Stale Air Research Articles

I Wear It as Often as I Dare

I Wear It as Often as I Dare E. Eastman (bio) June 7, 2013 Tom Ford 845 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10023 Dear Mr. Ford: Congratulations. Italian Cypress, your warm, affable, acutely wonderful, well-constructed fragrance composition, had me at first whiff with its coniferous, resinous notes, a bit bitter in their initial seconds but melding to that mosaic of pine needles and leaves and twigs and branches and sap, the entire forest actually, its creamy, radiant woods and aromatic resins married to a vertiginous and vibrating citrus and basil and green moss, as lushly verdant as a pelt of lusty lawn. Then the rush of cool leather igniting the hefty, bittersweet heart of the fragrance, that ashy smokiness, like charred wood, almost eternal. A richly aromatic fusion of botanics integrating tradition with innovation. Designed, obviously, for the contemporary fragrance connoisseur. Vintage in the best possible way, neither sleek nor slick nor filled with artificiality, serious without being ponderous, sexy, alluring, inviting, especially in its later notes, so old-school spice with a hint of slightly stale air, candle snuff, cigarettes stubbed in metallic ashtrays, and cups of cold, dark, evaporated coffee. Modern, mysterious, sensual, laced with vestiges of dirty, of naughty, of underarms and bed hair and breathless, perspiration-rich, summer sex. It is, as one might say in Italian, un abbraccio forte y ristoratore, a robust and [End Page 77] refreshing hug from a certain gentiluomo, sapiente, bello, generoso, wise, handsome, generous, pericoloso, dangerous, arrogante, cocksure, con una brama di portarli al letto, with a hankering to take you to bed. It’s an erotic bestseller. “What do you think?” asked Stephen, the sales associate at Saks, a veritable altar of scent there on the northeast corner of Powell and Post, where, Mr. Ford, I imagine you’ve been on one of your promotional tours. He had been graciously working me down the line of your sexy, scintillating, eponymous perfumes in their chunky black jars with gold square caps when he handed me a rather generously spritzed strip, une bande de parfum he called it, then sniffed the atomizer’s still-wet residue and sighed. “The cypress is just dreamy,” he said and I, now helpless myself, agreed. I don’t know about you, Mr. Ford, but for me, smell and feelings are codependent, entangled, intertwined, adrift in my rhinencephalon, that ancient part of the cerebrum containing the olfactory structures, stirring in me, and moving me deeply, like the scent of a missing lover’s shirt, or my mother’s favorite perfume. “Exactly how does a French whore smell?” I had asked my father when he accused me of smelling like one. “Way too much dabbing,” he elucidated, “in all the wrong places.” “But,” I protested. “But nothing, Mister. I’ve been following that fucking stream of fragrance all afternoon.” “Sillage,” I helpfully substituted for the fucking stream, into which I had, admittedly, periodically, walked backwards, reintroducing myself to the perfectly fragranced cloud that I was. “Go take a shower,” he commanded, “and lay off the perfume.” But it was too late because I had been baptized in the font of Chanel No. 5, a luxurious gift purchased from him to her in Germany, in the early days of their romance and then through the marriage’s remainder, for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and the intermittent appeasement, the conciliatory rapprochement for beastly behavior until, when he passed from our lives, it became a gift from me to her, the last of which she leaves unopened on the tabernacle of her nightstand. My earliest memories are of her in a cocktail dress, a celadon silk cage with an undercarriage of swishy pink crinoline, teetering in pumps she’d had [End Page 78] dyed to match the confection, racing to rush mascara and lipstick across her face, finishing with her shanell gnome-bruh sank, its syllables tumbling from pursed and painted lips in her high school French. Daintily, languidly, she stroked exquisitely minute islands of it along her pulse points, the base of her throat, the vale between her breasts, the lacunae behind each ear, in the crook of each elbow, in the fold of her knees, and along the...

The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez)

The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez)

Evaluation of Indoor Air Quality in Classrooms Equipped with Cross-Flow Ventilation

In this work the evaluation of indoor air quality in a classroom equipped with cross-flow ventilation is presented. A numerical methodology, based on comparison with experimental data, used in the evaluation of the air exchange rate, airflow rate and the age of the air, was applied in the first phase of this work. The evolution of carbon dioxide inside spaces, with different airflow typologies, was then predicted in the second part. The study was based on a school located in the South of Portugal. In the experimental methodology the tracer gas decay method was applied. In order to reduce the experimental time, the first minutes of the test were measured, while the remaining decay was obtained using a numerical exponential regression. Natural and forced cross-flow ventilation topologies were analyzed. In the case of forced ventilation, fresh air from the external environment was driven into the classroom through an air inlet using a supply fan. An extract strategy was also used in which stale air was mechanically extracted from the classroom. Natural ventilation consisted of opening perimeter and above-door windows. The forecast of carbon dioxide evolution was made using software that evaluates the thermal response of and air quality in a building with complex topology. The numerical model used to evaluate internal air quality was based on energy and mass conservation integral equations. These were solved using the Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg method with error control.

The Performance of Natural Ventilation Windcatchers in Schools -A Comparison between Prediction and Measurement

Windcatchers are roof mounted devices that use the action of the wind to provide top down natural ventilation to a room. Here, fresh air is channelled into a room while, at the same time, stale air is drawn out. This provides a simple but attractive natural ventilation methodology that is increasing in popularity in U.K. schools. However, an analysis of system performance has largely been limited to laboratory based measurements and the use of CFD to generate predictions. Moreover, analysis is normally restricted to the operation of an autonomous Windcatcher whereas, in reality, it is likely to operate in a building in which other sources of ventilation are present (an open window for example) which can significantly alter the performance. The aim of this paper is to provide a tool for estimating the performance of a Windcatcher from basic data that is typically available to the engineer in the building design phase. Accordingly, the methodology uses data that one could reasonably be expected to have for a building’s ventilation performance. This paper also reviews in situ performance based on measurements in U.K. schools both with and without open windows. Predictions generated by a semi-empirical model are then compared against measurement data and this is shown to deliver generally good agreement between the two, both with and without open windows, provided the theoretical predictions are presented in terms of an upper and lower performance limit. Furthermore, both experiment and theory clearly demonstrate that a large increase in the ventilation rate is possible if one combines the operation of a Windcatcher with, say, an open window, and that this ventilation rate is greater than that which would be achievable from a window operating on its own.

Short Cuts

W TODD KAN E KO ThreePoems Shortcuts Whatkindofgirl1 isallowed2 totraipse3 through snowy4 woods5alone?6 Why7 wasn't shebriefed8 on proper9 procedures10 forfearing" wolves?12 Whatgoodisa picnic13 forwitches?14 Ifyoukeepthemouth15 talking,16 canappetite17 be forgotten?18 Is itwise19 todepend20 on a man21 whomakeshisliving22 on thekeenness23 ofhisaxe?24 1 Boy or girl. This is not apoem about gender. 2Youve been denied so many permissions as achilddo not love those people, beware that side of the family. You may now say what you mean because nobody loves aliar. 3Youve tramped about for years, moving from Point Ato Point B.Youve left too many footprints on the highway. 4The snow is realmetaphor fails you when the snow refuses to be replaced by something else. Itbuilds nearly to your knees, stranding you between Points Aand B, marooned in empty space. Learn to live in empty space. No one lives in empty spaces. 5To arrive safely at Point B, you must stick to that path winding through snowy woods where beasts feast on the succulence of witches. 6 Sometimes, the difference between autonomy and alienation is the recognition ofhunger. 7 Rhetorical questions are poor substitutes for definitive statements, short cuts you use when you don't know how to say what you mean. 8Listen: You'll freeze to death unless someone teaches you the difference between skkness and emptiness . 9You've been taught too much propriety asachildsay please, say thank you, say I love you, but only if you mean it. w The safest way to Point Bis acircuitous route to confuse the wolfdo not trust talkinganimals. "Listen to fear. Listen to questions about your grandmother slongevity, about cold and cancer and diabetes, about the stale air of hospital rooms, about uThe wolf is not asymbol. Ignore him. You cant ignore him. uPeriodic moments of rest will distract you from that bleakness of travel. Enjoy your lunch. 14 Witch is never appropriate shorthand for grandmother. Use it anyway 15 Its impolite to talk with your mouthßdl. Stay hungry. Keep eating. 16 Questions about eyes and ears can stave off amed, but eventually, youll slip up and aàabout the teeth. 17 You are driven onward by the needs of the body, this rumble of tummy, that slickness of guts. You are driven by fear, by aPoint B isinevitable. Look back on Point Awith hope if you can ignore the wolfhidden somewhere out there in the snow. 19 Remember: wise men need not have aflawless memory. 20 Itisn't wise to depend on memories of the maps contoursPoints AandB are real places on real maps. 31 The Man is not the wolf This is still not apoem about gender. 22 Living is no excuse for dying The wolf says this is not apoem about dying. 23 The hand is more likely to be injured by adull blade than asharp onecreases oflove and life, both waiting permission to be severed. 24 The axe strikes like athunderclap , like winter, hewing Point A from Point Bleaving where wolves prowl for road-weary children, where hunters strike without surgical precision. What exactly isthe difference between the sick and the dying when you are too far away to hear >Isit ever too early to honor the dead >Isthere any point to grief at all? 98 ...

Prediction of performance of a wind-driven ventilation device

The paper presents the aerodynamic design of a ventilation device suitable for remote open areas, such as desert terrains. The device is attached to the top of an enclosure roof and employs wind energy to create a partial vacuum in a specially designed duct to draw out the stale air from within the enclosure. The design is developed with the aid of fluid flow simulation software that is employed to predict the flow details corresponding to different geometric shapes so that an efficient shape may be found. The software is also employed to predict the performance of the adopted shape for different operating conditions and the results are presented in the form of characteristics curves and a correlation equation. Reliability of predictions is backed by results of experimental validation presented elsewhere, and by performing a detailed grid-dependence study, as well as a domain extent sensitivity analysis.

Getting Out in One Piece

Kagan wishes he could speak to the dead. He wants to tell his Aunt Jean a few things. To thank her, simply that, for what she did for him as a child over sixty years ago. He sees her now in his minds eye more sharply than he can see his mother. Aunt Jean wore, almost always, a modest gray silk shantung suit, Chinese pendant at the collar. He can still smell the peculiar old-spinster odor of that outfit a bit of cologne, a bit of cleaning fluid, the stale air of her hotel closet though when he was a child she wasn't old maybe forty in 1940, child of the century. Her hair fine hair, black forever, even when she was fifty and sixty was rolled into two stiff buns at the sides of her head. From time to time she'd pat the buns. This was hardly hair; it was like a wimple, part of a uniform. He realizes now that he never, never saw her hair loosened, not even at the beach. She seems to him a sort of nun calm, restrained, severe about her own life but very kind, always trying to mollify, to sweeten the atmosphere, eliminate conflict. A Jewish nun? Well, hardly Jewish, though she'd grown up in a Yiddish-speaking household during the war she became a Rosicrucian; it was as a Rosicrucian she'd talk to him about God.

Natural ventilation, harnessed by New Kingdom Egyptian tomb builders, may explain the changed floor levels in the Valley of the Kings tomb KV5

This article offers a plausible explanation for the floor level changes made during the construction of tomb KV5 in the Valley of the Kings. The construction of ancient Egyptian single entrance subterranean corridor tombs would have required a natural ventilation system; otherwise workers would have suffocated from the diminished oxygen in the depths of the tunnels and from the dust that resulted from the construction. This article postulates that the ancient Egyptians understood the concept of air exchange where, when in the desert, the outside air temperature drops dramatically in the evening causing a cool air draught to flow into the excavations that flushed out the stale air and dust, and replaced it with fresh air, enabling the workers to continue working day after day.

Use of Simulink to evaluate the air-quality and energy performance of HRV-equipped residences in Fairbanks, Alaska

Mechanical ventilation systems in residences usually serve a single purpose, providing only a relatively small benefit compared to the capital cost. Polluted areas use mechanical ventilation to filter incoming air, cold regions use it to be able to recover the heat from the stale air going out. However, both issues – energy and air-quality – can be beneficially addressed together using one ventilation system in cold climate regions with air pollution problems, such as Fairbanks, Alaska. This paper presents a dynamic model for evaluating indoor PM 2.5 levels and energy consumption associated with ventilation. The model was verified by comparing the model-predicted real-time indoor PM 2.5 level with the actual level measured in a Fairbanks home and a good agreement ( r = 0.95) was found. Then, the model was used to study three ventilation scenarios of a typical home in Fairbanks—natural ventilation, using an HRV, and using an HRV with an additional particulate filter. The external cost associated with breathing the indoor PM 2.5 was also evaluated. The scenario with an HRV and an additional filter was shown to have about $380 lower annual energy cost than the scenario with natural ventilation and the saving in the PM 2.5 associated external cost was about $690 annually. The savings were shown to exceed the operational costs of the ventilation system.

The Towneley Cycle: Unity and Diversity by Peter Happé

MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 823 a new socio-political significance in an open society. People were sick of ideology [. . .]' (p. i89) and the form 'would never again be permitted [. . .] to kowtow to respectability' (p. I9I). But if the defence of reputation is no longer an issue, why do publishers, editors, and film-makers employ lawyers?What about ghost-written autobiography? And if 'ideology' was dead, how do we explain theCold War? The new subjectivism ofmodernism and postmodernism isapparently embraced yetwith no acknowledgement of the epistemological collapse, the sense ofmultiple selves, essential to the deconstruction ofVictorian realism. Hamilton's book is, in effect,a defence of realism, his chapter on thedeath of theauthor a lightweight snook-cocking at Barthes and Bakhtin asmembers of 'a group of intellectuals' (p. 206) resentful of the power of authors to control their texts. 'Barthes and Derrida', he asserts, 'were exposed and derided' (p. 2I3). Of course theyweren't: and yetHamilton wishes to defend feminism, gay liberation, cultural multiplicity, and the study of ordinary lives, strangely ignoring theways inwhich postmodern notions of the self have enabled such liberal thinking.The biography he admires is 'history without theory' (p. I90). Yet his own history isdeeply ideological. What is lacking here isany serious engage ment with the ethics of biography. Only one side of this ispresented: the rightof free speech. The other, the colonization and prostitution of a lifeforprofit, is largelyneg lected.He cites Janet Malcolm's The Silent Woman (I 994) as 'by farthemost brilliant expose of theworkings ofmodern biography' (p. 276), yet the object of her assault is the object ofHamilton's defence. The moral question she examines-who owns a life?-is effectively answered by him as 'The biographer'. And the big question, 'Where does factend and interpretation begin?' (p. I5), is sidestepped. UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER MARTIN STANNARD The Towneley Cycle: Unity and Diversity. By PETER HAPPE. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 2007. xiv+290 pp. ?6o. ISBN 978-o-7083-2048-8. The Towneley plays, one of the four cycles ofmedieval English drama, are linked with Wakefield and have contributions by an unknown 'WakefieldMaster'. His dra mas (which include local shepherds with a firmgrip on reality)have long been praised fordepictions of lifeboth sacred and profane. Some think that if Bruegel had not been a Flemish painter but aYorkshire playwright, his work would have been much like thatof the Wakefield Master. To thewriting of thatunknown genius, as also the rest of the cycle, Peter Happe isan expert guide. During fourdecades he has enlightened readers on themodes and contexts of early English drama, and sowrites with the experience of a lifetime.The result is a carefully structured and disciplined book in fourparts. It begins with the textof the cycle; goes on to performance, and then ideology and interpretation; and closes with a brief account of textual negotiation. The firstsection hence discusses the unique sixteenth-century manuscript, once in thekeeping of theTowneley familyofLancashire, but now inCalifornia. Subjects to the forehere are the adaptation of the cycle from theYork one, theprovenance and authorship of thematerial, and what we can gather of the Wakefield Master himself. The second section, on performance, contains much novel material, since itdiscusses productions not just of the fifteenthcentury but of the twentieth and twenty-first. This is refreshing.Happe assembles a mass of experience from recent actors and directors of theplays.We hear of theirproblems and rewards as regards performance out of doors, waggons vs. a fixed stage, communication with audiences of bystanders, and so on. Happe thus takes his dramas out of the stale air of a library to their rightful place below the skies of an English high street. 824 Reviews The third section engages with questions of gender, religion, popular culture,mu sic, class, and social justice (with the Wakefield Master's known eye for theunderdog, like amedieval Mayhew), as also theoverarching dimension of theplays as a comedy human and divine. This includes (p. 226) the special interestof the Wakefield Master (forwhom heaven and hell were not vague concepts but present realities) in human evil. The final section rounds things up onmatters of interpretation and reception. This is a clear, sober, and absorbing study,quietly original and full of good...

The fear of flying and air rage—some legal issues

Fear of flying, which is increasingly becoming a unique human factors issue, has many facets, not all of which apply directly to flying itself. Some of these are: heights; enclosed spaces; crowded conditions; sitting in hot, stale air; being required to wait passively; not understanding the reasons for all the strange actions sounds and sensations occurring around; worrying about the dangers of turbulence; being dependant on an unknown pilot’s or mechanic’s judgment; not feeling in control; and the possibility of terrorism. Passenger hostility is a symptom of a blend of emotions and fear of flying is one of them. Other common symptoms are the threat of losing control, fatigue and personal and environmental stress. This could lead to self protection—in demanding alcohol, a particular seat or the right to smoke in the cabin. In the early days of flying, the role of the cabin crew was to alleviate passenger concerns by explaining the rules of aerodynamics, cloud formations and meteorology. They also acted as tour guides, particularly when the aircraft flew at low altitudes since large windows offered spectacular views that could alleviate fear. Fear of flying does not always result in air rage or criminal conduct on the part of the person concerned. However, the fact that fear of flying has the potential to make a normally calm and law abiding person turn into an offender is real. This article examines the fear of flying in all its chronological connotations, from pre flight check in to passenger conduct in the aircraft. It also examines various national legislation which enable an airline, as a measure of risk management, to refuse boarding to a passenger showing stress and acting aggressively. It also critically examines the various international treaties that empower the aircraft commander to take necessary measures against offences committed on board aircraft. The Conclusion suggests several measures that can be taken to address this issue more proactively.

Running performance after adaptation to acutely intermittent hypoxia

To quantify the effects of adaptation to acutely intermittent hypoxia on running performance, we randomized 29 trained male hockey and soccer players in double-blind fashion to altitude or placebo groups for 15 days of daily use of a functional or placebo hypoxic re-breathing device. Each day's exposure consisted of alternately breathing stale and fresh air for 6 and 4 min respectively over 1 h. Oxygen saturation was monitored with pulse oximeters and progressively reduced in the hypoxia group (90% on Day 1, 77% on Day 15; equivalent to altitudes of ∼3600–6000 m above sea level). Performance tests were an incremental run to maximum speed followed by six maximal-effort running sprints; tests were performed 1 day before, 3 days after, and 12 days after the 15-day treatment. Relative to placebo, at 3 days post treatment the hypoxia group showed a mean increase in maximum speed of 2.0% (90% confidence limits, ±0.5%); sprint speed was relatively faster by 1.5% (±1.7%) in the first sprint through 7.0% (±1.5%) in the last; there were also substantial reductions in exercise lactate concentration and resting and exercise heart rate. Substantial effects on performance were still present 9 days later. Thus, adaptation to acutely intermittent hypoxia substantially improves high-intensity running performance.

The Post-Classical Icelandic Family Saga by Martin Arnold (review)

1162 Reviews ticultural writing in the German language (by the Russian-Jewish immigrant writers Wladimir Kaminer and Vladimir Vertlib or the Turkish German writer Feridun Zaimoglu , forexample)?to name just one European language in which some ofthe most interesting literature is currently being produced by non-Christian immigrants ofthe first,second, or third generation?likewise indicates that German, for example, has long ceased to be purely 'Christian' or even ethnically 'German'. Although I cannot concur fully with all of Sherman's conclusions, the building-blocks of his narrative (the examination ofthe Joseph story as the master narrative ofthe Jewish Pope myth, as well as the analyses of individual reworkings of the myth) are truly insightful, meticulously researched, and masterfully argued. His book is an important contribu? tion to Jewish literary and cultural studies and will also be of great interest to students and scholars of folklore. University of Illinois at Chicago Elizabeth Loentz The Post-Classical Icelandic Family Saga. By Martin Arnold. (Scandinavian Stu? dies, 9) Lampeter: Mellen. 2003. viii + 296pp. ?69.95. ISBN 0-7734-6804-8. Martin Arnold calls for a critical re-evaluation of post-classical family sagas?those Islendingasogur dated to the century following the loss of Iceland's independence to Norway in 1262, and therefore, crucially, the period after what virtually all scholars have characterized as the high point of saga-writing, to which the so-called 'classical' Islendingasogur belong. His primary contentions are that post-classical sagas have been neglected because of unfavourable comparisons with the classical ones, and that not enough attention has been paid to how Iceland's colonial status and increasing economic dependence on Norway have shaped these fourteenth-century sagas. Arnold's analysis of the scholarly reception of the classical Islendingasogur is thorough and careful. He shows how the subject matter of these sagas?the lives of Icelanders who built up an independent republic after the ninth-century settlement of Iceland, with its own legal and parliamentary structures?fitted perfectlythe nationalist agenda of Icelandic critics, and that saga style?that cool, realist narrative which continued to be privileged even when its subject matter came to be regarded as more fictional than historical?met the literary taste of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The predispositions of early saga critics are ruthlessly exposed by Arnold. And yet (at the risk of being accused of not having examined one's own critical position with sufflcientrigour), one could take issue with the implication that the classical Islendingasogur have for these reasons been over-valxied. Certainly, both critical approval forthem?as proto-novels written by 'men of refinedtaste'?and the celebrated dismissals of what came after?sagas touched by continental romance giv? ing offa whiffof 'the sultry and stale air of the boudoir'?reflect these predispositions, but literary merit, hard as it is to define, cannot be absolutely reduced to a matter of taste. Significantly, Arnold's excellent discussion of Hrafnkels saga as a classical saga which 'reveals a great deal about the coincidence between the idealising valuations of the Icelandic national character in the thirteenth century and the idealising valuations of scholarly judgement in the twentieth' demonstrates almost in spite of itself the fine literary quality ofHrafnkels saga, not least in the way that itis farfromclear even from a plot synopsis that the hero is indeed idealized; the saga itself is more complex still. Arnold's characterization and analysis of the post-classical sagas is constantly stimulating and engaging. The 'ideological dynamics' of Fostbrcedra saga?that 'a tran? scendent ethic is achievable beyond ethnic insularity'?mark it out for Arnold as a post-classical product. Kroka-Refs saga, neatly and acutely described as 'paradig? matic in its presentation ofthe improbable in the language of probability', is held to MLR, 100.4, 2005 1163 be taking issue not with historical reality,but with the supposed representation (ac? tually idealization) of it in literary discourse: the classical Islendingasogur themselves. He sees Kroka-Refs saga as a proto-postmodernist parody ofthe classical sagas; until now critics have dismissed it as derivative, or even plagiaristic. One might argue, of course, that Arnold's judgements are as context-bound as those which precede him. But the Islendingasogur can...

El rastro del Cadmio

El cadmio es un metal pesado que se encuentra en el aire viciado, en algunos vertidos industriales, incluidas las aguas residuales, en el reciclaje de desechos de PVC y en la incineración de la basura. También se origina en la producción de plomo, zinc, en la quema de combustibles fósiles (petróleo y derivados) y en el empleo de fertilizantes fosfatados y plaguicidas, muy comunes en nuestra agricultura. Es un elemento tóxico para todos los seres vivos.Pero la industria del plástico sigue insistiendo en la inocuidad de sus productos. Aún así, el círculo de las evidencias se cierra cada vez más. Hace poco un grupo de expertos del Ministerio del Medio Ambiente de España advirtió del peligro de hornear o calentar alimentos envasados en frascos de PVC, debido a su contenido de sustancias tóxicas, siendo una de las más peligrosas un metal blanco no ferroso llamado cadmio, un elemento que ha llamado la atención por su poder de asimilación en el organismo, su mortal potencial cancerígeno y por ser causa de terribles anomalías congénitas, como ha quedado demostrado en diversos estudios científicos.

Fear's Echo and Unhinged Joy: Crossing Homosocial Boundaries in A Separate Peace

Fear's Echo and Unhinged Joy:Crossing Homosocial Boundaries in A Separate Peace James Holt McGavran (bio) At the beginning of John Knowles's great novel of male adolescence, A Separate Peace, narrator Gene Forrester revisits Devon, the New Hampshire boys' boarding school where fifteen years earlier, during World War II, his best friend Phineas had died. He is overcome first with memories of fear, "like stale air in an unopened room, . . . the well known fear which had surrounded and filled those days" (1). He continues: "I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky" (2). By focusing on Gene's joy as well as his fear, I believe we can find a new way of looking at Gene and his friendship with Finny. What did Gene fear at Devon? Unlike Finny and most of the other students, he comes from a less elitist part of the country than New England (apparently West Virginia, Knowles's home state) but affects, with indifferent success, the speech and attitude of an aristocrat from "three states south of . . . [his] own" (148). At one point, when Gene says "I don't guess I did," Finny responds, "stop talking like a Georgia cracker" (112-13). But Gene is not socially disadvantaged at Devon by competition with blue-blood preppies from Boston or New York; not only is he the class brain and a more than passable athlete, but conservative student leader Brinker Hadley wants Gene to be his best friend—and so does emotionally disturbed Leper Lepellier. Nor do I uncritically accept the idea, though there is much textual and critical support for it, that self-divided, willful, guilt-haunted Gene finds jealousy and fear to be integral parts of his friendship with Finny, whereas beautiful, totally integrated, guileless Finny, portrayed symbolically as both a Greek god (Mengeling) and a Christlike sacrificial savior and victim (Bryant, War Within 86), lives on an altogether higher plane of moral and emotional purity and love.1 Granted, Gene says he always hated jumping with Finny into the river from the high [End Page 67] branch of a tree but felt compelled by Finny to do it (25-26). And granted, he feels jealous shock as well as admiration when Finny breaks a school swimming record but magnanimously refuses to let Gene publicize it: he comments first to Finny, almost Judas-like, "You're too good to be true" (36), and then to himself more than half-confessionally, "there were few relationships among us at Devon not based on rivalry" (37). And the central action of the book, where Gene's jostling of their tree branch causes Finny to fall and break his leg, seems causally though unintentionally connected to Gene's almost disappointed recognition that Finny had not been plotting to ruin his academic performance at the school but simply hadn't realized that his brainy friend needed to study before taking tests (50). Nevertheless, as Paul Witherington has observed, writing on the ambiguities and complexities of Knowles's novel, "Finny is no more of a spiritually pure being than Gene is a spiritually depraved being" (Karson 81). A closer look at the text will show that the boys trade roles as upholders and subverters of both their own relationship and the codes of society. Finny, for all of his innocent beauty and grace, also experiences inner fears and conflicts, and just as often Gene feels entirely at peace both within himself and with regard to Finny. As Gene recognizes, the fear and joy are experienced mutually, shared. Unlike Witherington, who argues that as he matures Gene distances himself from Finny (Karson 88), I would locate the key to understanding this exchange of roles and feelings in the growing recognition on Gene's part throughout the novel, as both boy and man, that he wants not only to love Finny but to be Finny, to become part of his friend body and soul, and in Finny's acceptance and encouragement of this merging of identities both before and after...

Climate control for the passive conservation of the romanesque painted wooden ceiling in the church of Zillis (Switzerland)

Extensive investigations of the deterioration of the romanesque painted wooden ceiling in the church of Saint Martin in Zillis (Switzerland) have revealed three major active deterioration phenomena: (1) tented flaking of paint layers; (2) flaking of the wheat starch fixative together with parts of the paint layer; and (3) fungal growth. These deterioration processes correlate with the dynamics of the prevailing room climate. Both forms of flaking are mainly driven by fluctuations of the relative humidity (RH), whereas the fungal attack can be related to high average RH and stagnant air. Frequent daily fluctuations in RH of up to 20% in summer are due to visitors leaving the doors open, while fluctuations of up to 25% are related to heating in winter. Given the risks of new consolidation treatments, the aim is to slow the decay processes by influencing the climate in the room. Installation of automatic door-closers reduced fluctuations but led to a rise in RH and a reduction of air movement, causing greater fungal growth. Subsequently, an automatic air-exchange system triggered by absolute humidity values was installed to reduce excess humidity and to exchange stale air without producing major fluctuations in the relative humidity. This kind of 'climatisation' has the advantage of being highly flexible, allowing variation of the rate and scale of exchange; it is, moreover, truly reversible.

The Sleeping Picasso

It was Friday afternoon in Tucson, the reeking crotch of the universe, as Vince called the sunbaked burg, and he was more bored than at any other time he could recall, which was saying something. It was 103? outside and as dreary and tortuous as slow death. The swamp cooler loudly but hopelessly huffed out an ineffectual stream of stale air, and the knots of flies scattered across the ce?ing sat stupefied and motionless in the swelter. It was so hot they refused, or perhaps forgot how, to fly. Outside, the frail blooms on the potted fauna Uned up astride the porch rails wilted and curled up like fists. He slumped on the ratty couch, enervated by the wet-rag embrace of heat and humidity, staring Ustlessly at the fuzzy images on the old TV with the missing knobs and buzzing speaker. Days like this said to him, emphatically: you can run, but you cannot hide. It was something he hated but had accepted?for the time being, at least?as one of the unavoidable and lesser evils of Uving in the desert. Like snakes, bugs, snowbirds and packrats. Bad as it was, though, he had been through worse. Much worse.

The Littlest Guest Uninvited

He stood staring at our busy table. His eyes barely reached to where he could see across. How long had he been there? I had no idea. I had been too engrossed in the pleasures of our meal. It was only when I felt his surveillance that I looked in his direction. Under his arm was a small bundle of newspa pers. He obviously belonged to that army of infant peddlars that filled the streets of this city. We were in Tegucigalpa, one of many unknown capital cities in the Third World. Teguc (ta' goose) as it is called is the capital of Spanish Honduras, at the time, 1968, still distinguished from British Honduras. The meal to which our uninvited guest bore witness was our farewell dinner. Seven col lege students and I as their faculty leader were about to complete a three week seminar. The meal was a reward we granted ourselves after a period of perceived privation. We had roughed it some during our brief sojourn. We had traveled un paved roads in worn out bluebird school buses, used the bush for bodily needs and ate more retried beans than we would have preferred. But our tough times were not nearly as severe as those with which the average Honduran must cope for a lifetime. Our meal was simply another taken for granted privilege of the haves in the world, something most of us were still learning. As the first director of the Peace Corps in Honduras, but then a college professor, leading the third world seminar was a way I had found to revisit Honduras. During my two year tenure in the Peace Corps, I had fallen madly in love with the place for reasons too complicated to explain here. Had my family situation permitted, I was prepared to spend the rest of my life there. The place chosen for our dinner was a Chinese restaurant located directly across from our pension. Over the front door was a hand painted sign that bore the unimaginative name, Cafe China, and its ambience was classic third world. Napkins were cut into quarters, no two pieces of silverware matched, and a noisy ceiling fan moved stale air in circles. In their thirty years of non-acculturation to Honduras, however, the owners had preserved their homeland tastes and skills. My group was delighted with the choice of a place

Kinetics of the Methanation of Carbon Dioxide over Ruthenium on Titania

The catalytic methanation of carbon dioxide is currently used exculusively in combination with the methanation of carbon monoxide: The synthesis gas for the production of ammonia is purified by simultaneous methanation of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which are catalyst poisons in the ammonia synthesis, down to a concentration of less than 5 vol.-ppm. Another potential application of the catalytic carbon dioxide methanation could emerge in long-duration manned space missions: The reaction could close the oxygen cycle consisting of separating carbon dioxide from the stale cabin air, converting carbon dioxide with hydrogen to methane and water, decomposing the water via electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen and resupplying the oxygen into the cabin air.

Surveys of concentration of radon isotopes in indoor and outdoor air in Japan

A series of radon and 220Rn surveys using passive radon 220- Rn discriminative dosimeters were conducted in the Masutomi radium spa region, Yamanashi Prefecture, and at several subway stations in Metropolitan Tokyo. In Masutomi, the highest outdoor radon concentration was 569.8 ± 59.5 (SE) Bq m −3 and the lowest, 7.4 ± 0.1 (SE) Bq m −3, while the highest outdoor 220 Rn concentration was 142.8 ± 52.7 (SE) Bq m −3 at 0.04 m above the ground. The outdoor 220Rn concentrations at some survey sites increased as the ground surface approached. The highest radon and 220Rn concentrations in the public bathhouse were 530.2 ± 74.4 (SD) Bq m −3 and 592.0 ± 226.8 (SD) Bq m −3, respectively. Average indoor radon concentrations in the two houses in Masutomi, were 35.9 ± 2.9 (SE) Bq m −3 and 14.2 ± 1.4 (SE) Bq m −3, respectively. Indoor and outdoor radon and 220Rn concentrations within a square kilometer region in Masutomi showed the irregular distributions, which might be easily influenced by the local geology and meteorology at each survey site. Average radon concentrations at several subway stations in Metropolitan Tokyo were 10.9 ± 1.1 (SE) Bq m −3, which was unexpected. Significant 220Rn concentrations were not observed at all survey sites (except some platforms, where values ranged from 11–12 Bq m −3) since the ventilation system of all subway stations exchanged the stale air with the fresh air above ground entirely.