derives from his identification of the banned Juvenalian mode as not merely morally offensive or personally defamatory, but as a tangible threat to the ideological stability of the English nation. [source] Detecting bispectral acoustic oscillations from inflation using a new flexible estimatorMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010Martin Bucher ABSTRACT We present a new flexible estimator for comparing theoretical templates for the predicted bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy to observations. This estimator, based on binning in harmonic space, generalizes the ,optimal' estimator of Komatsu, Spergel and Wandelt by allowing an adjustable weighting scheme for masking possible foreground and other contaminants and detecting particular noteworthy features in the bispectrum. The utility of this estimator is illustrated by demonstrating how acoustic oscillations in the bispectrum and other details of the bispectral shape could be detected in the future Planck data provided that fNL is sufficiently large. The character and statistical weight of the acoustic oscillations and the decay tail are described in detail. [source] Redshifted 21-cm observations of high-redshift quasar proximity zonesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2008J. Stuart B. Wyithe ABSTRACT The introduction of low-frequency radio arrays is expected to revolutionize the study of the reionization epoch. Observation of the contrast in redshifted 21-cm emission between a large H ii region and the surrounding neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) will be the simplest and most easily interpreted signature. However, the highest redshift quasars known are thought to reside in an ionized IGM. Using a semi-analytic model we describe the redshifted 21-cm signal from the IGM surrounding quasars discovered using the i -drop-out technique (i.e. quasars at z, 6). We argue that while quasars at z < 6.5 seem to reside in the post-overlap IGM, they will still provide valuable probes of the late stages of the overlap era because the light-travel time across a quasar proximity zone should be comparable to the duration of overlap. For redshifted 21-cm observations within a 32-MHz bandpass, we find that the subtraction of a spectrally smooth foreground will not remove spectral features due to the proximity zone. These features could be used to measure the neutral hydrogen content of the IGM during the late stages of reionization. The density of quasars at z, 6 is now well constrained. We use the measured quasar luminosity function to estimate the prospects for discovery of high-redshift quasars in fields that will be observed by the Murchison Widefield Array. [source] Two-Micron All-Sky Survey J01542930+0053266: a new eclipsing M dwarf binary systemMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2008A. C. Becker ABSTRACT We report on Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) J01542930+0053266, a faint eclipsing system composed of two M dwarfs. The variability of this system was originally discovered during a pilot study of the 2MASS Calibration Point Source Working Data base. Additional photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey yields an eight-passband light curve from which we derive an orbital period of 2.639 0157 ± 0.000 0016 d. Spectroscopic followup confirms our photometric classification of the system, which is likely composed of M0 and M1 dwarfs. Radial velocity measurements allow us to derive the masses (M1= 0.66 ± 0.03 M,; M2= 0.62 ± 0.03 M,) and radii (R1= 0.64 ± 0.08 R,; R2= 0.61 ± 0.09 R,) of the components, which are consistent with empirical mass,radius relationships for low-mass stars in binary systems. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of the light curves which allow us to uncover complicated degeneracies between the system parameters. Both stars show evidence of H, emission, something not common in early-type M dwarfs. This suggests that binarity may influence the magnetic activity properties of low-mass stars; activity in the binary may persist long after the dynamos in their isolated counterparts have decayed, yielding a new potential foreground of flaring activity for next generation variability surveys. [source] OH megamasers, starburst and AGN activity in Markarian 231MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2005A. M. S. Richards ABSTRACT We present Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) observations of OH maser and radio continuum emission within a few hundred pc of the core of the ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) Markarian 231. This is the only known OH megamaser galaxy classed as a Seyfert 1. Maser emission is identified with the 1665- and 1667-MHz transitions over a velocity extent of 720 km s,1. Both lines show a similar position,velocity structure including a gradient of 1.7 km s,1 pc,1 from NW to SE along the 420-pc major axis. The (unresolved) inner few tens of pc possess a much steeper velocity gradient. The maser distribution is modelled as a torus rotating about an axis inclined at ,45° to the plane of the sky. We estimate the enclosed mass density to be 320 ± 90 M, pc,3 in a flattened distribution. This includes a central unresolved mass of ,8 × 106 M,. All the maser emission is projected against a region with a radio continuum brightness temperature ,105 K, giving a maser gain of ,2.2. The 1667:1665 MHz line ratio is close to 1.8 (the value predicted for thermal emission) consistent with radiatively pumped, unsaturated masers. This behaviour and the kinematics of the torus suggest that the size of individual masing regions is in the range 0.25,4 pc with a covering factor close to unity. There are no very bright compact masers, in contrast to galaxies such as the Seyfert 2 Markarian 273, where the masing torus is viewed nearer edge-on. The comparatively modest maser amplification seen from Markarian 231 is consistent with its classification in the unification scheme for Seyfert galaxies. Most of the radio continuum emission on 50,500 pc scales is probably of starburst origin but the compact peak is 0.4 per cent polarized by a magnetic field running north,south, similar to the jet direction on these scales. There is no close correlation between maser and continuum intensity, suggesting that much of the radio continuum must originate in the foreground and indeed the relative continuum brightness is slightly greater in the direction of the approaching jet. Comparisons with other data show that the jet changes direction close the nucleus and suggest that the sub-kpc disc hosting the masers and starburst activity is severely warped. [source] MAGIC J0616+225 as delayed TeV emission of cosmic rays diffusing from the supernova remnant IC 443MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY: LETTERS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2008Diego F. Torres ABSTRACT We present a theoretical model that explains the high-energy phenomenology of the neighbourhood of the supernova remnant IC 443, as observed with the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope and the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). We interpret MAGIC J0616+225 as delayed TeV emission of cosmic rays diffusing from IC 443 and interacting with a known cloud located at a distance of about 20 pc in the foreground of the remnant. This scenario naturally explains the displacement between EGRET and MAGIC sources, their fluxes, and their spectra. We compare this model with others recently presented, and discuss how it can be tested with observations by the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. [source] Workplace learning as a cultural technologyNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 92 2001Nicky Solomon This chapter explores some of the challenges and complexities presented by the new discourses on work and workplace learning, particularly those that serve as foreground to questions of culture. [source] Taking Animals Seriously: William Wordsworth and the Claims of Ecological RomanticismORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 4 2000Peter Mortensen Critics have long been aware that William Wordsworth borrowed from the German balladist Gottfried August Bürger in composing Lyrical Ballads (1798/1800). Wordsworth was both attracted and repulsed by Bürger's sensational and sensationally popular verse, yet the reason for this ambiguity has continued to baffle scholars. In this essay I turn to ecological criticism to cast a new light on the intertextual and cross-cultural exchange between Bürger's "Der Wilde Jäger" and Wordsworth's "Hart-Leap Well". Wordsworth, I claim, was intrigued by Bürger's attempt to write a poem about hunting, yet in rewriting the German ballad Wordsworth also seeks to shift the emphasis somewhat, in such a way as to focus more explicitly on what he believed to be the main issue at stake: man's shockingly cruel treatment of animals. In thus reconceptualising Bürger's poem, Wordsworth inaugurates a new kind of Romantic nature poetry, which brings animals into the foreground and takes their suffering seriously. In the essay's final section, I defend Wordsworth's proto-ecological vision against critics who believe that Wordsworth's love of nature caused him to lose interest in mankind. Far from leading necessarily to misanthropy or disillusionment, I argue, the vision propounded in ,Hart-Leap Well' invites us to speculate how we can combine concern for the environment with a concern for our fellow men. [source] The journey of Indian GLP programme,looking back and forwardQUALITY ASSURANCE JOURNAL, Issue 1 2009V. Amalan Stanley Abstract The Indian GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) compliance monitoring programme has successfully brought the task of implementing the programme to the foreground where full OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) membership is about to happen. It has been a long journey, more than five years for the programme to arrive at this juncture, succeeding through sheer commitment and will of the Science and Technology initiatives under which the programme has been implemented. Considering the spontaneous and natural challenges that are bound to make the effort of implementing the GLP compliance programme tougher for any country, the progress made by the Indian GLP programme can be considered very rapid. Though the dawn of full OECD membership for the Indian GLP programme is imminent the paper deals with the details of the journey it has traveled so far and the challenges ahead, commending the commitment of the efforts of the GLP MA (Monitoring Authority) as well as the preparedness of the test facilities. This paper discusses the GLP policy aspects that favoured the growth of the programme among non-member adherents, such as the allowance for getting GLP certification by GLP MA abroad. It also deals with the challenge of harmonizing the policies of the internal agencies that have direct influence on the implementation of the GLP programme, other than legalizing the GLP aspects as there are various government departments in India dealing with the regulatory aspects of specific drug products for human use or that are of chemical in origin. There are data requirements made mandatory by these institutions on pre-clinical or non-clinical safety evaluation of those products, which invariably necessitate studies conducted in compliance with the principles of GLP. The paper concludes with the emphasis that there is a primary need for harmony as well as legal or judicial underpinnings under the umbrella of a national GLP Monitoring Authority, a gray area to be essentially tackled with foresight, to earn credibility on the international front. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Some reflections on empathy and reciprocity in the use of countertransference between supervisor and superviseeTHE JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2000James Astor Reciprocity refers in its general meaning to a mutual give and take. It is a background feature of all productive supervisory relationships. In this essay I want to bring it into the foreground. I will describe it by contrasting supervision and analysis. For, in my view, that is exactly what reciprocity is in the supervisory relationship: it is an attitude of mind in which the supervisor performs the task of differentiating internally the supervisory from the analytic vertex, in the context of the asymmetry of the supervisory relationship. [source] The "writing on the cosmic wall": Is there a straightforward explanation of the cosmic microwave background?ANNALEN DER PHYSIK, Issue 10-11 2009H.J. Fahr Abstract The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is taken today as reflecting the thermodynamical state of the universe at these early cosmic times. Based on this assumption and standard cosmological principles meanwhile many fundamental cosmological facts have been deduced from the CMB state which, however, to some surprise reveal that the universe should be dominated by dark energy and dark matter, while for its energy content the usual baryonic matter is nearly negligible. Thus the question which we want to raise in this article is, whether this standard interpretation of the CMB phenomenon is solid and unequivocal enough to support the standard cosmological claims. We shall show, however, that in many details the standard explanation is not straightforward, but allows for important alternatives which seriously should be looked at. Especially arguments for a vanishing cosmic curvature (k = 0) are shown to be weak, and, contrary to the usual claim, the light distance to the recombination horizon is in fact strongly model-biassed. We also show that the CMB dipole which is generally understood as a consequence of a peculiar motion by about 680 km/s with respect to rest system of the CMB can as well, and perhaps even better, be understood as indication of differerent cosmological expansion dynamics seen in an anisotropically expanding universe in different directions of the sky. We also discuss that the power amplitude (i.e. effective Planck temperature) in the dipolar CMB structure depends on wavelength even inverting the dipole maximum orientation in the Wien's branch. In addition unexpected properties of the lowest CMB multipoles could mean that we are at least partly seeing an unquantifyable foreground in the background. Only after its removal the CMB interpretation could at all then, but then on a completely new basis, become a subject of cosmological terms. At the end of this article we shall briefly discuss an alternative explanation of the CMB radiation which helps to better understand the mysterious cosmic photon-to-baryon ratio of about 109. [source] The "writing on the cosmic wall": Is there a straightforward explanation of the cosmic microwave background?ANNALEN DER PHYSIK, Issue 10-11 2009H.J. Fahr Abstract The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is taken today as reflecting the thermodynamical state of the universe at these early cosmic times. Based on this assumption and standard cosmological principles meanwhile many fundamental cosmological facts have been deduced from the CMB state which, however, to some surprise reveal that the universe should be dominated by dark energy and dark matter, while for its energy content the usual baryonic matter is nearly negligible. Thus the question which we want to raise in this article is, whether this standard interpretation of the CMB phenomenon is solid and unequivocal enough to support the standard cosmological claims. We shall show, however, that in many details the standard explanation is not straightforward, but allows for important alternatives which seriously should be looked at. Especially arguments for a vanishing cosmic curvature (k = 0) are shown to be weak, and, contrary to the usual claim, the light distance to the recombination horizon is in fact strongly model-biassed. We also show that the CMB dipole which is generally understood as a consequence of a peculiar motion by about 680 km/s with respect to rest system of the CMB can as well, and perhaps even better, be understood as indication of differerent cosmological expansion dynamics seen in an anisotropically expanding universe in different directions of the sky. We also discuss that the power amplitude (i.e. effective Planck temperature) in the dipolar CMB structure depends on wavelength even inverting the dipole maximum orientation in the Wien's branch. In addition unexpected properties of the lowest CMB multipoles could mean that we are at least partly seeing an unquantifyable foreground in the background. Only after its removal the CMB interpretation could at all then, but then on a completely new basis, become a subject of cosmological terms. At the end of this article we shall briefly discuss an alternative explanation of the CMB radiation which helps to better understand the mysterious cosmic photon-to-baryon ratio of about 109. [source] The mathematical pendulum from Gauß via Jacobi to RiemannANNALEN DER PHYSIK, Issue 6 2009W. Dittrich Abstract The goal of this article is to introduce double-periodic elliptic functions on the basis of a "simple" mechanical system, that of the mathematical pendulum. Thereby it is not geometry that is in the foreground, as in Gauß's analysis of the lemniscatian curve, but rather the calculation of the specific attributes of elliptic functions with the aid of a periodic integrable system. Not the spatial degree of freedom, but the time variable is continued into the complex plane. This will make it possible for us to not only identify the known real period of the pendulum oscillation, but also to detect a second imaginary period. Only then does the solution of the equation of motion become a Jacobi-type elliptic function. Using the Cauchy integral theorem, which Gauß was already familiar with, as well as the simplest Riemannian surface of the function , we want to calculate the analytic and topological characteristics of the oscillatory motion of a pendulum. Our intent is to show that elliptic functions could have appeared much earlier than 1796 in the literature. Admittedly, for this the field of complex numbers was necessary, as represented in the Gaußian plane of complex numbers. However, Gauß was unwilling to publish his findings because of his "fear of the cry of the Boeotians". [source] Front and Back Covers, Volume 25, Number 1.ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 1 2009February 200 Front cover caption, volume 25 issue 1 A boy shows off on his horse at the annual festival of racing, games and music in Barsko'on, Kyrgyzstan in October 2007. The festival includes endurance races of up to 36 kilometres over steep, rocky mountain paths and streams, a far cry from the bowling-green surfaces of Churchill Downs and Newmarket. Abdildechan, an expert in horse games in Kyzyl Suu, explained that horse games and competitions such as these derive from the importance of horses to the nomadic and warrior traditions of the Kyrgyz people. Horses enable people to move away from danger, he explained, and are also essential for work and food. Cars are becoming increasingly common in Kyrgyzstan, but many people believe that they will never completely replace horses in this mountainous region. ,Young people may have cars', says shepherd Jakshylyck Orgochor, ,but where there is a Kyrgyz person there is always a horse: a horse is a man's wings'. In this issue, Rebecca Cassidy scrutinizes claims about the distinctiveness of the Kyrgyz horse and considers the political consequences of evaluating domesticated animals on the basis of contested categories including ,breed' and ,type'. Back Cover: HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONS Ros Coard, lecturer in archaeology and specialist in archaeozoology and forensic taphonomy in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wales Lampeter, examines forensic evidence taken from the scene of a suspected big cat kill in West Wales, UK. The skulls in the foreground belong to an array of known big cat species, and Coard compared tooth pit data from these skulls with those found in sheep and horses killed in unusual circumstances. These data have been used to provide evidence for the existence of at least one large predatory felid in West Wales. However, even without this scientific corroboration, many people around the UK report sightings of non-endemic ,alien' big cats (ABCs) on a regular basis, attributing to them an almost mythical status, and this makes them an interesting phenomenon to be considered from an anthropological perspective. Coard has been working collaboratively with Samantha Hurn, an anthropologist who has been documenting narratives relating to big cat sightings in West Wales. In this issue of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Hurn outlines the data collected so far. She argues that ABCs do, indeed, exist in West Wales, and discusses how and why her informants from the local Welsh farming community regard these predators in positive terms. Many see ABCs as both important keystone species performing the valuable function of keeping other problematic predators (notably foxes) in check, and highly politicized animals who symbolize their own marginalized position within contemporary UK society. As Lévi-Strauss put it long ago, animal-human relations are, indeed, good to think with. [source] Wissenschaftliche Photographie als visuelle Kultur.BERICHTE ZUR WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE, Issue 3 2005Die Erforschung und Dokumentation von Spektren Abstract This paper discusses facets of 19th-century scientific photography as a visual culture. The example of spectral research and documentation is particularly well suited, because prismatically diffracted light from the sun or from luminous gases was one of the most frequently examined phenomena of that century. The results were significant not only for physics but also for analytical chemistry and astrophysics. The spectrum also served as an ideal test object for checking the effectiveness of a wide array of photochemically sensitizable surfaces to the various color regions. Scientific photography became the most important experimental technique in the infrared and ultraviolet. H. A. Rowland's spectrum charts are discussed as an example of the transition from comprehensiveness in documentation to fetishism. The discussion of the Lippmann process, one of the first methods of color photography, addresses the associated training of the eye. Issues of authenticity and the much averred ,mechanical objectivity" are raised with regard to retouching. The overriding theme of visual science cultures leads furthermore to unanticipated interdependencies with other scientific fields, such as geography, and draws the importance of practitioners into the foreground. [source] Diminished men and dangerous women: representations of gender and learning disability in early- and mid-nineteenth-century BritainBRITISH JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES, Issue 2 2000Patrick McDonagh Summary The present article explores the relationship of gender and learning disabilities in early- and mid-nineteenth-century literary representations of people with learning disabilities. Literary texts are useful historical documents because these often foreground how learning disabilities worked symbolically in a social context and enable us to examine the ideological forces shaping notions of learning disabilities. The images explored in the present study suggest some common cultural themes. Men with learning disabilities were understood as being diminished, somehow lacking an essential component of masculine identity. Women, on the other hand, were often reduced to the essential, yet disruptive element of feminine sexuality, or later in the century, were conceived as deviant from the feminine norm in their carnality. [source] The Legacy of Child Development's 1990 Special Issue on Minority Children: An Editorial RetrospectiveCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006Vonnie C. McLoyd Sixteen years have passed since the publication of Child Development's Special Issue on Minority Children. It is suggested that the most critical legacy of the special issue is the conceptual and ideological zeitgeist it fostered. The issue set culture and ecological context in the foreground of analyses, advanced a cultural-variant perspective, and further discredited the deficit perspective that long dominated the study of ethnic minority children and families. The special issue is also significant for its role in shaping post-1990 research agenda. In addition, it underscored the need for more nuanced articulations of what cultural or ethnic characteristics are of special relevance for understanding specific domains of development and the need for well-crafted methodological tools with which to test these ideas. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||