Wild Emptiness: A Zen Approach to Environmental Ethics

When Buddhism took root in China and integrated with the nation’s Taoist intellectual climate, the tradition retained the orthodox central objective of overcoming suffering. While conserving this principal aspiration, the rise of Zen is associated with deviation from the orthodox practice of monasticism and toward the practical embodiment of emptiness while integrated in society, which can be likened to the practice of unwavering compassion. This piece offers a Zen approach to environmental ethics such that it is an attempt to explicate how and why an individual practicing Zen should compassionately engage with the earth. With respect to the Buddhist employment of skillful means, different approaches are offered as tailored ethical frameworks to appeal to individuals at different stages in their path to awakening. Furthermore, the environmental ethic appealed to by the awakened individual is explicated as spontaneous harmonization with the flow of emptiness, that which the Buddhists regard to be the driving force of the phenomenal realm. The awakened individual is considered to non-deliberately take on a lifestyle that provides perpetual intimacy with the rhythms of wild emptines

Mantle dynamics and geodesy

Both completed work and work that is still in progress are presented. The completed work presented includes: (1) core-mantle boundary topography; (2) absolute value for mantle viscosity; (3) code development; (4) lateral heterogeneity of subduction zone rheology; and (5) planning for the Coolfront meeting. The work presented that is still in progress includes: (1) geoid anomalies for a chemically stratified mantle; and (2) geoid anomalies with lateral variations in viscosity

The Mars Observer database

Mars Observer will study the surface, atmosphere, and climate of Mars in a systematic way over an entire Martian year. The observations of the surface will provide a database that will be invaluable to the planning of a future Mars sample return mission. Mars Observer is planned for a September 1992 launch from the Space Shuttle, using an upper-stage. After the one year transit the spacecraft is injected into orbit about Mars and the orbit adjusted to a near-circular, sun-synchronous low-altitude, polar orbit. During the Martian year in this mapping orbit the instruments gather both geoscience data and climatological data by repetitive global mapping. The scientific objectives of the mission are to: (1) determine the global elemental and mineralogical character of the surface material; (2) define globally the topography and gravitational field; (3) establish the nature of the magnetic field; (4) determine the time and space distribution, abundance, sources, and sinks of volatile material and dust over a seasonal cycle; and (5) explore the structure and aspects of the circulation of the atmosphere. The science investigations and instruments for Mars Observer have been chosen with these objectives in mind. These instruments, the principal investigator or team leader and the objectives are discussed

How useful are the stages of change for targeting interventions? randomized test of a brief intervention to reduce smoking

Objectives. To see whether the stages of change are useful for targeting a brief intervention to reduce smoking based on implementation intentions. A second objective was to rule out demand characteristics as an alternative explanation for the findings of intervention studies based on the transtheoretical model and implementation intentions. Design. Participants (N = 350) were randomized to a passive control condition (questionnaire only), active control condition (questionnaire-plus-instruction to plan to quit) or experimental condition (questionnaire, plan to quit, form an implementation intention). Their behavior and psychosocial orientation to quit were measured at baseline and 2-month follow-up. Main Outcome Measures. Theory of planned behavior variables, nicotine dependence and quitting. Results. Significantly more people quit smoking in the experimental condition than in the control conditions, and the planning instructions changed intention to quit and perceived control over quitting, but not behavior. Stage of change moderated these effects such that implementation intentions worked best for individuals who were in the preparation stage at baseline. Conclusion. Harnessing both motivational and volitional processes seems to enhance the effectiveness of smoking cessation programs, although further work is required to clarify inconsistencies in the literature using the stages of change.</p

Nonmalleable Information Flow: Technical Report

Noninterference is a popular semantic security condition because it offers strong end-to-end guarantees, it is inherently compositional, and it can be enforced using a simple security type system. Unfortunately, it is too restrictive for real systems. Mechanisms for downgrading information are needed to capture real-world security requirements, but downgrading eliminates the strong compositional security guarantees of noninterference. We introduce nonmalleable information flow, a new formal security condition that generalizes noninterference to permit controlled downgrading of both confidentiality and integrity. While previous work on robust declassification prevents adversaries from exploiting the downgrading of confidentiality, our key insight is transparent endorsement, a mechanism for downgrading integrity while defending against adversarial exploitation. Robust declassification appeared to break the duality of confidentiality and integrity by making confidentiality depend on integrity, but transparent endorsement makes integrity depend on confidentiality, restoring this duality. We show how to extend a security-typed programming language with transparent endorsement and prove that this static type system enforces nonmalleable information flow, a new security property that subsumes robust declassification and transparent endorsement. Finally, we describe an implementation of this type system in the context of Flame, a flow-limited authorization plugin for the Glasgow Haskell Compiler

Mars 2000

Twenty years after the Viking Mission, Mars is again being scrutinized in the light of a flood of information from spacecraft missions to Mars, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the SNC meteorites. This review provides an overview of the current understanding of Mars, especially in light of the data being returned from the Mars Global Surveyor Mission. Mars does not now have a global magnetic field, but the presence of crustal anomalies indicates that a global field existed early in Martian history. The topography, geodetic figure, and gravitational field are known to high precision. The northern hemisphere is lower and has a thinner and stronger crust than the southern hemisphere. The global weather and the thermal structure of the atmosphere have been monitored for more than a year. Surface-atmosphere interaction has been investigated by observations of surface features, polar caps, atmospheric dust, and condensate clouds. The surface has been imaged at very high resolution and spectral measures have been obtained to quantify surface characteristics and geologic processes. Many questions remain unanswered, especially about the earliest period of Mars' history

ESTIMATING THE MVP AND OPTIMUM IRRIGATION LEVEL FOR GRAIN SORGHUM UTILIZING EVAPOTRANSPIRATION REQUIREMENTS FOR THE TEXAS PANHANDLE

Production data provided by commercial producers of grain sorghum is used to estimate response functions for three alternative management decision models. The evaluation of yield to the total water availability, irrigation, and water application as a percent of potential evapotranspiration. The three methods provide similar results, but each provides unique information and adds valuable information to the decision process. The value product functions and the energy cost function are used to determine the profit maximizing level of water application where adequate water to fully meet the crop needs is available and to determine the irrigation vs. no irrigation decision where water availability is limiting.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

EVALUATING VEGETABLE PRODUCTION FOR MARKET WINDOWS AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR LIMITED RESOURCE FARMERS

Crop Production/Industries,

Pleadings And Authorities

Under customary international law, criminal defendants have a fundamental right to a fair trial

UTILIZING CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES IN DEVELOPING PRICE EXPECTATIONS FOR SELECTING OPTIMAL MARKETING ALTERNATIVES FOR FIXED RESOURCE COW/CALF OPERATORS IN THE TEXAS PANHANDLE

The beef cattle enterprises for most of the 91% of producers in Texas with less than 100 cows represent secondary or supplemental enterprises utilizing discretionary labor and fixed physical resources. The decision making process is transformed from a variable resource allocation problem to a fixed resource problem. Reliable price and revenue expectation models are critical to selecting marketing alternatives that maximize the return to the fixed resource allocation. Price expectation models using expected values, price and revenue indexes, and conditional probabilities are developed using monthly average prices for 300-900 lb stocker steers at Amarillo, TX from 1992 to 2002.Livestock Production/Industries,