Spectral Classification and Effective Temperatures of L and T Dwarfs Based of Near-Infrared Spectra

We have obtained near-infrared spectra of L dwarfs, L/T transition objects and T dwarfs using Subaru. Resulting spectra are examined in detail to see their dependence on the spectral types. We have obtained bolometric luminosities of the objects with known parallaxes in our sample, first by integrating the spectra and second by K band bolometric correction. We derive the relation between effective temperature and spectral type.Comment: To appear in May 20, 2004 issue of ApJ There is a companion paper by Tsuji, Nakajima and Yanagisaw

Creating year 7 bubbles to support primary to secondary school transition: a positive pandemic outcome?

In this paper, we explore the benefits of new forms of in-school grouping for children moving from primary to secondary school during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. Our three-phase study with over 400 students and teachers found that protective measures to limit COVID-19 though year group ‘bubbles’ generated an environment more aligned to children’s previous primary school experience. This natural experiment smoothed the process of transition by providing a better correspondence with students’ developmental needs, especially for those on the cusp of adolescence. We recommend that physical, administrative and pedagogical school structures are reimagined for this age group to this end

Moving Up: Secondary school transition processes during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020 onwards has revealed, and continues to reveal, a great deal about many of the social structures and processes that we take for granted. One of these is the everyday practice of sending children to school. It has been disrupted in a manner unprecedented outside wartime, with consequences that are not likely to become fully apparent for a long time. This study, funded by the UCL Office of the Vice-Provost (Advancement) and the Wellcome Trust, looks at the particular case of Year 6 children in England (aged 10-11 during the school year 2020-2021) who were undergoing transition from primary to secondary school during the initial phases of the pandemic. We chose this group of children as they were on the cusp of adolescence, and working through challenging educational experiences, the effects of which have been magnified by the pandemic. Our study is interested in how these exaggerated effects have shaped their future educational progress, social relationships, and mental health. Our review of the research literature suggests that a smooth transition to secondary school plays an important part in the general development of young people as they move towards adulthood. It also indicates that a successful transition is often the result of positive home and primary school experiences. Several additional factors are key to this. The first is carefully managing children’s expectations of secondary school. Ensuring suitable continuity of learning, as well as minimising any missed learning opportunities, are also important. All of these were heavily compromised by the pandemic. To investigate this, we used a combination of surveys and semi-structured interviews to engage with 196 children and 64 teachers in different regions and social circumstances across England via two fieldwork phases. The first took place in summer 2020 and the second in autumn 2020. We asked children and teachers about the different ways children’s educational experiences had diverged during the pandemic, whether there was likely to be any lack of learning opportunity or consequences for mental health and asked them to suggest changes that could be made to secondary school transition processes in general, in order to improve things in the future. A number of key themes emerged as a result of the research. Our participants reported that there had been increased fragmentation of learning, with some children making greater progress than usual, while other children missed out. This was sometimes, but not always, linked to deprivation. There were many problems with technology which had created barriers to learning, including deficits in national broadband infrastructure and tariffs, as well as hardware availability in some schools and homes. There was a general picture of uncertainty, compounded by the cancellation of Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) scheduled for the end of Year 6, which meant that teachers were unable to report formally on progress in the ways they were used to. Many children reported feeling more anxious than before about their education, as well as their peer relationships at school. In our findings, there were some positive outcomes of the pandemic for schooling, however. The teaching profession was forced into a programme of rapid modernisation and investment in terms of developing high level remote teaching skills. Additionally, those children attending school during the pandemic, because of Free School Meals (deprivation) status, or parental key worker status, sometimes made accelerated progress as a result of small group attention. Other children were able to explore their learning interests and hobbies in more depth than usual. We conclude that both positive and negative aspects of these children’s experiences during the pandemic provide opportunities for reflection around, and improvement of, secondary school transition processes generally. We make two specific recommendations, namely working further towards a distinct Year 7 phase in secondary school, and improving training in, and use of, educational technology by children and their teachers

Sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness during primary-secondary transition: children express their own experiences

This paper contributes a greater understanding of the importance of a sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness to children experiencing the primarysecondary schooling transition, drawing on the perspectives of the young people themselves. We address how the perspectives of transitioning children can further substantiate and illuminate Ryan and Deci’s Self Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan and Deci, 2019). SDT claims that satisfaction of a person’s needs for competence (attainment and confidence), autonomy (self-direction and capacity to critique) and relatedness (feeling affectively bonded to others) allows them to achieve ‘positiveexperience and wellness outcomes’ (p.219). We draw on data from two research projects, one a survey study of 288 transitioning children; and one a life-history study of 23 transitioning children. Our findings illustrated the potential benefits of policymakers giving priority to a wider range of conceptions of competence beyond attainment in mathematics/English, in order to support transitioning children’s sense of competence including their self-confidence. Findings also highlighted the need to nurture children’s capacity to recognise and direct their own schooling trajectories more autonomously, directing their energies into engagement with learning and relationships rather than into riling against controls or seeking to avoid humiliation and punishment. Most positively, our data manifested children’s high levels of relatedness to both peers and teachers as they transitioned to new secondary schools. And above all, our data emphasised and exemplified the need for relatedness to accompany children’s strong sense of competence and autonomy during transition

An experimental evaluation of the benefits and costs of providing fertility information to adolescents and emerging adults

STUDY QUESTION Does the provision of fertility (compared to control) information affect fertility-related knowledge, perceived threat of infertility, anxiety, physical stress and fertility plans in adolescents and emerging adults? SUMMARY ANSWER The provision of fertility information was associated with increased fertility knowledge (emerging adults) and greater infertility threat (adolescents and emerging adults). WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY According to fertility education research, adolescents and emerging adults know less than they should know about fertility topics. Fertility knowledge can be improved through the provision of information in older adults. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION Experimental design. Secondary and university students completed pre-information questionnaires, were randomly assigned via computer to an experimental group, read either fertility (FertiEduc group) or healthy pregnancy information (Control group), and completed post-information questionnaires. Data were collected in group sessions via an online portal. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS Eligible participants were aged 16–18 (adolescents) or 21–24 years (emerging adults), childless, not currently pregnant (for men, partner not pregnant) or trying to conceive, presumed fertile and intending to have a child in the future. Of the 255 invited, 208 (n = 93 adolescents, n = 115 emerging adults) participated. The FertiEduc group received ‘A Guide to Fertility’, four online pages of information about fertility topics (e.g. ‘When are men and women most fertile?’) and the Control group received four online pages from the National Health Service (NHS) pregnancy booklet ‘Baby Bump and Beyond’. Participants completed a questionnaire (fertility knowledge, perceived threat of infertility, anxiety, physical stress and fertility plans, moderators) prior to and after the provision of information. Mixed factorial analysis of variance was used to examine the effects of information provision and hierarchical multiple regression to assess potential moderators of knowledge. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE The FertiEduc and Control groups were equivalent on age, gender, disability, relationship status and orientation at baseline. Results showed that fertility information significantly increased fertility knowledge for emerging adults only (P < 0.001) and threat of infertility for emerging adults and adolescents (P = 0.05). The moderators were not significant. Participation in the study was associated with an increase in feelings of anxiety but a decrease in physical stress reactions. Adolescents had more optimal fertility plans compared to emerging adults due to being younger. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION This was an experimental study on a self-selected sample of men and women from selected educational institutions and only short term effects of information were studied. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Provision of fertility information can have benefits (increased fertility knowledge) but also costs (increase potential threat of infertility). Adolescents find fertility information positive but do not learn from it. Fertility education should be tailored according to age groups and created to minimise negative effects. Longitudinal examination of the effects of fertility information in multi-centre studies is warranted and should include measures of perceived threat of infertility

Dust rings and filaments around the isolated young star V1331 Cygni

We characterize the small and large scale environment of the young star V1331 Cygni with high resolution HST/WFPC2 and Digitized Sky Survey images. In addition to a previously known outer dust ring (~30'' in diameter), the HST/WFPC2 scattered light image reveals an inner dust ring for the first time. This ring has a maximum radius of 6.5'' and is possibly related to a molecular envelope. Large-scale optical images show that V1331 Cyg is located at the tip of a long dust filament linking it to the dark cloud LDN 981. We discuss the origin of the observed dust morphology and analyze the object's relation to its parent dark cloud LDN 981. Finally, based on recent results from the literature, we investigate the properties of V1331 Cyg and conclude that in its current state the object does not show suffcient evidence to be characterized as an FU Ori object.Comment: 15 pages ApJ preprint style including 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ (Feb. 2007

Giving Miss Marple a makeover : graduate recruitment, systems failure and the Scottish voluntary sector

The voluntary sector in Scotland, as across the globe, is becoming increasingly business like. Resultantly, there is an increasing demand for graduates to work in business and support functions. In Scotland, however, despite an oversupply of graduates in the labor market, the voluntary sector reports skills shortages for graduate-level positions; a leadership deficit was also reported in countries such as the United States. Through exploratory, mainly qualitative, case study and stakeholder research, this article proposes that one reason for this mismatch between the supply of and demand for graduates is a systems failure within the sector. Many graduates and university students remain unaware of potentially suitable paid job opportunities, in part because of the sector's voluntary label. To rectify this systems failure, thought needs to be given to the sector's nomenclature and the manner in which voluntary sector organizations attract graduate recruits, for example, through levering value congruence in potential recruits

Identifying Very Metal-Rich Stars with Low-Resolution Spectra: Finding Planet-Search Targets

We present empirical calibrations that estimate stellar metallicity, effective temperature and surface gravity as a function of Lick/IDS indices. These calibrations have been derived from a training set of 261 stars for which (1) high-precision measurements of [Fe/H], T_eff and log g have been made using spectral-synthesis analysis of HIRES spectra, and (2) Lick indices have also been measured. Our [Fe/H] calibration, which has precision 0.07 dex, has identified a number of bright (V < 9) metal-rich stars which are now being screened for hot Jupiter-type planets. Using the Yonsei-Yale stellar models, we show that the calibrations provide distance estimates accurate to 20% for nearby stars. This paper outlines the second tier of the screening of planet-search targets by the N2K Consortium, a project designed to identify the stars most likely to harbor extrasolar planets. Discoveries by the N2K Consortium include the transiting hot Saturn HD 149026 b (Sato et al. 2005, astro-ph/0507009) and HD 88133 b (Fischer et al. 2005). See Ammons et al. (2005, In Press) for a description of the first tier of N2K metallicity screening, calibrations using broadband photometry.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Discovery of Two T Dwarf Companions with the Spitzer Space Telescope

We report the discovery of T dwarf companions to the nearby stars HN Peg (G0V, 18.4 pc, ~0.3 Gyr) and HD 3651 (K0V, 11.1 pc, ~7 Gyr). During an ongoing survey of 5'x5' fields surrounding stars in the solar neighborhood with IRAC aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope, we identified these companions as candidate T dwarfs based on their mid-IR colors. Using near-IR spectra obtained with SpeX at the NASA IRTF, we confirm the presence of methane absorption that characterizes T dwarfs and measure spectral types of T2.5+/-0.5 and T7.5+/-0.5 for HN Peg B and HD 3651 B, respectively. By comparing our Spitzer data to images from 2MASS obtained several years earlier, we find that the proper motions of HN Peg B and HD 3651 B are consistent with those of the primaries, confirming their companionship. HN Peg B and HD 3651 B have angular separations of 43.2" and 42.9" from their primaries, which correspond to projected physical separations of 795 and 476 AU, respectively. A comparison of their luminosities to the values predicted by theoretical evolutionary models implies masses of 0.021+/-0.009 and 0.051+/-0.014 Msun for HN Peg B and HD 3651 B. In addition, the models imply an effective temperature for HN Peg B that is significantly lower than the values derived for other T dwarfs at similar spectral types, which is the same behavior reported by Metchev & Hillenbrand for the young late-L dwarf HD 203030 B. Thus, the temperature of the L/T transition appears to depend on surface gravity. Meanwhile, HD 3651 B is the first substellar companion directly imaged around a star that is known to harbor a close-in planet from RV surveys. The discovery of this companion supports the notion that the high eccentricities of close-in planets like the one near HD 3651 may be the result of perturbations by low-mass companions at wide separations.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres