On the ultracompact nature of 4U 1822-000

We report the discovery of a periodic modulation in the optical lightcurve of the candidate ultracompact X-ray binary 4U 1822-000. Using time-resolved optical photometry taken with the William Herschel Telescope we find evidence for a sinusoidal modulation with a semi-amplitude of 8 per cent and a period of 191 min, which is most likely close to the true orbital period of the binary. Using the van Paradijs & McClintock relation for the absolute magnitude and the distance modulus allowing for interstellar reddening, we estimate the distance to 4U 1822-000 to be 6.3 kpc. The long orbital period casts severe doubts on the ultracompact nature of 4U 1822-000.

Anti-Semitism in France: Past and present

This article discusses the so-called newness of today's antisemitism through the historical and social specificities of antisemitism in French society. It casts light on the continuities of antisemitic discourse in France, but also its transformation in relation to the French colonial heritage and the recent ‘communitarianisation’ of France's social life. This analysis of antisemitism is furthered by the presentation of two case-studies: the controversial discourses of comedian Dieudonné and Kémi Séba, leader of a black supremacist movement called Tribu KA which stirred controversies in the 2000s. These two examples emphasise the fact that antisemitic discourse is better understood as a narrative about downward social mobility and status, which hardly makes antisemitism new.

Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession

Negotiating the boundaries of the secular and of the religious is a core aspect of modern experience. In mid-nineteenth-century Germany, secularism emerged to oppose church establishment, conservative orthodoxy, and national division between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Yet, as historian Todd H. Weir argues in this provocative book, early secularism was not the opposite of religion. It developed in the rationalist dissent of Free Religion and, even as secularism took more atheistic forms in Freethought and Monism, it was subject to the forces of the confessional system it sought to dismantle. Similar to its religious competitors, it elaborated a clear worldview, sustained social milieus, and was integrated into the political system. Secularism was, in many ways, Germany's fourth confession. While challenging assumptions about the causes and course of the Kulturkampf and modern antisemitism, this study casts new light on the history of popular science, radical politics, and social reform.

Tongue-tied?: An Active Analysis of Brian Friel's Translations

This article has arisen from a research-led production of Translations by Brian Friel for Queen’s University’s Tyrone Guthrie Society in February 2010. Drawing partly on a review of the existing critical literature and also from questions left unresolved by a previous experience of directing the play, the production sought to address through ‘active analysis’ (Merlin 2001) a number of research questions relating to the embodied nature of the rehearsal process and the historicity of Friel’s play. The analysis invokes Bergson (1910), Lefebvre (1991) and Worthern (2006) in establishing a performative correlative for insightful but more literary studies by Connolly (1993), Lojek (1994) and McGrath (1989 & 1999). A detailed account of the rehearsal process helps reveal the extent to which the idea of failure of communication is embedded in the text and embodied in performance, while an experiment with the partial use of the Irish language casts further light on Friel’s extraordinary device of rendering two languages through the medium of one. The use of music to counterpoint, rather than underscore the action, together with an achronological sequence of projected historical images inspired by Andrews (1983) provided me as director a means to challenge the audience’s presuppositions about the play. The sense of palimpsest, of the layered histories, that this evoked also served to highlight Friel’s use of the wider stylistic palette of Anglo-Irish drama, revealing Translations as a forerunner for Stewart Parker’s more explicit formal experiments in Northern Star. In rehearsal and performance Friel’s place in the continuum of the Irish theatrical canon became clear, as stylistic allusions to O’Casey, Shaw, Wilde and Beckett were embodied by the actors on the rehearsal room floor.

ME and Julie:a study in narrative of illness experience and therapy in a Myalgic Encephalomyelitis sufferer

This article uses what Atkinson and Walmsley (1997) refer to as an ‘autobiographical account’ to explore the themes and relationships between narrative, illness experience and therapy in a Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) sufferer. Julie is a chronic ME sufferer, having lived with ME for the past 12 years. Her life-story over those years, as she presents it, casts our attention to the intrinsically personal nature of her ‘illness experience’ and to her distinctively artistic therapeutic responses to her condition. Julie’s autobiographical narrative reveals how ME has penetrated both her body and her sense of self, her limbs as well as her dreams; as though it were a parasite feeding off her fight to regain health. In terms of narrative, Julie’s ME illness progresses from past to present, but never to the future which lies beyond contemplation. Despite this denial of the future, Julie does think of ME as a liminal phase which is to be coped through. As both spatial object and temporal event, Julie conceptualises her ME variously, dealing with it on a day-to-day basis, increasingly turning to landscape painting as a form of escapism which parallels her former physical outward bound activities. This personal therapy, so this article concludes, constitutes both narrative performance and narrative text (as canvas), both of which can only cautiously be independently interpreted by the (inter)viewer.

Centres, Peripheries and Party Systems: nested secession processes in Great Britain and Ireland

The seminal work of Lipset and Rokkan, which explores how party systems evolved organically from nineteenth-century roots, has generally been applied in states which have enjoyed a long-standing territorial identity. Their model's emphasis on stability and predictability can, however, be reconciled with circumstances where the very identity of the state itself is an issue. This article explores the capacity of the model to explain party divisions in three nested contexts: the pre-1922 United Kingdom, which encountered problems with its Celtic peripheries, and especially with Ireland; independent Ireland, where a unique party system developed, largely in response to a broader historical and geographical context; and Northern Ireland, where party politics fossilised in the 1880s, and began to unfreeze only in the 1970s. The article argues that the Lipset–Rokkan model casts valuable light on these processes, which in turn contribute to the theoretical richness of the model.

The geometry of unstented and stented pig common carotid artery bypass grafts

The long-term success of arterial bypass grafting with autologous saphenous veins is limited by neointimal hyperplasia (NIH), which seemingly develops preferentially at sites where hydrodynamic wall shear is low. Placement of a loose-fitting, porous stent around end-to-end, or end-to-side, autologous saphenous vein grafts on the porcine common carotid artery has been found significantly to reduce NIH, but the mechanism is unclear. In a preliminary study, we implanted autologous saphenous vein grafts bilaterally on the common carotid arteries of pigs, placing a stent around one graft and leaving the contralateral graft unstented. At sacrifice 1 month post implantation, the grafts were pressure fixed in situ and resin casts were made. Unstented graft geometry was highly irregular, with non-uniform dilatation, substantial axial lengthening, curvature, kinking, and possible long-pitch helical distortion. In contrast, stented grafts showed no major dilatation, lengthening or curvature, but there was commonly fine corrugation, occasional slight kinking or narrowing of segments, and possible long-pitch helical distortion. Axial growth of grafts against effectively tethered anastomoses could account for these changes. CFD studies are planned, using 3D MR reconstructions, on the effects of graft geometry on the flow. Abnormality of the flow could favour the development of vascular pathology, including NIH.

Off-center explosions of Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs:An explanation of super-bright type la supernovae?

Context. The recent discovery of a very bright type la supernova, SNLS-03D3bb (=SN 2003fg), in the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) has raised the question of whether super-Chandrasekhar-mass white-dwarf stars are needed to explain such bright explosions. Progenitors of this sort could form by mergers of pairs of rather massive white dwarfs. Binary systems of two white dwarfs in close orbit, where their total mass significantly exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass, have not yet been found. Therefore SNLS-03D3bb could establish the first clear case of a double-degenerate progenitor of a (peculiar) type la supernovae. Moreover, if this interpretation is correct, it casts some doubt on the universality of the calibration relations used to make SNe la distance indicators for cosmology. Aims. We aim to evaluate the case for a super-Chandrasekhar-mass progenitor for SNLS-03D3bb in light of previous theoretical work on super-Chandrasekhar-mass explosions. Furthermore, we propose an alternative scenario involving only a Chandrasekhar-mass progenitor. Methods. We present a theoretically motivated critical discussion of the expected observational fingerprints of super-Chandrasekharmass explosions. As an alternative, we describe a simple class of aspherical Chandrasekhar-mass models in which the products of nuclear burning are displaced from the center. We then perform simple radiative transfer calculations to predict synthetic lightcurves for one such off-center explosion model. Results. In important respects, the expected observational consequences of super-Chandrasekhar-mass explosions are not consistent with the observations of SNLS-03D3bb. We demonstrate that the lopsided explosion of a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf could provide a better explanation. © ESO 2007.

A quantum measurement paradigm for educational predicates: Implications for validity in educational measurement

The outcomes of educational assessments undoubtedly have real implications for students, teachers, schools and education in the widest sense. Assessment results are, for example, used to award qualifications that determine future educational or vocational pathways of students. The results obtained by students in assessments are also used to gauge individual teacher quality, to hold schools to account for the standards achieved by their students, and to compare international education systems. Given the current high-stakes nature of educational assessment, it is imperative that the measurement practices involved have stable philosophical foundations. However, this paper casts doubt on the theoretical underpinnings of contemporary educational measurement models. Aspects of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and Bohr’s philosophy of quantum theory are used to argue that a quantum theoretical rather than a Newtonian model is appropriate for educational measurement, and the associated implications for the concept of validity are elucidated. Whilst it is acknowledged that the transition to a quantum theoretical framework would not lead to the demise of educational assessment, it is argued that, where practical, current high-stakes assessments should be reformed to become as ‘low-stakes’ as possible. The paper also undermines some of the pro high-stakes testing rhetoric that has a tendency to afflict education.

Residential electrical vehicle charging strategies: the good, the bad and the ugly

In recent years, a wide variety of centralised and decentralised algorithms have been proposed for residential charging of electric vehicles (EVs). In this paper, we present a mathematical framework which casts the EV charging scenarios addressed by these algorithms as optimisation problems having either temporal or instantaneous optimisation objectives with respect to the different actors in the power system. Using this framework and a realistic distribution network simulation testbed, we provide a comparative evaluation of a range of different residential EV charging strategies, highlighting in each case positive and negative characteristics.