bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
SECONDARY POSTPARTUM HAEMORRHAGE
Authors: AIKEN CATHERINE E M , MEHASSEB MOHAMED K , PRENTICE ANDREW
Published: December 2011

Secondary postpartum haemorrhage is defined as any abnormal or excessive bleeding from the birth canal occurring between 24 hours and up to 12 weeks postpartum. The quantity of blood loss that constitutes secondary postpartum bleeding, unlike primary postpartum hemorrhage, is not clearly defined. Subjective estimation of the amount of blood loss constituting ‘haemorrhage’ accounts for at least some of the variation in reported incidence of secondary postpartum haemorrhage from 0.47% to 2%
‘Abd al-Raḥmān Khān and the “maraẓ ul-mulūk”
Authors: Lee Jonathan
Published: December 2011

The reign of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Khān (1880–1901) is considered by most historians to have been the foundation stone of modern Afghanistan and consequently much has been written about this formative period of Afghanistan's history. However, despite the extensive literature available on his reign, several important features about the Afghan Amīr appear to have been either overlooked or ignored.
The date of the Leng-chia shih-tzu chi
Authors: Barrett T. H.
Published: December 2011

Among the many manuscripts relating to Ch’an Buddhism included in the Tun-huang finds of the early years of this century, theLeng-chia shih-tzu chihas always been regarded by scholars as a discovery of unusual importance, since it presents an unrivalled picture of the early development of this type of Buddhism from the long-obscured viewpoint of the so-called Northern school of Ch’an. The text has been rendered into English lately by J. C. Cleary, but only in a translation intended for a non-scholarly audience. Fortunately, however, the new French-language translation and study by Bernard Faure is everything a scholar could wish for, a worthy product of many years of research, including several spent at the feet of Yanagida Seizan, Japan's outstanding authority on the early historiography of Ch’an. Faure's work, not surprisingly, shows a complete grasp of the complex issues of intellectual history raised by his text, and also provides copious commentary on its author, Ching-chüeh (683–c. 750), and his background.
The Great Road from Surat to Agra through Malwa
Authors: Raeside Ian
Published: December 2011

Jean Deloche in a series of valuable publications has given an overall view of the Indian road network in the period up to about 1820 when the general pacification that followed the collapse of the Maratha kingdom gave British engineers the chance to transform the communications of India, first with military roads and later with railways. This transformation was nowhere more complete than in Central India and particularly in Malwa, the Mughal subha through which led the great road from Delhi and Agra to Burhanpur and the Deccan – a road which was followed by many of the European merchants and diplomats travelling between Surat and Agra and in part by the Maratha armies in the eighteenth century as they first raided and then conquered territory all the way up to Delhi. The other route from Surat to the north lay through Gujarat and the semi-deserts of Rajasthan (Deloche, 1980, pp. 55–7) and will not concern us here. Our route follows the Tapti valley east to Burhanpur, through the gap guarded by Asirgarh and then, after the unavoidable difficulties of the Narmada crossing and the climb up the Vindhya escarpment, takes an easy line through the flat well-cultivated Malwa plateau from Sironj to Narwar, following the grain of the country between the north-flowing tributaries of the Chambal.
The Siwāk: A Medieval Islamic Contribution to Dental Care
Authors: Rispler-chaim Vardit
Published: December 2011

The siwāk or miswāk (pi.masāwīk) is often mentioned as a symbol for the emphasis given in medieval Islam to dental health. Although not mentioned in the Qur'ān—the prime source of legitimacy in Islam—the siwāk gained popularity through being attributed to the daily practice of the Prophet Muhammad whose advanced understanding of preventive dentistry is lauded as being only part of his general concern with preventive medicine. Even on his death bed the Prophet is said not to have given up the use of the siwāk, since he always ordered Muslims to “purify your mouths for they are the channels through which utterances of praise to God (subḥāna Allāh) travel”. The word siwāk derives from the Arabic rootswk, which indicates rubbing for the purpose of cleaning. Hence siwāk or miswāk are the names of the wooden instrument which has been used as a “tooth-stick” (Zahnstocher), or as an early form of the toothbrush, to clean the teeth and deodorize the mouth. The siwak is a wooden stick about 8 inches long and as wide as a finger. The edge is usually chewed so that the fibres separate to become like a brush. In contemporary Islamic ethics, of which thefatāwāliterature (legal responsa) is only one example, the siwāk has regained recognition and is often praised as the preferred means for dental care.
On the Origins of Wahhābism
Authors: Cook Michael
Published: December 2011

At some time towards the middle of the twelfth/eighteenth century, the young Najdī scholar Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1115–1206/1703f–92) experienced something like a conversion. From that point on, his understanding of monotheism seems to have been such that he considered most of the professed Muslims of his day to be polytheists who should be fought till they accepted Islam. The first Wahhābī state (1158–1233/1745f–1818) was the product of the fusion of this radical vision with the political fortunes of the Āl Sa'ūd, until then the petty chiefs of the Najdī oasis of Dir'iyya.
The Establishment of the British Trade Agencies in Tibet: A Survey
Authors: McKay A. C.
Published: December 2011

The popular image of pre-1950 Tibet is of a remote land seldom visited by outsiders. But more than a hundred British officials served in Tibet during the early part of this century. Between 1904 and 1947 Agents from the Indian Political Service, and supporting staff, were stationed in Gyantse and Yatung, under the control of the Political Officer in Sikkim. An Agency was also maintained at Gartok in Western Tibet, where a native officer was posted as the Trade Agent. After 1936 a mission was stationed at Lhasa. The last British official in Lhasa, Hugh Richardson, departed in 1950 following the Chinese invasion of Tibet. For the British Trade Agents, an almost forgotten section of British colonial administration in Asia, Tibet was an official posting. Their isolation, and the lack of trade, meant that they had the time to study a variety of aspects of Tibet, and to gain a great knowledge of the country and its people.
Notes on Ṭabarī's History
Authors: Conrad Lawrence I.
Published: December 2011

The caliphate of Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik (105–25/724–43) was undoubtedly one of the most important periods in early Islamic history, and as witness to the history of this era a source of paramount importance is certainly theTa'rīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūkof al-Ṭabarī. This in itself makes the publication of Volume xxv of the English translation of this work by Dr Khalid Yahya Blankinship, covering all but the last five years of Hishām's long reign, a matter of special interest to historians of the eastern lands of Islam. The reader will immediately notice that al-Ṭabarī devotes the bulk of his narrative for this period to events in Khurāsān and Transoxania, specifically, to the Umayyad campaigns there and hostilities with the TürgishkhāqānSü-lü Čur. In the course of this narrative one finds not only a wealth of information on military matters, but also much valuable data on the customs of the western Turks and life in Central Asia in general. The author's reasons for giving his work such a markedly eastern emphasis at this point are not unrelated to a desire, as Blankinship observes, to set forth the background for the 'Abbāsid revolution. But most of what al-Ṭabarī reports for this period is in fact not of immediate relevance to the advent of the 'Abbāsids, and indeed, the subject of 'Abbāsid propaganda activities hardly seems to be a prominent one in this volume.
Epithets and Subordinates: A Postscripts to Sukhothai Epigraphy
Authors: Bauer Christian
Published: December 2011

In my discussion of Khmer jā ‘amcās’, Thai pen cau2 “[who] is the Lord”, occurring in Buddhist texts as an epithet for the Buddha himself or his followers and in contexts referring to the Scriptures, the Doctrine, or relics, I cited two instances from the Wat Sri Chum inscription at Sukhothai, Sd.2/#2, dated to the late fourteenth century, and the inscription from Nakhorn Chum, Kamphaeng Phet, Kb.1/# 3, dated to 1357 in which the expressions cau kū and cau rau “my Lord”, “our Lord” occur.
A Note on an Arabic Fragment of Ibn Buṭlān's The Physicians' Dinner Party from the Cairo Genizah
Authors: Baker Colin F.
Published: December 2011

Among the Arabic fragments within the Taylor–Schechter Genizah Collection in the Cambridge University Library, I came upon a piece from Ibn Buṭlān's The Physicians' Dinner Party (Da‘wat al-’aṭibbā’): one of the earliest examples of the Arabic maqāmah. Although the Jews of Arab lands were acquainted with Arabic literature mainly in the form of scientific and philosophical texts, the discovery of our fragment from the Cairo Genizah provides further evidence that they also had some familiarity with Arabic belleslettres.
The Mercantile Community of Mecca during the Late Mamlūk Period
Authors: Mortel Richard T.
Published: December 2011

The town of Mecca, in the Hijaz of western Arabia, in addition to its importance as the goal of the ḥajj, or annual Muslim pilgrimage, was a commercial emporium of great importance during the Mamlūk era (A.H. 648/1250–A.H. 923/1517). Approximately eighty kilometres to the west of the Holy City lies the port ofjedda, which had been under the direct control of the Ḥasanid sharīfs of Mecca since at least the fifth/eleventh century. During Mamlūk times, Jedda was a way station of gradually increasing importance on the maritime trade route connecting the ports of the western coast of India with the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. The merchandise around which this trade revolved consisted almost exclusively of luxury goods and small-sized but high-priced commodities, destined for the markets of Egypt, the Levant and western Europe, and included – among other goods – both cotton and silken cloth, all manners of spices, but primarily pepper from the Malabar coast of southwestern India, camphor, musk, amber, sandalwood, Indian Ocean pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, such as agates, andmateria medicafrom the Indian subcontinent, as well as goods trans-shipped from East Asia.
Maimonides on the Preservation of Health
Authors: Bos Gerrit
Published: December 2011

It is well-known that Maimonides (1135–1204), one of the greatest philosophers and experts in Jewish law (Halakhah), was an eminent physician as well. He probably studied medicine during his sojourn in Fez (Morocco) between 1158 and 1165, after he and his family had fled from his native city Cordoba, because of the persecutions by the fanatical Muslim regime of the Almohades.
Kinda on the Eve of Islam and during theRidda
Authors: Lecker Michael
Published: December 2011

Evidence about theriddaof Kinda is as mottled as it is for other events which Islamic historiography includes under the title ofridda. Tendentious writing and apologetics, contradictions and a complete lack of dates make the historian's task very hard indeed. Yet there is much that can be established (with varying degrees of probability) about those sanguinary events. Since no meaningful study of the short though eventful period of theriddaalone is possible, several related topics are also discussed below.
The Use of Sources in Mughal Historiography
Authors: Ali M. Athar
Published: December 2011

India during the period of the Mughal dynasty (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries) is exceptionally well illuminated by a large body of historical literature, mainly in Persian. This literature followed the traditions of classical Persian historiography, the models of which like Yazdi's Zafarnama (a history of Timur) and Mir Khwand's Rauzatu's Safa (a history of the world), both written in the fifteenth century, were widely read in India. By its very volume, if nothing else, Mughal historiography has, however, to be studied and assessed separately. It may be recalled that when C. A. Storey made his great survey of Persian historical literature, works written on Indian history accounted for a major part of it providing 475 items, by authors (nos. 612–1087), as against 299 (nos. –611) concerned with Persia, and Central Asia and countries other than India. And among the works written in India those written in Mughal times again account for the overwhelming part.
The Mamlūks of the Seljuks: Islam's Military Might at the Crossroads
Authors: Ayalon David
Published: December 2011

The study of the Mamlūks under the Seljuks is of pivotal significance, because those Mamlūks formed the essential connecting link between their predecessors in the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate and their successors in the Sultanates of the Zangids, the Ayyūbids and the Mamlūks of Egypt and Syria on the one hand, and in the Sultanate of the Ottomans on the other. They were also part of an exceptionally important stage in the ethnic transformation which those Mamlūks underwent with the progress of time.
Palāsī's Memoir of Shaykh Kujujī, a Persian Sufi Saint of the Thirteenth Century
Authors: Lewisohn Leonard
Published: December 2011

Khwāja Muhammad ibn Sadīq ibn Muhammad Kujujī or “Kujūjānī” (d. Dhū-hijja 677/April, 1279), as Hamdu'llāh Mustawfī Qazwīnī called him, was a Sufi master whose sons later occupied the post of Shaykh al-Islām in Tabriz under the early Jalā'irids, the Tīmūrids and early Safavids. Born in 614/1217–18, Kujujī's life coincides with the commencement of Mongol rule in northern Persia under Chingiz Khān in 1219, the conquest of Tabrīz in 1220 by the Mongols, the later subjugation of all of Persia under Hülegü (1256–65) and the reign of his successor Abaqa Khān (1265–82).
Completing “Our Stock of Geography”, or an Object “Still More Sublime”: Colin Mackenzie's Survey of Mysore, 1799–1810
Authors: Robb Peter
Published: December 2011

To facilitate & promote all enquiries which may be calculated to enlarge the boundaries of General Science is a Duty imposed on the British Government in India by its present exalted situation & the discharge of that Duty is in a more especial manner required from us when any material addition can be made to the Public Stock of useful knowledge without involving considerable expence.… [T]his desirable object will never be attained unless it shall be made the Duty of some Public Officer properly qualified for this Service to collect information & to digest & publish the results of his researches.
The town of Cochin and its Muslim heritage on the Malabar coast, South India
Authors: Shokoohy Mehrdad
Published: December 2011

In South India Cochin is well known for its Jewish settlement, but the rich Muslim heritage of the town has so far remained almost unknown. A reason for this anonymity lies perhaps in that the Muslim community of Cochin – unlike that of Calicut – while highly influential in the commerce of the region, kept a low profile with regard to political affairs, at least from the time of the appearance of the Portuguese. Cochin, situated at 9° 58′ N and 760° 14′ E, occupies the northern part of a long stretch of land, about half a kilometre south of the Island of Vypin (Baypin or Vypeen) and 1.5 km west of the shores of the mainland, now occupied by the modern town of Ernakulam. Between Cochin and Ernakulam is a long expanse of sheltered but navigable water, at the mouth of which is Willingdon Island, housing the modern sea port and the airport.
An Indian metaphor in St John's Gospel
Authors: Derrett J. Duncan M.
Published: December 2011

“Influence-research” is not a field to itself. It boasts no experts. Where cultures are sources of national or professional prestige theEinflussforsche'stask can be thankless. Cultures are admired as self-consistent, and if possible original. Where indebtedness is notorious – e.g. East Asian artefacts’ effects on European taste – research into it may be conducted without grief. But since unacknowledged indebtedness affronts the increasing specialization of our times tentative disclosures may be accused of implausibility. One is asked “How could such a thing happen?rdquo;, and “What does it add up to?” Learned journals have published many strange “parallels”. Effects are cumulative:quum singula non prosunt multa iuvant. News, for example, that famousstorieshave migrated over great distances causes no apprehension. But where anomalies bring distant, even antagonistic cultures into confrontation, without a proved contact, one may become impatient. “Influence-research” remains the Cinderella of the sciences, and she has plenty of Ugly Sisters. One may take a trivial example. Judaism has for centuries presented rabbinism as its normative model; and then news accumulated that Yahweh was once seen as a manifestation of Apollo, with an accompanying osmosis from pagan towards Jewish symbols and fashions. This flouting of the standard set by the sensationalMaccabeesbooks put the results, such as they were, under a cloud.
Justice and Tyranny, Law and the State in the Middle East
Authors: Lindholm Charles
Published: December 2011

In his influential work, Max Weber argued that the Middle East was fatally hampered in the development of a modern civil society by the existence of arbitraryQadijustice, based on the personalized decisions of a judiciary reliant only on case law for precedent and lacking any form of rational organization. This individualistic judicial structure (or lack of structure) allowed authoritarian regimes to subvert the courts for their own purposes, destroying the possibility of the development of an autonomous citizenry; meanwhile, in Europe the evolution of a rationally codified legal system acted as a check on governmental tyranny and provided a space for the evolution of independent civic organizations.
“I will give the people unto thee” : The Činggisid Conquests and Their Aftermath in the Turkic World
Authors: Golden P. B.
Published: December 2011

The Mongol conquests produced the last in a series of realignments of the Turkic peoples, creating, more or less, the configurations in which we find them today. The earliest of these realignments was associated with the rise and fall of the Hsiung-nu polity (second century BC to mid-second century AD). This was the first of the attempts at a pannomadic state. Mao-tun, the “Great Shanyü whom heaven has set up”, the founder of the Hsiung-nu union, boasted in a letter to the Han Court that because of his efforts “all the people who live by drawing the bow are now united into one family.”2Činggis Qan expressed similar thoughts regarding the “people having skirts of felt” i.e. living in feltcovered tents.3Although it cannot be demonstrated that all the Eurasian nomads were, indeed, incorporated into the Hsiung-nu polity, substantial numbers of the Turkic nomads undoubtedly were. In its formative, “heroic” years of conquest and in the course of its collapse, a number of Turkic (and other) pastoral, nomadic peoples were brought into motion along China's northern frontiers and adjoining regions. Others were pushed westward, some making their way to what is today Kazakhstan and into the Caspian-Pontic steppelands. This marked the first large-scale movement westward of Turkic peoples from Inner Asia to Central Asia and thence to the Western Eurasian steppelands. The final stages of these migrations ultimately brought some of the nomads to Danubian Europe and the Hungarian Plain.
The Illusion of an Allusion: A Soothing Song for the Exiled Prince Dipasana (d. ca 1840) in Ambon
Authors: Wieringa Edwin
Published: December 2011

Javanese literature can boast a distinct genre of works about the adventures of wandering students/scholars, who travel about the countryside in pursuit of esoteric knowledge. Journeying and undergoing various trials and tribulations on the way is regarded in Javanese culture as an ascetic practice, preparatory to ultimate enlightenment. An early, pre-Islamic representative of this genre is the Kidung Subrata, dated 1541. The best-know examples, at least by name, i.e. the Cĕnṭini and Jatiswara, probably originate from the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the course of time these two stories were constantly reworked until by the beginning of the nineteenth century they reached massive proportions and were made into storehouses of encyclopaedic knowledge of all kinds of things Javanese. The so-called Major Cěntini, compiled in 1814 at the Surakarta Crown Prince's court, has hitherto received most attention. Quite a few scholars, guided by Pigeaud's table of contents, have tapped this source for information on many topics.
England and the Mongols (c. 1260–1330)
Authors: Paviot Jacques
Published: December 2011

As regards the Mongols, our knowledge of their history, of their customs, of their way of life, our relations with them, England presents an interesting case. We do not know the extent of the material lost on the Continent, but, in this (for the Mongols) remote corner of Europe, (in places safe from their devastation) documentation is to be found. A monk of Saint Albans, the chronicler Matthew Paris who died in 1259, is an important source. He was the only person to preserve Ivo of Narbonne's confession (which reveals that an Englishman was one of the first envoys of the Mongols to King Bela of Hungary), the report of Bishop Peter of Russia given at the council of Lyons in 1245 and information about André of Longjumeau's mission after the council. Incidently, twice at the end of hisChronica Majora, in an entry for the year 1257, Matthew Paris refers to a manuscript concerning ‘Tartarorum immunditias, vitam (spurcissimam) et mores (…) necnon et Assessinorum furorem et superstitionem’. It is the same work which is mentioned by John of Oxnead, in his Chronka under the year 1258, as a written command (mandatum scriptum) sent to Simon de Montfort, containing letters the length of a Psalter, and entitledDe vita et moribus Tartarorum(…)et de eorum fortitudine etguerra, et de adquisitionibuswhich was to be found in the book of Additions. Unfortunately this work has not survived. (Nevertheless it is tempting to see here a mention of William of Rubruck's report of his journey, which has the form of a letter and which was written in 1257, but which has little information about the Assassins. Later another Englishman, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon († 1294) met William of Rubruck and became interested in the Mongols.)
Aśoka's 256-night campaign
Authors: Wright J. C.
Published: December 2011

The two recent discussions of the chronology of Aśoka's early missionary activities, as described in his first Minor Rock Edict, came to different conclusions. For the idea of a 256-day pilgrimage, which stems ultimately from mistranslation, Falk had sought to substitute a calculation involving 256 non-consecutive Uposatha nights. Without detailed refutation of Falk's arguments, Norman rejected this result and retained the assumption of a date counted in days from the beginning of a regnal year. Falk's Vedic andArthaśāstramaterial points, however, in the right direction. A description of Aśoka as256-rātra-vyuṣṭo“having spent a 256-day season” would date his proclamation to the close of an eight-month campaigning season, corresponding closely withvarṣā-rātra-uṣitaRāma (R 4.19.1), literally ‘having spent the rains season’, but dating the activity in question to the first day of autumn. Late Vedic and epic use ofvyuṣṭaand instances of calculation by binary, apparently solar, weeks of 8 days and months of 32 days (of which eight would yield 256), suggest that Aśoka was seeking to give his proselytizing campaign the status of a religious observance defined in Kṣatriya terms.Arthaśāstraincludes the proposition that a 32-day military month was used for administrative purposes in the field.

Just as in rock edicts the phrase [devānaṃpiyena] …abhisitena lekhitedates events to a regnal year, so [devānaṃpiyena] …vivuṭhena sāvanedates Aśoka's MRE proclamation, but with reference to his years of religious seniority. The additive chronology, more than two years plus more than one year, suggested by Norman and upheld by Falk, is supported by the syntax of the passage. It would tend to associate the MRE with Aśoka's 13th regnal year. Aśoka's epigraphs imply that, inspired perhaps by early residence in Ujjain, he was at first drawing on late Vedic and epic calendrical motifs, before starting to display a knowledge of Vinaya calendrical material in the pillar edicts.
The Yak, the Bear and the Dragon: Uneasy Bedfellows. A Cautionary Tale of Russian and Chinese Influences on Mongolian History
Authors: Haining Thomas Nivison
Published: December 2011

In the early thirteenth century Chinggis Khan used Central Asia and North China and then throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries his successors used China, Eastern Europe, the Near East, even Vietnam, Burma and Korea, as battlegrounds for their campaigns of conquest. Little, perhaps, did the Mongol Great Khans think that some six or seven centuries later their homeland would itself be a battleground, fought over politically if not actually militarily by the empires of Russia and China and by the Communist powers which succeeded those two empires.
Survey of the Pāli Manuscript Collection in the Royal Asiatic Society
Authors: Filliozat Jacqueline
Published: December 2011

We do not know a lot about the exact sources of the Pāli manuscript collection kept today in the Royal Asiatic Society. Records are very few and scattered here and there in the publications of the Society. Mentions of donors or vendors of the Pāli MSS. collected since 1825 are not at all detailed: most of the time there are no titles, no sufficient material description, no measurements, not even naming the exact language or the script, no register numbers or shelfmarks; we are just told about the name of the donor, or conditions of the sale, the date of acquisition (but not the date of the MS.), sometimes place or circumstances of acquisition.
Arabic, the Arab Middle East, and the Definition of Muslim Identity in Twentieth Century India
Authors: Zaman Muhammad Qasim
Published: December 2011

The “foreignness” of Islam in India is a familiar theme in the rhetoric of contemporary-Hindu fundamentalism. The numerical majority of Hindus in India is taken to mean that the nation-state ought to be founded on ideals and institutions defined as authentically “Hindu”, that India is the land of the Hindus, and that it must be ruled only by them. This ideology evidently leaves little room for non-Hindus, but especially so for Muslims, who ruled large parts of the Indian subcontinent for several centuries and who still constitute a sizeable minority in India. It is argued, for instance, that as the ruling elite in India, Muslims not only exploited the Hindus, they never even thought of themselves as “really” Indian and should not consequently be considered as such. For all the centrality of the Muslim Other to constructions of Hindu fundamentalism, the appeal and success of the latter is predicated on the systematic exclusion, if not the expulsion, of Muslims from the Hindu nation-state.
GENERAL THREE-POINT QUADRATURE FORMULAS OF EULER TYPE
Authors: FRANJIĆ IVA , PEČARIĆ JOSIP , PERIĆ IVAN
Published: December 2011

General three-point quadrature formulas for the approximate evaluation of an integral of a function f over [0,1], through the values f(x), f(1/2), f(1−x), f′(0) and f′(1), are derived via the extended Euler formula. Such quadratures are sometimes called “corrected” or “quadratures with end corrections” and have a higher accuracy than the adjoint classical formulas, which only include the values f(x), f(1/2) and f(1−x) . The Gauss three-point, corrected Simpson, corrected dual Simpson, corrected Maclaurin and corrected Gauss two-point formulas are recaptured as special cases. Finally, sharp estimates of error are given for this type of quadrature formula.
THE MECHANICS OF HEARING: A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY IN BIO-MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
Authors: CHAMPNEYS A. R. , AVITABILE D. , HOMER M. , SZALAI R.
Published: December 2011

A synthesis is presented of two recent studies on modelling the nonlinear neuro-mechanical hearing processes in mosquitoes and in mammals. In each case, a hierarchy of models is considered in attempts to understand data that shows nonlinear amplification and compression of incoming sound signals. The insect’s hearing is tuned to the vicinity of a single input frequency. Nonlinear response occurs via an arrangement of many dual capacity neuro-mechanical units called scolopidia within the Johnston’s organ. It is shown how the observed data can be captured by a simple nonlinear oscillator model that is derived from homogenization of a more complex model involving a radial array of scolopidia. The physiology of the mammalian cochlea is much more complex, with hearing occurring via a travelling wave along a tapered, compartmentalized tube. Waves travel a frequency-dependent distance along the tube, at which point they are amplified and “heard”. Local models are reviewed for the pickup mechanism, within the outer hair cells of the organ of Corti. The current debate in the literature is elucidated, on the relative importance of two possible nonlinear mechanisms: active hair bundles and somatic motility. It is argued that the best experimental agreement can be found when the nonlinear terms include longitudinal coupling, the physiological basis of which is described. A discussion section summarizes the lessons learnt from both studies and attempts to shed light on the more general question of what constitutes a good mathematical model of a complex physiological process.
Molecular Gas in Galaxies at all Redshifts
Authors: Combes Françoise
Published: December 2011

I review some recent results about the molecular content of galaxies, obtained essentially from the CO lines, but also dense tracers, or the dust continuum emission. New results have been obtained on molecular cloud physics, and their efficiency to form stars, shedding light on the Kennicutt-Schmidt law as a function of surface density and galaxy type. Large progress has been made on galaxy at moderate and high redshifts, allowing to interprete the star formation history and star formation efficiency as a function of gas content, or galaxy evolution. In massive galaxies, the gas fraction was higher in the past, and galaxy disks were more unstable and more turbulent. ALMA observations will allow the study of more normal galaxies at high z with higher spatial resolution and sensitivity.
Gas and Dust in M33
Authors: Braine J. , Gratier P. , Kramer C. , Mookerjea B. , Xilouris M. , Calzetti D.
Published: December 2011

We present results from the Herschel and IRAM projects to map M33 in the dust continuum and main emission lines, particularly C[II] and CO. The temperature of the cool dust decreases with distance from the center of M33 from ~25K to ~13K. The CO emission generally follows the dust temperature and the overall dust emission. However, about 1/6 of the molecular clouds are not associated with massive stars, such that about 1/6th the lifetime of an entity identifiable as a molecular cloud is in a pre-star formation state. These clouds are less CO-bright than those with massive stars. The largest sample of molecular clouds currently available for an external galaxy shows that the cloud CO luminosity function, usually viewed as the cloud H2 mass, steepens with radius such that smaller clouds are more numerous in the outer parts. The observations of the C[II] line with Herschel indicate that the C[II] emission traces on-going star formation rather than the neutral gas. This identification will be tested via velocity-resolved Herschel/HIFI C[II] spectra in the near future.
HI and Hα Mapping of M31 & M33
Authors: Kam Z. S. , Carignan C. , Chemin L. , Hernandez O. , de Denus-Baillargeon M. , Djabo Y.
Published: December 2011

We performed a deep Hi and Hα mapping of M31 and M33 in order to get accurate kinematical data of those two galaxies and also to make a comparison between the Hi and Hα kinematics. The Hi data were obtained with the DRAO interferometer and the Hα data with the Fabry-Perot system of the Observatoire du mont Mégantic using an EMCCD as a detector. These data will give us the best possible datasets to derive accurate rotation curves and mass models for those two Local Group spirals and provide some new data for the Hii regions studies of these galaxies. While the Hi observations are of low resolution (~1 arcmin), the high resolution of the Hα data (~1 arcsec) should allow us to get much more details in the central regions, allowing at the same time a much better determination of the kinematical parameters. Hence, the inner part of the rotation curve, so inportant to constraint properly the mass models, will be determined more accurately.
Star Formation in Isolated LIRGs: Clues to Star-forming Processes at Higher z
Authors: Fuentes-Carrera Isaura , Olguín Lorenzo , Ambrocio-Cruz Patricia , Verley Simon , Rosado Margarita , Verdes-Montenegro Lourdes , Repetto Paolo , Vázquez Celia , Aguilera Verónica
Published: December 2011

Luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) are galaxies with LIR > 1011 L⊙. For a star-forming galaxy to emit at a LIRG level, it must have a very high star formation rate (SFR). In the local Universe, the star formation (SF) is primarily triggered by interactions. However, at intermediate redshift, a large fraction of LIRGs are disk galaxies with little sign of recent merger activity. The question arises whether the intermediate redshift LIRGs are “triggered” or experiencing “normal”, if elevated, SF. Understanding these SF processes is important since this type of systems may have contributed to 20% or more of the cosmic SFR in the early Universe. In order to address this issue we study similar systems in the Local Universe, that is isolated late-type galaxies displaying LIRG activity. We use different observational techniques in order to trace the star-forming history of these systems. Here we present preliminary results.
Quantifying the Redistribution of Mass in Galactic Disks due to Bars
Authors: Sánchez-Blázquez Patricia , Pérez Isabel , Ocvirk Pierre
Published: December 2011

Numerical simulations have shown that strong gravitational torque by non-axisymmetric components induce evolutionary processes such as redistribution of mass and angular momentum in the galactic disks and consequent change of chemical abundance profiles. If we hope to understand chemical evolution gradients and their evolution we must understand the secular processes and re-arrangement of material by non-axisymmetric components and vice-versa. The most obvious of these aforementioned non-axisymmetric components are bars - at least 2/3 of spiral galaxies host a bar, and possibly all disk galaxies have hosted a bar at some point in their evolution. While observationally it has been found that barred galaxies have shallower gas-phase metallicity gradients than non-barred galaxies, a complementary analysis of the stellar abundance profiles has not yet been undertaken. This is unfortunate because the study of both gas and stars is important in providing a complete picture, as the two components undergo (and suffer from) very different evolutionary process. We present here a pilot study of the gas and stellar metallicity and age distributions in a sample of barred and non-barred galaxies using 2D spectroscopic observations. We found that the majority of the stellar mass in our sample is composed of old (~10 Gyr) stars. This is true in the bulge and the disc region, even beyond two disc scalelengths. In the disc region, a larger fraction of young stars is present in the external parts of the disc compared with the inner disc. The disc growth is, therefore, compatible with a moderate inside-out formation scenario, where the luminosity-weighted age changes from ~10 Gyrs in the centre, to ~4 Gyrs at two disc scalelengths, depending upon the galaxy. However, the presence of substructure, like star forming rings, can produce stellar population trends that are not directly related with the growing of the disc but to the bar potential. In the disc region, the metallicity gradient always decrease with the radius. In the bulge region this is not always true and we find inverse metallicity gradients in several galaxies.
Environmental Effects in Galaxy Clusters: Infalling Groups in Abell 85 and 1367
Authors: Bravo-Alfaro H. , Scott T. C. , Brinks E. , Cortese L. , Granados P. , Navarro-Poupard F. , Mayya Y. D. , Durret F.
Published: December 2011

We are carrying out a multifrequency survey of late type galaxies in nearby clusters with the aim to investigate the effects exerted by both the very local and the global cluster environments. We report new VLA-HI images of galaxies in Abell 1367 and study the evolution of their gaseous component. In Abell 85 we perform a deep NIR imaging survey of the brightest spirals projected up to 1.0 Abell radius with the aim of unveiling possible gravitational effects on their stellar disks. Here we show preliminary results of these projects, mainly focused on infalling compact groups of galaxies moving towards their respective cluster centers.
Internal variation in sub-state national movements and the moral polity of the nationalist
Authors: Lluch Jaime
Published: December 2011

Variation in secessionism among sub-state nationalists is part of one of the great puzzles of ethnic politics. Sub-state national movements tend to bifurcate and, at times, trifurcate, into two or three basic nationalist orientations: independentist nationalism, autonomist nationalism (and its sub-variants), and federalist nationalism (and its sub-variants). There is a dearth of systematic comparative research into the sources and patterns of internal variation in the political orientations of sub-state national movements. This article investigates why some sub-state nationalists opt for a secessionist orientation while other nationalists within the same national movement opt for a variety of non-secessionist orientations. I use evidence gathered in Quebec and Catalonia, consisting of 42 interviews among the top leadership of the eight national parties of these societies, 15 focus group interviews with party militants, and 370 questionnaires answered by militants, etc. The national consciousness and materialist approaches fail to elucidate these issues. Instead, sub-state nationalists have expectations about what is fair treatment by the central state, and notions about what obligations emerge due to common membership in a plurinational state. Independentists and strong decentralizers (strong autonomists and radical asymmetric federalists) opt for their chosen orientations because they perceive that central state institutions are unable to promote an ethos of plurinational reciprocity and are aggrieved by state nationalism, while less-decentralizing nationalists (weak autonomists and traditional federalists) assert that the central state is capable of accommodation and reciprocity and have no grievances about state nationalism.
Statistical analysis of phase space density buildups and dropouts
Authors: Shprits Yuri , Daae Marianne , Ni Binbin
Published: December 2011

The dynamics of the radiation belt Phase Space Density (PSD) is analyzed using measurements from four spacecraft taken during two hundred days in 1990 and 1991. In situ measurements from CRRES, Akebono, GPS, and GEO and a realistic model of the magnetic field are used to infer values of PSD. The inferred values of PSD are assimilated into a radial diffusion model by means of Kalman filtering to produce a reanalysis of the relativistic electron PSD during this time interval. The statistical analysis shows that the plasmapause location is well correlated with the location of the peak of PSD. Positive innovation outside of the plasmasphere shows that local acceleration is present in the trough region. The peak of PSD and the local source, as inferred from the innovation, are displaced inward during times of increased geomagnetic activity. Analysis of non‐adiabatic dropouts in PSD shows that the dropouts often coincide with sudden increases in the solar wind dynamic pressure. Approximately 73% of the dropouts can be associated with the simultaneous sudden jumps (>7 nPa over several hours) in the solar wind dynamic pressure, approximately 15% could be associated with small jumps or gradual increases in solar wind dynamic pressure, and the remaining 12%, which consists of only 3 events, occurred during relatively steady solar wind dynamic pressure.
Surface diffusivity of cleaved NaCl crystals as a function of humidity: Impedance spectroscopy measurements and implications for crack healing in rock salt
Authors: Koelemeijer Paula J. , Peach Colin J. , Spiers Christopher J.
Published: December 2011

Rock salt offers an attractive host rock for geological storage applications, because of its naturally low permeability and the ability of excavation‐induced cracks to heal by fluid‐assisted diffusive mass transfer. However, while diffusive transport rates in bulk NaCl solution are rapid and well characterized, such data are not directly applicable to storage conditions where crack walls are coated with thin adsorbed water films. To reliably predict healing times in geological storage applications, data on mass transport rates in adsorbed films are needed. We determined the surface diffusivity in such films for conditions with absolute humidities (AH) ranging from 1 to 18 g/m3 (relative humidities (RH) of 4%–78%) by measuring the surface impedance of single NaCl crystals. We use the impedance results to calculate the effective surface diffusivity S = DδCusing the Nernst‐Einstein equation. TheS values obtained lie in the range 1 × 10−27 m3 s−1 at very dry conditions to 1 × 10−19 m3 s−1 for the deliquescence point at 296 K, which is in reasonable agreement with existing values for grain boundary diffusion under wet conditions. Estimates for the diffusivity D made assuming a film thickness δ of 50–90 nm and no major effects of thickness on the solubility C lie in the range of 1 × 10−14 to 8 × 10−12 m2 s−1 for the highest humidities studied (14–18 g/m3 AH, 60%–78% RH). For geological storage systems in rock salt, we predict S values between 1 × 10−22 – 8 × 10−18 m3 s−1. These imply crack healing rates 6 to 7 orders of magnitude lower than expected for brine‐filled cracks.
Internal wave measurements on the Cycladic Plateau of the Aegean Sea
Authors: Alford Matthew H. , Gregg Michael C. , Zervakis Vassilis , Kontoyiannis Harialos
Published: December 2011

The internal wave climate in the southern Aegean Sea is examined with an array of two bottom‐mounted acoustic Doppler current profilers and three profiling moorings deployed on the northern continental slope of the Cretan Sea for 3 months. Frequency spectra indicate an extremely weak internal wave continuum, about 4–10 times weaker than the Garrett‐Munk and Levine reference levels. Spectra are instead dominated by semidiurnal internal tides and near‐inertial waves, which are examined in detail by bandpass filtering. In the semidiurnal band, a barotropic tidal flow of ≈2 cm s−1 is observed, with a pronounced spring/neap modulation in phase with the lunar fortnightly cycle. One to two days following several of these spring tide periods, a distinct internal tide featuring 10–20 m vertical displacements and 15–20 cm s−1baroclinic velocities is detectable propagating upward and to the southeast. Time‐mean energy increases a factor of 2–5 within about 100 m from the bottom, implying generation and/or scattering from the bottom, whose slope is nearly critical to semidiurnal internal waves over much of the array. Several strong, downward propagating near‐inertial events are also seen, each of which occurs following a period of work done by the wind on the mixed layer as estimated from a nearby surface mooring. The high‐frequency internal wave continuum is more temporally constant but increases substantially toward the end of the deployment. Significant but unexplained differences in kinetic energy occur between successive spring tide periods in the case of the internal tides and between successive wind events in the case of the near‐inertial signals. Substantial variability is observed in the low‐frequency flows, which likely contributes to the time variability of the internal wave signals.
Toward explaining the Holocene carbon dioxide and carbon isotope records: Results from transient ocean carbon cycle‐climate simulations
Authors: Menviel L. , Joos F.
Published: December 2011

The Bern3D model was applied to quantify the mechanisms of carbon cycle changes during the Holocene (last 11,000 years). We rely on scenarios from the literature to prescribe the evolution of shallow water carbonate deposition and of land carbon inventory changes over the glacial termination (18,000 to 11,000 years ago) and the Holocene and modify these scenarios within uncertainties. Model results are consistent with Holocene records of atmospheric CO2 and δ13C as well as the spatiotemporal evolution of δ13C and carbonate ion concentration in the deep sea. Deposition of shallow water carbonate, carbonate compensation of land uptake during the glacial termination, land carbon uptake and release during the Holocene, and the response of the ocean‐sediment system to marine changes during the termination contribute roughly equally to the reconstructed late Holocene pCO2 rise of 20 ppmv. The 5 ppmv early Holocene pCO2 decrease reflects terrestrial uptake largely compensated by carbonate deposition and ocean sediment responses. Additional small contributions arise from Holocene changes in sea surface temperature, ocean circulation, and export productivity. The Holocene pCO2 variations result from the subtle balance of forcings and processes acting on different timescales and partly in opposite direction as well as from memory effects associated with changes occurring during the termination. Different interglacial periods with different forcing histories are thus expected to yield different pCO2 evolutions as documented by ice cores.