Analysis of the thin layer of Galactic warm ionized gas in the range 20 < l < 30 deg, -1.5 < b < +1.5 deg

We present an analysis of the thin layer of Galactic warm ionized gas at an angular resolution ~ 10'. This is carried out using radio continuum data at 1.4 GHz, 2.7 GHz and 5 GHz in the coordinate region 20 < l < 30 deg, -1.5 < b < +1.5 deg. For this purpose, we evaluate the zero level of the 2.7 and 5 GHz surveys using auxiliary data at 2.3 GHz and 408 MHz. The derived zero level corrections are T_{zero}(2.7 GHz)=0.15 +/- 0.06 K and T_{zero}(5 GHz)=0.1 +/- 0.05 K. We separate the thermal (free-free) and non-thermal (synchrotron) component by means of a spectral analysis performed adopting an antenna temperature spectral index -2.1 for the free-free emission, a realistic spatial distribution of indices for the synchrotron radiation and by fitting, pixel-by-pixel, the Galactic spectral index. We find that at 5 GHz, for |b| = 0 deg, the fraction of thermal emission reaches a maximum value of 82%, while at 1.4 GHz, the corresponding value is 68%. In addition, for the thermal emission, the analysis indicates a dominant contribution of the diffuse component relative to the source component associated with discrete HII regions.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted to MNRA

Spectral Index of the Diffuse Radio Background Measured From 100 to 200 MHz

The mean absolute brightness temperature of the diffuse radio background was measured as a function of frequency in a continuous band between 100 and 200 MHz over an effective solid angle of ~pi str at high Galactic latitude. A spectral brightness temperature index of beta = 2.5 +/- 0.1 (alpha_s = 0.5) was derived from the observations, where the error limits are 3-sigma and include estimates of the instrumental systematics. Zenith drift scans with central declinations of -26.5 degrees and spanning right ascensions 0 to 10 hours yielded little variation in the mean spectral index. The mean absolute brightness temperature at 150 MHz was found to reach a minimum of T = 237 +/- 10 K at a right ascension of 2.5 hours. Combining these measurements with those of Haslam et al. 1982 yields a spectral index of beta = 2.52 +/- 0.04 between 150 and 408 MHz.Comment: 8 pages including 7 figures and 4 tables. Accepted by A

A model of diffuse Galactic Radio Emission from 10 MHz to 100 GHz

Understanding diffuse Galactic radio emission is interesting both in its own right and for minimizing foreground contamination of cosmological measurements. Cosmic Microwave Background experiments have focused on frequencies > 10 GHz, whereas 21 cm tomography of the high redshift universe will mainly focus on < 0.2 GHz, for which less is currently known about Galactic emission. Motivated by this, we present a global sky model derived from all publicly available total power large-area radio surveys, digitized with optical character recognition when necessary and compiled into a uniform format, as well as the new Villa Elisa data extending the 1.4 GHz map to the entire sky. We quantify statistical and systematic uncertainties in these surveys by comparing them with various global multi-frequency model fits. We find that a principal component based model with only three components can fit the 11 most accurate data sets (at 10, 22, 45 & 408 MHz and 1.4, 2.3, 23, 33, 41, 61, 94 GHz) to an accuracy around 1%-10% depending on frequency and sky region. Both our data compilation and our software returning a predicted all-sky map at any frequency from 10 MHz to 100 GHz are publicly available at http://space.mit.edu/home/angelica/gsm .Comment: Accuracy improved with 5-year WMAP data. Our data, software and new foreground-cleaned WMAP map are available at https://ascl.net/1011.01

Diamphotoxin: the arrow poison of the Kung bushmen

Purification de la diamphotoxine et étude de ses caractéristiques pharmacologiques et biochimiques

Optimized in-flight absolute calibration for extended CMB surveys

Accurate measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy call for high precision and reliability of the in-flight calibration. For extended surveys the CMB dipole provides an excellent calibration source at frequencies lower than 200 GHz; however poorly known foreground emissions, such as diffuse galactic components, complicate the signal and introduce a systematic error in the calibration. We show that introducing a weight function that takes into account the uncertainty in the a priori knowledge of the sky, allows us to substantially improve the calibration accuracy with respect to methods involving galactic latitude cuts. This new method is tested for Planck-LFI radiometers at 30 and 100 GHz. On short time scales (less than 1 day) the absolute calibration of each channel can be recovered with an overall 1-2% accuracy. We also consider the effect of CMB anisotropy itself on the calibration, and find that knowledge of the CMB pattern on large scales is needed to keep the short-time scale calibration accuracy within 1%Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures, accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysic

Conceptualising and representing sex and gender diversity in sex education material in the context of disability: The TRASE Word Bank

Conceptualising and representing sex and gender diversity in sex education material in the context of disability: The TRASE Word Bank According to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD, 2006), people with disabilities are entitled to respect for privacy (Art. 22), home and family (Art. 23) and education (Art. 24), including sex education. Considering the ideological and structural impediments to sexuality and reproduction (cf. Löfgren-Mårtenson, 2014; Desjardins, 2012) and the high risk of experiencing sexual violence people with intellectual disabilities face, appropriate sex education takes on a pivotal role in safeguarding a self-determined sexuality and the right to reproduction. From Sept. 2015 to Aug. 2017, the University of Luxembourg was involved in the transnational and interdisciplinary ERASMUS Plus project “Training in Sex Education for People with Disabilities” (TRASE). The objective of this follow-up project to the Grundtvig-funded SEAD project was to design a course sensitive to cultural, national and institutional conditions to train professional carers of people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities to talk about sexuality and to acknowledge the sexual and reproductive rights of their clients. The 13-module-course includes revisions and the development of new tools that are altogether accessible to a broad range of people with learning, intellectual, cognitive and communication difficulties and devised to facilitate communication on issues regarding sexuality. One of the major questions for revising existing or devising new tools, respectively, was how to conceptualise and represent human diversity featuring in contemporary Western societies, hence avoiding that people with intellectual disabilities, who cannot or do not want to follow conservative sexual and gender norms are rendered ever more vulnerable. The TRASE Word Bank draws upon social constructionist and deconstructionist theories of gender and sexuality (e.g. Garfinkel, 1967; Weeks, 1989; Butler, 1990; 1997; Hirschauer, 1994; 1999; Cromwell, 1999; Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Schirmer, 2010) and critical race and intersectional theories (e.g. Crenshaw, 1989). Methodologically, it severs gender from morphology and bases gender on self-definition instead, whilst continuing to acknowledge common genders; presents a variety of body parts in a non-polarising way in its pictograms; uses gender-neutral terminology to describe sexualised body parts; addresses a host of sexual arrangements; devotes equal attention to reproduction and contraception, hence avoiding the widespread notion that people with disabilities cannot or should not reproduce (cf. Siebers, 2012) and presents humans in a non-racialised way. As a result, the TRASE Word Bank attempts to enable people with intellectual and learning disabilities with basic reading competency or who can read with assistance to understand that human sexualities, bodies and genders are diverse, to become aware of sexual options that best suit their individual personalities, to learn to accept themselves as unconventional men, unusual women, trans, non-binary or intersex people, to reinforce their right to decide responsibly on issues relating to reproduction and to learn to respect human diversity. The Trase project home page is available at: https://www.traseproject.co