Women's experiences of increasing subjective well-being in CFS/ME through leisure-based arts and crafts activities: A qualitative study

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright © 2008 Informa Plc.Purpose. To understand the meanings of art-making among a group of women living with the occupational constraints and stigma of CFS/ME. The study explored their initial motives for art-making, and then examined how art-making had subsequently influenced their subjective well-being. Method. Ten women with CFS/ME were interviewed; three provided lengthy written accounts to the interview questions. Findings. Illness had resulted in devastating occupational and role loss. Participants took many years to make positive lifestyle changes. Art-making was typically discovered once participants had accepted the long-term nature of CFS/ME, accommodated to illness, and reprioritized occupations. Several factors then attracted participants specifically to art-making. It was perceived as manageable within the constraints of ill-health. Participants also tended to be familiar with craft skills; had family members interested in arts and crafts, and some desired a means to express grief and loss. Once established as a leisure activity, art-making increased subjective well-being mainly through providing increased satisfaction in daily life, positive self-image, hope, and contact with the outside world. Participants recommended provision of occupational/recreational counselling earlier in the illness trajectory. Conclusions. Creative art-making occurred as part of a broader acceptance and adjustment process to CFS/ME, and allowed some psychological escape from a circumscribed lifeworld

Constraints on hot metals in the Vicinity of the Galaxy

We have searched for evidence of soft X-ray absorption by hot metals in the vicinity of the Galaxy in the spectra of a small sample of fifteen Type I AGN observed with the high resolution X-ray gratings on board Chandra. This is an extension of our previous survey of hot OVII and OVIII absorbing gas in the vicinity of the Galaxy. The strongest absorption signatures within a few hundred km/s of their rest-frame energies are most likely due to warm absorbing outflows from the nearest AGN, which are back-lighting the local hot gas. We emphasize that absorption signatures in the spectra of some distant AGN that are kinematically consistent with the recessional velocity of the AGN are most likely to be due to hot local gas. Along the sightline towards PG 1211+143, PDS 456 and MCG-6-30-15 there is a very large absorbing Fe column density which is kinematically consistent with absorption by hot, local Fe. The sightlines to these three AGN pass through the limb of the Northern Polar Spur (NPS), a local bubble formed from several supernovae which, if rich in Fe, may account for a large local Fe column. We obtain limits on the column density of local, highly ionized N, Ne, Mg, Si along all of the sightlines in our sample. We correlate the column density limits with those of highly ionized O along the same sightlines. Assuming the hot local gas is in collisionally ionized equilibrium, we obtain limits on the temperature and relative abundances of the metals in the hot local gas. Our limits on the ionic column densities in the local hot gas seem to be consistent with those observed in the hot halo gas of edge-on normal spiral galaxies.Comment: 9 pages,2 figures, MNRAS (accepted

Optimal monopoly investment and capacity utilization under random demand

Unique value-maximizing programs of irreversible capacity investment and capacity utilization are described and shown to exist under general conditions for monopolist exhibiting capital adjustment costs and serving random consumer demand for a nondurable good over an infinite horizon. Stationary properties of these programs are then fully characterized under the assumption of serially independent demand disturbances. Optimal monopoly behavior in this case includes acquisition of a constant and positive level of capacity, the maintenance of a positive expected value of excess capacity in each period, and an asymmetrical response of price to unanticipated fluctuations in consumer demand. Under a general form of Markovian demand, the effect of uncertainty on irreversible capacity investment is also described in terms of the discounted flow of expected revenue accruing to the marginal unit of existing capacity and the option value of deferring the acquisition of additional capital. The option value of deferring such acquisition, created by the irreversibility of capacity investment, is characterized directly in terms of the value function of the firm, and is then shown to be zero in a stationary equilibrium with serially independent demand disturbances. The response of investment to increase demand uncertainty depends, as a result, directly on the properties of the marginal revenue product of capital. A non-negative response of optimal capacity to increased uncertainty in market demand is demonstrated for a general class of aggregate consumer preferences.Industrial capacity

WHAM Observations of H-Alpha, [S II], and [N II] toward the Orion and Perseus Arms: Probing the Physical Conditions of the Warm Ionized Medium

A large portion of the Galaxy (l = 123 deg to 164 deg, b = -6 deg to -35 deg), which samples regions of the Local (Orion) spiral arm and the more distant Perseus arm, has been mapped with the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM) in the H-Alpha, [S II] 6716, and [N II] 6583 lines. Several trends noticed in emission-line investigations of diffuse gas in other galaxies are confirmed in the Milky Way and extended to much fainter emission. We find that the [S II]/H-Alpha and [N II]/H-Alpha ratios increase as absolute H-Alpha intensities decrease. For the more distant Perseus arm emission, the increase in these ratios is a strong function of Galactic latitude and thus, of height above the Galactic plane. The [S II]/[N II] ratio is relatively independent of H-Alpha intensity. Scatter in this ratio appears to be physically significant, and maps of it suggest regions with similar ratios are spatially correlated. The Perseus arm [S II]/[N II] ratio is systematically lower than Local emission by 10%-20%. With [S II]/[N II] fairly constant over a large range of H-Alpha intensities, the increase of [S II]/H-Alpha and [N II]/H-Alpha with |z| seems to reflect an increase in temperature. Such an interpretation allows us to estimate the temperature and ionization conditions in our large sample of observations. We find that WIM temperatures range from 6,000 K to 9,000 K with temperature increasing from bright to faint H-Alpha emission (low to high [S II]/H-Alpha and [N II]/H-Alpha) respectively. Changes in [S II]/[N II] appear to reflect changes in the local ionization conditions (e.g. the S+/S++ ratio). We also measure the electron scale height in the Perseus arm to be 1.0+/-0.1 kpc, confirming earlier, less accurate determinations.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures. Figures 2 and 3 are full color--GIFs provided here, original PS figures at link below. Accepted for publication in ApJ. More information about the WHAM project can be found at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/wham/ . REVISION: Figure 6, bottom panel now contains the proper points. No other changes have been mad

Searching for additional heating - [OII] emission in the diffuse ionized gas of NGC891, NGC4631 and NGC3079

We present spectroscopic data of ionized gas in the disk--halo regions of three edge-on galaxies, NGC 891, NGC 4631 and NGC 3079, covering a wavelength range from [\ion{O}{2}] $\lambda$3727\AA to [\ion{S}{2}] $\lambda$6716.4\AA. The inclusion of the [\ion{O}{2}] emission provides new constraints on the properties of the diffuse ionized gas (DIG), in particular, the origin of the observed spatial variations in the line intensity ratios. We used three different methods to derive electron temperatures, abundances and ionization fractions along the slit. The increase in the [\ion{O}{2}]/H$\alpha$ line ratio towards the halo in all three galaxies requires an increase either in electron temperature or in oxygen abundance. Keeping the oxygen abundance constant yields the most reasonable results for temperature, abundances, and ionization fractions. Since a constant oxygen abundance seems to require an increase in temperature towards the halo, we conclude that gradients in the electron temperature play a significant role in the observed variations in the optical line ratios from extraplanar DIG in these three spiral galaxies.Comment: 43 pages, 29 figure

Do arsenic levels in rice pose a health risk to the UK population?

Consumption of rice and rice products can be a significant exposure pathway to inorganic arsenic (iAs), which is a group 1 carcinogen to humans. The UK follows the current European Commission regulations so that iAs concentrations must be  0.1 mg kg-1 were selected for As speciation using HPLC-ICP-MS. Based on the average concentration of iAs of our samples, we calculated values for the Lifetime Cancer Risk (LCR), Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) and Margin of Exposure (MoE). We found a statistically significant difference between organically and non-organically grown rice. We also found that brown rice contained a significantly higher concentration of iAs compared to white or wild rice. Notably, 28 rice samples exceeded the iAs maximum limit stipulated by the EU (0.1 mg kg-1) with an average iAs concentration of 0.13 mg kg-1; therefore consumption of these rice types could be riskier for infants than adults. Based on the MoE, it was found that infants up to 1 year must be restricted to a maximum of 20 g per day for the 28 rice types to avoid carcinogenic risks. We believe that consumers could be better informed whether the marketed product is fit for infants and young children, via appropriate product labelling containing information about iAs concentration

Energetic Impact of Jet Inflated Cocoons in Relaxed Galaxy Clusters

Jets from active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the cores of galaxy clusters have the potential to be a major contributor to the energy budget of the intracluster medium (ICM). To study the dependence of the interaction between the AGN jets and the ICM on the parameters of the jets themselves, we present a parameter survey of two-dimensional (axisymmetric) ideal hydrodynamic models of back-to-back jets injected into a cluster atmosphere (with varying Mach numbers and kinetic luminosities). We follow the passive evolution of the resulting structures for several times longer than the active lifetime of the jet. The simulations fall into roughly two classes, cocoon-bounded and non-cocoon bounded sources. We suggest a correspondence between these two classes and the Faranoff-Riley types. We find that the cocoon-bounded sources inject significantly more entropy into the core regions of the ICM atmosphere, even though the efficiency with which energy is thermalized is independent of the morphological class. In all cases, a large fraction (50--80%) of the energy injected by the jet ends up as gravitational potential energy due to the expansion of the atmosphere.Comment: 12 pages, Accepted for publication in Ap

On The Reddening in X-ray Absorbed Seyfert 1 Galaxies

There are several Seyfert galaxies for which there is a discrepancy between the small column of neutral hydrogen deduced from X-ray observations and the much greater column derived from the reddening of the optical/UV emission lines and continuum. The standard paradigm has the dust within the highly ionized gas which produces O~VII and O~VIII absorption edges (i.e., a ``dusty warm absorber''). We present an alternative model in which the dust exists in a component of gas in which hydrogen has been stripped, but which is at too low an ionization state to possess significant columns of O~VII and O~VIII (i.e, a ``lukewarm absorber''). The lukewarm absorber is at sufficient radial distance to encompass much of the narrow emission-line region, and thus accounts for the narrow-line reddening, unlike the dusty warm absorber. We test the model by using a combination of photoionization models and absorption edge fits to analyze the combined ROSAT/ASCA dataset for the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy, NGC 3227. We show that the data are well fit by a combination of the lukewarm absorber and a more highly ionized component similar to that suggested in earlier studies. We predict that the lukewarm absorber will produce strong UV absorption lines of N V, C IV, Si IV and Mg II. Finally, these results illustrate that singly ionized helium is an important, and often overlooked, source of opacity in the soft X-ray band (100 - 500 eV).Comment: 17 pages, Latex, includes 1 figure (encapsulated postscript), one additional table in Latex (landscape format), to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

School violence, school differences and school discourses

This article highlights one strand of a study which investigated the concept of the violenceresilient school. In six inner-city secondary schools, data on violent incidents in school and violent crime in the neighbourhood were gathered, and compared with school practices to minimise violence, accessed through interviews. Some degree of association between the patterns of behaviour and school practices was found: schools with a wider range of wellconnected practices seemed to have less difficult behaviour. Interviews also showed that the different schools had different organisational discourses for construing school violence, its possible causes and the possible solutions. Differences in practices are best understood in connection with differences in these discourses. Some of the features of school discourses are outlined, including their range, their core metaphor and their silences. We suggest that organisational discourse is an important concept in explaining school effects and school differences, and that improvement attempts could have clearer regard to this concept

Experimental archeology and serious games: challenges of inhabiting virtual heritage

Experimental archaeology has long yielded valuable insights into the tools and techniques that featured in past peoples’ relationship with the material world around them. However, experimental archaeology has, hitherto, confined itself to rigid, empirical and quantitative questions. This paper applies principles of experimental archaeology and serious gaming tools in the reconstructions of a British Iron Age Roundhouse. The paper explains a number of experiments conducted to look for quantitative differences in movement in virtual vs material environments using both “virtual” studio reconstruction as well as material reconstruction. The data from these experiments was then analysed to look for differences in movement which could be attributed to artefacts and/or environments. The paper explains the structure of the experiments, how the data was generated, what theories may make sense of the data, what conclusions have been drawn and how serious gaming tools can support the creation of new experimental heritage environments