The Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism: development and application among British Pagans

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (and reflected in the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism) by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals

SEDIGISM-ATLASGAL: Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency Across the Galactic Disk

By combining two surveys covering a large fraction of the molecular material in the Galactic disk we investigate the role the spiral arms play in the star formation process. We have matched clumps identified by ATLASGAL with their parental GMCs as identified by SEDIGISM, and use these giant molecular cloud (GMC) masses, the bolometric luminosities, and integrated clump masses obtained in a concurrent paper to estimate the dense gas fractions ($DGF_{gmc} = ∑M_{clump}/M_{gmc}$) and the instantaneous star forming efficiencies (i.e., $SFE_{gmc} = ∑L_{clump}/M_{gmc}$). We find that the molecular material associated with ATLASGAL clumps is concentrated in the spiral arms (∼60 per cent found within ±10 km s$^{−1}$ of an arm). We have searched for variations in the values of these physical parameters with respect to their proximity to the spiral arms, but find no evidence for any enhancement that might be attributable to the spiral arms. The combined results from a number of similar studies based on different surveys indicate that, while spiral-arm location plays a role in cloud formation and HI to H$_2$ conversion, the subsequent star formation processes appear to depend more on local environment effects. This leads us to conclude that the enhanced star formation activity seen towards the spiral arms is the result of source crowding rather than the consequence of a any physical process

GLOSTAR — Radio Source Catalog II: 28◦ < l < 36◦ and |b| < 1◦,VLA B-configuration

As part of the Global View on Star Formation (GLOSTAR) survey we have used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in its B-configuration to observe the part of the Galactic plane between longitudes of 28◦ and 36◦ and latitudes from −1◦ to +1◦ at the C-band (4–8 GHz). To reduce the contamination of extended sources that are not well recovered by our coverage of the (u, v)-plane we discarded short baselines that are sensitive to emission on angular scales < 4′′. The resulting radio continuum images have an angular resolution of 1.′′0, and a sensitivity of ∼ 60 μJy beam−1; making it the most sensitive radio survey covering a large area of the Galactic plane with this angular resolution. An automatic source extraction algorithm was used in combination with visual inspection to identify a total of 3325 radio sources. A total of 1457 radio sources are ≥ 7σ and comprise our highly reliable catalog; 72 of these are grouped as 22 fragmented sources, e.g., multiple components of an extended and resolved source. To explore the nature of the catalogued radio sources we searched for counterparts at millimeter and infrared wavelengths. Our classification attempts resulted in 93 H ii region candidates, 104 radio stars, 64 planetary nebulae, while most of the remaining radio sources are suggested to be extragalactic sources. We investigated the spectral indices (α, S ν ∝ να) of radio sources classified as H ii region candidates and found that many have negative values. This may imply that these radio sources represent young stellar objects that are members of the star clusters around the high mass stars that excite the H ii regions, but not these H ii regions themselves. By comparing the peak flux densities from the GLOSTAR and CORNISH surveys we have identified 49 variable radio sources, most of them with an unknown nature. Additionally, we provide the list of 1866 radio sources detected within 5 to 7σ levels

The Physics of Star Cluster Formation and Evolution

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00689-4.Star clusters form in dense, hierarchically collapsing gas clouds. Bulk kinetic energy is transformed to turbulence with stars forming from cores fed by filaments. In the most compact regions, stellar feedback is least effective in removing the gas and stars may form very efficiently. These are also the regions where, in high-mass clusters, ejecta from some kind of high-mass stars are effectively captured during the formation phase of some of the low mass stars and effectively channeled into the latter to form multiple populations. Star formation epochs in star clusters are generally set by gas flows that determine the abundance of gas in the cluster. We argue that there is likely only one star formation epoch after which clusters remain essentially clear of gas by cluster winds. Collisional dynamics is important in this phase leading to core collapse, expansion and eventual dispersion of every cluster. We review recent developments in the field with a focus on theoretical work.Peer reviewe

Big nuclear accidents

4.00SIGLELD:9091.9F(AERE-R--10532) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

High performance relaying of C++11 objects across processes and logic-labeled finite-state machines

Comunicació presentada a: SIMPAR 2014: International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots, celebrat del 20 al 23 d'octubre de 2014 a Bèrgam, Itàlia.We present gusimplewhiteboard, a software architecture analogous to ROS:services and ROS: messages, that enables the construction and extremely efficient inter-process relaying of message-types as C++11 objects, All gusimplewhiteboard objects reside in shared memory. Moreover, our principle is to use idempotent message communication, in direct contrast to previously released platforms for robotic-module communication, that are based on an event-driven subscriber model that queues and multi-threads. We combine this with compiled, time-triggered, logic-labeled finite state machines (llfsms) the are executed concurrently, but scheduled sequentially, in an extremely efficient manner, removing all race conditions and requirements for explicit synchronisation. Together, these tools enable effective robotic behaviour design, where arrangements of llfsms can be organised as hierarchies of machines and submachines, enabling composition of very complex systems. They have proven to be very powerful for Model-Driven Development, capable of simulation, validation, and formal verification

Governmentality versus choice in contemporary special education

This article provides an understanding of childhood welfare from a radical perspective, showing how power within the special education system affects the discourse of ‘choice’ for parents. The analysis unmasks the disciplinary power operating within the special education system and explores the manner in which such power affects choice for parents. In turn, the analysis suggests that although disciplinary power offers little sites for resistance, the actions of some parents in the exercise of choice are seen as a growing challenge to that power. It remains to be seen just how resistant the system will become in the face of such opposition