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Advances in Comparative & Environmental Physiology: Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology (Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology,)
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Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology
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ASIN: 3540194290 |
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Provided here is an up to date account of how high pressures affect cellular processes in microorganisms and in eukaryotic cells. Topics include membrane transport, cell activation, the excitable properties of cells, muscular contraction, with particular emphasis on cardiac muscle, and the role of pressure in the physiology of cartilage in load bearing joints. Additionally there are thorough reviews of the effects of pressure on fish and on the central nervous system of mammals, including man.
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One of the prerequisites for survival is the ability of cells to maintain their volume. Thus, during the course of evolution cells have "learned" a variety of strategies to achieve volume homeostasis. This volume regulatory machinery involves regulation of both, cellular metabolism and cellular transport and is exploited by hormones and transmitters to regulate cellular function. This book to illustrates the complex interplay of cell volume regulatory mechanisms and cellular function in a variety of tissues. However, our knowledge is still far from being conclusive, and the present collection of reviews is thought to foster further experimental efforts to unravel the role of cell volume in the integrated function of cells.
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Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology: Muscle Contraction and Cell Motility : Molecular and Cellular Aspects (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence)
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Illite
Alain Meunier ,
Bruce Velde , and
Bruce D. Velde
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ASIN: 3540204865 |
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This monograph discusses the major problems relating to the surface environment by using clay mineralogy as a unifying theme. Since the stability and development of illite, the most abundant and most common clay mineral, is the key to surface mineral dynamics, understanding its structure and transformation is an absolute prerequisite to understanding the problems of environmental change. Using illite as the frame, the authors describe problems in soil chemistry, clay stability and clay kinetics in sedimentary rocks. This book is valuable for graduate students, scientists and researchers in the fields of sedimentology, sediment petrography and soil sciences.
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Potassium, illite and the ocean
Charles E Weaver
Manufacturer: Water Resources Center, Georgia Institute of Tech
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ASIN: B0007FOTV4 |
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This digital document is a journal article from Chemie der Erde - Geochemistry - Interdisciplinary Journal for Chemical, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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This digital document is a journal article from Environment International, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 not only caused serious ecological problems in both the Ukraine and Belarus, which continue to the present day, but also contaminated a large part of the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. In this paper an overview is given of the latter problems in upland UK, where ecological problems still remain some 17 years after initial contamination. Following deposition of radiocaesium and radioiodine in May 1986, measurements of radioactivity in grass and soil indicated a rapidly declining problem as the radioiodine decayed and the radiocaesium became immobilised by attachment to clay particles. However, these studies, as well as the advice received by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, were based on lowland agricultural soils, with high clay and low organic matter contents. The behaviour of radiocaesium in upland UK turned out to be dominated by high and persistent levels of mobility and bioavailability. This resulted in the free passage of radiocaesium through the food chain and into sheep. Consequently the Ministry banned the sale and movement of sheep over large areas of upland Britain, with bans remaining on some farms to the present day. Present day predictions suggest that these bans will continue in some cases for some years to come. The causes of radiocaesium mobility in upland areas have subsequently been the subject of intense investigation centred around vegetation and, in particular, soil characteristics. Soil types were identified which were particularly vulnerable in this respect and, where these coincided with high levels of deposition, sheep bans tended to be imposed. While much of the earlier work suggested that a low clay content was the main reason for continuing mobility, a very high organic matter content is now also believed to play a major role, this being a characteristic of wet and acidic upland UK soils. The overall message from this affair is the importance of a fundamental understanding of biogeochemical pathways in different ecosystems when attempting to predict the impacts of large-scale contamination.
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This digital document is a journal article from Science of the Total Environment, The, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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The interaction of radiocaesium with peat under two moisture regimes was studied in laboratory experiments and by growing ryegrass in pot experiments to simulate changing field moisture conditions. A peat untreated and treated with 5% by weight of clay containing 46% illitic minerals, and a peaty podzol naturally containing 4.5% mineral matter on a dry weight basis were contaminated with ^1^3^4Cs and incubated. The soils were exposed to 8 wetting-and-drying cycles or kept constantly wet during 40 days. Extraction of the peat with 1 M CH"3COONH"4 (pH 7) repeated after each wetting-and-drying cycle indicated increasing ^1^3^4Cs fixation with time of incubation. The peat treated with clay showed a much higher ^1^3^4Cs fixation than that without clay. The pot experiment with the incubated soils showed a ^1^3^4Cs transfer to ryegrass of the same order for the peaty podzol as for the peat treated with clay. For the peat untreated with clay the ^1^3^4Cs transfer to ryegrass was much greater. Wetting-and-drying the peat, with or without clay, increased the overall yield of grass and the concentration and uptake of ^1^3^4Cs over 5 consecutive harvests. K-fertilisation increased the yield of plant material (except for the peat with added clay), decreased the concentration of ^1^3^4Cs, but had no significant effect (p=0.05) on the resultant uptake of ^1^3^4Cs. Mixing clay with the surface layer of organic soils appears to be an effective means of decreasing radiocaesium transfer to field crops in fallout situations.
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This digital document is a journal article from Desalination, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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New ceramic multilayer membranes with a top layer of Tunisian natural illite clay were prepared. The illite powder (fine fraction less than 2 @?m in size) was isolated by sedimentation from crude clay. The obtained powders of a specific surface area of 160 m^2g^-^1 were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that the principal material of this sample was illite. The deposition of the ultrafiltration layer occurred by slip casting method on aclay microfiltration layer using aqueous colloidal suspension. After drying at room temperature for 24 h, the ultrafiltration layer was heated to 800^oC. SEM analyses showed that very thin defect-free top layers were formed. The layer thickness increased with dipping time but could be limited to a few micrometer (4.82 @?m). The membrane was further tested for ultrafiltration of dextran polymer solution of different molecular weights. The membrane cut-off was of 185 KDa and the water permeability was equal to 88 l.h^-^1m^-^2 bar^-^1.
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Particle Accelerator Physics I: Basic Principles and Linear Beam Dynamics
Helmut Wiedemann
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 354064671X |
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Particle Accelerator Physics I is designed to serve as an introduction to the field of high-energy particle accelerator physics and particle-beam dynamics. It covers the dynamics of relativistic particle beams, basics of particle guidance and focusing, lattice design, characteristics of beam transport systems and circular accelerators. Particle-beam optics is treated in the linear approximatin including sextupoles to correct for chromatic aberrations. Perturbations to linear beam dynamics are analysed in detail and correction measures are being discussed. Basic lattice design features and building blocks leading to the design of more complicated beam transport systems and circular accelerators are studied. Characteristics of synchrotron radiation and quantum effects due to the statistical emission of photons on particle trajectories are derived and applied to determine particle-beam parameters.
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This two-volume book serves as a thorough introduction to the field of high-energy particle accelerator physics and beam dynamics. Volume 1 provides a general understanding of the field and a firm basis for the study of the more elaborate topic, mainly nonlinear and higher-order beam dynamics, which is the subject of Volume 2.
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Historian Donald Harman Akenson believes that biblical scholars have gone wrong in searching Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the historical Jesus. All of the gospels, he points out, were written after the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70; the Jesus of the gospels is therefore "a derivative of texts whose goal was to modify, minimize, or exorcise his Jewishness." Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus is Akenson's attempt to put historical Jesus studies back on track, by directing attention to the writings of Paul, "the only person who wrote about Yeshua before [the Temple's destruction]." Akenson's readings of Paul/Saul discern a faint vision of Yeshua, the follower of Yahweh, before he was made into Jesus and deemed a copartner with God. Thus, Akenson equips his readers better to understand Jesus as a first-century Jew, while minimizing the distortions and anachronisms that so often attach themselves to that designation. --Michael Joseph Gross
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The gospels, scholars agree, were written after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. This catastrophic event, argues Donald Akenson, forever altered the outlook--and the agenda--of the Christian and Jewish faiths. Of all the New Testament writings, only Paul's letters were composed before 70 CE. Thus, Akenson says, they are the only direct evidence we have that is untainted by this profound and lasting shift in perspective. And yet this most important source on the life of Jesus is also the most neglected. In Saint Saul, Akenson offers a lively and provocative account of what we can learn about Jesus by reading the letters of Paul, providing fresh new insights into both Jesus and Paul. Akenson painstakingly recreates the world of Christ, a time rich with ideas, prophets, factions, priests, savants, and god-drunk fanatics. He insistently stresses throughout the Jewishness of Jesus (for example, referring to Jesus and Paul as Yeshua and Saul, as they were then known). Equally important, he dismisses the traditional method of searching for facts about Jesus by looking for parallels among the four gospels; they were handed down to us as a unit by a later generation, he argues. Saul, although he did not know Yeshua personally, knew his most important followers, and wrote immediately after Yeshua's death. Saul's teachings were approved (though sometimes reluctantly) by Yeshua's brothers and other early leaders. As an eminent historian, Akenson approaches his subject with a fresh eye and a scholarly rigor that is all too rare in this hotly disputed field. The result is a vibrantly written and provocative book that will captivate anyone seeking to know more about the historical Jesus and the earliest Christians.
Customer Reviews:
Informative, but Too Long.......2006-08-24
Donald Harmon Akenson's 2000 book Saint Saul is difficult to read, but the rewards are many for the dutiful student. Akenson hopes to see what historical evidence can be found for the life of Jesus by examining the epistles of Saul (aka Paul). To do this, he begins by examining the religious dynamics in the First Century to try to give us some idea of the world in which Yeshua and Saul lived. BTW, Akenson insists on using words such as Yeshua, Saul, and YHWH instead of the traditional Jesus, Paul, and God. His rationale is that only by using the words that they used can we try to put ourselves into their world (It's a good point and I found it useful.).
Akenson gives us an excellent background into the religious situation. He documents the plethora of Jewish sects, an issue rarely discussed by other scholars. He also provides the OT references to concepts such as Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, etc. and shows that it took a great leap of faith, diligent searching, and some dishonest juggling for the early Christians to find any precursors to Jesus in these OT concepts.
The book is not without its problems. For example...
- Akenson claims that Jesus' followers were Nazarenes because Jesus came from Nazareth (p. 63). In fact, the Nazarene sect existed long before Jesus, and it is a mis-translation of Nazarene which leads gospel writers to even think that Jesus came from Nazareth, which at that time was a stop over for camel jockeys and cave dwellers and didn't contain a synagogue as described in the gospels.
- Akenson equates Josephus scholarship with Winston Churchill and claims "his standard of accuracy is higher than Churchill's (p. 270)" suggesting that Akenson's own Irish background has influenced his scholarship. Josephus lived on a Roman pension and was a traitor to his Jewish followers. Every word of every book was carefully selected to keep his Roman paymasters happy, lest they give to him the same fate they gave to the men he betrayed.
- Akenson believes that the later addition of material about Jesus to Josephus' Antiquities (20:200) are original. Few scholars would agree.
- Akenson believes that John the Baptist and Jesus were "cousins" (p. 80), which comes only from a fleeting reference in Luke (1:41), is actually contra-indicated later in Luke, and attested to in no other canonical sources. In his defense, he admits that his conclusion "is peripheral", and he correctly concludes that Jesus became a disciple of John.
There are also several ad hominen attacks in the book which are unwarranted in scholarly publications. For example...
- "Although I could extend the list of those who inhale the narcotic fumes of Secret Mark to include probably two-thirds of the North American-based Jesus-questors... (p. 89)." Is Akenson revealing his own insecurities of teaching in Canada and the UK to take a slur at North American Jesus-questors. Are there not Jesus-questors (itself a derogatory word) elsewhere?
- "...he could only have enjoyed watching the most powerful figures in the liberal wing of the Quest establishment - Harvard... (p. 89). Earlier, Akenson makes a crack about Harvard University Press (p. 85), and one has to wonder if his own position as an editor for McGill-Queen's University Press (Who???) somehow motivates his attack here.
The biggest problem with this book is that one has to endure 175 of the 255 pages filled with words like "rebarbarative", "caesurae", "spumescent", etc. in order to finally reach Akenson's first comments about what Saint Saul had to say about the historical Jesus. More than half of the preceding 175 pages has been filled with comments left over from Akenson's previous book (Surpassing wonder: The invention of the Bible and the Talmuds). Many authors do this, and it always is a source of annoyance.
These errors and problems are glaring, but not significant in the larger picture that Akenson paints. Yet one can only wish that Akenson had condensed his 255 pages into the 100 good pages contained therein, and saved a dutiful reader many hours of laborious study in order to mine his nuggets of wisdom.
Second Half Redeems the First.......2004-05-10
In brief, the author's thesis is that our only quasi-reliable source for the historic Yeshua (= Jesus) are Paul's letters, or at least the 7 which are most probably his. These date from 49-63 A.D., before the catastrophe of the Destruction of the Second Temple, and the four canonical Gospels post-date that event, at least in Akenson's view, and hence are not reliable sources regarding pre-Destruction proto-Christianity and its roots in the life and death of Yeshua. The importance of Paul as a periscope into the early decades following the Crucifixion is indeed a welcome insight, seemingly overlooked by the Historic Jesus authors. As Akenson reminds us, Paul attests to the Eucharist (communion), the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, within a short time after these events took place, and he believes Paul was certainly tutored in Yeshua "folklore" (his term) during Paul's fortnight stay with Peter and others who knew Yeshua intimately. The second half of the book, which is excellent and quite moving (particularly the final chapter), more than redeems the first half, which is cranky, sarcastic, and caustically unfair to Akenson's "opponents" - that is, Akenson displays an emotional range similar to many of Paul's letters, from the all-too-human to the celestial. As to the attack-dog sarcasm: Akenson's Big Insight is that Paul is the best (only) source for pre-Destruction proto-Christianity, and so any suggestion in competing authors that the Four Gospels (or any noncanonical gospel) may predate the Destruction of the Temple, is subjected to childish (and needlessly mean-spirited) ridicule rather than sober disputation - reminiscent of the bitter dogma wars that formed (and ruined) the early Church; Akenson would have been right at home in the 4th century. For a refreshingly different take on this, see Robinson's "Redating the New Testament," which argues, convincingly for me, that the chief basis for dating the Four Gospels after 70 A.D., Jesus' prediction that the Temple will be destroyed, is far from determinative: Jesus may well simply have predicted the Temple's fate. (Robinson notes that the Gospels do not make the sort of big deal out of this correct prediction that might be expected if it were written "after the fact," for example. If Robinson and others are correct, then the Four Gospels may well constitute largely first-generation accounts, a possibility which is anathema to those who are deeply uncomfortable with the miracle accounts and the Resurrection.) Akenson's fury at such heresy seems based principally in his characterization of the pre-70 daters as Fundamentalists (and no doubt their view of Akenson and the Jesus Seminar folks is reciprocally vituperative). But you certainly don't have to be a Fundamentalist to accept pre-70 dates for the canonical Gospels (and for that matter, there seems no good reason the Gospel of Thomas can't arguably be dated to just after Jesus' death, if not actually during his lifetime -- apparently the surviving manuscript is far older than those of Paul's letters, if that were a persuasive factor (it's not).) The late Morton Smith takes it on the chin for concocting a gay hoax in the form of the Secret Gospel of Mark, and Crossan and others who treat that work seriously are lampooned as worse than country bumpkins. As his discussion progresses, Akenson gradually calms down and writes beautifully and convincingly about Paul (despite Akenson's criticism of neologisms (and then his use of them throughout the book -- "Judahism," etc.), he occasionally slips and calls Saul "Paul") and the glimpses his letters afford at the historic Jesus. The work ends with a discussion of the great Sermon on Love in 1 Corinthians 13, which Akenson believes closely reflects Jesus' own teachings. The fact that it also closely reflects the Last Supper sermon in John suggests again what may be the central flaw of Akenson's Gospel-dating. A very good read, all in all.
A Fresh Examination of the Jesus/Paul Relationship.......2002-12-25
Akenson has done a good job of writing an informative, entertaining and accurate (inasmuch as the latter adjective can be at all meaningful here)book on Paul and Jesus for the lay reader. All in all, a very good hermeneutic reading of both concerned persons and a good illustration of their milieu. However, I have differences of opinion on several issues.
First, the author is quick (and correct) to point out the highly suspect nature of Secret Mark. But he is also quick (incorrectly- this time) to proclaim it a forgery. While I certainly agree that Crossan and Koester have prematurely and somewhat naively antedated this document, there is, at the other logical extreme, no reason to insist that it is an obvious fabrication on the part of Morton Smith (its 'discoverer') or any other. Sure, its possible. But without real evidence, we can just as properly take the leap and say that the earliest fragments of Secret Mark come from C.E. 50. Not a very good approach, of course. Methodologically, the best response to this issue is a negative one; i.e. there is NEITHER evidence that Secret Mark should predate Canonical Mark, NOR any direct evidence that the former is a forgery rather than a very late and poorly documented piece of apocryphal literature.
Second, Akenson seems to misunderstand the idea behind the Criteria of Multiple Attestation. Few biblical scholars (the Jesus Seminar included) believe that the extant Gospels are independent resources, in and of themselves. What they do believe is that there are strands of contradictory material within the Gospels that can be reasonably supposed to have come from a different source than that which they contradict. If some of these differing materials have thematically or theologically common elements, that constitutes a possible or probable independent attestation- not necessarily a definite one (though Akenson is quite right when he says that some scholars have too much faith in this device). Furthermore, Akenson does not delve sufficiently into the debate as to whether John ought to be considered dependent upon the synoptics. The concensus says no but, as Akenson points out elsewhere, others in biblical scholarship are only too willing to appeal to authority. In not dealing more fully with this issue, Akenson misses an important point that is pivotal in either making or breaking his case against the utility of the Criteria of Independent Attestation.
Third, Akenson's treatment of Q seems to me to be too conservative (very much echoing other giants like John Meier and Richard Horsley). He does not seem to want to grant that Q is best explained as having been written in stages (or formative stratum, to use Kloppenborg's terminology). If Q were was orally transmitted, verbatim and near-verbatim agreements on Jesus' aphorisms in Matthew and Luke are hard to explain. If it was not written in various stages, its various thematic tendencies also become cumbersome. While it is clear to me that the 'Cynic Sage' thesis of Burton Mack and Leif Vaage is based on too liberal an approach to scant information, Akenson's (and Meier and Horsley's) methodological conservatism is also somewhat beyond the pale.
Fourth, Akenson is correct to point out that liberal scholars are frequently sailing off the edge of the world in their conjecture. He is also correct to say that Paul is "the nearest thing we have to a witness." Unfortunately, this is not enough. In order for the Quest for the Historical Jesus to succeed to proceed substantively, we need more sources, and such sources as are not so scant in their mention of historical details. Akenson is skeptical of how we can so proceed with every other source being colored by the cultural response to the fall of Jerusalem in C.E. 70, thus most likely endearing himself to Luke Timothy Johnson and other like-minded (and admittedly articulate and respectable) theological conservatives who routinely lecture on the 'limitations of history.' My position is that because we have so very little to go on after C.E. 70, it does not follow that a careful examination of Gospel material cannot yield a reasonable amount of important, accurate and explanatory data. One previous reviewer has stated that "[e]arly First Century Jerusalem is a murky, far-away place, and we're never going to know all we want to about it, or the people who lived in it." That is a more extreme propounding of the non sequitur that lies behind the reluctance of some theological and methodological conservatives. Like the contemporaries of that revolutionary astronomer Copernicus, scholars should be ready to sail off the edge of the world before coming upon is spherical nature. The Gospels are certaunly problematic as sources, but not altogether impenetrable.
Finally, Akenson does not consider the position that Jesus never existed. Paul's relative silence on historical details about him have led some toward that hypothesis- an hypothesis that has recieved too little attention. Ironically, Akenson has firmly grasped some ammunition that could potentially blow a few holes in the mythicist argument but does not feel trigger happy on such an important, albeit little addressed, issue.
All of this aside, however, Akenson's writing ability and his approach to the subject matter as a non-specialist is quite commendable. There are always going to be disagreements in such a volatile subject matter, so my criticisms should not be mistaken for indictments. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an insightful survey and series of arguments regarding those two great speakers whom we now wish could have written a bit more (though Jesus may not have been literate). A more than satisfactory effort, I recommend it highly.
not what we hoped for.......2001-10-17
If this book, with a most interesting thesis about how to get to the historical Jesus more certainly than the usual way, had been written with clarity, brevity, skill and talent it would have done the job needed. As it is few, will take the trouble to extract what is impotant from a mass of undigested material.
An excellent book for the lay reader.......2001-06-05
If you're looking for a broad historical overview that addresses all of the critical issues surrounding the quest to understand Jesus from an historical perspective, this is a great book. While some other reviewers found that the book dealt too much with the gospels and that the author over-focused on the destruction of the temple, I found that the emphasis was just right. Here's why:
1. If the author is to make the case that Paul's writings present the clearest possible picture of Jesus, it is critical that we understand why it is that the gospels are inadequate to the task.
2. That the gospels were likely written after the fall of the temple (or because of the fall of the temple) means that the content of the gospels were necessarily colored by this disaster -- the authors of the gospels are likely to have engaged in considerable reconstruction of the past in light of present knowledge. (Alas, such is human nature!)
If the reader's intent is to picture Jesus as he really was (in as much as such a thing is possible), a clearer picture is likely to emerge from studies of writings that precede the destruction.
The book is well-written, scholarly, and often entertaining. The author is clearly an iconoclast of some skill -- an excellent read, and whatever you do, don't miss the notes and appendices of this book!
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- Architecture of Silence: Cistercian Abbeys of France
- Artificial Seawaters: Formulas and Methods
- Back in Keith County
- Behavior: Separate from Biology in the Laboratory 3e
- Behavioral Genetics: An Introduction to How Genes and Environments Interact Through Development to Shape Differences in Mood, Personality, and Intelligence
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- Bioinformatics for Dummies
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