Ambiguity, multiple streams, and EU policy

The multiple streams framework draws insight from interactions between agency and institutions to explore the impact of context, time, and meaning on policy change and to assess the institutional and issue complexities permeating the European Union (EU) policy process. The authors specify the assumptions and structure of the framework and review studies that have adapted it to reflect more fully EU decision-making processes. The nature of policy entrepreneurship and policy windows are assessed to identify areas of improvement. Finally, the authors sketch out a research agenda that refines the logic of political manipulation which permeates the lens and the institutional complexity which frames the EU policy process

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) : stellar mass functions by Hubble type

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation FWF under grant P23946. AWG was supported under the Australian Research Council's funding scheme FT110100263.We present an estimate of the galaxy stellar mass function and its division by morphological type in the local (0.025 < z < 0.06) Universe. Adopting robust morphological classifications as previously presented (Kelvin et al.) for a sample of 3727 galaxies taken from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey, we define a local volume and stellar mass limited sub-sample of 2711 galaxies to a lower stellar mass limit of M = 109.0 MΘ. We confirm that the galaxy stellar mass function is well described by a double-Schechter function given by Μ* = 1010.64 MΘ, α1 = 0.43, φ1* = 4.18 dex-1 Mpc-3, α2 = −1.50 and φ2* = 0.74 dex-1 Mpc-3. The constituent morphological-type stellar mass functions are well sampled above our lower stellar mass limit, excepting the faint little blue spheroid population of galaxies. We find approximately 71-4+3 per cent of the stellar mass in the local Universe is found within spheroid-dominated galaxies; ellipticals and S0-Sas. The remaining 29-3+4 per cent falls predominantly within late-type disc-dominated systems, Sab-Scds and Sd-Irrs. Adopting reasonable bulge-to-total ratios implies that approximately half the stellar mass today resides in spheroidal structures, and half in disc structures. Within this local sample, we find approximate stellar mass proportions for E : S0-Sa : Sab-Scd : Sd-Irr of 34 : 37 : 24 :5.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A needs assessment for a relationship-guidance programme for partners in a gay male relationship

The lack of indigenous research-based literature on relationship-guidance programmes for partners in a gay male relationship necessitates a needs assessment in this regard. A research project adopting a qualitative paradigm was undertaken to conduct an empirical study with samples of gay male couples in an attempt to do a needs assessment for such a programme by focussing, interalia, on whether such a programme could benefit their relationship, and what it should include, who should present it, and in what format it should be presented. The study's principal results indicated that such a programme is needed and that· it would aid gay partners with regard to a variety of issues raised by them. The findings provide a tentative guideline for a relationshipguidance programme greatly needed by gay men and service professionals alike

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the 0.013 < z < 0.1 cosmic spectral energy distribution from 0.1 m to 1 mm

We use the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey (GAMA) I data set combined with GALEX, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) imaging to construct the low-redshift (z < 0.1) galaxy luminosity functions in FUV, NUV, ugriz and YJHK bands from within a single well-constrained volume of 3.4 × 105 (Mpc h−1)3. The derived luminosity distributions are normalized to the SDSS data release 7 (DR7) main survey to reduce the estimated cosmic variance to the 5 per cent level. The data are used to construct the cosmic spectral energy distribution (CSED) from 0.1 to 2.1 μm free from any wavelength-dependent cosmic variance for both the elliptical and non-elliptical populations. The two populations exhibit dramatically different CSEDs as expected for a predominantly old and young population, respectively. Using the Driver et al. prescription for the azimuthally averaged photon escape fraction, the non-ellipticals are corrected for the impact of dust attenuation and the combined CSED constructed. The final results show that the Universe is currently generating (1.8 ± 0.3) × 1035 h W Mpc−3 of which (1.2 ± 0.1) × 1035 h W Mpc−3 is directly released into the inter-galactic medium and (0.6 ± 0.1) × 1035 h W Mpc−3 is reprocessed and reradiated by dust in the far-IR. Using the GAMA data and our dust model we predict the mid- and far-IR emission which agrees remarkably well with available data. We therefore provide a robust description of the pre- and post-dust attenuated energy output of the nearby Universe from 0.1 μm to 0.6 mm. The largest uncertainty in this measurement lies in the mid- and far-IR bands stemming from the dust attenuation correction and its currently poorly constrained dependence on environment, stellar mass and morphology

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) blended spectra catalogue: strong galaxy-galaxy lens and occulting galaxy pair candidates

We present the catalogue of blended galaxy spectra from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. These are cases where light from two galaxies are significantly detected in a single GAMA fibre. Galaxy pairs identified from their blended spectrum fall into two principal classes: they are either strong lenses, a passive galaxy lensing an emission-line galaxy; or occulting galaxies, serendipitous overlaps of two galaxies, of any type. Blended spectra can thus be used to reliably identify strong lenses for follow-up observations (high-resolution imaging) and occulting pairs, especially those that are a late-type partly obscuring an early-type galaxy which are of interest for the study of dust content of spiral and irregular galaxies. The GAMA survey setup and its AUTOZ automated redshift determination were used to identify candidate blended galaxy spectra from the cross-correlation peaks. We identify 280 blended spectra with a minimum velocity separation of 600 km s−1, of which 104 are lens pair candidates, 71 emission-line-passive pairs, 78 are pairs of emission-line galaxies and 27 are pairs of galaxies with passive spectra. We have visually inspected the candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS) images. Many blended objects are ellipticals with blue fuzz (Ef in our classification). These latter ‘Ef’ classifications are candidates for possible strong lenses, massive ellipticals with an emission-line galaxy in one or more lensed images. The GAMA lens and occulting galaxy candidate samples are similar in size to those identified in the entire SDSS. This blended spectrum sample stands as a testament of the power of this highly complete, second-largest spectroscopic survey in existence and offers the possibility to expand e.g. strong gravitational lens surveys

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the galaxy luminosity function within the cosmic web

We investigate the dependence of the galaxy luminosity function on geometric environment within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. The tidal tensor prescription, based on the Hessian of the pseudo-gravitational potential, is used to classify the cosmic web and define the geometric environments: for a given smoothing scale, we classify every position of the surveyed region, 0.04 < z < 0.26, as either a void, a sheet, a filament or a knot. We consider how to choose appropriate thresholds in the eigenvalues of the Hessian in order to partition the galaxies approximately evenly between environments. We find a significant variation in the luminosity function of galaxies between different geometric environments; the normalization, characterized by ϕ* in a Schechter function fit, increases by an order of magnitude from voids to knots. The turnover magnitude, characterized by M*, brightens by approximately 0.5 mag from voids to knots. However, we show that the observed modulation can be entirely attributed to the indirect local-density dependence. We therefore find no evidence of a direct influence of the cosmic web on the galaxy luminosity function

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the galaxy luminosity function within the cosmic web

We investigate the dependence of the galaxy luminosity function on geometric environment within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. The tidal tensor prescription, based on the Hessian of the pseudo-gravitational potential, is used to classify the cosmic web and define the geometric environments: for a given smoothing scale, we classify every position of the surveyed region, 0.04 < z < 0.26, as either a void, a sheet, a filament or a knot. We consider how to choose appropriate thresholds in the eigenvalues of the Hessian in order to partition the galaxies approximately evenly between environments. We find a significant variation in the luminosity function of galaxies between different geometric environments; the normalization, characterized by ϕ* in a Schechter function fit, increases by an order of magnitude from voids to knots. The turnover magnitude, characterized by M*, brightens by approximately 0.5 mag from voids to knots. However, we show that the observed modulation can be entirely attributed to the indirect local-density dependence. We therefore find no evidence of a direct influence of the cosmic web on the galaxy luminosity function

Dark matter halo properties of GAMA galaxy groups from 100 square degrees of KiDS weak lensing data

The Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) is an optical wide-field survey designed to map the matter distribution in the Universe using weak gravitational lensing. In this paper, we use these data to measure the density profiles and masses of a sample of $\sim \mathrm{1400}$ spectroscopically identified galaxy groups and clusters from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. We detect a highly significant signal (signal-to-noise-ratio $\sim$ 120), allowing us to study the properties of dark matter haloes over one and a half order of magnitude in mass, from $M \sim 10^{13}-10^{14.5} h^{-1}\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$. We interpret the results for various subsamples of groups using a halo model framework which accounts for the mis-centring of the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (used as the tracer of the group centre) with respect to the centre of the group's dark matter halo. We find that the density profiles of the haloes are well described by an NFW profile with concentrations that agree with predictions from numerical simulations. In addition, we constrain scaling relations between the mass and a number of observable group properties. We find that the mass scales with the total r-band luminosity as a power-law with slope $1.16 \pm 0.13$ (1-sigma) and with the group velocity dispersion as a power-law with slope $1.89 \pm 0.27$ (1-sigma). Finally, we demonstrate the potential of weak lensing studies of groups to discriminate between models of baryonic feedback at group scales by comparing our results with the predictions from the Cosmo-OverWhelmingly Large Simulations (Cosmo-OWLS) project, ruling out models without AGN feedback

Galaxy and mass assembly: the G02 field, Herschel–ATLAS target selection and data release 3

We describe data release 3 (DR3) of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. The GAMA survey is a spectroscopic redshift and multiwavelength photometric survey in three equatorial regions each of 60.0 deg2 (G09, G12, and G15), and two southern regions of 55.7 deg2 (G02) and 50.6 deg2 (G23). DR3 consists of: the first release of data covering the G02 region and of data on H-ATLAS (Herschel – Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey) sources in the equatorial regions; and updates to data on sources released in DR2. DR3 includes 154 809 sources with secure redshifts across four regions. A subset of the G02 region is 95.5 per cent redshift complete to r < 19.8 mag over an area of 19.5 deg2, with 20 086 galaxy redshifts, that overlaps substantially with the XXL survey (X-ray) and VIPERS (redshift survey). In the equatorial regions, the main survey has even higher completeness (98.5 per cent), and spectra for about 75 per cent of H-ATLAS filler targets were also obtained. This filler sample extends spectroscopic redshifts, for probable optical counterparts to HATLAS submillimetre sources, to 0.8 mag deeper (r < 20.6 mag) than the GAMA main survey. There are 25 814 galaxy redshifts for H-ATLAS sources from the GAMA main or filler surveys. GAMA DR3 is available at the survey website (www.gama-survey.org/dr3/)