Photometric and kinematical study of nearby groups of galaxies around IC 65 and NGC 6962

We discuss the structure, galaxy content and kinematics of a sparse, probably collapsing group around IC 65 and an evolved rich group around NGC 6962Comment: Poster contribution on 2 pages with 2 figures to be published in ESO Astrophysics Symposia: "Groups of Galaxies in the Nearby Universe", eds. I. Saviane, V. Ivanov, J. Borissov

Testing of the dwarf galaxy content and the evolutionary status of nearby groups of galaxies

We carried out visual and parametric searches for dwarf galaxies in five loose groups of galaxies. Follow-up spectroscopy with the HET has shown a 50% success rate of morphological selection. The evolutionary status of the studied groups differs: while the NGC 6962 group has a partially relaxed core, surrounded by an infall region, the NGC 5005/5033 group and the IC 65 group, which consist only of late-type galaxies, are probably still assembling.Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Astronomische Nachrichten (proceedings of Symposium 6 of the JENAM 2008, Vienna

Star Formation and Substructure in Galaxy Clusters

We investigate the relationship between star formation (SF) and substructure in a sample of 107 nearby galaxy clusters using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Several past studies of individual galaxy clusters have suggested that cluster mergers enhance cluster SF, while others find no such relationship. The SF fraction in multi-component clusters (0.228 +/- 0.007) is higher than that in single-component clusters (0.175 +/- 0.016) for galaxies with M^0.1_r < -20.5. In both single- and multi-component clusters, the fraction of star-forming galaxies increases with clustercentric distance and decreases with local galaxy number density, and multi-component clusters show a higher SF fraction than single-component clusters at almost all clustercentric distances and local densities. Comparing the SF fraction in individual clusters to several statistical measures of substructure, we find weak, but in most cases significant at greater than 2 sigma, correlations between substructure and SF fraction. These results could indicate that cluster mergers may cause weak but significant SF enhancement in clusters, or unrelaxed clusters exhibit slightly stronger SF due to their less evolved states relative to relaxed clusters.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Värbamine ja valik sihtasutuses Noored Kooli

The topic of my thesis is “Recruitment and Selection in SA Noored Kooli”. The aim of my thesis is to analyze the recruitment and selection strategies, messages and reception by candidates in SA Noored Kooli. As an important part of the message, I pay special attention to the “Ideal Candidate Profile” as seen by both experts of the organization and by candidates themselves. SA Noored Kooli was founded in Estonia in 2006, following the example of a similar organization in USA – Teach For America founded sixteen years earlier. The mission of the organization is to decrease educational limitations so that each child could get excellent education. The programme aims to recruit the most successful recent college graduates that show significant leadership abilities. The corps members teach in schools for two years. Meanwhile the program offers them leadership- and teacher-training to further increase their impact to the educational field. Similar programs have been founded all over the world. For Noored Kooli the quality and motivation of corps members is the most important factor of success, meaning recruitment is one of the most important processes in the organization. The theoretical frame of the thesis is built on theorists’ work including Luhmann, Habermas, Parsons and Lasswell. In my thesis I give an overview of their views on concepts like system, communication and education as my work is mainly concerned with recruitment as an communicative process within the educational field. Additionally, I place the organization Noored Kooli within the framework of social marketing as seen by Lefebvre, Andreasen and Smith. In the empirical part of the work I give a brief overview of the main recruitment theories and the basis of recruitment in Noored Kooli as well as Teach For America. Both the education and the programme Noored Kooli can be seen as systems. Luhmann (2009) finds that a system is defined by communications that include or exclude elements to the specific system, therefore opposing itself to the environment. The aim of communication according to Luhmann (2009) is to result in a desired change in receiver. Bourdieu (2003) describes terms like “field” and “habitus”, that help us better understand how and why an individual acts as it does. The communication model and functions described by Lasswell’s (2007) views are a good addition to the works of Luhmann and Bourdieu. Lasswell believes that in addition to monitoring the environment, the main functions of communication is creating the correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment and transmission of social heritage from one generation to another. Luhmann (2009) sees education as an intended and systematic process with results that are difficult to prognose in the long timeframe. Bourdieu (2003) describes it as a way of regenerating the current social pattern, meaning that through education the hierarchy of society is formed. Similarly, Lasswell (2007) sees school as a place to spread the myths and ideas of society. Luhmann (2009) finds that most educational problems are actually problems of communication. The communication of SA Noored Kooli can be seen as social marketing. Noored Kooli uses tools normally used in marketing to convince people to apply to become a corps member. Teacher’s profession in Estonia is not very prestigious among youth, meaning that the values and views have to be changed in order to evoke desired action. The subject of social marketing regarding the project Noored Kooli is teacher’s profession and other education-related positions. Lefebvre’s (via Schwartz 2010), Andreasen’s (1997) and Smith’s (1997) approaches to social marketing are to some extent different: Andreasen and Smith see social marketing and its goals above all at the level of individual, while Lefebvre emphasizes long-term changes in the values of social groups. Andreasen and Smith have emphasized that the aim of social marketing is a change in behavior after which the target group starts acting in the “right” way. Lefebvre describes the change of action as a process and the journey to it more important than the change itself. In my thesis I rely on the named theories and describe social marketing as an action with a goal to change the group’s values so that they would act in a desired and socially useful way, offering them different benefits in return. Classical marketing principles are being used and different leadership processes modelled. In the center of current thesis is the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli. Barber (1998:5) has defined recruitment as organization’s practices and actions with the main aim to identify and create interest in potential workers. Similar definitions have been used by Harris & Lasson (2003) and Rynes (1991, via Barber 1998). The process of recruitment can be divided into four stages (Breaugh and Strake 2000): firstly, the purpose of recruitment needs to be set, then a strategy has to be elaborated, recruitment and the selection of the best candidates has to be done and lastly, the results of recruitment need to be analyzed. The process is influenced by different factors such as candidate’s attention and understanding, importance of the message and its suitability to the candidate, general attractiveness of the organization, offered benefits, the realistic perception, knowledge, skills, abilities and needs of the candidate. Thus, the process can be analyzed by both the viewpoint of organization and the recruited- in my work I have done both. To analyze the comprehension of the candidates I carried out two semi-structured interviews with 18 people who had gone through the first application round. The first interview took place before the selection workshop where candidates needed to present a 7 minutes long sample lesson and participate in a group work and a self-analyzing interview. The second interview was conducted not later than 3 days after participating in the selection workshop. The aim of interviewing a person twice was to observe if the sense and motivation during the selection changes or not. The participants were chosen by the principles of constructing a strategic sampling: all candidates had the homogenous feature of applying for the programme Noored Kooli and the heterogeneous feature, e.g. sex (14 female, 4 male), field of study and university, subject to be taught through the programme. To analyze the recruitment from the perspective of organization, I conducted a double-interview with the head of recruitment- and communication and the head of selection- and alumnus-programme. In the analysis I used comparisons with Teach For America and Teach First programmes and the information found in public communication materials of the project Noored Kooli. While analyzing the interviews, it occurred that SA Noored Kooli wants to introduce two main ideas to the candidates. Firstly, candidates should see an opportunity of personal development and secondly, the chance to contribute to society and education. The candidates’ descriptions of motivation showed similar goals. They were interested in the training programme, internationality, possibility to improve the situation of educational system and chance to experience working as a teacher during a specific period without having a corresponding education. Many candidates had been motivated by their friends who had already participated in the programme and described it as challenging but also giving good experience and satisfaction. The candidates described the programme as the most preferable of all available job offers. Personal contacts (including the participation in the programme’s informational gathering) were considered to be the most important channel for gaining useful information. During the recruitment process candidates were motivated by the contacts with participants and crew members of the programme. Some candidates were therefore motivated by participating in the selection workshop. However, others admitted that during the long selection their eagerness decreased. The experts of school pointed out that their analysis have shown that personal communication is the most effective way to find good candidates. Noored Kooli experts say the most important channels of forwarding information are linked to university. Information about the programme is shared through student organizations, social media channels, e-mail lists and student publications. The recommendation for possible participants is also asked from lecturers. Candidates gained information from the programme’s website, participants’ blogs and Facebook page. A number of candidates had heard of the programme from media or noticed the flyers in the university. In many cases, the candidates admitted to have thought of participating in previous years, but not having met the criteria and therefore needed to wait. A good candidate is expected to have good academic results, be socially active or have a leadership experience and the wish to contribute to the educational field. In the process of election, candidates’ suitability with the programme’s competence model is valued as well. The important competences are orientation to achievement, effective scheduling, endurance of stress, ability to work in a team, ability to motivate and influence others, and logical thinking. The candidates need to share the main values of the organization, i.e. caring, hope in the possible changes, constant learning and the courage to take responsibility. Candidates’ view of the ideal candidate profile was similar to the one described by experts. They similarly pointed out good academic results, social activeness, communication- and teamwork skills. During the election candidates understood the importance of coping with stress, flexibility and effective planning. When describing themselves, the candidates pointed out the same characteristics that were expected from a good candidate and considered themselves well applicable. Most of the candidates felt the same after participating in the selection workshop and only few of them thought that they might not be suitable for the programme, since the selection workshop did not go as well as hoped. The experts told that the objective of recruitment period was to find 25 participants for the programme.172 applications were hoped to be received in the first round. Actually, the number of applications was smaller and 23 participants were found. To find suitable people, the places where youth with excellent academic, professional or social activity were most likely to be found, were seeked. Then they are given information about the programme and convinced to apply for the programme. At the same time, they are evaluated to see if they have the characteristics of a suitable participant. In the first round, the candidates need to submit a written application, in the next round selection workshops consisting of a short sample lesson, group-work and feedback interview takes place. After the selection workshop, youth will pass the professional personality test (OPQ test) and a test of specialized knowledge, if needed. All parts of the selection process have the function of helping to ascertain the characteristics of a good candidate as described before. The subject field of recruitment communication undoubtedly offers many opportunities for the researchers to analyze the practice of finding new employees for different organizations. In my thesis, I analyze the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli by a quantitative model, examining above all the organization’s recruitment and selection strategy and possible comprehension of potential participants about the organization and recruitment process. Studying recruitment communication offers very different research issues. For example, it is possible to examine one stage of recruitment, to analyze quantitatively the connections of recruitment process and the results of it, etc. The subject field and also the activity of SA Noored Kooli surely deserves more thorough examination in the future.http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2612122~S1*es

Structure and Star Formation in NGC 925

We present the results from an optical study of the stellar & star formation properties of NGC 925 using the WIYN 3.5m telescope. Images in B,V,R, & H-alpha reveal a galaxy that is fraught with asymmetries. From isophote fits we discover that the bar center is not coincident with the center of the outer isophotes nor with the dynamical center (from Pisano et al. 1998). Cuts across the spiral arms reveal that the northern arms are distinctly different from the southern arm. The southern arm not only appears more coherent, but the peaks in stellar and H-alpha emission are found to be coincident with those of the HI distribution, while no such consistency is present in the northern disk. We also examine the gas surface density criterion for massive star formation in NGC 925, and find that its behavior is more consistent with that for irregular galaxies, than with late-type spirals. In particular, star formation persists beyond the radius at which the gas surface density falls below the predicted critical value for star formation for late-type spirals. Such properties are characteristic of Magellanic spirals, but are present at a less dramatic level in NGC 925, a late-type spiral.Comment: accepted for publication in the August 2000 Astronomical Journal 12 pages, 3 tables, 14 figure

Spectroscopic and photometric studies of low-metallicity star-forming dwarf galaxies. I. SBS 1129+576

Spectroscopy and V,I CCD photometry of the dwarf irregular galaxy SBS 1129+576 are presented for the first time. The CCD images reveal a chain of compact H II regions within the elongated low-surface-brightness (LSB) component of the galaxy. Star formation takes place mainly in two high-surface-brightness H II regions. The mean (V-I) colour of the LSB component in the surface brightness interval between 23 and 26 mag/sq.arcsec is relatively blue ~0.56+/-0.03 mag, as compared to the (V-I)~0.9-1.0 for the majority of known dwarf irregular and blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxies. Spectroscopy shows that the galaxy is among the most metal-deficient galaxies with an oxygen abundance 12+log(O/H)= 7.36+/-0.10 in the brightest H II region and 7.48+/-0.12 in the second brightest H II region, or 1/36 and 1/28 of the solar value, respectively. Hbeta and Halpha emission lines and Hdelta and Hgamma absorption lines are detected in a large part of the LSB component. We use two extinction-insensitive methods based on the equivalent widths of (1) emission and (2) absorption Balmer lines to put constraints on the age of the stellar populations in the galaxy. In addition, we use two extinction-dependent methods based on (3) the spectral energy distribution (SED) and (4) the (V-I) colour. The observed properties of the LSB component can be reproduced by a stellar population forming continuously since 10 Gyr ago, provided that the star formation rate has increased during the last 100 Myr by a factor of 6 to 50 and no extinction is present. However, the observational properties of the LSB component can be reproduced equally well by continuous star formation which started not earlier than 100 Myr ago and stopped at 5 Myr, if some extinction is assumed.(Abridged)Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, Accepted for publication in A&

Photometric study of the IC 65 group of galaxies

We carry out a photometric study of a poor group of late-type galaxies around IC 65, with the aim: (a) to search for new dwarf members and to measure their photometric characteristics; (b) to search for possible effects of mutual interactions on the morphology and star-formation characteristics of luminous and faint group members; (c) to evaluate the evolutionary status of this particular group. We make use of our BRI CCD observations, DPOSS blue and red frames, and the 2MASS JHK frames. In addition, we use the HI imaging data, the far-infrared and radio data from the literature. Search for dwarf galaxies is made using the SExtractor software. Detailed surface photometry is performed with the MIDAS package. Four LSB galaxies were classified as probable dwarf members of the group and the BRI physical and model parameters were derived for the first time for all true and probable group members. Newly found dIrr galaxies around the IC 65 contain a number of H II regions, which show a range of ages and propagating star-formation. Mildly disturbed gaseous and/or stellar morphology is found in several group members. Various structural, dynamical, and star-forming characteristics let us conclude that the IC 65 group is a typical poor assembly of late-type galaxies at an early stage of its dynamical evolution with some evidence of intragroup (tidal) interactions.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to A&

Surface photometry of new nearby dwarf galaxies

We present CCD surface photometry of 16 nearby dwarf galaxies, many of which were only recently discovered. Our sample comprises both isolated galaxies and galaxies that are members of nearby galaxy groups. The observations were obtained in the Johnson B and V bands (and in some cases in Kron-Cousins I). We derive surface brightness profiles, total magnitudes, and integrated colors. For the 11 galaxies in our sample with distance estimates the absolute B magnitudes lie in the range of -10>Mb>-13. The central surface brightness ranges from 22.5 to 27.0 mag/sq.arcsec. Most of the dwarf galaxies show exponential light profiles with or without a central light depression. Integrated radial color gradients, where present, appear to indicate a more centrally concentrated younger population and a more extended older population.Comment: accepted by A&