Gender-role beliefs and the self-perception of women with learning disabilities: meanings of motherhood and attributions for childlessness

Aims of Present study In contrast to mainstream literature gender as a frame of reference has not been applied to people with learning disabilities. The present study emerged from the need to redress this imbalance. Specifically, the study aimed to investigate both gender-attitudes and gender typing of the self in women with learning disabilities. A further aim was to focus on one traditional female role in some detail: women's perceptions about motherhood and beliefs/experiences of childlessness. Design and measures The study is cross-sectional and employs a within and between groups design. Both quantitative and qualitative research paradigms were used. Part one of the study consisted of the administration of a gender inventory (OAT-PM/AM) to eighteen women with learning disabilities. A control group of eighteen non-disabled women also completed the inventory. Part two involved semi-structured interviews with six women with learning disabilities on issues relating to motherhood and childlessness. Results Results demonstrated some significant differences between the groups of women using the gender measure (OAT-PM/AM). Qualitative data obtained from the interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1995). Conclusions Women with learning disabilities were found to hold less flexible gender attitudes than the non-disabled women. Furthermore, they were found to aspire to traditional female roles more than masculine roles. Interestingly, women with learning disabilities were found to engage in less traditional female activities than the non-disabled group. Data from the interviews served to highlight the distress which may be experienced by the loss of the motherhood role. Both clinical and service implications which emerged from the research are discussed

Quantitative image mean squared displacement (iMSD) analysis of the dynamics of profilin 1 at the membrane of live cells.

Image mean square displacement analysis (iMSD) is a method allowing the mapping of diffusion dynamics of molecules in living cells. However, it can also be used to obtain quantitative information on the diffusion processes of fluorescently labelled molecules and how their diffusion dynamics change when the cell environment is modified. In this paper, we describe the use of iMSD to obtain quantitative data of the diffusion dynamics of a small cytoskeletal protein, profilin 1 (pfn1), at the membrane of live cells and how its diffusion is perturbed when the cells are treated with Cytochalasin D and/or the interactions of pfn1 are modified when its actin and polyphosphoinositide binding sites are mutated (pfn1-R88A). Using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy images, we obtained data on isotropic and confined diffusion coefficients, the proportion of cell areas where isotropic diffusion is the major diffusion mode compared to the confined diffusion mode, the size of the confinement zones and the size of the domains of dynamic partitioning of pfn1. Using these quantitative data, we could demonstrate a decreased isotropic diffusion coefficient for the cells treated with Cytochalasin D and for the pfn1-R88A mutant. We could also see changes in the modes of diffusion between the different conditions and changes in the size of the zones of pfn1 confinements for the pfn1 treated with Cytochalasin D. All of this information was acquired in only a few minutes of imaging per cell and without the need to record thousands of single molecule trajectories

Abundances and Kinematics of Field Halo and Disk Stars I: Observational Data and Abundance Analysis

We describe observations and abundance analysis of a high-resolution, high-S/N survey of 168 stars, most of which are metal-poor dwarfs. We follow a self-consistent LTE analysis technique to determine the stellar parameters and abundances, and estimate the effects of random and systematic uncertainties on the resulting abundances. Element-to-iron ratios are derived for key alpha, odd, Fe-peak, r- and s-process elements. Effects of Non-LTE on the analysis of Fe I lines are shown to be very small on the average. Spectroscopically determined surface gravities are derived that are generally close to those obtained from Hipparcos parallaxes.Comment: 41 pages, 7 Postscript figures. Accepted for publication in the A

Langevin Analysis of Eternal Inflation

It has been widely claimed that inflation is generically eternal to the future, even in models where the inflaton potential monotonically increases away from its minimum. The idea is that quantum fluctuations allow the field to jump uphill, thereby continually revitalizing the inflationary process in some regions. In this paper we investigate a simple model of this process, pertaining to inflation with a quartic potential, in which analytic progress may be made. We calculate several quantities of interest, such as the expected number of inflationary efolds, first without and then with various selection effects. With no additional weighting, the stochastic noise has little impact on the total number of inflationary efoldings even if the inflaton starts with a Planckian energy density. A "rolling" volume factor, i.e. weighting in proportion to the volume at that time, also leads to a monotonically decreasing Hubble constant and hence no eternal inflation. We show how stronger selection effects including a constraint on the initial and final states and weighting with the final volume factor can lead to a picture similar to that usually associated with eternal inflation.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Constraining the equation of state of supra-nuclear dense matter from XMM-Newton observations of neutron stars in globular clusters

We report on the detailed modelling of the X-ray spectra of three likely neutron stars. The neutron stars, observed with XMM-Newton are found in three quiescent X-ray binaries in the globular clusters: omega Cen, M 13 and NGC 2808. Whether they are accreting at very low rates or radiating energy from an accretion heated core, their X-ray spectra are expected to be those of a hydrogen atmosphere. We use and compare publicly available hydrogen atmosphere models, with constant and varying surface gravities to constrain the masses and radii of the neutron stars. Thanks to the high XMM-Newton throughput, and the accurate distances available for these clusters, using the latest science analysis software release and calibration of the XMM-Newton EPIC cameras, we derive the most stringent constraints on the masses and radii of the neutron stars obtained to date from these systems. A comparison of the models indicate that previously used hydrogen atmosphere models (assuming constant surface gravity) tend to underestimate the mass and overestimate the radius of neutron stars. Our data constrain the allowed equations of state to those which concern normal nucleonic matter and one possible strange quark matter model, thus constraining radii to be from 8 km and masses up to 2.4 M$_\odot$.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted to be published in The Astrophysical Journa

The dynamics of liquid slugs forced by a syringe pump

Microfluidic processes for chemical synthesis have become popular in recent years. The small scale of the chemical reactions promise greater control over reaction conditions and more timely creation of products. The small scale of microfluidics poses its own set of problems, however. At the microscale, the dominant fluid forces are viscous resistance and surface tension. The effects of viscosity and scale reduce the Reynolds number and make mixing difficult. Much work has been done to control mixing at the microscale. This problem is concerned with a different microfluidic problem: delivering reactants to the site of reaction. A common setup is to attach syringes full of reactant to a reaction chamber by narrow hydrophobic tubing. Using a stepper motor, a controlled dose of liquid may be injected into the tube. The hydrophobosity causes the dose to curve outward on the sides, becoming a "slug" of reactant with air in front and behind. The syringe at the rear is then switched for one full of air, and air pressure is used to drive the slug to the reaction site. If too much pressure is applied, the slug will arrive with a significant back pressure that will be relieved through bubbling in the reaction site. This causes the formation of a foam and is highly undesirable. We present a simple model based on Boyle’s law for the motion of a slug through a tube. We then extend this model for trains of slugs separated by air bubbles. Last, we consider the case of a flooded reaction site, where the forward air bubble must be pushed through the flooding liquid. In conclusion, we have determined the dynamics of a single slug moving towards an empty reaction chamber giving the final equilibrium position of the slug. A phase-plane analysis then determined a condition on the size of the slug needed to ensure that it comes to rest without oscillating about the equilibrium position. The effect of a flooded reaction chamber was then considered. In this case it is impossible to avoid bubbling due to the design of the device. We found that it is possible, however, to reduce the bubbling by minimising the back pressure behind the slug. Finally, the dynamics of multiple slugs with or without a flooded reaction chamber has been investigated

Keck-Nirspec Infrared OH Lines: Oxygen Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars Down to [Fe/H] = -2.9

Infrared OH lines at 1.5 - 1.7 um in the H band were obtained with the NIRSPEC high-resolution spectrograph at the 10m Keck Telescope for a sample of seven metal-poor stars. Detailed analyses have been carried out, based on optical high-resolution data obtained with the FEROS spectrograph at ESO. Stellar parameters were derived by adopting infrared flux method effective temperatures, trigonometric and/or evolutionary gravities and metallicities from FeII lines. We obtain that the sample stars with metallicities [Fe/H] < -2.2 show a mean oxygen abundance [O/Fe] ~ 0.54, for a solar oxygen abundance of epsilon(O) = 8.87, or [O/Fe] ~ 0.64 if epsilon(O) = 8.77 is assumed.Comment: To be published in ApJ 575 (August 10

Age as the Second Parameter in NGC 288 / NGC 362? I. Turnoff Ages: a Purely Differential Comparison

We present deep V,I photometry of the globular clusters NGC 288, NGC 362 and NGC 1851 obtained during a single observational run under strictly homogeneous conditions. We use the bimodal horizontal branch (HB) of NGC 1851 as a ``bridge'' to obtain the optimum relative match between the HBs of NGC 288 and NGC 362. In this way we can effectively remove the uncertainties associated with distance, reddening and inhomogeneities in the absolute calibration, thus obtaining a very robust, purely differential estimate of the age difference between these two clusters. According to the bridge test, NGC 288 is found to be older than NGC 362 by 2 +- 1 Gyr. This result is fully confirmed also by all classical differential age diagnostics, either based on the luminosity or color of the main sequence turnoff point.Comment: Accepted by The Astronomical Journal - 30 pages, 6 tables, 14 figures, LaTeX, the emulateapj5.sty macro is used. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 are provided in reduced resolution. Full resolution versions available upon request to the first author ([email protected]). Minor changes due to modifications in the companion paper (Pap II

Measuring Ages and Elemental Abundances from Unresolved Stellar Populations: Fe, Mg, C, N, and Ca

We present a method for determining mean light-weighted ages and abundances of Fe, Mg, C, N, and Ca, from medium resolution spectroscopy of unresolved stellar populations. The method, pioneered by Schiavon (2007), is implemented in a publicly available code called EZ_Ages. The method and error estimation are described, and the results tested for accuracy and consistency, by application to integrated spectra of well-known Galactic globular and open clusters. Ages and abundances from integrated light analysis agree with studies of resolved stars to within +/-0.1 dex for most clusters, and to within +/-0.2 dex for nearly all cases. The results are robust to the choice of Lick indices used in the fitting to within +/-0.1 dex, except for a few systematic deviations which are clearly categorized. The realism of our error estimates is checked through comparison with detailed Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we apply EZ_Ages to the sample of galaxies presented in Thomas et al. (2005) and compare our derived values of age, [Fe/H], and [alpha/Fe] to their analysis. We find that [alpha/Fe] is very consistent between the two analyses, that ages are consistent for old (Age > 10 Gyr) populations, but show modest systematic differences at younger ages, and that [Fe/H] is fairly consistent, with small systematic differences related to the age systematics. Overall, EZ_Ages provides accurate estimates of fundamental parameters from medium resolution spectra of unresolved stellar populations in the old and intermediate-age regime, for the first time allowing quantitative estimates of the abundances of C, N, and Ca in these unresolved systems. The EZ_Ages code can be downloaded at http://www.ucolick.org/~graves/EZ_Ages.htmlComment: Accepted to ApJ