Collisional timing of asteroids space weathering: A first approach

The space weathering, i.e. the evolution of surface properties over time, due to the exposure to external factors, has been shown to affect the optical properties of the asteroids, usually causing reddening (an effect which is measured in terms of the spectral slope in the visible and near infrared range) and darkening over time. However, some problems remain open. In particular, the timescale for reddening, which we estimate from laboratory experiments, is shorter—maybe, by two or even more orders of magnitude—than the typical asteroidal ages. Thus we should expect a complete saturation of the reddening effects for most of the objects, which does not happen, instead of a general significant dependence of the slope on the age, as indeed we find.In this paper we discuss, with the aid of a simplified model, how the collisions may affect the timing of the reddening process. We show that the collisions might halt the reddening, unless a significant reaccumulation of the fragments created in the cratering collisions takes place. In this case the timing for the complete reddening is driven by the collisional events, thus providing a rationale for the observed slope-age and slope-exposure relations.     

Polarization Calibration of the Solar Optical Telescope onboard Hinode

The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard Hinode aims to obtain vector magnetic fields on the Sun through precise spectropolarimetry of solar spectral lines with a spatial resolution of 0.2 – 0.3 arcsec. A photometric accuracy of 10⁻³ is achieved and, after the polarization calibration, any artificial polarization from crosstalk among Stokes parameters is required to be suppressed below the level of the statistical noise over the SOT’s field of view. This goal was achieved by the highly optimized design of the SOT as a polarimeter, extensive analyses and testing of optical elements, and an end-to-end calibration test of the entire system. In this paper we review both the approach adopted to realize the high-precision polarimeter of the SOT and its final polarization characteristics.     

Image Stabilization System for Hinode (Solar-B) Solar Optical Telescope

The Hinode Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) is the first space-borne visible-light telescope that enables us to observe magnetic-field dynamics in the solar lower atmosphere with 0.2 – 0.3 arcsec spatial resolution under extremely stable (seeing-free) conditions. To achieve precise measurements of the polarization with diffraction-limited images, stable pointing of the telescope (<0.09 arcsec, 3σ) is required for solar images exposed on the focal plane CCD detectors. SOT has an image stabilization system that uses image displacements calculated from correlation tracking of solar granules to control a piezo-driven tip-tilt mirror. The system minimizes the motions of images for frequencies lower than 14 Hz while the satellite and telescope structural design damps microvibration in higher frequency ranges. It has been confirmed from the data taken on orbit that the remaining jitter is less than 0.03 arcsec (3σ) on the Sun. This excellent performance makes a major contribution to successful precise polarimetric measurements with 0.2 – 0.3 arcsec resolution. K. Kobayashi now at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA.     

Metric spaces of Keplerian orbits

Several metric spaces of Keplerian orbits and a set of their most important subspaces, as well as a factor space (not distinguishing orbits with the same longitudes of nodes and pericentres) are constructed. Topological and metric properties of them are established. Simple formulae to calculate the distance are deduced. Applications to a number of problems of Celestial Mechanics are discussed.     

用甚长基线干涉测量数据检测冰期后地壳回弹

本文利用甚长基线干涉测量（VLBI）技术提供的实测站速度和地球物理模型ICE_4G提供的数据,采用实测站速度法和基线长度变化率法分别检测了冰期后地壳回弹的垂直运动和水平运动.对用空间技术求解的实测值和用ICE_4G模型求解的估计值进行线性拟合和相关分析,两者的相关系数达到08～09,表明空间技术已经能够检测1～10mm/a的冰后回弹运动;在方向上两者基本一致,在量级上,实测结果的绝对值比模型估计值系统性的偏大约20%,表明当前冰期后的地壳回弹运动比地质时期要猛烈.     

空间大地测量技术对确定地面坐标框架、地形变与地球重力场的贡献和进展--出席2005年国际大地测量协会(IAG) 科学大会札记

国际大地测量协会（IAG）科学大会于2005年8月22~26日在澳大利亚凯尔斯（Cairns）召开。会议名称为“动力行星2005”（Dynamic Planet 2005）。会议就有关完善全球和地区性地面坐标参考框架、卫星重力测量在确定地球重力场时空分辨率、开展航空激光和雷达成像及其干涉技术在地形变和灾害监测,以及对大气的研究、建立和完善全球大地测量观测系统(GGOS)、开展行星大地测量的研究等方面的内容做了广泛的学术交流,内容比较丰富。     

The impact of “community” on fisheries management in the US Northeast

The discourse of fisheries science and management displaces community and culture from the essential economic dynamic of fisheries. The goal of this dominant discourse is to enclose fisheries, to constitute them as within the singular and hegemonic economy of capitalism. Alternative economies, such as those based on the presence of community, are always seen as either existing before or beyond the dominant economic formation. The category of community is, nevertheless, being incorporated into contemporary fisheries science and management where it has the potential to disrupt the ontological foundations of the current management regime. To avoid disruption, community is situated such that it is the domain of anthropology while the essential economic dynamic of fisheries remains the purview of fisheries bioeconomics. Community can be identified, documented, and analyzed but always only as a site of economic impact and never as a constituent of the economic itself. Curiously, this disciplining of community has a literal geographic dimension: the discursive domain of bioeconomics corresponds to the spatial domain of fisheries resources themselves while that of fisheries social science/anthropology corresponds to the terrestrial locations where fishers reside. Fishing ports become the place of community while the actual common property resource remains the site where the essential economic dynamic reigns uncompromised.     

Putting principles of linguistic rights into practice: Geographical perspectives on a contemporary European problem

The political salience of demands from minority and regional groups for greater language rights increases across Europe. To draw more geographical attention to a particular aspect of these developments, this article identifies the main generic problems of converting demands for ‘linguistic rights’ into applied language policies. It does this by first outlining how the historic process of nation-state building in Europe reduced linguistic diversity, but has not eliminated language demands emanating from regional minorities. It then analyses how the concept of ‘linguistic rights’, as a part of human rights in general, has been developing within the United Nations and bodies including the Council of Europe and the European Union. Having outlined the political-legal frameworks within which minority language rights are pursued, the article then discusses the major difficulties of putting them into practice in particular places and spaces. They can be summarised as: the weakness of relevant international agreements; the dominance of state sovereignty in determining language policies; the limited public support for minority language rights; the difficulties of defining minority languages and delimiting the geographical spaces they occupy; the challenges posed by the growing geographical mobility of populations; and the problem of balancing collective and individual rights. Two fundamental issues linking these different problems are identified. First, there are problems of definition: what constitutes a ‘minority’ or ‘regional’ language and within what geographical space(s) is such a language spoken? This spatial dimension underlies a second fundamental problem, namely that of resolving conflicts between individual personality rights and collective territorial rights in increasing hybrid geolinguistic situations created by the growing geographical mobility of populations. Sociolinguists study these issues, but usually treat these essential spatial dimensions in a superficial fashion. Thus, there is an opportunity for geographers to develop more sophisticated geolinguistic analyses as a contribution to this interdisciplinary field.     

Whiteness, space and alternative food practice

The paper demonstrates how whiteness is produced in progressive non-profit efforts to promote sustainable farming and food security in the US. I explore whiteness by addressing the spatial dimensions of this food politics. I draw on feminist and materialist theories of nature, space and difference as well as research conducted between 2003 and the present. Whiteness emerges spatially in efforts to increase food access, support farmers and provide organic food to consumers. It clusters and expands through resource allocation to particular organizations and programs and through participation in non-profit conferences. Community food’s discourse builds on a late-modern and, in practice, ‘white’ combination of science and ideology concerning healthful food and healthy bodies. Whiteness in alternative food efforts rests, as well, on inequalities of wealth that serve both to enable different food economies and to separate people by their ability to consume. It is latent in the support of romanticized notions of community, but also in the more active support for coalition-building across social differences. These well-intentioned food practices reveal both the transformative potential of progressive whiteness and its capacity to become exclusionary in spite of itself. Whiteness coheres precisely, therefore, in the act of ‘doing good’.     

A Review Of Slr Contributions To Geophysics In Eurasia By Cgs

In the past 30 years the Satellite Laser Ranging(SLR) technique has improved to a large extent, currently achieving a ranging precision down toa few millimeters. Moreover the growth in the size of the international network of SLR stations and therapidly growing constellation of geodetic target satellites make the SLR a well established technique for solidEarth studies and for the related Earth subsystem sciences. The long SLR observation history has become a veryimportant source of data for global and local changes detection and monitoring in many different fields.Tectonic plate motion, crustal deformation, post-glacial rebound and subsidence, Earth rotation, and polarmotion, time variations of the Earth's gravitational field, ocean tides modeling, center of mass of the totalEarth system monitoring, International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) maintenance are only themain applications in which the SLR technique plays a significant role. Plate boundary zones in whichdeformation is diffuse are in general geographical areas associated with high seismic and volcanic activity.A principal key to understand the geophysics of a plate boundary process is the detailed knowledge of the3-D kinematics. This work will focus on the relevant results of the Eurasian SLR subnetwork in termsof technological evolution and crustal deformation. A general overview of the Eurasian SLR stationperformance will be presented with particular reference to the state-of-the-art SLR observatory MLRO (Matera LaserRanging Observatory). The current tectonic deformations (velocity and strain-rate field) detectedby the Eurasian network and by the former WEGENER/MEDLAS campaigns will also be discussed.