"A most exquisite fellow" — William White and an Atlantic world perspective on the seventeenth-century chymical furnace

The seventeenth-century technologist and colonist William White (ca. 1600–73) has been cited as an alchemical tutor to Gabriel Plattes and George Starkey, and hailed as an early modern “wizard of industrial efficiency.” This study — the first that focuses on White individually — pays particular attention to White’s extraordinary reputation for furnace design and manufacture. By examining the sources of knowledge and social connections that enabled White to acquire and disseminate his knowledge of metallurgy, the authors develop a genealogy of fornacic design that extends from the continent to the Atlantic world and back again, connecting White to better known figures such as Cornelis Drebbel and Robert Boyle. By foregrounding, through White, the technology of early modern alchemy, the authors also hope to emphasise the importance of practical craft in the development of the chemical arts

Disconnected Loop Noise Methods in Lattice QCD

A comparison of the noise variance between algorithms for calculating disconnected loop signals in lattice QCD is carried out. The methods considered are the Z(N) noise method and the Volume method. We find that the noise variance is strongly influenced by the Dirac structure of the operator.Comment: espcrc.sty file needed. Talk presented at Lattice '97, Edinburgh, Scotlan

Trends versus cycles in global wine export shares

The global wine market has witnessed major changes in recent years. Some of these changes are structural in nature or trend-following, whereas others are cyclical. Recently, new market entrants have increased their exports not only to traditional European markets but to other importing regions as well, whereas Old World producers have experienced declining market shares. However, the evidence examined here suggests that market share data also contain strong cyclical components. Mixed results also occur when the wine export data are disaggregated into products. This paper employs econometric methods to analyse the recent major shifts in world wine market shares and explains whether these are more of a secular trend-setting nature or of a temporary cyclical nature.international wine trade, New World wine producers, Old World wine producers, wine cycles, wine market shares, wine trends, International Relations/Trade,

Criteria of interplanetary parameters causing intense magnetic storms (Dst less than -100nT)

Ten intense storms occurred during the 500 days of August 16, 1978 to December 28, 1979. From the analysis of ISEE-3 field and plasma data, it is found that the interplanetary cause of these storms are long-duration, large and negative IMF B sub Z events, associated with interplanetary duskward-electric fields greater than 5 mV/m. Because a one-to-one relationship was found between these interplanetary events and intense storms, it is suggested that these criteria can, in the future, be used as predictors of intense storms by an interplanetary monitor such as ISEE-3. These B sub Z events are found to occur in association with large amplitudes of the IMF magnitude within two days after the onset of either high-speed solar wind streams or of solar wind density enhancement events, giving important clues to their interplanetary origin. Some obvious possibilities will be discussed. The close proximity of B sub Z events and magnetic storms to the onset of high speed streams or density enhancement events is in sharp contrast to interplanetary Alfven waves and HILDCAA events previously reported, and thus the two interplanetary features corresponding geomagnetic responses can be thought of as being complementary in nature. An examination of opposite polarity B sub Z events with the same criteria show that their occurrence is similar both in number as well as in their relationship to interplanetary disturbances, and that they lead to low levels of geomagnetic activity

OFF-SITE COSTS OF SOIL EROSION: A CASE STUDY IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY

This study attempts to provide relative magnitudes of average and marginal costs of off-site sediment-related costs in OregonÂ’s Willamette Valley. Water treatment; road, river channel, and dam maintenance; and hydroelectric generation are examined. Road maintenance and water treatment are nonnegligible average cost items. These costs should not be interpreted as justification for erosion control as marginal cost estimates for water treatment indicate the controls on the margin would yield roughly one-third the average cost.Land Economics/Use,