Permutations of finite sets play a central role in algebraic and enumerative combinatorics. In addition to having many interesting enumerative properties per se, permutations also arise in almost every area of mathematics and indeed in all the sciences. Here we will discuss three different topics involving permutations, focusing on combinatorics but also giving some hints about connections with...

This article is concerned with problems of comparative research and analysis in industrial relations, and in particular with cross-national comparison of trade unions. Comparison is of both practical and theoretical importance, but is fraught with difficulties, in part because of the paradox involved in attempting to generalise concerning national instances which are in so many respects unique....

Richard Vallee is at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. He received his BA degree from Swarthmore College, where he first majored in chemistry and then biology. In his last semester he was introduced to the new field of cell biology and the then recently identified structures called microtubules. He did his PhD at Yale in protein biophysics, and then began...

It is known that a set of points in 3 dimensions is determined up to projectivity from two views with uncalibrated cameras. It is shown in this paper that this result may be improved by distinguishing between points in front of and behind the camera. Any point that lies in an image must lie in front of the camera producing that image. Using this idea, it is shown that the scene is determined fr...

The topic of hope is currently not very much studied in the social sciences; and this means that the emerging discussion of economy and hope, in sociology and elsewhere, may still benefit from a general discussion of hope. This paper points to some useful reflections on hope that can be found in the religious and philosophical literature. It also attempts to summarize what the social sciences h...

In their systematic presentations of religious philosophy, the Indian Buddhists consistently defended the position that belief in an eternal creator god who superintends his creation and looks after the concerns of his creatures is a distraction from the central task of the religious life. This was clearly the position taken in the early P~i literature and in the Therav~da philosophy based on t...