337 research outputs found
Keyword: Action
My keyword today is action. No, it’s not about Meaghan Morris the action hero! But it is about Meaghan Morris as a woman of action. It is also about Meaghan’s work on action cinema and cultural research as engaged scholarship in action
Digital Literacy Through Digital Citizenship: Online Civic Participation and Public Opinion Evaluation of Youth Minorities in Southeast Asia
The field of critical digital literacy studies has burgeoned in recent years as a result of the increased cultural consumption of digital media as well as the turn to the production of digital media forms. This article extends extant digital literacy studies by focusing on its subfield of digital citizenship. Proposing that digital citizenship is not another dimension or axis of citizenship, but a practice through which civic activities in the various dimensions of citizenship are conducted, this article critically considers how the concept of digital citizenship can furnish further insight into the quality of online civic participation that results in claims to and acts of citizenship. Through interdisciplinary scholarship, drawing from critical media and cultural theory, and media psychology, and deriving new empirical data from qualitative digital ethnography and quantitative focus group and survey studies, it presents original case studies with young people in Southeast Asia, including young Muslim women’s groups in Indonesia and youth public opinion on LGBTs in Singapore. It argues that Southeast Asian youth digital citizenship foregrounds civic participation as emergent acts that not only serve to make society a better place, but also enacts alternative publics that characterise new modes of civic-making in more conservative, collectivistic Southeast Asian societies
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Ensemble Spectroscopic Variability of Quasar Broad Emission Lines
We explore the variability of quasars in the MgII and Hbeta broad emission
lines and UV/optical continuum emission using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Reverberation Mapping project (SDSS-RM). This is the largest spectroscopic
study of quasar variability to date: our study includes 29 spectroscopic epochs
from SDSS-RM over months, containing 357 quasars with MgII and 41 quasars
with Hbeta . On longer timescales, the study is also supplemented with
two-epoch data from SDSS-I/II. The SDSS-I/II data include an additional
quasars with MgII and 572 quasars with Hbeta. The MgII emission line is
significantly variable ( 10% on 100-day timescales), a necessary
prerequisite for its use for reverberation mapping studies. The data also
confirm that continuum variability increases with timescale and decreases with
luminosity, and the continuum light curves are consistent with a damped
random-walk model on rest-frame timescales of days. We compare the
emission-line and continuum variability to investigate the structure of the
broad-line region. Broad-line variability shows a shallower increase with
timescale compared to the continuum emission, demonstrating that the broad-line
transfer function is not a -function. Hbeta is more variable than MgII
(roughly by a factor of ), suggesting different excitation mechanisms,
optical depths and/or geometrical configuration for each emission line. The
ensemble spectroscopic variability measurements enabled by the SDSS-RM project
have important consequences for future studies of reverberation mapping and
black hole mass estimation of quasars.Comment: 20 pages, 25 figures. ApJ accepted: minor revisions following referee
repor
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping project : composite lags at z ≤ 1
Funding: STFC grant ST/M001296/1 (KH).We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for Hα, Hβ, He II λ4686, and Mg II for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for Hα) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg II, Hα, Hβ, and He II. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, Hα shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size-luminosity relation based on Hβ. The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping dataPostprintPeer reviewe
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Rapid CIV Broad Absorption Line Variability
We report the discovery of rapid variations of a high-velocity CIV broad
absorption line trough in the quasar SDSS J141007.74+541203.3. This object was
intensively observed in 2014 as a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Reverberation Mapping Project, during which 32 epochs of spectroscopy were
obtained with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. We
observe significant (>4sigma) variability in the equivalent width of the broad
(~4000 km/s wide) CIV trough on rest-frame timescales as short as 1.20 days
(~29 hours), the shortest broad absorption line variability timescale yet
reported. The equivalent width varied by ~10% on these short timescales, and by
about a factor of two over the duration of the campaign. We evaluate several
potential causes of the variability, concluding that the most likely cause is a
rapid response to changes in the incident ionizing continuum. If the outflow is
at a radius where the recombination rate is higher than the ionization rate,
the timescale of variability places a lower limit on the density of the
absorbing gas of n_e > 3.9 x 10^5 cm^-3. The broad absorption line variability
characteristics of this quasar are consistent with those observed in previous
studies of quasars, indicating that such short-term variability may in fact be
common and thus can be used to learn about outflow characteristics and
contributions to quasar/host-galaxy feedback scenarios.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Ultrafast Radiographic Imaging and Tracking: An overview of instruments, methods, data, and applications
Ultrafast radiographic imaging and tracking (U-RadIT) use state-of-the-art
ionizing particle and light sources to experimentally study sub-nanosecond
dynamic processes in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, materials science
and other fields. These processes, fundamental to nuclear fusion energy,
advanced manufacturing, green transportation and others, often involve one mole
or more atoms, and thus are challenging to compute by using the first
principles of quantum physics or other forward models. One of the central
problems in U-RadIT is to optimize information yield through, e.g.
high-luminosity X-ray and particle sources, efficient imaging and tracking
detectors, novel methods to collect data, and large-bandwidth online and
offline data processing, regulated by the underlying physics, statistics, and
computing power. We review and highlight recent progress in: a.) Detectors; b.)
U-RadIT modalities; c.) Data and algorithms; and d.) Applications.
Hardware-centric approaches to U-RadIT optimization are constrained by detector
material properties, low signal-to-noise ratio, high cost and long development
cycles of critical hardware components such as ASICs. Interpretation of
experimental data, including comparisons with forward models, is frequently
hindered by sparse measurements, model and measurement uncertainties, and
noise. Alternatively, U-RadIT makes increasing use of data science and machine
learning algorithms, including experimental implementations of compressed
sensing. Machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches, refined by
physics and materials information, may also contribute significantly to data
interpretation, uncertainty quantification and U-RadIT optimization.Comment: 51 pages, 31 figures; Overview of ultrafast radiographic imaging and
tracking as a part of ULITIMA 2023 conference, Mar. 13-16,2023, Menlo Park,
CA, US
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: First broad-line Hβ and Mg II lags at z ≳ 0.3 from six-month spectroscopy
Support for the work of Y.S. was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant number HST-HF-51314, awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. K.H. acknowledges support from UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant ST/M001296/1. C.J.G. and W.N.B. acknowledge support from NSF grant AST-1517113 and the V.M. Willaman Endowment. B.M.P. is grateful for support from the National Science Foundation through grant AST-1008882. K.D.D. is supported by an NSF AAPF fellowship awarded under NSF grant AST-1302093. J.R.T. acknowledges support from NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-51330 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555. M.S. acknowledges support from the China Scholarship Council (No. [2013]3009). L.C.H. is supported by the Chinese Academy of Science through grant No. XDB09030102 (Emergence of Cosmological Structures) from the strategic Priority Research Program, and from the National Natural Science Foundation of China through grant No. 11473002. L.J. acknowledges the support from a 985 project at Peking University. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.Reverberation mapping (RM) measurements of broad-line region (BLR) lags in z > 0.3 quasars are important for directly measuring black hole masses in these distant objects, but so far there have been limited attempts and success given the practical difficulties of RM in this regime. Here we report preliminary results of 15 BLR lag measurements from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project, a dedicated RM program with multi-object spectroscopy designed for RM over a wide redshift range. The lags are based on the 2014 spectroscopic light curves alone (32 epochs over six months) and focus on the Hβ and Mg II broad lines in the 100 lowest-redshift (z 0.3 is not yet possible owing to the limitations in our current sample. Our results demonstrate the general feasibility and potential of multi-object RM for z > 0.3 quasars.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project : systematic investigations of short-timescale CIV broad absorption line variability
We systematically investigate short-timescale (<10-day rest-frame) Civ broad absorption-line (BAL) variability to constrain quasar-wind properties and provide insights into BAL-variability mechanisms in quasars. We employ data taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project, as the rapid cadence of these observations provides a novel opportunity to probe BAL variability on shorter rest-frame timescales than have previously been explored. In a sample of 27 quasars with a median of 58 spectral epochs per quasar, we have identified 15 quasars (55+18−14%), 19 of37 Civ BAL troughs (51+15−12%), and 54 of 1460 epoch pairs (3.7±0.5%) that exhibit significant CivBAL equivalent-width variability on timescales of less than 10 days in the quasar rest frame. These frequencies indicate that such variability is common among quasars and BALs, though somewhat rare among epoch pairs. Thus, models describing BALs and their behavior must account for variability on timescales down to less than a day in the quasar rest frame. We also examine a variety of spectral characteristics and find that in some cases, BAL variability is best described by ionization-state changes, while other cases are more consistent with changes in covering fraction or column density. We adopt a simple model to constrain the density and radial distance of two outflows appearing to vary by ionization-state changes, yielding outflow density lower limits consistent with previous work.PostprintPeer reviewe
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the
scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a
larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys
of large scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as
i=19.9 over 10,000 square degrees to measure BAO to redshifts z<0.7.
Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Lyman alpha forest in more than 150,000
quasar spectra (g<22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15<z<3.5.
Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale
three-dimensional clustering of the Lyman alpha forest and a strong detection
from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive
galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield
measurements of the angular diameter distance D_A to an accuracy of 1.0% at
redshifts z=0.3 and z=0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the
same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyman alpha forest constraints predict a
measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate
D_A(z) and H^{-1}(z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z~2.5 when the survey
is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic
targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of
BOSS.Comment: 49 pages, 16 figures, accepted by A
The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic
data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data
release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median
z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar
spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra
were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009
December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which
determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and
metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in
temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates
for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars
presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed
as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2).
The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been
corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be
in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point
Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of
data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.Comment: 9 figures; 2 tables. Submitted to ApJS. DR9 is available at
http://www.sdss3.org/dr
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