Incorporating geographies of health into public policy debates: The GeoHealth Laboratory

Abstract:  The restricted influence of geographers in the policy arena has been the source of some angst. This paper reports on a new initiative at the University of Canterbury, which aims to strengthen geography's contribution to health policy debates in New Zealand. The GeoHealth Laboratory is a joint initiative between the Department of Geography and Public Health Intelligence group at the Ministry of Health that seeks to provide a pathway for the integration of health geography research into policy development. This new facility aligns the expertise in health geography, GIS and other spatial analytical methods with policy-relevant research priorities. An overview of the strategic aims of the GeoHealth Laboratory is provided along with some examples of recent research activities that are contributing to understandings of the health landscape in New Zealand. It is argued that such partnerships provide important opportunities for geographers to engage with policy-relevant issues.     

A simulated τCDM cosmology cluster catalogue: the NFW profile and the temperature–mass scaling relations

We have extracted over 400 clusters, covering more than two decades in mass, from three simulations of the τ CDM cosmology. This represents the largest uniform catalogue of simulated clusters ever produced. The clusters exhibit a wide variety of density profiles. Only a minority are well-fitted in their outer regions by the widely used density profile of Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW), which is applicable to relaxed haloes. Others have steeper outer density profiles, show sharp breaks in their density profiles, or have significant substructure. If we force a fit to the NFW profile, then the best-fitting concentrations decline with increasing mass, but this is driven primarily by an increase in substructure as one moves to higher masses. The temperature–mass relations for properties measured within a sphere enclosing a fixed overdensity all follow the self-similar form, T ∝ M ^2/3; however, the normalization is lower than the value inferred for observed clusters. The temperature–mass relations for properties measured within a fixed physical radius are significantly steeper then this. Both can be accurately predicted using the NFW model.     

Ensemble properties of comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present the ensemble properties of 31 comets (27 resolved and 4 unresolved) observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This sample of comets represents about 1 comet per 10 million SDSS photometric objects. Five-band (u, g, r, i, z) photometry is used to determine the comets’ colors, sizes, surface brightness profiles, and rates of dust production in terms of the Afρ formalism. We find that the cumulative luminosity function for the Jupiter Family Comets in our sample is well fit by a power law of the form N(<H) ∝ 10^{(0.49±0.05)H} for H < 18, with evidence of a much shallower fit N(<H) ∝ 10^{(0.19±0.03)H} for the faint (14.5 < H < 18) comets. The resolved comets show an extremely narrow distribution of colors (0.57 ± 0.05 in g ? r for example), which are statistically indistinguishable from that of the Jupiter Trojans. Further, there is no evidence of correlation between color and physical, dynamical, or observational parameters for the observed comets.     

The Aspen–Amsterdam void finder comparison project

Despite a history that dates back at least a quarter of a century, studies of voids in the large-scale structure of the Universe are bedevilled by a major problem: there exist a large number of quite different void-finding algorithms, a fact that has so far got in the way of groups comparing their results without worrying about whether such a comparison in fact makes sense. Because of the recent increased interest in voids, both in very large galaxy surveys and in detailed simulations of cosmic structure formation, this situation is very unfortunate. We here present the first systematic comparison study of 13 different void finders constructed using particles, haloes, and semi-analytical model galaxies extracted from a subvolume of the Millennium simulation. This study includes many groups that have studied voids over the past decade. We show their results and discuss their differences and agreements. As it turns out, the basic results of the various methods agree very well with each other in that they all locate a major void near the centre of our volume. Voids have very underdense centres, reaching below 10 per cent of the mean cosmic density. In addition, those void finders that allow for void galaxies show that those galaxies follow similar trends. For example, the overdensity of void galaxies brighter than   m _B =−20  is found to be smaller than about −0.8 by all our void finding algorithms.     

Microstructural constraints on the mechanisms of the transformation to reidite in naturally shocked zircon

Zircon (ZrSiO₄) is used to study impact structures because it responds to shock loading and unloading in unique, crystallographically controlled manners. One such phenomenon is the transformation of zircon to the high-pressure polymorph, reidite. This study quantifies the geometric and crystallographic orientation relationships between these two phases using naturally shocked zircon grains. Reidite has been characterized in 32 shocked zircon grains (shocked to stages II and III) using a combination of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and focused ion beam cross-sectional imaging techniques. The zircon-bearing clasts were obtained from within suevite breccia from the Nördlingen 1973 borehole, close to the center of the 14.4 Ma Ries impact crater, in Bavaria, Germany. We have determined that multiple sets (up to 4) of reidite lamellae can form in a variety of non-rational habit planes within the parent zircon. However, EBSD mapping demonstrates that all occurrences of lamellar reidite have a consistent interphase misorientation relationship with the host zircon that is characterized by an approximate alignment of a {100}_zircon with a {112}_reidite and alignment of a {112}_zircon with a conjugate {112}_reidite. Given the tetragonal symmetry of zircon and reidite, we predict that there are eight possible variants of this interphase relationship for reidite transformation within a single zircon grain. Furthermore, laser Raman mapping of one reidite-bearing grain shows that moderate metamictization can inhibit reidite formation, thereby highlighting that the transformation is controlled by zircon crystallinity. In addition to lamellar reidite, submicrometer-scale granules of reidite were observed in one zircon. The majority of reidite granules have a topotaxial alignment that is similar to the lamellar reidite, with some additional orientation dispersion. We confirm that lamellar reidite likely forms via a deviatoric transformation mechanism in highly crystalline zircon, whereas granular reidite forms via a reconstructive transformation from low-crystallinity ZrSiO₄ within the reidite stability field. The results of this study further refine the formation mechanisms and conditions of reidite transformation in naturally shocked zircon.     

Behaviour of the geomagnetic field during the Matuyama–Brunhes polarity transition

The ability to derive Gauss coefficients, up to and including degree 3, and their variation through a geomagnetic polarity transition is studied using simulated palaeomagnetic data. It is concluded that for a specified distribution of palaeomagnetic sites reasonable estimates of the behaviour of the coefficients can be derived even when uncertainties in the data, and in the compilation of contemporaneous records, are considered. Published palaeomagnetic records of the Matuyama–Brunhes transition are then used as basis for deriving the variation of the Gauss coefficients over a 32 kyear period encompassing the reversal. Individual records are interpolated to uniform time intervals of 0.5 kyear and put on to a common time scale by correlating between sites the variation in the latitude of VGP's through the reversal. Relative palaeointensity data are scaled by the geocentric axial dipole field intensity for 2000 at each site, and the Gauss coefficients derived by a matrix inversion employing singular value decomposition. The derived variation with time of the Gauss coefficients suggests that, over the time span of the data, the dipole and non-dipole fields have approximately equal intensities. Plots of the variation of the surface vertical magnetic field through the reversal suggest that immediately prior to the reversal a large patch of reverse flux appears in the southern hemisphere. This may subsequently have been responsible for the weakening of the vertical field leading into the reversal. A similar patch of reverse flux is observed some 20–15 kyear prior to the actual reversal and may be associated with an observed excursion in VGPs at several sites.     

Do galaxy mergers form elliptical galaxies? A comparison of kinematic and photometric properties

We present near-infrared K -band imaging and spectroscopy of a sample of galaxy mergers, which we use to derive light profile indices, absolute magnitudes and central velocity dispersions. We find that the light distributions of mergers more nearly resemble those of ellipticals than those of bulges, but that the mergers lie well away from the Fundamental Plane defined by the ellipticals. We interpret this as being due to enhancement of the K -band surface brightness of the mergers by a significant population of supergiant stars, and independent evidence for such a population is inferred from measurements of the depth of the 2.3-μm CO absorption feature.