FAUST observations of ultraviolet sources in the direction of Coma

We analyse an ultraviolet observation toward the Coma cluster by means of the FAUST shuttle-borne telescope. We detect 56 candidate sources to a signal-to-noise ratio of 6.5. Most sources have optical counterparts in existing catalogues and are stars. 10 sources with no listed counterparts were observed at the Wise Observatory. We present identifications based on low-resolution spectrophotometry, and discuss the foreground stars and the galaxies, all in the foreground of the Coma cluster. The FAUST image yields a higher fraction of hot evolved stars than either of the North Galactic Pole or the Virgo regions, analysed previously. We identify these tentatively as cooling white dwarfs in the Coma Berenices (Mel 111) open cluster.     

Uncertainty, Complexity and Concepts of Good Science in Climate Change Modelling: Are GCMs the Best Tools?

In this paper we explore the dominant position of a particular style of scientific modelling in the provision of policy-relevant scientific knowledge on future climate change. We describe how the apical position of General Circulation Models (GCMs) appears to follow logically both from conventional understandings of scientific representation and the use of knowledge, so acquired, in decision-making. We argue, however, that both of these particular understandings are contestable. In addition to questioning their current policy-usefulness, we draw upon existing analyses of GCMs which discuss model trade-offs, errors, and the effects of parameterisations, to raise questions about the validity of the conception of complexity in conventional accounts. An alternative approach to modelling, incorporating concepts of uncertainty, is discussed, and an illustrative example given for the case of the global carbon cycle. In then addressing the question of how GCMs have come to occupy their dominant position, we argue that the development of global climate change science and global environmental management frameworks occurs concurrently and in a mutually supportive fashion, so uniting GCMs and environmental policy developments in certain industrialised nations and international organisations. The more basic questions about what kinds of commitments to theories of knowledge underpin different models of complexity as a normative principle of good science are concealed in this mutual reinforcement. Additionally, a rather technocratic policy orientation to climate change may be supported by such science, even though it involves political choices which deserve to be more widely debated.     

Brainstorming, Modified Logframes and the Conversion of Research Hypotheses into Field Questions: Reflections from Team-based Fieldwork in Eastern India

This paper considers some practical problems associated with organising large‐scale comparative field research in eastern India. The focus of the paper is on the use of brainstorming and “modified logframes” as two means by which hypotheses about the working of the local state from the point of view of the rural poor could be turned into concrete field questions. The paper is less concerned with ethical and positional issues relating to team‐based research in “the tropics” (on this, see Williams et al., 2003a) than with the equally important if apparently more prosaic issues relating to the flawed but necessary search for objectivity and rigour in comparative field studies.     

Moment-tensor solutions estimated using optimal filter theory: global seismicity, 2001

Moment-tensor solutions, estimated using optimal filter theory, are listed for 290 moderate-to-large size earthquakes that occurred during 2001.     

Effects of rapid changes in temperature on two estuarine crustaceans

Weight specific oxygen consumption (Q_O2) patterns of the amphipod, Gammarus sp. (acclimated to 5°, 15° and 25°C) and of juvenile blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus (15° and 25°C) were used to evaluate the potential effect of exposure to rapid temperature changes simulating once-through power plant pumped entrainment. Amphipods at all acclimation temperatures and blue crabs at 15°C responded to the temperature changes by increasing Q_O2 above pre-exposure levels after the thermal increase and then returning to pre-exposure levels. The response was judged to be a normal physiological compensation response, not a thermal stress response, as suggested by some investigators. Significant differences were found among seasonal Q_O2, patterns in both species; Q_O2, increased with increasing acclimation temperature. However, no seasonal stress effects were found as a result of exposure to the temperature changes. This implies that the effects of ΔT's up to 10°C from power plants of this design should have no significant impact on these organisms.