Manganese (Mn) oxides are among the most reactive minerals in the earth's surface environment, and play a significant role in adsorption, co-precipitation and redox reactions, affecting biogeochemical cycles of numerous nutrients and contaminants. In addition, manganese oxides are widely applied as absorbents, ion sieves, chemical oxidants and catalysts for environmental remediation and pollution control. There are, however, still many aspects poorly understood in terms of the environmental geochemistry of manganese oxides, such as biogenic formation mechanisms, detailed crystal structure of nanocrystalline phases, electron transfer paths in redox reactions, adsorption mechanisms of contaminants on surfaces, physiochemical factors controlling the contents of structural Mn(III) and vacant sites that largely determine Mn oxide reactivity, and the role of Mn(III) in the above processes. This book aims to bring together advances on manganese oxide environmental biogeochemistry from leading scientists in multiple disciplines, e.g., mineralogy, geochemistry, soil science and environmental engineering. A number of frontier research topics are included in the book, such as in-situ characterization of Mn oxide reactivity with As and Cr, kinetics and molecular-scale mechanisms of metal oxidation by mangnese oxides, mechanistic understanding of metal sorption through density function theory, the role of surface edge sites of birnessites in metal(loid) sorption, reactivity of natural crytomelane, pathways of phyllomanganate transformation to todorokite, water-oxidation catalysis by manganese oxides, in situ As immobilization using stabilized Fe-Mn binary oxides, and synthesis of Li ion-sieves from biogenic oxides and stability of colloidal Mn oxides. The book should be of interest to scientists and engineers in a broad range of disciplines, such as geochemistry, soil science, mineralogy, microbiology, materials science, and environment engineering, as well as graduate students who are engaged in research on manganese oxide biogeochemistry and the engineering application of Mn-bearing materials.

This book examines minban teacher policies and their implementation in China between 1949 and 2000, when rural areas were in severe shortage of qualified teachers. During this period of time, minban teachers made great contributions to education, doing the same work as state-employed school teachers while receiving much lower salaries due to non-official status. With solid fieldwork on oral history of minban teachers and policy actors and deep examination of a wealth of policy documents in private and governmental archives, the author records the life history of minban teachers, the process of minban teacher policies, and the interaction between policies and individual strategies in M county (pseudonym), located in northern Jiangsu province of China. The book reveals many interesting and sometimes surprising findings about the characteristics of educational policy implementation in China. While China’s minban teacher policies have come to an end, rural education continues to be a major concern of policymakers and researchers alike. The book is an important piece of scholarship for the readers interested in rural education in China, and in how state, society, and culture interact to influence teacher policies and management in the Chinese context.

This book examines minban teacher policies and their implementation in China between 1949 and 2000, when rural areas were in severe shortage of qualified teachers. During this period of time, minban teachers made great contributions to education, doing the same work as state-employed school teachers while receiving much lower salaries due to non-official status. With solid fieldwork on oral history of minban teachers and policy actors and deep examination of a wealth of policy documents in private and governmental archives, the author records the life history of minban teachers, the process of minban teacher policies, and the interaction between policies and individual strategies in M county (pseudonym), located in northern Jiangsu province of China. The book reveals many interesting and sometimes surprising findings about the characteristics of educational policy implementation in China. While China's minban teacher policies have come to an end, rural education continues to be a major concern of policymakers and researchers alike. The book is an important piece of scholarship for the readers interested in rural education in China, and in how state, society, and culture interact to influence teacher policies and management in the Chinese context.