8,429 research outputs found
No pain, no gain - the provocation of laughter in slapstick comedy
This article explores the relationship between danger and laughter in the work of a number of what might be defined as slapstick or physical comedians. The notion of physical comedians risking life and limb in order to generate laughter from an admiring audience has a long history. The article establishes a model for analysing the provocation of laughter through which examples of slapstick comedy can be analysed. To what extent do we laugh because we understand that this is the response the performer desires? When we laugh at a comedian taking what we perceive to be physical risks, what are we laughing at? Is our laugh mingled with relief when the perceived threat is past? Are we responding with laughter as a pleased response to the performerâs skill? Louise Peacock is a lecturer in Drama and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Hull in England. In 2009 her monograph Serious Play â Modern Clown Performance was published by Intellect
Sen's Apples: Commitment, Agent Relativity and Social Norms
This paper examines Amartya Sen's notion of 'commitment' in light of Geoffrey Brennan's recent discussion thereof. Its aim is to elucidate one type of commitment which consists in following social norms. To this end, I discuss Sen's 'apples' example from his 'Rational fools' essay (section 2). In section 3, I draw some implications of commitments in Sen's work for the concept of 'agent relativity'. Section 4 discusses the distinctiveness of Sen's conception of human beings in their supposed ability to be able to bind themselves to following social norms at the expense of their own benefit.Commitment, Sen, Social Norm, Rational Choice Theory, Rationality, Sympathy, Altruism, Rule Following, Consequentialism
Reconstructing the linear power spectrum of cosmological mass fluctuations
We describe an attempt to reconstruct the initial conditions for the
formation of cosmological large-scale structure. The power spectrum of the
primordial fluctuations is affected by bias, nonlinear evolution and
redshift-space distortions, but we show how these effects can be corrected for
analytically. Using eight independent datasets, we obtain excellent agreement
in the estimated linear power spectra given the following conditions. First,
the relative bias factors for Abell clusters, radio galaxies, optical galaxies
and IRAS galaxies must be in the ratios 4.5:1.9:1.3:1. Second, the data require
redshift-space distortion: \Omega^{0.6}/b_{\ss I}
= 1.0 \pm 0.2. Third, low values of and bias are disfavoured. The
shape of the spectrum is extremely well described by a CDM transfer function
with an apparent value of the fitting parameter . Tilted models
predict too little power at 100 Mpc wavelengths.Comment: Edinburgh Astronomy Preprint 26/93. Accepted for publication in
Monthly Notices of the RAS. 13 pages of LaTeX, plus 10 PostScript figures.
You will need the mn.sty style file (from babbage: get mn.sty). The figure
.ps files are in the usual self-unpacking unix scrip
Measuring the galaxy power spectrum with multiresolution decomposition -- II. diagonal and off-diagonal power spectra of the LCRS galaxies
The power spectrum estimator based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT)
for 3-dimensional samples has been studied. The DWT estimator for
multi-dimensional samples provides two types of spectra with respect to
diagonal and off-diagonal modes, which are very flexible to deal with
configuration-related problems in the power spectrum detection. With simulation
samples and mock catalogues of the Las Campanas redshift survey (LCRS), we show
(1) the slice-like geometry of the LCRS doesn't affect the off-diagonal power
spectrum with ``slice-like'' mode; (2) the Poisson sampling with the LCRS
selection function doesn't cause more than 1- error in the DWT power
spectrum; and (3) the powers of peculiar velocity fluctuations, which cause the
redshift distortion, are approximately scale-independent. These results insure
that the uncertainties of the power spectrum measurement are under control. The
scatter of the DWT power spectra of the six strips of the LCRS survey is found
to be rather small. It is less than 1- of the cosmic variance of mock
samples in the wavenumber range h Mpc. To fit the detected
LCRS diagonal DWT power spectrum with CDM models, we find that the best-fitting
redshift distortion parameter is about the same as that obtained from
the Fourier power spectrum. The velocity dispersions for SCDM and
CDM models are also consistent with other detections with
the LCRS. A systematic difference between the best-fitting parameters of
diagonal and off-diagonal power spectra has been significantly measured. This
indicates that the off-diagonal power spectra are capable of providing
information about the power spectrum of galaxy velocity field.Comment: AAS LaTeX file, 41 pages, 10 figures included, accepted for
publication in Ap
Radio Galaxy Clustering at z~0.3
Radio galaxies are uniquely useful as probes of large-scale structure as
their uniform identification with giant elliptical galaxies out to high
redshift means that the evolution of their bias factor can be predicted. As the
initial stage in a project to study large-scale structure with radio galaxies
we have performed a small redshift survey, selecting 29 radio galaxies in the
range 0.19<z<0.45 from a contiguous 40 square degree area of sky. We detect
significant clustering within this sample. The amplitude of the two-point
correlation function we measure is consistent with no evolution from the local
(z<0.1) value. This is as expected in a model in which radio galaxy hosts form
at high redshift and thereafter obey a continuity equation, although the
signal:noise of the detection is too low to rule out other models. Larger
surveys out to z~1 should reveal the structures of superclusters at
intermediate redshifts and strongly constrain models for the evolution of
large-scale structure.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter
Nonlinear Gravitational Clustering: dreams of a paradigm
We discuss the late time evolution of the gravitational clustering in an
expanding universe, based on the nonlinear scaling relations (NSR) which
connect the nonlinear and linear two point correlation functions. The existence
of critical indices for the NSR suggests that the evolution may proceed towards
a universal profile which does not change its shape at late times. We begin by
clarifying the relation between the density profiles of the individual halo and
the slope of the correlation function and discuss the conditions under which
the slopes of the correlation function at the extreme nonlinear end can be
independent of the initial power spectrum. If the evolution should lead to a
profile which preserves the shape at late times, then the correlation function
should grow as [in a universe] een at nonlinear scales. We
prove that such exact solutions do not exist; however, ther e exists a class of
solutions (``psuedo-linear profiles'', PLP's for short) which evolve as
to a good approximation. It turns out that the PLP's are the correlation
functions which arise if the individual halos are assumed to be isothermal
spheres. They are also configurations of mass in which the nonlinear effects of
gravitational clustering is a minimum and hence can act as building blocks of
the nonlinear universe. We discuss the implicatios of this result.Comment: 32 Pages, Submitted to Ap
Attraction of Acorn-Infesting \u3ci\u3eCydia Latiferreana\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) to Pheromone-Baited Traps
Males of acorn-infesting Cydia latiferreana are attracted to an equilibrium mixture of the four isomers of 8, 10-dodecadien-l-ol acetate, the virgin female-produced pheromone. Trap height relative to the height of trees in which traps are placed seems to be a significant factor influencing moth catches at attractant-baited traps. In an oak woodlot and in an oak nursery, catches of male moths were greater in traps placed near the upper periphery of the canopy than at traps deployed at lower levels in the tree. Practical application of pheromone-baited traps in a forest situation will require further study on lure formulation and on trap deployment under forest conditions
A new method to measure evolution of the galaxy luminosity function
We present a new efficient technique for measuring evolution of the galaxy
luminosity function. The method reconstructs the evolution over the
luminosity-redshift plane using any combination of three input dataset types:
1) number counts, 2) galaxy redshifts, 3) integrated background flux
measurements. The evolution is reconstructed in adaptively sized regions of the
plane according to the input data as determined by a Bayesian formalism. We
demonstrate the performance of the method using a range of different synthetic
input datasets. We also make predictions of the accuracy with which forthcoming
surveys conducted with SCUBA2 and the Herschel Space Satellite will be able to
measure evolution of the sub-millimetre luminosity function using the method.Comment: MNRAS in press. 14 pages, 7 figures
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