Ambivalent sexism and perceptions of men and women who violate gendered family roles

This study draws on ambivalent sexism theory to explore the role of benevolent and hostile gender attitudes in determining perceptions of individuals who comply with traditional gender roles or violate them. Three hundred and eleven participants were presented with a description of a male or a female target who was either a primary breadwinner or a primary caregiver. As hypothesized, hostile sexism predicted more negative perceptions of a female breadwinner, whereas benevolent sexism predicted more positive perceptions of a female caregiver. Moreover, participants who endorsed hostile attitudes toward men reacted more positively to a nontraditional male caregiver, whereas those who endorsed benevolent attitudes toward men reacted more negatively to a male caregiver. Implications regarding the nature of ambivalent gender attitudes are discussed

Size matters: the value of small populations for wintering waterbirds

Protecting systematically selected areas of land is a major step towards biodiversity conservation worldwide. Indeed, the identification and designation of protected areas more often than not forms a core component of both national and international conservation policies. In this paper we provide an overview of those Special Protection Areas and Ramsar Sites that have been classified in Great Britain as of 1998/99 for a selection of wintering waterbird species, using bird count data from the Wetland Bird Survey. The performance of this network of sites is remarkable, particularly in comparison with published analyses of networks elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, the current site-based approach, whilst having the great benefit of simplicity, is deliberately biased towards aggregating species at the expense of the more dispersed distribution species. To ensure that the network continues successfully to protect nationally and internationally important waterbird populations, efforts now need to concentrate on the derivation of species-specific representation targets and, in particular, the ways in which these can be incorporated into the site selection process. Although these analyses concern the performance of protected areas for waterbirds in Great Britain, the results have wide-ranging importance for conservation planning in general and the design of protected area networks

The EGNoG Survey: Gas Excitation in Normal Galaxies at z~0.3

As observations of molecular gas in galaxies are pushed to lower star formation rate galaxies at higher redshifts, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the conditions of the gas in these systems to properly infer their molecular gas content. The rotational transitions of the carbon monoxide (CO) molecule provide an excellent probe of the gas excitation conditions in these galaxies. In this paper we present the results from the gas excitation sample of the Evolution of molecular Gas in Normal Galaxies (EGNoG) survey at the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). This subset of the full EGNoG sample consists of four galaxies at z~0.3 with star formation rates of 40-65 M_Sun yr^-1 and stellar masses of ~2x10^11 M_Sun. Using the 3 mm and 1 mm bands at CARMA, we observe both the CO(1-0) and CO(3-2) transitions in these four galaxies in order to probe the excitation of the molecular gas. We report robust detections of both lines in three galaxies (and an upper limit on the fourth), with an average line ratio, r_31 = L'_CO(3-2) / L'_CO(1-0), of 0.46 \pm 0.07 (with systematic errors \lesssim 40%), which implies sub-thermal excitation of the CO(3-2) line. We conclude that the excitation of the gas in these massive, highly star-forming galaxies is consistent with normal star-forming galaxies such as local spirals, not starbursting systems like local ultra-luminous infrared galaxies. Since the EGNoG gas excitation sample galaxies are selected from the main sequence of star-forming galaxies, we suggest that this result is applicable to studies of main sequence galaxies at intermediate and high redshifts, supporting the assumptions made in studies that find molecular gas fractions in star forming galaxies at z~1-2 to be an order of magnitude larger than what is observed locally.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, to appear January 2013; 18 pages, 10 figures, 6 table

Dust properties in the cold and hot gas phases of the ATLAS3D early-type galaxies as revealed by AKARI

The properties of the dust in the cold and hot gas phases of early-type galaxies (ETGs) are key to understand ETG evolution. We thus conducted a systematic study of the dust in a large sample of local ETGs, focusing on relations between the dust and the molecular, atomic, and X-ray gas of the galaxies, as well as their environment. We estimated the dust temperatures and masses of the 260 ETGs from the ATLAS3D survey, using fits to their spectral energy distributions primarily constructed from AKARI measurements. We also used literature measurements of the cold (CO and HI) and X-ray gas phases. Our ETGs show no correlation between their dust and stellar masses, suggesting inefficient dust production by stars and/or dust destruction in X-ray gas. The global dust-to-gas mass ratios of ETGs are generally lower than those of late-type galaxies, likely due to dust-poor HI envelopes in ETGs. They are also higher in Virgo Cluster ETGs than in group and field ETGs, but the same ratios measured in the central parts of the galaxies only are independent of galaxy environment. Slow-rotating ETGs have systematically lower dust masses than fast-rotating ETGs. The dust masses and X-ray luminosities are correlated in fast-rotating ETGs, whose star formation rates are also correlated with the X-ray luminosities. The correlation between dust and X-rays in fast-rotating ETGs appears to be caused by residual star formation, while slow-rotating ETGs are likely well evolved, and thus exhausting their dust. These results appear consistent with the postulated evolution of ETGs, whereby fast-rotating ETGs form by mergers of late-type galaxies and associated bulge growth, while slow-rotating ETGs form by (dry) mergers of fast-rotating ETGs. Central cold dense gas appears to be resilient against ram pressure stripping, suggesting that Virgo Cluster ETGs may not suffer strong related star formation suppression.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Use of prescribed medications in a South Australian community sample

The document attached has been archived with permission from the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.Objective: To determine the extent of self-reported use of prescription medications in an Australian community sample. Design, setting and participants: Face-to-face interviews with a random, representative sample of the South Australian population (aged ≥ 15 years) living in metropolitan and rural areas. The study, a Health Omnibus Survey, was conducted between March and June 2004. Main outcome measures: Reported number of prescribed medications used per person, most common categories of medication, and use by individuals of multiple medications for the same body system. Results: From 4700 households selected, 3015 participants were interviewed (65.9% response rate). Of respondents, 46.8% were using prescribed medications; 171 respondents (5.7%) were taking six or more medications, and four were taking 16 or more; 23.2% were using medications for the cardiovascular system, with 11.9% using agents acting on the renin–angiotensin system. Prescription medication use increased with age, with over 10% of respondents aged ≥ 55 years using six or more medications. Conclusions: Use of multiple prescribed medications was common, with the potential for significant drug interactions. Assuming a similar pattern of medication use Australia-wide, reducing the number of prescribed medications by one for people taking six or more medications would save the federal government about $380 million a year.Robert D Goldney and Laura J Fishe

A growing disconnection from nature is evident in cultural products

Human connection with nature is widely believed to be in decline, even though empirical evidence on the magnitude and temporal pattern of the change is scarce. Studying works of popular culture in English throughout the 20th century and later, we document a cultural shift away from nature, beginning in the 1950s. Since then, references to nature have been decreasing steadily in fiction, song lyrics, and film storylines. No parallel decline is observed in references to the human-made environment. These findings are cause for concern, not only because they imply foregone benefits from engagement with nature, but also because cultural products are agents of socialization that can evoke curiosity, respect, and concern for the natural world

Developing Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) Curves From Satellite-Based Precipitation: Methodology and Evaluation

Given the continuous advancement in the retrieval of precipitation from satellites, it is important to develop methods that incorporate satellite-based precipitation data sets in the design and planning of infrastructure. This is because in many regions around the world, in situ rainfall observations are sparse and have insufficient record length. A handful of studies examined the use of satellite-based precipitation to develop intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves; however, they have mostly focused on small spatial domains and relied on combining satellite-based with ground-based precipitation data sets. In this study, we explore this issue by providing a methodological framework with the potential to be applied in ungauged regions. This framework is based on accounting for the characteristics of satellite-based precipitation products, namely, adjustment of bias and transformation of areal to point rainfall. The latter method is based on previous studies on the reverse transformation (point to areal) commonly used to obtain catchment-scale IDF curves. The paper proceeds by applying this framework to develop IDF curves over the contiguous United States (CONUS); the data set used is Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks – Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR). IDFs are then evaluated against National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Atlas 14 to provide a quantitative estimate of their accuracy. Results show that median errors are in the range of (17–22%), (6–12%), and (3–8%) for one-day, two-day and three-day IDFs, respectively, and return periods in the range (2–100) years. Furthermore, a considerable percentage of satellite-based IDFs lie within the confidence interval of NOAA Atlas 14

A SAURON study of stars and gas in Sa bulges

We present results from our ongoing effort to understand the morphological and kinematical properties of early-type galaxies using the integral-field spectrograph SAURON. We discuss the relation between the stellar and gas morphology and kinematics in our sub-sample of 24 representative Sa spiral bulges. We focus on the frequency of kinematically decoupled components and on the presence of star formation in circumnuclear rings.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; To appear in the proceedings of the "Island Universes: Structure and Evolution of Disk Galaxies" conference held in Terschelling, Netherlands, July 2005, ed. R. de Jong. A high resolution version is available at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~jfalcon/JFB_terschelling.pdf.g