4,260 research outputs found
Caste and democracy: the politics of exclusion and inclusion
Der Verfasser spricht zwei Aspekte in der Debatte um das Kastensystem in Indien an. Der erste Aspekt betrifft das Kastensystem als Mechanismus sozialer Exklusion. Das Kastensystem muss als sakralisierte Machtstruktur verstanden werden, bei der die Vererbung des Kastenstatus dazu führt, dass sich diese Struktur selbst reproduziert. Kasten bilden gleichzeitig ein Netzwerk ethnischer Gemeinschaften, sie sind aber flexibel genug, um neue Bevölkerungsgruppen (Einwanderer) und neue Berufsgruppen integrieren zu können. Die dominante Position der Kongresspartei war das Ergebnis des gelungenen Versuchs, Kastenpolitik und nationalistische Ideologie zu verknüpfen. Mit ihrer Politik der "affirmative action" leistete sie einen Beitrag zur Politisierung der Kasten und zur gleichzeitigen Entritualisierung der Beziehung der Kasten untereinander. An die Stelle der rituellen Hierarchie geschlossener Statusgruppen tritt ein offenes System sozialer Schichtung, in dem beispielsweise die Zugehörigkeit zu den neuen Mittelschichten Mitgliedern aller Kasten offen steht. Die demokratische Politik hat insgesamt zu einer Säkularisierung des Kastensystems geführt. (ICE)"Caste is the most intensively and widely studied South Asian institution and there is no need to reiterate the established wisdom here. The author wishs to focus on, rather attempt to reformulate, some propositions on caste in terms that can facilitate a more direct and precise understanding of the contemporary structures of social exclusion in India. Before he proceeds with this exercise two important, even if obvious, points need to be underlined. First, while many new forms of exclusion are indeed structurally integral to the caste system, there also are those unrelated to caste as well as the ones representing a combination of caste and non-caste elements. Second, in making of a social policy for combating exclusion, it is crucial to take account of both, the changed political-cultural context of exclusion (modernity, nation-state and democracy) and the ideological and structural changes that have occurred in the caste-system itself (Sheth 2002)." (excerpt
The unusual distribution of molecular gas and star formation in Arp 140
We investigate the atomic and molecular interstellar medium and star
formation of NGC 275, the late-type spiral galaxy in Arp 140, which is
interacting with NGC 274, an early-type system. The atomic gas (HI)
observations reveal a tidal tail from NGC 275 which extends many optical radii
beyond the interacting pair. The HI morphology implies a prograde encounter
between the galaxy pair approximately 1.5 x 10**8 years ago. The Halpha
emission from NGC 275 indicates clumpy irregular star-formation, clumpiness
which is mirrored by the underlying mass distribution as traced by the Ks-band
emission. The molecular gas distribution is striking in its anti-correlation
with the {HII regions. Despite the evolved nature of NGC 275's interaction and
its barred potential, neither the molecular gas nor the star formation are
centrally concentrated. We suggest that this structure results from stochastic
star formation leading to preferential consumption of the gas in certain
regions of the galaxy. In contrast to the often assumed picture of interacting
galaxies, NGC 275, which appears to be close to merger, does not display
enhanced or centrally concentrated star formation. If the eventual merger is to
lead to a significant burst of star formation it must be preceded by a
significant conversion of atomic to molecular gas as at the current rate of
star formation all the molecular gas will be exhausted by the time the merger
is complete.Comment: 13 paper, accepted my Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Societ
Diagnostic and therapeutic considerations in idiopathic hypereosinophilia with warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia.
Hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) encompasses numerous diverse conditions resulting in peripheral hypereosinophilia that cannot be explained by hypersensitivity, infection, or atopy and that is not associated with known systemic diseases with specific organ involvement. HES is often attributed to neoplastic or reactive causes, such as chronic eosinophilic leukemia, although a majority of cases remains unexplained and are considered idiopathic. Here, we review the current diagnosis and management of HES and present a unique case of profound hypereosinophilia associated with warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia requiring intensive management. This case clearly illustrates the limitations of current knowledge with respect to hypereosinophilia syndrome as well as the challenges associated with its classification and management
The Linear Point: A cleaner cosmological standard ruler
We show how a characteristic length scale imprinted in the galaxy two-point
correlation function, dubbed the "linear point", can serve as a comoving
cosmological standard ruler. In contrast to the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation
peak location, this scale is constant in redshift and is unaffected by
non-linear effects to within percent precision. We measure the location
of the linear point in the galaxy correlation function of the LOWZ and CMASS
samples from the Twelfth Data Release (DR12) of the Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) collaboration. We combine our linear-point
measurement with cosmic-microwave-background constraints from the Planck
satellite to estimate the isotropic-volume distance , without relying
on a model-template or reconstruction method. We find
Mpc and Mpc respectively, consistent with the quoted
values from the BOSS collaboration. This remarkable result suggests that all
the distance information contained in the baryon acoustic oscillations can be
conveniently compressed into the single length associated with the linear
point.Comment: The optimal two-point correlation function bin-size is employed.
Results are updated and the distance constraints are improve
Unbiased estimates of galaxy scaling relations from photometric redshift surveys
Many physical properties of galaxies correlate with one another, and these
correlations are often used to constrain galaxy formation models. Such
correlations include the color-magnitude relation, the luminosity-size
relation, the Fundamental Plane, etc. However, the transformation from
observable (e.g. angular size, apparent brightness) to physical quantity
(physical size, luminosity), is often distance-dependent. Noise in the distance
estimate will lead to biased estimates of these correlations, thus compromising
the ability of photometric redshift surveys to constrain galaxy formation
models. We describe two methods which can remove this bias. One is a
generalization of the V_max method, and the other is a maximum likelihood
approach. We illustrate their effectiveness by studying the size-luminosity
relation in a mock catalog, although both methods can be applied to other
scaling relations as well. We show that if one simply uses photometric
redshifts one obtains a biased relation; our methods correct for this bias and
recover the true relation
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