Resisting “Dirty Business”: Report from the Field of Social Exclusion in the Czech Republic

Before 1989-90, all housing in the Czech Republic de facto owned by the state was social in some sense. After 1990, rather than promoting social housing, the state largely decentralized, deregulated and privatized it, creating fertile ground for “a market of the poor”, and opening it to the predatory practices of the real estate entrepreneurs

American dream, Humboldtian nightmare: Reflections on the remodelled values of a neoliberalized academia

While universities now lie between two philosophical poles – idealism and utilitarianism – the Humboldtian ideal primarily serves to give a humanist glaze to a technocratic discourse. Regardless of its autonomy on paper, the University does not control its finances. This guise of autonomy has set a double authoritarian heteronomy of the university: from increased administrative supervision and from market control. While the current debate is strongly permeated by the idea that we should simultaneously compete with and copy the model of elite US universities, this article presents reflections on how detached from Humboldtian ideals we now are, explores the consequences of that transformational logic and encourages debate through critical distance

Taking the gilt off the gingerbread: Reverberations of the metrics cult (ure) on the theory of social representations

There is a prevailing view that the university is transforming into an economic agent, with broad and troubling implications for scholars’ future prospects. While some studies were devoted to the academic world considering its organizational approaches centered on the rationalization of universities, it is important to devote some focus to the ways these changes translate in specific cases of universities’ knowledge production. It is to the description of a particular case of theory diffusion necessarily embedded within the academic world it emerged out of, developed in and still matures in, that this work will be giving priority—the case of the Theory of Social Representations. Since Serge Moscovici’s 1961 seminal study of social representations (Moscovici, 1961), the theory was developed through different theoretical and methodological approaches, conceptualized through various models, and most importantly widely adopted all over the world by scholars of diverse disciplinary perspectives working in a variety of thematic fields. But the theoretical polarity between the transdisciplinary Theory of Social Representations and “mainstream Social Psychology” is reflected through an ongoing world debate, although largely held within the circles of European social psychologists. The stakes of these internal debates are high: an integral redefinition of the discipline, of social sciences, and of knowledge diffusion. Even though the theoretical core of Moscovici’s theory is an undoubtedly valuable contribution to the social sciences, its methodological incompatibilities with “what sells” leaves it structurally ostracized, and its potential unfulfilled. This article examines the interplay of European tradition, its disciplinary legacy, and market-oriented trends which have undoubtedly impacted the developmental paths the Theory has followed

Attenuation modified by DIG and dust as seen in M31

The spatial distribution of dust in galaxies affects the global attenuation, and hence inferred properties, of galaxies. We trace the spatial distribution of dust in five fields (at 0.6-0.9 kpc scale) of M31 by comparing optical attenuation with the total dust mass distribution. We measure the attenuation from the Balmer decrement using Integral Field Spectroscopy and the dust mass from Herschel far-IR observations. Our results show that M31's dust attenuation closely follows a foreground screen model, contrary to what was previously found in other nearby galaxies. By smoothing the M31 data we find that spatial resolution is not the cause for this difference. Based on the emission line ratios and two simple models, we conclude that previous models of dust/gas geometry need to include a weakly or non-attenuated diffuse ionized gas (DIG) component. Due to the variation of dust and DIG scale heights with galactic radius, we conclude that different locations in galaxies will have different vertical distributions of gas and dust and therefore different measured attenuation. The difference between our result in M31 with that found in other nearby galaxies can be explained by our fields in M31 lying at larger galactic radii than the previous studies that focused on the centres of galaxies.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, ApJ accepted and in pres

The EMPIRE Survey: Systematic Variations in the Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency from Full-Disk Mapping of M51

We present the first results from the EMPIRE survey, an IRAM large program that is mapping tracers of high density molecular gas across the disks of nine nearby star-forming galaxies. Here, we present new maps of the 3-mm transitions of HCN, HCO+, and HNC across the whole disk of our pilot target, M51. As expected, dense gas correlates with tracers of recent star formation, filling the "luminosity gap" between Galactic cores and whole galaxies. In detail, we show that both the fraction of gas that is dense, f_dense traced by HCN/CO, and the rate at which dense gas forms stars, SFE_dense traced by IR/HCN, depend on environment in the galaxy. The sense of the dependence is that high surface density, high molecular gas fraction regions of the galaxy show high dense gas fractions and low dense gas star formation efficiencies. This agrees with recent results for individual pointings by Usero et al. 2015 but using unbiased whole-galaxy maps. It also agrees qualitatively with the behavior observed contrasting our own Solar Neighborhood with the central regions of the Milky Way. The sense of the trends can be explained if the dense gas fraction tracks interstellar pressure but star formation occurs only in regions of high density contrast.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, ApJL accepte

GASP XXX. The spatially resolved SFR-Mass relation in stripping galaxies in the local universe

The study of the spatially resolved Star Formation Rate-Mass (Sigma_SFR-Sigma_M) relation gives important insights on how galaxies assemble at different spatial scales. Here we present the analysis of the Sigma_SFR-Sigma_M of 40 local cluster galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping drawn from the GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies (GASP) sample. Considering their integrated properties, these galaxies show a SFR enhancement with respect to undisturbed galaxies of similar stellar mass; we now exploit spatially resolved data to investigate the origin and location of the excess. Even on ~1kpc scales, stripping galaxies present a systematic enhancement of Sigma_SFR (~0.35 dex at Sigma_M =108^M_sun/kpc^2) at any given Sigma_M compared to their undisturbed counterparts. The excess is independent on the degree of stripping and of the amount of star formation in the tails and it is visible at all galactocentric distances within the disks, suggesting that the star formation is most likely induced by compression waves from ram pressure. Such excess is larger for less massive galaxies and decreases with increasing mass. As stripping galaxies are characterised by ionised gas beyond the stellar disk, we also investigate the properties of 411 star forming clumps found in the galaxy tails. At any given stellar mass density, these clumps are systematically forming stars at a higher rate than in the disk, but differences are reconciled when we just consider the mass formed in the last few 10^8yr ago, suggesting that on these timescales the local mode of star formation is similar in the tails and in the disks.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Ap