Variable Interstellar Absorption toward the Halo Star HD 219188 - Implications for Small-Scale Interstellar Structure

Within the last 10 years, strong, narrow Na I absorption has appeared at v_sun ~ -38 km/s toward the halo star HD 219188; that absorption has continued to strengthen, by a factor 2-3, over the past three years. The line of sight appears to be moving into/through a relatively cold, quiescent intermediate velocity (IV) cloud, due to the 13 mas/yr proper motion of HD 219188; the variations in Na I probe length scales of 2-38 AU/yr. UV spectra obtained with the HST GHRS in 1994-1995 suggest N(H_tot) ~ 4.8 X 10^{17} cm^{-2}, ``halo cloud'' depletions, n_H ~ 25 cm^{-3}, and n_e ~ 0.85-6.2 cm^{-3} (if T ~ 100 K) for the portion of the IV cloud sampled at that time. The relatively high fractional ionization, n_e/n_H >~ 0.034, implies that hydrogen must be partially ionized. The N(Na I)/N(H_tot) ratio is very high; in this case, the variations in Na I do not imply large local pressures or densities.Comment: 12 pages; aastex; to appear in ApJ

Bohemianism and Urban Regeneration: A Structured Literature Review and Compte Rendu

Despite a burgeoning literature, the role of bohemians in the urban milieu and in initiatives toward regeneration remains contested. As a first step toward later modeling and application, we present a thoroughgoing literature review, a short commentary on bohemian phenomena, and suggested readings. Since qualitative sources dominate the field, the review is structured rather than fully systematic in the scientific sense. After discarding innumerable irrelevant and incidental papers, three strands remained for subsequent analysis: “bohemian,” “bohemian + creative-city,” and “smart regeneration.” The first is static or historically contextualized, situated best in the humanities. The last two strands are dynamic and dissect, descriptively or analytically, elements of bohemianism relevant to the urban scene. Wherever and whenever they emerge, radical bohemian artists test existing limits or incite transformative action

Co-producing a Community University Knowledge Strategy

This community case study describes the process of developing a strategy for community-university engagement, as an example of co-production, and presents the strategy and early outcomes of the work. Based in London, the strategy and the process of co-production are of international relevance in supporting more productive relationships between universities and their cities, as a foundation for repurposing universities for sustainable human progress. The case study is presented in the context of literature related to community engagement with universities and co-production, an area of growing concern as universities seek to strengthen relationships and contribution to sustainable human progress in their home cities. London is one of the world’s great university cities, with more than 40 higher education institutions contributing ground-breaking research and educating students from across the globe. London is also home to vibrant local communities, with a strong tradition of grassroots action, community organization and citizen participation. Community groups and universities have a strong history of working together, often without formal recognition or resources. The Community university Knowledge Strategy for London, known as Collaborate!, was a collaboration between universities and grassroots community groups in London, co-convened by Just Space and University College London (UCL). A series of workshops, guided by two steering committees of community and university members, explored principles for working together, cultural and institutional barriers, decolonization, industrial strategies, community spaces and case studies of good practice. The final conference outlined the basis for a London-wide strategy to enable better engagement between universities and grassroots community groups. The strategy addresses core principles, curriculum, evaluation and evidence, resources, relationship building, governance and structures to support collaboration. Co-production ensured high levels of trust between participants and commitment to the outcomes. Implementation of the strategy actions requires ongoing resources to support intermediary structures to overcome misalignment between universities as large, hierarchical institutions and community groups as dynamic, informal, social organizations

Comprehensive Income Options: A Detriment To Transparency

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in 1997 compromised its belief that comprehensive income (CI) should be listed either in a combined statement of net income and CI or in a separate statement of CI and allowed corporations to choose using the statement of changes in stockholders’ equity (SCSE).  Of course, the latter option implies just as Jordan and Clark (2002) suggest, that CI is not a measure of financial performance.  Studies incorporating professional analysts by Hirst and Hopkins (1998) and a study of nonprofessional investors by Maines and McDaniel (2000) both conclude that format presentation matters and behaviors can be affected.  We believe that FASB should revisit the format structure of CI and eliminate the SCSE option, which was their initial intent before they compromised with corporate managers in 1997.  In addition, we believe that all items of other comprehensive income (OCI) – foreign currency translation adjustment, pension value adjustments and adjustment to securities-for-sale should be presented on an after-tax basis only in order to prevent investors from being forced to comb through the footnotes

Integrated care and the working record

By default, many discussions and specifications of electronic health records or integrated care records often conceptualize the record as a passive information repository. This article presents data from a case study of work in a medical unit in a major metropolitan hospital. It shows how the clinicians tailored, re-presented and augmented clinical information to support their own roles in the delivery of care for individual patients. This is referred to as the working record: a set of complexly interrelated clinician-centred documents that are locally evolved, maintained and used to support delivery of care in conjunction with the more patient-centred chart that will be stored in the medical records department on the patient’s discharge. Implications are drawn for how an integrated care record could support the local tailorability and flexibility that underpin this working record and hence underpin practice

On transversally elliptic operators and the quantization of manifolds with ff-structure

An $f$-structure on a manifold $M$ is an endomorphism field \phi\in\Gamma(M,\End(TM)) such that $\phi^3+\phi=0$. Any $f$-structure $\phi$ determines an almost CR structure E_{1,0}\subset T_\C M given by the $+i$-eigenbundle of $\phi$. Using a compatible metric $g$ and connection $\nabla$ on $M$, we construct an odd first-order differential operator $D$, acting on sections of $\S=\Lambda E_{0,1}^*$, whose principal symbol is of the type considered in arXiv:0810.0338. In the special case of a CR-integrable almost $\S$-structure, we show that when $\nabla$ is the generalized Tanaka-Webster connection of Lotta and Pastore, the operator $D$ is given by D = \sqrt{2}(\dbbar+\dbbar^*), where \dbbar is the tangential Cauchy-Riemann operator. We then describe two "quantizations" of manifolds with $f$-structure that reduce to familiar methods in symplectic geometry in the case that $\phi$ is a compatible almost complex structure, and to the contact quantization defined in \cite{F4} when $\phi$ comes from a contact metric structure. The first is an index-theoretic approach involving the operator $D$; for certain group actions $D$ will be transversally elliptic, and using the results in arXiv:0810.0338, we can give a Riemann-Roch type formula for its index. The second approach uses an analogue of the polarized sections of a prequantum line bundle, with a CR structure playing the role of a complex polarization.Comment: 31 page

An equilibrium model for RFP plasmas in the presence of resonant tearing modes

The equilibrium of a finite-beta RFP plasma in the presence of saturated-amplitude tearing modes is investigated. The singularities of the MHD force balance equation JXB=grad(p) at the modes rational surfaces are resolved through a proper regularization of the zeroth-order (equilibrium) profiles, by setting to zero there the gradient of the pressure and parallel current density. An equilibrium model, which satisfies the regularization rule at the various rational surfaces, is developed. The comparison with the experimental data from the Reversed Field eXperiment (RFX) gives encouraging results. The model provides an easy tool for magnetic analysis: many aspects of the perturbations can be analyzed and reconstructed.Comment: Final accepted version. 36 page