International students as urban agents: International education and urban transformation in Auckland,New Zealand

This paper discusses connections between the internationalisation of education, and in particular the growth in international students, and processes of urban transformation. The research is centred in Auckland, New Zealand, a city where the number of international students has grown rapidly over the last decade leading to significant impacts on the urban form and experience of the city’s CBD. This includes growth in educational services such as language schools and other private training establishments, new residential geographies characterised by low-cost and low-quality high-rise developments, and new ethnic economies of food, service and entertainment businesses that explicitly target international students. The paper draws on research with South Korean international students and a range of secondary materials to interrogate the connections between student mobilities and changing urban form. In doing so the paper contributes to emerging scholarship on student geographies and the role of students as urban agents through the inclusion of an international dimension that has largely been absent in the extant literature. The findings illustrate that while international students themselves clearly play a significant role in the transformation of urban spaces their influence cannot easily be separated from the contribution of a range of other actors including educational businesses, property developers, transnational migrants and local and national state actors.     

The early impact histories of meteorite parent bodies

We have developed a statistical framework that uses collisional evolution models, shock physics modeling, and scaling laws to determine the range of plausible collisional histories for individual meteorite parent bodies. It is likely that those parent bodies that were not catastrophically disrupted sustained hundreds of impacts on their surfaces—compacting, heating, and mixing the outer layers; it is highly unlikely that many parent bodies escaped without any impacts processing the outer few kilometers. The first 10–20 Myr were the most important time for impacts, both in terms of the number of impacts and the increase of specific internal energy due to impacts. The model has been applied to evaluate the proposed impact histories of several meteorite parent bodies: up to 10 parent bodies that were not disrupted in the first 100 Myr experienced a vaporizing collision of the type necessary to produce the metal inclusions and chondrules on the CB chondrite parent; around 1–5% of bodies that were catastrophically disrupted after 12 Myr sustained impacts at times that match the heating events recorded on the IAB/winonaite parent body; more than 75% of 100 km radius parent bodies, which survived past 100 Myr without being disrupted, sustained an impact that excavates to the depth required for mixing in the outer layers of the H‐chondrite parent body; and to protect the magnetic field on the CV chondrite parent body, the crust would have had to have been thick (approximately 20 km) to prevent it being punctured by impacts.     

Reliability of multi-model and structurally different single-model ensembles

The performance of several state-of-the-art climate model ensembles, including two multi-model ensembles (MMEs) and four structurally different (perturbed parameter) single model ensembles (SMEs), are investigated for the first time using the rank histogram approach. In this method, the reliability of a model ensemble is evaluated from the point of view of whether the observations can be regarded as being sampled from the ensemble. Our analysis reveals that, in the MMEs, the climate variables we investigated are broadly reliable on the global scale, with a tendency towards overdispersion. On the other hand, in the SMEs, the reliability differs depending on the ensemble and variable field considered. In general, the mean state and historical trend of surface air temperature, and mean state of precipitation are reliable in the SMEs. However, variables such as sea level pressure or top-of-atmosphere clear-sky shortwave radiation do not cover a sufficiently wide range in some. It is not possible to assess whether this is a fundamental feature of SMEs generated with particular model, or a consequence of the algorithm used to select and perturb the values of the parameters. As under-dispersion is a potentially more serious issue when using ensembles to make projections, we recommend the application of rank histograms to assess reliability when designing and running perturbed physics SMEs.     

The production of unequal risk in hazardscapes: An explanatory frame applied to disaster at the US–Mexico border

This paper advances understanding of how unequal risks to environmental hazards are generated. Marginalization is the best known explanation for the production of risk. The concept of marginalization was elaborated through studies of hazards in the global South and connotes how social inequalities constrain livelihood options of less powerful social groups. Thus, marginal groups are pressured to degrade landscapes and occupy hazardous environments while they experience decreased capacities to cope with environmental change. This paper directs analytical attention beyond the material to include the discursive realm and demonstrates that the production of unequal risk is contingent upon how hazards are differentially perceived, represented, and contested in social spaces. Findings from a flood disaster case study in the El Paso (US)–Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) border metropolis highlight how hegemonic discourses reinforce material processes of marginalization in flood-prone social spaces. Findings also reveal how socially-powerful geographical groups of people have harnessed institutional resources in their efforts to externalize risks and capitalize on environmental opportunities in some flood-prone areas. The concept of facilitation is used to explain the material-discursive production of socially-elite, flood-prone spaces. Facilitation clarifies how powerful groups are provided privileged access to institutional resources in their pursuit of environmental rewards, contributing to unjust socioenvironmental outcomes. In conclusion, I outline key aspects of how unequal risks are materially and discursively (re)produced within hazardscapes through relational processes of marginalization/facilitation.     

The XMM Cluster Survey: forecasting cosmological and cluster scaling-relation parameter constraints

We forecast the constraints on the values of  σ₈, Ω_m  and cluster scaling-relation parameters which we expect to obtain from the XMM Cluster Survey (XCS). We assume a flat Λ cold dark matter Universe and perform a Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis of the evolution of the number density of galaxy clusters that takes into account a detailed simulated selection function. Comparing our current observed number of clusters shows good agreement with predictions. We determine the expected degradation of the constraints as a result of self-calibrating the luminosity–temperature relation (with scatter), including temperature measurement errors, and relying on photometric methods for the estimation of galaxy cluster redshifts. We examine the effects of systematic errors in scaling relation and measurement error assumptions. Using only  ( T , z )  self-calibration, we expect to measure Ω_m to ±0.03 (and  Ω_Λ  to the same accuracy assuming flatness), and σ₈ to ±0.05, also constraining the normalization and slope of the luminosity–temperature relation to ±6 and ±13 per cent (at 1σ), respectively, in the process. Self-calibration fails to jointly constrain the scatter and redshift evolution of the luminosity–temperature relation significantly. Additional archival and/or follow-up data will improve on this. We do not expect measurement errors or imperfect knowledge of their distribution to degrade constraints significantly. Scaling-relation systematics can easily lead to cosmological constraints 2σ or more away from the fiducial model. Our treatment is the first exact treatment to this level of detail, and introduces a new 'smoothed ML' (Maximum Likelihood) estimate of expected constraints.     

OBSERVATION OF A SHALLOW WATER INTERNAL OSCILLATION EVENT

At a shallow water station (6 m in depth), an internal oscillation event which consisted of one or two wave-like features, with a period of 3 h and a height of 1.5 m, was observed. The velocities within the water column were modified by the event during the flood phase of the tide ; a multilayered velocity structure and intense shear were generated. Further investigations are required to understand fully the mechanism for the formation of such an event.     

An interpretation of the SS433 phenomenon

We present a model which provides an interpretation of the observations relating to the object SS433. The model represents the logical development of the proposal of Collins and Newsom (1979) and consists of a binary system comprised of a massive early-type stellar primary, containing a substantial magnetic field and stellar wind, which is precessionally driven with a 165 day period by a much less massive secondary. The cool gas Doppler-shifted spectrum occurs behind a shock front propagating around the system in the remote regions of the stellar magnetic field. The constraints placed on any model by observation are set forth, and particular attention is given to how they are met by this model. Specifically, we show that the energetics and emission requirements are easily met while the observed radial velocity curve can be fit within the mostly stochastic variations displayed by the source. Finally we discuss the implications of the model for further observation and for the immediate past and future of the object.Supported in part by the National Science Foundation.     

Radio sources in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey – II. Local radio luminosity functions for AGN and star-forming galaxies at 1.4 GHz

We have cross-matched the 1.4-GHz NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) with the first 210 fields observed in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), covering an effective area of 325 deg² (about 20 per cent of the final 2dFGRS area). This yields a set of optical spectra of 912 candidate NVSS counterparts, of which we identify 757 as genuine radio identifications – the largest and most homogeneous set of radio source spectra ever obtained. The 2dFGRS radio sources span the redshift range     to 0.438, and are a mixture of active galaxies (60 per cent) and star-forming galaxies (40 per cent). About 25 per cent of the 2dFGRS radio sources are spatially resolved by NVSS, and the sample includes three giant radio galaxies with projected linear size greater than 1 Mpc. The high quality of the 2dF spectra means we can usually distinguish unambiguously between AGN and star-forming galaxies. We make a new determination of the local radio luminosity function at 1.4 GHz for both active and star-forming galaxies, and derive a local star formation density of         .     

西澳大利亚豪特曼群礁复活节岛群全新世珊瑚礁的海底胶结作用

 对澳大利亚的位于海洋过渡带和高纬度的豪特曼群礁复活节岛群上的全新世珊瑚礁进行了海底胶结作用解剖研究。研究表明,该礁像热带珊瑚礁一样,也经历了相当程度的海底胶结。胶结物包括高镁方解石的和文石的共7种类型。由于所处地理位置和海洋环境条件,使得海底胶结物中强烈贫文石而富镁方解石(分别占4%和96%),造成镁方解石胶结物中的MgCO₃的摩尔含量规律性降低(8.47%-14.29%)。特有的生物组合及其竞争,不仅构成了迎风礁和背风礁的显着岩相差异(前者以藻类粘结岩为主,后者以珊瑚骨架岩占优),并导致海底胶结物在背风礁中的发育强度远大于迎风礁这一与热带珊瑚礁海底胶结物恰好相反的分布规律。     

Secular change in the ‘164-day’ period of SS 433

In this paper we present evidence that the 164-day period in the wavelengths of the moving lines in SS 433 has been decreasing at the surprisingly rapid rate of P = –0.010±0.002. An ephemeris of the moving lines for the 1981 observing season is provided for the case P = –0.010.