Study of Co2-Supercritical Fluid Extraction（SFE） of Constituents in ＂Seng-ldeng＂ （SD）, a Traditional Tibetan Medicine

This new, recently developed extracting techniqne, Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE), features many advantages in natural product extraction, such as a satisfactory rate of extraction, a high isolation effect, and, when operated entirely free of residual solvents, low cost.     

Measurement of O2(a1Δg) emission in a total solar eclipse

The altitude distribution of the oxygen infrared atmospheric bands at 1.27 μm was measured during the total solar eclipse of 26 February 1979. The ozone concentration profile has been derived from these airglow measurements and indicates that at 85 km the concentration at totality was 7 × 1.7 cm⁻³, with no well defined upper layer. This reduced concentration, which is typical of summertime conditions, was probably due to perturbations in the mesospheric chemistry and transport induced by a winter warming event that was in progress at the time of the eclipse. At 60 km the ozone concentration, 2.7 × 10¹⁰ cm⁻³, was enhanced above that normally measured. This increase may also have been caused by the stratospheric warming event but the effects of a particle precipitation event, which was also in progress during the eclipse, may be important.     

John Smedley: The Establishment of a Tradition in Fine Knitwear (1), c. 1750–1874

Abstract

John Smedley Ltd, the upmarket knitwear manufacturer, has a history reaching back to the eighteenth-century. The factory at Lea Bridge, a relatively isolated village near Matlock in Derbyshire, has been in continuous production since 1784 — yet the history of the company and of the Smedley family is little known. This article considers the career of the founder, the eccentric John Smedley (1803–1874), to discover how he lifted a small family business from near insolvency at the beginning of the nineteenth century to a position of market leader in the hosiery trade by the time of his death in 1874. Part of the answer lies in his adoption of new technology, the spinning of a very fine merino and silk yarn that was knitted into the very best quality underwear for both men and women. The other part lies in his unique and forward-thinking approach to marketing: simultaneously finding outlets with the leading London wholesalers, with the foremost New York warehousing firm of his day and with the best-known retail specialists in outfits for colonial markets. A sequel article will show how Smedley’s successors have maintained the growth of the firm.     

Water and power in South Arabia: the excavation of “Monumental Building 1” (MB1) at Sumhuram (Sultanate of Oman)

The ancient port city of Sumhuram (Dhofar Governorate, Sultanate of Oman) has been the focus of over 20 years of research by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO), University of Pisa, in collaboration with the Office of the Adviser to His Majesty the Sultan for Cultural Affairs (Muscat-Salalah, Sultanate of Oman). Excavation has revealed most of the town layout, leading to the identification of several buildings, alleyways, squares and workshops, among which two massive buildings stand out, significantly named by the excavators as “Monumental Building” 1 and 2 (MB1 and MB2). This paper presents the results of the excavation inside MB1, characterised by the presence of the only well discovered within the city walls, which was previously interpreted alternatively as a palace or as a temple. The architectural development of the building, its distinctive features, the archaeological material discovered inside it, and its chronology will be discussed. These results highlight the absence of fitting parallels from other ancient South Arabian towns. Overall, it is clear that access to, management of, and control over the water supply of the town represented a key asset which justified the huge investment in workforce and building materials that is reflected in the monumental architecture of this edifice.     

The “Coptic” textiles of the “Museo Egizio” in Torino (Italy): a focus on dyes through a multi-technique approach

The Coptic textile collection of the Museo Egizio in Torino (Italy) has been the object of a broad project aimed at investigating the production techniques, at documenting the conservation state and at reconsidering the attributed age. The collection was also analysed by non-invasive and micro-invasive techniques with the aim of detecting the dyes that have been employed to obtain the colours, in order to complete the set of technological information available for each textile. The data collected in the present work have been compared with published results from other Coptic textile collections, with the aim of highlighting a possible link between the age of the textile and the dyes that were employed. Moreover, the combined use of spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques allowed us to compare the results for the non-invasive and the micro-invasive approaches and to go deeper into the dyeing technology by detecting unexpected combinations of dyes. In particular, the use of a double dyeing with madder and Indian lac dye was revealed in some Roman-Byzantine and Byzantine textiles from the collection.     

Coming to Grips with a “New” State of Consciousness: The Study of Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep in the 1960s

Since antiquity yawning has attracted a moderate interest among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, as well as educators, moralists and physicians. Organisms from birds to men and from the womb to the deathbed were found to be displaying it. While sometimes satisfying to the producer, its display is offensive to the lay observer. Hippocrates had it on his lists of useful ‘natures.’ Aristotle dropped a few words on the matter. Boerhaave elevated its function to the intellect of animals. Haller has commented on its relation to the acoustic system, blood-flow, and baby sleep. Darwin mentioned it in connection with emotional behavior. Some modem authors praised its beneficial effects on respiration and smell. In the 1960s, Ashley Montagu tried to correct the contemporary failure to explain the behavior by the fact of raised CO 2 and arterial compression. It also interested some neurologists, especially in its association with the encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, with ‘spasmodic yawning,’ with epilepsy, not to speak of hysteria. As to boredom or its stimulus, a 40-page dissertation survives from the court of Frederick the Great of the 18th century condemning idleness, a subject that also inspired Blaise Pascal and William James. But in the Hindu world, public yawning was a religious offense.     

Tree of Letters, “Tree of Life:” How a Letter of the Torah Can Transform (the Human Being Made in) the Image of God1

Venerable tradition allies the Torah with Wisdom, a “tree of life.”2 2.?Prov. 3.17–18. View all notes The tree of life is an ancient mythic symbol of the earth mother. This essay demonstrates the capacity of the Torah to facilitate a reintegrative return to the mother when, as now, the religious narratives falter that once seemed to ensure the unity of man made in the image of God conceived only as the Father. Participating in the process of this return one discovers beneath the Torah's fractured narrative surface a reduplicative pattern based on the logic of the unconscious, which is founded on the repressed prelinguistic bond with all life formed at the maternal breast. This pattern reflects the recombinant properties that the unconscious shares with the earth, which breaks down and regenerates dead matter as the unconscious breaks down and regenerates the meaning of words. Folded into rhetorical tropes as into a single letter, the Torah's regenerative pattern repeatedly recalls to man what it means to be human, unique among but also one with all the diverse life of the earth.     

Locating Home in a “Digital Age”: An Ethnographic Case Study of Second-Generation Iranian Americans in LA and their Use of Internet Media

This paper explores how children of Iranian immigrants engage with internet media in processes of identity formation. It conceptually centralizes places of home in order to bring together literatures on diaspora and digital media in order to understand the case of the second-generation immigrant home. It argues that this partially mediated home is both connected/mobile and emplaced/embodied. It is in this sense that the article discusses processes of locating home, in the sense of both a narrated discovery and a materially situated formation. The findings are generated from ethnographic fieldwork among second-generation Iranian Americans in Los Angeles carried out over a period of twelve months as part of an ongoing doctoral project with a focus on respondents' everyday practices of internet usage.     

The Rise and Fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–2): A Study in Transoceanic Political Culture

The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising ‘nabobs’ with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of ‘official’ information between Calcutta and London.     

Correlations among O2(0–1) atmospheric band,OH(8–3) band and [OI] 5577 Å line and among P1 (2), P1 (3) and P1 (4) lines of OH(8–3) band

Using a photometer equipped with a cooled photomultiplier RCA-C31034A and an optics consisting of three aspheric lenses, the O₂(0–1) Atmospheric band at 8645 Å and the OH(8-3) band at 7274 Å are observed simultaneously from the ground level along with [OI] 5577 Å line, to investigate the instantaneous intensity changes. The P and R branches of O₂(0–1) Atmospheric band and the P₁(4), P₂(4), [P₁(3) + P₂(3)] and [P₁(2) + P₂(2)] lines of the OH(8-3) band are spectrally clearly resolved. It is found that the O₂(0–1) Atmospheric band and the OH(8-3) band covary fairly well in intensity; it seems that the correlation coefficient during the night lies around 0.500. Interrsity correlations between the OH(8-3) band and [OI] 5577 Å line are also investigated. It is found that the correlation coefficient during a night lies around −0.200 and thus the correlation between the OH(8-3) band and [OI] 5577 A line is weaker than that between the O₂(0–1) Atmospheric band and the OH(8-3) band. Correlations among P₁(4), [P₁(3) + P₂(3)] and [P₁(2) + P₂(2)] lines of the OH(8–3) band are studied, to find that their correlations are complete within an error of experiment; the correlation coefficient during a night ranges from 0.980 to 0.997. A midnight maximum of intensity of the OH(8-3) band is hardly found. During night the OH intensity always fairly fluctuates.     

Evidence of the Emergence of “Modern” Behavior in the Middle and Later Stone Age Lithic Assemblages at Shurmai Rockshelter (GnJm1) and Kakwa Lelash Rockshelter (GnJm2) in the Mukogodo Hills of North-Central Kenya

The Shurmai (GnJm1) and Kakwa Lelash (GnJm2) rockshelters are located in the Mukogodo Hills region of north-central Kenya. Sondages excavated at both sites allow preliminary reconstruction of their geological and archaeological histories. A total of 4782 lithic pieces were recovered from Shurmai, and 7862 from Kakwa Lelash. The earliest materials from Shurmai date to the late African Middle Stone Age (sometime before ca. 40,000 years bp), and those from Kakwa Lelash apparently date to the African Later Stone Age (sometime after ca. 40,000 bp). The raw material composition, technomorphological characteristics, and style of assemblages from these sites do not reveal whether modern human behavior emerged first in the Middle or in the Later Stone Age. However, the greater sophistication, systematization and efficiency evident in the patterns of resource use, tool manufacture, and style in the Later Stone Age components at Shurmai and Kakwa Lelash rockshelters is consistent with the view that the origins of modern human behavior are to be found in the Later, rather than the Middle, Stone Age in Africa.Les abris de Shurmai (GnJm1) et Kakwa Lelash (GnJm2) sont situés dans la région de collines de Mukogodo du Kenya nord-central. Les sondages creusés aux deux sites permettent la reconstruction préliminaire de leurs histoires géologiques et archéologiques. Un total de 4782 objets lithiques étaient récupérés de Shurmai, et 7862 à Kakwa Lelash. Les matériaux les plus tôt de Shurmai datent au fin de l'Age de la Pierre Moyen d'Afrique (avant ca. 40,000 ans avant le présent), et ceux de Kakwa Lelash datent apparemment au l'Age de la Pierre Récent d'Afrique (après ca. 40,000 ans avant le présent). La composition de matière première, les caractéristiques techno-morphologiques et le modèle des assemblages de ces sites ne révéle pas si le comportement moderne humain a émergé d'abord dans l'Age de la Pierre Moyen ou Récent. Cependant, la plus grand sophistication, systématisation et efficacité évident dans les configurations de l'utilisation de la ressource et dans la fabrication et style des outils de l'Age de la Pierre Récent des abris de Shurmai et Kakwa Lelash se conforme avec l'opinion que les origines de comportement moderne humain se trouvent dans l'Age de la Pierre Récent plutôt que dans l'Age de la Pierre Moyen dans Afrique.     

The electoral geographies of two segregationist (“Jim Crow”) referenda in Alabama

At the conclusion of the American Civil War, the states of the former Confederacy rapidly added sections to their state constitutions and legal statutes to codify racial segregation and limit the social, economic and political options for their African American citizens. These laws became the foundation for the Jim Crow system of racial segregation. Although such laws have been found unconstitutional, some have survived in state constitutions and statutes as legal relicts. Using the traditionalist–modernizer model and Thomas Frank’s concept of the Great Backlash, we examine the electoral geographies of two referenda in Alabama to delete Jim Crow era provisions from the state’s constitution. Although 59% of Alabama voters supported deleting the state’s constitutional ban on interracial marriage in 2000, a slight majority supported maintaining the unenforceable constitutional sections requiring poll taxes and segregated schools in 2004. We find the geographic pattern of voting on both referenda was substantially associated with the traditionalist–modernizer model and Great Backlash as they pertain to race, religious conservatism, and views towards public education and taxes.     

Qu(e)erying Sex and Gender in Archaeology: a Critique of the “Third” and Other Sexual Categories

In this paper, I will recover the issue of the “third gender” in archaeological analysis in order to argue that the use of a “third,” despite what it may appear at first sight, does not challenge the logic inherent in gender and sexual binaries, that is, the use of universal, ahistorical, and stagnated categories. As an alternative, I will rely on Almudena Hernando’s genealogical work on gender and identity, as well as on Lucía Moragón-Martínez’s arguments regarding corporeality, to state that in “oral societies” (like prehistoric ones), body and person cannot be ontologically distinguished and, as a consequence, the anatomical features that we categorize as “sex” can neither be thought nor defined abstractly. I will further examine the implications of this claim in relation to the sex–gender fluidity that can be seen in those oral societies, formerly pigeonholed into the third gender category. In addition, I will analyze current literature developed by gender archaeologists in order to show the strengths and limitations of my proposal in relation to recent works on the topic.     

Moshe Dayan: “Israel’s No. 1 Hero” (in America)

This study explores how and why Moshe Dayan became the symbol of the modern Israeli hero in American culture. Through an examination of variegated evidence it is possible to discern patterns that illustrate the ways Dayan’s image crystallized, first, in the American Jewish arena, and then more broadly, in wider American public consciousness. With his trademark eye patch and irreverent personal style, Dayan, who more than any Israeli military-political figure captured the imagination of American Jewry, became not only the most recognizable sabra on the American scene but also a chief exemplar of the “new Jew.” Beginning with the War of Independence (1947–49) until roughly the Six-Day War (1967), Dayan symbolized Israel’s youthful, virile, and savvy hero struggling to build a home against all odds. From the Yom Kippur War (1973) to the Camp David Accords (1978) and his death, he came to exemplify a generation of Israelis who wrestled with the Jewish state’s existential geopolitical challenges. Investigating Dayan’s public persona enhances our understanding of his impact on the American arena – the man and the myth – and the ideational linkages so critical to the developing bond between the United States and Israel in the second half of the twentieth century.     

The geometry and the metric used in the enclosure “Fortín 1” at Copper Age site of Los Millares (Almería,Andalusia)

The use of geometric patterns to construct archaeological structures has been studied in Great Britain and Ireland, the Roman and Greek world, Egypt, etc., and some defensive structures at the Mediterranean area also show geometric patterns. Both geometric and statistic techniques are applied to analyze the construction of the Fortín 1 in the Los Millares settlement, through the III millennium B.C. with two different constructive phases. These analyses have shown two concentric ring enclosures with the same width and center having symmetric defensive bastions with respect to the West–East axis and situated in the nodes of a regular hexagon.The design and construction of these very complex structures and the time required one or more builders to continue the application of the same constructive patterns in the time. The results obtained by means of statistical and geometric analyses allow us to establish the emergence of the geometric and mathematical thinking during the III millennium B.C. in the European Mediterranean area. Regular geometric shapes such as hexagons, circles and ellipses, and the axis symmetry concepts were applied to design and build defensive structures with great precision. Furthermore, these conclusions are important evidence in favour of the argument that the geometry was discovered independently by widely ancient cultures, and constitute one of the most important multicultural symbols in the world of the architecture.