Writing and the zeitgeist

Have contemporary writers anything to say about their times and, if so, have they the nerve to say it? This article argues that there is much failure of vision and failure of nerve on the part of today's writers. Because they lack the clarity and courage to come to terms with the times, they succumb to its deceptions and seductions. Its thesis is is that the power and value of writing is in the scope and depth of its engagement with the zeitgeist; in how perceptively a writer captures the spirit of the age, expresses the temper of the times; in how much of what is there in the air, throbbing in the collective psyche, pulsing in the ever shifting social order, a writer gathers up and expresses in accurate and resonant images, in provocative and paradigmatic stories. This is pursued in reflection on attitudes expressed at two international writers conferences and in polemic against the prevailing views expressed

To the Crucible: An Irish engagement with the Greek crisis and the Greek left

A monumental drama is playing out before our eyes. It is a true Greek tragedy. The plot: A society is being pushed to its limits. The denouement is not yet determined, but survival is at stake and prospects are precarious. Greece is at the sharp end of a radical and risky experiment in how far accumulation by dispossession can go, how much expropriation can be endured, how far the state can be subordinated to the market. It is a global narrative, but the story is a few episodes ahead here. Greece is the crucible. It is a caldron where concentrated forces are colliding in a process that will bring forth either a reconfiguration of capitalism or the dawn of its demise

Linfield College: Study Abroad in Austria

This letter from returnee Helena Frueh explains the value of studying abroad in Austria

Knowledge Discovery in Documents by Extracting Frequent Word Sequences

published or submitted for publicatio

Nitrogen turnover and leaching in cropping systems with ryegrass catch crops

This thesis deals with perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) catch crops and their short- and long-term effects on nitrogen leaching and nitrogen turnover in soils. Results are presented from three field experiments on a sandy soil in south-west Sweden, where undersown catch crops were used in cropping systems with and without applications of liquid manure. The effects of different tillage practices on soil mineral nitrogen and leaching were also studied. Two coupled simulation models, which describe water flow and nitrogen transformations and transport in soil, were used for calculations of nitrogen mineralization and soil nitrogen balances. A more detailed study of the residual effects of ryegrass on the nitrogen supyly to the subsequent crops and nitrogen leaching was performed in lysimeters, using 'N-labelled ryegrass. Undersown catch crops efficiently reduced nitrogen losses when mineral fertilizer or manure was applied at normal rates (90-1 10 kg Nha). Over five years, undersown catch crops reduced nitrogen leaching by 60%, on average, compared with soil which was conventionally tilled in August-September. Incorporation of catch crops affected nitrogen mineralization mainly during the first growing season following incorporation, when approximately 20-30% of catch crop nitrogen was released. The results emphasize the importance of an early onset of nitrogen mineralization in spring after incorporation of catch crops. This is necessary in order to overcome the soil-depletion effect of nitrogen uptake induced by the catch crop. Simulations showed that incorporation of catch crop material in late autumn instead of spring can result in a time distribution of nitrogen mineralization more suitable for a subsequent cereal crop, but this was not verified by the results of the lysimeter experiment. It seems important to obtain further knowledge of how to improve the degree of synchronization between nitrogen mineralization after incorporation of catch crops and nitrogen demand of the subsequent crops. According to simulations, the main part of the catch crop nitrogen contributed to a long-term accumulation of soil organic nitrogen (+I0 kg N per hectare and year), while it slowly declined in autumn-tilled soil given mineral fertilizer (-30 kg N per hectare and year). However, the accumulation of soil organic nitrogen due to the catch crops was very modest compared with the total amount of organic nitrogen in the soil

Philosophers, scientists and the unity of science

This paper examines historical images of the unity of science and makes a case for a contemporary conceptualisation of this project for our own times. It argues that, to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge, it is necessary to have an adequate and appropriate philosophy. This paper outlines the parameters of such a philosophy

A two factor long memory stochastic volatility model

In this paper we fit the main features of financial returns by means of a two factor long memory stochastic volatility model (2FLMSV). Volatility, which is not observable, is explained by both a short-run and a long-run factor. The first factor follows a stationary AR(1) process whereas the second one, whose purpose is to fit the persistence of volatility observable in data, is a fractional integrated process as proposed by Breidt et al. (1998) and Harvey (1998). We show formally that this model (1) creates more kurtosis than the long memory stochastic volatility (LMSV) of Breidt et al. (1998) and Harvey (1998), (2) deals with volatility persistence and (3) produces small first order autocorrelations of squared observations. In the empirical analysis, we use the estimation procedure of Gallant and Tauchen (1996), the Efficient Method of Moments (EMM), and we provide evidence that our specification performs better than the LMSV model in capturing the empirical facts of data