Come On In. The Water's Fine. An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and Its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications

According to the authors of Come on in. The water's fine. An exploration of Web 2.0 technology and its emerging impact on foundation communications, foundations that have adopted new and still emerging forms of digital communications -- interactive Web sites, blogs, wikis, and social networking applications -- are finding that they offer "opportunities for focused convenings and conversations, lend themselves to interactions with and among grantees, and are an effective story-telling medium." The report's authors, David Brotherton and Cynthia Scheiderer, of Brotherton Strategies, who spent nearly a year exploring how foundations are using new media, add that "electronic communications create an opportunity to connect people who are interested in an issue with each other and the grantees working on the issue."The report also acknowledges that the new technologies raise skepticism and concern among foundations. They include the "worry of losing control over the foundation's message, allowing more staff members to represent the foundation in a more public way, opening the flood gates of grant requests or the headache of a forum gone bad with unwanted or inappropriate posts."Still, the report urges foundations to put aside their worries and make even more forceful use of new media applications and tools. The report argues that whatever is "lost in message control will be more than made up for by the opportunity to engage audiences in new ways, with greater programmatic impact."Acknowledging that adoption of new media tools will require some cultural and operational shifts in foundations, the report offers suggestions from Ernest James Wilson III, dean and Walter Annenberg chair in communication at the University of Southern California, for how to deal with these challenges. He says that for foundations to make the best use of what the technology offers, they should concentrate on three things:Build up the individual "human capital" of their staffs and provide them the competencies they need to operate in the new digital world.Make internal institutional reforms to reward creativity and innovation in using these new media internally and among grantees.Build social networks that span sectors and institutions, to engage in ongoing dialogue among private, public, nonprofits and research stakeholders.As Wilson also says, "All of these steps first require leadership, arguably a new type of leadership, not only at the top but also from the 'bottom' up, since many of the people with the requisite skills, attitudes, substantive knowledge and experience are younger, newer employees, and occupy the low-status end of the organizational pyramid, and hence need strong allies at the top.

2D stellar population and gas kinematics of the inner kiloparsec of the post-starburst quasar SDSS J0330-0532

We have used optical Integral Field Spectroscopy in order to map the star formation history of the inner kiloparsec of the Post-Starburst Quasar (PSQ) J0330--0532 and to map its gas and stellar kinematics as well as the gas excitation. PSQs are hypothesized to represent a stage in the evolution of galaxies in which the star formation has been recently quenched due to the feedback of the nuclear activity, as suggested by the presence of the post-starburst population at the nucleus. We have found that the old stellar population (age $\ge$ 2.5 Gyr) dominates the flux at 5100 \AA\ in the inner 0.26 kpc, while both the post-starburst (100 Myr $\le$ age $<$ 2.5 Gyr) and starburst (age $<$ 100 Myr) components dominate the flux in a circumnuclear ring at $\approx$0.5 kpc from the nucleus. With our spatially resolved study we do not have found any post-starburst stellar population in the inner 0.26\,kpc. On the other hand, we do see the signature of AGN feedback in this region, which does not reach the circumnuclear ring where the post-starburst population is observed. We thus do not support the quenching scenario for the J0330-0532. In addition, we have concluded that the strong signature of the post-starburst population in larger aperture spectra (e.g. from Sloan Digital Sky Survey) is partially due to the combination of the young and old age components. Based on the M$_{\rm BH}-\sigma_{\rm star}$ relationship and the stellar kinematics we have estimated a mass for the supermassive black hole of 1.48 $\pm$ 0.66 $\times$10$^7$ M$_\odot$.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1210.120

2D stellar population and gas kinematics of the inner 1.5 kpc of the post-starburst quasar SDSS J0210-0903

Post-Starburst Quasars (PSQs) are hypothesized to represent a stage in the evolution of massive galaxies in which the star formation has been recently quenched due to the feedback of the nuclear activity. In this paper our goal is to test this scenario with a resolved stellar population study of the PSQ J0210-0903, as well as of its emitting gas kinematics and excitation. We have used optical Integral Field Spectroscopy obtained with the Gemini GMOS instrument at a velocity resolution of ~120 km/s and spatial resolution of ~0.5 kpc. We find that old stars dominate the luminosity (at 4700 \AA) in the inner 0.3 kpc (radius), while beyond this region (at ~0.8 kpc) the stellar population is dominated by both intermediate age and young ionizing stars. The gas emission-line ratios are typical of Seyfert nuclei in the inner 0.3 kpc, where an outflow is observed. Beyond this region the line ratios are typical of LINERs and may result from the combination of diluted radiation from the nucleus and ionization from young stars. The gas kinematics show a combination of rotation in the plane of the galaxy and outflows, observed with a maximum blueshift of -670 km/s. We have estimated a mass outflow rate in ionized gas in the range 0.3--1.1 M_sun/yr and a kinetic power for the outflow of dE/dt ~ 1.4--5.0 x 10^40 erg/s ~0.03% - 0.1% x L_bol. This outflow rate is two orders of magnitude higher than the nuclear accretion rate of ~8.7 x 10^-3 M_sun/yr, thus being the result of mass loading of the nuclear outflow by circumnuclear galactic gas. Our observations support an evolutionary scenario in which the feeding of gas to the nuclear region has triggered a circumnuclear starburst 100's Myr ago, followed by the triggering of the nuclear activity, producing the observed gas outflow which may have quenched further star formation in the inner 0.3 kpc.Comment: 17 pages, 9 Figures, 2 Table

Honest advocacy for nature: presenting a persuasive narrative for conservation.

Conservation scientists are increasingly recognising the value of communicating policy-relevant knowledge to policy-makers. Whilst considerable progress has been made in offering practical advice for scientists seeking to engage more closely with decision-makers, researchers have provided few tangible examples to learn from. This paper uses an English case study, but draws out important high-level messages relevant to conservation scientists worldwide. The case study looks at how the Lawton Review presented knowledge persuasively about the suitability of England's ecological network to deal with future pressures. Through skilful framing of rigorous scientific knowledge it was able to make a significant impact on government policy. Impact was achieved through: (1) selecting politically salient frames through which to communicate; (2) using clear, accessible language, and; (3) conducting rigorous science using an authoritative team of experts. Although its publication coincided with a favourable policy window, the Lawton Review seized on this opportunity to communicate a rigorously argued, persuasive and practical conservation message; in other words, it performed 'honest advocacy'. Thus, whilst it remains important to conduct scientific research with technical rigour, conservation scientists could also benefit from identifying salient frames for conservation and communicating clearly.This work is taken from a PhD project in the Department of Geography funded by ESRC (grant number ES/I901957/1) and Homerton College (Charter Scholarship). Thomas Pryke is studying for a PhD in the Department of Geography funded jointly by ESRC and NERC (No: ES/J500033/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1163-1

The FIRST Bright Quasar Survey III. The South Galactic Cap

We present the results of an extension of the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey (FBQS) to the South Galactic cap, and to a fainter optical magnitude limit. Radio source counterparts with SERC R magnitudes brighter than 18.9 which meet the other FBQS criteria are included. We supplement this list with a modest number of additional objects to test our completeness for quasars with extended radio morphologies. The survey covers 589 square degrees in two equatorial strips in the southern cap. We have obtained spectra for 86% of the 522 candidates, and find 321 radio-selected quasars of which 264 are reported here for the first time. A comparison of this fainter sample with the FBQS sample shows the two to be generally similar. Fourteen new broad absorption line (BAL) quasars are included in this sample. When combined with the previously identified BAL quasars in our earlier papers, we can discern a break in the frequency of BAL quasars with radio loudness, namely that the relative number of high-ionization BAL quasars drops by a factor of four for quasars with a radio-loudness parameter R* > 100.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures To be published in Astrophysical Journal Supplemen

Old heads tell their stories

Based on life history interviews with twenty veteran leaders of New York City's street gangs, a comparative analysis is made of the jacket gangs of the 1970's, the drug gangs of the 1980's and the street organizations of today. The data from these personal narratives (Reissman 1994) are supplemented by participant-and non-participant observations of current group activities and film footage of past gang­related events to provide an historical account of evolving youth street subcultural practices. The article argues that agency and empowerment, largely overlooked categories of gang analyses, exposes the poverty of conventional gang theory and the delinquency-centered criteria of gang studies

Studying the Gang Through Critical Ethnography

Added to the paucity of critical lenses through which the gang has been viewed criminologically is the increasing influence of the US criminal justice system on the global gang discourse. Such a lens has increased in importance as many nation states have followed the example of US repressive gang policies in thinking about crime and deviance, essentially mirroring its adoption of neo-liberalism in thinking about the political economy. In such an approach it is assumed that a coercive social control system is required to discipline and warehouse those “problem populations” excluded by the concentration of wealth and power. Across the globe, we observe the spread of highly punitive and criminalizing policies in crusades against the Other, resulting in extreme levels of social harm and little curtailment of the targeted behavior—an outcome predicted by adherents of deviance amplification theory. Thus, the gang as one of society’s chief enemies, has a ubiquitous presence, becoming a key “floating” signifier in policing and regulating public and private spaces, all of which relate to protecting, reproducing, and reinforcing race/ethnic and class structures in the service of wealth and capital accumulation. It is my contention that a critical ethnographic approach to studies of the gang can be part of the resistance to this dynamic or at least thwart orthodox criminology’s complicity in the process

Social Banishment and the US “Criminal Alien”: Norms of Violence and Repression in the Deportation Regime

I interpret data from an ongoing participant observation study of deportation hearings in the North-East United States using two analytical themes: (i) the emergence of the deportation regime and its mechanisms of structural violence, and (ii) the norms of violence in the spaces of the deportation regime. By deportation regime I am referring to the institutional systems and practices created under the emergence of an exceptional security state and the discrete and not so discrete apparatuses and rituals employed to discipline the minds and bodies of documented and undocumented immigrant labor and the collateral consequences that result. Whereas structural violence refers to the systemic social arrangements that inflict social harm on individuals by depriving them of their basic human rights to exist, often leading to their premature deaths. I focus on the various forms of violence in the social spaces where the regime exerts its almost unchecked power. I argue that the violence that flows from the regime has an extraordinary impact not only on immigrant non-citizens but also on immigrant citizens and non-immigrant citizens. This structural violence has a spiraling and amplifying effect, infecting a wide range of social relations as its power intimidates, terrorizes, contains and subordinate individuals and communities, subjecting them to its state-enforced mandate to remove “undesirable” elements from the social body. Such state-sponsored policies and practices aim to dehumanize, disorient, distract, humiliate and intimidate and are not the unintentional consequences of otherwise rational and measured policies aimed at the common good