De-stigmatising manipulation: An exercise in second-order empathic understanding

Standard definitions of ‘manipulation’, especially regarding people with a borderline personality diagnosis, usually highlight the alloplastic purpose of manipulativity, i.e. the intention to produce a belief in, or action by another person. In this article, I will try to show that this is only one side of the coin, and shed light on a complementary aspect of manipulative behaviour: manipulation can serve an epistemic, rather than alloplastic, pragmatic motif – the attempt to establish contact with the other in order to achieve a more distinct experience and representation of the other. My tentative hypothesis is based on the meaning of manipulation as touching (‘manus’ means ‘hand’) in infant behaviour where manipulation is a means to explore, rather than a way to modify the other’s state of mind

The Gaia Data Release 1 parallaxes and the distance scale of Galactic planetary nebulae

In this paper we gauge the potentiality of Gaia in the distance scale calibration of planetary nebulae (PNe) by assessing the impact of DR1 parallaxes of central stars of Galactic PNe (CSPNe) against known physical relations. For selected PNe targets with state-of-the-art data on angular sizes and fluxes, we derive the distance-dependent parameters of the classical distance scales, i.e., physical radii and ionized masses, from DR1 parallaxes; we propagate the uncertainties in the estimated quantities and evaluate their statistical properties in the presence of large relative parallax errors; we populate the statistical distance scale diagrams with this sample and discuss its significance in light of existing data and current calibrations. We glean from DR1 parallaxes 8 CSPNe with S/N$>$1. We show that this set of potential calibrators doubles the number of extant trigonometric parallaxes (from HST and ground-based), and increases by two orders of magnitude the domain of physical parameters probed previously. We then use the combined sample of suitable trigonometric parallaxes to fit the physical-radius-to-surface-brightness relation. This distance scale calibration, although preliminary, appears solid on statistical grounds, and suggestive of new PNe physics. With the tenfold improvement in PNe number statistics and astrometric accuracy expected from future Gaia releases the new distance scale, already very intriguing, will be definitively constrained.Comment: New Astronomy, in pres

High Frequency Peakers: young radio sources or flaring blazars?

We present new, simultaneous, multifrequency observations of 45 out of the 55 candidate High Frequency Peakers (HFP) selected by Dallacasa et al. (2000), carried out 3 to 4 years after a first set of observations. Our sub-sample consists of 10 galaxies, 28 stellar objects (``quasars'') and 7 unidentified sources. Both sets of observations are sensitive enough to allow the detection of variability at the 10% level or lower. While galaxies do not show significant variability, most quasars do. Seven of them no longer show the convex spectrum which is the defining property of Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS)/HFP sources and are interpreted as blazars caught by Dallacasa et al. (2000) during a flare, when a highly self-absorbed component dominated the emission. In general, the variability properties (amplitude, timescales, correlation between peak luminosity and peak frequency of the flaring component) of the quasar sub-sample resemble those of blazars. We thus conclude that most HFP candidates identified with quasars may well be flaring blazars.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Decision support for optimised irrigation scheduling

The system, developed under the FLOW-AID (an FP6 project), is a farm level water management system of special value in situations where the water availability and quality is limited. This market-ready precision irrigation management system features new models, hardware and software. The hardware platform delivers a maintenance-free low cost dielectric tensiometer and several low-end irrigation or fertigation controllers for serving different situations. The software includes a complete, web based, Decision Support System (DSS) that consists of an expert planner for farm zoning (MOPECO) and a universal irrigation scheduler, based on crop-water stress models (UNIPI) and water and nutrient uptake calculations. The system, designed also to service greenhouse fertigation and hydroponics, is scalable from one to many zones. It consists of 1) a data gathering tool which uploads agronomic data, from monitored crops around the world, to a central web Data Base (DB), and 2) a web based Decision Support System (DSS). The DSS processes intelligently the data of the crop using Crop Response Models, Nutrient Uptake Models and Water Uptake Models. The central system returns over Internet to the low-end controller a command file containing water scheduling and nutrient supply guideline

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph slitless observations of Small Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae: a study on morphology, emission line intensity, and evolution

A sample of 27 Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) to determine their morphology, size, and the spatial variation of the ratios of bright emission lines. The morphologies of SMC PNs are similar to those of LMC and Galactic PNs. However, only a third of the resolved SMC PNs are asymmetric, compared to half in the LMC. The low metallicity environment of the SMC seems to discourage the onset of bipolarity in PNs. We measured the line intensity, average surface brightness (SB), and photometric radius of each nebula in halpha, hbeta, [O III] lambda4959 and 5007, [NII] 6548 and 6584, [S II] lambda6716 and 5731, He I 6678, and [OI] 6300 and 6363. We show that the surface brightness to radius relationship is the same as in LMC PNs, indicating its possible use as a distance scale indicator for Galactic PNs. We determine the electron densities and the ionized masses of the nebulae where the [S II] lines were measured accurately, and we find that the SMC PNs are denser than the LMC PNs by a factor of 1.5. The average ionized mass of the SMC PNs is 0.3 Msun. We also found that the median [O III]/hbeta intensity ratio in the SMC is about half than the corresponding LMC median. We use Cloudy to model the dependence of the [O III]/hbeta ratio on the oxygen abundance. Our models encompass very well the average observed physical quantities. We suggest that the SMC PNs are principally cooled by the carbon lines, making it hard to study their excitation based on the optical lines at our disposal.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 30 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables. For high resolution version of Figs 1 to 6, see http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/mcpn/home.htm

Constraining the evolution of young radio-loud AGN

GPS and CSS radio sources are the objects of choice to investigate the evolution of young radio-loud AGN. Previous investigations, mainly based on number counts and source size distributions, indicate that GPS/CSS sources decrease significantly in radio power when evolving into old, extended objects. We suggest this is preceded by a period of increase in radio luminosity, which lasts as long as the radio source is confined within the core-radius of its host galaxy. We have selected a sample of nearby compact radio sources, unbiased by radio spectrum, to determine their radio luminosity function, size distribution, dynamical ages, and emission line properties in a complete and homogeneous way. First results indicate that the large majority of objects (>80%) exhibit classical GPS/CSS radio spectra, and show structures consistent with the being compact double, or compact symmetric objects. This sample provides and ideal basis to further test and constrain possible evolution scenarios, and to investigate the relation between radio spectra and morphologies, orientation and Doppler boosting in samples of young radio-loud AGN, in an unbiased way.Comment: LaTeX, 8 pages, 3 figs: Accepted by Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, as part of the proceedings of the 3rd GPS/CSS workshop, eds. T. Tzioumis et a

Physical parameters in the hot spots and jets of Compact Symmetric Objects

We present a model to determine the physical parameters of jets and hot spots of a sample of CSOs under very basic assumptions like synchrotron emission and minimum energy conditions. Based on this model we propose a simple evolutionary scenario for these sources assuming that they evolve in ram pressure equilibrium with the external medium and constant jet power. The parameters of our model are constrained from fits of observational data (radio luminosity, hot spot radius and hot spot advance speed) versus projected linear size. From these plots we conclude that CSOs evolve self-similarly and that their radio luminosity increases with linear size along the first kiloparsec. Assuming that the jets feeding CSOs are relativistic from both kinematical and thermodynamical points of view, we use the values of the pressure and particle number density within the hot spots to estimate the fluxes of momentum (thrust), energy, and particles of these relativistic jets. The mean jet power obtained in this way is within an order of magnitude that inferred for FRII sources, which is consistent with CSOs being the possible precursors of large doubles. The inferred flux of particles corresponds to, for a barionic jet, about a 10% of the mass accreted by a black hole of $10^8 {\rm M_{\odot}}$ at the Eddington limit, pointing towards a very efficient conversion of accretion flow into ejection, or to a leptonic composition of jets.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa