Effects Of Decline Research Articles

The Fate of Jewish Historiography after the Bible: A New Interpretation

AbstractWhat caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to locate these explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco‐Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history.Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs (or fabricates) the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil's comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come.

The continuity and intensity of ultraviolet irradiation affect the kinetics of biosynthesis, accumulation, and conversion of mycosporine‐like amino acids (MAAs) in the coral Stylophora pistillata

Colonies of Stylophora pistillata unexposed to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in laboratory aquaria contained minimal amounts of mycosporine‐like amino acids (MAAs). The concentration of MAAs increased rapidly during exposure to broadband UVR, then stabilized between 14 and 28 d of exposure. The four MAAs known to be produced by diverse zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium spp.) in culture were the first to increase in coral colonies, followed by six additional MAAs. Decreases in these four primary MAAs between days 14 and 28 were balanced by stoichiometric increases in the six secondary MAAs, suggesting a precursor‐product relationship. Discontinuing UV exposure caused rapid declines in the concentrations of primary MAAs, while secondary MAAs continued to increase, likely a manifestation of different rates of turnover of the putative enzymes involved in the de novo biosynthesis of primary MAAs and their conversion to secondary MAAs. The continued production of certain MAAs after UV exposure ceased indicates that UV is not required catalytically but is a signal that induces the enzymes of the biosynthetic pathway. Biochemically inhibiting the biosynthesis of primary MAAs after a pool of these MAAs had accumulated did not affect their conversion to secondary MAAs. Doubling the UV irradiance increased the rate of accumulation, first, of primary MAAs and, later, of secondary MAAs. Under normal UV irradiance, the eventual decline in the accumulation rate of primary MAAs was quantitatively explained by their conversion to secondary MAAs. Under doubled UV irradiance, where MAA concentrations were higher, the deceleration of accumulation of primary MAAs was twice as great as the acceleration in secondary MAAs, suggesting a regulation of the de novo biosynthesis of MAAs, perhaps by their own progressive, concentration‐dependent attenuation of UVR.

The development of perfection: The interiorization of buddhist ritual in the eighth and ninth centuries

Since the nineteenth century, the conventional western narrative of the development of Indian philosophy has portrayed the sixth century B.C.E. as a turning point. Before this point, we are told, Indian thought was dominated by the idolatrous rituals of the Vedas. Only with the appear ance of the Aranyakas and the Upanisads was this state of affairs improved. The authors of these new works sought to internalize the Vedic rituals, to discover, 'the inward universe of man himself, and from that point forward Indian philosophy was freed from the 'magic machinery of priestly ritual'.1 Contemporary with the Upanisads, early Buddhism was seen as a parallel reaction against Vedic ritualism, and therefore as similarly free from ritual. The conventional narrative goes on to represent the introduction of tantric ritual into Buddhist practice as a crucial moment of pollution which led to Buddhism's eventual decline in India. In recent years this narrative has been largely rejected. The existence of a pure Buddhism consisting of bare philosophical notions and unencumbered by ritual is now widely recognized as nothing more than a European creation. Over the past decade in particular, archaeological and textual research has revealed ritual practice throughout early Buddhism.2

Die Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft in Leipzig: Von der Gründung bis in die ersten Jahre des Seniorats Johann Christoph Gottscheds by Detlef Döring (review)

242 Reviews Die Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft in Leipzig: Von der Griindungbis in die ersten Jahre des Seniorats Johann Christoph Gottscheds. By Detlef Doring. (Fruhe Neuzeit, 70) Tiibingen: Niemeyer. 2002. xii + 391 pp. ?68. ISBN 3-48436570 -6 (hbk). Though in the course of time 'Deutsche Gesellschaften' were founded in eighteen towns, they have attracted surprisingly little attention, even though they offer an interesting way of approaching German literature and ideas in the Enlightenment period. The majority were located in university towns, and academies therefore constituted a significant proportion of their membership. Hundreds of men (and some? times women) would meet regularly to discuss poetry and prose. The earliest and most important of these societies was the Deutsche Gesellschaft at Leipzig. Though Johann Christoph Gottsched, its Senior for eleven years, played a key role in it, he was by no means its founder, much as he liked to represent himself as such. It began as the Gorlitzer Poetisches Kollegium in 1697, but even this had its precursors reaching back to the 1620s. Detlef Doring's aim in this study is to explore the growth of the society's influence from 1697 to 1730. This reason for this?at firstseemingly curious?cut-off point, rather than 1738, the year in which Gottsched demitted office as Senior, is that Doring fully expects the picture of the later years of Gottsched's stewardship to be modified considerably once the mammoth undertaking of editing his correspondence (a project launched with the support ofthe Saxon Academy of Sciences in 2000) starts to produce results. In fifteenchapters, Doring leads us through the development of the society from its origin in a group founded in January 1697 by four friends from the Gorlitz Gymnasium , its various guises firstas the Gorlitzer Poetisches Kollegium, then as the Teutschubende Poetische Gesellschaft in the 1720s, its conversion into the Deutsche Gesellschaft in 1727, and attempts to turn it into a (Saxon) Royal Academy of Ger? man Language and Literature after the model of the Academie Francaise. Particular attention is given to the statutes, the membership, and the nature of members' liter? ary output at various junctures. Before Gottsched joined, it was essentially a club for students who dabbled in poetry, three-quarters of them theologians or lawyers. In? terestingly,several ofthe early members later owned, founded, or directed important libraries, an example being the law student Georg Christian Lehms (1684-1717), still remembered forhis book on women poets, Teutschlandsgalante Poetinnen (Frankfurt a.M., 1715), who became court librarian at Darmstadt. Much ofthe members' poetic output deemed to meet the group's literarycriteria in the early eighteenth century is preserved in the society's officialmanuscript collections (some 4,600 pages), now in Leipzig University Library. In Chapter 6 Doring offers a provisional survey of this material. Much of it is occasional verse (in Latin and in German) for birthdays, name-days, weddings, and so on, but there is also a great deal on the role of poetry. On the other hand, there is precious little on the status of the German language, which shows that the society can scarcely be regarded as a latter-day Sprachgesellschaft. Chapter 8 deals with the transformation ofthe Collegium Poeticum Gorlicense into the Teutschubende Poetische Gesellschaft under the presidency of Johann Burkhard Mencke (author of the satire De charlataneria eruditorum (Leipzig, 1715), and son of the founder of the Acta eruditorum, the firstGerman learned journal). Though the details are far from clear, the result was the widening of membership and the abandonment of an exclusive focus on Silesian poetry. One of the new leading figures was Johann Friedrich May (1697-1762), who, even before Gottsched, had aspirations to see what had originally been essentially a student poetry club turned into the German equivalent of the Academie Francaise. May, who would succeed Gottsched MLRy 99.1, 2004 243 as Senior in 1738 and hold this position until his death, proved rather ineffective, however, so that he must be seen as largely responsible for the society's eventual decline. When Gottsched joined, in March 1724, the society had recently celebrated its twenty-fifthanniversary (in 1722), possessed a substantial library,built up by Chris? tian Clodius, with a printed catalogue...

Images of the Enemy: German Depictions of the French Military, 1890-1914

This article re-examines German assessments of the French military before the First World War. It challenges both the view of the followers of Fritz Fischer and that of subsequent revisionists that such assessments played only a peripheral role in the formulation of the Reich’s military strategy and foreign policy. By looking at the correspondence of the General Staff, attachés, diplomats, the Chancellor, Wilhelm II and his entourage, and the press, the study investigates images of Germany’s principal military enemy for most of the pre-war period in their own right. It contends that government, the army and the press - of different political leanings - shared a large number of assumptions about the eventual decline of the French army and navy, which had a decisive effect on the conduct of foreign policy in the decade before 1914. This perceived decline, however, occurred later than is commonly held, around the turn of the century, against a widely believed historical background of French military power. The tardiness of such a shift in Wilhelmine views of the neighbouring state helped to ensure that calculations of French strength remained a - perhaps the - central element in the development of Germany’s strategy and policy-making prior to the First World War.

Current problems of perinatal Chlamydia trachomatis infections

Chlamydia trachomatis has been recognized as a pathogen of trachoma, nongonococcal urethritis, salpingitis, endocervicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, inclusion conjunctivitis of neonates, follicular conjunctivitis of adults, infantile pneumonia and associated conditions. Chlamydial infections during pregnancy may also cause a variety of perinatal complications. Different antigenic strains of C. trachomatis from endocervical, nasopharyngeal and conjunctival origins have been associated with different clinical conditions. Control programs emphasizing early diagnosis, targeted screening, and effective treatment will lead to an eventual decline in the incidence of perinatal chlamydial infection. This review focuses on current problems of perinatal C. trachomatis infections in the aspects of microbiological and immunological pathogenesis.

The evolution of social behavior in the prehistoric American southwest.

Long House Valley, located in the Black Mesa area of northeastern Arizona (USA), was inhabited by the Kayenta Anasazi from circa 1800 B.C. to circa A.D. 1300. These people were prehistoric precursors of the modern Pueblo cultures of the Colorado Plateau. A rich paleoenvironmental record, based on alluvial geomorphology, palynology, and dendroclimatology, permits the accurate quantitative reconstruction of annual fluctuations in potential agricultural production (kg maize/hectare). The archaeological record of Anasazi farming groups from A.D. 200 to 1300 provides information on a millennium of sociocultural stasis, variability, change, and adaptation. We report on a multi-agent computational model of this society that closely reproduces the main features of its actual history, including population ebb and flow, changing spatial settlement patterns, and eventual rapid decline. The agents in the model are monoagriculturalists, who decide both where to situate their fields and where to locate their settlements.

Relations between the Safavid State and its Non-Muslim Minorities 1

The article outlines the history of relations between the Safavid state and its dhimm L ¥ minorities. Important policies derived from and peculiar to Ithna 'Ashar L ¥ doctrine are also discussed as well as the importance of the ruler's discretion in the application and enforcement of the policies within the region. Particular attention is paid to the period of rule under 'Abba ¥ s I in which multiculturalism and tolerance were prevalent throughout the kingdom. The more hostile relations of the state to its non-Muslim minorities before and after 'Abba ¥ s I's reign are attributed to the eventual decline of the state.

Julfar and the urbanisation of Southeast Arabia

The fourteenth‐sixteenth‐century town of Julfar (al‐Mataf) in Ras al‐Khaimah (UAE) is one of the most fully investigated archaeological sites in the Gulf, having been the subject of seven different excavation projects. Evidence from the published reports, when brought together, provides a detailed and coherent picture of the development of the site from a small fishing community in the mid‐fourteenth century to a fully urbanised settlement by the mid‐fifteenth century, and then attests to its eventual decline and abandonment by the late sixteenth century.Julfar was the first example of true urbanism in this part of Arabia, and therefore marks a significant historical turning point. Its development is believed to have been linked to the expanding mercantile economy of Hormuz, but it occurred at the same time as a period of spectacular rural growth in its own immediate hinterland, evidence for which has been produced by archaeological field survey. Together these phenomena suggest the development of a local market economy, perhaps for the first time, which would have had significant implications for the social and economic structure of the area.

Social Capital and Collusion: The Case of Merchant Guilds

Merchant guilds have been portrayed as networks that generated beneficial by sustaining shared norms, effectively transmitting information, and successfully undertaking collective action. This social capital, it is claimed, benefited society as a whole by enabling rulers to commit to providing a secure trading environment for alien merchants. But was this really the case? We develop a new model of the emergence, rise, and eventual decline of European merchant guilds, which explores the collusive relationship between rulers and guilds, and calls into question the prevailing positive view of merchant guilds. We then confront the model's predictions with the available historical data. The empirical evidence strongly supports our model, and refutes existing theories. Our findings show that merchant guilds used their social capital for socially harmful as well as beneficial ends.

Population growth and collapse in a multiagent model of the Kayenta Anasazi in Long House Valley.

Long House Valley in the Black Mesa area of northeastern Arizona (U.S.) was inhabited by the Kayenta Anasazi from about 1800 before Christ to about anno Domini 1300. These people were prehistoric ancestors of the modern Pueblo cultures of the Colorado Plateau. Paleoenvironmental research based on alluvial geomorphology, palynology, and dendroclimatology permits accurate quantitative reconstruction of annual fluctuations in potential agricultural production (kg of maize per hectare). The archaeological record of Anasazi farming groups from anno Domini 200-1300 provides information on a millennium of sociocultural stasis, variability, change, and adaptation. We report on a multiagent computational model of this society that closely reproduces the main features of its actual history, including population ebb and flow, changing spatial settlement patterns, and eventual rapid decline. The agents in the model are monoagriculturalists, who decide both where to situate their fields as well as the location of their settlements. Nutritional needs constrain fertility. Agent heterogeneity, difficult to model mathematically, is demonstrated to be crucial to the high fidelity of the model.

General Patterns in Invasion Ecology Tested in the Dutch Wadden Sea: The Case of a Brackish-Marine Polychaetous Worm

The success of invasive aquatic species is determined by a variety of attributes such as wide environmental tolerance, high genetic variability, short generation time, early sexual maturity, high reproductive capacity, and a broad diet. Usually, introduced species, after some time lag since inoculation, show an exponential population increase and expansion. Maintenance of the immigrant species at a high population level will be dependent on interspecific competition with native species and availability of habitat and food. Eventually, the immigrant population may decline, for instance due to increased predation pressure, parasite infestation or loss of genetic vigour. These characteristic patterns in invasive species are reviewed for the case of the North American spionid polychaete Marenzelleria cf. wireni in the Dutch Wadden Sea. This species was first recorded in estuaries and coastal waters of the European continent in the Ems estuary (eastern Dutch Wadden Sea) in 1983. In the western part of the Dutch Wadden Sea the first specimens were found in 1989. The Ems estuary population showed the typical lag-phase, explosive increase, stabilisation, and eventual decline. In the western part of the Dutch Wadden Sea the latter two phases have not yet developed. The strong development and stabilisation of the population in the Ems estuary may have been caused by the availability of a yet not utilised food source. The species' final decline remains largely unexplained.

Precarious Values: Organizations, Politics and Labour Market Policy in Ontario

The global economy and technological changes have dramatically altered the nature of labour markets. In this context, sub-national governments play an increasingly important role in labour market policy. In Canada, for instance, provinces have extensive powers to help the unemployed and those on social assistance to move into the labour market. Precarious Values analyses the efforts of three Ontario governments in the 1980s and 1990s, led by three different political parties, to design organizations and policies to help the unemployed acquire vocational skills. Thomas Klassen focuses on the birth, life, and eventual decline of two sizeable organizations created to develop strategic labour market policy for the province. The first was a traditional government department, while the second was an ambitious agency that gave business and labour groups control of a budget of over half a billion dollars. Both organizations faced fundamental disagreements over the role of the state, as well as intergovernmental conflicts and animosity between stakeholders.

A qualitative probabilistic model of microbial outbursts in foods

AbstractSequences of counts of potentially harmful organisms in foods usually exhibit an irregular fluctuating pattern. The counts are determined by the interplay of numerous random factors that tend to promote or inhibit the organisms' growth. The counts can be recorded as zero, indicating that either the organism is not present or is below a minimum detectable level, or they can fluctuate randomly within characteristic bounds. An outburst is said to occur when the population surpasses a specified threshold determined by safety or quality considerations. The growth pattern in this ‘explosive’ mode is also governed by a combination of random mechanisms that determine the growth rate and eventual decline of the population. This paper presents a probabilistic model for such scenarios. The model parameters represent the underlying distribution of the fluctuations, the detection and explosion thresholds and the probability of continued growth after an outburst has begun. A simplified version of the model was used to simulate examples of microbial histories that resemble those of sensitive foods. It is also used to elucidate how the frequency, intensity and duration of outbursts are affected by the parameters of the model. In addition, we demonstrate how to estimate the model's parameters from actual records and illustrate the efficacy of the estimation method with simulated data. The utility of such models for risk assessment will depend on the availability of long records of microbial counts that include outbursts in order to test their predictive ability. Because the presence of a harmful agent is not always sufficient to cause food poisoning, models of this kind can only estimate the expected frequency of outbursts but not the frequency of actual food‐poisoning outbreaks.© 2001 Society of Chemical Industry

Elevated carbon dioxide flux at the Dixie Valley geothermal field, Nevada; relations between surface phenomena and the geothermal reservoir

In the later part of the 1990s, a large die-off of desert shrubs occurred over an approximately 1 km 2 area in the northwestern section of the Dixie Valley (DV) geothermal field. This paper reports results from accumulation-chamber measurements of soil CO 2 flux from locations in the dead zone and stable isotope and chemical data on fluids from fumaroles, shallow wells, and geothermal production wells within and adjacent to the dead zone. A cumulative probability plot shows three types of flux sites within the dead zone: locations with a normal background CO 2 flux (7 g m −2 day −1); moderate flux sites displaying “excess” geothermal flux; and high flux sites near young vents and fumaroles. A maximum CO 2 flux of 570 g m −2 day −1 was measured at a location adjacent to a fumarole. Using statistical methods appropriate for lognormally distributed populations of data, estimates of the geothermal flux range from 7.5 t day −1 from a 0.14-km 2 site near the Stillwater Fault to 0.1 t day −1 from a 0.01-km 2 location of steaming ground on the valley floor. Anomalous CO 2 flux is positively correlated with shallow temperature anomalies. The anomalous flux associated with the entire dead zone area declined about 35% over a 6-month period. The decline was most notable at a hot zone located on an alluvial fan and in the SG located on the valley floor. Gas geochemistry indicates that older established fumaroles along the Stillwater Fault and a 2-year-old vent in the lower section of the dead zone discharge a mixture of geothermal gases and air or gases from air-saturated meteoric water (ASMW). Stable isotope data indicate that steam from the smaller fumaroles is produced by ≈100°C boiling of these mixed fluids and reservoir fluid. Steam from the Senator fumarole (SF) and from shallow wells penetrating the dead zone are probably derived by 140°C to 160°C boiling of reservoir fluid. Carbon-13 isotope data suggest that the reservoir CO 2 is produced mainly by thermal decarbonation of hydrothermal calcite in veins that cut reservoir rocks. Formation of the dead zone is linked to the reservoir pressure decline caused by continuous reservoir drawdown from 1986 to present. These reservoir changes have restricted flow and induced boiling in a subsurface hydrothermal outflow plume extending from the Stillwater Fault southeast toward the DV floor. We estimate that maximum CO 2 flux in the upflow zone along the Stillwater Fault in 1998 was roughly seven to eight times greater than the pre-production flux in 1986. The eventual decline in CO 2 flux reflects the drying out of the outflow plume.

A 10-year follow-up review of patients who underwent Leksell's posteroventral pallidotomy for Parkinson disease.

The clinical condition of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) who had undergone posteroventral pallidotomy (PVP) between 1985 and 1990 was evaluated at a mean of 10 years postsurgery. These patients were part of a larger series described in the first paper on Leksell's PVP that was published in 1992. Thirteen consecutive patients who had undergone pallidotomy at the University Hospital of Northern Sweden were tracked. Hospital and clinic records that had been updated regularly by the patients' various neurologists, geriatricians, and other clinicians were reviewed. Emphasis was placed on assessing the evolution of PD symptoms after surgery, and changes in the general health and social condition of the patients. The mean follow-up duration was 10.5 years (range 3-13.5 years). Five patients underwent a total of seven subsequent surgeries for their PD, 4 months to 11 years after the initial pallidotomy. The mean Hoehn and Yahr stage was 3 at the first surgery and 3.7 at the last follow-up review (p < 0.005). Dosages of levodopa and dopamine agonists were increased in all patients, without recurrence or induction of dyskinesias contralateral to the pallidotomy. Contralateral tremor, if it was initially controlled by surgery, remained improved. However, most patients exhibited a gradual recurrence of akinesia and an increase in gait freezing. Cognitive decline and presentation with diseases unrelated to PD were not uncommon. The long-term effect of PVP on dyskinesias was not only curative but also appeared to be prophylactic. Contralateral tremor was improved in the majority of patients, although additional surgeries for PD were needed in some patients. Further progression of axial and akinetic symptoms, and an eventual decline in cognition together with other concomitant illnesses, contributed to increased disability in several patients.

Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes (review)

Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes. ORIN STARK. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1999; 330 pp. In his ambitiously understated book Nightwatch, Orin Starn offers an ethnography of peasant patrols (rondas campesinas) in Peru. The book traces the rondas from their emergence in the mid-1970s through their apparent decline in the late 1990s. These dates bracket a set of strikingly transformative moments in a range of overlapping fields of inquiry of interest to Starn. In Peru they span a period marked by increasing evidence of the limits of land reforms implemented in the late 1960s, by economic crises of debt and spiraling inflation, by the increasing violence and terror resulting from the Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru guerrilla movements as well as from government counterinsurgency efforts, and by the socioeconomic impact of neo-liberal economic reforms and correlated political and social developments under the regime of Alberto Fujimori. These dates also bookend a period of shifting conventional wisdom about the politics and possibilities of peasant mobilization and revolutionary reforms in post Cold War Latin America, as well as elsewhere. Finally, the period of the rondas is marked by sharp challenges to anthropology and the questioning of many of the conventions of Andean ethnography. One way to view this book is as an effort to line up these various issues as they are refracted through the lens of the rondas-or, perhaps better, through the lens of Stam's encounter with the rondas. While this effort is largely successful, the breadth of themes Starn strives to weave together sometimes limits the depth of analysis presented in the book. The rondas emerged as a local response to a moment of crisis. Despite land reforms that promised to end generations of oppression and injustice, these conditions endured compounded by a national economy spinning out of control. Faced with what is remembered today as a period of chaos and lawlessness characterized by an epidemic of cattle rustling, highlands farmers organized nightly civil patrols. On the nightwatch, peasant ronderos did more than keep their cattle from being poached. They sought to reestablish conditions of local integrity, a sense of social order that was not being provided by the state. In many cases the community they consolidated came to be defined in part through participation in the rondas themselves, and through tenets of law, order, and right conduct enforced by the patrols. Marital disputes and sexual scandal along with rustling and thievery became objects of ronda vigilance. So too did the corruption and laziness of local police and government officials. From their point of origin in the town of Chota, the rondas emerged as a widespread self-conscious peasant movement, celebrated by NGOs, by some political parties, in media accounts, and in popular music. Analytically, Stam's account is poised somewhere between the situated texture of a given ronda (focused largely on two cases: the community of Tunnel Six in northern Peru, and the Chota valley in the vicinity of Cajamarca) and a wider view of the rondero movement. His main chapters review the history of the rondas, the practices of ronda justice, the position of women in the rondas, the articulation of the rondas with translocal and transnational networks of NGOs, and the eventual decline of ronda leadership in the confluence of local in-fighting, the corruption of power, and the shifting terrain of Peruvian civil society in the last decade. The account is larded with rich ethnographic data evocatively presented; this is a nicely written book. Yet Stam's dogged commitment to leaving no levels of analysis unlinked has the curious effect in places of flattening the ethnographic texture of the work, of rendering what is a well fleshed out narrative as a string of thinner anecdotes. The multifaceted insightfulness of Starn's analysis-with regard to Andean themes, with regard to scholarship on Latin America, and with regard to broader discussion in anthropology and cognate disciplines-is impressively evident throughout the book. …

Effects of zooplankton grazing and nutrients on the bloom-forming, N2-fixing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon in Lake Kinneret

A bloom of the filamentous, N2-fixing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon ovalisporum Forti occurred for the first time in Lake Kinneret during late summer and fall 1994. During subsequent years (1995–1999), Aphanizomenon also appeared in late summer and fall, but did not bloom. In outdoor microcosm experiments, we examined zooplankton grazing on Lake Kinneret phytoplankton, with and without Aphanizomenon present, and the effects of N, P and N:P ratios on phytoplankton growth. In one-day feeding experiments, clearance and grazing rates of the ambient Lake Kinneret zooplankton assemblage feeding in lake water dominated by Aphanizomenon were 10-fold lower than in water without Aphanizomenon. We suspect that the low grazing rates were due to interference caused by the presence of Aphanizomenon. In 9-day nutrient addition experiments, significant enhancement effects on phytoplankton were detected with additions of either P or N; a high N:P was better for phytoplankton growth than a low N:P. After 7 days, bottles receiving low P and no N additions were dominated by Oscillatoria sp. and Closterium acutum; few Aphanizomenon were present. In contrast, bottles receiving high P and N additions had large increases of Aphanizomenon, as well as Oscillatoria and Closterium. There was a tendency for more green algae and diatoms with increasing N additions. These results provide evidence that (i) non-grazeability of Aphanizomenon enabled it to gain a competitive advantage over grazeable phytoplankton, and (ii) that nutrient limitation, but not grazing, was probably important in the eventual decline of the Aphanizomenon bloom.

Aging Related Functional Changes in Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

Persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) now have an increased life expectancy. However, they are more susceptible to earlier age-related functional declines when compared to their nondisabled counterparts. Symptoms of new fatigue, pain, or weakness often precede new losses in function. The consequences of decline in function include increasing needs for personal assistance, equipment, and medical services. Underlying medical conditions are explored as potential contributing factors to the loss of function. Continued investigations of the etiology of pain, fatigue, and weakness along with enhanced clinical and support services are necessary to meet the changing needs of the aging SCI population.

The 2N3055: a case history

The 2N3055 power transistor was introduced by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the early 1960s. It was one of the first silicon power transistors, offered unrivalled second breakdown immunity and found many applications particularly in audio power amplifiers and linear power supplies. Other companies tried to copy it with varying degrees of success: one company acknowledges it now by naming a power MOSFET after it. We trace its history, manufacture and eventual decline against pressure from competing technologies. Modern simulation tools have been used to investigate the operation of the device which illustrate its good, and not so good, features. We also relate its geometry to a SPICE model. Neither of these tools would have been available to the original developers. We propose that this transistor be given a place in the archives of history, ranked alongside other famous devices of the 20th century such as the 300B tube.