"There is an exciting race going on between these people making these optic switches out of plastic and the people making the optic switches out of crystal, " said Gordon Thomas, a physicist.

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The authors note specifically the work of economist Robert Gordon and journalist Thomas Byrne Edsall.

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However, like Thomas Gordon and George Finlay, who had themselves taken part in the war and from whose sympathetic, exasperated and still highly readable histories Mr Brewer frequently quotes, he presents such episodes as regrettable aberrations in a national liberation struggle.

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked Sir Thomas to look for mistakes made in expenses claims approved by the Commons Fees Office over five years, when the expenses scandal broke in May.

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Barani had been taken to St Thomas' and Gordon hospitals after two previous attempts to enter the palace.

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Last November at Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Thomas Vander Wal and Gordon Ross spoke on What Urban Planning can Teach Social Business Design.

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Sir Thomas, an ascetic former civil servant, was appointed by Gordon Brown, the prime minister, to study every expenses claim for the past five years.

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Others include Gordon Roddick, the widower of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, from the Roddick Foundation, and Thomas Hughes-Hallett, of the Emily Hughes-Hallet Fund and also chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care charity, and Marcelle Speller of Localgiving.com.

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