Methodists and the social conscience in South Australia and New South Wales, 1949-1972

Along with Protestant Churchmen of other denominations throughout the Western world in the 1960s, many Australian Methodists felt obliged to re-assess the nature and place of the Christian Church in an increasingly affluent, liberal and secular society. From the mid-1940s to the 1960s consistently fewer Methodists could respond affirmatively to the question put shortly after World War Two by the Director of the South Australian Methodist Church's Department of Social Service, the Reverend E.H. Woollacott: 'Are we dedicated to the task of making society conform 2 to the will of God'? Woollacott perceived the 'will of God' in terms of the Nonconformist conscience which in Woollacott's day was the cornerstone of the Methodists' thinking and activity on social questions. From at least the 1880s the political and social questions which interested Australian Nonconformity 'were generally those which had plain moral implications'. After 1945 restrictive social legislation such as six o'clock closing was under threat as many more prosperous Australians rejected the ascetic legacy of late nineteenth century Protestantism. Numerous Methodists, too, rejected the Nonconformist conscience and eventually even the institutional Methodist Church rejected Woollacott's call. In 1966, when the Church had lost sight of Woollacott's question and the terms in which it was framed, the Reverend John Barrett confessed on behalf of the Annual Conference of the South Australian Church that 'we are often the Church that does not know what to say'

La geometría de visualización afecta el dicromatismo sexual y la conspicuidad de la coloración del plumaje no iridiscente de Tersina viridis

Some types of plumage color are difficult to characterize spectrophotometrically because the properties of the reflected light change with viewing geometry (i.e. the relative positions of the light source and the observer, and the orientation of the feather). This is the case for the noniridescent plumage coloration of the Swallow Tanager (Tersina viridis), which seems to change from a human perspective as the angle between the light source and the observer varies. In this study, we measured plumage reflectance with different angles of illumination and/or observation, and used avian visual models to evaluate the change in sexual dichromatism and conspicuousness with viewing geometry from a bird’s perspective. We also calculated different color parameters to assess how these changed with viewing conditions. Sexual dichromatism showed large changes, with its maximum coinciding with the angle combination between illuminant and observer that produced both the highest conspicuousness for males and the highest crypsis for females. The conspicuousness of males also varied with viewing geometry, and was consistently less when viewed by the visual system of a potential avian predator (VS) than by that of a conspecific (UVS). The change in perceived coloration was mainly related to large variation in hue and chroma in the plumage of males as the relative angle between the illumination and observation probes changed. Our results show that viewing geometry can alter color perception, even for noniridescent plumage coloration. Therefore, the relative position of the light source and the observer should be considered in studies of avian visual communication, particularly for species with plumage coloration similar to that of Swallow Tanagers.Algunos tipos de colores del plumaje son difíciles de caracterizar espectrofotometricamente debido a que las propiedades de la luz que reflejada varían con la geometría de visualización (es decir, la posición relativa de la fuente lumínica, el observador y la pluma). Este es el caso de la coloración no-iridiscente de la Tersina viridis, que parece cambiar desde la perspectiva humana al modificarse el ángulo conformado entre el observador y la fuente de luz. En este trabajo medimos la reflectancia del plumaje con diferentes ángulos de iluminación y/o observación y empleamos modelos visuales avianos para evaluar el cambio en dicromatismo sexual y conspicuidad. Tambien calculamos parámetros descriptores de la coloración para determinar cómo cambian estos en función de la geometría de visualización. El dicromatismo sexual mostró una amplia variación, siendo máximo con la combinación de ángulos entre iluminante y observador que también produjo el máximo de conspicuidad en los machos y el máximo de cripsis en las hembras. La conspicuidad de los machos tambien varió con la geometría de visualización y además fue consistentemente menor para sistemas visuales avianos menos sensibles al UV (como los de los máximos potenciales predadores de esta especie) que para sus conspecíficos, que serían más sensibles a longitudes de onda del UV. El cambio percibido en la coloración estuvo principalmente relacionado a una gran variación en el tono y la saturación en el plumaje de los machos al cambiar el ángulo conformado entre la fuente lumínica y el observador. Nuestros resultados muestran que la geometría de visualización puede alterar la percepción del color, a un en plumajes no-iridiscentes. Por lo tanto, es importante considerar la posición relativa de la fuente de luz y el observador en estudios de comunicación visual en aves, particularmente en especies con coloración del plumaje como la de la Tersina viridis.Fil: Barreira, Ana Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: García, Natalia Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Lougheed, Stephen C.. Queens University, Department Of Biology; CanadáFil: Tubaro, Pablo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; Argentin

Generalized nonuniform dichotomies and local stable manifolds

We establish the existence of local stable manifolds for semiflows generated by nonlinear perturbations of nonautonomous ordinary linear differential equations in Banach spaces, assuming the existence of a general type of nonuniform dichotomy for the evolution operator that contains the nonuniform exponential and polynomial dichotomies as a very particular case. The family of dichotomies considered allow situations for which the classical Lyapunov exponents are zero. Additionally, we give new examples of application of our stable manifold theorem and study the behavior of the dynamics under perturbations.Comment: 18 pages. New version with minor corrections and an additional theorem and an additional exampl

Analytical models for CO2 emissions and travel time for short-to-medium-haul flights considering available seats

Recently, there has been much interest in measuring the environmental impact of short-to-medium-haul flights. Emissions of CO2 are usually measured to consider the environmental footprint, and CO2 calculators are available using different types of approximations. We propose analytical models calculating gate-to-gate CO2 emissions and travel time based on the flight distance and on the number of available seats. The accuracy of the numerical results were in line with other CO2 calculators, and when applying an analytical fitting, the error of interpolation was low. The models presented the advantage with respect to other calculators of being sensitive to the number of available seats, a parameter generally not explicitly considered. Its applicability was shown in two practical examples where emissions and travel time per kilometre were calculated for several European routes in a simple and efficient manner. The model enabled the identification of routes where rail would be a viable alternative both from the emissions and total travel time perspectives

Layzer-Irvine equation: new perspectives and the role of interacting dark energy

We derive the Layzer-Irvine equation in the presence of a homogeneous (or quasi-homogeneous) dark energy component with an arbitrary equation of state. We extend the Layzer-Irvine equation to homogeneous and isotropic universes with an arbitrary number of dimensions and obtain the corresponding virial relation for sufficiently relaxed objects. We find analogous equations describing the dynamics of cosmic string loops and other p-branes of arbitrary dimensionality, discussing the corresponding relativistic and non-relativistic limits. Finally, we generalize the Layzer-Irvine equation to account for a non-minimal interaction between dark matter and dark energy, discussing its practical use as a signature of such an interaction.Comment: 4 page

Cytoskeletal stabilization of inhibitory interactions in immunologic synapses of mature human dendritic cells with natural killer cells

Human mature dendritic cells (DCs) can efficiently stimulate natural killer (NK)-cell responses without being targeted by their cytotoxicity. To understand this important regulatory crosstalk, we characterized the development of the immunologic synapse between mature DCs and resting NK cells. Conjugates between these 2 innate leukocyte populations formed rapidly, persisted for prolonged time periods and matured with DC-derived f-actin polymerization at the synapse. Polarization of IL-12 and IL-12R to the synapse coincided with f-actin polymerization, while other activating and inhibitory molecules were enriched at the interface between DCs and NK cells earlier. Functional assays revealed that inhibition of f-actin polymerization in mature synapses led to an increase of IFN-γ secretion and cytotoxicity by NK cells. This elevated NK-cell reactivity resulted from decreased inhibitory signaling in the absence of MHC class I polarization at the interface, which was observed on inhibition of f-actin polymerization in DCs. Thus, inhibitory signaling is stabilized by f-actin at the synapse between mature DCs and resting NK cells

A Influência da espessura cortical na avaliação da resistência femoral

O comportamento biomecânico do osso e a avaliação da sua resistência dependem das características estruturais e geométricas da espessura cortical [1]. De acordo com estudos efectuados, a fractura do colo do fémur pode ocorrer no osso cortical sob efeito de esforços à tracção [2, 3]. Para além disso, a espessura do osso cortical não é uniforme e varia de acordo com a idade do indivíduo. É objectivo deste trabalho verificar a influência da variação da espessura cortical na resistência biomecânica de modelos de diferentes fémures. Recorrendo ao tratamento e estudo de imagens médicas, obtidas por tomografia computorizada, torna-se possível a utilização de técnicas avançadas de engenharia para a medição e a determinação da espessura cortical em diferentes modelos anatómicos. Essa avaliação pode ser efectuada com recurso a programas de tratamento de imagem e a técnicas de processamento para a obtenção de modelos protótipos. Estas duas técnicas permitirão registar valores da espessura cortical em diferentes zonas anatómicas nos modelos em estudo. A avaliação da resistência femoral será efectuada com o recurso à técnica de elementos finitos, onde cada modelo em estudo será analisado para condições de carregamento idênticas. A metodologia proposta neste trabalho permitirá aferir as zonas mais susceptíveis à falha mecânica nos diferentes modelos de fémures, verificando em simultâneo a influência da espessura do osso cortical medida. O estudo proposto incide na análise de quatro imagens médicas de fémures do género feminino com idades próximas (40, 41, 52 e 53 anos)

Cosmological tests of coupled Galileons

We investigate the cosmological properties of Galileon models which admit Minkowski space as a stable solution in vacuum. This is motivated by stable, positive tension brane world constructions that give rise to Galileons. We include both conformal and disformal couplings to matter and focus on constraints on the theory that arise because of these couplings. The disformal coupling to baryonic matter is extremely constrained by astrophysical and particle physics effects. The disformal coupling to photons induces a cosmological variation of the speed of light and therefore distorsions of the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum which are known to be very small. The conformal coupling to baryons leads to a variation of particle masses since Big Bang Nucleosynthesis which is also tightly constrained. We consider the background cosmology of Galileon models coupled to Cold Dark Matter (CDM), photons and baryons and impose that the speed of light and particle masses respect the observational bounds on cosmological time scales. We find that requiring that the equation of state for the Galileon models must be close to -1 now restricts severely their parameter space and can only be achieved with a combination of the conformal and disformal couplings. This leads to large variations of particle masses and the speed of light which are not compatible with observations. As a result, we find that cosmological Galileon models are viable dark energy theories coupled to dark matter but their couplings, both disformal and conformal, to baryons and photons must be heavily suppressed making them only sensitive to CDM

Physics with nonperturbative quantum gravity: radiation from a quantum black hole

We study quantum gravitational effects on black hole radiation, using loop quantum gravity. Bekenstein and Mukhanov have recently considered the modifications caused by quantum gravity on Hawking's thermal black-hole radiation. Using a simple ansatz for the eigenstates the area, they have obtained the intriguing result that the quantum properties of geometry affect the radiation considerably, yielding a definitely non-thermal spectrum. Here, we replace the simple ansatz employed by Bekenstein and Mukhanov with the actual eigenstates of the area, computed using the loop representation of quantum gravity. We derive the emission spectra, using a classic result in number theory by Hardy and Ramanujan. Disappointingly, we do not recover the Bekenstein-Mukhanov spectrum, but --effectively-- a Hawking's thermal spectrum. The Bekenstein-Mukhanov result is therefore likely to be an artefact of the naive ansatz, rather than a robust result. The result is an example of concrete (although somewhat disappointing) application of nonperturbative quantum gravity.Comment: 4 pages, latex-revtex, no figure