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A von Hámos spectrometer has been implemented in the vacuum interaction chamber 1 of the High Energy Density instrument at the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser facility. This setup is dedicated, but not necessarily limited, to X-ray spectroscopy measurements of samples exposed to static compression using a diamond anvil cell. Si and Ge analyser crystals with different orientations are available for this setup, covering the hard X-ray energy regime with a sub-eV energy resolution. The setup was commissioned by measuring various emission spectra of free-standing metal foils and oxide samples in the energy range between 6 and 11 keV as well as low momentum-transfer inelastic X-ray scattering from a diamond sample. Its capabilities to study samples at extreme pressures and temperatures have been demonstrated by measuring the electronic spin-state changes of (Fe₀.₅Mg₀.₅)O, contained in a diamond anvil cell and pressurized to 100 GPa, via monitoring the Fe Kβ fluorescence with a set of four Si(531) analyser crystals at close to melting temperatures. The efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio of the spectrometer enables valence-to-core emission signals to be studied and single pulse X-ray emission from samples in a diamond anvil cell to be measured, opening new perspectives for spectroscopy in extreme conditions research., Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, 30 (4), ISSN:0909-0495, ISSN:1600-5775

A 3x4 factorial field experiment with a complete randomised split-plot design with four replicates was conducted from June 2002 to March 2003 at the experimental farm of the Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,to determine effects of different harvesting heights (10, 30 and 50 cm above the ground) and cutting intervals (45, 60, 90 and 285 days) on yield of foliage and tubers, and chemical composition of the foliage. Cassava of the variety KM 94 grown in plots of 5 m×10 m at a planting distance of 30 cm×50 cm was hand-harvested according to respective treatments, starting 105 days after planting. Foliage from the control treatment (285 days) and all tubers were only harvested at the final harvest 285 days after planting. Dry matter and crude protein foliage yields increased in all treatments compared to the control. Mean foliage dry matter (DM) and crude protein (CP) yields were 4.57, 3.53, 2.49, and 0.64 tonnes DM ha - 1 and 939, 684, 495 and 123 kg CP ha - 1 with 45, 60, 90 and 285 day cutting intervals, respectively. At harvesting heights of 10, 30 and 50 cm the DM yields were 4.27, 3.67 and 2.65 tonnes ha - 1 and the CP yields were 810, 745 and 564 kg ha - 1 , respectively. The leaf DM proportion was high, ranging from 47 to 65%. The proportion of leaf and petiole increased and the stem decreased with increasing harvesting heights and decreasing cutting intervals. Crude protein content in cassava foliage ranged from 17.7 to 22.6% and was affected by harvesting height and cutting interval. The ADF and NDF contents of foliage varied between 22.6 and 30.2%, and 34.2 and 41.2% of DM, respectively. The fresh tuber yield in the control treatment was 34.5 tonnes ha - 1 . Cutting interval and harvesting height had significant negative effects on tuber yield. The most extreme effect was for the frequent foliage harvesting at 10 cm harvesting height, which reduced the tuber yield by 72%, while the 90 day cutting intervals and 50 cm harvesting height only reduced the yield by 7%. The mean fresh tuber yield decreased by 56, 45 and 27% in total when the foliage was harvested at 45, 60 and 90 day cutting intervals, respectively. It is concluded that the clear effects on quantity and quality of foliage and the effect on tuber yield allow alternative foliage harvesting principles depending on the need of fodder for animals, value of tubers and harvesting cost. An initial foliage harvest 105 days after planting and later harvests with 90 days intervals at 50 cm harvesting height increased the foliage DM and CP yield threefold, but showed only marginal negative effect on tuber yield.

In the Life of Johnson, Boswell suggests that Rasselas echoes the vanitas vanitatum theme of Ecclesiastes. Boswell's suggestion is quite discerning, for Rasselas is, in fact, designed to recall both the Preacher's futile quest for perfect happiness and the meaning of that quest as interpreted by a post-Reformation school of commentators on Ecclesiastes. This school includes Bishop Simon Patrick, whose scriptural writings, in conjunction with those of William Lowth, made up the “standard” Augustan commentary on the Old Testament. Rasselas is informed with a complex of images, sentiments, and ideas drawn from Bishop Patrick's paraphrase of and annotations to the Book of Ecclesiastes, and the thematic structure of the apologue follows the thematic structure that the post-Reformation school attributed to Ecclesiastes.

The success of smollett's Humphry Clinker has been attributed largely to the novel's central character, the misanthropic sentimentalist from Wales, Matthew Bramble. In Matt Bramble, Smollett finally created an acceptable, nonmalicious satirist who could express benevolently and yet virulently the satire he had been striving to write in his earlier novels. Matt's misanthropy, which evokes from him the invective of the traditional railing satirist, derives from several interrelated causes. In the first place, Matt is a valetudinarian who has not dwelt in the busy haunts of men “within these last thirty years.” Matt often appears as somewhat of a querulus laudator temporis acti, even though he wishes to deny it. He admits that the “rotten parts of human nature” have probably always existed, but his sudden reappearance into the world suggests to him that mankind has “contracted an extraordinary degree of depravity” since his youth. In the second place, Matt suffers physically from the gout and the spleen, so that, as his nephew, Jery, writes, “his peevishness arises partly from bodily pain, and partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility” (xi, 20). Matt is, then, in part an eighteenth-century splenetic humorist whose misanthropy can be traced medically to the humorous melancholy cynics and misanthropes of the Renaissance character-books and Stuart drama. In Con-greve's words, the “character of a splenetic and peevish Humour” displays itself in a “satirical wit.”

BOSWELL S Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides has long overshadowed Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Boswell's account of the famous tour he and Johnson made in the late summer of 1773 enjoys this preference largely because it focuses primarily on Johnson rather than on the tour itself. The Journey, however, possesses far more interest and artistic complexity than at first appears, and lately it has begun to attract serious critical and scholarly attention.' At one level the Journey offers a straightforward sociological analysis of the Highlands.* But at the same time this analysis evaluates what it describes, indirectly exhorting the Highlands to emerge from their "barbarous" state to a level of culture that will unite them with the comity of "civilized" nations.2 Johnson prepares for this theme of cultural development at the very point he concludes his brief survey of the Lowlands. Complimenting their cultural achievement, he observes, "Since. . . [the Lowlanders] have known