1,320 research outputs found
From respect to reburial: negotiating pagan interest in prehistoric human remains in Britain, through the Avebury consultation
The recent Avebury Consultation on reburial has drawn considerable public and professional attention to the issue of pagan calls for respect towards the care of human remains. Our work has pointed to the importance of archaeologists and others engaging seriously and respectfully with pagans as significant stakeholders in our heritage. The Avebury Reburial Consultation suggests this dialogue is increasing in strength, but we identify problems in the process. We focus here on approaches to the prehistoric dead and worldviews enabling communication from which calls or âclaimsâ for the reburial of prehistoric pagan human remains, versus their retention for scientific study, are articulated; frameworks for assessing and adjudicating such âclaimsâ; and implications for the interest groups concerned. We argue that room must be made for philosophical debate and the emotional and spiritual views of pagans, in order to improve dialogue, develop common ground, and enable participatory decision-making and situational pragmatism
Pasts and pagan practices: moving beyond Stonehenge
Theorizing the past is not restricted to archaeology and interpretations of 'past' both influence and are themselves constituted within politicized understandings of self, community and in certain instances, spirituality. 'The past in the imagination of the present' is appropriated, variously, to give meaning to the present or to justify actions and interpret experiences. Summer solstice at Stonehenge, with an estimated 21,000 celebrants in 2005, is only the most publicized appropriation (by pagans and other adherents of alternative spirituality and partying) of a 'sacred site'; and conflicts and negotiations occurring throughout Britain are represented in popular and academic presentations of this 'icon of Britishness'. This paper presents work from the Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights Project (http://www.sacredsites.org.uk) project, a collaboration of archaeology and anthropology informed by pagan and alternative approaches and standpoints investigating and theorizing discourse and practice of heritage management and pagan site users. Whether in negotiations around the Stonehenge solstice access or in dealing with numerous other sites, boundaries between groups or discourses are not clearly drawn - discursive communities merge and re-emerge. But clearly 'past' and 'site' are increasingly important within today's Britain, even as television archaeology increases its following, and pagan numbers continue to grow.</p
Intrinsic reward: potential cognitive and neural mechanisms
From child play to scientific discovery, many activities human engage in are rewarding in and of themselves. Here, we ask what makes such activities intrinsically rewarding. Based on the existing literature we propose the answer is an increased sense of self-efficacy. That is, an activity that is intrinsically rewarding is one that strengthens a person's belief that they can execute actions required to successfully deal with prospective situations. We show this notion can explain the rewarding nature of many activities and situations from solving cross word puzzles to helping others, consuming arts and playing sports. We suggest that processes that lead to increased self-efficacy, such as executing agency and learning, activate the neural reward system. This in turn is experienced as pleasure and reinforces the activity that generated the response. Intrinsic rewards would lead biological organism to improve their knowledge and skills which could help them adapt to changing environments
Lensing-Induced Structure of Submillimeter Sources: Implications for the Microwave Background
We consider the effect of lensing by galaxy clusters on the angular
distribution of submillimeter wavelength objects. While lensing does not change
the total flux and number counts of submillimeter sources, it can affect the
number counts and fluxes of flux-limited samples. Therefore imposing a flux cut
on point sources not only reduces the overall Poisson noise, but imprints the
correlations between lensing clusters on the unresolved flux distribution.
Using a simple model, we quantify the lensing anisotropy induced in
flux-limited samples and compare this to Poisson noise. We find that while the
level of induced anisotropies on the scale of the cluster angular correlation
length is comparable to Poisson noise for a slowly evolving cluster model, it
is negligible for more realistic models of cluster evolution. Thus the removal
of point sources is not expected to induce measurable structure in the
microwave or far-infrared backgrounds.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, accepted to Astrophysical Journa
The visibility of gamma-ray burst afterglows in dusty star-forming regions
Recent observations of the environments of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) favour
massive stars as their progenitors, which are likely to be surrounded by gas
and dust. The visibility of the optical and UV emission of a GRB are expected
to depend on the characteristics of both the dust and the GRB emission itself.
A reasonable distribution of surrounding dust is capable of absorbing all the
optical and UV emission of the optical flash and afterglow of a GRB, unless the
optical flash has a peak isotropic luminosity L_peak > 10^49 erg/s. This means
that dark bursts should exist and these bursts will have to be studied at
infrared rather than optical wavelengths. In this paper details will be given
about the infrared GRB dust emission. The reprocessed dust emission peaks at a
rest-frame wavelength of about 8 micron. Forthcoming space telescopes, in
particular the IRAC camera aboard the Space Infrared Telescope Facility could
detect this emission out to a redshift of about 2. However, an accurate
position of the GRB afterglow must be provided for this emission to be
identified, because the light curve of the reprocessed dust emission does not
vary on time-scales less than several years.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, matches version published in
MNRA
The very bright SCUBA galaxy count: looking for SCUBA galaxies with the Mexican Hat Wavelet
We present the results of a search for bright high-redshift galaxies in two
large SCUBA scan-maps of Galactic regions. A Mexican Hat Wavelet technique was
used to locate point sources in these maps, which suffer high foreground
contamination as well as typical scan-map noise signatures. A catalogue of
point source objects was selected and observed again in the submillimetre
continuum, and in HCO+ (3->2) at zero redshift to rule out Galactic sources. No
extragalactic sources were found. Simulations show that the survey was
sensitive to sources with fluxes > 50 mJy, depending on the local background.
These simulations result in upper limits on the 850-micron counts of SCUBA
galaxies of 53 per square degree at 50 mJy and 2.9 per square degree at 100
mJy.Comment: Accepted by MNRA
A neurocomputational model for intrinsic reward
Standard economic indicators provide an incomplete picture of what we value both as individuals and as a society. Furthermore, canonical macroeconomic measures, such as GDP, do not account for non-market activities (e.g., cooking, childcare) that nevertheless impact well-being. Here, we introduce a computational tool that measures the affective value of experiences (e.g., playing a musical instrument without errors). We go on to validate this tool with neural data, using fMRI to measure neural activity in male and female human subjects performing a reinforcement learning task that incorporated periodic ratings of subjective affective state. Learning performance determined level of payment (i.e., extrinsic reward). Crucially, the task also incorporated a skilled performance component (i.e., intrinsic reward) which did not influence payment. Both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards influenced affective dynamics, and their relative influence could be captured in our computational model. Individuals for whom intrinsic rewards had a greater influence on affective state than extrinsic rewards had greater ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity for intrinsic than extrinsic rewards. Thus, we show that computational modelling of affective dynamics can index the subjective value of intrinsic relative to extrinsic rewards, a 'computational hedonometer' that reflects both behavior and neural activity that quantifies the affective value of experience.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTTraditional economic indicators are increasingly recognized to provide an incomplete picture of what we value as a society. Standard economic approaches struggle to accurately assign values to non-market activities that nevertheless may be intrinsically rewarding, prompting a need for new tools to measure what really matters to individuals. Using a combination of neuroimaging and computational modeling, we show that despite their lack of instrumental value, intrinsic rewards influence subjective affective state and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity. The relative degree to which extrinsic and intrinsic rewards influence affective state is predictive of their relative impacts on neural activity, confirming the utility of our approach for measuring the affective value of experiences and other non-market activities in individuals
Speckle Control with a remapped-pupil PIAA-coronagraph
The PIAA is a now well demonstrated high contrast technique that uses an
intermediate remapping of the pupil for high contrast coronagraphy
(apodization), before restoring it to recover classical imaging capabilities.
This paper presents the first demonstration of complete speckle control loop
with one such PIAA coronagraph. We show the presence of a complete set of
remapping optics (the so-called PIAA and matching inverse PIAA) is transparent
to the wavefront control algorithm. Simple focal plane based wavefront control
algorithms can thus be employed, without the need to model remapping effects.
Using the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme AO (SCExAO) instrument built for the
Subaru Telescope, we show that a complete PIAA-coronagraph is compatible with a
simple implementation of a speckle nulling technique, and demonstrate the
benefit of the PIAA for high contrast imaging at small angular separation.Comment: 6 figures, submitted to PAS
Resolving the Submillimeter Background: the 850-micron Galaxy Counts
Recent deep blank field submillimeter surveys have revealed a population of
luminous high redshift galaxies that emit most of their energy in the
submillimeter. The results suggest that much of the star formation at high
redshift may be hidden to optical observations. In this paper we present
wide-area 850-micron SCUBA data on the Hawaii Survey Fields SSA13, SSA17, and
SSA22. Combining these new data with our previous deep field data, we establish
the 850-micron galaxy counts from 2 mJy to 10 mJy with a >3-sigma detection
limit. The area coverage is 104 square arcmin to 8 mJy and 7.7 square arcmin to
2.3 mJy. The differential 850-micron counts are well described by the function
n(S)=N_0/(a+S^3.2), where S is the flux in mJy, N_0=3.0 x 10^4 per square
degree per mJy, and a=0.4-1.0 is chosen to match the 850-micron extragalactic
background light. Between 20 to 30 per cent of the 850-micron background
resides in sources brighter than 2 mJy. Using an empirical fit to our >2 mJy
data constrained by the EBL at lower fluxes, we argue that the bulk of the
850-micron extragalactic background light resides in sources with fluxes near 1
mJy. The submillimeter sources are plausible progenitors of the present-day
spheroidal population.Comment: 5 pages, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letter
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