Objectification theory predicts college women’s attitudes toward cosmetic surgery

This study investigated cosmetic surgery attitudes within the framework of objectification theory. One hundred predominantlyWhite, British undergraduate women completed self-report measures of impression management, global selfesteem, interpersonal sexual objectification, self-surveillance, body shame, and three components of cosmetic surgery attitudes. As expected, each of the objectification theory variables predicted greater consideration of having cosmetic surgery in the future. Also, as expected, sexual objectification and body shame uniquely predicted socialmotives for cosmetic surgery, whereas self-surveillance uniquely predicted intrapersonal motives for cosmetic surgery. These findings suggest that women’s acceptance of cosmetic surgery as a way to manipulate physical appearance can be partially explained by the degree to which they view themselves through the lenses of sexual and self-objectification

Masers and the Massive Star Formation Process: New Insights Through Infrared Observations

Our mid-infrared and near-infrared surveys over the last five years have helped to strengthen and clarify the relationships between water, methanol, and OH masers and the star formation process. Our surveys show that maser emission seems to be more closely associated with mid-infrared emission than cm radio continuum emission from UC HII regions. We find that masers of all molecular species surveyed trace a wide variety of phenomena and show a proclivity for linear distributions. The vast majority of these linear distributions can be explained by outflows or shocks, and in general do not appear to trace circumstellar disks as was previously thought. Some water and methanol masers that are not associated with radio continuum emission appear to trace infrared-bright hot cores, the earliest observable stage of massive stellar life before the onset of a UC HII region.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 227: "Massive Star Birth: A Crossroads of Astrophysics", version with full-resolution images available at http://www.ctio.noao.edu/~debuize

How Observations of Circumstellar Disk Asymmetries Can Reveal Hidden Planets: Pericenter Glow and its Application to the HR 4796 Disk

Recent images of the disks of dust around the young stars HR 4796A and Fomalhaut show, in each case, a double-lobed feature that may be asymmetric (one lobe may be brighter than the other). A symmetric double-lobed structure is that expected from a disk of dust with a central hole that is observed nearly edge-on (i.e., close to the plane of the disk). This paper shows how the gravitational influence of a second body in the system with an eccentric orbit would cause a brightness asymmetry in such a disk by imposing a "forced eccentricity" on the orbits of the constituent dust particles, thus shifting the center of symmetry of the disk away from the star and causing the dust near the forced pericenter of the perturbed disk to glow. Dynamic modeling of the HR 4796 disk shows that its 5% brightness asymmetry could be the result of a forced eccentricity as small as 0.02 imposed on the disk by either the binary companion HR 4796B, or by an unseen planet close to the inner edge of the disk. Since it is likely that a forced eccentricity of 0.01 or higher would be imposed on a disk in a system in which there are planets, but no binary companion, the corresponding asymmetry in the disk's structure could serve as a sensitive indicator of these planets that might otherwise remain undetected.Comment: 61 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (scheduled for January 10, 2000

Beyond maximum entropy: Fractal Pixon-based image reconstruction

We have developed a new Bayesian image reconstruction method that has been shown to be superior to the best implementations of other competing methods, including Goodness-of-Fit methods such as Least-Squares fitting and Lucy-Richardson reconstruction, as well as Maximum Entropy (ME) methods such as those embodied in the MEMSYS algorithms. Our new method is based on the concept of the pixon, the fundamental, indivisible unit of picture information. Use of the pixon concept provides an improved image model, resulting in an image prior which is superior to that of standard ME. Our past work has shown how uniform information content pixons can be used to develop a 'Super-ME' method in which entropy is maximized exactly. Recently, however, we have developed a superior pixon basis for the image, the Fractal Pixon Basis (FPB). Unlike the Uniform Pixon Basis (UPB) of our 'Super-ME' method, the FPB basis is selected by employing fractal dimensional concepts to assess the inherent structure in the image. The Fractal Pixon Basis results in the best image reconstructions to date, superior to both UPB and the best ME reconstructions. In this paper, we review the theory of the UPB and FPB pixon and apply our methodology to the reconstruction of far-infrared imaging of the galaxy M51. The results of our reconstruction are compared to published reconstructions of the same data using the Lucy-Richardson algorithm, the Maximum Correlation Method developed at IPAC, and the MEMSYS ME algorithms. The results show that our reconstructed image has a spatial resolution a factor of two better than best previous methods (and a factor of 20 finer than the width of the point response function), and detects sources two orders of magnitude fainter than other methods

Crystallographic orientation inhomogeneity and crystal splitting in biogenic calcite

The calcitic prismatic units forming the outer shell of the bivalve Pinctada margaritifera have been analysed using scanning electron microscopy–electron back-scatter diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. In the initial stages of growth, the individual prismatic units are single crystals. Their crystalline orientation is not consistent but rather changes gradually during growth. The gradients in crystallographic orientation occur mainly in a direction parallel to the long axis of the prism, i.e. perpendicular to the shell surface and do not show preferential tilting along any of the calcite lattice axes. At a certain growth stage, gradients begin to spread and diverge, implying that the prismatic units split into several crystalline domains. In this way, a branched crystal, in which the ends of the branches are independent crystalline domains, is formed. At the nanometre scale, the material is composed of slightly misoriented domains, which are separated by planes approximately perpendicular to the c-axis. Orientational gradients and splitting processes are described in biocrystals for the first time and are undoubtedly related to the high content of intracrystalline organic molecules, although the way in which these act to induce the observed crystalline patterns is a matter of future research

High-Resolution Mid-Infrared Morphology of Cygnus A

We present subarcsecond resolution mid-infrared images at 10.8 and 18.2 microns of Cygnus A. These images were obtained with the University of Florida mid-IR camera/spectrometer OSCIR at the Keck II 10-m telescope. Our data show extended mid-IR emission primarily to the east of the nucleus with a possible western extension detected after image deconvolution. This extended emission is closely aligned with the bi-conical structure observed at optical and near-IR wavelengths by the HST. This emission is consistent with dust heated from the central engine of Cygnus A. We also marginally detect large-scale low level emission extending > 1.5 kpc from the nucleus which may be caused by in-situ star formation, line emission, and/or PAH contamination within the bandpass of our wide N-band filter.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

“Basically... porn is everywhere”: a rapid evidence assessment on the effects that access and exposure to pornography has on children and young people

This Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) was commissioned by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) as part of its Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups (CSEGG). It was conducted by a consortium led by Middlesex University, to explore the effects that exposure and access to pornography have on children and young people. The CSEGG Inquiry was launched in October 2011 to better understand the scale, scope, extent and nature of child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups. An emergent issue was whether accessing and viewing pornography can have an impact on children and young people’s expectations and attitudes towards sexual activity and relationships. Despite limited recourse to previous evidence, professionals interviewed over the course of the CSEGG Inquiry raised concerns about the impact of pornography at 43 per cent of site visits and 48 per cent of evidence hearings (Berelowitz et al., 2012). Professionals from many agencies reported particular concerns about the effects of pornography involving high levels of degradation, violence and humiliation, which they believe to be prevalent in material freely available online. Police case files that were reviewed cited instances of boys and young men referring to pornography during sexual assaults (Berelowitz et al., 2012). This REA was therefore commissioned to inform the CSEGG Inquiry Chair, Panel and Project Team, enabling them to add depth to their ultimate recommendations regarding child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups

Deep 10 and 18 micron Imaging of the HR 4796A Circumstellar Disk: Transient Dust Particles & Tentative Evidence for a Brightness Asymmetry

We present new 10.8 and 18.2 micron images of HR 4796A, a young A0V star that was recently discovered to have a spectacular, nearly edge-on, circumstellar disk prominent at ~20 microns (Jayawardhana et al. 1998; Koerner et al. 1998). These new images, obtained with OSCIR at Keck II, show that the disk's size at 10 microns is comparable to its size at 18 microns. Therefore, the 18 micron-emitting dust may also emit some, or all, of the 10 micron radiation. Using these multi-wavelength images, we determine a "characteristic" diameter of 2-3 microns for the mid-infrared-emitting dust particles if they are spherical and composed of astronomical silicates. Particles this small are expected to be blown out of the system by radiation pressure in a few hundred years, and therefore these particles are unlikely to be primordial. Dynamical modeling of the disk (Wyatt et al. 2000) indicates that the disk surface density is relatively sharply peaked near 70 AU, which agrees with the mean annular radius deduced by Schneider et al. (1999) from their NICMOS images. We present evidence (~1.8 sigma significance) for a brightness asymmetry that may result from the presence of the hole and the gravitational perturbation of the disk particle orbits by the low-mass stellar companion or a planet. This "pericenter glow," which must still be confirmed, results from a very small (a few AU) shift of the disk's center of symmetry relative to the central star HR 4796A; one side of the inner boundary of the annulus is shifted towards HR 4796A, thereby becoming warmer and more infrared-emitting. The possible detection of pericenter glow implies that the detection of even complex dynamical effects of planets on disks is within reach.Comment: 18 pages. 9 GIF images. Total size ~800 kB. High resolution images available upon request. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (scheduled for January 10, 2000