If we consider human thought as the, so far, ultimate, if not supreme, stage in the evolution of life on Earth, we must also try to understand the evolutionary conditions that allowed it to emerge, and that leads us to look again at living organization.

Whatever the origins of life (cf. the text of Jacques Reisse, p. 53), it is clear that the oldest living organization, that of a protobacteria, is extremely complex in its functional and complementary association of extremely diverse macro-molecules, and that this complexity includes in particular: a) the organization of exchanges with an environment from which it draws both matter-energy and organization ; b) a permanent process of self-reorganization through the replacing of molecules that have deteriorated and through the production of new ones; c) the organization of the self-reproduction of the creature through division. An organization of this kind includes a quasi-informational dimension (the hereditary message inscribed in the genes and the capacity to extract information from the environment), a quasi-computational dimension (the processing of data, via indices or quasi-signs from the interior and exterior), and a communicational dimension (internal RNA-protein communication and external communication with its congeners). In short, from the beginning, a living being is the product/producer of a self-eco-organization the nature of which is at the same time computational, informational, and communicational. In other words, within every living organization, there is a cognitive dimension, but this cognitive dimension is undifferentiated within it.

The vitric matrix of pre-caldera acid tuff and tuff breccia of the Santorini volcano, Aegean Sea, Greece has been generally replaced by one or more of the following authigenic minerals: K-rich and (K,Ca)-rich clinoptilolite, mordenite, opal-CT, and clay minerals. Halite is also present in some samples. Initial compositional inhomogeneities between the dacitic blocks in tuff breccia and tuff seem to have controlled the type of K-rich heulandite-group zeolite that formed. Mordenite postdates the heulandite-group zeolites and opal-CT. Some mordenite has replaced the rims of glass shards. The alteration minerals are not related to vertical or lateral zonation, and the irregular distribution of their assemblages is attributed to variations in heat flow, ionic activity in interstitial waters, and permeability. The pyroclastic rocks were in a region of active heat flow during and after their emplacement. The formation of authigenic silicates may have led to the sealing of open spaces and fractures, imposing barriers to permeability and subdividing the original open system into smaller closed systems. As alteration progressed, some of the trapped water in each individual domain was consumed in hydration reactions. Salts could have been concentrated by such a process, and halite probably precipitated from solutions of appropriate composition in the individual closed systems.

In recent years empiricism has been under persistent attack, and serious questions have been raised about the ability of empiricism to provide the basis for a viable philosophy of science. The attack has been sufficiently vigorous, and in some quarters sufficiently successful, that many now maintain that empiricism is dead. My aim in this paper is to argue that, rather than being ready for embalmment and emplacement in the museum of philosophic oddities, empiricism is very much alive, and the central thesis of empiricism remains the cornerstone for any viable philosophy of science. This is not to say that the recent attacks on empiricism have been without a point, rather, they have put anyone who would defend empiricism in the position of having to rethink many datails of the empiricist viewpoint. But it is the details, the way in which empiricism has been elaborated by its proponents, not the central empiricist insight, that must be reconsidered.

Smectite with polyvalent cations on the exchange complex readily absorbed riboflavin from aqueous solution to a limit of about 0.5 mmole/g. The shape of the adsorption isotherms was of the Langmuir type. An exception was Na+-smectite which provided an S-shaped isotherm and smaller amounts of adsorption. Ca2+-vermiculite had no interlamellar adsorption of riboflavin, suggesting that this mineral does not swell sufficiently to permit such adsorption. Adsorption isotherms, X-ray powder diffraction data, and UV-visible spectroscopic data suggest that the mechanisms of interaction between smectite and riboflavin may involve a combination of ion-dipole, charge transfer, hydrogen bonding, and physical effects.

What should we understand by African philosophical thought if not a philosophy expressed by African thinkers, based on their own experience with the means and within the limits of that experience? A closer inspection will show, however, that this truism calls for rethinking. If we abide by the writings of our contemporary philosophers, African and non-African, who have endeavored to put the essence of African thought into one of the Occidental languages or a Westernized indigenous language, we soon see the perplexity in which we find ourselves when it is a matter of transcribing the systems of thought that are properly African, that resemble no other system of thought and that Africans alone are able to expound and understand. This was for a long time the questionable affirmation of the advocates of Negritude and is still questionable today, because we cannot judge the value of the written formulation of such a system of thought unless we put ourselves into the circumstances in which it was born and in which it lived. Though the existence of a dialectic relationship between a collective consciousness and its formulation as a philosophical system is conceivable, obviously the philosophical thought captured, so to speak, at the source and the oral or written forms in which this thought is preserved and transmitted are two totally different things. To opt for one or the other or for both can involve tasks which many hands share in varying degrees. It is not necessary that a philosopher formulate and express his philosophy in writing or that someone else gather his statements and give them form for his philosophy to be valid and durable. Moreover, although he transmits it orally he never does so with the same words, even if they are always recognizable anmemorable among all others. Platonic, Hegelian and Scholastic philosophies remain themselves whether we write about them or read the works of their founders. Consider Pyrrho, Socrates, Jesus: oral tradition has sufficed to bring their message down through the centuries to us even though they wrote nothing. Why should it not be the same for the oral philosophical traditions of Africa?

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the lands that are now the United States (the forty-eight contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii), there must have been many hundreds of distinct languages. Fewer than two hundred remain, and the future of these is decidedly insecure, even where the remoteness of the location (in the case of Inuit in Northern Alaska) or the large size of the speech community (in the case of Navajo in the Southwest) might seem to protect the community from language loss. Yet even this vastly reduced reservoir of linguistic diversity constitutes one of the great treasures of humanity, an enormous storehouse of expressive power and profound understandings of the universe. The loss of the hundreds of languages that have already passed into history is an intellectual catastrophe in every way comparable in magnitude to the ecological catastrophe we face today as the earth's tropical forests are swept by fire. Each language still spoken is fundamental to the personal, social and - a key term in the discourse of indigenous peoples - spiritual identity of its speakers. They know that without these languages they would be less than they are, and they are engaged in the most urgent struggles to protect their linguistic heritage. The goal of this paper is to review the contexts and practices of this struggle, in the hope that people everywhere will support it.

Long considered to be institutions outside of time, the temples of India are today the subject of ethno-historical studies that attempt to establish their continuous and recent transformations. Recent monographs, based especially on relationships between the central government and local authorities, reconstruct by periods their medieval, modern and present history, that is the long destiny of constant restructuring over time (Appadurai 1981; Fuller 1984; Reiniche 1989), showing that temples, whether large or small, never ceased being the center of important conflicts between social groups seeking dominance.

The conclusions and recommendations resulting from a number of meetings held in Port Louis, Mauritius (1974); Colombo, Sri Lanka (December, 1978); and Perth, Australia (August, 1979) could serve as authority for the present work. Running through them was a continuity and logic that is stimulating for research, and from them emerged an appeal for the coordination of efforts. From all the evidence, the idea that inspired the meetings was that the countries of the Indian Ocean make up an entity. The consideration of this entity, moreover, had been the guideline for the work of a number of international conferences, among which were the colloquies held in 1962, 1966 and 1972 by the International Commission of Maritime History of the Indian Ocean. The first studied the commercial societies and companies in the Orient and in the Ocean; the second, the joint role of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean in maritime relations; and the third, the movement of populations in the Indian Ocean.

The cult of Zhunti 准提/準提 (Sanskrit: Cundī) is a unique religious and cultural phenomenon in China. However, the scholarship devoted to its history has long been dominated by two problematic models—the model of ‘Sinification’, according to which the goddess Zhunti is a Chinese Buddhist deity borrowed from an Indian source, and the ‘evolution’ model that depicts the persistence of the Zhunti cult as a continuous and gradual process. I challenge these views and instead argue that, far from being a foreign transplant, Zhunti is a deity ‘made in China’ and there is no evidence of continuity in the development of the cult from the Liao to Ming–Qing times. To justify these assertions, I re-examine the development of the cult of Zhunti by exploring its vicissitudes throughout history and highlighting the ‘Chinese creations’ that were produced during the process of the making of the goddess Zhunti.

High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and electron diffraction experiments have been performed on R1 and R> 1 illite/smectite (I/S) samples that from X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) experiments appear to contain well-ordered layer sequences. The HRTEM images confirmed earlier computer image simulations, which suggested that periodicities due to I/S ordering can be imaged in TEM instruments of moderate resolution. The experiments also confirmed that in instruments of this sort, the strongest contrast arising from the compositional difference between I and S layers occurs under rather unusual imaging conditions of strong overfocus. Some selected-area electron diffraction (SAD) patterns showed additional diffraction spots consistent with R1 and R3 ordering. SAD patterns and cross-fringes arising in HRTEM images from non-00l reciprocal lattice rows indicated that the stacking vectors of most adjacent 2:1 layers were not randomly oriented with respect to each other. Thus, the I/S was not fully turbostratic, but instead consisted of very thin, coherently stacked crystallites that extended across the fundamental particles postulated by Nadeau and coworkers.

S/(I + S) ratios were determined for about seventy HRTEM images obtained and interpreted by three different TEM operators. These ratios were consistent with those obtained from standard XRD procedures, suggesting that results obtained by XRD can be used to infer the initial structural state of mixed-layer I/S prior to treatment of samples for XRD experiments. The HRTEM experiments thus demonstrated that the two specimens examined consisted of ordered I/S existing as small crystals, most of which contained more layers than the fundamental particles of Nadeau and coworkers. The non-turbostratic stacking suggests an energetic interaction between the individual fundamental particles, leading to at least two alternative thermodynamic descriptions of these materials. Although the I/S crystals in the present experiments probably were disaggregated into fundamental particles during sample preparation for XRD, the I/S crystals appear to have separated only along the smectite interlayers. If the term “fundamental particle” is to be used for primary, untreated I/S, its original definition should be modified to include not only free particles, but also those that occur as layers within small crystals. It further should be recognized that these particles can interact thermodynamically and crystallographically with their neighbors.

As with any historical study, including that of knowledge and ideas, the progress of the semiology of the theater is subject to periodicity. The aim of any division into periods is to obtain a global view, even at the price of simplifications, but it can also bring out the hidden aspects of the phenomena under study.

The semiology or semiotics of the theater, that is, the application of the idea of sign to the art of the spectacle, has a long past, in which several stages may be distinguished, and first of all those that I would call the presemiology and the protosemiology of the theater.

X-ray powder diffraction studies were performed with propyl-, dodecyl-, and dodecyldiam-monium bentonites saturated with aqueous mixtures of eleven organic pollutants at concentrations of 0.01 to 100%. The alkylammonium salt treatment separated the montmorillonite unit layers, which increased the interlamellar volume and exposed the interlamellar surfaces for adsorption of the organic pollutants. Washing the salt-treated clays with distilled water removed excess, physically adsorbed alkylammonium ions that could interfere with adsorption of the organic pollutants. Adsorption isotherms conducted at organic pollutant concentrations of 100 and 1000 mg/liter indicated the three alkylammonium montmorillonites, especially propylammonium montmorillonite, were effective adsorbents from aqueous solution, but to a lesser extent than adsorbents currently used in the water and wastewater fields.

Ash layers from Searles Lake, California, were sampled in core of drill hole KM-3, which penetrated 693 m of lacustrine sediment deposited in a playa-lake complex over the past 3.2 my. Lake water changed from moderately saline and slightly alkaline (pH ~7.5) to highly saline 2.04 my ago and to highly saline and alkaline (pH ~9.5) 1.28 my ago. As a result of brines flushing downward, the upper 291 m of sediment, spanning the past 1.28 my, contain highly saline, alkaline pore fluid. Silicic ash layers in contact with highly saline, alkaline pore fluid were first altered to phillipsite and meriinoite and then to K-feldspar and searlesite. The transformation of phillipsite and/or meriinoite to K-feldspar required more than 45,000 years and was largely completed in 140,000 years. Tephra layers in contact with moderately saline, slightly alkaline pore fluid vary from uncemented vitric ash containing minor smectite to bentonites in which glass is wholly altered to smectite, clinoptilolite, analcime, and opal. Layers with much fine tephra are more altered than the coarser, better-sorted layers. Alteration is attributed to hydrolysis in essentially a closed hydrologic system, in which the alteration of glass to smectite raised the pH, aSiO2, and (Na+ + K+)/H+ activity ratio to the level where clinoptilolite formed. Some diffusion and/ or fluid flow is, however, indicated by the loss of SiO2 during the alteration of ash layers to smectite and by anhydrite deposited during and after clinoptilolite in some tuffaceous sandstones.

Quaternary debris flows derived from ophiolite melange in northern Southland, New Zealand, are locally cemented and veined by cross-fiber and fine-grained chrysotile. Chrysotile was identified by optical, X-ray powder diffraction, electron microprobe, differential thermal (DTA), and infrared analysis methods. Microprobe and DTA also suggested the presence of as much as 6% of sub-microscopic, noncrystalline alumina, probably in the form of pseudoboehmite. Cavity fillings and irregular veins containing chrysotile are as thick as 40 cm and commonly contain lizardite clasts. Calcite commonly accompanies chrysotile as a vein mineral. Magnetite and pyrite are found near and adjacent to chrysotile veins. These accessory minerals imply that the chrysotile formed under alkaline, reducing conditions. Surface water seepages have pH = 9. Remnant debris-flow topography, Holocene radiocarbon dates, and the absence of hot spring activity confirms that chrysotile can form under near-surface, low-temperature conditions. Growth of chrysotile fibers on a lizardite substrate suggests that the chrysotile formed by solution of detrital lizardite and subsequent precipitation in cavities within the debris flow.

The influence of adsorbed H+, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Ba2+, and Al3+ ions on the wettability of a kaolinite surface was determined from contact angles, which were measured in kaolinite-water drop-air (saturated water vapor) and kaolinite-diiodomethane drop-air systems. From the results and using a modified Young equation, the dispersion and nondispersion components of the free energy of the kaolinite hydrated surface were determined. The dispersion component of all the tested samples was between 32.8 and 38.9 mJ/m2, but the nondispersion component changed almost linearly from 53 to 95.9 mJ/m2 with the change of the entropy of hydration of the adsorbed ions, except for K+ and Ba2+. The latter ions were exceptions, probably due to their large ionic radii.