Botanical Latin: History, Grammar, Syntax, Terminology and Vocabulary. William T. Stearn. London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1966. xiv, 566pp.($14.75)

Excerpt: As W. T. Stearn reminds us in the preface to this attractive and welcome work, the realm of literature which a knowledge of botanical Latin opens to botanists is a strange barbarous place for classicists; invited into it as an interpreter, a good classical scholar may well feel like Alice meeting Humpty Dumpty through the looking-glass. The same perplexity is experienced by the entomologist; those of us educated in the Latin of Cicero and Pliny are ill equipped to name new species or even to translate Latin descriptions, as biological Latin developed long ago into a stylized form not easily conquered without a specific aid

Raman intensity as a probe of concentration near a crystal growing in solution

The feasibility of using Raman spectral scattering signals for measurements of concentration profiles near a crystal interface during growth or dissolution is discussed. With KH2PO4 (KDP) as a test material, optical multichannel analyzer (OMA) detection of a solute Raman vibrational band provided direct quantification of solute concentration with band intensity. The intersection of incident laser and Raman collection optics provided 3-D selective point measurements of the solution concentration field. Unlike many other techniques, the Raman band intensity is not sensitive to the typical temperature variations. Precision calibration of Raman intensity versus KDP concentration with less than 1 pct standard deviation error levels was demonstrated. A fiber optic, which sampled incident laser intensity and coupled it to the OMA, provided a fully synchronized monitor of fluctuations in laser power to correlate with observed Raman signals. With 1 W of laser power at the sample, good data statistics required eight repeated data collections at approximately 2.5 min collection. The accumulated time represents the concentration measurement time at one spatial location. Photomicroscopy documented a 30 micrometer diameter by 200 micrometer of laser Raman scattering region in the solution near the crystal surface. The laser beam was able to approach up to 25 micrometer from the crystal surface. However, a crystal surface reflected intensity contribution was weakly detectable. Nucleated microcrystals were seen in the crystal-growing solution. These microcrystals convect right up to the crystal surface and indicate no quiet diffusion region under normal gravity conditions. Translation of the solution cell with respect to the optics caused systematic intensity errors

A failsafe analysis using NASTRAN's piecewise linear analysis and a nine node linear crack element

A two-dimensional crack element was implemented into NASTRAN as a user dummy element and used to study failsafe characteristics of the C5A fuselage. The element is formulated from Reitsner's functional requiring that it satisfy compatability with the linear boundary displacement elements in NASTRAN. Its accuracy is demonstrated by analyzing for the stress intensity factors of two simple crack configurations for which there are classic solutions

Evaluating the transition of e-Government: A review of local authorities in England

The goal of e-Government is seen as a panacea for governmental authorities. The emerging needs of citizens, their inclusion and engagement in policy development, political and participatory processes have meant new perspectives on e-Government are required. This paper seeks to identify and evaluate the preparedness of 10 UK-based local authorities to transition from basic e-Government to a more sophisticated and integrated e-Government. A categorical assessment of e-Government characteristics is made and these authorities are ranked accordingly. Our findings reveal the majority of local authorities sampled had reached a high percentage of informational and transactional e-Government but few had reached the interactional level and none had achieved assimilation. This suggests that local authorities seem to have focused on basic e-Government services. There is a need now to forge ahead to integration and assimilation of e-Government in order to address the critical objectives of citizen inclusion and engagement, and alignment of institutional processes to provide an infrastructure for the transition to e-governance and e-knowledge

Seeing the music in their hands: How conductors' depictions shape the music

Depiction is a way of ‘showing’ meaning through certain gestures or demonstrations. Conductors often use depiction, including multimodal depiction, as well as descriptive talk, to convey meaning to their choirs. This paper considers four short extracts from choir rehearsals with different conductors, to show how they combine description and depiction, including vocal models, facial expressions, metaphoric and iconic gestures and body language to communicate about music, specifically here as part of the activity of modelling

Seven Illustrations from Maurice Sand\u27s Le Monde des Papillons (1867)

Excerpt: The tailpieces and rear cover illustration in this issue are six vignettes and the frontispiece from a popular nineteenth-century French work for beginning amateur lepidopterists, Maurice Sand\u27s Le monde des papillons (Paris, 1867). The frontispieces (our rear cover) depicts a melange of collecting equipment, including a ring net for aerial collecting, a folding sweeping net, an entomological satchel, various forceps, a pupa-digging spud, a collecting tin for larvae, a lantern, a collecting box into which adult specimens were pinned, and several items which have disappeared from our modern list of paraphernalia

The export of national varieties of capitalism: the cases of Wal-Mart and Ikea

Using the cases of Wal-Mart and IKEA, this paper takes a productive systems approach to examine ‘varieties of capitalism’ from the perspective of the ways by which production and market relations are structured and prioritised. It considers the nature of these relations and their interaction within the domestic economy and the ways that firms and national systems interact with each other in the global economy. It examines the processes by which trading standards are transported via supply chain relationships, which ultimately become embedded in products and recognized by consumers at various stages. In this analysis, the cases of Wal-Mart and IKEA provide insight into the ways by which national systems extend themselves globally, their contrasting effects on the business environments in host localities, and the impact of the resulting supply chain relations on organizational performance

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of the sporulation factor SpoIIAA in its native and phosphorylated forms

Sporulation in Bacillus begins with an asymmetric cell division producing two progeny with identical chromosomes but different developmental fates. As such, it is a simple example of cellular differentiation. The establishment of cell type is controlled by a series of alternate RNA polymerase sigma subunits. The first compartment-specific sigma factor is sigma (F), whose activity is controlled by SpoIIAB, an anti-sigma factor, and SpoIIAA, an anti-sigma factor antagonist which is phosphorylated by the kinase activity of SpoIIAB. Here, the preliminary crystallographic analysis of SpoIIAA and phosphorylated SpoIIAA from B. sphaericus in forms suitable for high-resolution structure determination are reported