7,128 research outputs found
No. 617 Stuart Ruckman
No full textTranscript (12, 40 pages) of two interviews by Matt Driscoll with Stuart Ruckman on April 9, 2010, and July 7, 2011Ruckman (b. 1966) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Stuart shares how his family, particularly his father, played a significant role in introducing him to the outdoors. Some of his initial explorations included a hike to the top of Mount Olympus when he was five years old, backpacking trips in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains, and a successful summit attempt on the Grand Teton when he was twelve. Stuart discovered technical rock climbing due to the influence of his older brother Bret, five years Stuart\u27s senior. Bret learned under Dennis Turville, a well-respected Salt Lake climbing instructor. Stuart shares his observations on the Salt Lake climbing community of the late 1970s and 1980s, noting the intimacy of the community, while also pointing out the significant influence of a handful of climbers, including Merrill Bitter, Les Ellison, and Brian Smoot. He briefly describes the proliferation of new-route development in the Wasatch during his first decade in climbing. In collaboration with his brother Bret, Stuart published comprehensive guidebooks on climbing in the Wasatch Mountains. Stuart\u27s contributions as a first-ascensionist and co-author of Rock Climbing the Wasatch Range attest to his lasting impact on Utah climbing. Interview is part of the Outdoor Recreation History Project. Interviewer: Matt Driscol
Pre-discovery observations of disrupting asteroid P/2010 A2
No full textSolar system object P/2010 A2 is the first-noticed example of the aftermath of a recently disrupted asteroid, probably resulting from a collision. Nearly a year elapsed between its inferred initiation in early 2009 and its eventual detection in early 2010. Here, we use new observations to assess the factors underlying the visibility, especially to understand the delayed discovery. We present pre-discovery observations from the LINEAR telescope and set limits to the early-time brightness from SOHO and STEREO satellite coronagraphic images. Consideration of the circumstances of discovery of P/2010 A2 suggests that similar objects must be common, and that future all-sky surveys will reveal them in large numbers.United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNH06ZDA001N)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (06-NEOO06-0001)United States. Air Force (Contract FA8721-05-C-0002
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Book Review: Planetary Crusts: Their Composition, Origin and Evolution, Stuart Ross Taylor, Scott M. McLennan
No full textBook Review: Planetary Crusts: Their Composition, Origin and Evolution, Stuart Ross Taylor, Scott M. McLennan. Cambridge University Press (2009).The Meteoritics & Planetary Science archives are made available by the Meteoritical Society and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform February 202
Where is the party? Explaining positions on same-sex marriage in Europe among would-be members of parliament
No full textThe rapid adoption of marriage equality legislation for non-heterosexual individuals in Europe is attributed to many factors, including dramatic shifts in public opinion, the work of transnational activists and changing international norms. Usually, these factors must be filtered through the halls of parliaments where most policy change happens. Given the importance of parliamentarians’ attitudes, it is surprising that we know so little about how attitudes towards same-sex marriage are distributed across political candidates in Europe and what factors shape them. This article fills that gap by using an underutilised dataset on the political preferences of candidates for parliamentary office. We find that beyond attachment to party families, a candidate’s religiosity and practice has a greater effect on a would-be Member of Parliament’s attitudes towards same-sex marriage. The findings suggest that the success of parliamentary action on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights depends not on the partisan composition of the legislature, but rather on the representation of secular candidates.</p
REVEALING THE NATURE OF EXTREME CORONAL-LINE EMITTER SDSS J095209.56+214313.3
No full textExtreme coronal-line emitter (ECLE) SDSS J095209.56+214313.3, known by its strong, fading, high-ionization lines, has been a long-standing candidate for a tidal disruption event; however, a supernova (SN) origin has not yet been ruled out. Here we add several new pieces of information to the puzzle of the nature of the transient that powered its variable coronal lines: (1) an optical light curve from the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey that serendipitously catches the optical flare, and (2) late-time observations of the host galaxy with the Swift Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) and X-ray telescope (XRT) and the ground-based Mercator telescope. The well-sampled, ~10 yr long, unfiltered LINEAR light curve constrains the onset of the flare to a precision of ±5 days and enables us to place a lower limit on the peak optical magnitude. Difference imaging allows us to estimate the location of the flare in proximity of the host galaxy core. Comparison of the GALEX data (early 2006) with the recently acquired Swift UVOT (2015 June) and Mercator observations (2015 April) demonstrates a decrease in the UV flux over a ~10 yr period, confirming that the flare was UV-bright. The long-lived UV-bright emission, detected 1.8 rest-frame years after the start of the flare, strongly disfavors an SN origin. These new data allow us to conclude that the flare was indeed powered by the tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole and that tidal disruption events are in fact capable of powering the enigmatic class of ECLEs
EXPLORING THE VARIABLE SKY WITH LINEAR. I. PHOTOMETRIC RECALIBRATION WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY
No full textWe describe photometric recalibration of data obtained by the asteroid survey LINEAR. Although LINEAR was designed for astrometric discovery of moving objects, the data set described here contains over 5 billion photometric measurements for about 25 million objects, mostly stars. We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data from the overlapping ~10,000 deg[superscript 2] of sky to recalibrate LINEAR photometry and achieve errors of 0.03 mag for sources not limited by photon statistics with errors of 0.2 mag at r ~ 18. With its 200 observations per object on average, LINEAR data provide time domain information for the brightest four magnitudes of the SDSS survey. At the same time, LINEAR extends the deepest similar wide-area variability survey, the Northern Sky Variability Survey, by 3 mag. We briefly discuss the properties of about 7000 visually confirmed periodic variables, dominated by roughly equal fractions of RR Lyrae stars and eclipsing binary stars, and analyze their distribution in optical and infrared color-color diagrams. The LINEAR data set is publicly available from the SkyDOT Web site
Redemption in the work of Francis Stuart
No full textThe idea of redemption is central to an understanding of the work
of Francis Stuart. Through an examination of its development and
expression, it is possible to demonstrate the integrity of his work and
its distinctive qualities. Such a demonstration is necessary because
Stuart's writing has been subjected to comparatively little scholarly
inquiry, although reviews of his work, especially that produced since
1949, suggest that it is impressive and important.
First, a general background to Stuart's work, a discussion of the
special problems associated with reading it, and a summary of his corpus
is provided. This indicates that the idea of redemption is important to
his earliest writing. The state of redemption is shown to be a
necessary apotheosis for Stuart's outcast heroes; it involves spiritual
suffering through which may be found a sense of reintegration and a
higher reality. This is expressed through interrelated themes such as
those of gambler, artist and ordinary man; mystic and criminal; sacred
and profane love; and spirituality and the mundane. The nature of the
redemptive experience is further elaborated by distinctive, complex
motifs, especially the hare, the ark and the woman-Christ. Their
recurrence provides an important element in the unity of Stuart's work.
Because Stuart's idea of the outcast raises important biographical
questions, an examination of the relationship between Stuart's life and
his work is made. Finally, the way in which the idea of redemption
exists in the language structures of Stuart's novels is examined, with
especial reference to his most recent work, The High Consistory. The
thesis shows that the development of the these of redemption
demonstrates the integrity of Stuart's work
James Harrington's prescription for Healing and Settling
No full text10 James Harrington's prescription for healing and settling Jonathan Scott James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) has been intermittently ..
CHARACTERIZING THE OPTICAL VARIABILITY OF BRIGHT BLAZARS: VARIABILITY-BASED SELECTION OF FERMI ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI
No full textWe investigate the use of optical photometric variability to select and identify blazars in large-scale time-domain surveys, in part to aid in the identification of blazar counterparts to the ~30% of γ-ray sources in the Fermi 2FGL catalog still lacking reliable associations. Using data from the optical LINEAR asteroid survey, we characterize the optical variability of blazars by fitting a damped random walk model to individual light curves with two main model parameters, the characteristic timescales of variability τ, and driving amplitudes on short timescales [^ over σ]. Imposing cuts on minimum τ and [^ over σ] allows for blazar selection with high efficiency E and completeness C. To test the efficacy of this approach, we apply this method to optically variable LINEAR objects that fall within the several-arcminute error ellipses of γ-ray sources in the Fermi 2FGL catalog. Despite the extreme stellar contamination at the shallow depth of the LINEAR survey, we are able to recover previously associated optical counterparts to Fermi active galactic nuclei with E ≥ 88% and C = 88% in Fermi 95% confidence error ellipses having semimajor axis r < 8'. We find that the suggested radio counterpart to Fermi source 2FGL J1649.6+5238 has optical variability consistent with other γ-ray blazars and is likely to be the γ-ray source. Our results suggest that the variability of the non-thermal jet emission in blazars is stochastic in nature, with unique variability properties due to the effects of relativistic beaming. After correcting for beaming, we estimate that the characteristic timescale of blazar variability is ~3 years in the rest frame of the jet, in contrast with the ~320 day disk flux timescale observed in quasars. The variability-based selection method presented will be useful for blazar identification in time-domain optical surveys and is also a probe of jet physics
John Stuart Mill’s projected science of society: 1827-1848
No full textThe purpose of the thesis is to examine John Stuart Mill’s political thought from
about 1827 to 1848 as an exercise in intellectual history. It focuses, first, on Mill’s view,
formulated by the late 1830s, that contemporary society was ‘civilized’, and second, on
his project of a science of society, which he aspired to develop in the late 1830s and
early 1840s.
By the late 1830s, Mill came to the view that his contemporary society was a
‘commercial society or civilization’, dominated by the middle, commercial class. The
first part of my thesis, constituted by Chapters 2-4, discusses the way in which Mill
formed his notion of civilization, and what he meant by the term ‘civilization’. Mill paid
attention to the implications of the rise of the middle class, and regarded such
phenomena of contemporary society as the corruption of the commercial spirit and
excessive social conformity as an inevitable consequence of the rise of the middle class.
The second part of the thesis, constituted by Chapters 5-9, examines Mill’s
projected science of society. In the late 1830s and early 1840s, Mill attempted to
develop a new science of society whose subject-matter was the nature and prospects of
commercial, civilized society. This aspiration culminated in A System of Logic,
published in 1843. In examining Mill’s projected science, I pay particular attention to
the fact that he conceived new sciences of history and of the formation of character,
both of which were indispensable in his project, although he failed to give a complete
account of these sciences. My thesis shows that the implications of his interest both in
history and in the formation of character are more significant than Mill scholars have
assumed
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