In the Himalayan region, and even beyond it, odd behavior, illnesses, and especially sudden or accidental deaths, are attributed to the actions of the dead who have come back to torment the living.

Among the Limbu tribesmen of eastern Nepal, these attacks take many different forms. The symptoms have very little in common from illness to illness. The eyes of infants roll back into their heads; they refuse to take the breast and die after only several months of life (they are called sa-sik). Women – as well as men – remain infertile, and are subject to bouts of confusion and temporary madness. Pregnancies often come to bad endings: there are spontaneous abortions, death in childbirth (sugup), an inability to produce milk. Men complain of stomach aches, tremendous headaches, vertigo, and various other troubles: they too are stricken with temporary madness, with loss of consciousness, and with inexplicable terrors that lead to fatal accidents or that even drive the victim, in a fit of rage, to murder or suicide (sogha). People of both sexes and all ages are affected. At home the family chickens often die suddenly and pigs choke to death.

This paper addresses questions of women's autonomy in India and analyses its location within the legal discourse. The women's movement has primarily tried to analyse questions of women's autonomy through exploring women's position in law. Among other indicators, women's position in society is often analysed through marriage, divorce and property acts. This paper analyses the evolution of these acts and critiques whether they have led to women's autonomy or merely subsumed questions of autonomy resulting in further marginalization of women in the polity. The paper begins with the assumption that locations matter and that laws affect different women differently, particularly in the context of India where civil law is constantly pitted against personal and customary law. To understand the situation of women in India, therefore, an understanding of the evolution of laws seems necessary, because laws are considered to be primary markers of autonomy.

The association between clay silicates, and iron and aluminium oxides has a major influence on the chemical and physical properties of soils. In this work the interaction of a kaolin substrate with iron and aluminium oxides and/or hydroxides obtained by basification of solutions of the metal ions was compared to that of quartz. Both precipitates were obtained in the presence of the substrates.

The aluminium precipitates had higher crystallinity, and thus led to smaller increases in specific surface area than those of iron, and were more effective modifiers of the surface electrical properties of the kaolin-oxide mixtures. At concentrations as low as 0.43% Al (g/100 g of substrate) the point of zero charge (PZC) of the components with variable charge was measurable, while Fe required 2.23% and gave lower PZCs than those of corresponding concentrations of Al. In both cases the PZCs shifted to higher pH as metal concentration was increased, as did the flocculation interval of colloidal suspensions of kaolin, which were close to the PZCs (where these were evaluated).

The Al and Fe oxides precipitated on quartz had higher crystallinities. Both metals increased the specific surface area to a similar extent, with an almost linear relationship to metal concentration. Samples containing ca. 6.5% Fe or Al had similar or slightly higher PZCs than corresponding kaolin samples.

The results were interpreted by assuming, in the case of kaolin, the union of the metal precipitate with the basal faces of the substrate, so decreasing the negative charge at this surface; and in the case of quartz, the formation of a hydroxide coating that neutralizes the negative charge on the silica surface. The difference between the results obtained for each metal was attributed to the different morphologies of their oxide precipitates.

“Larvatus prodeo,” “I go forth masked”: with these words does the young René Descartes - the year is 1619 and he is twenty-three years old - mark his entrance into philosophy. In an early text found among his papers and published under the title Praeambula, he writes the following: “Before going on stage, an actor dons a mask (persona) so as not to reveal the redness of his face. Likewise, as I make my appearance in the theater of the world, where I have so far been only a spectator, I also go forth masked.”

Here Descartes describes a practice that is far from his alone. When a philosopher appears upon the stage – whether in speech or in writing – he alters his tone and projects his voice. He no longer merely speaks; he declaims, and sometimes even takes an oracular stance. He uses the mask to hide his face and body and above all to transform his voice. What we hear is the voice of René Descartes, but it is transformed, amplified, deformed by the mask behind which he hides, by the persona of the philosopher he wants to be. These few lines of the Praeambula may be considered as a beginning, a very personal preface to his philosophical oeuvre as a whole, as the moment when he leaves behind his person to become a persona. Until now, Descartes has been a private person, answerable to no one, able to express himself just as he is, just as he thinks he is, without having to use a mask. Once he openly, officially chooses the life of the mind, a new “I'” is expressed through his mouth; from now on what he says will no longer be private but public. His role now is to speak the truth, even if it turns out in the end to be his truth alone.

Like many sociocultural phenomena in Brazil, popular music, as everyone knows, is the result of a meeting of influences. It could almost be said that it is born a cross-breed, given the half-European, half-African origins of its best-known first genres, lundu, choro and maxixe. As a result of its history it comes under the sign of the Cannibalism, the metaphor invented by modernist writers in the 1920s to refer to the ‘ritual devouring’ by which Brazil assimilated foreign values and made them its own.

Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil readily used the concept of Cannibalism at the end of the 1960s, when they founded Tropicalismo, which claimed a mixture of genres, styles and arts as its basis, and married international pop music and Brazilian traditions, electric guitars and berimbau. Tropicalismo as such only lasted for a few months, but the ideas which it promoted profoundly marked contemporary Brazilian culture. Caetano Veloso returned to the history of this movement in Verdade Tropical, an autobiographical work in which he reveals his thoughts on a number of subjects close to his heart: music, the cinema, masters/teachers, friends, family, love, sexuality freedom, prison, exile, books, language, etc. For this author, composer, performer, actor, director, poet and prose writer, inveterate and voracious reader and incorrigible chatterbox, anything to do with human beings is fair game. For Caetano loves words, and loves to talk about words. As early as the acknowledgements page he praises Unamuno, the author, according to him, of comments which are “the most moving that a foreigner has ever written about the Portuguese language”. And in a chapter entitled ‘Língua’ he mentions not only the songs he has written in English and his interest in the Anglo-Saxon language, but also his attachment to Romance languages in general and Portuguese in particular.

The composition and origin of vanadium-bearing clay minerals in the Jurassic (Morrison and Entrada Formations) sandstones of the Colorado Plateau are reassessed using microanalyses (microprobe and scanning electron microscope). The main V-clays are authigenic illite and chlorite of various petrologic habits: clay casts and matrix, pore lining, replacement of detrital grains. The chemical composition of the V-clays is similar in three different localities in the Morrison Formation separated by about 50 km, suggesting that the V-clays are the result of a large regional event. In both illite and chlorite, Al and V are inversely correlated, showing that V replaces Al in the octahedral position. The chlorite contains a complex mixture of divalent and trivalent cations that cannot fit within a sudoite structure. A classification of V-micas is proposed that employs V3+/sum of the octahedral cations vs. the sum of the interlayer charges. V-illite and roscoelite from the Colorado Plateau are characteristic of diagenetic/hydrothermal environments. For a given locality the composition of the V-clays does not vary with habit, showing that these minerals formed at thermodynamic equilibrium.

A new model is proposed to explain, within the framework of the theory of spiral growth of Frank, the formation on inhomogeneous mica polytypes. This model relates the interaction and cooperative growth of two components (spirals and/or crystals) to produce a new stacking sequence. Depending on the relative orientation between the two components, a mismatch of the interlayer positions occurs, which is compensated through either a growth defect or a crystallographic slip at the octahedral (O) sheet. Both these adjustments transform the Ml layer into the M2 layer. These two types of layers have the same chemical composition but differ in cation distribution in the O sheet. The coalescence and cooperative growth of crystals occurs in fluid-rich environments and is most frequent in druses and volcanic fumaroles. These environments favor the inhomogeneous polytypes, especially those with complex stacking sequenc¬es. In addition, the Ml → M2 transformation is most probable in micas with an oxybiotitic composition, where the removal of the OH dipole strengthens the interlayer bonding and the presence of high-charge cations destabilizes the O sheet. Three examples of inhomogeneous polytypes of titaniferous oxybiotite from Ruiz Peak (a volcanic environment where many inhomogeneous polytypes have been reported) are presented.

Many systems of thoughts have migrated to Japan from abroad - Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, natural science, Marxism; all were transmitted to Japan and stopped there. It is said that Japan has been the terminus for imported thoughts. However, during the process of taking root in Japan almost every idea has been transformed within the Japanese mind. I would like to discuss a typical example of how Christianity has been changed within the Japanese mind.

Experimental alteration of obsidian was performed in 0.001 to 0.5 N NaOH and KOH solutions at 150 and 200 °C for 1 to 30 d. The products were examined by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). Changes in chemical composition and pH value of solutions during the reactions were also measured. As the pH of reacting solutions was increased, smectite, phillipsite and rhodesite crystallized progressively in NaOH solutions, while smectite, merlinoite and sanidine grew successively in KOH solutions. In addition, a small amount of less-soluble, poorly ordered boehmite was present as products of all the experiments. Smectite mainly appeared at slightly high pH, Si/Al and Na/K conditions, whereas rhodesite should be produced in extremely high pH, Na/K and Si/Al conditions. Sanidine was also formed in conditions of very high pH and Si/Al and very low Na/K. In intermediate conditions of pH and Si/Al, crystallization of phillipsite was stimulated in solutions of Na/K > 10, while formation of merlinoite was favored in conditions of Na/K < 1.

Palygorskite and sepiolite show a high sorption capacity for organic molecules. Adsorption of 2 organic cations, methylene blue (MB) and crystal violet (CV), by palygorskite and sepiolite were examined. The maximum sorption of MB and CV far exceeded the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of these minerals. This shows that, besides the contribution of free negative sorption sites (P-), the sites satisfied with sorption of single cations (PXi0) and neutral sorption sites (N) on clay surfaces may contribute to the sorption of organic cations. The number of neutral sites was determined by examining the sorption of 2 neutral organic molecules, triton-X 100 (TX100) and 15 crown ether 5 (15C5), and by application of the Langmuir isotherm.

To determine the contribution of different sites, an adsorption model that applies the Gouy-Chapman equation and takes into account the formation of different clay-organic complexes in a closed system was employed. Application of this model to sorption data provided the calculation of binding coefficients for neutral sites, as well as the surface potential of the minerals at different sorbate concentrations.

At sorption maxima, for both palygorskite and sepiolite, the contribution of neutral sites for sorption of organic cations was the highest, followed by the PXi0 sites in case of CV sorption, while in sorption of MB the contribution of P- sites was the second highest. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) patterns of clay-organic cation complexes compared with pure clays confirm that the sorption of organic cations is by silanol groups located at the edge of fibrous crystals, which account for neutral sorption sites.

Clay minerals from the MacAdams Sandstone, Kettleman North Dome, California, have been studied by electron microscopy. The clay minerals fill pore space associated with fractured and brecciated clasts of K-feldspar. Curved packets of muscovite and kaolinite are caused by deformation of detrital muscovite that resulted in opening of fissures subsequently filled with dominant kaolinite and minor intergrown mixed-layer illite/smectite (I/S). Regions of authigenic R1 I/S (rectorite) with characteristic ~20 Å periodicity are intergrown with kaolinite in microfissures within K-feldspar or detrital muscovite. Clusters of small grains of muscovite with nearly ideal composition occur as stacks and intergrown with kaolinite and are tentatively inferred to be authigenic. Contrary to previous reports, no illite was found in these samples.

Electron microprobe analyses previously obtained on Kettleman Dome “illite” and subsequently used as a prime example of analyses of illite rich in excess interlayer water (H2O) and hydronium ion (H3O+) are shown to have been obtained on mixtures, and are not representative of the actual clay mineral compositions. Previous conclusions regarding significant H3O+ and H2O contents of illite are invalid because of inaccuracies inherent in bulk and EMPA analyses of illite, and do not affect arguments regarding the metastability of illite. Hydronium substitution should be favored via the reaction H2O + H+ = H3O+ only in highly acidic fluids. Ordinary illite forming in sedimentary environments with carbonates and iron oxides is unlikely to have significant H3O+ substituted for K+.

Imogolite is a tubular aluminosilicate which is common in Andosols and Spodosols. The high pH at point-of-zero charge at the outer parts of the tube and the anomalously high chloride adsorption of imogolite suggested that there may be structural charge associated with this mineral. The structural charge may arise because of changes in bond valence imposed by the incorporation of orthosilicate anions in a gibbsite-type sheet. By using a Basic Stem Model approach, it is shown that the surface charge properties of imogolite are explained if the mean Al-O bond valence of the outer -Al2OH groups is higher than the inner -Al2OHSiO3 groups. Hence, a weak positive charge is developed on the outer tube walls whereas a negative charge develops in the tubular pores. The best model fits were obtained where either one or two units of structural charge per unit cell of tube were assumed. The model may also explain why imogolite tubes are normally aggregated in large bundles in close hexagonal packing, because bound counterions may hold the tubes together. However, to arrive at good model descriptions, the deprotonation of -Al2OH groups must occur at a higher pH than that expected when assuming that all surface oxygens form two hydrogen bridges with H2O. A more precise structure of imogolite is required to test fully this hypothesis.

Competitive adsorption between glyphosate and phosphate on goethite was evaluated. The influence of background electrolyte on the adsorption of glyphosate and phosphate was also investigated by using 0.01 M KCl, 0.1 M KCl and 0.01 M CaCl2 as background electrolytes. Experiments showed that phosphate displaced adsorbed glyphosate from goethite, whereas glyphosate did not displace phosphate. Results also showed that the background electrolyte had a strong effect on phosphate adsorption, but little effect on glyphosate adsorption. Thus, there are differences between the adsorption of glyphosate and phosphate. The study also showed that 0.01 M KCl caused dispersion of goethite, resulting in inefficient filtering, and that phosphate precipitated as calcium phosphates in 0.01 M CaCl2 background electrolyte solutions. The results suggest that 0.1 M KCl is a more suitable background electrolyte to determine competitive adsorption processes involving glyphosate and phosphate.

All societies are made up of members who have a certain number of things in common, by virtue of which they understand, identify and communicate with each other, on the one hand, and establish differences with members of other societies on the other. Among the most important of these things is language.

In this regard, let us recall two examples raised by Ferdinand de Saussure. The first: “Language is both a social product of the faculty of speech and an ensemble of necessary conventions adopted by the social body to allow for the exercise of this faculty in each individual.” The second: “Speech, distinct from language, is on the contrary an individual act of intelligence and will … by which the speaking subject uses the code of language to express his personal thought.”

The work of those scholars who see an implicit relationship between religion and violence has of late assumed greater prominence and relevance. For example, in a recent volume entitled Religion and Violence, Hent de Vries states: ‘[v]iolence … finds its prime model - its source, force, and counterforce - in key elements of the tradition called religious. It can be seen as the very element of religion. No violence without (some) religion; no religion without (some) violence (Vries, 2001: 1). He elaborates further: ‘“religion” is the relation between the self (or some selves) and the other - some Other … “religion” also stands for the other - the Other - of violence. It evokes its counter-image, its opposite, its redemption, and critique’ (ibid., my emphasis). Similarly, Bruce Lincoln, writing of the social and political processes that underpin cultural, especially religious, groups, states that ‘“culture” is the prime instrument through which groups mobilize themselves, construct their collective identity and effect their solidarity by excluding those whom they identify as outsiders, while simultaneously establishing their own internal hierarchy, based on varying degrees of adherence to the values that define the group and its members’ (Lincoln, 2000: 411, my emphasis).

Quand tu es seul, debout au milieu de la haute plaine d'Asie,
sous la coupole insondable où parfois un pilote
ou un ange sème dans l'azur une coulée d'amidon;
quand tu tressailles sentant ta petitesse,
apprends-le: l'espace auquel semble-t-il il ne faut
rien, a grandement besoin en réalité
d'un regard extérieur, de distance, de vide.
Tu es seid à pouvoir lui rendre ce service.
Joseph Brodsky

In the course of this century, a number of authors have asserted that geographic knowledge is useful for the development of programs to parcel out land. Hoping to foster this link between insight and action, applied geography saw the light of day. In order to be genuinely effective, the practice of this kind of planning, so it was thought, needed to rely on the expertise of the geographer who studied forms of human settlement. More fundamentally, the utilitarian claim of applied geography rested on the conviction according to which the spatial organization of human societies brought into play the question of justice and commonweal. As Jean Gottmann wrote, our epoch is particularly sensitive to the fact that everyone, whoever or from wherever they may be, consider themselves “to be entitled to live just as well as all others.” In this way a “popular will” was affirmed “that the necessary measures be taken to envisage, prepare, and provide for an improvement of life's comforts …, for a better life.” Inspired by the “modern idea of planning,” applied geography set itself the goal of “establishing justice […] by a more even distribution of people, of their means of subsistence, [and] of their living standard.”

A new technique utilizing Raman microscopy and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microsacopy is described. This technique uses thin films of oriented clay aggregates on glass slides suitable also for X-ray diffraction (XRD). Raman microscopy proved the most useful technique providing both better resolution of the OH-stretching bands and greater spectral resolution. Kaolinites from Washington County, Georgia, with varying defect structures involving layer stacking were intercalated with formamide and additional Raman bands were observed at 3610 and 3627 cm−1. A concomitant decrease in the inner-surface OH band intensities at 3695 and 3685 cm−1 occurred. These bands are attributed to the inner-surface OH hydrogen bonded to the formamide molecule through the C=O group. The 3627 cm−1 band is sharp with a half width of 7.5 cm−1 and comprises 11% of the total normalized band area. When two additional OH bands are observed at 3610 and 3627 cm−1 two C=O bands at 1674 and 1658 cm−1 are observed also. The two additional Raman inner-surface OH bands were not observed in the IR spectra. However, a band of low intensity was observed at 3590 cm−1. Models for the intercalation of formamide in kaolinites are proposed.

The island of Palawan stretches northward from Borneo like a bridge to Luzon in the South China Sea. This tropical forest environment, rich in thousands of species of plants and animals, is home to about 50,000 people, known as the Palawan. Besides hunting with blowpipes, traps, spears, and dogs, these people also practice shifting cultivation. Hunting and gathering activities as well as work in the fields follow the alternation of two seasons, the “monsoon” and the “heat,” barat and bulag. As an integral ecosystem, swidden places a high value on mobility rather than on land property. Land tenure, and recourse to physical violence of all kinds are considered unethical behavior. Social life among the Palawan is governed by a bilateral or undifferentiated kinship system, a complex customary law based on rules and values dictated by “the tradition of the Ancestors,” Adat ät Kägunggurangan.

Spanning the course of three millennia, the art of ancient Egypt stands out for its unique continuity. The fundamental rules of Pharaonic art were established around 3000 bc. The proportions of the human body, the style of cubist representation in relief and painting, the division of a tomb or temple wall into strips, and the adaptation of diverse forms into simple hieroglyphic images remained the principle elements of Egyptian art until the Imperial Roman era.