New Ways of Seeing: Examining Musuem Accessibility for Visitors with Vision Impairments

While I have always loved to go to the art museum I have often found it difficult to convince friends and family to go with me. It seems to be a particularly daunting task for visitors with disabilities and specifically those with vision impairments. This study surveys the accessibility of the programming for visitors with visual impairments at 25 art museums in the United States of America and how they communicate that information to potential visitors. It highlights museums that go beyond what is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and create programming that is enjoyable for all. This study will be a reference to create a more enjoyable experience for all

Attachment styles and personal growth following romantic breakups: The mediating roles of distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound

© 2013 Marshall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of this research was to examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with personal growth following relationship dissolution, and to test breakup distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound with new partners as mediators of these associations. Study 1 (N = 411) and Study 2 (N = 465) measured attachment style, breakup distress, and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners. Structural equation modelling revealed in both studies that anxiety was indirectly associated with greater personal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth through inhibited breakup distress. Study 2 further showed that the positive association of breakup distress with personal growth was accounted for by enhanced reflection and brooding, and that anxious individuals’ greater personal growth was also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work

Effects of Thermal Fluctuations in the SPOrt Experiment

The role of systematic errors induced by thermal fluctuations is analyzed for the SPOrt experiment with the aim at estimating their impact on the measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization (CMBP). The transfer functions of the antenna devices from temperature to data fluctuations are computed, by writing them in terms of both instrument and thermal environment parameters. In addition, the corresponding contamination maps are estimated, along with their polarized power spectra, for different behaviours of the instabilities. The result is that thermal effects are at a negligible level even for fluctuations correlated with the Sun illumination provided their frequency $f_{tf}$ is larger than that of the Sun illumination ($f_{day}$) by a factor $f_{tf} / f_{day} > 30$, which defines a requirement for the statistical properties of the temperature behaviour as well. The analysis with actual SPOrt operative parameters shows that the instrument is only weakly sensitive to temperature instabilities, the main contribution coming from the cryogenic stage. The contamination on the E-mode spectrum does not significantly pollute the CMBP signal and no specific data cleaning seems to be needed.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

An iterative destriping technique for diffuse background polarization data

We describe a simple but effective iterative procedure specifically designed to destripe Q and U Stokes parameter data as those collected by the SPOrt experiment onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The method is general enough to be useful for other experiments, both in polarization and total intensity. The only requirement for the algorithm to work properly is that the receiver knee frequency must be lower than the signal modulation frequency, corresponding in our case to the ISS orbit period. Detailed performances of the technique are presented in the context of the SPOrt experiment, both in terms of added rms noise and residual correlated noise.Comment: Accepted for publication by A&A (8 pages, 6 figures

D.F.M. - Database Fotografico Macrosismico

Un archivio fotografico macrosismico. In realtà un complesso database che, attraverso la fotografia, ci racconta la storia macrosismica dei grandi e medi terremoti avvenuti in Italia (e in prospettiva anche in Europa) nel recente passato. Il DFM (Database Fotografico Macrosismico) è un apparato fotografico correlato da un robusto commento di metadati che permetterà ad esperti del settore ma anche ad una platea di non addetti ai lavori di accedere ad un archivio specialistico tra i più ricchi del panorama nazionale. Pensato inizialmente come un tipico strumento di conservazione del materiale fotografico analogico altrimenti in progressivo dissolvimento, il DFM è stato successivamente realizzato come un vero e proprio database di immagini e contenuti che, nella catalogazione e descrizione, richiamano puntualmente le linee guida della EMS98 (European Macroseismic Scale) ovvero il punto di riferimento della classificazione macrosismica europea. Il database (realizzato in MySql) sarà facilmente consultabile e navigabile on-line grazie alla creazione ad hoc di un interfaccia web. Migliaia di fotografie con immagini significative e dettagliate ci aiuteranno a districarci tra differenti tipologie edilizie e livelli di vulnerabilità. Tutto il materiale presente nel database, attraverso definite modalità di accesso, verrà messo a disposizione – gratuitamente – a quanti ne faranno richiesta

Review of works combining GNSS and insar in Europe

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) can be combined to achieve different goals, owing to their main principles. Both enable the collection of information about ground deformation due to the differences of two consequent acquisitions. Their variable applications, even if strictly related to ground deformation and water vapor determination, have encouraged the scientific community to combine GNSS and InSAR data and their derivable products. In this work, more than 190 scientific contributions were collected spanning the whole European continent. The spatial and temporal distribution of such studies, as well as the distinction in different fields of application, were analyzed. Research in Italy, as the most represented nation, with 47 scientific contributions, has been dedicated to the spatial and temporal distribution of its studied phenomena. The state-of-the-art of the various applications of these two combined techniques can improve the knowledge of the scientific community and help in the further development of new approaches or additional applications in different fields. The demonstrated usefulness and versability of the combination of GNSS and InSAR remote sensing techniques for different purposes, as well as the availability of free data, EUREF and GMS (Ground Motion Service), and the possibility of overcoming some limitations of these techniques through their combination suggest an increasingly widespread approach

The power-law behaviours of angular spectra of polarized Galactic synchrotron

We study the angular power spectra of polarized Galactic synchrotron in the range 10<l<800, at several frequencies between 0.4 and 2.7 GHz and at several Galactic latitudes up to near the North Galactic Pole. Electric- and magnetic-parity polarization spectra are found to have slopes around alpha _{E,B} = 1.4 - 1.5 in the Parkes and Effelsberg Galactic-Plane surveys, but strong local fluctuations of alpha_{E,B} are found at | b | ~ 10 degree from the 1.4 GHz Effelsberg survey. The C_{PIl} spectrum, which is insensitive to the polarization direction, is somewhat steeper, being alpha_{PI} = 1.6 - 1.8 for the same surveys. The low-resolution multifrequency survey of Brouw and Spoelstra (1976) shows some flattening of the spectra below 1 GHz, more intense for C_{E,Bl} than for C_{PIl}. In no case we find evidence for really steep spectra. The extrapolation to the cosmological window shows that at 90 GHz the detection of E-mode harmonics in the cosmic background radiation should not be disturbed by synchrotron, even around l~10 for a reionization optical depth tau _{ri}>~0.05.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, accepted to New Astronom

meat quality traits of marchigiana beef cattle

Variation in quality of meat within the same breed and among different ones is due both to different biological factor (genotype, productivity, sex and age) and environmental and technological factors (composition and nutritional level of diet, rearing, transport and slaughter) acting on animals reared . All these factors interact in a complex way and lead to a high variability of muscular structure that characterizes the qualitative characteristic of meat. For this reason, in a study that expected the control at slaughter of 1000 Marchigiana cattle, on a random, 114 sample's steaks were taken from LD at 5th rib, right side of carcasses grading U or more in SEUROP grid. On meat samples, we tested colour parameters (L*a*b*) using Minolta Chromameter CR 200 and light D65 and Drip Loss as reported by ASPA Commission (1996). Then meat samples were weighted, frozen, lyophilized; their chemical composition (moisture, protein and fat) was determined. Variability of analysis' results was studied according to JMP package (SAS).The colour means (L*, a*, b*) were obtained considering at least 3 readings on every sample. Luminosity value (L* = 40.1 ± 3.6) is similar to the one reported on subjects transported for 1-4 hours, similarly to the Marchigiana cattle object of this study, while is higher than the mean reported by other researchers on Valdostana cattle, English crossbreds and on Charolaise x Maremmana crossbreds. The red parameter (a* = 25.0 ± 3.2) is better than means reported by the same researchers. The yellow parameter (b* = 6.9 ± 2.5) is similar to results obtained on Valdostana cattle, but lower that means obtained by other researchers. The Hue values are lower than those reported for Charolaise x Maremmana (15.1 vs 26.1), while Chroma (26.1 ± 3.7) is similar to the values obtained by the same researchers. The moisture (72.8 ± 1.2) is similar to the mean obtained on Chianina calves, but lower than the one indicated on Marchigiana bulls. The protein (19.8 ± 1.6) is lower than that obtained on Marchigiana cattle. The intramuscular fat (3.9 ± 1.5) is higher than results obtained on Marchigiana calves. The Drip Loss (1.4 ± 0.5) is 1 point % lower than those reported by other researchers. This low Drip Loss can be considered a parameter that indicates a good muscular maturity of slaughtered cattle. All parameters have a low variability except for fat (33.1%) and Drip Loss (35.7%). The Marchigiana cattle confirms the good qualitative characteristics of its meat, and strengthen the opportunity to increase the number of Marchigiana heads to be bred and raisen

The AMS-02 Time of Flight System. Final Design

The AMS-02 detector is a superconducting magnetic spectrometer that will operate on the International Space Station. The time of flight (TOF) system of AMS-02 is composed by four scintillator planes with 8, 8, 10, 8 counters each, read at both ends by a total of 144 phototubes. This paper describes the new design, the expected performances, and shows preliminary results of the ion beam test carried on at CERN on October 2002.Comment: 4 pages, 6 EPS figures. Proc. of the 28th ICRC (2003

Macroseismic effects highlight site response in Rome and its geological signature

A detailed analysis of the earthquake effects on the urban area of Rome has been conducted for the L’Aquila sequence, which occurred in April 2009, by using an on-line macroseismic questionnaire. Intensity residuals calculated using the mainshock and four aftershocks are analyzed in the light of a very accurate and original geological reconstruction of the subsoil of Rome based on a large amount of wells. The aim of this work is to highlight ground motion amplification areas and to find a correlation with the geological settings at a sub-regional scale, putting in evidence the extreme complexity of the phenomenon and the difficulty of making a simplified model. Correlations between amplification areas and both near-surface and deep geology were found. Moreover, the detailed scale of investigation has permitted us to find a correlation between seismic amplification in recent alluvial settings and subsiding zones, and between heard seismic sound and Tiber alluvial sediments