Voltaire\u27s Convincement

The aim of this essay is to trace the evolution of Voltaire\u27s perspective toward Quakers and Quakerism during the course of his life. The record begins when in 1726 he was forced into exile and chose to go to England. In the course of his three-year stay there, he wrote letters to his friend-letters which were published in 1733 in English under the title \u27Letters Concerning the English Nation\u27 and in French with the title \u27Lettres Philosophiques\u27. Four of the 25 letters are devoted to Quakerism. We endeavour to depict, through his writing, Voltaire\u27s changing attitude toward Quakerism from one of mild disdain�� through ambivalence and fmally to outright admiration. This unfolding begins with a summary of his letters on Quakers and proceeds to a description of French attitudes toward Quakerism in the early 18th century. The essay culminates in an account of miscellaneous reactions to Voltaire\u27s letters and eventually to what we feel was his \u27convincement\u27, as this is reflected in his later writings

Does the Oil Revenues Affect the Macro Economic Variables\u27 Performance in Africa? a Panel Data Analysis

Oil revenues play a vital and central role in the economies of developing countries and African countries are among the countries whose macroeconomic variables are affected by oil revenues. The objective of this study is to analyze and investigate the role of oil revenues on the macroeconomic variables in most of the oil-producing African countries. The Econometric method Pooled Ols model was employed in the study and the fixed and random technique data used was time sires cross panel data in the period (2000-2018). Based on the literature review, the selected  sample study was on countries such as (Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Egypt, Congo, Egypt, Congo, Sudan, Chad, Ghana) and we employed the Gross Domestic Product as the target variable and Oil Revenues (Oiler), inflation (CPI), Exchange rate (Ex), export (Exp), Foreign Direct Invest (FDI), money supply (M2), as independent variables. The study result and analysis of the data indicated that oil revenue has an impact on most the macroeconomic variables in the study except CPI and money supply. The study also indicated a strong positive correlation between oil revenue and GDP growth rate on the countries samples study. The study concluded that one of the most important macroeconomic variables is oil revenues. It also recommended that African countries need support and need to put more effort in building strong economies that are not dependent on oil revenues; to work on diversifying the revenues of the states and work to preserve the right of the next generation to exploit natural and oil resources

Nori 1-motives

Let EHM be Nori's category of effective homological mixed motives. In this paper, we consider the thick abelian subcategory EHM_1 generated by the i-th relative homology of pairs of varieties for i = 0,1. We show that EHM_1 is naturally equivalent to the abelian category M_1 of Deligne 1-motives with torsion; this is our main theorem. Along the way, we obtain several interesting results. Firstly, we realize M_1 as the universal abelian category obtained, using Nori's formalism, from the Betti representation of an explicit diagram of curves. Secondly, we obtain a conceptual proof of a theorem of Vologodsky on realizations of 1-motives. Thirdly, we verify a conjecture of Deligne on extensions of 1-motives in the category of mixed realizations for those extensions that are effective in Nori's sense

Reconstruction of maxillofacial bone defects: Contemporary methods and future techniques

Reconstruction of maxillofacial continuity defects has always been a challenging tasks for the scientist and surgeons over the years. The main goal of the reconstruction of the maxillofacial region is to restore facial form, function, full rehabilitation of occlusion and articulation. A refinement in surgical technique and methods of reconstruction has improved patient’s quality of life. This manuscript reviewed exciting methods of bone reconstruction and confirms that the ideal system for reconstruction of critical size continuity defect of the jaw bones has yet to be found. Shortcoming and limitation of each method has been discussed. The author highlight recent advances on how tissue engineering which could offer biological substitute to restore, maintain, or improve oro-facial function

Out of Sample Estimation for Small Areas using Area Level Data

A Fay-Herriot type model with independent area effects is often assumed when small area estimates based on area level data are required. However, under this approach out of sample areas are limited to synthetic estimates. In this paper we relax the independent area effects assumption, allowing area random effects to be spatially correlated. Empirical best linear unbiased predictors are then developed for areas in sample as well as those that are not in sample, with variance components estimated via maximum likelihood and residual (restricted) maximum likelihood. An expression for the mean cross-product error (MCPE) matrix of the small area estimators is derived, as is an estimator of this matrix. The estimation approach described in the paper is then evaluated by a simulation study, which compares the new method with other methods of small area estimation for this situation

1-motivic sheaves and the Albanese functor

We introduce n-generated sheaves and n-motivic sheaves, describing completely for n = 0, 1 and proposing a conjecture for n > 1. We then obtain functors L\pi_0 and LAlb on DM_{eff}(k) deriving \pi_0 and Alb. The functor LAlb extends the one constructed (by the second author jointly with B.Kahn) to non-necessarily geometric motives. These functors are then used to define higher N\'eron-Severi groups and higher Albanese sheaves. The latter may be considered as an algebraic avatar of Deligne (co)homology.Comment: 54 pages, fully revised exposition with a new "structure theorem" for 1-motivic sheaves, see Theorem 1.3.10, including finitely presented (or constructible) 1-motivic sheave

Chromosome mapping of dragline silk genes in the genomes of widow spiders (araneae, theridiidae)

With its incredible strength and toughness, spider dragline silk is widely lauded for its impressive material properties. Dragline silk is composed of two structural proteins, MaSp1 and MaSp2, which are encoded by members of the spidroin gene family. While previous studies have characterized the genes that encode the constituent proteins of spider silks, nothing is known about the physical location of these genes. We determined karyotypes and sex chromosome organization for the widow spiders, Latrodectus hesperus and L. geometricus (Araneae, Theridiidae). We then used fluorescence in situ hybridization to map the genomic locations of the genes for the silk proteins that compose the remarkable spider dragline. These genes included three loci for the MaSp1 protein and the single locus for the MaSp2 protein. In addition, we mapped a MaSp1 pseudogene. All the MaSp1 gene copies and pseudogene localized to a single chromosomal region while MaSp2 was located on a different chromosome of L. hesperus. Using probes derived from L. hesperus, we comparatively mapped all three MaSp1 loci to a single region of a L. geometricus chromosome. As with L. hesperus, MaSp2 was found on a separate L. geometricus chromosome, thus again unlinked to the MaSp1 loci. These results indicate orthology of the corresponding chromosomal regions in the two widow genomes. Moreover, the occurrence of multiple MaSp1 loci in a conserved gene cluster across species suggests that MaSp1 proliferated by tandem duplication in a common ancestor of L. geometricus and L. hesperus. Unequal crossover events during recombination could have given rise to the gene copies and could also maintain sequence similarity among gene copies over time. Further comparative mapping with taxa of increasing divergence from Latrodectus will pinpoint when the MaSp1 duplication events occurred and the phylogenetic distribution of silk gene linkage patterns. © 2010 Zhao et al