Rock Bottom Research Articles

The Fed's Folly: Not Normalizing Rates Quickly After the Great Recession

For over seven years the Federal Reserve Bank has failed to foster a normal economic recovery in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. By adhering to a zero interest-rate policy, as well as quantitative easing involving the infusion of credit through the purchase of trillions of dollars of government bonds and agency securities, economic performance has fallen far short of historical standards. A long-awaited 25 basis point hike in the federal funds rate in December 2015 is feckless. Chronic near-zero interest rates have forced a massive migration of capital to overvalued financial assets from traditional bank loans, deposits and money market instruments that traditionally fund the real economy. In addition, those rates have rendered bank net interest margins unprofitable resulting in restricted lending, mostly to the most credit-worthy borrowers at the expense of small businesses that create most jobs. Rock bottom rates aimed at stimulating growth through borrowing are not productive if they do not also motivate broad lending throughout the economy.This paper advocates a relatively rapid normalization of interest rates to restore equilibrium in the credit markets through a steady series of rate hikes. The action would redirect capital away from inflated stocks and bonds back to the production and consumption of goods and services that grow the economy. The particular fed fund rate that supports the movement of enough capital to achieve this may be about 4%., last registered in 2007. Heresy to traditionalists, few economists and analysts have called for such a solution out of fear of upsetting the financial markets and triggering a recession. Even the acclaimed “Taylor rule” that has guided monetary policy for more than 20 years understates the rate requirement under current anomalous monetary conditions. The consensus view does not consider that raising rates from near-zero would not have the adverse impact as raising them from historically normal levels might. Bold action is required to finally deflate the financial economy and reflate the real economy. In the process, the Fed has to resist short-term market disruptions and less than optimal economic data that heretofore have deterred rate hikes. And monetary ineffectiveness must not be excused on the ground of a “new normal” born of restrictive post-crisis financial regulation and ever-growing big government. Although impediments to growth, normalized interest rates can overcome them. In the early 1980s Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, in different economic circumstances, displayed the courage to take radical corrective action. His policy of sky-high interest rates to wring out hyperinflation initially precipitated a sharp recession but subsequently ushered in nearly uninterrupted expansion for almost 20 years.Once and for all the Fed should realize it has found itself in a hole from years of ineffectual policy. It’s time to stop digging. Sadly, of late the Fed is considering the opposite in flirting with negative interest rates that mimes the failure of other central banks. Counterintuitive as it may seem, raising interest rates to pre-crisis levels, coupled with fiscal and regulatory reform, would provide the stimulus that has been missing for too long.

Hitting rock bottom? Resource loss as a predictor of alcoholism treatment completion

Background Efforts to better understand the phenomenon of the ‘bottom’, the beginning of the process of turning away from alcohol, are important for both theoretical and practical goals. The conservation of resources theory by Hobfoll may represent a suitable framework to base these attempts around. Aim The aim of the study was to examine the role of resource loss in completing alcoholism treatment on the basis of Hobfoll’s conservation of resources theory. Methods The study included 86 patients undergoing inpatient alcoholism treatment. An assessment of resource loss and gain during the previous year, as well as of the decisional balance regarding the pros and cons of drinking alcohol, took place at the beginning of therapy. Results The results of hierarchical binary logistic regression confirmed that resource loss was the only significant predictor of therapy completion, after adjustment for decisional balance, demographics and basic clinical data. Additionally, gender moderated the relationship between resource gain and therapy completion: while an increase in gain was related to a decreased chance of completing therapy in men, the opposite effect was noted in women. Conclusions Resource loss has more influence than decisional balance in predicting therapy completion, which can be translated into clinically valid recommendations based on gender differences.

What’s So Ordinary about Poetry?: An Argument in Seven Scenes

What’s So Ordinary about Poetry? An Argument in Seven Scenes Larry Jackson (bio) [End Page 28] Philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value But can philosophy become literature and still know itself? —Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason Scene One: This Is Simply What I Do in which a spade is turned and a mystery is unearthed Poor Ludwig Wittgenstein. How many times as a schoolteacher had he turned a student’s chair so that it faced the wall as punishment for not understanding a lesson?1 And now, here he was, the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century, staring at the wall like a surly child. Only this punishment was self-imposed. Misunderstood by his audience—the philosophers who would later be known as the Vienna Circle—Wittgenstein turned his back on them to read poetry aloud to the cobwebs and shadows that clung to the corners of the room, as though he were staging one of those enigmatic scenes found in his Philosophical Investigations.2 Like so many of the images in that work, this moment might also raise knotty questions about how we understand one another and why we often fail to do so. “Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned,” writes Wittgenstein, drawing on another of his short-lived professions, that of monastery gardener, to convey the exasperation of the educator.3 “Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” But when Wittgenstein turned his spade and his back on this group of prominent philosophers in the 1920s, he also raised a far more basic question. Just why was he acting this way? No one among the group of intellectuals that comprised the Vienna Circle had treated Wittgenstein with contempt. On the contrary: they had invited him to speak in depth about the ideas that he had developed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, many of which their own school of thought, logical positivism, attempted to amplify and refine. However much they erred in their interpretations of Wittgenstein’s ideas, surely they deserved a thoughtful response, not a puzzling poetic protest. Why did Wittgenstein not try harder to persuade them? And if that could not be done, then why accept their invitations in the first place? Obviously, he was making a point. But was this a profound philosophical point or a petty, personal one? And if it was philosophical, then why not present it the usual way, in the form of an argument? Go back to that passage quoted a moment ago about exhausting justifications and reaching bedrock. You will see that there is, in fact, a striking difference between Wittgenstein’s real-life café contretemps and his parabolic turned spade in the Investigations. When Wittgenstein could not make himself understood to the philosophers of the Vienna Circle, he read poetry, whereas his fictional teacher, the one who hits rock bottom, confesses only that he is inclined to say something.4 We can interpret that silent inclination as prologue to any number of words or actions on the part of the teacher. Wittgenstein himself offers one such possibility in an early study for the Investigations, [End Page 29] when he writes, “If a child does not respond to the suggestive gesture [to go on counting correctly], it is separated from the others and treated as a lunatic.”5 But we can just as easily imagine the teacher instead repeating the lesson or offering new examples, berating the student or collapsing in agony. We can also interpret the silence not as mere prelude to some grand pedagogical strategy or personal meltdown, but as the action or lesson itself. Teaching is not just about talking. There are many scenarios in which silence might be the best, or even the only, way to educate (or be educated). Here is one of them: If the child, little or big, asks me: Why do we eat animals? or Why are some people poor and others rich? or What is God? or Why do I have to go to school? or Do you love...

Bottom Up or Rock Bottom Harmonization? Francovich State Liability in National Courts

The Working Paper presents the first results of a research project on the application of Francovich State liability by national courts. The project is supervised by Prof. Hans-W. Micklitz (EUI) and Prof. Takis Tridimas (KCL). Research has been undertaken in ten Member States to identify all cases in which State liability on the basis of the Francovich criteria was claimed in national courts. For each case researchers were asked to complete a case sheet. Finally, they were asked to write a short report with the results for their Member State. The conclusion analyses some of the trends. It is clear that, while national courts have not opposed the application of the conditions for Francovich State liability, they are still struggling to integrate these conditions in their national laws on State liability. The result can only be described as something of a hybrid, which requires further analysis in the future. It is hoped that this Working Paper will provide a sound basis for further research.

Loss of Meaning as a Predictor of Distress in Prison.

Incarceration has been described as a distressing experience, marked by important losses and accompanied by deep existential crises. Some prisoners "hit rock bottom" and are confronted with the fact that their life does not make sense anymore. Surprisingly, loss of meaning among prisoners has not been studied in a quantitative way before. In this study, we explored the relationship between loss of meaning inflicted by incarceration and distress. In a sample of 365 prisoners, univariate analyses and hierarchical multiple regression analyses confirmed that a loss of meaning positively predicted distress in prison. Differences between prison regimes predicted distress, but had no influence on the loss of meaning. Unsentenced incarceration, in contrast, did not have a direct relationship to distress, but amplified the effect of loss of meaning on distress. Psychotherapy and chaplain support did not affect the relationship between loss of meaning and distress during incarceration.

Editor’s Introduction: Imaginations in Indianapolis at the College English Association Conference, March 26–28, 2015

Editor’s Introduction: Imaginations in Indianapolis at the College English Association Conference, March 26–28, 2015 Peter Kratzke While the topography of the East Coast has been described as circular (envision in your mind’s eye standing on a promontory overlooking the wave-like Appalachians) and the West Coast as triangular (position yourself now before the jagged Cascades), the Midwest is squarish (shift now to gazing on the great to the Great Plains). Last March, into that third world swept the annual College English Association Conference, and what better place for the event to embrace squarishness than the state capital of Indianapolis, Indiana. Although Indy had yet to emerge from a too-long winter—the wind-chill was on the biting side—attendees to the conference found their way not only to sessions but to the outdoors. By the closing day, the temperature was even warming significantly. Coincidentally, the improvement was just in time for the staging of a rally to protest the newly passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by Republican Governor Mike Pence. Holding signs and voicing their opinions, residents gathered at the Indiana State Capitol, which was caddie-corner to the conference headquarters at the Hyatt Regency. CEA conference-goers had seen it coming: the overall political situation, in fact, had already given them just one more issue to discuss, starting when they ate their chicken or beef kebobs at the President’s Reception. “Imaginations” was the theme of the conference, a call evident in how all sorts of variety could be seen everywhere one turned. For restaurant fare just outside the hotel, in one direction was the Denver-based Rock Bottom Brewery, in another was the Boston-based Au Bon Pain, and in still another was the local-to-Indiana Weber Grill. Places to visit were equally varied, at least in their architecture: the Churrigueresque facade of the Indiana Repertory Theater provided a marvelous sight directly across from the hotel, the starkly utilitarian Indiana Museum was nearby, the towering specter of Lucas Oil Stadium could almost be felt hovering above downtown, and the private home of Indianapolis native Kurt Vonnegut provided a finishing touch for some CEA pilgrims. Regardless of such examples, perhaps the clearest demonstration of imaginative variety could be felt at the conference’s book drawing. On that occasion, Anderson University’s Scott Borders, propelled by his keen wit, read the names scrawled on the usual slips of paper, a process that inspired the impatient among us to imagine the nation’s map. One missing name, though, was longtime CEA [End Page v] member and Florida State Professor Fred Standley, who had passed away on December 22, 2014. At the subsequent All-Conference Luncheon, CEA President Steve Brahlek asked for a moment of silence in Fred’s honor. Steve’s words captured the goal each of us imagines in our role as scholar-teachers: “We would all like to be remembered in the way we remember Fred.” Amen to that sentiment, Steve. In the generally well-attended conference rooms, presentations reflected how academic inquiry can be imaginative as well as critical. While conference papers have a specific chronological place in our intellectual journeys—they involve a deadline and a plane ticket, after all—their rhetorical space is a bit vaguer. Ranging in style from rough-and-ready expanded notes to finely crafted wordsmithing, in content from incipient “noodling” to ready-for-journal-publication argumentation, and in presentational form from discussion to lecture, the genre of such papers captures the social act of professing that is integral to our lives. It is a genre that dares to be public, but the CEA Conference audience members are sure to ease any possible tension because they sympathize by applauding the very act of participation and celebrate by asking good questions. For this proceedings issue, we, the editors, have selected a limited-to-space representative view of the event by as much as possible leaving the texts “as is,” and we hope you enjoy them in that spirit. Leading our alphabetically arranged proceedings issue is Stacy Bailey’s exploration of how we may enhance our pedagogy through Allan Wigfield and Jacquelynne Eccles’s Expectancy-Value Model of Achievement...

Hitting rock bottom: morphological responses of bedrock-confined streams to a catastrophic flood

Abstract. The role of extreme events in shaping the Earth's surface is one that has held the interests of Earth scientists for centuries. A catastrophic flood in a tectonically quiescent setting in eastern Australia in 2011 provides valuable insight into how semi-alluvial channels respond to such events. Field survey data (3 reaches) and desktop analyses (10 reaches) with catchment areas ranging from 0.5 to 168 km2 show that the predicted discharge for the 2011 event ranged from 415 to 933 m3 s−1, with unit stream power estimates of up to 1077 W m−2. Estimated entrainment relationships predict the mobility of the entire grain-size population, and field data suggest the localised mobility of boulders up to 4.8 m in diameter. Analysis of repeat lidar data demonstrates that all reaches (field and desktop) were areas of net degradation via extensive scouring of coarse-grained alluvium with a strong positive relationship between catchment area and normalised erosion (R2 = 0.72–0.74). The extensive scouring in the 2011 flood decreased thalweg variance significantly removing previous step pools and other coarse-grained in-channel units, forming lengths of plane-bed (cobble) reach morphology. This was also accompanied by the exposure of planar bedrock surfaces, marginal bedrock straths and bedrock steps. Post-flood field data indicate a slight increase in thalweg variance as a result of the smaller 2013 flood rebuilding the alluvial overprint with pool-riffle formation. However, the current form and distribution of channel morphological units does not conform to previous classifications of bedrock or headwater river systems. This variation in post-flood form indicates that in semi-alluvial systems extreme events are significant for re-setting the morphology of in-channel units and for exposing the underlying lithology to ongoing erosion.

Marine litter in the upper São Vicente submarine canyon (SW Portugal): Abundance, distribution, composition and fauna interactions

Marine litter has become a worldwide environmental problem, tainting all ocean habitats. The abundance, distribution and composition of litter and its interactions with fauna were evaluated in the upper S. Vicente canyon using video images from 3 remote operated vehicle exploratory dives. Litter was present in all dives and the abundance was as high as 3.31 items100m−1. Mean abundance of litter over rock bottom was higher than on soft substrate. Mean litter abundance was slightly higher than reported for other canyons on the Portuguese margin, but lower in comparison to more urbanized coastal areas of the world. Lost fishing gear was the prevalent type of litter, indicating that the majority of litter originates from maritime sources, mainly fishing activity. Physical contact with sessile fauna and entanglement of specimens were the major impacts of lost fishing gear. Based on the importance of this region for the local fishermen, litter abundance is expected to increase.

The psychosocial experience of role reversal for paraprofessionals providing substance misuse and offender treatment: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Purpose – Many ex-offenders and substance misusers are employed in the treatment and intervention of offenders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this role as a protective factor in the maintenance of desistance. Design/methodology/approach – Seven paraprofessional employees of a substance misuse service were interviewed using semi-structured interview and analysed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings – Four super-ordinate themes emerged: “The Fragile Sense of Self”; “Hitting Rock Bottom”; “Belonging and identity” and “Maintaining the role reversal”. These themes captured the journey of moving through crime and substance misuse into desistance and employment. Research limitations/implications – The sample size is small; therefore generalisation is reduced. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) could be considered subjective. Further research should attempt to explore similar ideas with different populations and using different methods. Practical implications – This work suggests that practitioners and policy makers should look at the vital importance of paraprofessional employment in relation to desistance from crime. Social implications – Offenders and substance misusers are often left without direction or a fixed new identity, and return to the only life they have known. This study suggests that paraprofessional employment might provide a sense of belonging and identity that could benefit the ex-offender, their clients and society. Originality/value – This is an opportunity to advance knowledge in the area of paraprofessional employment as an aid to “recovery” and lifelong desistance.

X by Ilyasah Shabazz (review)

Reviewed by: X by Ilyasah Shabazz Elizabeth Bush Shabazz, Ilyasah X; by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon. Candlewick, 2015 [348p] ISBN 978-0-7636-6967-6 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 8-12 A fifteen-year-old boy, who has clung to adoration for the father he lost early in life, has reason to suspect that the confidence and advice his father once imparted is in fact worthless, and the boy begins to doubt that the future holds anything worthwhile. Having watched his mother taken away from her children and his siblings separated, he is certain the only chance he has in life requires him to get away—new city, new faces, new ambitions. This could be a novel about any adolescent and his dark night of the soul, but it’s in fact a powerful, fully credible reimagining of the young adulthood of Malcolm Little, who, after reaching rock bottom in prison for robbery, will discover a better path and a new identity as Malcolm X. Shabazz, his daughter who was only three at the time of his assassination, spins his story from collective family memory, speculating on his reasons for living on the criminal edge of Boston and Harlem. Malcolm narrates, beginning his tale in 1945 just as the boss for whom he’s running numbers comes after him with murderous intent, flashing back through chains of events that led him deep into disillusion: “I’m angry at the white guards who beat us; at the white cops who put us here; at the white slaveholders who tied our ancestors down in the guts of great ships—they caused this cascade of terrible things that have led me here.” Interestingly, the story stops with Malcolm’s stint in prison, but he has insight into the wisdom of his father, a commitment to Allah, and his eyes fixed on the future, and readers know that the man is destined for leadership. A timeline and notes on real and fictional characters are included. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Influence of jet aeration on pressures around a block embedded in a plunge pool bottom

The influence of the air entrained by water jets on the dynamic pressures applied on the bottom of a plunge pool and inside underlying fissures was analyzed with systematic experiments. The large experimental facility reproduced aerated high-velocity jets up to 22.1 m/s impinging on a pool and impacting on an instrumented cubic block embedded on the bottom. Plunging and submerged jets are compared, as well as jet impingement on the center or on the side of the block. A relationship is proposed to describe the time-averaged pressures at stagnation as a function of the relative pool depth, considering pressure measurements in this position as well as recent experimental evidence on the jet centerline velocity decay. Air bubbles influence the dynamic pressures on the rock bottom by reducing jet momentum, but also by reducing the jet dissipation rates in the water pool. These two processes are opposed. The reduction of momentum, consequence of a jet with a lower apparent density, results in lower pressures, while lower jet dissipation in the pool results in higher kinetic energy of the jet impacting the bottom and higher pressures. Finally, the spectral contents show that the resonance frequencies of aerated jets are shifted as a consequence of wave celerity reduction caused by lower mean densities inside the fissures, which is an evidence of the presence of air bubbles.

Bottom Up or Rock Bottom Harmonization? Francovich State Liability in National Courts

Bottom Up or Rock Bottom Harmonization? Francovich State Liability in National Courts

After Austerity?

After Austerity?

The construction of conceptual model for community-dwelling elderly people's fatigue experience and its use value

Objective To investigate the fatigue experience of the community-dwelling frail elderly to establish the conceptual model.Methods Grounded theory was adopted.With MAXQDA v10.4.15.1for 3 levels coding,the conceptual model of fatigue experience of community-dwelling frail elderly people was structured through constant comparison and in-depth analysis.Results Multi-response,selfmanagement,safe and belonging,hitting rock bottom,accepting and transferring formed the conceptual model.Conclusions Based on the conceptual model,nurses should pay more attention to concern about the fatigue experience of community-dwelling frail elderly people,and probe different assessment methods to enrich comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA),then improve the community health service level and the quality of elderly people's life. Key words: Care for the elderly; Fatigue experience; Community services; Grounded theory

International mobility of students in Brazil

By the early 1990s, Brazil’s economy had hit rock bottom. During the past 20 years a different scenario has emerged, and Brazil has become the sixth largest economy in the world. Experts predict that it could soon become one of the world’s top five economies.

La fiancée était à dos d’âne by Vénus Khoury-Ghata

badminton to tapioca. Ironically, these enterprises prove successful, but Ludovic withdraws from the management team before he can profit from these initiatives. What follows is the downward spiral. He drifts through a few jobs and a few mistresses until, at rock bottom, a wealthy girl many years his junior falls in love with him, finds him a job in the family business, and declares her desire to marry him. His trip to Zermatt was simply a little bachelor holiday before the marriage. What makes this novel stand out is certainly not the plot, but the combination of irony and insight with which Grimbert treats Ludovic. The story really unfolds in the main character’s mind, and details the steps leading to Ludovic’s painful recognition that the great love of his life has always been himself. Such a pattern flirts with nombrilisme, but Grimbert skillfully avoids that danger as she teases out the stages of Ludovic’s “almost” discoveries . It is a tribute to the subtlety of the novel that the main character proves as successful at forgetting what he has learned about himself as he is at occasionally breaking through the barrier of his narcissism to achieve some fleeting insight. One way Grimbert sustains the reader’s interest is by slowly shifting from the comic flourishes in the early portions to a depiction of Ludovic’s growing confinement, not in a marriage, a job, or a relationship, but within himself. The young Ludovic could complacently express indignation at his ex-wife’s introducing their son to her new boyfriend “only” a month after she met the man, but the older Ludovic, alone in the ski resort, can only imagine that the young woman who loves him now, will be divorcing him in ten years. All his life Ludovic has been in flight, from his responsibilities , and from himself. This pattern does not change at the novel’s end. Instead of meeting his fiancée at the Zematt station, he just leaves the hotel on foot, marching into the snow and cold toward a distant village one has no reason to believe he will reach. Florida State University William Cloonan Khoury-Ghata, Vénus. La fiancée était à dos d’âne. Paris: Mercure de France, 2013. ISBN 978-2-7152-3435-2. Pp. 159. 16,50 a. Nineteenth-century Algeria and France furnish the background for the novel’s historical as well as fictional characters. The plot is woven around the captivity of Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine, Islamic scholar, Sufi, political and military leader, regarded by some Algerians as a national hero. He had fought against the French colonial invasion. The chief rabbi of Mascara, acquainted with the Muslim warlord, crosses the desert to visit the Qurayzas, a nomadic tribe, from whom he selects a young woman to offer as fiancée for Emir Abdelkader. Rabbi Haïm’s intention is to secure, through marriage, protection for the Jewish community condemned to wander in fear of extermination. Eight thousand Jews had already been killed in the massacre at Mascara in 1835. The city was founded by the Turks as a military garrison in 1701 256 FRENCH REVIEW 87.4 Reviews 257 who also settled a Jewish community there around 1790. In 1832 Abdelkader chose Mascara as his headquarters. In 1835, the town was reduced to ruins by the French. Control of the town was contested until 1841.Abdelkader, continuously embroiled in military maneuvers, was finally captured and taken to France. For most of the novel he remains imprisoned.Yudah, the chosen one, is led across the desert to Abdelkader’s encampment only to find he is away at war. His defeated followers are later shipped to the island Sainte Marguerite in the Mediterranean. In Abdelkader’s absence, his wives ignore Yudah. Her arrival, unexpected and inopportune, leaves her in isolation, spending her time in long meditative walks. Nostalgia for the desert and wisdom of her people’s ways accompany her. Expelled from the island to France, she continues her quest to find the Emir, to fulfill the mission and expectations entrusted to her. The theme of rapprochement permeates the novel. Symbolic is Yudah’s ride on the donkey: straddling two worlds...

Motives for adherence to a gluten-free diet: a qualitative investigation involving adults with coeliac disease.

Currently , the only treatment for coeliac disease is life long adherence to a strict gluten-free diet. Strict adherence to a gluten-free diet is challenging, with recent reports suggesting that adherence rates range from 42% to 91%. The present study aimed to: (i) identify motives for adhering to a gluten-free diet and (ii) explore factors implicated in adherence and non-adherence behaviour in terms of accidental and purposeful gluten consumption among adults with coeliac disease. Two hundred and three adults with coeliac disease completed an online questionnaire. Using a qualitative design, relationships were examined between reported adherence and motivation to follow a gluten-free diet, as well as the onset, duration and severity of symptoms. Feelings of desperation (‘hitting rock bottom’) and needing to gain or lose weight were associated with the strictest adherence to a gluten-free diet. Participants who accidentally consumed gluten over the past week developed symptoms the most quickly and reported the most pain over the past 6 months. Participants who consumed gluten on purpose over the past week reported a shorter duration of symptoms and less pain over the past 6 months. Hitting rock bottom and needing to gain or lose weight were factors associated with the strictest adherence, when considered in the context of both accidental and purposeful gluten consumption. Future research is warranted to develop resources to help people with coeliac disease follow a strict gluten-free diet.

Acoustic Emission (AE) Forecasting Rock Burst Key Technology

Acoustic emission (AE) technique is a trend of non-contact technique forecasting coal and rock dynamic disaster.Coal and rock AE propagation attenuation exponent function on different AE frequencies, different quality factors and different propagation distance are acquired by theory and numerical simulation and actual experiment; the effect of AE sensor installation manners on coal and rock surface , coal and rock bottom and wave guide are studied, the results show that the effect of AE sensor installation manner on wave guide is better than on coal and rock surface ,equivalent to installation manner on coal and rock hole bottom. Based on above study results, actual rock bursts are successfully forecasted.

When General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna (review)

Reviewed by: When General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna George R. Goethals When General Grant Expelled the Jews Jonathan D. Sarna. New York: Schocken, 2012. 204 pp. The last pages of Jonathan D. Sarna’s fascinating book, When General Grant Expelled the Jews, note that Ulysses S. Grant has been moving from rock bottom to somewhere near the middle of the pack in historians’ ratings of U.S. presidents. To take one example, in a 2000 C-SPAN poll, Grant was ranked 33rd among 41 Presidents. However, in the 2009 C-SPAN poll he was ranked 23rd, having moved upward more than any other president. This increase reflected in part one of ten dimensions in the 2009 poll labeled “Pursued equal justice for all.” On that scale Grant had risen from eighteenth to ninth. [End Page 110] Some historians or biographers might argue that he should be ranked even higher, perhaps ahead of the two Roosevelts, for example, and behind only Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, and Harry Truman. Picking up a book entitled When General Grant Expelled the Jews suggests that the recent uptick in the way we understand Grant’s pursuit of equal justice is about to take a hit. Quite the opposite. If readers take this book seriously, their appreciation for Grant’s performance as president will deepen significantly. The title refers to Grant’s infamous General Orders #11, issued December 17, 1862 from his headquarters in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It read: “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department … are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” What happened? As a result of his victories at Fort Donelson in February 1862 and Shiloh in April, Grant had been made commander of the large Department of the Tennessee, which included parts of the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Illinois. Generals in both Union and Confederate armies were exasperated by smuggling between the lines that inevitably occurred as a result of trade dislocations. For example, Union blockades ensured that bales of cotton piled up on southern docks. The Union needed cotton for uniforms, among many other things. A sharp trader could buy cheap cotton in the South and sell it for enormous profits to places such as textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. Some of the individuals doing these deals were Jewish, and many more fit the stereotype, widespread at the time, of “Jew trader.” Still, it is difficult to pinpoint the proximate origins of Grant’s order. Sarna suggests that whatever Grant’s underlying attitudes toward Jews, his frustration at smuggling may have boiled over because his father had just visited from Cincinnati with three Jewish brothers to see if he could cut a favorable trading deal. Individual Jews responded rapidly to Grant’s order. Cesar Kaskel, evicted from Paducah, Kentucky managed to meet with Abraham Lincoln in early January. On hearing what had happened (it was news to Lincoln), the President immediately ordered Grant to rescind the order. Grant did. He knew that he made a serious error in expelling an entire category of citizens, and he likely hoped that that was the end of it. It wasn’t. Sarna masterfully tells the story of what happened during the next 23 years, up to the day Grant died. It is as much, or perhaps more, a narrative about the actions and attitudes of individual American Jews as about the [End Page 111] conduct and policies of U. S. Grant before, during and after his 1869–1877 presidency. While Grant wanted the whole issue to go away (he omitted discussing it in his Personal Memoirs), the presidential election of 1868 didn’t permit that. The Democrats raised it, hoping to undermine Grant’s standing with Jews. Their problem, however, was that the Republican Party, headed by Grant, much better represented equal justice and Jewish interests. Jewish leaders split. On one side, German immigrant Simon Wolf, an avid Republican, convinced himself through indirect contact with Grant that the general was not to be feared by Jews. Similarly, Rabbi Liebman Adler argued that Jews should vote for the Republican Party, even if the...

From surface to mid-water: Is the swordfish longline fishery “hitting rock bottom”? A case study in southern Italy

Fleet expansion, increased gear efficiency, increased effort and the constant improvement in fishing methods have greatly contributed to the current overexploitation of many target stocks. It is therefore essential to identify and monitor the changes in fishing practices as well as the technological creep to determine their implications for the conservation of target and non-target species. The present study documents the recent technical and operational changes in a longline fishery targeting swordfish (Xiphias gladius) operating in southern Italy (Ionian Calabria). Data collected during the swordfish fishing seasons of 2007, 2010 and 2011 showed a significant change in fishing practices over the survey years, as the longline fishery switched from surface (10–100m) to mid-water (100–500m) depth and from 11h to 25–30h soak time. These modifications in fishing operations, which result in an increase and redistribution of the effort, were motivated by a drastic decrease in the swordfish catches made with the traditional surface longline. They have modified the fleet structure, catch species composition and size of the target species. Although these operational changes resulted in an increase in the swordfish size and a decrease in the sea turtle bycatch, their implications for less known and potentially more vulnerable commercial and bycatch species are unclear. Moreover, the shift of fishing effort into deeper water is a well-documented evolution of many fisheries worldwide in response to the decline in shallow coastal water resources. The change in fishing practice of the pelagic longline fishery reported in the present study could be considered an additional alarm bell of the current state of overexploitation of the Mediterranean swordfish.