Gardens in the Air: A Reexamination of the Ottoman Tulip Age

Scholars have long considered the “Tulip Age” to be a sort of Ottoman renaissance—a golden age initiated by the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz and lasted until the Anti-Tulip Rebellion in 1730. However, recent scholarship has questioned the objectivity of the field’s founding historian, Ahmed Refik, who based his theory off of the twofold concepts of a marked increase in tulip culture and a movement toward westernization in the Ottoman Empire. Because of this shaky foundation, this research reexamines the debate from the beginning: the tulip’s connection to earlier Turkic arts and the actualities of Ottoman “modernization.” This perspective on the “real” Tulip Age is instrumental in suggesting a new hypothesis—that the Tulip Age did not exist in the way historians have accepted for a hundred years

Dynamic walking stability of the TUlip robot by means of the extrapolated center of mass

The TUlip robot was created to participate in the teensize league of Robocup. The TUlip robot is a bipedal robot intended for dynamic walking. It has six degrees of freedom for each leg: three for the hip, one for the knee and two for the ankle. This paper elaborates on the algorithm for the sideways control during gait. The algorithm uses the extrapolated center of mass (XcoM) to achieve limit cycle stability. The algorithm is tested in simulation using a linear inverted pendulum and, then, experimentally applied to the TUlip robot. The result is an adaptive behavior of the TUlip robot, promising for future application to legged robot stability

Is housing overvalued?

This paper examines whether it is more expensive to own a house or to rent. The paper assesses houses as ‘overvalued’ if home buyers pay too much, in the sense that they would be better off renting than buying. This involves comparing the financial cost of renting a home with the cost of owning a similar dwelling, where the latter depends on the purchase price, interest rates, repairs, council rates and so on. The paper also briefly examines non-financial costs but find these are small, on average. This paper finds if real house prices grow at their historical average pace, then owning a home is about as expensive as renting. If prices grow more slowly, as some forecasters predict, the framework used in this paper suggests that the average home buyer would be financially better off renting. House prices are decomposed into contributions from rents, interest rates and expected capital gains, which may help policymakers in the detection of housing bubbles. Recent data do not show signs of a bubble

Core TuLiP

We propose CoreTuLiP - the core of a trust management language based on Logic Programming. CoreTuLiP is based on a subset of moded logic programming, but enjoys the features of TM languages such as RT; in particular clauses are issued by different authorities and stored in a distributed manner. We present a lookup and inference algorithm which we prove to be correct and complete w.r.t. the declarative semantics. CoreTuLiP enjoys uniform syntax and the well-established semantics and is expressive enough to model scenarios which are hard to deal with in RT

Design and Evaluation of Menu Systems for Immersive Virtual Environments

Interfaces for system control tasks in virtual environments (VEs) have not been extensively studied. This paper focuses on various types of menu systems to be used in such environments. We describe the design of the TULIP menu, a menu system using Pinch Gloves™, and compare it to two common alternatives: floating menus and pen and tablet menus. These three menus were compared in an empirical evaluation. The pen and tablet menu was found to be significantly faster, while users had a preference for TULIP. Subjective discomfort levels were also higher with the floating menus and pen and tablet

Phylloplane Sterilization With Bleach Does Not Reduce Btk Toxicity for \u3ci\u3ePapilio Glaucus\u3c/i\u3e Larvae (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae)

Neonate tiger swallowtail larvae (Papilio glaucus) were used to bioassay the effects of Btk (Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki) at 4 doses (0.268, 0.034, 0.008, and 0.004 BIU per cm leaf surface) with an untreated control. Larvae, obtained from females captured in Georgia and North Carolina, were fed leaves of either tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipfera) or black cherry (Prunus serotina) in experiments that either included a pre-treatment dip and rinse in 5% chlorox bleach or not, before the application of Btk (dipping leaves in serially diluted solutions of Foray 48B). The results show no difference between North Carolina and Georgia P. glaucus larval dosage sensitivities, but do illustrate a clear dosage effect for all 4 treatments (cherry with and without bleach pre-treatment; tulip tree with and without bleach pre-treatment). The larvae on the bleached leaves do not do better (for cherry or tulip tree host plant) as would be expected if microbial symbionts on the phylloplane synergize the Btk toxicity. These results show that Btk (at doses several thousand-fold less than aerial sprays across forests for gypsy moth control) will kill P. glaucus, with or without microbial synergism on leaf phylloplanes

International Dimensions in the Financing of Higher Education

This chapter compares and contrasts international experience with respect to higher education financing. The size and payment forms of tuition, and the different types and levels of public sector support, are illustrated for a large number of countries. A major aspect of the discussion concerns the conceptual bases and the costs and benefits of the two different instruments of government intervention for student financing: guaranteed bank loans, and income contingent loans. It is argued that income contingent loans have a number of advantages over government guaranteed bank loans, and this seems to be increasingly recognised with respect to international adoption of the former. However, to be efficacious income contingent loan systems require sophisticated institutional and administrative repayment collection arrangements.government guaranteed bank loans, higher education, income contingent loans, student loans, tuition

Effect of green manure crops and organic amendments on incidence of nematode-borne tobacco rattle virus

Tobacco rattle tobravirus (TRV) may infect several ornamental bulb crops and is transmitted by trichodorid nematodes. Paratrichodorus teres, P. pachydermus and Trichodorus similis are the main vectors in the Netherlands. In field experiments the effects of various pre-crops and organic amendments on the TRV Infection Potential of Soils (TRV-IPS) and on disease level in tulip and gladiolus were studied. Organic matter amendment of soil at a rate of 1% dry weight has been shown to reduce the host finding activity of P. teres under laboratory conditions. In a field containing viruliferous P. teres dahlia, italian ryegrass, white mustard and fodder radish were grown or the soil was kept fallow and the resulting TRV-IPS prior to the bulbous test crops was measured by a soil dilution bait test method. The application of organic matter was tested after dahlia as pre-crop. Household waste compost (GFT compost) was applied as a soil mix or planting furrow treatment at 12 tons dry weight per ha for tulip and gladiolus. Spent mushroom compost (Champost) was added as planting furrow treatment at 17 or 12 tons dw/ha, respectively, for tulip and gladiolus. The percentage of TRV diseased plants was determined at flowering in all pre-crop and organic amendment treatments. Champost in the planting furrow and fodder radish as a preceding crop reduced the percentage infection in tulip under favourable conditions for TRV infection. In gladiolus most organic amendments, fodder radish as pre-crop and keeping the soil fallow reduced the TRV infection rate of the plants during the first growing season, but not of the plants grown from the corms in the next year

Tulip Bulb Industry in Japan since 1988

The plant quarantine measures for tulip and lily bulbs were abolished in 1988. A removal of the quarantine made Japanese bulb growers face international competition in the markets. Since then the imports of bulbs, mainly from Holland, increased rapidly and bulb prices tended to decline gradually, while the Japanese production of bulbs did not decrease. The imports also introduced new varieties of bulbs to Japan. The demand for tulip bulbs increased greatly until the late 1990s, but in the 2000s the Japanese bulb markets stagnated. Bulb prices decreased, and the domestic production of bulbs decreased sharply, which caused a great reduction in the number of bulb farmers. Consequently, the rate of self-sufficiency for producing tulip bulbs in Japan decreased from 80% in 1988 to 20 % in 2006, even though the volume of imported bulbs decreased in the 2000s. This paper analyzes the demand and supply conditions of tulip bulbs, and reports estimates of the Japanese demand and supply functions of tulip bulbs by regression analysis. Demand depends upon the real price (in terms of consumption goods) of tulip bulbs negatively and the real national income positively, and shows that the demand curve shifted forward until 2001, and then shifted backwards. Domestic supply depends upon the prices of tulip bulbs and the rice prices positively

Effect Of Coagulant Recycling on Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment Performance

Chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) process is a promising method for carbon redirection and improving the performance and efficiency of wastewater treatment processes. CEPT is employed to precipitate colloidal and suspended matter from wastewater; however, this requires a significant amount of coagulant and produces large volumes of sludge. Coagulant recovery (CR) from the precipitated sludge has the potential to reduce sludge quantities, associated costs for disposal of sludge, cost of dosing fresh coagulant by regenerating and purifying the coagulant before reuse. This research was conducted to understand the feasibility and implications of CR in municipal wastewater. In order to evaluate the use of CR in municipal wastewater, recovery of aluminum and iron, which are the two most widely used coagulants, from primary sludge originated from coagulated raw wastewater and their reuse potential as secondary coagulant was investigated. The recovered coagulant which was obtained through acidification of the primary sludge, reused for treating primary wastewater and overall coagulation efficiency was determined as a function of the recovery cycles (two in number). While with fresh aluminum sulphate, the removal efficiencies of total suspended solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total phosphorous (TP), and total nitrogen (TN) were 85%, 65%, 80% and 33%, respectively, a drop in removal efficiency of TSS and COD was observed with recovered aluminum (85% to 60% and 65% to 50%, respectively). With fresh ferric chloride, 90% TSS, 77% TP, 62% COD, and 18% TN were removed from primary effluent, while with the recovered coagulant a decline in the TSS, COD and TN removal efficiencies and increase in their concentrations in effluent by approximately 10% occurred. Recoveries of both aluminum and iron declined with each cycle. Phosphorous was the most affected parameter with recycled coagulant, however, this could be precipitated as struvite at the end of the second cycle. Equilibrium modeling of various aluminum and iron species was conducted to determine the recovery potential of aluminum and iron at low pH. The chemical equilibrium modes predicted the formation of complexes like jurbanite, gibbsite for aluminum and jarosite, strengite for iron, which reduced the recovery. The effects of recycling of coagulant on various water quality parameters in the effluent were also determined. A preliminary operational cost analysis conducted on the recovery process demonstrated that the increased cost of acidification can be offset by the reduction in costs of fresh coagulant, dewatering and sludge disposal. Distribution of micropollutants (MPs) with fresh and recovered iron and aluminum in recovered coagulant and effluent was investigated. Based on their relative abundance in wastewater and range of octanol-water coefficients, 18 MPs from different groups such as antibiotics, food additives, surfactants were selected. The MPs were spiked into the influent from a primary stream collected from a local wastewater plant. The distribution of MPs in wastewater and the removal during coagulation were compound specific. MPs with log Kow ow \u3e2.5 were sorbed on the coagulated sludge. The distribution ratio (Kd) of all the MPs with log Kow \u3e2.5 was calculated and the extent of buildup on sludge due to repeated recycling was determined. Onlyow \u3e2.5 was being recycled with the recovered coagulant. This study thus alleviates the concern of building up of the MPs during recycle of the coagulants. Additionally, to assess the impact of CR on anaerobic digestion (AD), CEPT sludge, sludge obtained from use of recovered coagulants (recovered sludge), and the residual solids (spent sludge) after CR were subjected to AD at mesophilic conditions for 15 days. Approximately 52% destruction of volatile solids was observed for CEPT and recovered sludges, while for the spent sludge it was 47%. Both CEPT and the recovered sludge had similar methane formation potential reaching a maximum of 205 mL CH4/gCOD and the spent sludge could produce only 50 mL CH4/gCOD due to unavailability of organics. A chemical equilibrium model predicted the formation of vivianite and pyrite as iron-phosphorous (Fe-P) and iron-sulfur (Fe-S) compounds, respectively in the CEPT and recovered sludges formed during AD. This observation was key in determining that there was no difference in the Fe-P and Fe-S compounds formed in the CEPT and recovered sludges. The findings of this work demonstrated the potential of CR for wastewater and water treatment facilities for energy and cost saving