Nothing that can be called thinking is formalized or formalizable; nor can it be likened to a mechanical process (Church's hypothesis). Rather, thinking sets into motion human imagination and passion.

Having already written extensively on the imagination,' I will limit myself here to outlining its basic structure. At the two opposite poles of knowledge, as well as in its center, lies the creative power of the human being, that is, radical imagination. It is thanks to the imagination that the world is presented in this form and not in some other: it is imagination that creates axioms, postulates, and the fundamental patterns that subtend the structures of knowledge; finally, it is imagination that both furnishes the hypothetical models and idea-images of knowledge, and makes possible their potential development and/or insight into them. This imagination, however, both in itself and in its essential operations – which include its social forms, experienced on this level as the creation of an anonymous collective force – is neither formalized nor formalizable. Obviously, the imagination contains – just as does everything else that exists – a totalizing, identity-bearing dimension (which for brevity's sake we have elsewhere called ensidiqt,ce)2; but this dimension of the imagination is not the essential one, neither in its operations nor its results, no more than the arithmetic relations between tones are the essential element of a Bach fugue.

The distribution and chemical state of Si in a synthetic 2-line ferrihydrite with a Si/(Si + Fe) molar ratio of 0.11 was studied. Heat treatment under oxidizing conditions shows that Si-rich ferrihydrite is stable to 400°C. The transformation to hematite and the formation of a polymerized amorphous-silica phase occur at 850°C. At this temperature, the specific surface area decreases greatly and the average pore diameter increases, which is indicative of sintering. Heating under severe reducing conditions causes a segregation of Si from Fe and results in a mixture of elemental Fe and SiO2. Surface and structural data suggest that Si is located near the particle surface where it limits the rearrangement of Fe octahedra to form hematite.

While the epic is absent from classical Arabic literature, the genre - although long ignored - plays an outstanding part in popular culture throughout the Arabo-Islamic sphere.

The Russian financial crisis of August 1998, which occurred between the Asian recession and the devaluation of the Brazilian real in January 1999, put a question-mark over many certainties. It demonstrated that the most destructive speculative activities of financial players can only have free rein when there is a collapse of the state. The crisis proved that the markets need a state and cannot replace it. It was also the moment when people became aware of the dynamics of a globalized financial economy (Stiglitz, 1999a; 1999b), leading to a critical rereading of the policies recommended in the 1990s and a direct questioning of the IMF and its actions. In Russia it caused a paradigm shift that could turn out to be salutary. In this regard the August 1998 crisis looks like the endpoint on the route followed since 1992 by the transition in Russia (Sapir, 1999a). We can see in the crisis both elements directly linked to the financial liberalization of 1985-95 and structural elements peculiar to the consequences of the transition and the policies adopted. This is why it suggests a reinterpretation of the entire development of the transition in Russia starting from 1992.

Tolerance cannot not be concerned with the law, once it takes up in its concept the relationship between truth and justice. And there are several reasons for this. To begin with, the word right enters into many definitions of tolerance: the right to difference, to liberty, to those fundamental public freedoms that constitute human rights. Moreover, law, as opposed to morality, is the public instance where obligation is coupled with legitimate coercion. Finally, juridical institutions offer an excellent vantage point from which to observe the transformations of the idea of tolerance and scan the history of the struggles carried out in its name.

The present paper represents an extension of recent work that considered the partitioning response of binary solvents placed into contact with charged, expandable clays. Previous theoretical work yielded a model of partitioning by performing a thermodynamic analysis, involving the work of polarization, on a binary solvent, treated as a continuum and residing within the interlayer space of a layered aluminosilicate clay. Partitioning, or the tendency for sorbed and bulk phases to have different compositions, was shown to be sensitive to the dielectric properties of the 2 solvents of the binary mixture and to the surface charge density on the clay, among other factors. Although previous experimental work has helped to validate the theory, additional work is reported here that looks at hysteresis effects, the role of the exchangeable cation (usually organic), the prediction of adsorption isotherms and the contribution that partitioning, or sorption, makes to the disjoining pressure that develops in binary solvent systems. In this current study, 3 different organo-clays were considered: Cetyltrimethylammonium (CTMA), Isopropanolammonium (IPA), and Benzylammonium (BA) montmorillonite. Solvent systems under study included: acetone/chloroform (a-c), acetone/quadricyclane (a-q) and acetonitrile/chloroform (an-c). While partitioning of the a-c system on CTMA-clay follows theory quite well, theory tends to over-predict partitioning for the a-q system on the same clay and under-predict partitioning for the an-c system on all clays. Predicted adsorption isotherms range from highly nonlinear to nearly linear. Finally, the delamination and subsequent swelling processes of BA-clay in a water/acetonitrile binary solvent system are very sensitive to composition, a result that is directly linked to the partitioning process.

The adsorption of the monovalent organic cations benzyltrimethylammonium (BTMA) and benzyltriethylammonium (BTEA) to montmorillonite was studied as a function of their concentrations and ionic strength. At low ionic strength the adsorbed amounts of BTMA and BTEA reached values of the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the clay. An increase in the ionic strength resulted in reduction in the adsorbed amounts of the organic cations, unlike the pattern observed previously with organic monovalent cationic dyes. The reduction in adsorbed amounts of BTMA and BTEA depended on the inorganic cations according to the sequence Cs+ > Na+ > Li+, which follows the sequence of binding coefficients of these inorganic cations added. The type of the anion (that is, Cl−, ClO4−, SO42-) had no effect on the adsorbed amounts. An adsorption model which considers the electrostatic Gouy-Chapman equations, specific binding and closeness of the system could adequately simulate the adsorbed amounts of BTMA and BTEA and yield predictions for the effect of the ionic strength and concentration of electrolytes. The binding coefficient employed was K = 5000 M−1 for the formation of neutral complexes of BTMA and BTEA. This value is larger than those found for the inorganic cations but is several orders of magnitude below those found for the monovalent dyes. The binding coefficients for the formation of charged complexes of BTMA and BTEA were 20 and 5 M−1, respectively. The basal spacing of the clay did not change significantly with the adsorbed amounts of both BTMA and BTEA up to the CEC.

Smectites are one of the most important groups of phyllosilicates found in soils and sediments, and certainly one of the most difficult to study. New information about the formation mechanisms, impact of structural features on surface properties, and long-term stability of smectites can best be gained from the systematic study of single-phase specimens. In most instances, these specimens can only be obtained through synthesis under controlled conditions. Syntheses of smectites have been attempted (1) at ambient pressure and low-temperature (<100°C), (2) under moderate hydrothermal conditions (100–1000°C, pressures to several kbars), (3) under extreme hydrothermal conditions (>1000°C or pressures >10 kbars), and (4) in the presence of fluoride. Of these approaches, syntheses performed under moderate hydrothermal conditions are the most numerous and the most successful in terms of smectite yield and phase-purity. Using hydrothermal techniques, high phase-purity can be obtained for beidellites and several transition-metal smectites. However, synthesis of montmorillonite in high purity remains difficult. Starting materials for hydrothermal syntheses include gels, glasses, and other aluminosilicate minerals. The presence of Mg2+ seems to be essential for the formation of smectites, even for phases such as montmorillonite which contain low amounts of Mg. Highly crystalline smectites can be obtained when extreme temperatures or pressures are used, but other crystalline impurities are always present. Although the correlation between synthesis stability fields and thermodynamic stability fields is good in many instances, metastable phases are often formed. Few studies, however, include the additional experiments (approach from under-and over-saturation, reversal experiments) needed to ascertain the conditions for formation of thermody-namically stable phases. Thorough characterization of synthetic products by modern instrumental and molecular-scale techniques is also needed to better understand the processes leading to smectite formation.

On 6 August 1945, I was exposed to radiation in Hiroshima during the atomic bombing. At that time I was 15 years old, a third-year junior high school student, and working at a factory in Hiroshima under the wartime student mobilization plan. A total of 201 people from my school (13 teachers and 188 students) were killed outright in the bombing. I narrowly escaped death, but suffered from radiation sickness for many years afterwards. At one point, my white blood cell count dropped sharply, endangering my life.

When I chose painting as my vocation, I decided to put on canvas my prayer for world peace that stems from my experience in Hiroshima. In 1959, I painted Arrival of Buddhism, a picture depicting the 17-year-long journey to India of Xuanzang (600–664), a Chinese priest during the Tang Dynasty, in search of enlightenment. This work made my name known as a painter among the general public.

Organoclays were prepared by exchanging Ca2+ in a Ca2+-saturated smectite partially or fully with trimethylphenylammonium (TMPA) cations. The mechanistic function of these organoclays as adsorbents for neutral organic compounds in aqueous solution was examined. TMPA cations were found to take a random distribution on the surfaces of mixed Ca/TMPA-smectites. The presence of TMPA, and its random distribution, resulted in water associated with the clay surfaces being held more weakly. Apparently, the interspersing of TMPA and Ca2+ ions prohibits the formation of a stable network of water molecules around Ca2+. Water molecules associated with the siloxane surface in mixed Ca/TMPA-clays are removed during the adsorption of neutral organic compounds from bulk water, leaving only ∼11 strongly held water molecules around each Ca2+, as opposed to ∼58 water molecules in homoionic Ca2+-smectite. These results demonstrate that the amount of water associated with the clay surfaces and interlayers depends on the nature of the exchange cation(s), and not on the amount of available siloxane surface area by itself. We conclude that in TMPA-smectites the TMPA cations function as nonhydrated pillars, and sorption of organic solutes occurs predominantly on the adjacent siloxane surfaces, which are hydrophobic in nature. The water molecules around Ca2+ in mixed Ca/TMPA-smectites obscures some of the siloxane surfaces. This diminishes sorption capacity, in an amount roughly equivalent to the fraction of the CEC occupied by Ca2+, because organic solutes cannot displace the waters of hydration of Ca2+.

Like the other great cultural areas of the Indian subcontinent, the Punjab is endowed with a living heritage of oral tradition: all kinds of songs and tales are hawked by itinerant bards, and after the day's work is done, people particularly like listening to them reciting legends of love, the most moving passages of which they sing to their own accompaniment on various traditional instruments. The stories most popular with village audiences are local epico-lyrical legends; these function like myths for Punjabis, forming a symbolic system according to which they can organize and think through their experience.

To assign far infrared (FIR) absorption bands of K+ in muscovite, dichroic experiments were performed. For a muscovite crystal rotated about a crystallographic axis, c*, a, or b, two bands corresponding to vibration modes of K+ appear, respectively, at 107 and 110 cm−1 (rotation about c*), 107 and 143 cm−1 (rotation about a), and 110 and 143 cm−1 (rotation about b). Two in-plane modes at 107 and 110 cm−1 and one out-of-plane mode at 143 cm−1 are identified for the vibrations of K+ in muscovite. Each of these transition moments are near the crystallographic axes b, a, and c, respectively. These observations match well predictions based on the approximate C3i symmetric environment of K+, although the site symmetry in the space group of muscovite is only C2.

The aim of the paper is to analyse works by Gumilev and Huntington from the point of view of their approaches and terminologies. Both of them have attempted to give an overall explanation of new phenomena in world history. Though the terminology differs, their arguments are relatively similar. They propose a synthetic approach that looks at the whole of society and puts them among historians specializing in issues of civilization, a theory whose validity, together with the status they are given, is still very controversial at the present time. Analogies and differences are discernible first through their taxonomic system. Both authors also try to answer the question as to the eastern border of western civilization.

In the short decade between 1985 and 1995, the dominant cultural movement of our time, hip-hop culture, has become, seemingly overnight, mainstream American popular culture. This centering of hip-hop art, most specifically rap music, in American popular culture has given young African Americans unprecedented national and international visibility, at a historical time when images via the 21st century's public square of television, film and the internet are more critical to identity than ever. This visibility, and most certainly the often anti-Black and stereotypical images that accompany it, forces distinctions to be drawn between today's Black popular culture and traditional ideas of Black culture, including what is art and what's at stake in cultural commodification.

The effects of neodymium (Nd) on the transformation of ferrihydrite to iron oxides was studied. The possible isomorphous substitution of Nd3+ for Fe3+ in iron oxides was examined also. Nd was used as an inactive substitute of trivalent radioactive actinide elements. Hydrolysis of ferric nitrate solution containing 0–30 mole % of Nd formed Nd, Fe-rich ferrihydrite as initial precipitates, which were poorly crystalline. Aging of the Nd-containing ferrihydrite in 0.3 M OH− at 40°C and at pH 9.2 at 70°C formed Nd-free goethite and Nd-substituted hematite. The abundance of these crystalline phases was related to Nd in the parent solutions. Phase abundance, unit-cell parameters, and peak width were estimated by use of the Rietveld method.

The expansion of commerce between the Chinese and Persian states, and the re-establishment of caravan routes, helped make possible the arrival of the first Manichaean missionaries to China in the seventh century of our era. Thus, in 694, a Persian with the title of fuduodan appeared before the Chinese court carrying “the false religion contained in The Book of the Two Principles,” Erzongjing. In 719 another Manichaean dignitary, bearing the title of muzhu and versed in astronomy, was sent to the Chinese emperor by the viceroy of Tokharestan. Some twenty years later, on 16 Jul, 731, a Manichaean Bishop, also called a fuduodan, completed the Compendium of the Doctrines and Rules of the Religion of Mani, the Buddha of Light. The resulting edict, which required the translation of this work, was designed to allow the Chinese authorities both to obtain a complete overview of Manichaeism and to indicate what attitude to take in its regard. Accordingly, the next year (732), an edict was promulgated which, while condemning Manichaeism, granted religious freedom to its non-Chinese adherents.