New Releases by E. Robins

Oil palms are ubiquitous—grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa’s oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil palm agriculture as a panacea to rural development in Southeast Asia and across the tropics. As plantation companies tore into rainforests, evicting farmers in the name of progress, the oil palm continued its rise to dominance, sparking new controversies over trade, land and labor rights, human health, and the environment. By telling the story of the oil palm across multiple centuries and continents, Robins demonstrates how the fruits of an African palm tree became a key commodity in the story of global capitalism, beginning in the eras of slavery and imperialism, persisting through decolonization, and stretching to the present day.

Abstract: "Introduction: From July through September 2015, concurrent and collocated measurements of temperature profiles from two passive radiometers and a RADAR-RASS (Radio Acoustic Sounding System) were made at a site near the ocean just to the west of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). This site is managed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). Temperature profiles for the same time period from NOAA’s Rapid Refresh (RAP) hourly-updated assimilation/modeling system were included in the collection of profile data. For all temperature profiles a standard algorithm was used to convert temperature to dry potential temperature (PT). Data acquired at times when there was precipitation or fog were discarded. Humidity effects were not considered. It is important to note that all sensors were well maintained during the data acquisition period and that the ground based remote temperature profiling instruments involved were not part of data assimilation for RAP. The motivation for this data collection effort was the idea that intercomparisons of the data obtained from the various temperature profiling sources could be used to characterize the variability of potential temperature gradient (PTG) values. It was felt that such a study would be a useful contribution to aircraft wake turbulence R&D because PTG (along with atmospheric turbulence, wind and various aircraft parameters) is identified in the open literature as a key factor in determining the temporal and spatial evolution of wake turbulence. Note that PTG is directly related to atmospheric stability. See Reference List A for studies on temperature profile comparisons (note – At present the authors are not aware of studies on PTG comparisons), and see Reference List B for current literature on how stratification affects trailing vortex evolution. The current effort is focused on PTG comparisons at an altitude of 250m because this level is representative for out of ground effect wake turbulence consideration. An estimate of this quantity may be obtained from the difference between PT measured at approximately 200m and 300m. The observed scatter of PTG intercomparisons can be used as a practical way of quantifying the variability in measurements of PTG at 250m. This information is important for understanding the variability of aircraft wake vortex data as well as for providing bounds on the variability of the environmental data used for wake modeling. This effort is an integral part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s ongoing effort to examine and prototype additional weather based dynamic wake turbulence separation concepts."--PDF cover page.

After a blighted childhood, young Laura finds peace and purpose in the home of a midwife and healer. Later, she enrolls in Salerno's famed medical school-the first in the world to admit women. Laura and her adoptive mother hope that Laura can build a bridge between women's herbal healing and the new science of medicine developing in thirteenth century medieval Italy. The hardest lessons are those of love; Laura falls hard for a fellow student who abandons her for a wealthy wife. Worse, her mother rejects her as "impure." Shattered, Laura devotes herself to her work, becoming a respected medico. But her heart is still bitter, and when she sees a chance for revenge, she grabs it-and takes for her own Bieta, the newborn daughter of a woman whose husband regularly raided the physician's garden for bitter herbs to satisfy his pregnant wife's cravings. Determined to protect her adored daughter from the ravages of the world, Laura isolates the young woman in a tower. Bieta, as determined as her mother, escapes, and finds adventure-and love-on the streets of Salerno. Bieta's betrayal of her mother's love comes at a terrible price as lives are ruined and families are torn apart. Laura's medical knowledge cannot heal her broken heart; only a great act of love can bring everyone forgiveness and peace, in Madeleine E. Robins's imaginative novel set during the Middle Ages, Sold for Endless Rue,

Sarah Tolerance, fallen woman and agent of inquiry, is seeking not a missing trinket or the solution to a crime, but a living person--a young gentlewoman who has vanished from under her wealthy family's roof, apparently bent on a scandalous elopement with a mysterious man whom nobody knows.

The search for a killer takes Miss Sarah Tolerance from the lowest brothels of the seedy Regency London underworld to the Royal Family and a Duke who must hide his perversions or risk the Throne.

Sarah is a "fallen" daughter of the nobility turned investigative agent. She faces danger, intrigue, and romance on the mean streets of Regency London--in the launch of a brilliant new series.

John Tietjen loves New York City like life itself. But while he's out of town at a conference, confused reports come out of the city. Millions of refugees are streaming out, each bearing contradictory tales of fire, earthquake, explosions, collapse. Making his perilous way back, he gathers a few survivors and establishes a shelter. But the full nature of the catastrophe is still unclear. "[Robins] writes with rare conviction."--The New York Times At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Radiowave scintillation in the presence of ionospheric disturbances has the potential to disrupt numerous transionospheric radio and radar systems. This report describes development of a model characterizing the plasma density irregularities that produce scintillation in the naturally disturbed mid latitude F layer. The model will be incorporated into Program WBMOD, which includes subroutines for computing both link geometry and scintillation indices, the latter by means of phase screen diffraction theory. Earlier versions of WBMOD, were based on extensive analysis of scintillation data collected in the auroral and equatorial zones in Wideband Satellite Mission. The model described herein is based on similarly extensive analysis of Wideband data from one mid latitude station and of data collected from HiLat satellite at another mid latitude station. The model describes irregularities at an effective height of 350 km that are isotropic across the geomagnetic field and elongated by a factor of 10 along the field and whose one-dimensional spatial power spectrum obeys a single regime power law with a (negative) spectral index of 1.5. The height-integrated spectral strength of the irregularities is modeled as a function apex latitude of the point. The report highlights a disagreement by a factor of approximately three between irregularity strength inferred from the two satellites in a region of overlap between the two mid-latitude stations.