On the existence of a tight planar relation between stellar specific angular momentum, mass and effective surface brightness for ALFALFA galaxies

Measurements of the dependence of stellar specific angular momentum ($j_*$) on stellar mass ($M_*$) are presented for large samples of ALFALFA galaxies spanning the stellar mass range $\sim 10^8$-$10^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$. Accurate estimates of $j_*$ are generated using measurements of $I$-band effective radius and velocity width of the HI line profile. While the full sample ($N=3~607)$ of galaxies yields a $j_*$-$M_*$ relation with power-law index $\alpha = 0.404\pm 0.03$, it is shown that various sub-samples have indices that are very similar to the best literature results, yet with comparatively lower intrinsic scatters. A galaxy's mean $I$-band surface brightness within its effective radius () is shown to significantly correlate with $j_*$-$M_*$ scatter. A 3D plane fit to all $N=3~607$ galaxies in $\log_{10}j_*$-$\log_{10}M_*$- space yields j_*\propto M_*^{0.589\pm 0.002}^{0.193\pm 0.002} with scatter $\sigma=0.089$ dex. $$-selected sub-samples of size up to $N=1~450$ yield power-law $j_*$-$M_*$ relations mostly consistent with $\alpha=0.55\pm 0.02$ from the literature and with intrinsic scatter ranging from 0.083 to 0.129 dex. Thus, this paper presents new, highly accurate measurements of the $j_*$-$M_*$ relation that can be used to better understand the important roles played by angular momentum in the formation and evolution of galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Clifford Geertz, 1926-2006: Meaning, method, and Indonesian economic history

Clifford Geertz was best known for his pioneering excursions into symbolic or interpretive anthropology, especially in relation to Indonesia. Less well recognised are his stimulating explorations of the modern economic history of Indonesia. His thinking on the interplay of economics and culture was most fully and vigorously expounded in Agricultural Involution. That book deployed a succinctly packaged past in order to solve a pressing contemporary puzzle, Java's enduring rural poverty and apparent social immobility. Initially greeted with acclaim, later and ironically the book stimulated the deep and multi-layered research that in fact led to the eventual rejection of Geertz's central contentions. But the veracity or otherwise of Geertz's inventive characterisation of Indonesian economic development now seems irrelevant; what is profoundly important is the extraordinary stimulus he gave to a generation of scholars to explore Indonesia's modern economic history with a depth and intensity previously unimaginable

Constructing the nation: Ethnicity, race, modernity and citizenship in early Indonesian thought

This article examines the ways in which some early twentieth-century Indonesian thinkers conceptualised the state they had so recently imagined, and particularly how they attacked the vast problem of accommodating ethnic difference within the framework of that new state. Notwithstanding the highly promising beginnings of Indonesian self-appreciation in the early twentieth century and an extraordinarily successful cooptation and, as necessary, subjugation of local and regional expressions of ethnicity to the notion of a united Indonesia, there developed at the same time the new and strange concept of an 'Indonesian race'. That concept represented a regressive reluctance to dispense completely with pre-modern notions of culture and belonging, and created a damaging feature of the understanding of Indonesian citizenship that endures to this day

Marginality, Morality, and the Nationalist Impulse: Papua, The Netherlands and Indonesia: A Review Article

Review article of P.J. Drooglever, Een daad van vrije keuze: de Papoea's van westelijk Nieuw-Guinea en de grenzen van het zelfsbeschikkingrecht (Amsterdam: Boom, for the Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 2005)

A multi-wavelength study of the dwarf galaxies NGC 2915 and NGC 1705 : star formation, gas dynamics and dark matter

Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-242).This thesis presents the results of a detailed multi-wavelength study of the nearby blue compact dwarf galaxies NGC 2915 and NGC 1705. The primary data set (nearly 100 hours of on-source data) for each galaxy consists of new observations of the neutral hydrogen (Hi) line obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, October 2006 - May 2007. The stellar disk of NGC 1705 is host to an intense star-bursting core which is rapidly depleting the galaxy's central Hi reservoir. This galaxy can be used to rigorously test theories of star formation. Detailed studies of the distribution and kinematics of the neutral inter- stellar medium (ISM) within each galaxy are carried out. A suite of star formation recipes and models are examined for each galaxy to quantify the relationship between the observed star formation activity and the distribution and kinematics of the ISM