We don't need to poison the earth in order to grow better food, and what is harmful to the environment when improperly disposed of often can be turned back to the soil in a beneficial way through composting - if you know how. Here's how. Malcolm Beck's Garden-Ville is one of the largest commercial composting operations in the country. He shares his insight into the processes of decay that can transform everything from lawn trimmings to sewer sludge into life-giving earth. Coupled with Beck's insight into nature and practical advice are remarks from Charles Walters, author, founder of Acres U.S.A.

The fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe brought about major socio-political changes towards the end of the 20th century. Dennis Barnett and Arthur Skelton explore the effects these changes had on theatre and performance in Russia, the former Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia, while drawing clear parallels with theatre globally. This fascinating collection of articles describes the various factors contributing to the changes in theatrical performance, including the important move from government control to a capitalist, market-driven environment. The idea of art as business and a consumer product vs. art as a social prerogative or means for national dialogue is a common thread throughout the articles, many of which also look at the role of censorship during the communist era. This collection includes updated reports on vital cultural institutions such as the Moscow Art Theatre, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Sarajevo International Theatre Festival (MESS), and the Hungarian National Theatre Festival at Pecs. Also, a number of important theatre practitioners, directors, and playwrights, such as Boris Eifman, Du?an Kovacevic, Slobodan ?najder, Arpad Goncz, and Yordan Radichkov, are introduced to the Western reader. Organized according to country, the book presents both an inclusive and general overview of the subject-as well as specific in-depth examinations of the situations in each country-and includes a broad variety of perspectives: from native scholars to outside researchers, from personal memoirs to academic inquiries. The volume concludes with a bibliography, an index, and five informative appendixes listing works of some of the artists and companies discussed.

Die Anwendung von Ultraschall zur Diagnose krankhafter Veranderungen hat in der gesamten Medizin in den letzten Jahrzehnten eine zunehmende Be- deutung erlangt. Etwas zogernd beginnt auch unser Fach, diese Moglichkeit zu nutzen. So wurde seit 1973 an der Freiburger Hals-Nasen-Ohrenklinik dank der Initiative von Herrn Prof. Dr. W.J. MANN die Ultraschalldiagnostik von Erkrankungen der Nasennebenhohlen erarbeitet. Dabei war natiirlich zunachst die Frage nach der Notwendigkeit einer neuen diagnostischen Methode zu diskutieren. Gibt es doch schon lange bewahrte Standardverfahren wie die Rhinoskopie, die Rontgenuntersuchung, die Probespiilung und die Endosko- fUr pie. Unsere Erfahrungen haben nun gezeigt, daB die Ultrasonographie die Erkennung von Erkrankungen der Nasennebenhohlen eine Bereicherung unserer diagnostischen Hilfsmittel darstellt. Hier ist die Domane des A-Scan. Daneben hat in letzter Zeit die Ultraschalldiagnostik in unserem Fach eine Erganzung durch die Anwendung des B-Scan erfahren. Diese Methode ist vor allem zur Untersuchung im Bereich der Parotis und der Halsweichteile geeignet.

On the threshold of starvation when the potato blight hits Cornwall, Jane Dunstan decides to rescue her family from desperate poverty and her husband, Richard, from the dreadful conditions in the mines. She successfully applies for a 'free passage' to migrate to South Australia with their seven children aged from one to twelve. After suffering appalling living conditions in the cramped steerage quarters of the ship and the challenges of the sea during the three-month journey the family, on arrival in South Australia in 1849, travel 100 miles north of Adelaide by bullock wagon to the Burra copper mines. At Burra they live in an underground dugout in the banks of the Burra Creek and Richard, with his three eldest boys, works in the mine. For Jane, it's a dramatic time, with floods, a new baby born underground and the tragic loss of her husband and two daughters. On the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851, Jane hires a bullock dray and driver to take her remaining six children on a courageous six-week, 350-mile overland trek to the Victorian goldfields.The story describes the difficulties of locating and travelling the trail, the working and the idiosyncrasies of the bullock team and its driver, Red. Jane has to adapt to living in the bush, foraging for bush tucker and dealing with pests and hazards along the way. On arriving at the diggings Jane is horrified by what she sees but ultimately she remarries, has three more children, bringing her total issue to eleven, and eventually finds a measure of peace. A Different Earth is based on the experiences of the author's great-great grandparents, Richard and Jane Dunstan.

A Site Visit is an epic tale of five generations of a family who cross oceans and borders to follow the promise of a better life. As they relocate from a tenement in a small village outside of London, England to a border city in Ontario, Canada and eventually down into the gracious culture of the American South, the hard working members of this family build businesses, accumulate successes and suffer incredible losses. One determined woman emerges to challenge the ties that bind her to the past and restrict her future in order to follow her passion, even when it leads to hardships that risk breaking her spirit.

The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), the defined benefit contribution plan for the US Government, introduced the asset allocation Lifecycle (L) Funds in August 2005. These funds seek to minimize risk and maximize expected portfolio return via mean-variance optimization (MVO). The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and examine the efficiency of the TSP L Funds and create alternative L Fund portfolios via downside risk optimization (DRO). Whereas MVO minimizes the portfolio variance (standard deviation), DRO seeks to minimize the risk below an investor's minimal acceptable return in the market, defined as the Co-Lower Partial Moment (CLPM). The research team compares the TSP and DRO (CLPM) L Fund expected portfolio values at retirement for three typical investors. The expected portfolio values are computed using @Risk software via Monte Carlo simulation of TSP individual fund monthly returns, the L Fund quarterly target allocations, and various investor inputs. The quantitative results and analysis of this evaluation determined that TSP participants realize higher expected portfolio values at retirement by investing into a DRO (CLPM) L Fund versus any of the TSP L Funds. To validate the findings, this thesis compares an investment stream in the L Funds from August 2005 through December 2009.

Long regarded as folklife classics, Henry Charlton Beck's books are vivid re-creations of the back roads, small towns, and legends that give New Jersey its special character. Rutgers university Press is pleased to make these important books available again in newly designed editions.

Composed, for the most part, from sketches that were published in the Courier-Post newspapers of Camden, New Jersey, Beck provides us with a series of stories of towns too tiny or uncertain for today's maps. Together, these sketches help to create a more complete picture of the history of New Jersey. A connecting skein of untold or little known wartime history--the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the conflict of North against South--runs through most of the sketches. Many of the sketches concern the pine towns and their people, ""the pineys"" who lived in the Jersey pine barrens.