bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Semantics as Measurement
Authors: Ball Derek
Published: August 2018

This chapter defends a view of semantics on which developing a semantic theory closely resembles developing a scale of measurement. The view helps explain how semantics has made so much progress despite deep disagreements about the target of semantic theorizing (e.g., between those who maintain that semantics is characterizing something psychological, and those who maintain that it is characterizing something social), how appeals to set-theoretic abstracta make sense despite Benacerraf-style worries and despite the fact that set-theoretic entities fit badly with standard (e.g., causal) metasemantic views, and why the threat of radical context sensitivity does not undermine the semantic project.
Nutrient Cycling and Energy Flow in Grasslands
Authors: Wilsey Brian J.
Published: August 2018

Net primary productivity (NPP) is the amount of C or biomass that accumulates over time and is photosynthesis—autotroph respiration. Annual NPP is estimated by summing positive biomass increments across time periods during the growing season, including offtake to herbivores, which can be high in grasslands. Remote sensing techniques that are used to assess NPP are discussed by the author. Belowground productivity can be high in grasslands, and it is important to carbon storage. Across grasslands on a geographic scale, NPP, N mineralization, and soil organic C all increase with annual precipitation. Within regions, NPP can be strongly affected by the proportion of C4 plant species and animal species composition and diversity. Humans are adding more N to the environment than all the natural forms of addition (fixation and lightning) combined. Animals, especially herbivores, can have strong effects on how plants respond to changes in changes in resource availability.
Pejoratives as Fiction
Authors: Hom Christopher , May Robert
Published: August 2018

Fictional terms have null extensions, and in this regard pejorative terms are a species of fictional term: although there are Jews, there are no kikes. The central consequence of the Moral and Semantic Innocence (MSI) view of Hom and May (2013) is that for pejoratives, null extensionality is the semantic realization of the moral fact that no one ought to be the target of negative moral evaluation solely in virtue of their group membership. In having null extensions, pejorative terms are much like mythological terms like “unicorn horn” that express concepts with empty extensions: people who believed the mythology were misled into thinking that ordinary objects (i.e., whale tusks) were magical objects, and pejorative terms work likewise. In this chapter, the consequences of this parallelism are explored, with an eye to criticisms of MSI. The chapter concludes with meta-semantic reflections on the nature of word meanings.
Introduction
Authors: Wolf E. L.
Published: August 2018

An introduction to long-term climate-neutral energy makes clear that most arises from the Sun or the motions of the Sun-Earth system. Quantum physics is an essential part of understanding the Sun’s energy source, nuclear fusion. The expected depletion times of oil and other fossil fuels are discussed. The most recent 500,000 years of Earth temperature and sea level are surveyed and shown to correlate closely with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Sea level and temperature are correlated and move together on time scales of five thousand years. The definition of sustainable energy, the topic of this textbook, is very straightforward. This is the energy that will be available on (after) a timescale set by the earliest benchmarks of our civilization, let us say the timescale of the earliest pyramids or the Chinese Wall, visible from space.
Fusion Energy Technology on Earth
Authors: Wolf E. L.
Published: August 2018

Deuterium fusion in a small field-ionization device is described. The small rate of deuterium fusion observed in the deuterium-muon version of the hydrogen molecule-ion is discussed. A simplified description is offered of the tokamak reactor filled with deuterium or deuterium-tritium molecular gases. The potential power output of such devices, neglecting any role of plasma instabilities, is estimated roughly by scaling in temperature and density the formula for fusion in the Sun’s core provided in Chapter 4. If it can be achieved, deuteron fusion would qualify as a renewable energy process given the large supply of deuterons in the sea. In this Chapter we build upon what we learned about fusion in the Sun with the hope of applying the same process on Earth.
Energy Storage, Distribution, Use and Climate Impact
Authors: Wolf E. L.
Published: August 2018

The large-scale energy grid often comprises both AC and DC transmission lines. DC transmission at ultrahigh voltages is more efficient, but consumers need AC at lower voltage so that AC/DC conversion stations are key elements. In modern conversion stations large silicon thyristors are key devices. Energy storage in pumped-hydro installations can be supplemented by compressed air storage. Thermal plants can store energy in molten salts to provide continuous power for consumers. Battery technology is expensive at grid scale but is expanding. The possibility of carbon capture at power plants is discussed. Energy in this chapter is assumed to be electrical energy, with a large portion devoted to the electric grid.
An overview of sleep–wake circuitry
Authors: Venner Anne , Fuller Patrick M.
Published: August 2018

How and when we wake and sleep are under the control of incredibly complex neural circuitry, consisting of neuronal populations (or nodes), neurotransmitters, and pathways that form orchestrated wake- or sleep-promoting networks. When any aspect of this neural circuitry is impaired (e.g. disease) or altered by external factors (e.g. stress), sleep and wake can be disrupted, sometimes quite profoundly. As one example, selective loss of orexin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus results in the sleep disorder narcolepsy. While our understanding of how discrete circuit elements in the brain work together to regulate wake and sleep remains incomplete, the relatively recent development of genetically driven tools and techniques has enabled a far more detailed understanding of the functional and structural basis of this circuitry. In this chapter, we review the current state of our understanding of the brain circuitry regulating sleep and wake, including how disruption of discrete circuit elements underlies a myriad of sleep- and wake-disorders.
Sleep in western culture
Authors: Ekirch Roger
Published: August 2018

Although a universal necessity, sleep, as the past powerfully indicates, is not a biological constant. Before the Industrial Revolution, sleep in western households differed in a variety of respects from that of today. Arising chiefly from a dearth of artificial illumination, the predominant form of sleep was segmented, consisting of two intervals of roughly 3 hours apiece bridged by up to an hour or so of wakefulness. Notwithstanding steps taken by families to preserve the tranquillity of their slumber, the quality of pre-industrial sleep was poor, owing to illness, anxiety, and environmental vexations. Large portions of the labouring population almost certainly suffered from sleep deprivation. Despite the prevalence of sleep-onset insomnia, awakening in the middle of the night was thought normal. Not until the turn of the nineteenth century and sleep’s consolidation did physicians view segmented sleep as a disorder requiring medication.
Sleep and shift work
Authors: Axelsson John , Sallinen Mikael , Sundelin Tina , Kecklund Göran
Published: August 2018

The rapid development of modern society has resulted in a growing population of workers that have to work around the clock. However, working at different times comes at a cost. Night work is related to short sleep, increased fatigue, falling asleep at work, worse performance, and increased risk for injuries and accidents. Early morning work is also affected, but to a lesser extent. Working shifts can carry long-term health consequences such as an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease, endocrine and metabolic disturbances, cancer, and gastrointestinal disorders. However, the evidence is far from immaculate and there is a need for studies with better measures of exposure and more knowledge regarding why there are such large individual differences in tolerance to shift work. In addition, the negative consequences of shift work can be reduced by both organizational and individual countermeasures. The interactive effects of combining several countermeasures seem especially promising.
Sleep, work hours, and medical performance
Authors: Rosenbluth Glenn , Landrigan Christopher P.
Published: August 2018

Physicians are among the few professionals who are expected to work extended duty shifts of 24 hours or more, often with little opportunity for rest. The physiological factors regulating sleepiness, including circadian rhythms, sleep homeostasis, and sleep inertia, are pushed to their limits when meeting the demands of training programmes and patient care. Sleep-deprived physicians experience reduced clinical performance and vigilance, putting patients at risk. Tired physicians are more likely to make both cognitive errors (e.g. diagnostic reasoning) and technical errors (e.g. surgical complications). Over recent decades, regulations have promulgated that limit physician hours in Europe and the United States. Studies of their impact have generally shown improvements in patient and physician outcomes, though have also revealed concerns about education and training which must also be addressed. As medicine evolves to meet our 24-hour on-demand society, physicians and patients will need to embrace new approaches to high-quality and safe care delivery.
Adolescent sleep and later school start times
Authors: Wolfson Amy R. , Ziporyn Terra
Published: August 2018

Early school bell times incompatible with adolescent sleep needs and patterns are a major contributor to widespread adolescent sleep insufficiency. Biological delay in sleep onset and social pressures during puberty, combined with the need to arise early on weekdays, make obtaining adequate and optimally timed sleep difficult for most adolescents, potentially impacting physical and emotional wellbeing, safety, and academic performance. Accumulating studies demonstrate that delaying school start times can effectively counter chronic insufficient sleep in adolescents, as well as enhance health, safety, and school success. That many secondary schools continue requiring attendance at times incompatible with healthy sleep suggests that empirical data have played a smaller role in influencing school hours than social and political factors. Overcoming the fear of change, failure of imagination, and ignorance about sleep currently blocking policy changes will require reframing school start times as a public health issue by shifting social norms about sleep.
The Two World Wars and Social Policy in France
Authors: Smith Timothy B.
Published: August 2018

This chapter traces the expansion of the French welfare state prompted by the two world wars. During World War I, local-level interventionism grew massively in areas such as hospitals, but also in unemployment assistance and housing. As pronatalism fuelled many reform efforts in the interwar years, national social policy became more important, closely connected to military motivations, and social insurance legislation was introduced with broad political support. The Vichy regime continued in a broadly expansionary direction, but it was only after liberation that a certain idea of statism, unique to France, was institutionalized. The Fourth Republic’s foundational myth revolved around the welfare state and social security coverage was extended, albeit in a fragmented manner.
Wars, Nation, and the Welfare State in Finland
Authors: Kettunen Pauli
Published: August 2018

In public constructions of the national past in Finland, two major themes currently predominate: the wars of the twentieth century, including the Civil War of 1918 and the wars against the Soviet Union during World War II, and the making of a Nordic welfare state. The chapter takes the current intertwining of these national narratives as a point of departure for analysing the social policy role of wars in Finland. It examines direct and indirect impacts of experienced or anticipated wars, short-term and long-term social policy measures and outcomes, and institutional continuities and discontinuities. The paper discusses the ways wars have shaped the notion of national agency as a framework of social policies, and identifies multi-layered historical legacies of wars in the making of the welfare state post-World War II.
Marina Warner
Authors: Cox Fiona
Published: August 2018

Marina Warner is one of Ovid’s best-known and significant critics, and his influence on her work is evident not only in her works of cultural history, such as Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds (2002), but also in her novels. The Leto Bundle (2001) is a novel that retells the Ovidian myth of Leto, showing it in different lights across the centuries, but throughout using it as a means of examining homelessness and the plight of refugees. Warner also pays careful attention to questioning the ways in which the past is packaged for us in the modern world, by evoking the world of museums, and the concerns and practices of those who work in them. Through her fiction Warner asks us to re-evaluate our relationship to the past, and the ways in which that past is transmitted and to whom.
Alice Oswald
Authors: Cox Fiona
Published: August 2018

While Alice Oswald’s most famous response to the ancient world is her acclaimed Memorial, in which she revisits Homer’s Iliad, much of her earlier work betrays her deep engagement with the classical world, reminding us of the fact that she holds a degree in Classics from Oxford. In particular, her book-length poem Dart (2002) is both an evocation of the Devonian landscape through which the river Dart travels and a biography of the river. Oswald borrows Ovid’s device of personifying rivers and allowing them their own voice or voices, while also drawing on a series of Ovidian myths in her depiction of the region. In her musings on the life of the river today, Oswald examines what impact global warming, pollution, and cheap labour might have on the river’s future.
Saviana Stanescu
Authors: Cox Fiona
Published: August 2018

Born in Romania, Saviana Stanescu emigrated to the USA as a young woman. Her extended poem ‘GOOGLE ME!’ invokes Ovid as part of her meditation on fame, and one’s ability to control the boundaries of the self, in a virtual world. In a connected play For a Barbarian Woman Stanescu reimagines Ovid’s exile in Tomis (now Constanţa in modern Romania), and uses his plight to think about the relationship between colonizer and colonized. The play moves back and forth between the ancient and modern world, establishing echoes between Rome and Tomis, and the USA and Iraq. Furthermore, as its two pairs of lovers (one from the ancient world, and one from the contemporary world) struggle with their fraught relationships, they threaten to play out one of the most doomed literary partnerships of recent years—the story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
Jo Shapcott
Authors: Cox Fiona
Published: August 2018

Jo Shapcott has engaged extensively with Ovid in her poetry (her volume My Book draws extensively upon both the Metamorphoses and the Tristia), but it was especially through her volume Of Mutability that she meditated upon the unexpected pleasures and perils of metamorphosis, since she invoked Ovid in her response to her diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. As well as using Ovid to comment upon a contemporary experience of illness, she also employs Ovidian imagery to address issues such as the financial crisis, the Iraq war, and global warming. In doing so she responds to the tenets of third-wave feminism, whose practitioners seek to explore a wider audience and political sphere than the more rarified, intellectual reach of second-wave feminism. Shapcott’s work is also highly significant in marking the start of the new trend, namely the use of the classics to explore serious illness and the threat of dying.
The British Are Coming!
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: August 2018

Chapter 3 (‘The British Are Coming!’) explains the origins of the technology in the United Kingdom. It is widely assumed that the operation of a machine in the Enfield branch of Barclays was the ‘prime mover’ in this industry. However, the historical record fails to identify a hero inventor; rather multiple independent versions of the cash machine were launched at more or less the same time in different countries. Yet in spite of the great fanfare, there was no real race to market. There is no evidence the engineers responsible for them knew of each other’s existence before this launch (but many bankers did). Four years later, very few members of the public knew the cash machine existed, even less had used them and only a handful found them convenient.
A Global Network
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: August 2018

Chapter 6 (‘A Global Network’) offers a quantitative analysis to compare and contrast the dispersion of ATMs across different European, North American, and Asian countries. It also continues with the theme of networks while explaining the role of payment card companies to enable global access to liquid funds. There is no single global ATM network but a collection of individual, country-based providers that use alternative switches to enable the communication between one ATM and the customer’s bank. Reference is made to the politics within banking organizations, shared networks, and card companies which, in a way, led to a snail pace in the formation of the global network.
Independent ATM Deployers
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: August 2018

The challenges to colonize non-branch locations by banks were first touched on Chapter 5. This discussion continues in Chapter 7 (‘Independent ATM Deployers’) on how populating those locations comes about by the combination of an economic incentive (surcharging), the development of the so-called ‘low end’ ATM, and the diversification into the payments space of second-party processors. This chapter starts to bring the discussion to contemporary themes as IADs are increasingly recipients of outsourcing banks’ strategies to the extent that some of the biggest IADs control networks across continents and ten times the size of the ATMs owned by even the largest banks.
Earning People’s Trust
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: August 2018

Chapter 8 (‘Earning People’s Trust’) tackles head on how banks must balance a number of issues and sort out challenges in the roll-out of new technology. This idea is developed by exploring different ways in which self-service through ATMs has been marketed to consumers. ATM networks in the 1990s were still error prone and this gave rise to a growing number of withdrawal transactions (aka ‘phantom withdrawals’) for which neither client nor bank wanted to take responsibility. The issue of ‘phantom withdrawals’ enables the discussion to explore some of the legal hurdles yet to be sorted out in the delivery of high-volume transactions at the dawn of the digital age.
Epilogue: The Cashless Economy and the ATM
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: August 2018

The final chapter (‘Epilogue: The Cashless Economy and the ATM’) summarizes some of the key themes throughout the story and points towards avenues of future research. The main arguments are, first, that the history of the ATM is much more than a story of the response to the ‘impending needs’ of a more mobile population or the reduction of banks’ cost structures. It is a history of technical and organizational innovation. Second, it is a story that explains the travails to balance investments in capital equipment while, at the same time, to secure consumer adoption and trust. This chapter also deals briefly with the challenges and futility of forecasting technological futures.
Spontaneous changes
Authors: Sherwood Dennis , Dalby Paul
Published: August 2018

To set the scene for the Second Law, this (non-mathematical) chapter explores our experience of spontaneous changes - such as the expansion of a gas into a vacuum, mixing, phase changes and many chemical reactions - demonstrating that they are all irreversible, and proceed unidirectionally from non-equilibrium states to equilibrium states. Furthermore, they all comply with the First Law. The First Law therefore cannot be used as a predictor of spontaneity. What, then, can be used as a predictor?
Mixing and osmosis
Authors: Sherwood Dennis , Dalby Paul
Published: August 2018

Building on the results of the previous chapter, this chapter extends the analysis of colligative properties to mixing and osmosis, with an analysis of osmotic pressure and also the important industrial process of reverse osmosis.
Mathematical round up
Authors: Sherwood Dennis , Dalby Paul
Published: August 2018

This chapter draws together all the main mathematical equations into a single, structured, sequence, so providing a source of reference, as well as enabling the student to appreciate how superficially different equations are, in fact, component parts of a ‘bigger picture’. The chapter also introduces some new material, such as the Maxwell relations, the chain rule, the thermodynamic equations-of-state, isenthalpic throttling processes, the Joule-Thomson coefficient and the compressibility factor – so setting the scene for the discussion of real systems in the following chapter.
Bias in Social Research
Authors: Bruce Steve
Published: August 2018

It is now commonly argued that objective or value-neutral social science is impossible; that all research is corrupted by the biases and interests of the researcher. This chapter critiques various forms of that position and demonstrates both that the expected sources of bias are too narrow and that there is ample evidence they can be transcended. A social scientific study of religion is possible because researcher interests are often too complex to produce single preferences, because many topics are impervious to interests, because in many cases evidence trumps preferences, and because the competition between researchers allows subsequent generations to decide who has the better of any argument.
Sensors
Authors: Wich Serge A. , Pin Koh Lian
Published: August 2018

The number of sensors that can be fitted and/or have been specifically designed to be fitted to drones is expanding rapidly. This chapter provides an overview of the various types of sensors used on drones for conservation research and monitoring, including RGB cameras, multispectral and hyperspectral cameras, and thermal imaging cameras. Increasing miniaturization means LiDAR and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors can now also be fitted to drones, and they are also discussed briefly, as are a number of other types (e.g. acoustic and gas sensors) now being developed. Because most conservation researchers will start with a specific question and then explore which sensor or set of sensors will be suitable for their data collection, we approach the sensor issue from the application end. Some technical information on the sensors is provided as well as an overview of the various studies that they have been used for.
Animal detection
Authors: Wich Serge A. , Pin Koh Lian
Published: August 2018

Detecting animals is a key aspect of drone usage for conservation purposes. This chapter provides an overview of how drones have been used to detect animals and in some cases have been used to derive animal distribution and density. We provide several examples of studies that compared animal counts from traditional survey methods and drone surveys. To protect animals, drones have also been used in anti-poaching efforts and we discuss how drones can assist such efforts and provide examples of studies on drones and anti-poaching. As with other survey methods drones can also disturb animals. We discuss studies that have examined this issue and provide some recommendations based on those.
Future casting
Authors: Wich Serge A. , Pin Koh Lian
Published: August 2018

In this final chapter we discuss emerging technologies that are relevant to the use of remotely piloted aircraft for environmental and conservation applications. These technologies include new power systems, smart navigation systems, and integration with other platforms.
The physical-chemical environment of microbes
Authors: Kirchman David L.
Published: August 2018

Many physical-chemical properties affecting microbes are familiar to ecologists examining large organisms in our visible world. This chapter starts by reviewing the basics of these properties, such as the importance of water for microbes in soils and temperature in all environments. Another important property, pH, has direct effects on organisms and indirect effects via how hydrogen ions determine the chemical form of key molecules and compounds in nature. Oxygen content is also critical, as it is essential to the survival of all but a few eukaryotes. Light is used as an energy source by phototrophs, but it can have deleterious effects on microbes. In addition to these familiar factors, the small size of microbes sets limits on their physical world. Microbes are said to live in a “low Reynolds number environment”. When the Reynolds number is smaller than about one, viscous forces dominate over inertial forces. For a macroscopic organism like us, moving in a low Reynolds number environment would seem like swimming in molasses. Microbes in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats live in a low Reynolds number world, one of many similarities between the two environments at the microbial scale. Most notably, even soil microbes live in an aqueous world, albeit a thin film of water on soil particles. But the soil environment is much more heterogeneous than water, with profound consequences for biogeochemical processes and interactions among microbes. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the physical-chemical environment of microbes in biofilms is quite different from that of free-living organisms.
Microbial primary production and phototrophy
Authors: Kirchman David L.
Published: August 2018

This chapter is focused on the most important process in the biosphere, primary production, the turning of carbon dioxide into organic material by higher plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Photosynthetic microbes account for roughly 50% of global primary production while the other half is by large, terrestrial plants. After reviewing the basic physiology of photosynthesis, the chapter discusses approaches to measuring gross and net primary production and how these processes affect fluxes of oxygen and carbon dioxide into and out of aquatic ecosystems. It then points out that terrestrial plants have high biomass but relatively low growth, while the opposite is the case for aquatic algae and cyanobacteria. Primary production varies greatly with the seasons in temperate ecosystems, punctuated by the spring bloom when the biomass of one algal type, diatoms, reaches a maximum. Other abundant algal types include coccolithophorids in the oceans and filamentous cyanobacteria in freshwaters. After the bloom, small algae take over and out-compete larger forms for limiting nutrients because of superior uptake kinetics. Abundant types of small algae include two coccoid cyanobacteria, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus, the latter said to be the most abundant photoautotroph on the planet because of its large numbers in oligotrophic oceans. Other algae, often dinoflagellates, are toxic. Many algae can also graze on other microbes, probably to obtain limiting nitrogen or phosphorus. Still other microbes are mainly heterotrophic but are capable of harvesting light energy. Primary production in oxic environments is carried out by oxygenic photosynthetic organisms, whereas in anoxic environments with sufficient light, it is anaerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis in which oxygen is not produced. Although its contribution to global primary production is small, anoxygenic photosynthesis helps us understand the biophysics and biochemistry of photosynthesis and its evolution on early Earth. These microbes as well as aerobic phototrophic and heterotrophic microbes make up microbial mats. These mats can provide insights into early life on the planet when a type of mat, “stromatolites,” covered vast areas of primordial seas in the Proterozoic.
Predation and protists
Authors: Kirchman David L.
Published: August 2018

Protists are involved in many ecological roles in natural environments, including primary production, herbivory and carnivory, and parasitism. Microbial ecologists have been interested in these single-cell eukaryotes since Antonie van Leeuwenhoek saw them in his stool and scum from his teeth. This chapter focuses on the role of protozoa (purely heterotrophic protists) and other protists in grazing on other microbes. Heterotrophic nanoflagellates, 3–5 microns long, are the most important grazers of bacteria and small phytoplankton in aquatic environments. In soils, flagellates are also important, followed by naked amoebae, testate amoebae, and ciliates. Many of these protists feed on their prey by phagocytosis, in which the prey particle is engulfed into a food vacuole into which digestive enzymes are released. This mechanism of grazing explains many factors affecting grazing rates, such as prey numbers, size, and composition. Ingestion rates increase with prey numbers before reaching a maximum, similar to the Michaelis–Menten equation describing uptake as a function of substrate concentration. Protists generally eat prey that are about ten-fold smaller than they are. In addition to flagellates, ciliates and dinoflagellates are often important predators in the microbial world and are critical links between microbial food chains and larger organisms Many protists are capable of photosynthesis. In some cases, the predator benefits from photosynthesis carried out by engulfed, but undigested photosynthetic prey or its chloroplasts. Although much can be learnt from the morphology of large protists, small protists (<10 μm) often cannot be distinguished by morphology, and as seen several times in this book, many of the most abundant and presumably important protists are difficult to cultivate, necessitating the use of cultivation-independent methods analogous to those developed for prokaryotes. Instead of the 16S rRNA gene used for bacteria and archaea, the 18S rRNA gene is key for protists. Studies of this gene have uncovered high diversity in natural protist communities and, along with sequences of other genes, have upended models of eukaryote evolution. These studies indicate that the eukaryotic Tree of Life consists almost entirely of protists, with higher plants, fungi, and animals as mere branches.
Using disease dynamics and modeling to inform control strategies in low-income countries
Authors: Ferrari Matthew
Published: August 2018

The incidence infectious disease is inherently dynamic in time and space. Mathematical models that account for the dynamic processes that give rise to fluctuations in disease incidence are powerful tools in disease management and control. We describe the use of dynamic models for surveillance, evaluation and prediction of disease control efforts in low-income countries. Dynamic models can help to anticipate trends owing to intrinsic (e.g., herd immunity) or extrinsic (e.g., seasonality) forces that may confound efforts to isolate the impact of specific interventions. Infectious disease dynamics are frequently nonlinear, meaning that future outcomes are difficult to predict through simple extrapolation of present conditions. Thus, dynamic models can help to explore the potential consequences of proposed interventions. These projections can alert managers to the potential for unintended consequences of control and help to define effect sizes for the design of conventional studies of the impact of interventions.
Optimizing public health strategies in low-income countries: epidemiology, ecology and evolution for the control of malaria
Authors: Miguel Eve , Fournet Florence , Yerbanga Serge , Moiroux Nicolas , Yao Franck , Vergne Timothée , Cazelles Bernard , Dabiré Roch K. , Simard Frédéric , Roche Benjamin
Published: August 2018

During the 20th century, health inequalities among countries have increased. Several factors explain this pattern, such as immunization and massive antibiotherapy, but nutrition, housing and hygiene are key parameters for health improvement. This heterogeneity among countries is well illustrated by malaria, although disappeared from many high-income countries, is still endemic and prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. We question these differences and detail the recommendations proposed by the World Health Organization to tackle malaria. We investigate the optimal combination of actions to deploy in resource-limited countries and the best spatio-temporal window to target. We propose a new framework for health program management based on evolutionary biology approaches to tailor global programs, to improve their local efficiency and avoid resistance. Thus, we explore all components of the ecological niche of the parasite (human, vector and environment) and consider the magnitude of actions to deploy to reach its local.
African and global health care prospects: the importance of the use of knowledge
Authors: Kerouedan Dominique
Published: August 2018

The fight against infectious diseases necessarily involves medical entomology and biology, medicine and public health. Other dimensions are influential in the field of international health care cooperation because of pressures inflicted on national policies, particularly in Africa. Based on a historical review of cooperation and the analysis of its evolutions over the past 15 years, we highlight the paradox of world health safety: owing to targeting almost exclusively the AIDS pandemic over the course of decades, disequilibria can be observed in health care systems, especially with regard to epidemiological alert and surveillance and health care personnel, two essential pillars in the control of infectious diseases. We suggest that the Ebola epidemic and its rapid propagation in several West African countries might be a result of over a decade security policies relating to AIDS. The private sector cannot take the place of this democratic governance, neither in rich nor in poor countries. It is time to restore the standards for national and world governance in this field.
Social Science Theory for Environmental Sustainability
Authors: Stern Marc J.
Published: August 2018

Social science theory for environmental sustainability: A practical guide makes social science theory accessible and usable to anyone interested in working toward environmental sustainability at any scale. Environmental problems are, first and foremost, people problems. Without better understandings of the people involved, solutions are often hard to come by. This book answers calls for demonstrating the value of theories from the social sciences for solving these types of problems and provides strategies to facilitate their use. It contains concise summaries of over thirty social science theories and demonstrates how to use them in diverse contexts associated with environmental conflict, conservation, natural resource management, and other environmental sustainability challenges. The practical applications of the theories include persuasive communication, conflict resolution, collaboration, negotiation, enhancing organizational effectiveness, working across cultures, generating collective impact, and building more resilient governance of social-ecological systems. Examples throughout the book and detailed vignettes illustrate how to combine multiple social science theories to develop effective strategies for environmental problem solving. The final chapter draws out key principles for enhancing these efforts. The book will serve as a key reference for environmental professionals, business people, students, scientists, public officials, government employees, aid workers, or any concerned citizen who wants to be better equipped to navigate the social complexities of environmental challenges and make a meaningful impact on any environmental issue.
No progress without basic research
Authors: Pacchioni Gianfranco
Published: August 2018

This chapter illustrates with examples how science and technology have changed our way of life. We live longer, we live better, although this is not always appreciated. A brief description of life in Edwardian London of the early 1900s provides an idea of the changes that have occurred over the past century. Reasons why basic research is useful are illustrated to give a positive feeling about the role of science. The time required to transform basic research into valuable applications, however, can be very long. How a fundamental discovery in basic science has turned into magnetic resonance diagnostics in medicine is provided as an example.
Famous frauds
Authors: Pacchioni Gianfranco
Published: August 2018

A large part of the chapter is dedicated to the story of one of the biggest frauds in science. It is the story of Hendrik Schön and his fantastic discoveries in the field of molecular electronics, and how wrong and manipulated papers ended up getting published in the scientific journals Science and Nature. This provides a stimulus to think about the rules of modern science and how it puts high pressure on young researchers to obtain wonderful results. The last part of the chapter deals with the actual dimensions of fraud in science (still low but growing) and with the dimension of other phenomena such as general cases of misconduct.
The Emancipation of Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1590-1670
Authors: van Miert Dirk
Published: August 2018

This book argues that the application of tools, developed in the study of ancient Greek and Latin authors, to the Bible aimed to stabilize the biblical text but had the unintentional effect that the text grew more and more unstable. Spinoza capitalized on this tradition in his notorious Theological-Political Treatise, published in the Dutch Republic in 1670. But the foundations on which his radical biblical scholarship is built were laid by Reformed philologists who started from the hermeneutical assumption that philology was the maidservant of reformed dogma. On this basis, they pushed biblical scholarship to the centre of historical studies during the first half of the seventeenth century. The monograph shows how Jacob Arminius, Franciscus Gomarus, the translators and revisers of the States’ Translation (the Dutch Authorized Version), Daniel Heinsius, Hugo Grotius, Claude Saumaise, Isaac de La Peyrère, and Isaac Vossius all drew on techniques developed by classical scholars of Renaissance humanism, notably Joseph Scaliger, who devoted themselves to the study of manuscripts, (oriental) languages, and ancient history. These scholars’ accomplishments in textual criticism, the analysis of languages, and the reconstruction of political and cultural historical contexts are assessed and compared, and it is demonstrated that their methods were closely linked. Apart from this internal analysis, the book considers the external development of biblical philology. It became the cutting-edge science of the day and grew from an arcane research specialism into a fashionable science for scholars who wanted to share in the fame of being a universal critic.
Introduction: Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic
Authors: Touber Jetze
Published: August 2018

The introductory chapter sketches the broad developments in Early Modern philology, essential for appreciating Spinoza’s biblical criticism, set against the background of seventeenth-century Dutch society. A historiographical discussion outlines the interfaces between Spinoza’s biblical criticism, Early Modern hermeneutics, and Dutch Reformed theology and ecclesiology. A methodological section introduces the reader to two key concepts: ‘philology’ and ‘scripturarianism’. ‘Philology’ is used to refer to a set of techniques employed to understand the literal wording of ancient texts in their historical contexts: textual criticism, language studies, and historical contextualization, including antiquarianism and chronology. The word ‘scripturarianism’ denotes the continuation of a humanist programme of philological investigation of the Bible in the later seventeenth century, a programme that was increasingly controversial. Concentrating on these aspects in biblical interpretation, seventeenth-century debates regain a measure of complexity that currently threatens to be lost because of a one-sided fascination for rationalist philosophy.
Responses to Spinoza: Burman to Le Clerc
Authors: Touber Jetze
Published: August 2018

Chapter 2 surveys early responses to Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus in the Dutch Republic. These include well-known published refutations, such as those by Regnerus van Mansveld (1674) and Frans Kuyper (1676), but alsoÂ initiatives that never came to fruition, such as those of Jacobus Alting and Antonius Perizonius. Within these responses two main themes stand out: on the one hand, puzzlement at the metaphysics that implicitly underlies Spinoza’s terse biblical exegesis; on the other, indignation at his carefree employment of well-established philological methods in arguments that led to outrageous conclusions. Focussing on the latter, it is argued that a substantial part of the dismissive response to Spinoza was characterized by ‘scripturarianism’, the philological engagement with the biblical source texts in their original languages. Dutch scripturarians were unsettled, as their philological approach could be portrayed as leading to the highly unconventional biblical interpretations voiced by Spinoza and some of his eccentric contemporaries.
A New Scientist
Authors: Nolte David D.
Published: August 2018

Galileo Galilei was the first modern scientist, launching a new scientific method that superseded, after one and a half millennia, Aristotle’s physics. This chapter describes the trajectory of Galileo’s career, beginning with his studies of motion at the University of Pisa that were interrupted after his move to the University of Padua by his telescopic discoveries of mountains on the Moon and the moons of Jupiter. Galileo became the first rock star of science, and he used his fame to promote the ideas of Copernicus and the Sun-centered model of the solar system. But he pushed too far when he lampooned the Pope. Ironically, Galileo’s conviction for heresy and his sentence to house arrest for the remainder of his life gave him the free time to finally finish his work on the physics of motion, which he published in Two New Sciences in 1638.
Galileo’s Trajectory
Authors: Nolte David D.
Published: August 2018

This chapter describes the history of Galileo’s discovery of the law of fall and the parabolic trajectory, beginning with early work on the physics of motion by predecessors like the Oxford Scholars, Tartaglia and the polymath Simon Stevin who dropped lead weights from the leaning tower of Delft three years before Galileo dropped lead weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. The story of how Galileo developed his ideas of motion is described in the context of his studies of balls rolling on inclined plane and the surprising accuracy he achieved without access to modern timekeeping. Motion was always on Galileo’s mind. He saw motion in his father’s stringed instruments, vibrating in rational resonances. He saw motion in the lantern high above in the Duomo di Pisa, swinging with fixed regularity.
On the Quantum Footpath
Authors: Nolte David D.
Published: August 2018

This chapter shows how the concept of the trajectory of a quantum particle almost vanished in the battle between Werner Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics and Erwin Schrödinger’s wave mechanics. It took Niels Bohr and his complementarity principle of wave-particle duality to cede back some reality to quantum trajectories. However, Schrödinger and Einstein were not convinced and conceived of quantum entanglement to refute the growing acceptance of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics. Schrödinger’s cat was meant to be an absurdity, but ironically it has become a central paradigm of practical quantum computers. Quantum trajectories took on new meaning when Richard Feynman constructed quantum theory based on the principle of least action, inventing his famous Feynman Diagrams to help explain quantum electrodynamics.
Introduction
Authors: Houen Alex , Schramm Jan-Melissa
Published: August 2018

Writing in 1857, after the Crimean War had finally ended forty years of peace in England, the novelist and clergyman Charles Kingsley meditated on ‘the necessary human art of war’ and the extent to which ‘the history of the world has been as yet written in blood’: ‘This … is the normal type of human life … as long as cruelty and wrong exist on earth, man’s destiny is to dare and suffer, and, if it must be so, to die.’...
Communication and psychosocial issues within neonatal palliative care
Authors: Mancini Alexandra , Abramson Paula
Published: August 2018

This chapter introduces the fast-developing specialty of neonatal palliative care within the wider context of palliative care. It sets the scene for understanding the intricacies and challenges faced by families and health-care professionals alike. Good quality palliative care requires the health-care professional to not only possess specialist knowledge and skills, but enhanced attitudes and behaviours focussing on advanced and effective communication skills. The interdisciplinary team must collaborate effectively and work in partnership with the parents whilst considering the whole family’s needs when planning care for the infant. In the United Kingdom (UK), over 90,000 infants are admitted to specialist neonatal intensive care units every year as a result of being born prematurely, born with congenital conditions, or following a significant insult at the time of delivery.
Models of psychosocial care for patients and their families: the role of volunteers in supporting psychosocial needs
Authors: Hartley Nigel
Published: August 2018

Hospices have utilized volunteers in their work and mission in many ways over the past 50 years. Although there are a small number of positively evaluated projects, there remains little research which really proves the worth and effectiveness of utilising volunteers to support the psychological, social, and physical needs of those living with dying. This chapter introduces the challenges faced by hospices due to an historic lack of well organized services underpinned with effective training and support structures, as well as a lack of focus on successful strategic direction and the development of appropriate policies and procedures. The work of one hospice is highlighted; focussing on the need for change and critical examination as well as the development of training and support programmes. New developments such as supporting communities to accept their responsibilities to care for vulnerable people coming to the end of life are also presented.
Spiritual care
Authors: Cobb Mark
Published: August 2018

Palliative Care takes a holistic view of people who face progressive life-limiting illness and this includes the spiritual aspects of living and dying. Spirituality is a broad domain that is manifest in the sacred worldviews, beliefs, practices, and meanings around which people orientate their lives. Attending to the spirituality of patients ensures that their spiritual concerns are understood and addressed, the spiritual resources of the patient are recognized and enabled, and that care decisions and treatment choices are sensitive to the spiritual orientation of the patient. This chapter draws on current research and scholarship to explore spirituality in relation to living and dying well including beliefs and practices, suffering, and facing death. The practical aspects of spiritual care are also addressed and consideration is given to spiritual assessments, modes of spiritual care, and available resources.