Measuring attitude toward theistic faith : assessing the Astley-Francis Scale among Christian, Muslim and secular youth in England

Empirical research within the social scientific study of religion in general and within the psychology of religion in particular remains very conscious of the complex nature of its subject matter. Empirical research in this field needs to take cognisance of the many forms in which religion is expressed (say, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism) and the many facets within the forms (say, beliefs, behaviours and affiliation). Working in the 1970s, Francis (1978a; 1978b) advanced the view that the attitudinal dimension of religion offered a particularly fruitful basis for coordinating empirical enquiry into the correlates, antecedents and consequences of religiosity across the life span

Multi-object spectroscopy of the field surrounding PKS 2126-158: Discovery of a z=0.66 galaxy group

The high-redshift radio-loud quasar PKS 2126-158 is found to have a large number of red galaxies in close apparent proximity. We use the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South to obtain optical spectra for a large fraction of these sources. We show that there is a group of galaxies at $z\sim0.66$, coincident with a metal-line absorption system seen in the quasar's optical spectrum. The multiplexing capabilities of GMOS also allow us to measure redshifts of many foreground galaxies in the field surrounding the quasar. The galaxy group has five confirmed members, and a further four fainter galaxies are possibly associated. All confirmed members exhibit early-type galaxy spectra, a rare situation for a Mg II absorbing system. We discuss the relationship of this group to the absorbing gas, and the possibility of gravitational lensing of the quasar due to the intervening galaxies.Comment: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press. 10 pages, 8 figure

Sherlock: An Automated Follow-Up Telescope for Wide-Field Transit Searches

The most significant challenge currently facing photometric surveys for transiting gas-giant planets is that of confusion with eclipsing binary systems that mimic the photometric signature. A simple way to reject most forms of these false positives is high-precision, rapid-cadence monitoring of the suspected transit at higher angular resolution and in several filters. We are currently building a system that will perform higher-angular-resolution, multi-color follow-up observations of candidate systems identified by Sleuth (our wide-field transit survey instrument at Palomar), and its two twin system instruments in Tenerife and northern Arizona.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in AIP Conf Proc: The Search for Other Worlds, eds. S. S. Holt & D. Demin

Contacting the spirits of the dead: paranormal belief and the teenage worldview

A number of previous studies have examined both the overall level of belief expressed by young people in the paranormal and the major demographic predictors of such belief. Building on this research tradition, the present study examines how one specific paranormal belief concerning contact with the spirits of the dead integrates with the wider teenage worldview. Data provided by 33,982 pupils age 13 to 15 years throughout England and Wales demonstrated that almost one in three young people (31%) believed that it is possible to contact the spirits of the dead. Compared with young people who did not share this belief, the young people who believed in the possibility of contacting the spirits of the dead displayed lower psychological wellbeing, higher anxiety, greater isolation, greater alienation, less positive social attitudes, and less socially conforming lifestyles. Overall, paranormal beliefs seem to be associated with a less healthy worldview, in both personal and social terms

RegPT: Direct and fast calculation of regularized cosmological power spectrum at two-loop order

We present a specific prescription for the calculation of cosmological power spectra, exploited here at two-loop order in perturbation theory (PT), based on the multi-point propagator expansion. In this approach power spectra are constructed from the regularized expressions of the propagators that reproduce both the resummed behavior in the high-k limit and the standard PT results at low-k. With the help of N-body simulations, we show that such a construction gives robust and accurate predictions for both the density power spectrum and the correlation function at percent-level in the weakly non-linear regime. We then present an algorithm that allows accelerated evaluations of all the required diagrams by reducing the computational tasks to one-dimensional integrals. This is achieved by means of pre-computed kernel sets defined for appropriately chosen fiducial models. The computational time for two-loop results is then reduced from a few minutes, with the direct method, to a few seconds with the fast one. The robustness and applicability of this method are tested against the power spectrum cosmic emulator from which a wide variety of cosmological models can be explored. The fortran program with which direct and fast calculations of power spectra can be done, RegPT, is publicly released as part of this paper.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figure

Large magnetoresistance at room-temperature in semiconducting polymer sandwich devices

We report on the discovery of a large, room temperature magnetoresistance (MR) effect in polyfluorene sandwich devices in weak magnetic fields. We characterize this effect and discuss its dependence on voltage, temperature, film thickness, electrode materials, and (unintentional) impurity concentration. We usually observed negative MR, but positive MR can also be achieved under high applied electric fields. The MR effect reaches up to 10% at fields of 10mT at room temperature. The effect shows only a weak temperature dependence and is independent of the sign and direction of the magnetic field. We find that the effect is related to the hole current in the devices.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

The Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism: development and application among British Pagans

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (and reflected in the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism) by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals

The internal consistency reliability of the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism among students in India

The Santosh–Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism was originally developed and tested among Hindus in the UK as part of a programme designed to assess religious affect across faith traditions. The present study tests the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the instrument among 149 students in Karnatak University Dharwad (74 males and 75 females), India. The data demonstrated an alpha coefficient of .90, suggesting a high level of internal consistency reliability and commending the instrument for further application within Hindu communities