Ships and Shipmasters of Old Providence

A brief account of some of the famous Merchants, Sea Captains and Ships of the past together with reminiscences of a few notable voyages made in Providence ships. Printed for the Providence Institution for Savings, Providence, R.I. 1919. Produced by the Providence Institution for Savings as a promotional piece to highlight the bank’s involvement in financing the Providence whaling industry of the 19th century. Includes illustrations and histories of the more notable sea captains and ships that hailed from Rhode Island along with the economic and social impact of the whaling industry in New England.https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/ri_history/1016/thumbnail.jp

Spatially Resolved Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of the Great Dimming of Betelgeuse

The bright supergiant, Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis, HD 39801) experienced a visual dimming during 2019 December and the first quarter of 2020 reaching an historic minimum 2020 February 7$-$13. During 2019 September-November, prior to the optical dimming event, the photosphere was expanding. At the same time, spatially resolved ultraviolet spectra using the Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph revealed a substantial increase in the ultraviolet spectrum and Mg II line emission from the chromosphere over the southern hemisphere of the star. Moreover, the temperature and electron density inferred from the spectrum and C II diagnostics also increased in this hemisphere. These changes happened prior to the Great Dimming Event. Variations in the Mg II k-line profiles suggest material moved outwards in response to the passage of a pulse or acoustic shock from 2019 September through 2019 November. It appears that this extraordinary outflow of material from the star, likely initiated by convective photospheric elements, was enhanced by the coincidence with the outward motions in this phase of the $\sim$400 day pulsation cycle. These ultraviolet observations appear to provide the connecting link between the known large convective cells in the photosphere and the mass ejection event that cooled to form the dust cloud in the southern hemisphere imaged in 2019 December, and led to the exceptional optical dimming of Betelgeuse in 2020 February.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Astrophysical Journal, accepte

The effect of metallicity on the Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation from a Baade-Wesselink analysis of Cepheids in the Galaxy and in the Small Magellanic Cloud

(ABRIDGED) We have applied the near-IR Barnes-Evans realization of the Baade-Wesselink method as calibrated by Fouque & Gieren (1997) to five metal-poor Cepheids with periods between 13 and 17 days in the Small Magellanic Cloud as well as to a sample of 34 Galactic Cepheids to determine the effect of metallicity on the period-luminosity (P-L) relation. For ten of the Galactic Cepheids we present new accurate and well sampled radial-velocity curves. The Baade-Wesselink analysis provides accurate individual distances and luminosities to the Cepheids in the two samples, allowing us to constrain directly, in a purely differential way, the metallicity effect on the Cepheid P-L relation. For the Galactic Cepheids we provide a new set of P-L relations which have zero-points in excellent agreement with astrometric and interferometric determinations. These relations can be used directly for the determination of distances to solar-metallicity samples of Cepheids in distant galaxies, circumventing any corrections for metallicity effects on the zero-point and slope of the P-L relation. We find evidence for both such metallicity effects in our data. Comparing our two samples of Cepheids at a mean period of about 15 days, we find a weak effect of metallicity on the luminosity similar to that adopted by the HST Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Bostonia. Volume 12

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Spartanburg Centennial Celebration and Pageant

Snyder Field Wofford College Spartanburg, S. C. November 20, 1931 Pageant presented by high school students in Spartanburg County of historical moments in the county\u27s history.https://digitalcommons.wofford.edu/localhist/1010/thumbnail.jp

Rhode Island Election Tickets: A Survey

Rhode Island was the first English colony in America to issue printed election ballots, with the first issued in the mid-1740s. This survey of Rhode Island election tickets, while not exhaustive, is representative of the use of tickets in elections spanning a period of over 150 years and documents state and local politics, political factions and election results from the Ward-Hopkins controversy of the colonial period to political factions during the War of 1812, the Anti-Masonic period of the 1830s, the Law and Order coalition of the 1840s following events of the Dorr Rebellion, the temperance movement of the 1850s, the pro-Union tickets of the Civil War, and Greenback party and Prohibitory factions of the 1870s and 1880s. Statewide elections for general officers, United States congressional representatives, presidential electors, special purpose elections as well as local elections for city, town and district offices are also examined. The scope of this study includes a survey of tickets found in the collections of the University of Rhode Island Library Special Collections, Rhode Island State Archives, Warwick Historical Society as well as private collections of Henry A.L. Brown, Russell DeSimone, and Daniel Schofield. This document was last revised in 2015. The previous version (2007) can be found below as a supplemental file

Alpha [Yearbook] 1957

Annual yearbook published by the students of the Bridgewater State Teachers College. The 1957 yearbook is dedicated to history professor Annabelle M. Melville.https://vc.bridgew.edu/yearbooks/1058/thumbnail.jp

Unveiling the Structure of Pre-Transitional Disks

In the past few years, several disks with inner holes that are empty of small dust grains have been detected and are known as transitional disks. Recently, Spitzer has identified a new class of "pre-transitional disks" with gaps; these objects have an optically thick inner disk separated from an optically thick outer disk by an optically thin disk gap. A near-infrared spectrum provided the first confirmation of a gap in the pre-transitional disk of LkCa 15 by verifying that the near-infrared excess emission in this object was due to an optically thick inner disk. Here we investigate the difference between the nature of the inner regions of transitional and pre-transitional disks using the same veiling-based technique to extract the near-infrared excess emission above the stellar photosphere. We show that the near-infrared excess emission of the previously identified pre-transitional disks of LkCa 15 and UX Tau A in Taurus as well as the newly identified pre-transitional disk of ROX 44 in Ophiuchus can be fit with an inner disk wall located at the dust destruction radius. We also model the broad-band SEDs of these objects, taking into account the effect of shadowing by the inner disk on the outer disk, considering the finite size of the star. The near-infrared excess continua of these three pre-transitional disks, which can be explained by optically thick inner disks, are significantly different from that of the transitional disks of GM Aur, whose near-infrared excess continuum can be reproduced by emission from sub-micron-sized optically thin dust, and DM Tau, whose near-infrared spectrum is consistent with a disk hole that is relatively free of small dust. The structure of pre-transitional disks may be a sign of young planets forming in these disks and future studies of pre-transitional disks will provide constraints to aid in theoretical modeling of planet formation.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ on May 10, 2010; 29 page