5,038 research outputs found
Natural Disasters and Preferences for the Environment: Evidence from the Impressionable Years
Do generations affected by natural disasters during the critical years of adolescence and
early adulthood form different preferences towards the environment than generations who are
not? Consistent with the theories of social psychology, we show that an environmental shock
experienced during the impressionable years (18-25 years old) help shape positive environmental
preferences. Individuals tend not to change beliefs in response to natural disasters experienced
in other age ranges. Using information from the General Social Survey and World Values Survey,
we exploit yearly natural disasters variation both within the US and across countries to identify
these effects
Natural Disasters and Preferences for the Environment: Evidence from the Impressionable Years
Do generations a˙ected by natural disasters during the critical years of adolescence and early adulthood form di˙erent preferences towards the environment than generations who are not? Consistent with the theories of social psychology, we show that an environmental shock experienced during the impressionable years (18-25 years old) help shape positive environmental preferences. Individuals tend not to change beliefs in response to natural disasters experienced in other age ranges. Using information from the General Social Survey and World Values Survey, we exploit yearly natural disasters variation both within the US and across countries to identify these effects
The bosonic Kondo effect
The Kondo effect is associated with the formation of a many-body ground state
that contains a quantum-mechanical entanglement between a (localized) fermion
and the free fermions. We show that a bosonic version of the Kondo effect can
occur in degenerate atomic Fermi gases near the Feshbach resonance. We also
discuss how this bosonic Kondo effect can be observed experimentally.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, some references added, some removed. More
comments adde
The Infrared Einstein Ring in the Gravitational Lens MG1131+0456 and the Death of the Dusty Lens Hypothesis
We have obtained and modeled new NICMOS images of the lens system
MG1131+0456, which show that its lens galaxy is an H=18.6 mag, transparent,
early-type galaxy at a redshift of about z_l = 0.85; it has a major axis
effective radius R_e=0.68+/-0.05 arcsec, projected axis ratio b/a=0.77+/-0.02,
and major axis PA=60+/-2 degrees. The lens is the brightest member of a group
of seven galaxies with similar R-I and I-H colors, and the two closest group
members produce sufficient tidal perturbations to explain the ring morphology.
The host galaxy of the MG1131+0456 source is a z_s > 2 ERO (``extremely red
object'') which is lensed into optical and infrared rings of dramatically
different morphologies. These differences imply a strongly wavelength-dependent
source morphology that could be explained by embedding the host in a larger,
dusty disk. At 1.6 micron (H), the ring is spectacularly luminous, with a total
observed flux of H=17.4 mag and a de-magnified flux of 19.3 mag, corresponding
to a 1-2L_* galaxy at the probable source redshift of z_s > 2. Thus, it is
primarily the stellar emission of the radio source host galaxy that produces
the overall colors of two of the reddest radio lenses, MG1131+0456 and
B~1938+666, aided by the suppression of optical AGN emission by dust in the
source galaxy. The dusty lens hypothesis -- that many massive early-type
galaxies with 0.2 < z_l < 1.0 have large, uniform dust opacities -- is ruled
out.Comment: 27 pages, 8 COLOR figures, submitted to ApJ. Black and white version
available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/castle
Finding Gravitational Lenses With X-rays
There are , 0.1 and 0.01 gravitationally lensed X-ray sources per
square degree with soft X-ray fluxes exceeding and
respectively. These sources will be detected
serendipitously with the Chandra X-ray Observatory at a rate of 1--3 lenses per
year of high resolution imaging. The low detection rate is due to the small
area over which the HRC and ACIS cameras have the <1\farcs5 FWHM resolution
necessary to find gravitational lenses produced by galaxies. Deep images of
rich clusters at intermediate redshifts should yield one wide separation
(\Delta\theta \gtorder 5\farcs0) multiply-imaged background X-ray source for
every , 30 and 300 clusters imaged to the same flux limits.Comment: 13 pages, including 5 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter
The quasar Q0957+561: Lensed CO emission from a disk at z~1.4?
In recent years large efforts have been made to detect molecular gas towards
high redshifted objects. Up to now the literature reports on only two cases of
CO-detection in quasars at a redshift between 1 and 2 - Q0957+561, a
gravitationally lensed system at z=1.41 (Planesas et al. 1999), and HR10 at
z=1.44 (Andreani et al. 2000). According to Planesas et al. (1999), 12CO(2-1)
emission was detected towards both the lensed images of Q0957+561 with the IRAM
Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). In contrast to the optical spectra of
the two images which support the idea that they are images of one and the same
object, the CO-spectra were surprisingly different: the southern image (named
CO-B) shows a single blueshifted line whereas a double-peaked line profile with
a blue- and a redshifted part appears towards the northern image (CO-A). Based
on the observations and on simulations with a gravitational lens program, we
are tempted to argue that the line profile traces the presence of molecular gas
of a disk in the host galaxy around the quasar. We have now new observations
with the PdBI providing the necessary sensitivity to corroborate our disk
model.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "Proceedings of the 4th
Cologne-Bonn-Zermatt-Symposium", ed. S. Pfalzner, C. Kramer, C. Straubmeier,
and A. Heithausen (Springer Verlag
Relationship between optimism, disease variables, and health perception and quality of life in individuals with epilepsy.
Epilepsy Behav. 2007 Aug;11(1):33-8. Epub 2007 May 29.
Relationship between optimism, disease variables, and health perception and quality of life in individuals with epilepsy.
Pais-Ribeiro J, da Silva AM, Meneses RF, Falco C.
Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Manuel Pereira da Silva, 4200-392 Porto, Portugal. [email protected]
Abstract
Epilepsy is a relatively frequent chronic condition with an important impact on the health perception and quality of life (QOL) of patients. The aim of the present study was to identify variables related to health status perception and QOL in persons with epilepsy. Participants were 200 persons with epilepsy, 53.5% of whom were males. The mean age was 39.6; 95% had seizures, and 99% were taking antiepileptic medication. The self-report questionnaire administered assessed four types of variables: demographic, disease, epilepsy-specific optimistic attitude, and outcome variables. Results demonstrated that an optimistic orientation is related to better perception of physical and mental health status and better perception of QOL. The variables that best predict positive outcomes are optimistic orientation, perception of cognitive functioning, and perception of seizure control. These results question the importance attributed to seizure characteristics for everyday functioning and everyday life of individuals with epilepsy, and stress the importance of facilitating an epilepsy-specific optimistic orientation.
PMID: 17537679 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLIN
Deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) and the agents of Lyme disease and human granulocytic ehrlichiosis in a New York City park.
Rodent trapping and drag sampling in Van Cortlandt Park, New York City, yielded all stages of Ixodes scapularis, the deer tick vector of Lyme disease and human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE). Polymerase chain reaction analyses of the ticks showed Borrelia burgdorferi and the Ehrlichia sp. that causes HGE
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