512 research outputs found
Belfast Without Sight: Exploring Geographies of Blindness
In this paper (he transformed spaces of visually impaired and blind people is explored
through a detailed analysis of interview transcripts with twenty seven visually impaired
people living in or around Belfast. Data were collected using a structured open-ended
interview and were analysed within NUD-IST, a qualitative data analysis package. Analysis
revealed that visually impaired people become spatially confused (e.g. lost or disorientated)
for two primary reasons. "Self-produced" confusion is spatial confusion caused by
the misperception/miscognition of a route (e.g. miscounting intersections). "Situational"
confusion is spatial confusion caused by a permanent or temporary localised occurrences
such as road works, vehicles parked on pavements, and street furniture. Both types of
spatial confusion were found to induce feelings of fear and anxiety, leading to a loss of selfconfidence,
embarrassment and frustration, which in turn led to less independent travel and
exploration, and constrained patterns of spatial behaviour. Respondents detailed a number
of strategies for coping with spatial confusion. In addition, they assessed methods to make
Belfast more navigable including environmental modifications and orientation and mobility
aid
Pollen dimorphism and dioecy in Vitis aestivalis
Problems of low production and sterile pollen in varieties of Vitis vinifera may be tracable to their ancestral relations with dioecious wild grapes.Like V. riparia, the wild summer grape V. aestivalis has dimorphic male and female flowers; but unlike V. riparia it also has dimorphic pollen grains with the pollen from the female flower being significantly smaller.It seems fairly certain that V. aestivalis is truly dioecious
The Effect of Spatial Tasks on Visually Impaired Peoples' Wayfinding Abilities
Thirty-eight people with visual impairments learned a 483-meter novel
route through a university campus in four groups: verbalization, modeling, pointing,
and control. The performance of all four groups improved with greater experience of
the route, but the modeling group improved more than did the control group
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph slitless observations of Small Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae: a study on morphology, emission line intensity, and evolution
A sample of 27 Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC)
have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
(HST/STIS) to determine their morphology, size, and the spatial variation of
the ratios of bright emission lines. The morphologies of SMC PNs are similar to
those of LMC and Galactic PNs. However, only a third of the resolved SMC PNs
are asymmetric, compared to half in the LMC. The low metallicity environment of
the SMC seems to discourage the onset of bipolarity in PNs. We measured the
line intensity, average surface brightness (SB), and photometric radius of each
nebula in halpha, hbeta, [O III] lambda4959 and 5007, [NII] 6548 and 6584, [S
II] lambda6716 and 5731, He I 6678, and [OI] 6300 and 6363. We show that the
surface brightness to radius relationship is the same as in LMC PNs, indicating
its possible use as a distance scale indicator for Galactic PNs. We determine
the electron densities and the ionized masses of the nebulae where the [S II]
lines were measured accurately, and we find that the SMC PNs are denser than
the LMC PNs by a factor of 1.5. The average ionized mass of the SMC PNs is 0.3
Msun. We also found that the median [O III]/hbeta intensity ratio in the SMC is
about half than the corresponding LMC median. We use Cloudy to model the
dependence of the [O III]/hbeta ratio on the oxygen abundance. Our models
encompass very well the average observed physical quantities. We suggest that
the SMC PNs are principally cooled by the carbon lines, making it hard to study
their excitation based on the optical lines at our disposal.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 30 pages, 13
figures, 6 tables. For high resolution version of Figs 1 to 6, see
http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/mcpn/home.htm
The Gemini Deep Deep Survey: II. Metals in Star-Forming Galaxies at Redshift 1.3<z<2
The goal of the Gemini Deep Deep Survey (GDDS) is to study an unbiased sample
of K<20.6 galaxies in the redshift range 0.8<z<2.0. Here we determine the
statistical properties of the heavy element enrichment in the interstellar
medium (ISM) of a subsample of 13 galaxies with 1.34<z<1.97 and UV absolute
magnitude M_2000 < -19.65. The sample contains 38% of the total number of
identified galaxies in the first two fields of the survey with z>1.3. The
selected objects have colors typical of irregular and Sbc galaxies. Strong
[OII] emission indicates high star formation activity in the HII regions
(SFR~13-106 M_sun/yr). The high S/N composite spectrum shows strong ISM MgII
and FeII absorption, together with weak MnII and MgI lines. The FeII column
density, derived using the curve of growth analysis, is logN_FeII =
15.54^{+0.23}_{-0.13}. This is considerably larger than typical values found in
damped Ly-alpha systems (DLAs) along QSO sight lines, where only 10 out of 87
(~11%) have logN_FeII > 15.2. High FeII column densities are observed in the
z=2.72 Lyman break galaxy cB58 (logN_FeII ~ 15.25) and in gamma-ray burst host
galaxies (logN_FeII ~ 14.8-15.9). Given our measured FeII column density and
assuming a moderate iron dust depletion (delta_Fe ~ 1 dex), we derive an
optical dust extinction A_V ~ 0.6. If the HI column density is log N(HI)<21.7
(as in 98% of DLAs), then the mean metallicity is Z/Z_sun > 0.2. The high
completeness of the GDDS sample implies that these results are typical of
star-forming galaxies in the 1<z<2 redshift range, an epoch which has
heretofore been particularly challenging for observational programs.Comment: ApJ in press, corrected HI column density estimat
Complex Mg II absorption in the outer disk of M61
The increasing availability of high quality spectra of QSO absorption line
systems at resolutions of only a few km/s is expected to facilitate the
translation of the kinematics of components comprising the lines into the
spatial distribution of gas around an absorbing galaxy. In this Letter, we
present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) spectra of Q1219+047, a QSO whose
sightline passes 21 h-1 kpc from the center of M61, through the outer regions
of an extended H I disk. We detect complex Mg II absorption, spanning a
velocity range of approximately 300 km/s, and strong C IV absorption; these are
the first UV observations of a QSO absorption line system arising in the
outskirts of a disk of a nearby galaxy at low inclination. Our observations are
at odds with models of galaxies in which absorbing clouds co-rotate with a
galaxy's disk, because M61's low inclination should give rise to only a few Mg
II components spread over a small velocity range in such a model. Hence our
results throw doubt on whether absorption line profiles can be used to infer
the spatial distribution of gas around absorbing galaxies.Comment: Accepted by Astrophysical Journal Letters. AASTeX style, includes two
Postscript figures. Paper can also be obtained from
http://www.roe.ac.uk/#researc
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