Continuity and Change in Howard S. Becker's work: An Interview with Howard S. Becker

Howard S. Becker is one of the foremost sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century. Although he is perhaps best known for research on deviance and his book Outsiders, this constitutes only a very small fraction of his earliest work. This interview looks at some of the continuities and cores of his work over ?fifty years. Becker highlights how his work maintains the same core concerns, although new interests have been added over time. At the core is a concern with 'work' and 'doing things together.' Becker provides many concrete stories from the past and also raises issues about the nature of doing theory and research, how he writes and produces his studies, and the problems attached to the professionalization of sociology. His writing on art and culture can be seen as assuming a major position in his later work, but he does not identify with either postmodernism or cultural studies

Ezekiel and the Covenant of Friendship

The slippery idea of "spirituality" might, with care, be put to use by biblical exegetes. Spirituality is defined in this paper as the social enactment of religious ideas. Four categories are offered to analyze the biblical witness as a record of spirituality. These categories are, first, an ultimate end; second, an ideal self-image by which this end might be achieved; third, an encoding of teachings in Scripture by which the self-image can be realized or understood; and fourth, a proposal for a way of life that makes achievement of the ultimate end a practical possibility. Accordingly, Ezekiel's "spirituality" may be understood to have, on one hand, an ultimate end of a return of the people to the land with the presence of God; and on the other, an ideal self-image of conversion of the community toward this ultimate end. Then it encodes, in oracles of judgment and deliverance, teachings that enable adherents to form the ideal self-image, and finally, as a way of life that puts these teachings into practice, it proposes a "covenant of friendship" (Ezek 34:25 and 37:36) among the exiled people and between them and their captors.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66911/2/10.1177_014610799202200402.pd

Evidence for Neutrino Oscillations from Muon Decay at Rest

A search for nu_bar_mu to nu_bar_e oscillations has been conducted at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility using nu_bar_mu from mu+ decay at rest. The nu_bar_e are detected via the reaction (nu_bar_e,p) -> (e+,n), correlated with the 2.2 MeV gamma from (n,p) -> (d,gamma). The use of tight cuts to identify e+ events with correlated gamma rays yields 22 events with e+ energy between 36 and 60 MeV and only 4.6 (+/- 0.6) background events. The probability that this excess is due entirely to a statistical fluctuation is 4.1E-08. A chi^2 fit to the entire e+ sample results in a total excess of 51.8 (+18.7) (-16.9) (+/- 8.0) events with e+ energy between 20 and 60 MeV. If attributed to nu_bar_mu -> nu_bar_e oscillations, this corresponds to an oscillation probability (averaged over the experimental energy and spatial acceptance) of 0.0031 (+0.0011) (-0.0010) (+/- 0.0005).Comment: 57 pages, 34 figures, revtex, additional information available at http://nu1.lampf.lanl.gov/~lsnd

Removing the Microlensing Blending-Parallax Degeneracy Using Source Variability

Microlensing event MACHO 97-SMC-1 is one of the rare microlensing events for which the source is a variable star, simply because most variable stars are systematically eliminated from microlensing studies. Using observational data for this event, we show that the intrinsic variability of a microlensed star is a powerful tool to constrain the nature of the lens by breaking the degeneracy between the microlens parallax and the blended light. We also present a statistical test for discriminating the location of the lens based on the \chi^2 contours of the vector \Lambda, the inverse of the projected velocity. We find that while SMC self lensing is somewhat favored over halo lensing, neither location can be ruled out with good confidence.Comment: 15 text pages + 2 tables + 7 figures. Published in the Astrophysical Journa

First bounds on the high-energy emission from isolated Wolf-Rayet binary systems

High-energy gamma-ray emission is theoretically expected to arise in tight binary star systems (with high mass loss and high velocity winds), although the evidence of this relationship has proven to be elusive so far. Here we present the first bounds on this putative emission from isolated Wolf-Rayet (WR) star binaries, WR 147 and WR 146, obtained from observations with the MAGIC telescope.Comment: (Authors are the MAGIC Collaboration.) Manuscript in press at The Astrophysical Journal Letter

Implementation of the Random Forest Method for the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope MAGIC

The paper describes an application of the tree classification method Random Forest (RF), as used in the analysis of data from the ground-based gamma telescope MAGIC. In such telescopes, cosmic gamma-rays are observed and have to be discriminated against a dominating background of hadronic cosmic-ray particles. We describe the application of RF for this gamma/hadron separation. The RF method often shows superior performance in comparison with traditional semi-empirical techniques. Critical issues of the method and its implementation are discussed. An application of the RF method for estimation of a continuous parameter from related variables, rather than discrete classes, is also discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Approaching an investigation of multi-dimensional inequality through the lenses of variety in models of capitalism

After a synthetic presentation of the state of poverty and inequality in the world and the contradictions incurred by economic theory in this field after decades of globalization and in the midst of a persisting global crisis, in paragraphs 2. and 3. we outline the rational for our theoretical analysis, underlining two main aspects. First of all, in paragraph 2. we recall the reasons which makes inequality a multidimensional phenomenon, while in paragraph 3. we explore the reasons why the models of capitalism theory is relevant for studying multidimensional inequality. These paragraphs emphasise that inequality is a multidimensional and cumulative phenomenon and it should not be conceived only as the result of the processes of personal and functional distribution of income and wealth, which even by themselves are intrinsically multidimensional. The basic idea is that institutions, the cobweb of relations among them and their interaction with the economic structure define the model of capitalism which characterises a specific country and this, in turn, affects the level and the dynamics of inequality. This approach is consistent with the sociological approach by Rehbein and Souza (2014), based on the analytical framework developed by Pierre Bourdieu. In paragraph 4. we outline the rational for our empirical analysis, applying the notion of institutional complementarity and examining the relationship between institutional complementarity, models of capitalism and inequality. Besides, refining Amable’s analysis (2003), we provide empirical evidence on the relationship between inequality in income distribution and models of capitalism. Additionally, basing on cluster analysis, we identify six different models of capitalism in a sample of OECD countries, provide preliminary evidence on the different level of inequality which characterises each model and suggest that no evidence supports of the idea that a single model of capitalism is taking shape in this sphere in EU. In paragraph 5. we give some hints about issues in search for a new interpretation capable to fasten together the process of increasing inequality, the notion of symbolic violence and the models of capitalism theory. In the last paragraph we focus on conclusions useful for carrying on our research agenda

Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

The coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos off nuclei has eluded detection for four decades, even though its predicted cross-section is the largest by far of all low-energy neutrino couplings. This mode of interaction provides new opportunities to study neutrino properties, and leads to a miniaturization of detector size, with potential technological applications. We observe this process at a 6.7-sigma confidence level, using a low-background, 14.6-kg CsI[Na] scintillator exposed to the neutrino emissions from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Characteristic signatures in energy and time, predicted by the Standard Model for this process, are observed in high signal-to-background conditions. Improved constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions with quarks are derived from this initial dataset

First Measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering on Argon

We report the first measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (\cevns) on argon using a liquid argon detector at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source. Two independent analyses prefer \cevns over the background-only null hypothesis with greater than $3\sigma$ significance. The measured cross section, averaged over the incident neutrino flux, is (2.2 $\pm$ 0.7) $\times$10$^{-39}$ cm$^2$ -- consistent with the standard model prediction. The neutron-number dependence of this result, together with that from our previous measurement on CsI, confirms the existence of the \cevns process and provides improved constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures with 2 pages, 6 figures supplementary material V3: fixes to figs 3,4 V4: fix typo in table 1, V5: replaced missing appendix, V6: fix Eq 1, new fig 3, V7 final version, updated with final revision

Climate Dynamics: A Network-Based Approach for the Analysis of Global Precipitation

Precipitation is one of the most important meteorological variables for defining the climate dynamics, but the spatial patterns of precipitation have not been fully investigated yet. The complex network theory, which provides a robust tool to investigate the statistical interdependence of many interacting elements, is used here to analyze the spatial dynamics of annual precipitation over seventy years (1941-2010). The precipitation network is built associating a node to a geographical region, which has a temporal distribution of precipitation, and identifying possible links among nodes through the correlation function. The precipitation network reveals significant spatial variability with barely connected regions, as Eastern China and Japan, and highly connected regions, such as the African Sahel, Eastern Australia and, to a lesser extent, Northern Europe. Sahel and Eastern Australia are remarkably dry regions, where low amounts of rainfall are uniformly distributed on continental scales and small-scale extreme events are rare. As a consequence, the precipitation gradient is low, making these regions well connected on a large spatial scale. On the contrary, the Asiatic South-East is often reached by extreme events such as monsoons, tropical cyclones and heat waves, which can all contribute to reduce the correlation to the short-range scale only. Some patterns emerging between mid-latitude and tropical regions suggest a possible impact of the propagation of planetary waves on precipitation at a global scale. Other links can be qualitatively associated to the atmospheric and oceanic circulation. To analyze the sensitivity of the network to the physical closeness of the nodes, short-term connections are broken. The African Sahel, Eastern Australia and Northern Europe regions again appear as the supernodes of the network, confirming furthermore their long-range connection structure. Almost all North-American and Asian nodes vanish, revealing that extreme events can enhance high precipitation gradients, leading to a systematic absence of long-range patterns