704 research outputs found
Indonesia's Urban Sufis: Challenging Stereotypes of Islamic Revival
News coverage on Indonesia since the resignation of former President Suharto has been filled with images of sectarian violence and separatist agitation linked to 'fundamentalist' Islam. The ascent of Abdurrahman Wahid, former head of the 'traditionalist' Muslim clerics association, the Nahdlatul Ulama, to the Presidency of the nation at first suggested a shaky vigour in 'moderate' expressions of Islam. But as his second year in office begins, grave doubts loom as to the strength of the middle ground between so-called 'secular' and 'extremist Muslim' forces
Repackaging Sufism in Urban Indonesia
Contrary to the common view that Sufism is somehow incompatible with âthe modern,â emerging new forms of Sufism signify the creative adaptation of Islam to the religious sensibilities and social demands of modern life. This article focuses on the Padepokan Thaha, a thriving Islamic studies centre in Indonesia, whose integration of esoteric spiritual knowledge with modern-style education suits the modern sensibilities of affluent and educated Muslim cosmopolitans in Indonesia
Supernovae and Positron Annihilation
Radioactive nuclei, especially those created in SN explosion, have long been
suggested to be important contributors of galactic positrons. In this paper we
describe the findings of three independent OSSE/SMM/TGRS studies of positron
annihilation radiation, demonstrating that the three studies are largely in
agreement as to the distribution of galactic annihilation radiation. We then
assess the predicted yields and distributions of SN-synthesized radionuclei,
determining that they are marginally compatible with the findings of the
annihilation radiation studies.Comment: 7 pages, accepted for publication in New Astronomy Reviews (Astronomy
with Radioactivites III
Revisiting the Local Scaling Hypothesis in Stably Stratified Atmospheric Boundary Layer Turbulence: an Integration of Field and Laboratory Measurements with Large-eddy Simulations
The `local scaling' hypothesis, first introduced by Nieuwstadt two decades
ago, describes the turbulence structure of stable boundary layers in a very
succinct way and is an integral part of numerous local closure-based numerical
weather prediction models. However, the validity of this hypothesis under very
stable conditions is a subject of on-going debate. In this work, we attempt to
address this controversial issue by performing extensive analyses of turbulence
data from several field campaigns, wind-tunnel experiments and large-eddy
simulations. Wide range of stabilities, diverse field conditions and a
comprehensive set of turbulence statistics make this study distinct
Kepler-22b: A 2.4 Earth-radius Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Sun-like Star
A search of the time-series photometry from NASA's Kepler spacecraft reveals
a transiting planet candidate orbiting the 11th magnitude G5 dwarf KIC 10593626
with a period of 290 days. The characteristics of the host star are well
constrained by high-resolution spectroscopy combined with an asteroseismic
analysis of the Kepler photometry, leading to an estimated mass and radius of
0.970 +/- 0.060 MSun and 0.979 +/- 0.020 RSun. The depth of 492 +/- 10ppm for
the three observed transits yields a radius of 2.38 +/- 0.13 REarth for the
planet. The system passes a battery of tests for false positives, including
reconnaissance spectroscopy, high-resolution imaging, and centroid motion. A
full BLENDER analysis provides further validation of the planet interpretation
by showing that contamination of the target by an eclipsing system would rarely
mimic the observed shape of the transits. The final validation of the planet is
provided by 16 radial velocities obtained with HIRES on Keck 1 over a one year
span. Although the velocities do not lead to a reliable orbit and mass
determination, they are able to constrain the mass to a 3{\sigma} upper limit
of 124 MEarth, safely in the regime of planetary masses, thus earning the
designation Kepler-22b. The radiative equilibrium temperature is 262K for a
planet in Kepler-22b's orbit. Although there is no evidence that Kepler-22b is
a rocky planet, it is the first confirmed planet with a measured radius to
orbit in the Habitable Zone of any star other than the Sun.Comment: Accepted to Ap
Evaluation of Cavitation Erosion Behavior of Commercial Steel Grades Used in the Design of Fluid Machinery
The erosion response under cavitation of different steel grades was assessed by studying the erosion rate, the volume removal, the roughness evolution, and the accumulated strain energy. A 20 kHz ltrasonic transducer with a probe diameter of 5 mm and peak-to-peak amplitude of 50 lm was deployed in distilled water to induce damage on the surface of commercial chromium and carbon steel samples. After a relatively short incubation period, cavitation induced the formation of pits, cracks, and craters whose features strongly depended on the hardness and composition of the tested steel. AISI 52100 chromium steel showed the best performance and is, therefore, a promising design candidate for replacing the existing fluid machinery materials that operate within potential cavitating environments
The âmosaic habitatâ concept in human evolution: past and present
The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the âmosaic habitatâ (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept â loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial areaâ in studies of human evolution in the last sixty years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term âmosaicâ came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term mosaic starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970âs due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac , with the earliest usage we have found of âmosaicâ in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution
D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic
scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The
data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel
(+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The
cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with
and is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region
{ GeV and }. Differential cross
sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), and are
compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon
fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the
full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and (D^{*\pm}), the charm
contribution to the proton structure function is
determined for Bjorken between 2 10 and 5 10.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure
Observation of Scaling Violations in Scaled Momentum Distributions at HERA
Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering
(DIS) events over a large range of and using the ZEUS detector. The
evolution of the scaled momentum, , with in the range 10 to 1280
, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit
frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling
violations in scaled momenta as a function of .Comment: 21 pages including 4 figures, to be published in Physics Letters B.
Two references adde
Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and
W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with
the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and
the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto
the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions
f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV
and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw
> 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour,
are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017
+/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second
include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables,
revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio
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