Empedokles and his Klepsydra again

1924 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Last
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
Precise Form ◽  
Outermost Surface ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Detailed Interpretation ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Corporeal Substance

Mr. Powell's ingenious observations on The Simile of the Clepsydra in Empedocles raise afresh the problem of the precise form and construction of the instrument with whose aid Empedokles is said to have reached his memorable conclusion that air is a corporeal substance. That ‘klepsydra’ was the name of the instrument in question is shown by a comparison of Aristotle, Phys. 213a, 22 sqq. with Empedokles, fr. 100; but though so far the fragment is plain, in its detailed interpretation there arises a difficulty which is the subject of the present note. Empedokles is explaining his theory of respiration, and the theory is illustrated by the action of this apparatus. To make clear the general drift of the passage, it may be well to quote again so much of it as is relevant. ‘Thus do all things draw breath in and breathe it out again. All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores closely packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free passage is cut for the air to pass through. Then, when the thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with an impetuous surge; and when the blood rushes back it’ (i.e. the air) ‘is breathed out again.

A Romano-British Interment, with Bucket and Sceptres, from Brough, East Yorkshire

1938 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Corder ◽  
I. A. Richmond
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
West Side ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Chief Interest ◽  
Roman Age ◽  
The Way

The Roman Ermine Street, having crossed the Humber on the way to York from Lincoln, leaves Brough Haven on its west side, and the little town of Petuaria to the east. For the first half-mile northwards from the Haven its course is not certainly known: then, followed by the modern road, it runs northwards through South Cave towards Market Weighton. In the area thus traversed by the Roman road burials of the Roman age have already been noted in sufficient quantity to suggest an extensive cemetery. The interment which is the subject of the present note was found on 10th October 1936, when men laying pipes at right angles to the modern road, in the carriage-drive of Mr. J. G. Southam, having cut through some 4 ft. of blown sand, came upon a mass of mixed Roman pottery, dating from the late first to the fourth century A.D. Bones of pig, dog, sheep, and ox were also represented. Presently, at a depth of about 5 ft., something attracted closer attention. A layer of thin limestone slabs was found, covering two human skeletons, one lying a few feet from the west margin of the modern road, the other parallel with the road and some 8 ft. from its edge. The objects described below were found with the second skeleton, and the first to be discovered was submitted by Mr. Southam to Mr. T. Sheppard, F.S.A.Scot., Director of the Hull Museums, who visited the site with his staff. All that can be recorded of the circumstances of the discovery is contained in the observations then made, under difficult conditions. ‘Slabs of hard limestone’, it was reported, ‘taken from a local quarry of millepore oolite and forming the original Roman road, were distinctly visible beneath the present roadway—one of the few points where the precise site of the old road has been located. On the side of this… a burial-place has been constructed. What it was like originally it is difficult to say, beyond that a layer of thin … slabs of limestone occurred over the skeletons. This had probably been kept in place or supported by some structure of wood, as several large iron nails, some bent at right angles, were among the bones.’ If this were all that could be said about the burials, they would hardly merit a place in these pages. The chief interest of the record would be its apparent identification of the exact course of the Roman road at a point where this had hitherto been uncertain. Three objects associated with the second skeleton are, however, of exceptional interest.

Direct Legislation: Some Implications of Open Housing Referenda

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard D. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
American Government ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Direct Legislation ◽  
Direct Government ◽  
Open Housing

Any middle-aged member of the political science guild in a retrospective mood might ponder a question: “What ever happened to direct democracy?” In our halcyon student days the textbooks discussed the direct democracy trinity—initiative, referendum, and recall—described their mechanics and variations, explained their origin in the Progressive Era, told us that the United States, Australia, and Switzerland were leading practitioners of direct democracy, cited a few eccentric referenda, gave the standard pro and con arguments, and essayed some judgments of the relative merits of direct and representative democracy. Latter day collegians may pass through the portals innocent of the existence of the institutions of direct government. Half of the American government texts never mention the subject; the others allocate a paragraph or a page for a casual mention or a barebones explanation of the mechanics.A similar trend has occurred in the literature. Before 1921, every volume of this Review had items on the referendum, five in one volume. Subsequently there have been only seven articles, all but two prior to World War II. “The Initiative and Referendum in Graustark” has ceased to be a fashionable dissertation topic, only four in the last thirty years. All but two of the published monographs antedate World War II.

Danalite from Cornwall

1892 ◽  
Vol 10 (45) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Miers ◽  
G. T. Prior
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Appearance

The specimen which is the subject of the present note consists of a group of large rude, reddish crystals of tetrahedral aspect, which in colour, lustre, and general appearance, resemble garnet; they were formerly supposed to be garnet pseudomorphous after some tetrahedral mineral, and the original mineral was presumed to have been fablerz, on account of the size of the crystals, which measure as much as 3 to 5 centimetres across.

Observance of the Purification in the East in the Seventh Century

Traditio ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 409-410
Author(s):  
Martin J. Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way

Incidental to their account of a riot against the Emperor Maurice in 602, the Byzantine historians give some valuable information about the observance of the feast of the Purification. These passages are isolated and out of the way and have so far escaped the attention of students of the subject. The only purpose of the present note is to make them available.

scholarly journals III. An account of some experiments on the torpedo

1829 ◽  
Vol 119 ◽  
pp. 15-18 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
General Relation ◽  
Physiological Importance ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pass Through

Amidst the variety of researches which have been pursued respecting the different forms and modes of excitation and action of electricity, it is surprising to me that the electricity of living animals has not been more an object of attention, both on account of its physiological importance, and its general relation to the science of electro-chemistry. In reading an account of the experiments of Walsh, it is impossible not to be struck by some peculiarities of the electricity of the organ of the Torpedo and Gymnotus; such as its want of power to pass through air, and the slight effects of ignition produced by the strongest shocks: and though Mr. Cavendish, with his usual sagacity, compared its action to that of a battery weakly charged, when the electricity was large in quantity but low in intensity, yet the peculiarities which I have just mentioned are not entirely in harmony with this view of the subject.

Analysis and Testing of Passenger Vehicle Bulkhead Fireworthiness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Herbst ◽  
Steven Meyer ◽  
Lauren Bell ◽  
Jack Bish ◽  
Christopher Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Passenger Vehicle ◽  
Testing Methods ◽  
Fire Propagation ◽  
Testing Methodology ◽  
Seal Design ◽  
Retention Testing ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Occupant Injuries ◽  
Pass Through

This paper presents a case study of an injury producing post-crash fire as well as testing methods to evaluate bulkhead pass through seal fire resistance and retention. In the subject crash, engine compartment fluids were released and ignited. The burning fluids entered the occupant compartment through a bulkhead pass through, resulting in rapid fire propagation and severe occupant injuries before extrication could be completed. A burn testing methodology was developed and used to evaluate the ability of the subject seal design to prevent flames and fluids from entering the occupant compartment. A retention testing methodology was also developed and used to evaluate a variety of seal designs.

A Note on the Caradus Class of Bounded Linear Operators on a Complex Banach Space

1969 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 592-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. Ruston
Keyword(s):  
Banach Space ◽  
Linear Operator ◽  
Finite Number ◽  
Bounded Linear Operator ◽  
Present Note ◽  
Complex Banach Space ◽  
Linear Operators ◽  
Bounded Linear Operators ◽  
Bounded Linear ◽  
The Subject

1. In a recent paper (1) on meromorphic operators, Caradus introduced the class of bounded linear operators on a complex Banach space X. A bounded linear operator T is put in the class if and only if its spectrum consists of a finite number of poles of the resolvent of T. Equivalently, T is in if and only if it has a rational resolvent (8, p. 314).Some ten years ago (in May, 1957), I discovered a property of the class g which may be of interest in connection with Caradus' work, and is the subject of the present note.2. THEOREM. Let X be a complex Banach space. If T belongs to the class, and the linear operator S commutes with every bounded linear operator which commutes with T, then there is a polynomial p such that S = p(T).

scholarly journals Development of a low-cost senor based aid for visually impaired people

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 727-730
Author(s):  
Nora Loepthien ◽  
Tanja Jehnichen ◽  
Josephine Hauser ◽  
Benjamin Schullcke ◽  
Knut Möller
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Tactile Feedback ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pass Through

AbstractThe aim of the project is the development of an aid for blind or visually impaired people, considering economic aspects as well as easy adaptability to various daily situations. Distance sensors were attached to a walking frame (rollator) to detect the distance to obstacles. The information from the sensors is transmitted to the user via tactile feedback. This is realized with a number of vibration motors which were located at the upper belly area of the subject. To test the functionality of the aid to the blind, a testing track with obstacles has been passed through by a number of volunteers. While passing the track five times the needed time to pass through, as well as the number of collisions, were noticed. The results showed a decline in the average time needed to pass though the testing track. This indicates a learning process of the operator to interpret the signals given by the tactile feedback.

Edward Jenner, F. R. S. and the cuckoo

1974 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-240 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Small Town ◽  
Present Note ◽  
The Other ◽  
150Th Anniversary ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Medical Historian ◽  
National Biography

In January 1973 the 150th anniversary of the death of Edward Jenner, the originator of vaccination, was modestly commemorated in the small town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, where he was born and lived for most of his life (1). Jenner was himself the subject of controversy during and after his lifetime, on the one hand lauded as a selfless saviour of mankind, and on the other denounced as a self-seeking charlatan; his discovery likewise has virtually never ceased to be a subject of debate (2). There is no dearth of books and articles about Jenner and vaccination (3) and the subject of the present note is an unconnected and very minor discovery of Jenner’s—nevertheless one which is not only intrinsically interesting to naturalists, but also pertinent to any study of the character and integrity of its author, for the discovery was still being disputed more than a century after is was made. Edward Jenner was the first to publish, in 1788, an accurate account of what happens to the unfortunate young of the parent bird in whose nest a cuckoo deposits one of her eggs. Yet to consult the Dictionary of National Biography for details of Jenner’s life is to read, in an article published in 1892, that the ‘absurdity’ of this account had been demonstrated by the naturalist Charles Waterton. A few years earlier Charles Creighton (1847-1927), the epidemiologist and medical historian, whose intense opposition to vaccination led him to denigrate Jenner in every conceivable way, had described his paper on the cuckoo as mainly ‘a tissue of inconsistencies and absurdities’ (4).

On the atomic volume relations in certain isomorphous series. II

1928 ◽  
Vol 21 (121) ◽  
pp. 480-484
Author(s):  
A. F. Hallimond
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
Atomic Volume ◽  
Molecular Volume ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Isomorphous Replacement ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Substantial Change

The isomorphous replacement of one element by another, in a pair of crystalline salts, is usually accompanied by a substantial change in the molecular volume. This progression is exceptionally well illustrated in the 'eutropic' elements K, Rb, Cs, and Cl, Br, I, which formed the subject of the first part of this paper. It was there shown that the differences produced by interchanging these elements stood in the same ratio in all the salt-series, though the size of the differences varied with the acid radicle. The object of the present note is to draw attention to the existence of similarly constant (though different) ratios for the salts of O, S, Se, Te, and for the salts of Ca, Sr, Ba. The spacings in these compounds have recently been obtained by X-ray determinations, in many cases due to u M. Goldschlnidt and his co-workers, so that it is possible to verify the rule of proportional differences in these series, although the results do not possess an accuracy so high as that of densities measured by the pyknometer.

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