Stephanie Smith

Many nations around the globe are unable to experience a change in government without violence and bloodshed, but in America a peaceful transition from one presidential administration to the next has always been the case. Regardless of the bitterness surrounding a campaign like the 2000 election, the United States went through no coups or forcible attempts to hinder the change from the Clinton to Bush administrations. While such a state is important to a democracy, and indeed a rarity when compared to the rest of the world, Americans often take for granted the transition process. Behind this stable exterior, though, is a regulated process to ensure the orderly continuation of government. The president-elect has fewer than eleven weeks between election and inauguration, making the need for a defined process clear. Several pieces of legislation have been enacted to oversee all aspects of executive branch workings in anticipation of the new president. This book takes a close look at how the transition process has taken shape and been applied to each administration change since John F Kennedy's election in 1960. Included are presentations and examinations of legislation pertaining to the transition process, the text of the major laws, and general considerations for the presidential transition process. Anyone hoping to understand one of American democracy's most shining characteristics, the peaceful change in governments, needs to be familiar with the material discussed here.

Federal advisory committees are frequently chartered by the Chief Executive, Congress, and agency heads to render independent advice and to make recommendations. This report sets forth definitions and requirements for creating commissions as required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Twelve commissions were created by the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY1999, and are used here to illustrate the various options that are available for creating independent study bodies.

Switched parasitic antennas have recently become of significant interest to professionals in the telecommunications industry. This first-of-its-kind book introduces R&D antenna and communications network engineers to the basic concepts and wide range of potential applications of switched parasitic antennas, including smart antennas for wireless communications. Ths book's clear, detailed discussion of design rules for both wire and patch antenna structures, together with their circuit requirements, gives practitioners the knowledge they need to successfully design and implement low-cost, small, switched parasitic antennas for a variety of uses.

Since the 1960s, many artists have incorporated ecological concerns into their work, an endeavour that has required new strategies in art-making. To explore recent American manifestations of these interests, the David and Alfred Smart Museum commissioned new projects from artists Mark Dion, Peter Fend and Dan Peterman, each focusing on interrelationships between particular organisms - human beings - and a specific group of sites: a museum building, a river landscape, and a university campus. The results, exhibited at the Smart Museum during the summer of 2000, evoke the varied scales, from the microscopic to the global, at which human actions affect the environment. This catalogue documents each of the artists' projects through an array of images and words: Smart Museum associate Stephanie Smith provides an introduction and brief overviews of the three projects, each of the artists contribute statements, and photographers Susan Anderson and Tom van Eynde document - in over 100 images - the processes and projects that comprised the exhibition.