This review summarizes some aspects of the central kiloparsec scale structure of galaxies, and in particular spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies and merger remnants. The focus is on results from optical and near-IR imaging and spectroscopy, with emphasis on recent work with the Hubble Space Telescope.

A new model is formulated of the sociological effect of the spiral of silence, introduced by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974. The probability that a new opinion is openly expressed decreases with the difference between this new opinion and the perceived opinion of the majority. We also assume that the system is open, i.e. some people enter and some leave during the process of the opinion forma...

Silence about the past permeates acts of remembering, with marked mnemonic consequences. Mnemonic silence-the absence of expressing a memory-is public in nature and is embedded within communicative acts, such as conversations. As such, silence has the potential to affect both speakers-the source of the silence-and listeners-those attending to the speaker. Although the topic of silence is widely...

Silence can be harmful to patients, their loved ones, and doctors within the contexts of illness and bereavement. I draw from my experience with my son's illness and death to discuss five forms of silence--the silence around the experience of critical illness; the silence between life and death; the silence of doctors; the silence of the dead, and the silence of the ill--and of speech that may ...

Mannion and Davies' article recognises whistleblowing as an important means of identifying quality and safety issues in healthcare organisations. While 'voice' is a useful lens through which to examine whistleblowing, it also obscures a shifting pattern of uncertain 'truths.' By contextualising cultures which support or impede whislteblowing at an organisational level, two issues are overlooked...

Since fear of silence is a striking feature of stuttering, this study investigated the effect of experimentally imposed silence. 24 adult stutterers read 4 passages aloud, S times each, under 3 conditions of imposed silence (introduced following the 2nd reading), and under 1 control condition. They then ranked these situations as to their evoked discomfort. Unexplained Silence, Explained Silenc...

While spiral galaxies observed from Earth clearly seem to spin in different directions, little is yet known about other differences between galaxies that spin clockwise and galaxies that spin counterclockwise. Here we compared the color of 64,399 spiral galaxies that spin clockwise to 63,215 spiral galaxies that spin counterclockwise. The results show that clockwise galaxies tend to be bluer th...