5,144 research outputs found
Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment, camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi
What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwin’s ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts)
Dynamical Mass Estimates for Five Young Massive Stellar Clusters
We have obtained high-dispersion spectra for four massive star clusters in
the dwarf irregular galaxies NGC 4214 and NGC 4449, using the HIRES
spectrograph on the Keck I telescope. Combining the velocity dispersions of the
clusters with structural parameters and photometry from images taken with HST,
we estimate mass-to-light ratios and compare these with simple stellar
population (SSP) models in order to constrain the stellar mass functions (MFs).
For all clusters we find mass-to-light ratios which are similar to or slightly
higher than for a Kroupa MF, and thereby rule out any MF which is deficient in
low-mass stars compared to a Kroupa-type MF. The four clusters have virial
masses ranging between 2.1E5 Msun and 1.5E6 Msun, half-light radii between 3.0
and 5.2 pc, estimated core densities in the range 2E3 Msun pc^-3 to 2E5 Msun
pc^-3 and ages between 200 Myr and 800 Myr. We also present new high-dispersion
near-infrared spectroscopy for a luminous young (about 15 Myr) cluster in the
nearby spiral galaxy NGC 6946, which we have previously observed with HIRES.
The new measurements in the infrared agree well with previous estimates of the
velocity dispersion, yielding a mass of about 1.7E6 Msun. The properties of the
clusters studied here are all consistent with the clusters being young versions
of the old globular clusters found around all major galaxies.Comment: 30 pages, including 7 figures and 9 tables. Corrected an error in
Table 2: The colors listed for N6946-1447 were not reddening corrected. This
also affected Table 9 and Fig 2, 6 and
A natural formation scenario for misaligned and short-period eccentric extrasolar planets
Recent discoveries of strongly misaligned transiting exoplanets pose a
challenge to the established planet formation theory which assumes planetary
systems to form and evolve in isolation. However, the fact that the majority of
stars actually do form in star clusters raises the question how isolated
forming planetary systems really are. Besides radiative and tidal forces the
presence of dense gas aggregates in star-forming regions are potential sources
for perturbations to protoplanetary discs or systems. Here we show that
subsequent capture of gas from large extended accretion envelopes onto a
passing star with a typical circumstellar disc can tilt the disc plane to
retrograde orientation, naturally explaining the formation of strongly inclined
planetary systems. Furthermore, the inner disc regions may become denser, and
thus more prone to speedy coagulation and planet formation. Pre-existing
planetary systems are compressed by gas inflows leading to a natural occurrence
of close-in misaligned hot Jupiters and short-period eccentric planets. The
likelihood of such events mainly depends on the gas content of the cluster and
is thus expected to be highest in the youngest star clusters.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Updated to
match published versio
Determinants of adults' intention to vaccinate against pandemic swine flu
This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Vaccination is one of the cornerstones of controlling an influenza pandemic. To optimise vaccination rates in the general population, ways of identifying determinants that influence decisions to have or not to have a vaccination need to be understood. Therefore, this study aimed to predict intention to have a swine influenza
vaccination in an adult population in the UK. An extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour provided the theoretical framework for the study.
Methods: Three hundred and sixty two adults from the UK, who were not in vaccination priority groups, completed either an online (n = 306) or pen and paper (n = 56) questionnaire. Data were collected from 30th October 2009, just after swine flu vaccination became available in the UK, and concluded on 31st December 2009. The main outcome of interest was future swine flu vaccination intentions.
Results: The extended Theory of Planned Behaviour predicted 60% of adults’ intention to have a swine flu vaccination with attitude, subjective norm, perceived control, anticipating feelings of regret (the impact of missing a vaccination opportunity), intention to have a seasonal vaccine this year, one perceived barrier: “I cannot be bothered to get a swine flu vaccination” and two perceived benefits: “vaccination decreases my chance of getting swine flu or its complications” and “if I get vaccinated for swine flu, I will decrease the frequency of having to consult my doctor,” being significant predictors of intention. Black British were less likely to intend to have a vaccination compared to Asian or White respondents.
Conclusions: Theoretical frameworks which identify determinants that influence decisions to have a pandemic influenza vaccination are useful. The implications of this research are discussed with a view to maximising any future pandemic influenza vaccination uptake using theoretically-driven applications.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund
Priorities, policies and (time)scales : the delivery of emissions reductions in the UK transport sector
Peer reviewedPreprin
Effect of site-specific irrigation management on grapevine yield and fruit quality attributes
Interactions between brown-dwarf binaries and Sun-like stars
Several mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of brown dwarfs, but
there is as yet no consensus as to which -- if any -- are operative in nature.
Any theory of brown dwarf formation must explain the observed statistics of
brown dwarfs. These statistics are limited by selection effects, but they are
becoming increasingly discriminating. In particular, it appears (a) that brown
dwarfs that are secondaries to Sun-like stars tend to be on wide orbits, a\ga
100\,{\rm AU} (the Brown Dwarf Desert), and (b) that these brown dwarfs have a
significantly higher chance of being in a close (a\la 10\,{\rm AU}) binary
system with another brown dwarf than do brown dwarfs in the field. This then
raises the issue of whether these brown dwarfs have formed {\it in situ}, i.e.
by fragmentation of a circumstellar disc; or have formed elsewhere and
subsequently been captured. We present numerical simulations of the purely
gravitational interaction between a close brown-dwarf binary and a Sun-like
star. These simulations demonstrate that such interactions have a negligible
chance () of leading to the close brown-dwarf binary being captured by
the Sun-like star. Making the interactions dissipative by invoking the
hydrodynamic effects of attendant discs might alter this conclusion. However,
in order to explain the above statistics, this dissipation would have to favour
the capture of brown-dwarf binaries over single brown-dwarfs, and we present
arguments why this is unlikely. The simplest inference is that most brown-dwarf
binaries -- and therefore possibly also most single brown dwarfs -- form by
fragmentation of circumstellar discs around Sun-like protostars, with some of
them subsequently being ejected into the field.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and
Space Scienc
Severity and persistence of asthma and mental health: a birth cohort study
Background. The goal of the current study was to investigate asthma and mental health among youth in the community, and to consider the role of asthma severity and persistence in this link
The transformation of transport policy in Great Britain? 'New Realism' and New Labour's decade of displacement activity
In a 1999 paper, Goodwin announced ‘the transformation of transport policy in Great Britain’. His central point was that consensus was emerging among policy makers and academics based on earlier work including Transport: The New Realism, which rejected previous orthodoxy that the supply of road space could and should be continually expanded to match demand. Instead a combination of investment in public transport, walking and cycling opportunities and – crucially – demand management should form the basis of transport policy to address rising vehicle use and associated increases in congestion and pollution / carbon emissions. This thinking formed the basis of the 1997 Labour government’s ‘sustainable transport’ policy, but after 13 years in power ministers neither transformed policy nor tackled longstanding transport trends. Our main aim in this paper is to revisit the concept of New Realism and re-examine its potential utility as an agent of change in British transport policy. Notwithstanding the outcome of Labour’s approach to transport policy, we find that the central tenets of the New Realism remain robust and that the main barriers to change are related to broader political and governance issues which suppress radical policy innovation
Spectroscopic Constraints on the Form of the Stellar Cluster Mass Function
This contribution addresses the question of whether the initial cluster mass
function (ICMF) has a fundamental limit (or truncation) at high masses. The
shape of the ICMF at high masses can be studied using the most massive young
(<10 Myr) clusters, however this has proven difficult due to low-number
statistics. In this contribution we use an alternative method based on the
luminosities of the brightest clusters, combined with their ages. If a
truncation is present, a generic prediction (nearly independent of the cluster
disruption law adopted) is that the median age of bright clusters should be
younger than that of fainter clusters. In the case of an non-truncated ICMF,
the median age should be independent of cluster luminosity. Here, we present
optical spectroscopy of twelve young stellar clusters in the face-on spiral
galaxy NGC 2997. The spectra are used to estimate the age of each cluster, and
the brightness of the clusters is taken from the literature. The observations
are compared with the model expectations of Larsen (2009) for various ICMF
forms and both mass dependent and mass independent cluster disruption. While
there exists some degeneracy between the truncation mass and the amount of mass
independent disruption, the observations favour a truncated ICMF. For low or
modest amounts of mass independent disruption, a truncation mass of 5-6*10^5
Msun is estimated, consistent with previous determinations. Additionally, we
investigate possible truncations in the ICMF in the spiral galaxy M83, the
interacting Antennae galaxies, and the collection of spiral and dwarf galaxies
present in Larsen (2009) based on photometric catalogues taken from the
literature, and find that all catalogues are consistent with having a
(environmentally dependent) truncation in the cluster mass functions.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, in press, A&A Research Note
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