This book is the first comprehensive overview of Buddhist architecture in North America and provides an analysis of Buddhist architecture and communities. Exploring the arrival of Buddhist architecture in America, the book lays out how Buddhists have expressed their spiritual beliefs in structural form in the United States. The story follows the parallel history of the religion's emergence in the United States since the California Gold Rush to the present day. Conceived of as a general history, the book investigates Buddhist structures with respect to the humanistic qualities associated with Buddhist doctrine and how Buddhist groups promote their faith and values in an American setting. The author's point of view starts from the ground floor of the buildings to move deeper into the space of Buddhist practice, the mind that seeks enlightenment, and the structures that help one to do so. It discusses Buddhist architecture in the United States in a manner consistent with the intensely human context of its use. A unique and ground-breaking analysis, this book adds to the study of Buddhist architecture in America while also addressing the topic of how and why Buddhists use architecture in general. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, architecture, space and place, U.S. history, Asian Studies, and Buddhist Studies. It will also be a valuable addition to the libraries of Buddhist communities across the United States and the world, since many of the observations about Buddhist architecture in the United States may also apply to structures in Europe and Asia.

Fabricated wrought-iron cannons made in 1844 demonstrated the superiority of welding with a hydraulic press instead of forge hammers. Daniel Treadwell in an early example of additive manufacturing welded multiple discs together to make cannon that then required only finishing on a lathe and attaching trunnions. His cannon sustained proof testing what would have quickly destroyed equivalent cast-iron guns. When that same year a large wrought-iron cannon built up from staves and rings by hammer welding exploded during a public demonstration the subsequent investigation by ordnance officers and a committee of the Franklin Institute chose to overlook incomplete welds and blame the failure on deficient iron used to make the gun. Their conclusion shifted blame from those involved to a distant ironmaker. Development of fabricated cannon and continuous pressure welding then passed to England.

From 1822 to 1858, a “perpetual power” system supplied continuous, uniform tidal power to Boston industries. A 2.4 km dam in the Charles River estuary and a shorter cross dam formed two basins. Industries drew water from a “full” basin that was replenished at high tide, passed it through breast wheels, and discharged it to a “receiving” basin that emptied at low tide. Unlike owners of conventional, intermittent tide mills, who sold services or products, the managers of this system sold energy to industrial customers, as modern utilities do. They created new opportunities for Boston’s inventors and artisans, and the roads built on their dams became important transportation links for the city. Yet the project also degraded the estuarine environment and generated complaints about pollution. When population growth and falling costs for steam power made the extensive basins and mill sites more valuable for urban development than for generating renewable energy, a novel earth-moving process filled the basins to form Boston’s prestigious Back Bay district. This little-known, unique tidal-power development overcame daunting technological challenges in a period when American civil engineering was in its infancy.

This chapter analyzes a situation in which ethnic identity was apparently important, namely, during a "tribal fight" that occurred at a Namibian mine compound. It shows how the interface between workers and management, such an emphasis can assist us in understanding ethnic phenomena such as "tribal fights." Two theses are presented and argued. First, in terms of the individual and his awareness context, ethnicity achieves its collective importance only through negation. It is the denial of the moral worth of the other that is the raison d'être of ethnicity. Second, it contends that the "tribal fight" was not a breach of normal and regular behavior; indeed, it was "expected" and wholly consistent with the context and somewhat peculiar class structure at the mine. The relationship between the moral content of the ethnic identity of blacks and the number of blacks being supervised by whites should be noted.

Confocal x-ray fluorescence microscopy (CXRF) allows direct detection of x-ray fluorescence from a micron-scale 3D volume of an extended, unthinned sample. We have previously demonstrated the use of a novel collection optic, fabricated from silicon, that improves the spatial resolution of this approach by an order of magnitude over CXRF using polycapillaries. The optic, called a collimating channel array (CCA), consists of micron-scale, lithographically-fabricated arrays of collimating channels, all directed towards a single source position. Due to the limited absorbing power of silicon, the useful energy range of these optics was limited to fluorescence emission below about 10 keV. Here, we report fabrication of CCAs from germanium substrates, and demonstrate their practical use for CXRF up to 20 keV. Specifically we demonstrate a nearly energy-independent critical spatial resolution $d_R$ of 2.1$\pm$0.17 \um from 2-20 keV, as well as excellent background reduction compared to silicon-based CCAs throughout this energy range. Design details of the optic and background-reduction holder are described. Two versions of the optic are now available upon request at the beamline 20ID-B, Advanced Photon Source (APS) - Argonne National Laboratory.

The atomic structure of ultrathin iron films deposited on the (0001) surface of the topological insulator Bi2Se3 is analyzed by surface x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Iron atoms deposited on a Bi2Se3 (0001) surface kept at 160 K substitute bismuth atoms within the first quintuple layer. Iron atoms are neighbored by six selenium atoms at a distance in the 2.4 angstrom range indicating substantial atomic relaxations. Mild annealing up to 520 K leads to the formation of alpha-FeSe, characterized by a local order extending up to the sixth shell (5.80 angstrom). Ab initio calculations predict a noncollinear magnetic ordering with a transition temperature of 3.5-10 K depending on the iron concentration and the number of the layers in which Fe is located.

The engineering skills taught at the West Point military academy in the midnineteenth century left officers of the US Army's scientific corps ill-prepared for the research they would undertake when assigned to design large castiron cannon and control of floods on the Mississippi River. They succeeded where close observation and qualitative reasoning sufficed; had difficulty where the necessary principles in mechanics, hydrology and geology were not yet in textbooks; and lacked adequate means of testing their designs. Massive amounts of partially analysed data in their reports obscured critical omissions. The river research led to flood control with a levees-only scheme that proved difficult to revise even after disastrous floods. The iron research delayed adoption of steel artillery. A few 20-inch bore cannon were successfully cast for coast defence but could neither be loaded nor trained rapidly enough to be useful weapons.

We report a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) study of crystalline CeB6. Ce Lα1,2 RIXS was measured with excitation energies resonant with the Ce L3-edge. A lifetime-broadening suppressed x-ray absorption near-edge structure (LBS-XANES), which successfully reproduced the Lα1,2 RIXS spectra over wide ranges of excitation and emission energies, was simulated using the SIM-RIXS program. A pre-edge structure in the LBS-XANES can be resolved, and many-body effects were suggested in the Lα1,2 RIXS around the Ce L3-edge energy. No convincing signs of Ce (II) or Ce (IV) states were observed in the LBS-XANES. Ce Lγ4 RIXS was measured at 302 K and 28 K with excitation energies across the Ce L1-edge. The interactions of p-valence electrons between Ce and B6 were found to be considerably small, regardless of temperature. Thus, the electronic state of CeB6 was concluded to be suitably described as a nominally Ce(4f 1)3+(e−)(B6)2− system with some hybridization among all valence orbitals of Ce and B.

26 Cerium L3 absorption edge (L3 – edge) X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) 27 spectra were obtained from ~7 x 5 μm areas on green titanite and brown titanite (both with total 28 Ce ~ 0.6 wt.%) using the X-ray microprobe at the Pacific Northwest Consortium – X-ray Science 29 Division (PNC-XSD) Insertion Device (ID) line of the Advanced Photon Source (APS). Using a 30 8/29

Cerium L-3 absorption edge (L-3-edge) X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectra were obtained from similar to 7 x 5 mu m areas on green titanite and brown titanite (both with total Ce similar to 0.6 wt%) using the X-ray microprobe at the Pacific Northwest Consortium-X-ray Science Division (PNC-XSD) Insertion Device (ID) line of the Advanced Photon Source (APS). Using a wavelength-dispersive X-ray (WDX) fluorescence detector with a bent LiF (220) crystal monochromator (E/Delta E similar to 1000), we have overcome the challenge of having to measure trace amounts of Ce in a Ti-rich sample of which the energy of the fluorescence X-rays from Ce L-3-edge and Ti K-edge excitation cannot be resolved with solid-state detectors. We show that both Ce3+ and Ce4+ are present in our titanite samples by examining the Ce L-3-edge XANES spectra.Our results show that to correctly determine trace element substitution mechanisms in titanite (and other minerals), it is necessary to determine multivalent element concentrations, including Ce3+/Ce4+. We present a new approach for predicting and evaluating multivalent trace element substitution in titanite and other minerals.

Heavily corroded metal artifacts recovered from the site of an 18th-century steel cementation furnace in Trenton, New Jersey, are cast iron altered by internal oxidation. The progress of the internal oxidation process was followed by comparison with the microstructure of cast iron exposed to high temperature in a wood-burning fireplace. The graphite flake structure of the cast iron allows deep, rapid penetration of oxygen that reacts at the iron–carbon interfaces within the iron to form iron oxides that eventually replace the graphite flakes. Microprobe analyses show that the silicon in the cast iron is converted to knebelite that also serves as the host for phosphorus. Sulfur dispersed in the internal oxidation product and porosity appear to be responsible for rapid rusting of the artifacts. Internal nitriding accompanies the oxidation. The Trenton artifacts are interpreted as grate bars from the fire box of a cementation furnace.

Reviewed by: Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley Robert B. Gordon (bio) Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley. By Robert Forrant. Amityville, N.Y.: Braywood, 2008. Pp. x+201. $38.95. From the early decades of the nineteenth century through the 1950s, manufacturing industries that relied on a community of skilled artisans flourished in the Connecticut Valley, the region between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Vermont. Here were found firms such as Winchester and Colt that still have immediate name recognition, as well as less-well-known companies, such as Jones & Lamson or Van Norman, which supplied vital machine tools for American industry. In the decades following 1960, most of these industries declined or departed. The well-paying jobs and community support they provided withered. Innovative tool-making companies, started by talented engineers, passed through second- or third-generation family members and then to absentee owners. The city of Springfield, Massachusetts, was particularly hard hit, first by the closure of the federal government's Springfield Amory and then the departure of most of its other precision manufacturers. A depleted tax base led to urban decay and eventually forced state-appointed managers to take over the city government. Robert Forrant gives us an account of these events as seen by a former union business agent at one of the Valley firms, American Bosch, a maker of sophisticated products for the automobile industry. While he focuses on the death struggles of American Bosch, he also describes the fate of other Valley industries, large and small, and the problems faced by their displaced workers. The foreword to Metal Fatigue announces that it is a story "of greed, of malfeasance, and stupidity." In this spirit, Forrant draws most of his actors in black (managers) and white (union members). Managers closed or moved manufacturing elsewhere to enhance shareholder profits while unions filed grievances and called strikes to keep not only jobs, but jobs that preserved the union shop with it rules of seniority, checkoff, and customary practices. This is as far as Forrant goes in looking for causes of the demise of the Valley's machine-tool and precision metalworking industries. Readers will have to turn elsewhere for the many complex factors, beyond managerial malfeasance, that led to the decline of precision manufacturing in New England. Valley industries were burdened by high energy costs, decayed transportation facilities, often-corrupt municipal governments, obsolete plants, dysfunctional school systems, and urban crime, to name some of the chief factors in their demise. Some of these problems originated as unintended consequences of policies of the federal government: for example, when American Bosch moved south it was the beneficiary of cheap TVA power. Welcoming, corruption-free local governments were an attraction. Workers who did not insist on customary practices and rigid job descriptions adapted more easily to new manufacturing techniques. The old, multistory [End Page 206] factory buildings in the Valley lacked the floor-loading capacity needed for new machinery, and were difficult to bring up to new OSHA workplace requirements. New England industries once were served by an excellent rail network. It didn't survive federal subsidization of motor-vehicle transportation, rapacious local taxes, and unsustainable union work rules. Untreated industrial wastes that had passed into streams and landfills for decades had to be cleaned up. Emission controls were hard to install in older plants. All of these issues deserve examination in a story of the Valley industries. In the 1960s Valley machine-tool artisans and entrepreneurs faced a true technical revolution in numerical-control techniques. They dithered while Germans and Japanese, who had had their industrial slates wiped clean by war and aid from the United States, took over New England's preeminent place as machine-tool makers. One is reminded of the eighteenth-century French innovators who created the then-revolutionary technique of manufacturing mechanisms with interchangeable parts. French artisans and entrepreneurs wanted no change in their traditional way of working; they blocked adoption of this technique in their country. Transferred to New England, which in 1800 had no established ways of working or customary practices, the new technique throve and...

The oxidation state and local geometry of the metal centers in amorphous thin films of Fe2O3 (Fe3+ oxidation state), CoFe2O4 (Co2+/Fe3+ oxidation states), and Cr2O3 (Cr3+ oxidation state) are determined using K edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy. The metal oxide thin films were prepared by the solid-state photochemical decomposition of the relevant metal 2-ethylhexanoates, spin cast as thin films. No peaks are observed in the X-ray diffraction patterns, indicating the metal oxides are X-ray amorphous. The oxidation state of the metals is determined from the edge position of the K absorption edges, and in the case of iron-containing samples, an analysis of the pre-edge peaks. In all cases, the EXAFS analysis indicates the first coordination shell consists of oxygen atoms in an octahedral geometry, with a second shell consisting of metals. No higher shells are observed beyond 3.5Å for all samples, indicating the metal oxides are truly amorphous, consistent with X-ray diffraction results.

Reviewed by: Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century Robert B. Gordon (bio) Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century. By Chris Evans and Göran Rydén. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Pp. xv+359. $148. Throughout the eighteenth century, iron flowed from Sweden and Russia to England and, in manufactured goods, onward to Africa and America. Colonial iron made the return journey to England. This commodity chain was entwined with government policies; technological innovations; new organizations of work at furnaces, forges, and factories; natural resource depletion; and environmental change. It engendered basic research in chemistry that finally elucidated the composition of cast iron and steel. Over many decades scholars have analyzed the individual components of the Atlantic iron commodity chain in detail. Chris Evans and Göran Rydén examine not only the chain's components but, for the first time, the entire chain as a system. British iron production faced growing demand but encountered a fuel barrier set by the woodland regrowth rate. Swedish imports made up the shortfall until a trade embargo cut off this supply in 1717. In response, British merchants capitalized a new iron industry in the North American colonies that in a few decades would become a major component of the Atlantic commodity chain. Additionally, an opening was created for Russia to apply its policy of European engagement by initiating iron smelting in the Urals with furnaces and forges manned by serfs, and with its product shipped via the newly constructed port of Saint Petersburg. Ironmaking had been a Swedish national industry since the thirteenth century, with [End Page 756] government regulation to assure quality and thereby protect the product's reputation on the international market. When the Swedish attempt to establish a colony in North America came to naught, its ironmasters turned to full exploitation of their nation's internal capabilities. Sweden had a unique resource in the low-phosphorous ore from the Dannemora mine. With this ore and carefully developed, nationally regulated forge practice, Swedish ironmasters made iron prized for its toughness and its unique suitability for conversion to steel. Although Sweden had large forest resources of wood suitable for coaling, the government regulated production at each forge to the limit of its available wood supply. British merchants in London and Bristol together with their agents in the Baltic strove to balance the inflow of bar iron with the production rate of domestic and trade goods. Successive perturbations in different components of this complex, multinational flow repeatedly threatened to put the whole system out of balance. When the Africans who supplied newly captured slaves to European traders required that the iron they received, socalled voyage iron, be made to strict specifications of size and finish, Bristol merchants had to convince their Swedish suppliers—who in turn had to convince their hammer men—to make a product that they disliked, and that did not fit comfortably into their traditional way of working. Then, in the 1780s, the success of Henry Cort's puddling process in making tough iron with mineral coal fuel rather suddenly curtailed the demand for Swedish Dannemora iron for uses other than conversion to steel. The subsequent need to adapt to new markets led Swedish scientists Torbern Bergman and Sven Rinman into basic research in the metallurgy of iron that was intended to make the national product again competitive on the Atlantic market. Evans, with expertise in the primary documentary sources for eighteenth-century British ironmaking, and Rydén, knowledgeable on Swedish ironmaking literature and history, have collaborated to produce a study that would have been difficult for either to do on his own. They give those of us who do not read Swedish access to material we could not otherwise study. Their research in primary sources has been very extensive. They enhance their presentation with several case studies that take the reader to the slaving ports of Africa; to Charleston, South Carolina; to the manufacturing districts of Birmingham; and on to the forges in rural Sweden. The text is fully documented and there is an extensive bibliography. Non-specialist readers will welcome the glossary, color illustrations, and the biographical sketches in the dramatis personae...

There are many challenges associated with collecting, processing, and interpreting high-energy XAS data. The most significant of these are broad spectra, minimal separation of edge positions, and high background owing to the Compton tail. Studies of the Sb system are a particular challenge owing to its complex bonding character and formation of mixed oxidation-state minerals. Furthermore, in environmental samples such as stream sediment containing mine waste, different Sb phases may coexist. Ways to overcome these challenges and achieve accurate and useful information are presented. Our investigations used Sb K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) to elucidate Sb geochemical behavior. Several Sb mineral spectra are presented, including Sb sulfosalts, and contrasted based on the different hosting and coordination environments around the Sb atom in the crystal structure. These comparisons lead to the recognition of how the different hosting and coordination environments are manifested in the shape of the Sb mineral spectra. In fact from the shape of the spectra, the occupation of the Sb atom in a single or in multiple crystallographic sites, regardless of whether multiple phases are present in the sample, is discernible. Furthermore, we demonstrate that quantitative information can be derived from the XANES region using linear combination fitting of the derivative spectra, rather than the energy spectra. Particularly useful to the advancement of Sb research is the demonstration that a significant amount of information can be gained from the Sb K-edge XANES region.

Reviewed by: Brunel: In Love with the Impossible Robert B. Gordon (bio) Brunel: In Love with the Impossible. Edited by Andrew Kelly and Melanie Kelly. Reston, Va.: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2006. Pp. 367. $65. Participants in the BBC's recent poll to name the "greatest Briton" placed Isambard K. Brunel second only to Winston Churchill. Although publicity surrounding the 2006 bicentenary of Brunel's birth probably helped, this choice may surprise readers of T&C who are aware of the public's general lack of interest in the history of technology. We owe this beautifully produced [End Page 467] and illustrated book celebrating Brunel's achievements to his bicentennial and to the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership. The association of Bristol with Brunel arises through his projects at that city: the Great Western Railway, the Clifton bridge, the city docks, and the steamships Great Western and Great Britain. The return of the Great Britain to Bristol in 1970 was a key factor in the city's revitalization. The essays edited by Andrew and Melanie Kelly range widely over Brunel's biography, his engineering projects, and the social and cultural context in which he worked. They are supported by endnotes, timelines, and basic biographical information about key individuals appearing throughout the book. The principal subject of each essay is supplemented by short accounts of related topics. Appended to the essay on the Clifton bridge, for example, are explanations of the 1831 Bristol riots (which terminated the initial construction effort), the Hungerford bridge in London (to which Brunel turned next), and the Egyptian revival in architecture (the style Brunel intended for the Clifton bridge towers). Essayists such as Angus Buchanan and Christine MacLeod will be familiar to readers of T&C. Among the others are art historians, railway experts, and museum curators. Some essays tell familiar stories—the engineering exploits of Isambard's father, Marc (known particularly for the Portsmouth block mill and Thames tunnel), Isambard's design of the Royal Albert bridge, the building of the Great Eastern, and the Bristol projects mentioned above are recounted. Others tell of lesser-known accomplishments such as his design of prefabricated hospital buildings used during the Crimean War by Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. The essays that place Brunel's work in context take the reader beyond standard engineering histories. MacLeod examines how engineers became cultural heroes, temporarily eclipsing politicians and writers in mid-nineteenth century Britain. Michael Bailey describes Brunel's colleagues in the engineering profession. Marcus Waithe explores the antimodernism expressed in John Ruskin's opposition to railways in general, and to their penetration of the Lake District in particular. Other essays touch social issues current in Bristol during Brunel's time, such as the ownership of ships engaged in the triangle trade or the impact of the electric telegraph. Adrian Vaughan's essay reminds us that the work of the great engineer depended on many others, including the investors who raised the capital for large projects, surveyors who actually laid out routes, office staff, resident engineers burdened with great responsibilities, and the navvies and contractors who did the physical labor. Conventional history, abetted by hagiographers, has obscured the work of these other contributors under the name of the principal engineer. Sorting out the contributions made by the principal and all others to the overall project is rarely undertaken in histories of nineteenth century engineering even though writers are now less likely simply to portray the "great man" as genius struggling against disbelief by the unimaginative. [End Page 468] The work of many subordinates undoubtedly was incorporated in final products credited to Brunel, or to any of the other great engineers of the day. A topic not touched on here concerns Brunel's possible dependence on contemporary research, such as that on the strength of materials and engineering mechanics conducted by William Fairbairn and Eaton Hodgkinson. While numerous pages from Brunel's work and calculation books are reproduced, their content is not examined in the text. Brunel gave Britain an enduring engineering heritage. But the broad gauge he used for the Great Western Railway did not prevail as standard against the width of the tracks in George Stephenson's coal mine...