Supernovae

The properties of supernovae (SNe) are reviewed. It is shown that the observed characteristics of the morphological classes of SNe (types Ia, Ib/c, II) can be explained in terms of two basic explosion mechanisms, i.e. core collapse of massive stars and thermonuclear explosion of low/moderate mass stars. The study of SNe can provide valuable insight in the late phases of the evolution of their progenitors and, therefore, can constrain the theory of stellar evolution quite tightly. Also, bright SNe of type Ia can be used to probe the Universe up to high redshifts, allowing us to measure cosmological constants and to gain valuable information on the formation and evolution of galaxies. The case of SN 1987A is discussed in some detail: it appears that in this event a number of predictions were astonishingly well verified but still many aspects were completely at variance with "common wisdom" expectations, indicating that the SN phenomenon is still not fully understood.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures - Invited Lecture at the International Summer School "Experimental Physics of Gravitational Waves", Urbino (Italy), 6-19 September, 1999, eds. G. Calamai, M. Mazzoni, R. Stanga & F. Vetrano,, World Scientific -- Singapore, in pres

On the Origins of Some English Idioms and the Adequacy of Their Definitions in the Georgian Dictionaries (II Part)

The aim of this article is to fill the informative gap and to overcome those difficulties which arise in case of not having the adequate interpetation or exact definition of the English idioms in the Georgian dictionaries.This paper investigates some idiomatic expressions and observes how often they are used in the modern English publicist texts from “The Guardian”, “Fortune”, “The Scotsman”, “The Independent” etc. whether they have preserved their original meanings or obtained some other new senses and coloring. More than this, the goal is to research if there is an adequate translation or interpretation of those English idioms in the Georgian language bilingual dictionaries. If there is not any, then the objective is how to make their adequate Georgian equivalents and, as a result to compose a new mini-dictionary of idioms. The urgent need for etymological study of idioms is also stimulated by the fact that the phraseology condensates the complex interaction of the culture and psychology of people, national self-being and their unique metaphoric mentality The reaserch value is dectated by its outcome, namely, it will be the research not only of those idioms which have the adequate definitions in the Georgian dictionaries, but find out some cases of not having the right definition and in result to compile the mini be-lingual dictionary of idioms. It can be assumed, that it will make a siginificant contribution to the development of lexicography in Georgia

The Author’s Modality and Sctratificational Structure of a Literary Text in Modern English

Any literary text irrespective of its genre or trend represents a unique and aesthetic image of the world, created by the author according to his communicative intention and his subjective modality. Hence, the subjective is the organizing axis of a literary work, for, in expressing his vision of the world, the author represents reality in the way that he considers to be most fitting. The interaction and co-existence of subjective and objective factors find their realization in the stratificational structure of the text, i.e. in its multi-layered constitution. The interdisciplinary methodology of research, employed in the article involves some essential data of the theory of literature, linguo-stylistics, text interpretation and linguo-pragmatics.

Radio and infrared properties of young stars

Observing young stars, or more appropriately, pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars, in the infrared and at radio frequencies has the advantage over optical observation in that the heavy extinction associated with a star forming region is only a minor problem, so that the whole region can be studied thoroughly. Therefore, it means being able to: (1) search for stars and do statistical studies on the rate of star formation; (2) determine their luminosity, hence, to study luminosity functions and initial mass functions down to low masses; and (3) to study their spectra and, thus, to determine the prevailing conditions at and near the surface of a newly born star and its relations with the surrounding environment. The third point is of principal interest. The report limits itself to a consideration of the observations concerning the processes of outflows from, and accretion onto, PMS stars and the theory necessary to interpret them. Section 2 discusses the radiative processes relevant in stellar outflows. The main observational results are presented in Section 3. A discussion of the statistical properties of stellar winds from PMS stars are given in Section 4