Permitted Unless Prohibited: The Changed Soviet Mentality

Even more basic than the presence of an abundance of experts and specialists, however, is the need for an amorphous intangible, the will to achieve and succeed. The will of a nation, an admittedly nebulous and vague idea, ideally is discerned, expressed, and exercised by its leaders in the government and in the legislature. It is up to these leaders to want and then to initiate, adopt, and implement the rule of law, a term which itself embodies many concepts but contains no therapeutic formulas. In this regard, the darling of the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), the small nation of Estonia, with a population comparable to that of the island of Manhattan, had the political and intellectual leadership with the will and the drive to create a market economy embedded in the rule of law. How such a will arises or is created is the subject for a separate sociological study and not a topic for this Essay. But the positive consequences of the leadership of Estonia in exercising and implementing this national will stands not so much as a challenge to other nations still struggling with the transformation process, such as many of the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (“CIS”), but as an example and a confirmation that a successful transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy can be achieved quickly. To simply attribute and dismiss Estonia\u27s emergence as an anomaly due to the difference of its culture from that of the other peoples in the former Soviet Union, however, as is commonly done by many academicians, legislators, and other leaders in the nations of the CIS, is simply a self-fulfilling excuse for inaction, inevitable failure, and cultural arrogance, even if masked as a compliment. In fact, the prospective, still unheralded, success of the Republic of Georgia in its law reform efforts belies any such assertions. It is of note that the remarkable emergence of Estonia, and the expected achievements of Georgia, did not develop in a vacuum, but utilized the support of the international community to buttress national will

Lung function decline in 4-monthly repeated spirometric measurements: Due to silt aerosol exposure or decreasing effort?

Background: Workers on dredgers and lighters on rivers are exposed to the inhalation of aerosols and dusts. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate effects of river silt aerosol and dust exposure on the respiratory health of dredging employees. Methods: Six era mi nations were performed over a period of 2 years at 4-monthly intervals in 54 seamen with higher silt aerosol exposure and 36 controls of the same employer. Results: No significant differences could be observed between the groups at any time of the study but there was an unexpected significant decrease in the age-corrected expiratory vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and midexpiratory flow rate (MMEF25/75) over the six series in both groups. This may indicate a loss of effort of the participants in re-examinations since biological and technical influences were highly unlikely to be the cause of these findings. Conclusions: Ignoring this possible decline of effort in frequently repeated measurements may result in overestimating potential effects of occupational exposure. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel

Scale-discretised ridgelet transform on the sphere

We revisit the spherical Radon transform, also called the Funk-Radon transform, viewing it as an axisymmetric convolution on the sphere. Viewing the spherical Radon transform in this manner leads to a straightforward derivation of its spherical harmonic representation, from which we show the spherical Radon transform can be inverted exactly for signals exhibiting antipodal symmetry. We then construct a spherical ridgelet transform by composing the spherical Radon and scale-discretised wavelet transforms on the sphere. The resulting spherical ridgelet transform also admits exact inversion for antipodal signals. The restriction to antipodal signals is expected since the spherical Radon and ridgelet transforms themselves result in signals that exhibit antipodal symmetry. Our ridgelet transform is defined natively on the sphere, probes signal content globally along great circles, does not exhibit blocking artefacts, supports spin signals and exhibits an exact and explicit inverse transform. No alternative ridgelet construction on the sphere satisfies all of these properties. Our implementation of the spherical Radon and ridgelet transforms is made publicly available. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness of spherical ridgelets for diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of white matter fibers in the brain.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, matches version accepted by EUSIPCO, code available at http://www.s2let.or

Weighted Radon transforms for which the Chang approximate inversion formula is precise

We describe all weighted Radon transforms on the plane for which the Chang approximate inversion formula is precise. Some subsequent results, including the Cormack type inversion for these transforms, are also given

The flip-graph of the 4-dimensional cube is connected

Flip-graph connectedness is established here for the vertex set of the 4-dimensional cube. It is found as a consequence that this vertex set has 92 487 256 triangulations, partitioned into 247 451 symmetry classes.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, revised proofs and notation

Optimisation of a Hybrid Wall for Solar Utilisation in Agriculture

Rosana G. Moreira, Editor-in-Chief; Texas A&M UniversityThis is a Technical article from International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR, Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) E-Journal Volume 2 (2000): J. Radon, W. Bieda. Optimisation of a Hybrid Wall for Solar Utilisation in Agriculture