A Pivotal Text for the Definition of the Two Hindrances in East Asia: Huiyuan’s “Erzhang yi” Chapter

In this book, an international team of fourteen scholars investigates the Chinese reception of Indian Buddhist ideas, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Topics include Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa, yinming); commentaries on Indian Buddhist texts; Chinese readings of systems as diverse as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha; the working out of Indian concepts and problematics in new Chinese works; and previously under-studied Chinese evidence for developments in India. The authors aim to consider the ways that these Chinese materials might furnish evidence of broader Buddhist trends, thereby problematizing a prevalent notion of “sinification”, which has led scholars to consider such materials predominantly in terms of trends ostensibly distinctive to China. The volume also tries to go beyond seeing sixth- and seventh-century China primarily as the age of the formation and establishment of the Chinese Buddhist “schools”. The authors attempt to view the ideas under study on their own terms, as valid Buddhist ideas engendered in a rich, “liminal” space of interchange between two large traditions.In this book, an international team of fourteen scholars investigates the Chinese reception of Indian Buddhist ideas, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Topics include Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa, yinming); commentaries on Indian Buddhist texts; Chinese readings of systems as diverse as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha; the working out of Indian concepts and problematics in new Chinese works; and previously under-studied Chinese evidence for developments in India. The authors aim to consider the ways that these Chinese materials might furnish evidence of broader Buddhist trends, thereby problematizing a prevalent notion of “sinification”, which has led scholars to consider such materials predominantly in terms of trends ostensibly distinctive to China. The volume also tries to go beyond seeing sixth- and seventh-century China primarily as the age of the formation and establishment of the Chinese Buddhist “schools”. The authors attempt to view the ideas under study on their own terms, as valid Buddhist ideas engendered in a rich, “liminal” space of interchange between two large traditions

Hierarchical modelling of species sensitivity distribution: development and application to the case of diatoms exposed to several herbicides

The Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) is a key tool to assess the ecotoxicological threat of contaminant to biodiversity. It predicts safe concentrations for a contaminant in a community. Widely used, this approach suffers from several drawbacks: i)summarizing the sensitivity of each species by a single value entails a loss of valuable information about the other parameters characterizing the concentration-effect curves; ii)it does not propagate the uncertainty on the critical effect concentration into the SSD; iii)the hazardous concentration estimated with SSD only indicates the threat to biodiversity, without any insight about a global response of the community related to the measured endpoint. We revisited the current SSD approach to account for all the sources of variability and uncertainty into the prediction and to assess a global response for the community. For this purpose, we built a global hierarchical model including the concentration-response model together with the distribution law for the SSD. Working within a Bayesian framework, we were able to compute an SSD taking into account all the uncertainty from the original raw data. From model simulations, it is also possible to extract a quantitative indicator of a global response of the community to the contaminant. We applied this methodology to study the toxicity of 6 herbicides to benthic diatoms from Lake Geneva, measured from biomass reduction

A Ground Station for Use with Small Satellites

NASA has plans to initiate a new series of inexpensive, Scout-sized Explorer satellites to be placed in service starting in the early 1990\u27s. Today\u27s computer technology makes it feasible and economical to build such a satellite so that it can be operated from a single, small ground station. This station would be located at the satellite user\u27s facility and it would operate autonomously. Except for launch and support during operational emergencies, no NASA facilities would be required. We show this way of operating will result in a lower cost mission with no performance penalty

Evidence for O-atom exchange in the O(^1D) + N_2O reaction as the source of mass-independent isotopic fractionation in atmospheric N_2O

Recent experiments have shown that in the oxygen isotopic exchange reaction for O(^1D) + CO_2 the elastic channel is approximately 50% that of the inelastic channel [Perri et al., 2003]. We propose an analogous oxygen atom exchange reaction for the isoelectronic O(^1D) + N_2O system to explain the mass-independent isotopic fractionation (MIF) in atmospheric N_2O. We apply quantum chemical methods to compute the energetics of the potential energy surfaces on which the O(^1D) + N_2O reaction occurs. Preliminary modeling results indicate that oxygen isotopic exchange via O(^1D) + N_2O can account for the MIF oxygen anomaly if the oxygen atom isotopic exchange rate is 30–50% that of the total rate for the reactive channels

Reply to comment by Röckmann and Kaiser on "Evidence for O-atom exchange in the O(^1D) + N_2O reaction as the source of mass-independent isotopic fractionation in atmospheric N_2O"

Based upon the authors’ questioning of the existence of the C_(2v) intermediate, we have reviewed our evidence for the existence of this state. It now appears that this state was in fact an artifact of our calculation [Yung et al., 2004], and was a saddle point rather than a true minimum. Our desire to provide a timely response to this criticism has kept us from determining exactly what minimum structure will be obtained by a full minimization at the level of theory employed. However, it is clear that the C_(2v) symmetry of the compound is broken in such a way that the two N-O bonds are no longer equivalent. We are grateful to the authors for helping us resolve this issue

Study of dehydroxylated-rehydroxylated smectites by SAXS

Montmorillonite and beidellite are dioctahedral 2:1 phyllosilicates. The weakness of the bonding between layers allows the intercalation of water molecules (disposed in layers) in the interlayer space. The samples studied are constituted of cv layers ( cv for vacant octahedral sites in cis positions). They have been dehydroxylated. This is accompanied by the migration of the octahedral cations from former trans-octahedra to empty cis-sites therefore the layers become tv (vacant site in trans position). To characterize the stacking of the layers, SAXS (Small Angle X-ray Scattering) analyses have been investigated in natural (N) and after a dehydroxylation-rehydroxylation cycle (R) states. The SAXS pattern modelisation for Na -exchanged samples in the N state shows that the layers stack in particles with well defined interlayer distances d001, corresponding to 0 water layer, 1 water layers and 2 water layers. The dehydroxylation-rehydroxylation cycle increases the proportion of interlayer distances with zero water layer and the disorder in the stacking. The decreasing of the disorder parameter with the proportion of tetrahedral charge in the N and R sample shows that the distribution of the water layers depend on the localization of the deficit of charge. Les montmorillonites et les smectites sont des phyllosilicates 2:1 dioctaédriques. Les liaisons entre feuillets sont suffisamment faibles pour permettre l'insertion, dans l'espace interfoliaire, de molécules d'eau qui se disposent en couches. Les échantillons étudiés ont des feuillets cis-vacants (le site octaédrique inoccupé est en une des deux positions "cis"). Ils ont été deshydroxylés. Ceci s'accompagne d'une migration cationique, à l'intérieur des couches octaédriques, des sites trans vers les sites cis et le feuillet devient trans-vacant. Des expériences de Diffusion X aux Petits Angles (DPA) ont permis de caractériser l'empilement des feuillets. La modélisation des diagrammes de DPAX met en évidence, pour les échantillons sodique non traités, des empilements de feuillets formant des particules avec des distances interlamellaires à 0, 1 et 2 couches d'eau. Après le cycle de déshydroxylation-réhydroxylation, la proportion de feuillets avec une distance interlamellaire correspondante à zéro couche d'eau et le désordre dans l'empi lement des feuillets augmentent. La décroissance du paramètre de désordre avec la proportion de charges tetraédriques montre que l'organi sation des couches d'eau dépend de la localisation du déficit de charg

A SIMPLE METHOD TO CALIBRATE KINEMATICAL INVARIANTS: APPLICATION TO OVERHEAD THROWING

The aim of this paper is to present a simple calibration method aimed at optimizing the kinematical invariants of a whole body motion capture model, meaning limb lengths and some of the marker placements. A case study and preliminary results are presented and give encouraging insights about the generalized use of such a method in motion analysis in sports