Do master narratives change among High School Students?: a characterization of how national history is represented

Master narratives frame students’ historical knowledge, possibly hindering access to more historical representations. A detailed analysis of students’ historical narratives about the origins of their own nation is presented in terms of four master narrative characteristics related to the historical subject, national identification, the main theme and the nation concept. The narratives of Argentine 8th and 11th graders were analyzed to establish whether a change toward a more complex historical account occurred. The results show that the past is mostly understood in master narrative terms but in the 11th grade narratives demonstrate a more historical understanding. Only identification appears to be fairly constant across years of history learning. The results suggest that in history education first aiming at a constructivist concept of nation and then using the concept to reflect on the national historical subject and events in the narrative might help produce historical understanding of a national past.This article was written with the support of projects EDU-2010-17725 (DGICYT, Spain) and PICT-2008-1217 (ANPCYT, Argentina), coordinated by the first author. We are grateful for that support

Supermassive Black Hole Binaries: The Search Continues

Gravitationally bound supermassive black hole binaries (SBHBs) are thought to be a natural product of galactic mergers and growth of the large scale structure in the universe. They however remain observationally elusive, thus raising a question about characteristic observational signatures associated with these systems. In this conference proceeding I discuss current theoretical understanding and latest advances and prospects in observational searches for SBHBs.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of 2014 Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, ed. C.Sopuerta (Berlin: Springer-Verlag

Observation of a sudden cessation of a very-high-energy gamma-ray flare in PKS 1510-089 with H.E.S.S. and MAGIC in May 2016

The flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) PKS 1510-089 is known for its complex multiwavelength behavior, and is one of only a few FSRQs detected at very high energy (VHE, E >100 GeV) -rays. VHE -ray observations with H.E.S.S. and MAGIC during late May and early June 2016 resulted in the detection of an unprecedented flare, which reveals for the first time VHE -ray intranight variability in this source. While a common variability timescale of 1.5 hr is found, there is a significant deviation near the end of the flare with a timescale of ∼ 20 min marking the cessation of the event. The peak flux is nearly two orders of magnitude above the low-level emission. For the first time, curvature is detected in the VHE -ray spectrum of PKS 1510-089, which is fully explained through absorption by the extragalactic background light. Optical R-band observations with ATOM reveal a counterpart of the -ray flare, even though the detailed flux evolution differs from the VHE lightcurve. Interestingly, a steep flux decrease is observed at the same time as the cessation of the VHE flare. In the high energy (HE, E >100 MeV) -ray band only a moderate flux increase is observed with Fermi-LAT, while the HE -ray spectrum significantly hardens up to a photon index of 1.6. A search for broad-line region (BLR) absorption features in the -ray spectrum indicates that the emission region is located outside of the BLR. Radio VLBI observations reveal a fast moving knot interacting with a standing jet feature around the time of the flare. As the standing feature is located ∼ 50 pc from the black hole, the emission region of the flare may have been located at a significant distance from the black hole. If this correlation is indeed true, VHE rays have been produced far down the jet where turbulent plasma crosses a standing shock.Accepted manuscrip

Global Trigger and Readout System for the AGATA Experiment

AGATA is a 4-pi array of high purity Ge detectors for in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy based on the novel concepts of pulse shape analysis (PSA) and gamma-ray tracking. Tracking and PSA require the concurrent digitization—at a sampling rate of 100 Msamples/s—of preamplifier signals of the 36-fold segmented Ge crystals composing the array. Locally digitized data are optically transferred to remote pre-processing nodes for pulse energy computation. The design of the front-end readout and level-1 (L1) trigger in AGATA follows a synchronous pipeline model: the detector data are stored in pipeline buffers at the global AGATA frequency, waiting the global L1 decision. A global timing system provides a reference clock and time tag to the digitizers and the pre-processing units by means of a tree of optically connected timing units. Pre-processing nodes are integrated in AdvancedTCA-based carrier cards with full mesh connectivity in the backplane and read-out through pci-express based optical links. The front-end data readout and its integration in the global trigger and synchronization system will be describe

Qualidade industrial do trigo em função do trinexapac-ethyl e doses de nitrogênio Industrial quality of wheat as a function of trinexapac-ethyl and nitrogen doses

Objetivou-se, neste trabalho, avaliar a época de aplicação do redutor de crescimento trinexapac-ethyl e de doses de nitrogênio no rendimento de grãos e qualidade industrial das cultivares de trigo Avante e BRS 177. O delineamento experimental foi blocos ao acaso em esquema fatorial 4 x 4, com quatro repetições. Os tratamentos constaram de épocas de aplicação de trinexapac-ethyl (100 g ha-1 entre o primeiro e o segundo nó visível do trigo; 100 g ha-1 entre o segundo e terceiro nó visível; aplicação sequencial de 50 g ha-1 em cada uma das fases anteriores; testemunha sem aplicação) e de doses de nitrogênio em cobertura (90, 135, 180 e 225 kg ha-1 para a cultivar Avante e 60, 80, 120 e 150 kg ha-1 para a cultivar BRS 177). Avaliaram-se características agronômicas, acamamento, componentes de rendimento, rendimento de grãos, qualidade do grão e da farinha. O trinexapac-ethyl, independentemente da época de aplicação, reduziu a estatura das plantas e a porcentagem de acamamento, com resposta diferencial no rendimento de grãos e sem influência substancial na qualidade industrial do trigo. O aumento nas doses de nitrogênio promoveu maior acamamento, afetou a qualidade do grão e da farinha da cultivar BRS 177, mas sem efeitos no rendimento de grãos.<br>The objective of this work was to evaluate the application time of the trinexapac-ethyl growth reducer and of nitrogen rates in the yield and industrial quality of the wheat cultivars Avante and BRS 177. The experimental design was complete randomized blocks in a 4 x 4 factorial scheme, with four replicates. The treatments consisted of periods of trinexapac-ethyl application (100 g ha-1 between the first and second visible node of the wheat; 100 g ha-1 between the second and third visible node; sequential application of 50 g ha-1 in each one of the previous phases; without application) and of nitrogen rates in covering (90, 135, 180 and 225 kg ha-1 for Avante cultivar and 60, 80, 120 and 150 kg ha-1 for BRS 177 cultivar). The following characteristics were evaluated: agronomical characteristic, lodging, yield components, yield, grain and flour quality. Trinexapac-ethyl, independently of the application time, reduced plant height and the lodging percentage, with different response in the yield and without substantial influence on the industrial quality of the wheat. The increase in the nitrogen rates promoted higher lodging, affected the grain and flour quality of BRS 177 cultivar and had no effect on yield