The al-Kanimiyyin Shehus : a working chronology

It is one of the paradoxes of the history of the states of the Central Sudan that Borno, the state with the longest tradition of Islamic literacy should have such an illestablished chronology - especially for the nineteenth century - when compared with its neighbours. No kinglist has been published, no list with regnal years, such as is known from other states. Our problems are compounded by the fact that every known list is presented in the Christian solar calendar and there is no way in which we can be certain that the original material has been correctly converted from the Muslim lunar calendar. In the paper that follows I have attempted to establish a chronology based primarily upon Arabic sources and upon the Muslim calendar. These sources include state seals which usually are engraved with the date of the year of accession; mahrams, charters, or grants of privilege, or rather renewal of such grants by newly appointed leaders. It was the practice for owners of such documents to have them renewed at the beginning of a new reign. When attempting to date events connected with the eclipse of the al-Kanimiyyin and the advent of Rabih I have also made use of evidence relating to the seasons and to various meteorological conditions

Resonance scattering of light by spherical photonic clusters: analytical approach

Scattering of light by the photonic clusters made of small particles is studied with the help of the quasiperiodicity condition and the local perturbation method. The analytical expression for the field scattered by the cluster is presented and the conditions of resonance scattering are found. The conditions of the zero scattering by the cluster are also found.Comment: 11 page

Contributory negligence involving overseas European banks in property valuation negligence cases in the UK

This paper examines the phenomenon of cross-border property lending and examines a number of issues regarding lending procedures and decision making processes in the context of the relationship between lender and professional advisor. It commences by placing these procedures and processes in the context of the development of cross border European property investment and finance. The UK has been a popular destination for overseas investors and lenders over the last decade and is therefore used as a case study to examine the additional institutional risk that overseas lenders may face when operating outside of their own country and obtaining advice from home professionals. The UK market was the subject of a boom period during the late 1980s, followed by a recession in the early 1990s. The losses triggered a number of professional negligence actions by lenders against valuers. These include a number of overseas lenders mainly from Europe and these cases have been examined for any particular features which, coupled with other data gained from overseas lenders as part of an interview survey, could be used to isolate any significant problems for European lenders in overseas markets. The research identified a lack of clarity in roles and relationships between lender and advisor, difficulties in communications both internally and between overseas branches and headquarters and failures in provision and interpretation of advice. The paper concludes by identifying the issues which may need to be addressed generally by lenders and their advisors, when the lenders are operating in overseas markets

Commercial property loan valuations in the UK : the changing landscape of practice and liability

This paper is the first of two which aim to examine the major legal liability implications of changes to the commercial property loan valuation process caused by the recession in the UK property market and to make recommendations to valuers and their professional institutions to improve the quality of the process and the result. This paper identifies the market background to commercial property lending and discusses the implications of the falls in value for lenders and valuers. These include two major strands; first, the outcome of discussions between the representative bodies of these two groups and, second, the increasing litigation caused by lenders suing valuers for professional negligence. The discussions between representative groups have driven a debate on the valuation process leading to a number of reports and guidance notes. This paper discusses the outcomes paying particular attention to the basis of valuation for loan purposes and the provision of additional information in valuation reports. This paper also reviews the legal framework which influences the relationship between the lenders and valuers and discusses the duty of care. The role of instructions in the valuation process, the significance of the identity of the person to be advised and the possibility of a conflict of interest arising are all considered. The paper also addresses the issue of the standards required of a commercial loan valuer, including how this is interpreted by the courts and the legal status of professional guidance notes. The paper concludes by identifying potential areas for dispute within the loan valuation process and raising a number of research questions concerning the operation of this process which are addressed in a following paper

European precipitation connections with large-scale mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) fields

To advance understanding of hydroclimatological processes, this paper links spatiotemporal variability in gridded European precipitation and large-scale mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) time series (1957–2002) using monthly concurrent correlation. Strong negative (positive) correlation near Iceland and (the Azores) is apparent for precipitation in northwest Europe, confirming a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) association. An opposing pattern is found for southwest Europe, and the Mediterranean in winter. In the lee of mountains, MSLP correlation is lower reflecting reduced influence of westerlies on precipitation generation. Importantly, European precipitation is shown to be controlled by physically interpretable climate patterns that change in extent and position from month to month. In spring, MSLP–precipitation correlation patterns move and shrink, reaching a minimum in summer, before expanding in the autumn, and forming an NAO-like dipole in winter. These space–time shifts in correlation regions explain why fixed-point NAO indices have limited ability to resolve precipitation for some European locations and seasons

Commercial property loan valuations in the UK : implications of current trends in practice and liability

This paper is the second of two papers which aim to examine the major legal liability implications of changes to the commercial property loan valuation process caused by the recession in the UK property market and to make recommendations to valuers and their professional institutions to improve the quality of the process and the result. The objectives of this paper are to address a number of the practical implications of changes to the loan valuation process within the context of legal liability. The results of an interview survey of lenders and valuers are reported and analysed. The survey examined the loan valuation process including the selection and instruction of valuers, bases of valuation and valuation reporting. In the selection and instruction process, the findings of the survey reveal two potential problems within the valuer/lender relationship. First, valuers still occasionally accept instructions from borrowers and this could lead to a conflict of interest as lenders may rely on the survey. Second, the occasional lack of formal instructions prior to the delivery of reports casts doubt on the valuer’s ability to correctly identify the needs of clients. Regarding the basis of valuation, it was found that valuers are providing valuations on bases which they do not think are appropriate. Valuers may be legally liable if they do not inform clients of their reservations and this situation must be urgently addressed. The survey also confirms previous research that valuation reports are considered to be light on contextual information concerning markets. The paper concludes by making a number of specific recommendations concerning possible improvements to the commercial property loan valuation process

Proof-functional semantics for relevant implication

In this thesis I provide a theory of implication from within the Gentzen/Curry formalist constructivist tradition. Formal consecution and natural deduction systems, which satisfy the formalist and also the intuitionist desiderata for constructivity (including Lorenzen's principle of inversion), are provided for all implication logics. The similar-but simplified- binary relational ("Kripke-style") semantics are also given. The driving force behind this research has been the desire to provide an explanatory semantics for relevant implication in terms of "use as a subproof in a proof". To this end relevant consecution systems which exploit various precisely characterised notions of use are described. The basis of this work has been the development of a way of describing the shapes of proofs in the "object language". In chapter 2 I motivate and introduce the basic machinery used to describe proofs, and show how thereby to capture use. This involves a more detailed consideration of the internal structure of formal systems than exploited by Curry in his epitheory of formal systems. In chapter 3 the completely general "cloned" consecution systems are described, and it is shown that every logic with an axiomatic formulation is captured by such a system. In chapter 4 the corresponding natural deduction systems are described and it is shown that Lorenzen's principle of inversion holds for them by proving the appropriate reduction theorem. Thus every implication logic has a formulation which satisfies the intuitionist formal criterion for constructivity. In chapter 5 we return to the business of providing explanatory semantics for relevant implication, using the similar style of consecution system as in chapter 3, but with list (proof-description) manipulation rules which capture use. In chapter 6 "cloned" binary relation semantics are described which also capture every logic with an axiomatic formulation. These don't quite correspond to the consecution systems of chapter 3 in that they exploit a dramatic simplification of the list machinery (but do involve other complications). The similar relevant semantics using use rules is also given. The corresponding "simplified" consecution and natural deduction systems are described in appendix B .2. These systems do not satisfy the Lorenzen principle of inversion and so are not constructive. Chapter 7 rounds off and offers some thoughts about possible further developments. Appendix A shows an early attempt to capture relevant implication, and is notable as the most complex formulation of intuitionist implication ever devised