Understanding resilience in same-sex parented families: the work, love, play study

Background: While families headed by same-sex couples have achieved greater public visibility in recent years, there are still many challenges for these families in dealing with legal and community contexts that are not supportive of same-sex relationships. The Work, Love, Play study is a large longitudinal study of same-sex parents. It aims to investigate many facets of family life among this sample and examine how they change over time. The study focuses specifically on two key areas missing from the current literature: factors supporting resilience in same-sex parented families; and health and wellbeing outcomes for same-sex couples who undergo separation, including the negotiation of shared parenting arrangements post-separation. The current paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the design and methods of this longitudinal study and discuss its significance.Methods/Design: The Work, Love, Play study is a mixed design, three wave, longitudinal cohort study of same-sex attracted parents. The sample includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents in Australia and New Zealand (including single parents within these categories) caring for any children under the age of 18 years. The study will be conducted over six years from 2008 to 2014. Quantitative data are to be collected via three on-line surveys in 2008, 2010 and 2012 from the cohort of parents recruited in Wave1. Qualitative data will be collected via interviews with purposively selected subsamples in 2012 and 2013. Data collection began in 2008 and 355 respondents to Wave One of the study have agreed to participate in future surveys. Work is currently underway to increase this sample size. The methods and survey instruments are described.Discussion: This study will make an important contribution to the existing research on same-sex parented families.Strengths of the study design include the longitudinal method, which will allow understanding of changes over time within internal family relationships and social supports. Further, the mixed method design enables triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data. A broad recruitment strategy has already enabled a large sample size with the inclusion of both gay men and lesbians.<br /

Towards an embedding of Graph Transformation in Intuitionistic Linear Logic

Linear logics have been shown to be able to embed both rewriting-based approaches and process calculi in a single, declarative framework. In this paper we are exploring the embedding of double-pushout graph transformations into quantified linear logic, leading to a Curry-Howard style isomorphism between graphs and transformations on one hand, formulas and proof terms on the other. With linear implication representing rules and reachability of graphs, and the tensor modelling parallel composition of graphs and transformations, we obtain a language able to encode graph transformation systems and their computations as well as reason about their properties

A Widely-Separated, Highly-Occluded Companion to the Nearby Low-Mass T Tauri Star TWA 30

We report the discovery of TWA 30B, a wide (~3400 AU), co-moving M dwarf companion to the nearby (~42 pc) young star TWA 30. Companionship is confirmed from their statistically consistent proper motions and radial velocities, as well as a chance alignment probability of only 0.08%. Like TWA 30A, the spectrum of TWA 30B shows signatures of an actively accreting disk (H I and alkali line emission) and forbidden emission lines tracing outflowing material ([O I], [O II], [O III], [S II], and [N II]). We have also detected [C I] emission in the optical data, marking the first such detection of this line in a pre-main sequence star. Negligible radial velocity shifts in the emission lines relative to the stellar frame of rest (Delta V < 30 km/s) indicate that the outflows are viewed in the plane of the sky and that the corresponding circumstellar disk is viewed edge-on. Indeed, TWA 30B appears to be heavily obscured by its disk, given that it is 5 magnitudes fainter than TWA 30A at K-band despite having a slightly earlier spectral type (M4 versus M5). The near-infrared spectrum of TWA 30B also evinces an excess that varies on day timescales, with colors that follow classical T Tauri tracks as opposed to variable reddening (as is the case for TWA 30A). Multi-epoch data show this excess to be well-modeled by a blackbody component with temperatures ranging from 630 to 880 K and emitting areas that scale inversely with the temperature. The variable excess may arise from disk structure such as a rim or a warp at the inner disk edge located at a radial distance of ~3-5 R_sun. As the second and third closest actively accreting and outflowing stars to the Sun (after TWA 3), TWA 30AB presents an ideal system for detailed study of star and planetary formation processes at the low-mass end of the hydrogen-burning spectrum.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, AJ in press; Replaced Figure 4 with a better color version, added 3 references and slightly amended Section 3.2.

The Enigmatic Young Low-Mass Variable TWA 30

TWA 30 is a remarkable young (7+/-3 Myr), low-mass (0.12+/-0.04 Msun), late-type star (M5+/-1) residing 42+/-2 pc away from the sun in the TW Hydrae Association. It shows strong outflow spectral signatures such as [S II], [O I], [O II], [O III], and Mg I], while exhibiting weak Halpha emission (-6.8+/-1.2 Angstroms). Emission lines of [S II] and [O I] are common to T Tauri stars still residing in their natal molecular clouds, while [O III] and Mg I] emission lines are incredibly rare in this same population; in the case of TWA 30, these latter lines may arise from new outflow material colliding into older outflow fronts. The weak Halpha emission and small radial velocity shifts of line emission relative to the stellar frame of rest (generally <=10 km/s) suggest that the disk is viewed close to edge-on and that the stellar axis may be inclined to the disk, similar to the AA Tau system, based on its temporal changes in emission/absorption line strengths/profiles and variable reddening (A_V=1.5-9.0). The strong Li absorption (0.61+/-0.13 Angstroms) and common kinematics with members of the TWA confirm its age and membership to the association. Given the properties of this system such as its proximity, low mass, remarkable outflow signatures, variability, and edge-on configuration, this system is a unique case study at a critical time in disk evolution and planet-building processes.Comment: ApJ in press, 51 pages, 8 tables, 12 figures; converted to preprint style since emulateapj version cut off Tables 4-

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes