The Structure and the Distance of Collinder 121 from Hipparcos and Photometry: Resolving the Discrepancy

We present further arguments that the Hipparcos parallaxes for some of the clusters and associations represented in the Hipparcos catalog should be used with caution in the study of the Galactic structure. It has been already shown that the discrepancy between the Hipparcos and ground based parallaxes for several clusters including the Pleiades, Coma Ber and NGC 6231 can be resolved by recomputing the Hipparcos astrometric solutions with an improved algorithm diminishing correlated errors in the attitude parameters. Here we present new parallaxes obtained with this algorithm for another group of stars with discrepant data - the galactic cluster Cr 121. The original Hipparcos parallaxes led de Zeeuw et al. to conclude that Cr 121 and the surrounding association of OB stars form a relatively compact and coherent moving group at a distance of 550 -- 600 pc. Our corrected parallaxes reveal a different spatial distribution of young stellar populace in this area. Both the cluster Cr 121 and the extended OB association are considerably more distant (750 -- 1000 pc), and the latter has a large depth probably extending beyond 1 kpc. Therefore, not only are the recalculated parallaxes in complete agreement with the photometric uvbybeta parallaxes, but the structure of the field they reveal is no longer in discrepancy with that found by the photometric method.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, ApJL accepte

"Jag tänker att det är liksom utvecklingen på nåt vis. Det går inte att bromsa" : Skolkuratorers arbete med elever i en tid präglad av sociala medier.

The purpose of this study was to examine how school counselors use their discretion in a dynamic surrounding where social media is increasingly present in students’ lives and furthermore to examine how school counselors use social media as a part of their work. Eight qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with school counselors in order to achieve the purpose of the study. These interviews were transcribed, coded and furthermore analyzed through a theoretical framework guided by the concepts of discretion using dynamic surroundings and previous research in the field of the study. The study found that school counselors lack clear guidelines regarding how to act in relation to new problem areas caused by the usage of social media. Despite having considerable discretion allowing them to develop their work with problems surrounding social media use, the lack of formal guidelines often made school counselors rely upon already established means of conduct. Some uncertainty regarding appropriate ways to work were present among the school counselors interviewed. The preventive work has adapted somewhat to better meet the new problem areas, but the lack of resources and evidence based models is hindering the development. The school counselors knowledge of the problem areas is good, however mostly based on their personal usage of and interest in social media. Formal knowledge and further training in the area is largely absent. With clearer guidelines, more resources for the development of the preventive work and further education in the field, the uncertainty among the school counselors could decrease. An increase in evidence based work in the field could motivate a greater allocation of resources from employers and schools regarding preventive work

Jag har inte tid! - En interventionsstudie i stresshantering för gymnasieungdomar

Den här studien undersökte effekter av en stresshanteringsintervention, som genomfördes med åtta elever på en svensk gymnasieskola under hösten 2015. Hypoteserna inför projektet var att interventionen som varade under åtta veckor skulle ha en positiv effekt på användandet av adaptiva copingstrategier samt reducera upplevd stressnivå och öka självskattad hälsa. De utfallsmått som användes var Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) och fem delskalor från COPE (Positiv omtolkning, Acceptans, Planering, Socialt instrumentellt stöd och Socialt emotionellt stöd). Deltagarna fick också skatta sin egen hälsa. Resultaten visade att det skett en signifikant minskning i upplevd stress och en signifikant ökning i användandet av copingstrategier som Positiv omtolkning, Acceptans och Planering. Frivilligt deltagande betonades i utvärderingen från deltagare att ha varit avgörande för närvaro och engagemang. Sammanfattningsvis visar studiens resultat att det går att utveckla användandet av copingstrategier i unga år, vilket kan ha varit den bidragande orsaken till minskad stressupplevelse. Betydelsen av upplevd kontroll och att känna tilltro till sin egen förmåga bedöms vara viktiga komponenter i arbetet med stresshantering för ungdomar.This study examined the effects of a stress management intervention that was carried out with eight Swedish high school students (Swedish gymnasium) during the fall semester of 2015. The hypotheses were that the eight week intervention would have a positive impact on the usage of adaptive coping strategies, reduce perceived stress for the participants and increase self-estimated overall health. The outcome measures were Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) and five subscales from COPE (Positive reinterpretation and growth, Acceptance, Planning, Seeking social support for instrumental reasons and Seeking of emotional social support). The participants were also asked to estimate their overall health. The results showed a significant reduction in perceived stress and a significant increase in usage of coping strategies such as Positive reinterpretation and growth, Acceptance and Planning. Voluntary participation was emphasized to be crucial for attendance and commitment by the participants. In conclusion, the results of this study show that it’s possible to develop and elaborate coping strategies in adolescence, which could have been a contributing factor to the decrease in perceived stress. The significance of perceived control and intern locus of control were considered to be important components in working with stress management for adolescents

NGC 6738: not a real open cluster

A photometric, astrometric and spectroscopic investigation of the poorly studied open cluster NGC 6738 has been performed in order to ascertain its real nature. NGC 6738 is definitely not a physical stellar ensemble: photometry does not show a defined mean sequence, proper motions and radial velocities are randomly distributed, spectro-photometric parallaxes range between 10 and 1600 pc, and the apparent luminosity function is identical to that of the surrounding field. NGC 6738 therefore appears to be an apparent concentration of a few bright stars projected on patchy background absorption.Comment: A&A, in press (compared with first submission to astro-ph, now Table 2 and Figure 4 are replaced with corrected versions