The Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism: development and application among British Pagans

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (and reflected in the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism) by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals

Comparisons of Supergranule Characteristics During the Solar Minima of Cycles 22/23 and 23/24

Supergranulation is a component of solar convection that manifests itself on the photosphere as a cellular network of around 35 Mm across, with a turnover lifetime of 1-2 days. It is strongly linked to the structure of the magnetic field. The horizontal, divergent flows within supergranule cells carry local field lines to the cell boundaries, while the rotational properties of supergranule upflows may contribute to the restoration of the poloidal field as part of the dynamo mechanism that controls the solar cycle. The solar minimum at the transition from cycle 23 to 24 was notable for its low level of activity and its extended length. It is of interest to study whether the convective phenomena that influences the solar magnetic field during this time differed in character to periods of previous minima. This study investigates three characteristics (velocity components, sizes and lifetimes) of solar supergranulation. Comparisons of these characteristics are made between the minima of cycles 22/23 and 23/24 using MDI Doppler data from 1996 and 2008, respectively. It is found that whereas the lifetimes are equal during both epochs (around 18 h), the sizes are larger in 1996 (35.9 +/- 0.3 Mm) than in 2008 (35.0 +/- 0.3 Mm), while the dominant horizontal velocity flows are weaker (139 +/- 1 m/s in 1996; 141 +/- 1 m/s in 2008). Although numerical differences are seen, they are not conclusive proof of the most recent minimum being inherently unusual.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Solar Physics, in pres

Comparison of large-scale flows on the Sun measured by time-distance helioseismology and local correlation tracking technique

We present a direct comparison between two different techniques time-distance helioseismology and a local correlation tracking method for measuring mass flows in the solar photosphere and in a near-surface layer: We applied both methods to the same dataset (MDI high-cadence Dopplergrams covering almost the entire Carrington rotation 1974) and compared the results. We found that after necessary corrections, the vector flow fields obtained by these techniques are very similar. The median difference between directions of corresponding vectors is 24 degrees, and the correlation coefficients of the results for mean zonal and meridional flows are 0.98 and 0.88 respectively. The largest discrepancies are found in areas of small velocities where the inaccuracies of the computed vectors play a significant role. The good agreement of these two methods increases confidence in the reliability of large-scale synoptic maps obtained by them.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, just before acceptance in Solar Physic

Sungas : Opportunities and challenges for solar thermos chemical fuels

Paper presented to the 3rd Southern African Solar Energy Conference, South Africa, 11-13 May, 2015.Displacing petroleum-derived fuels with renewable solar fuels offers an opportunity to harness the earth’s most abundant energy resource, to reduce anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and to meet an expanding global demand for fuel. This paper presents near-term and forward looking paths to produce solar fuels using concentrated solar energy as the source of process heat to drive thermochemical processes. Solar gasification of biomass is presented as an important stepping stone toward the goal of thermochemical metal oxide redox cycles to split water and carbon dioxide.dc201

Global phylogenomic analysis of nonencapsulated Streptococcus pneumoniae reveals a deep-branching classic lineage that is distinct from multiple sporadic lineages.

The surrounding capsule of Streptococcus pneumoniae has been identified as a major virulence factor and is targeted by pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV). However, nonencapsulated S. pneumoniae (non-Ec-Sp) have also been isolated globally, mainly in carriage studies. It is unknown if non-Ec-Sp evolve sporadically, if they have high antibiotic nonsusceptiblity rates and a unique, specific gene content. Here, whole-genome sequencing of 131 non-Ec-Sp isolates sourced from 17 different locations around the world was performed. Results revealed a deep-branching classic lineage that is distinct from multiple sporadic lineages. The sporadic lineages clustered with a previously sequenced, global collection of encapsulated S. pneumoniae (Ec-Sp) isolates while the classic lineage is comprised mainly of the frequently identified multilocus sequences types (STs) ST344 (n = 39) and ST448 (n = 40). All ST344 and nine ST448 isolates had high nonsusceptiblity rates to β-lactams and other antimicrobials. Analysis of the accessory genome reveals that the classic non-Ec-Sp contained an increased number of mobile elements, than Ec-Sp and sporadic non-Ec-Sp. Performing adherence assays to human epithelial cells for selected classic and sporadic non-Ec-Sp revealed that the presence of a integrative conjugative element (ICE) results in increased adherence to human epithelial cells (P = 0.005). In contrast, sporadic non-Ec-Sp lacking the ICE had greater growth in vitro possibly resulting in improved fitness. In conclusion, non-Ec-Sp isolates from the classic lineage have evolved separately. They have spread globally, are well adapted to nasopharyngeal carriage and are able to coexist with Ec-Sp. Due to continued use of PCV, non-Ec-Sp may become more prevalent

Mucosal immunization with synthetic peptides for the systemic and mucosal immune responses

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN023930 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo