42,664 research outputs found
Valuing the voluntary sector: rethinking economic analysis
The voluntary sector plays an important role in the sports industry, as a provider of sporting opportunities and in the development of sport, from increasing participation through to supporting excellence and elite performance. However, despite this importance, research on its contribution to sport-related economic activity is limited, with information on this sector remaining the weakest part of current economic assessments of the UK sports industry. The research presented in this article examines the economic importance of the voluntary sector, using a case study of Sheffield. It demonstrates that the sports voluntary sector in the city is considerably smaller than was predicted when using national estimates, and that this is largely a consequence of methodological issues relating to previous research. The article suggests that in the light of the findings and the increasing use of sport in urban policy, there is a need to rethink the methodology used to evaluate the economic contribution of the voluntary sector in the future.</p
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey - I. Luminosity function
We describe the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS) and the first data obtained as part of the science demonstration phase (SDP). The data cover a central 4Γ4 sqβdeg region of the cluster. We use SPIRE and PACS photometry data to produce 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500 ΞΌm luminosity functions (LFs) for optically bright galaxies that are selected at 500 ΞΌm and detected in all bands. We compare these LFs with those previously derived using IRAS, BLAST and Herschel-ATLAS data. The Virgo cluster LFs do not have the large numbers of faint galaxies or examples of very luminous galaxies seen previously in surveys covering less dense environments
The quenching of star formation in accretion-driven clumpy turbulent tori of active galactic nuclei
Galactic gas-gas collisions involving a turbulent multiphase ISM share common
ISM properties: dense extraplanar gas visible in CO, large linewidths (>= 50
km/s), strong mid-infrared H_2 line emission, low star formation activity, and
strong radio continuum emission. Gas-gas collisions can occur in the form of
ICM ram pressure stripping, galaxy head-on collisions, compression of the
intragroup gas and/or galaxy ISM by an intruder galaxy which flies through the
galaxy group at a high velocity, or external gas accretion on an existing gas
torus in a galactic center. We suggest that the common theme of all these
gas-gas interactions is adiabatic compression of the ISM leading to an increase
of the turbulent velocity dispersion of the gas. The turbulent gas clouds are
then overpressured and star formation is quenched. Within this scenario we
developed a model for turbulent clumpy gas disks where the energy to drive
turbulence is supplied by external infall or the gain of potential energy by
radial gas accretion within the disk. The cloud size is determined by the size
of a C-type shock propagating in dense molecular clouds with a low ionization
fraction at a given velocity dispersion. We give expressions for the expected
volume and area filling factors, mass, density, column density, and velocity
dispersion of the clouds. The latter is based on scaling relations of
intermittent turbulence whose open parameters are estimated for the CND in the
Galactic Center. The properties of the model gas clouds and the external mass
accretion rate necessary for the quenching of the star formation rate due to
adiabatic compression are consistent with those derived from high-resolution
H_2 line observations. Based on these findings, a scenario for the evolution of
gas tori in galactic centers is proposed and the implications for star
formation in the Galactic Center are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication by A&
Probing the Low Surface Brightness Dwarf Galaxy Population of the Virgo Cluster
We have used public data from the Next Generation Virgo Survey (NGVS) to
investigate the dwarf galaxy population of the Virgo cluster beyond what has
previously been discovered. We initially mask and smooth the data, and then use
the object detection algorithm Sextractor to make our initial dwarf galaxy
selection. All candidates are then visually inspected to remove artefacts and
duplicates. We derive Sextractor parameters to best select low surface
brightness galaxies using g band central surface brightness values of 22.5 to
26.0 mag sq arc sec and exponential scale lengths of 3.0 - 10.0 arc sec to
identify 443 cluster dwarf galaxies - 303 of which are new detections. These
new detections have a surface density that decreases with radius from the
cluster centre. We also apply our selection algorithm to 'background',
non-cluster, fields and find zero detections. In combination, this leads us to
believe that we have isolated a cluster dwarf galaxy population. The range of
objects we are able to detect is limited because smaller scale sized galaxies
are confused with the background, while larger galaxies are split into numerous
smaller objects by the detection algorithm. Using data from previous surveys
combined with our data, we find a faint end slope to the luminosity function of
-1.35+/-0.03, which does not significantly differ to what has previously been
found for the Virgo cluster, but is a little steeper than the slope for field
galaxies. There is no evidence for a faint end slope steep enough to correspond
with galaxy formation models, unless those models invoke either strong feedback
processes or use warm dark matter.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
Evolutionary origins of ultrasonic hearing and laryngeal echolocation in bats inferred from morphological analyses of the inner ear
PMCID: PMC3598973This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Spectral Stability of the Neumann Laplacian
We prove the equivalence of Hardy- and Sobolev-type inequalities, certain
uniform bounds on the heat kernel and some spectral regularity properties of
the Neumann Laplacian associated with an arbitrary region of finite measure in
Euclidean space. We also prove that if one perturbs the boundary of the region
within a uniform H\"older category then the eigenvalues of the Neumann
Laplacian change by a small and explicitly estimated amount.
AMS subject classifications: 35P15, 35J25, 47A75, 47B25, 26D10, 46E35.
Keywords: Neumann Laplacian, Sobolev inequalities, Hardy inequalities,
spectral stability, H\"older continuity.Comment: 23 page
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The intelligence cycle is dead, long live the intelligence cycle: Rethinking intelligence fundamentals for a new intelligence doctrine
In the spring of 2009 the UK Ministry of Defence elected to undertake a review of the existing military Joint Intelligence Doctrine. The existing doctrine, Joint Warfare Doctrine 2-00 (JWP 2-00) Intelligence Support to Joint Operations had been promulgated in 2003 largely on the basis of coalition-oriented expeditionary and peace support operations in the Balkans, Middle East and Afghanistan. This had replaced an earlier, first edition of JWP 2-00 issued in 1999
Flame: A Flexible Data Reduction Pipeline for Near-Infrared and Optical Spectroscopy
We present flame, a pipeline for reducing spectroscopic observations obtained
with multi-slit near-infrared and optical instruments. Because of its flexible
design, flame can be easily applied to data obtained with a wide variety of
spectrographs. The flexibility is due to a modular architecture, which allows
changes and customizations to the pipeline, and relegates the
instrument-specific parts to a single module. At the core of the data reduction
is the transformation from observed pixel coordinates (x, y) to rectified
coordinates (lambda, gamma). This transformation consists in the polynomial
functions lambda(x,y) and gamma(x,y) that are derived from arc or sky emission
lines and slit edge tracing, respectively. The use of 2D transformations allows
one to wavelength calibrate and rectify the data using just one interpolation
step. Furthermore, the gamma(x,y) transformation includes also the spatial
misalignment between frames, which can be measured from a reference star
observed simultaneously with the science targets. The misalignment can then be
fully corrected during the rectification, without having to further resample
the data. Sky subtraction can be performed via nodding and/or modeling of the
sky spectrum; the combination of the two methods typically yields the best
results. We illustrate the pipeline by showing examples of data reduction for a
near-infrared instrument (LUCI at the Large Binocular Telescope) and an optical
one (LRIS at the Keck telescope).Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, published in MNRAS. The pipeline is available
at https://github.com/siriobelli/flam
Dust Emissivity in the Far-Infrared
We have derived the dust emissivity in the Far-Infrared (FIR) using data
available in the literature. We use two wavelength dependences derived from
spectra of Galactic FIR emission (Reach et al. 1995). A value for the
emissivity, normalised to the extinction efficiency in the V band, has been
retrieved from maps of Galactic FIR emission, dust temperature and extinction
(Schlegel et al. 1998).
Our results are similar to other measurements in the Galaxy but only
marginally consistent with the widely quoted values of Hildebrand (1983)
derived on one reflection nebula. The discrepancy with measurements on other
reflection nebulae (Casey 1991) is higher and suggests a different grain
composition in these environments with respect to the diffuse interstellar
medium.
We measure dust masses for a sample of six spiral galaxies with FIR
observations and obtain gas-to-dust ratios close to the Galactic value.Comment: 5 pages, 1 ps file, A&A letter accepte
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