The Warburg Dance Movement Library-The WADAMO Library: A Validation Study

The Warburg Dance Movement Library is a validated set of 234 video clips of dance movements for empirical research in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience of action perception, affect perception and neuroaesthetics. The library contains two categories of video clips of dance movement sequences. Of each pair, one version of the movement sequence is emotionally expressive (Clip a), while the other version of the same sequence (Clip b) is not expressive but as technically correct as the expressive version (Clip a). We sought to complement previous dance video stimuli libraries. Facial information, colour and music have been removed, and each clip has been faded in and out. We equalised stimulus length (6 seconds, 8 counts in dance theory), the dancers’ clothing and video background and included both male and female dancers, and we controlled for technical correctness of movement execution. The Warburg Dance Movement Library contains both contemporary and ballet movements. Two online surveys (N = 160) confirmed the classification into the two categories of expressivity. Four additional online surveys (N = 80) provided beauty and liking ratings for each clip. A correlation matrix illustrates all variables of this norming study (technical correctness, expressivity, beauty, liking, luminance, motion energy)

Integral field spectroscopy of QSO host galaxies

We describe a project to study the state of the ISM in ~20 low redshift (z<0.3) QSO host galaxies observed with the PMAS integral field spectrograph. We describe method developement to access the stellar and gas component of the spectrum without the strong nuclear emission to access the host galaxy properties also in the central region. It shows that integral field spectroscopy promises to be very efficient to study the gas distribution and its velocity field, and also spatially resolved stellar population in the host galaxies also of luminous AGN.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Euro3D Science Workshop, Cambridge, May 2003, AN, accepte

Age differences in mental health literacy

BACKGROUND: The community's knowledge and beliefs about mental health problems, their risk factors, treatments and sources of help may vary as a function of age. METHODS: Data were taken from an epidemiological survey conducted during 2003–2004 with a national clustered sample of Australian adults aged 18 years and over. Following the presentation of a vignette describing depression (n = 1001) or schizophrenia (n = 997), respondents were asked a series of questions relating to their knowledge and recognition of the disorder, beliefs about the helpfulness of treating professionals and medical, psychological and lifestyle treatments, and likely causes. RESULTS: Participant age was coded into five categories and cross-tabulated with mental health literacy variables. Comparisons between age groups revealed that although older adults (70+ years) were poorer than younger age groups at correctly recognising depression and schizophrenia, young adults (18–24 years) were more likely to misidentify schizophrenia as depression. Differences were also observed between younger and older age groups in terms of beliefs about the helpfulness of certain treating professionals and medical and lifestyle treatments for depression and schizophrenia, and older respondents were more likely to believe that schizophrenia could be caused by character weakness. CONCLUSION: Differences in mental health literacy across the adult lifespan suggest that more specific, age appropriate messages about mental health are required for younger and older age groups. The tendency for young adults to 'over-identify' depression signals the need for awareness campaigns to focus on differentiation between mental disorders

A more realistic representation of overshoot at the base of the solar convective envelope as seen by helioseismology

The stratification near the base of the Sun's convective envelope is governed by processes of convective overshooting and element diffusion, and the region is widely believed to play a key role in the solar dynamo. The stratification in that region gives rise to a characteristic signal in the frequencies of solar p modes, which has been used to determine the depth of the solar convection zone and to investigate the extent of convective overshoot. Previous helioseismic investigations have shown that the Sun's spherically symmetric stratification in this region is smoother than that in a standard solar model without overshooting, and have ruled out simple models incorporating overshooting, which extend the region of adiabatic stratification and have a more-or-less abrupt transition to subadiabatic stratification at the edge of the overshoot region. In this paper we consider physically motivated models which have a smooth transition in stratification bridging the region from the lower convection zone to the radiative interior beneath. We find that such a model is in better agreement with the helioseismic data than a standard solar model.Comment: 18 pages, 4 tables, 24 figures - to appear in MNRAS (version a: equation 9 corrected

Solar-like oscillations in the G8 V star tau Ceti

We used HARPS to measure oscillations in the low-mass star tau Cet. Although the data were compromised by instrumental noise, we have been able to extract the main features of the oscillations. We found tau Cet to oscillate with an amplitude that is about half that of the Sun, and with a mode lifetime that is slightly shorter than solar. The large frequency separation is 169 muHz, and we have identified modes with degrees 0, 1, 2, and 3. We used the frequencies to estimate the mean density of the star to an accuracy of 0.45% which, combined with the interferometric radius, gives a mass of 0.783 +/- 0.012 M_sun (1.6%).Comment: accepted for publication in A&

The merging/AGN connection: A case for 3D spectroscopy

We discuss an ongoing study of the connection between galaxy merging/interaction and AGN activity, based on integral field spectroscopy. We focus on the search for AGN ionization in the central regions of mergers, previously not classified as AGNs. We present here the science case, the current status of the project, and plans for future observations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure, Euro3D Science Workshop, Cambridge, May 2003, AN, accepte

Stellar Oscillations Network Group

Stellar Oscillations Network Group (SONG) is an initiative aimed at designing and building a network of 1m-class telescopes dedicated to asteroseismology and planet hunting. SONG will have 8 identical telescope nodes each equipped with a high-resolution spectrograph and an iodine cell for obtaining precision radial velocities and a CCD camera for guiding and imaging purposes. The main asteroseismology targets for the network are the brightest (V<6) stars. In order to improve performance and reduce maintenance costs the instrumentation will only have very few modes of operation. In this contribution we describe the motivations for establishing a network, the basic outline of SONG and the expected performance.Comment: Proc. Vienna Workshop on the Future of Asteroseismology, 20 - 22 September 2006. Comm. in Asteroseismology, Vol. 150, in the pres

A theoretical approach for the interpretation of pulsating PMS intermediate-mass stars

The investigation of the pulsation properties of pre-main-sequence intermediate-mass stars is a promising tool to evaluate the intrinsic properties of these stars and to constrain current evolutionary models. Many new candidates of this class have been discovered during the last decade and very accurate data are expected from space observations obtained for example with the CoRoT satellite. In this context we aim at developing a theoretical approach for the interpretation of observed frequencies, both from the already available ground-based observations and from the future more accurate and extensive CoRoT results. To this purpose we have started a project devoted to the computations of fine and extensive grids of asteroseismic models of intermediate mass pre-main-sequence stars. The obtained frequencies are used to derive an analytical relation between the large frequency separation and the stellar luminosity and effective temperature and to develop a tool to compare theory and observations in the echelle diagram. The predictive capabilities of the proposed method are verified through the application to two test stars. As a second step, we apply the procedure to two true observations from multisite campaigns and we are able to constrain their stellar parameters, in particular the mass, in spite of the small number of frequencies. We expect that with a significantly higher number of frequencies both the stellar mass and age could be constrained and, at the same time, the physics of the models could be tested.Comment: Accepted for publication on A&