One Mountain, Two Traditions: Buddhist and Taoist Claims on Zhongnan shan in Medieval Times

article about Mount Zhongnan in the Tang dynast

Microjansky sources at 1.4 GHz

We present a deep 1.4 GHz survey made with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), having a background RMS of 9 microJy near the image phase centre, up to 25 microJy at the edge of a 50' field of view. Over 770 radio sources brighter than 45 microJy have been catalogued in the field. The differential source counts in the deep field provide tentative support for the growing evidence that the microjansky radio population exhibits significantly higher clustering than found at higher flux density cutoffs. The optical identification rate on CCD images is approximately 50% to R=22.5, and the optical counterparts of the faintest radio sources appear to be mainly single galaxies close to this optical magnitude limit.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJ Letters 4 May 199

The Electrodynamics of Inhomogeneous Rotating Media and the Abraham and Minkowski Tensors II: Applications

Applications of the covariant theory of drive-forms are considered for a class of perfectly insulating media. The distinction between the notions of "classical photons" in homogeneous bounded and unbounded stationary media and in stationary unbounded magneto-electric media is pointed out in the context of the Abraham, Minkowski and symmetrized Minkowski electromagnetic stress-energy-momentum tensors. Such notions have led to intense debate about the role of these (and other) tensors in describing electromagnetic interactions in moving media. In order to address some of these issues for material subject to the Minkowski constitutive relations, the propagation of harmonic waves through homogeneous and inhomogeneous, isotropic plane-faced slabs at rest is first considered. To motivate the subsequent analysis on accelerating media two classes of electromagnetic modes that solve Maxwell's equations for uniformly rotating homogeneous polarizable media are enumerated. Finally it is shown that, under the influence of an incident monochromatic, circularly polarized, plane electromagnetic wave, the Abraham and symmetrized Minkowski tensors induce different time-averaged torques on a uniformly rotating materially inhomogeneous dielectric cylinder. We suggest that this observation may offer new avenues to explore experimentally the covariant electrodynamics of more general accelerating media.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Proc. Roy. Soc.

Employee participation and engagement in working for the environment

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of specific human resource management (HRM) practices in the implementation of environmental initiatives in terms of their impact on employee attitudes to the organization and to its environmental programme. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a mixed method approach comprising a survey of 675 employees and 16 semi-structured interviews undertaken across two organizations. Findings – Survey data, analysed using path analysis, showed that participation in environmental initiatives is directly associated with higher levels of employee engagement with the organization, higher rating of their organization’s environmental performance, and lower intention to quit. The qualitative study supports the quantitative data, also highlighting other aspects of environmental initiatives that may affect employee attitudes. Research limitations/implications – Future study should either collect longitudinal data or rely on data collected from two waves of data collection. Objective performance data should also be collected in order to better understand the causal effect of HRM on environmental performance. Practical implications – Our findings have implications for the business case for sustainability,  providing some evidence that implementing environmental initiatives with HRM support may not only motivate staff around environmental programmes but may provide wider benefits for organizations in terms of overall job satisfaction and employee retention. Social implications – Successful implementation of environmental management initiatives have both organizational and employee level outcomes. Employees who were more aligned with their organizational environmental objectives were found to be more engaged and less likely to quit. Originality/value – This study provided both quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence to support the importance of integrating the HRM function into the implementation of environmental initiatives

Characterization of 40-Gbit/s pulses generated using a lithium niobate modulator at 1550 nm using frequency resolved optical gating

The characteristics of 40-Gbit/s pulses generated by exploiting the nonlinear characteristics of a Mach-Zender Lithium Niobate modulator are presented. A high spectral resolution frequency resolved optical gating apparatus has been developed to allow for the complete characterization of the intensity and phase of these pulses. The use of these measurements to simplify the design and optimization of an 80-Gbit/s pulse source, based on this 40-Gbit/s source followed by a nonlinear fiber compressor and multiplexer, is also demonstrated

Commuting symmetry operators of the Dirac equation, Killing-Yano and Schouten-Nijenhuis brackets

In this paper we derive the most general first-order symmetry operator commuting with the Dirac operator in all dimensions and signatures. Such an operator splits into Clifford even and Clifford odd parts which are given in terms of odd Killing-Yano and even closed conformal Killing-Yano inhomogeneous forms respectively. We study commutators of these symmetry operators and give necessary and sufficient conditions under which they remain of the first-order. In this specific setting we can introduce a Killing-Yano bracket, a bilinear operation acting on odd Killing-Yano and even closed conformal Killing-Yano forms, and demonstrate that it is closely related to the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket. An important non-trivial example of vanishing Killing-Yano brackets is given by Dirac symmetry operators generated from the principal conformal Killing-Yano tensor [hep-th/0612029]. We show that among these operators one can find a complete subset of mutually commuting operators. These operators underlie separability of the Dirac equation in Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes in all dimensions [arXiv:0711.0078].Comment: 37 pages, no figure

Optimization of optical data transmitters for 40-Gb/s lightwave systems using frequency resolved optical gating

The measurement technique of frequency resolved optical gating has been used to optimize the phase of a 40-GHz train of optical pulses generated using a continuous-wave laser gated with an external modulator. This technique will be vital for optimization of optical transmitters to be used in systems operating at 40 Gb/s and beyond, as standard measurement techniques will not suffice to optimize such high-speed systems

Governance of environmental risk: New approaches to managing stakeholder involvement

Disputes concerning industrial legacies such as the disposal of toxic wastes illustrate changing pressures on corporations and governments. Business and governments are now confronted with managing the expectations of a society increasingly aware of the social and environmental impacts and risks associated with economic development and demanding more equitable distribution and democratic management of such risks. The closed managerialist decision-making of the powerful bureaucracies and corporations of the industrial era is informed by traditional management theory which cannot provide a framework for the adequate governance of these risks. Recent socio-political theories have conceptualised some key themes that must be addressed in a more fitting approach to governance. We identify more recent management and governance theory which addresses these themes and develop a process-based approach to governance of environmental disputes that allows for the evolving nature of stakeholder relations in a highly complex multiple stakeholder arena. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Prevalence and risk factors for child labour and violence against children in Egypt using Bayesian geospatial modelling with multiple imputation

Background The incidence of child labour, especially across developing nations, is of global concern. The use of children in employment in developing economies constitutes a major threat to the societies, and concerted efforts are made by the relevant stakeholders towards addressing some of the factors and issues responsible. Significant risk factors include socio-demographic and economic factors such as poverty, neglect, lack of adequate care, exposure of children to various grades of violence, parental education status, gender, place of residence, household size, residence type or size, wealth index, parental survivorship and household size. Egypt is the largest country in Africa by population. Although UNCIF 2017 reported that the worst forms of child labour in Egypt are concentrated in domestic work, forced begging and commercial sexual exploitation, the situation has received little attention. There are still very few studies initiated specifically to look at child labour in domestic service in Egypt and those that exist have been limited in the scope of their methodology. Geographical coverage and research for child labour in Egypt is also limited, as are accurate statistics and data. There was, therefore, a strong case for looking again at the domestic child labour phenomenon in Egypt, especially after the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) released the first data about child labour in Egypt in 2014. This study builds on the few findings of earlier work, and broadens coverage by including advanced methods and geographical effects of this problem. Objectives This study focuses on identifying socio-demographic, economic and geospatial factors associated with child labour participation. Methods We used the 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) from the Ministry of Health and Population in Egypt, with the record of 20,560 never-married children aged 5–17 years engaging in economic activities, in and out of their home. The data focused on demographic and socio-economic characteristics of household members. Multivariate Bayesian geo-additive models were employed to examine the demographical and socio-economic factors for children working less than 16 hrs; between 16 and less 45 hrs; and over 45 hrs weekly. Results The results showed that at least 31.6% of the children in the age group from 5–10 were working, 68.5% of children aged 11–17 years were engaged in child labour for a wage, and 44.7% of the children in the age group from 5–10 were engaged in hazardous work. From the multivariate Bayesian geo-additive models, female children (with male children as reference category) working at least 16 hrs (OR: 1.3; with 95% CI: 1.2–1.5) were more likely to be engaged in child labour than girls working 16 to 45 hrs (OR: 1; 95% CI: 0.3–1.5). Children born to women without formal education, in non-hazardous jobs, irrespective of the hours spent at work, were more likely to be involved in child labour (52.9%, 56.8%, 62.4%) compared to children of mothers with some level of education. Finally, children who have experienced psychological aggression and physical punishment are more likely to be used as child labour than those without such experience across the job types and hours spent. North-eastern Egypt has a higher likelihood of child labour than most other regions, while children who live in the Delta are more engaged in hazardous work. Conclusion This study revealed a significant influence of socio-demographic and economic factors on child labour and violence against children in Egypt. Poverty, neglect, lack of adequate care and exposure of children to various grades of violence are major drivers of child labour across the country. The spatial effect suggests the need to give more attention to some areas that have high rates of child labour, such as the Nile Delta, Upper Egypt, and North-eastern Egypt

Faint Radio Sources and Star Formation History

Faint extragalactic radio sources provide important information about the global history of star formation. Sensitive radio observations of the Hubble Deep Field and other fields have found that sub-mJy radio sources are predominantly associated with star formation activity rather than AGN. Radio observations of star forming galaxies have the advantage of being independent of extinction by dust. We use the FIR-radio correlation to compare the radio and FIR backgrounds, and make several conclusions about the star forming galaxies producing the FIR background. We then use the redshift distribution of faint radio sources to determine the evolution of the radio luminosity function, and thus estimate the star formation density as a function of redshift.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, latex using texas.sty, to appear in the CD-ROM Proceedings of the 19th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology, held in Paris, France, Dec. 14-18, 1998. Eds.: J. Paul, T. Montmerle, and E. Aubourg (CEA Saclay). No changes to paper, just updated publication info in this commen