810 research outputs found
Substantially Limited Protection from Disability Discrimination: The Special Treatment Model and Misconstructions of the Definition of Disability
DISABILITY\u27 nondiscrimination laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA),2 and the disability rights movement which spawned them have, at their core, a central premise that is both simple and profound. That premise is that people denominated as disabled are just people, not different in any critical way from other people. Paradoxically, commentators, enforcement agencies and the courts, with manifest good intentions, have frequently interpreted and applied these laws in ways that reinforce a diametrically opposite premise-that people with disabilities are significantly different, special and need exceptional status and protection, One is reminded of Justice Brandeis\u27s admonition that citizens should be most on guard when Government\u27s purposes are beneficent and that the greatest dangers arise from encroachment by [people] of zeal, -well-meaning but without understanding.
Ill Effects of a Well-Intentioned Law: The Rights of the Handicapped Overlooked
Indiana\u27s Public Law No. 162, which was signed into law in 1972, is an admirable achievement. The statute consolidated and clarified the procedures to be employed by schools in suspending, expelling or excluding students. The rights of students were closely guarded through the clear enumeration of the requirements of due process in this area. Written notice, a relatively formal hearing, the right to be represented by counsel, the right to cross-examine witnesses, a written decision and record of the proceedings, and an appeal procedure are all specifically mandated by the law whenever a child may be suspended, expelled or excluded. The aim of the law was both to protect pupils from arbitrary decisions and, at the same time, give school administrators a definite means by which to dismiss pupils when it legitimately becomes necessary to do so
ISOCAM observations of the L1551 star formation region
The results of a deep mid-IR ISOCAM survey of the L1551 dark molecular cloud
are presented. The aim of this survey is a search for new YSO (Young Stellar
Object) candidates, using two broad-band filters centred at 6.7 and 14.3
micron. Although two regions close to the centre of L1551 had to be avoided due
to saturation problems, 96 sources were detected in total (76 sources at 6.7
micron and 44 sources at 14.3 micron). Using the 24 sources detected in both
filters, 14 were found to have intrinsic mid-IR excess at 14.3 micron and were
therefore classified as YSO candidates. Using additional observations in B, V,
I, J, H and K obtained from the ground, most candidates detected at these
wavelengths were confirmed to have mid-IR excess at 6.7 micron as well, and
three additional YSO candidates were found. Prior to this survey only three
YSOs were known in the observed region (avoiding L1551 IRS5/NE and HL/XZ Tau).
This survey reveals 15 new YSO candidates, although several of these are
uncertain due to their extended nature either in the mid-IR or in the
optical/near-IR observations. Two of the sources with mid-IR excess are
previously known YSOs, one is a brown dwarf MHO 5 and the other is the well
known T Tauri star HH30, consisting of an outflow and an optically thick disk
seen edge on.Comment: 14 Pages, 8 Figure
Inferring statistics of planet populations by means of automated microlensing searches
(abridged) The study of other worlds is key to understanding our own, and not
only provides clues to the origin of our civilization, but also looks into its
future. Rather than in identifying nearby systems and learning about their
individual properties, the main value of the technique of gravitational
microlensing is in obtaining the statistics of planetary populations within the
Milky Way and beyond. Only the complementarity of different techniques
currently employed promises to yield a complete picture of planet formation
that has sufficient predictive power to let us understand how habitable worlds
like ours evolve, and how abundant such systems are in the Universe. A
cooperative three-step strategy of survey, follow-up, and anomaly monitoring of
microlensing targets, realized by means of an automated expert system and a
network of ground-based telescopes is ready right now to be used to obtain a
first census of cool planets with masses reaching even below that of Earth
orbiting K and M dwarfs in two distinct stellar populations, namely the
Galactic bulge and disk. The hunt for extra-solar planets acts as a principal
science driver for time-domain astronomy with robotic-telescope networks
adopting fully-automated strategies. Several initiatives, both into facilities
as well as into advanced software and strategies, are supposed to see the
capabilities of gravitational microlensing programmes step-wise increasing over
the next 10 years. New opportunities will show up with high-precision
astrometry becoming available and studying the abundance of planets around
stars in neighbouring galaxies becoming possible. Finally, we should not miss
out on sharing the vision with the general public, and make its realization to
profit not only the scientists but all the wider society.Comment: 10 pages in PDF format. White paper submitted to ESA's Exo-Planet
Roadmap Advisory Team (EPR-AT); typos corrected. The embedded figures are
available from the author on request. See also "Towards A Census of
Earth-mass Exo-planets with Gravitational Microlensing" by J.P. Beaulieu, E.
Kerins, S. Mao et al. (arXiv:0808.0005
ISOCAM observations of the rho Ophiuchi cloud: Luminosity and mass functions of the pre-main sequence embedded cluster
We present the results of the first extensive mid-infrared (IR) imaging
survey of the rho Ophiuchi embedded cluster, performed with the ISOCAM camera
on board the ISO satellite. The main molecular cloud L1688, as well as L1689N
and L1689S, have been completely surveyed for point sources at 6.7 and 14.3
micron. A total of 425 sources are detected including 16 Class I, 123 Class II,
and 77 Class III young stellar objects (YSOs). Essentially all of the mid-IR
sources coincide with near-IR sources, but a large proportion of them are
recognized for the first time as YSOs. Our dual-wavelength survey allows us to
identify essentially all the YSOs with IR excess in the embedded cluster down
to Fnu ~ 10 - 15 mJy. It more than doubles the known population of Class II
YSOs and represents the most complete census to date of newly formed stars in
the rho Ophiuchi central region. The stellar luminosity function of the
complete sample of Class II YSOs is derived with a good accuracy down to L=
0.03 Lsun. A modeling of this lumino- sity function, using available pre-main
sequence tracks and plausible star for- mation histories, allows us to derive
the mass distribution of the Class II YSOs which arguably reflects the IMF of
the embedded cluster. We estimate that the IMF in rho Ophiuchi is well
described by a two-component power law with a low- mass index of -0.35+/-0.25,
a high-mass index of -1.7 (to be compared with the Salpeter value of -1.35),
and a break occurring at M = 0.55+/-0.25 Msun. This IMF is flat with no
evidence for a low-mass cutoff down to at least 0.06 Msun.Comment: A&A Document Class -- version 5.01, 27 pages, 10 figures v2: typos
added including few changes in source numberin
Structure and Colors of Diffuse Emission in the Spitzer Galactic First Look Survey
We investigate the density structure of the interstellar medium using new
high-resolution maps of the 8 micron, 24 micron, and 70 micron surface
brightness towards a molecular cloud in the Gum Nebula, made as part of the
Spitzer Space Telescope Galactic First Look Survey. The maps are correlated
with 100 micron images measured with IRAS. At 24 and 70 micron, the spatial
power spectrum of surface brightness follows a power law with spectral index
-3.5. At 24 micron, the power law behavior is remarkably consistent from the
0.2 degree size of our maps down to the 5 arcsecond spatial resolution. Thus,
the structure of the 24 micron emission is self-similar even at milliparsec
scales. The combined power spectrum produced from Spitzer 24 micron and IRAS 25
micron images is consistent with a change in the power law exponent from -2.6
to -3.5. The decrease may be due to the transition from a two-dimensional to
three-dimensional structure. Under this hypothesis, we estimate the thickness
of the emitting medium to be 0.3 pc.Comment: 13 Pages, 3 Figures, to be published in Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Series (Spitzer Special Issue), volume 154. Uses aastex v5.
Recommended from our members
Thermal H<sub>2</sub>O emission from the Herbig-Haro flow HH 54
The first detection of thermal water emission from a Herbig-Haro object is presented. The observations were performed with the LWS (Long Wavelength Spectrograph) aboard ISO (Infrared Space Observatory). Besides H2O, rotational lines of CO are present in the spectrum of HH 54. These high-J CO lines are used to derive the physical model parameters of the FIR (far-infrared) molecular line emitting regions. This model fits simultaneously the observed OH and H2O spectra for an OH abundance X(OH)=10-6 and a water vapour abundance X(H2O)=10-5.
At a distance of 250pc, the total CO, OH and H2O rotational line cooling rate is estimated to be 1.3x10-2 L⊙, which is comparable to the mechanical luminosity generated by the 10km s-1 shocks, suggesting that practically all of the cooling of the weak-shock regions is done by these three molecular species alone
Observations of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope: Early Results on Mrk 1014, Mrk 463, and UGC 5101
We present spectra taken with the Infrared Spectrograph on Spitzer covering
the 5-38micron region of three Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs): Mrk
1014 (z=0.163), and Mrk 463 (z=0.051), and UGC 5101 (z=0.039). The continua of
UGC 5101 and Mrk 463 show strong silicate absorption suggesting significant
optical depths to the nuclei at 10microns. UGC 5101 also shows the clear
presence of water ice in absorption. PAH emission features are seen in both Mrk
1014 and UGC 5101, including the 16.4micron line in UGC 5101. The fine
structure lines are consistent with dominant AGN power sources in both Mrk 1014
and Mrk 463. In UGC 5101 we detect the [NeV] 14.3micron emission line providing
the first direct evidence for a buried AGN in the mid-infrared. The detection
of the 9.66micron and 17.03micron H emission lines in both UGC 5101 and
Mrk 463 suggest that the warm molecular gas accounts for 22% and 48% of the
total molecular gas masses in these galaxies.Comment: Accepted in ApJ Sup. Spitzer Special Issue, 4 pages, 3 figure
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