bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Genetic Issues
Authors: Patenaude Andrea Farkas , Schneider Katherine A.
Published: November 2020

The hallmark of genetic medicine is that medical concerns of one individual are germane not only for that person, but also for their offspring and future generations. Pediatric cancer patients, survivors of childhood cancers, their parents, and their siblings all have concerns that are likely to be increasingly affected by advances in genetics. It has been estimated that between 10% and 15% of pediatric cancers are either hereditary or familial in origin (Quesnel & Malkin, 1997). Advances in genetics will help identify pediatric cancers that have a hereditary origin as well as genetic syndromes, identified by other phenotypic features, which put the mutation carrier at increased risk for some types of cancer. Knowledge about hereditary cancer syndromes will help determine the risk of a second malignancy in pediatric survivors, risks of cancer in siblings, and of course, cancer risk for future offspring. To accurately estimate the risk of second primary malignancy in survivors, it is crucial to be able to identify and separate those survivors who do and do not have cancer of hereditary origin because the latter group typically faces excess risk for developing other cancers that are part of the inherited cancer syndrome. Genetic testing is currently available for several cancer syndromes that occur in childhood, most of which are relatively rare. In individual cases, predictive genetic testing may improve the likelihood that a cancer may be discovered in its early and most treatable stages. Reproductive technologies that involve genetic analysis may be important for some survivors who wish to avoid having a child with an inherited predisposition to cancer. Also, pharmacogenomics, the matching of pharmacologic treatments to patients based on genetic analysis of likely efficacy or susceptibility to adverse side effects, will likely become an important way in which genetic medicine affects pediatric cancer patients through reducing the burdens of cancer treatment. The ultimate goal of the translation of genetic findings into pediatric oncology practice is the development of targeted strategies to prevent the development of cancer. With genetic advances come questions about the ethical application of genetic technology.
Pain Management of Sickle Cell Disease
Authors: Swain Nicole F. , Powers Scott W.
Published: November 2020

Acute and chronic pain episodes are common experiences for many individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD). The management of pain related to SCD is primary palliative and includes pharmacological, nonpharmacological, and preventive therapies (Ballas, 2002). This chapter focuses on issues relevant to the assessment and treatment of sickle cell pain in primarily pediatric populations, although some of the adult literature is reviewed, particularly as it relates to children and adolescents. SCD is a hereditary disorder. The disorder primarily affects people of Caribbean and African origin in addition to a small percentage of people of Indian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent (National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts–NAHAT, 1991). SCD is also prevalent in Hispanic and Latino populations. Red blood cells containing sickle hemoglobin become rigid. These cells then become elongated and “sickled” in shape, which makes it very difficult for the sickle cells to move smoothly and flow through microcirculation (Morrison & Vedro, 1989). Symptoms of SCD include chronic anemia, susceptibility to infection, and vaso-occlusive crises or vaso-occlusive episodes (VOEs), resulting in severe pain that can last hours to weeks (Wang, George, & Wilimas, 1988). This vaso-occlusion is caused when sickle cells are unable to flow through arteries, capillaries, arterioles, and other blood vessels and as a result obstruct blood flow. This sickling can occur anywhere in the body, including fingers, arms, ribs, abdomen, and organs such as the brain and eyes (Morrison & Vedro, 1989), but it most commonly occurs in the spleen, bones, and joints (Elander & Midence, 1996). These restrictions in blood flow result in severe pain. In addition, other major clinical problems arise from SCD, including stroke, acute chest syndrome, aseptic necrosis of the hips and shoulders, infections, anemia, leg ulcers, and priapism (Serjeant, 1992). Acute chest syndrome is a significant concern and is the leading cause of mortality in both children and adults with SCD (Platt et al., 1994). Stroke tends to be the most disabling condition and is also a significant cause of death. Stroke in SCD patients accounts for approximately 6% of deaths related to sickle cell disease (Platt et al., 1994).
Research Opportunities and Collaborative Multisite Studies in Psychosocial Hematology/Oncology
Authors: Whitsett Stan F. , Pollock Brad H.
Published: November 2020

Over the past several decades, dramatic improvements in outcome have occurred for children treated for cancer. Many of these advances can be attributed to the benefits of multicenter research conducted within the context of a cooperative group clinical trials infrastructure (D’Angio & Vietti, 2001; Pediatric Oncology Group, 1992). Historically, the cooperative groups sponsored by the National Cancer Institute provided pooled expertise, centralized high-quality medical informatics resources, and access to large patient populations. This infrastructure enabled investigators to ask more focused research questions with greater statistical power as well as generalize research findings to the broader population. Although childhood cancer is by no means a rare disease, its incidence in the general population is sufficiently low that few single pediatric oncology treatment centers are likely to treat enough patients, representing an adequately homogeneous sample, to provide a robust evaluation of clinical outcomes. In many respects, multisite research has been necessary to acquire adequate sample sizes to allow appropriate statistical evaluations of treatment outcomes and generalization of these outcomes to the larger pediatric oncology population. Awareness of this fact led first to the development of small consortia of pediatric oncology centers and later to the formation of large multiinstitutional cooperative study groups to conduct controlled clinical therapeutic trials for pediatric cancer patients. Ultimately, the four major childhood cancer study groups (the Children’s Cancer Group, CCG; the Pediatric Oncology Group, POG; the National Wilms Tumor Study Group; and the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group) merged in 2000 to form a single collaborative group: the Children’s Oncology Group (COG). At present, the 238 institutions that comprise the COG provide the research infrastructure for the majority of pediatric oncology clinical trials conducted in North America, Australia, and parts of Europe. Moreover, because the COG member institutions include all major university and teaching hospitals throughout the United States and Canada, the majority of children diagnosed with cancer in North America will be treated at a COG member institution with the opportunity to be enrolled on a COG protocol. An early evaluation of referral patterns to the two largest cooperative groups enumerated the observed cancer cases from the CCG and POG cancer incidence registries.
Regionalized compositions
Authors: Pawlowsky-Glahn Vera , Olea Richardo A.
Published: November 2020

In this chapter we set the rationale for the analysis of regionalized compositions. Required definitions for nonregionalized compositions are extended to vector random functions and necessary concepts from the theory of regionalized variables are related to vector random functions that form a composition. In order to avoid continually repeating references to literature, the reader is referred especially to the works of Matheron (1971) and Aitchison (1986), on which the following developments are based. Here the exposition is very concise; its purpose is basically to introduce terminology and notation. Proofs analogous to those of the nonregionalized case are omitted, for the most part. In general they can be derived directly from the corresponding definitions. For concepts of matrix algebra required by this work, refer to Kemény (1984) and Golub and Van Loan (1989). There are many excellent textbooks that treat concepts of probability theory and multivariate statistics. We have used mainly the books by Fahrmeir and Hamerle (1984) and Krzanowski (1988), and others have served as complementary bibliography, e.g., Feller (1968), Kendall and Stuart (1979), Kendall et al. (1983), Kres (1983), Stuart and Ord (1987), Johnson et al. (1994), and Kotz et al. (2000). A similar situation holds for the foundations of univariate geostatistics; refer to David (1977), Journel and Huijbregts (1978), Rendu (1978), Clark (1979), Isaaks and Srivastava (1989), Samper-Calvete and Carrera-Ramírez (1990), Cressie (1991), Goovaerts (1997), Chilès and Delfiner (1999), and Olea (1999). Treatments of multivariate geostatistics are found in Matheron (1979), François-Bongarçon (1981), Carr et al. (1985), and Wackernagel (1998). We base our presentation mainly on Journel and Huijbregts (1978) and Deutsch and Journel (1998), but also on Myers (1982), in which the matrix formulation of cokriging is given. Geostatistical terminology conforms, as far as possible, to that found in the Geostatistical Glossary and Multilingual Dictionary, compiled by members of the 1984-1989 IAMG Committee on Geostatistics and edited by R. A. Olea (1991).
Spatial covariance structure
Authors: Pawlowsky-Glahn Vera , Olea Richardo A.
Published: November 2020

For any component in time series analysis (Natke 1983), the concept of covariance between components of a spatially distributed random vector Z(u) leads to: direct covariances, Cov[Zi(u),Zj(u)]; shifted covariances or spatial covariances, Cov [Zi(u), Zj-(u+ h)], also known as cross-covariance functions; and autocovariance functions, Cov[Zi(u),Zi(u + h)]. The direct covariances may be thought of as a special case of the cross-covariance functions (for h = 0), and the same holds for the autocovariance functions (for i = j), so there is no need for a separate discussion. To simplify the exposition, hereafter the term function is dropped, and only the terms cross-covariance and autocovariance are used. Pawlowsky (1984) stated that if the vector random function constitutes an r-composition, then the problem of spurious spatial correlations appears. This is evident from the fact that at each point of the domain W, as in the nonregionalized case, the natural sample space of an r-composition is the D-simplex. This aspect will be discussed in Section 3.1.1. Aitchison (1986) discussed the problematic nature of the covariance analysis of nonregionalized compositions. He circumvents the problem of spurious correlations by using the fact that the ratio of two arbitrary components of a basis is identical to the ratios of the corresponding components of the associated composition. To avoid working with ratios, which is always difficult, Aitchison takes logarithms of the ratios. Then dependencies among variables of a composition can be examined in real space by analyzing the covariance structure of the log-quotients. The advantages of using this approach are not only numerical or related to the facility of subsequent mathematical operations. Essentially they relate to the fact that the approach consists of a projection of the original sample space, the simplex SD, onto a new sample space, namely real space IRD-1. Thus the door is open to many available methods and models based on the multivariate normal distribution. Recall that the multivariate normal distribution requires the sample space to be precisely the multidimensional, unconstrained real space. For this kind of model, strictly speaking, this is equivalent to saying that you need unconstrained components of the random vector to be analyzed.
Practical aspects of compositional data analysis
Authors: Pawlowsky-Glahn Vera , Olea Richardo A.
Published: November 2020

In Chapter 6 we introduce additional aspects of the geostatistical approach presented in the preceding chapters that were not necessary for its theoretical development, but that are essential for the practical application of the method to compositional data. We discuss how to treat zeros in compositional data sets; how to model the required cross-covariances; how to compute expected values and estimation variances for the original, constrained variables; and how to build and interpret confidence intervals for estimated values. As mentioned in Section 2.1, data sets with many zeros are as troublesome in compositional analysis as they are in standard multivariate analysis. In our approach, the additional restriction for compositional data is that zero values are not admissible for modeling. The justification for this restriction can be given using arithmetic arguments. A transformation that uses logarithms cannot be performed on zero values. This is the case for the logratio transformation that leads to the definition of an additive logistic normal distribution, as introduced by Aitchison (1986, p. 113). It is also the case for the additive logistic skew-normal distribution defined in Mateu-Figueras et al. (1998), following previous results by Azzalini and Dalla Valle (1996). The centered logratio transformation and the family of multivariate Box-Cox transformations discussed in Andrews et al. (1971), Rayens and Srinivasan (1991), and Barceló- Vidal (1996) also call for the restriction of zero values. This restriction is certainly a wellspring of discussion, albeit surprisingly so, as nobody would complain about eliminating zeros either by simple suppression of samples or by substitution with reasonable values when dealing with a sample from a lognormal distribution in the univariate case. Recall that the logarithm of zero is undefined and the sample space of the lognormal distribution is the positive real line, excluding the origin. In order to present our position on how to deal with zeros as clearly as possible, let us assume that only one of our components has zeros in some of the samples. Those cases where more than one variable is affected can be analyzed by methods described below.
The Interest-Convergence Covenants
Authors: Bell Derrick
Published: November 2020

Given Theirhistory Of Racial Subordination, how have black people gained any protection against the multifaceted forms of discrimination that threaten their well-being and undermine their rights? The answer can be stated simply: Black rights are recognized and protected when and only so long as policymakers perceive that such advances will further interests that are their primary concern. Throughout the history of civil rights policies, even the most serious injustices suffered by blacks, including slavery, segregation, and patterns of murderous violence, have been insufficient, standing alone, to gain real relief from any branch of government. Rather, relief from racial discrimination has come only when policymakers recognize that such relief will provide a clear benefit for the nation or portions of the populace. While nowhere mentioned in the Supreme Court’s Brown opinion, a major motivation for outlawing racial segregation in 1954, as opposed to the many failed opportunities in the past, was the major boost that this decision provided in our competition with communist governments abroad and the campaign to uproot subver­sive elements at home. This fortuity continues a long history of similar coincidences motivating the advancement or sacrifice of black interests. Three major examples of what I call interest-convergence covenants involve the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil War amendments to the Constitution. Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the divergent responses of blacks and whites to his action, were foreshad­owed by abolition policies in the northern states a half-century earlier. In the northern states, slavery was abolished by constitutional provi­sion in Vermont (1777), Ohio (1802), Illinois (1818), and Indiana (1816); by a judicial decision in Massachusetts (1783); by constitutional interpretation in New Hampshire (1857); and by gradual abolition acts in Pennsylvania (1780), Rhode Island (1784), Connecticut (1784 and 1797), New York (1799 and 1827), and New Jersey (1804). In varying degrees, abolition in the North was the result of several factors: idealism stemming from the Revolution with its “rights of man” ideology; the lesser dependence of the northern economy on a large labor force; the North’s relatively small investment in slaves combined with the great hostility of the white laboring class to the competition of slaves; the fear of slave revolts; and a general belief that there was no place for “inferior” blacks in the new societies.
Brown as an Anticommunist Decision
Authors: Bell Derrick
Published: November 2020

The Coincidence Of Litigation aimed at eliminating the constitu­tional justification of state-sponsored racial segregation and the nation’s need to strengthen its argument that democratic government was superior to its communist alternative was more than just a happy coincidence. It was, as indicated in the previous chapter, a helpful and necessary prerequisite to racial reform. Early in my teaching career, I devised a sardonic formula for what I had come to understand as the basic social physics of racial progress and retrenchment. The formula went something like this:… Justice for blacks vs. racism = racism Racism vs. obvious perceptions of white self-interest = justice for blacks… Students both black and white got the point, and the Brown decision provided a definitive example of it. Again and again, perceived self-interest by whites rather than the racial injustices suffered by blacks has been the major motivation in racial-remediation policies. We may regret but can hardly deny the pattern. This was certainly the case in the school de­segregation cases. While blacks had been petitioning the courts for decades to find segregation unconstitutional, by 1954 a fortuitous symmetry existed between what blacks sought and what the nation needed. I do not intend by this conclusion to belittle the NAACP lawyers’ long years of hard work and their carefully planned strategies that brought the cases consolidated in Brown v. Board of Education to the Supreme Court. Indeed, the long crusade for racial justice has been marked by campaigns undertaken against great odds with the faith, as the old hymn puts it, that “the Lord will make a way somehow.” I agree with the legal writers who maintain that post–World War II civil rights progress would have come without Brown. None of us can deny that the Court had the NAACP school litigation as a legal canvas on which to paint its views. The motivation for what became the Brown portrait, as well as other post–World War II government policies supporting civil rights, were Cold War concerns. My views on this are impres­sively substantiated by the historian Mary Dudziak’s book, Cold War Civil Rights, based on her untiring searches through literally thou­sands of official government documents as well as international newspapers and news releases.
Processes of the Long-Term Carbon Cycle: Degassing of Carbon Dioxide and Methane
Authors: Berner Robert A.
Published: November 2020

Degassing of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere and oceans is the process whereby carbon is restored to the surficial system after being buried in rocks. Carbon dioxide is released by a variety of processes. This includes volcanic emissions from the mantle and metamorphic and diagenetic decarbonation of limestones and organic matter. Volcanic degassing can occur over subduction zones, at mid-ocean rises, on the continents, and in the interior of oceanic plates. Degassing can be sudden and violent, as during volcanic eruptions, or slow and semi-continuous in the form of fumaroles, springs, gas vents, and continually degassing volcanic vents. An outstanding example of the latter is Mt. Etna, which contributes about 10% to total global degassing (Caldeira and Rampino, 1992). Metamorphic degassing is concentrated in zones of seafloor subduction (Barnes et al., 1978), crustal convergence (Kerrick and Caldeira, 1998), and crustal extension (Kerrick et al., 1995). Most methane degassing on a geologic time scale occurs from organic matter diagenesis slowly from coal, oil, and kerogen maturation and suddenly from methane hydrate breakdown. A smaller amount of CH4 emanates from mid-ocean hydrothermal vents. Estimates of present-day global volcanic degassing rates are under constant revision (e.g., see Gerlach, 1991; Brantley and Koepenick, 1995; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998; Kerrick, 2001). A compilation of recent estimated rates of most degassing processes is shown in table 4.1. A constraint on estimates is that none can exceed total global degassing. The latter can be determined from the steady-state assumption that CO2 release by global degassing must be balanced by global uptake by Ca and Mg silicate weathering (Berner, 1990; Berner and Caldeira, 1997). (This assumes essential balance of the organic C subcycle.) Global Ca and Mg silicate weathering, based on river fluxes of these elements to the sea, has been estimated to be about 6 ± 3 × 1018 mol/my (Berner, 1990). Gaillardet et al. (1999) estimate a minimum value for Ca and Mg silicate weathering of 3.6 × 1018 mol/my.
Gee Whiz Science Writing
Authors: Kunzig Robert
Published: November 2020

A couple of years ago I learned something: I learned that black holes spin. And as they spin, they drag the fabric of space-time around with them, whirling it like a tornado. “Where have you been?” you ask. “That's a direct consequence of general relativity! Lense and Thirring predicted that more than 80 years ago.” It had escaped my notice. It made my day when I (sort of) understood it. I wanted to tell someone—and by a wonderful stroke of luck, I'm paid to do just that. Days like that are why I'm a science writer—a “gee whiz” science writer, if you like. A lot of my peers these days consider the gee whiz approach outdated, naive, even a little lap-doggish; investigative reporting is in. “Isn't the real story the process of how science and medicine work?” Shannon Brownlee said recently, upon receiving a well-deserved prize for her critical reporting on medicine. “I'm talking about the power structure. I'm talking about influence. I'm talking about money.” I'm not much interested in those things. I agree they're often important—more important, no doubt, in breast cancer than in black hole research, more important the more applied and less basic the research gets. One of the real stories about medical research may well be how it is sometimes corrupted by conflicts of interest. Power, influence, and money are constants in human affairs, like sex and violence; and sometimes a science writer is forced to write about them, just as a baseball writer may be forced with heavy heart to write about contract negotiations or a doping scandal. Yet just as the “real story” about baseball remains the game itself, the “real story” about science, to me, is what makes it different from other human affairs, not the same. I'm talking about ideas. I'm talking about experiments. I'm talking about truth, and beauty, too. Most of all, I'm talking about the little nuggets of joy and delight that draw all of us, scientists and science writers alike, to this business, when with our outsized IQs we could be somewhere else pursuing larger slices of power, influence, and money.
The Biology of Behavior
Authors: Begos Kevin
Published: November 2020

In 1970, Nobel Prize winner William Shockley made a dramatic declaration: that the average IQs of black people were significantly lower than those of whites, and that blacks of low intelligence should be paid by society to be sterilized. Shockley's Nobel was for work he conducted at Bell Telephone Labs that contributed to the discovery of the transistor. He was not an expert in genetics, biology, sociology, or anything to do with the human mind, behavior, or reproduction. Yet he was able to use his status as a “Nobel laureate” to get vast amounts of media coverage for his sterilization plan. Why did journalists give Shockley so much ink? Would they—or their editors—send a troubled child who needed help to a TV repair shop, or send a broken computer to the office of a psychologist at Harvard University? Why, then, would they quote a physicist like Shockley when writing about race and intelligence? The subject of the biology and genetics of behavior raises many questions like these. It is a fascinating field to write about, but it will take you into some pretty tricky terrain. You'll often find yourself (and your sources) moving back and forth across two vastly different scientific domains—the laboratory, which has traditionally been based on chemistry, biology, and experiments that can be duplicated and proven, and theoretical science, which aims to uncover and explain broad concepts about life. The people you encounter will have specific areas of expertise, but some may (consciously or not) attempt to make grand statements about how a particular idea or discovery may affect humanity. This is a huge, complicated, controversial subject just waiting to suck journalists into its hungry maw, from which it will spit us out in little pieces. Okay, I'm exaggerating (a little). But it can be overwhelming to figure out even how to begin. There's Darwin and cell biology, psychology, sociology, religion, and politics. There are historical figures such as B. F. Skinner and current stars such as Noam Chomsky at MIT and Harvard's E. O. Wilson and Steven Pinker. And there's the whole issue of racism at the edges.
Space Science
Authors: Lemonick Michael D.
Published: November 2020

Astronomy is the only branch of science where the questions are literally cosmic. Its practitioners are trying to answer the most profound questions imaginable, the same questions that philosophers have been wrestling with for thousands of years. How big is the universe? How old is it? What is it made of? Are we alone, or do other intelligent beings live on planets orbiting distant stars? How did the cosmos begin? And how will it end? As recently as a decade ago, none of these questions had been answered in any definitive way. Now, thanks to powerful new space-based observatories and ingenious new techniques for gazing up from the ground, astronomers have cracked some of them. We now know that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, that more than 100 planets circle Sun-like stars right in our celestial neighbour-hood, and that the cosmos is likely to expand forever, until all the stars have burned out and matter itself breaks down. We know that gamma ray bursts—explosions so massive they defied understanding for decades—are exploding stars more powerful than anyone had imagined. Yet plenty of mysteries remain. Astronomers know that the visible stars and galaxies add up to only a fifth or so of the matter in the universe. The rest is some sort of mysterious dark matter, detectable only through its gravitational influence on the visible stuff. The search for dark matter is still a major focus of modern astronomy. Closer to home, there's a major push to find not just planets, but Earthlike planets orbiting nearby stars. The massive, gaseous, Jupiter-like planets found so far are impressive enough, but as far as we know, you need something smaller and more solid to support life—the ultimate goal of planet-searchers. Indeed, while astronomers had long since given up looking for life in our own solar system, biologists have given them new hope. Life, it turns out, can live in far harsher conditions than anyone thought (hot springs, Antarctic ice, inside solid rock), which means it could exist under the surface of Mars or in oceans under the icy coating of Jupiter's moon Europa.
Universities
Authors: Holland Earle
Published: November 2020

Science writing at a university has to be one of the world's great jobs. If the institution is serious about its research, you're a kid in a candy store. In my case, at Ohio State University, with more than 3,500 faculty, the question is what to write about first—not where to look for stories. Big universities are that way, but the same rules apply for smaller places that are intent on doing great research. Let's begin with the basics. While public information officers at universities face a buffet of varying tasks—from covering boards of trustees' meetings to athletic scandals to student riots—the role of the science PIO is more focused: Concentrate on university research; explain what is new and why it is important to the public. Stated that way, the job seems simple, but science writers at a university may have to jump from astronomy to immunology to psychology to anthropology all in the same week. That represents a lot of intellectual gear shifting; but remember, the rules about reporting on research generally stay the same from field to field. What is the news? Why is it important? What is the context for the research? That is, what are the questions that drive it? Why should the readers care? And last, do the findings point us somewhere new? The only things that change from story to story are the researchers' language and the culture specific to their fields. Nearly every time I give a talk on university science writing—and there have been dozens—someone asks the classic question: How do you find your stories? The glib answer is “Everywhere;” but in truth, that's pretty accurate. Some people envision situations where top researchers have a “eureka” moment and then immediately get on the phone to the campus science writer to get the word out. Or perhaps the researcher's department chair or dean, ever attuned to their colleagues' work, is the one to pass along such news. I wish that were so; but sadly, it's more likely that researcher, department chair, or dean will never think about calling a writer until long after everything else is done.
Introduction: The Cities Rise Again
Authors: Vale Lawrence J. , Campanella Thomas J.
Published: November 2020

Whoever penned the Latin maxim Sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world) was likely not an urbanist. Although cities have been destroyed throughout history—sacked, shaken, burned, bombed, flooded, starved, irradiated, and poisoned—they have, in almost every case, risen again like the mythic phoenix. As one painstakingly thorough statistical survey determined, only forty-two cities worldwide were permanently abandoned following destruction between the years 1100 and 1800. By contrast, cities such as Baghdad, Moscow, Aleppo, Mexico City, and Budapest lost between 60 and 90 percent of their populations due to wars during this period, yet they were rebuilt and eventually rebounded. After about 1800, such resilience became a nearly universal fact of urban settlement around the globe. The tenacity of the urban life force inspired one of Rudyard Kipling’s most famous poems: . . Cities and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time’s eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again. . . There have been some exceptions, Kipling notwithstanding. One of these is St. Pierre, Martinique—once known as “the Paris of the Antilles.” On May 8, 1902, the eruption of Mount Pelée buried the city under pyroclastic lava flows. Nearly 30,000 residents and visitors perished; only one man survived, a prisoner in solitary confinement. St. Pierre was not a resilient city. Yet one is hard-pressed to think of other cities that have not recovered. Atlanta, Columbia, and Richmond all survived the devastation wrought by the American Civil War and remain state capitals today. Chicago emerged stronger than ever following the 1871 fire, as did San Francisco from the earthquake and fires of 1906. We still have Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite the horrors of nuclear attack. Both Dresden and Coventry have been rebuilt. Warsaw lost 61 percent of its 1.3 million residents during World War II, yet surpassed its prewar population by 1967. Even as the war still raged, farsighted planners and designers surreptitiously assembled voluminous documentation of the city that the Nazis were systematically dismembering. After the war, they painstakingly (if creatively) replicated the exteriors of hundreds of buildings in the Old Town and New Town, while modernizing the interiors.
“The Predicament of Aftermath” : Oklahoma City and September 11
Authors: Linenthal Edward T.
Published: November 2020

Memorial response in the wake of violence is an expression of resilience—whether marking “everyday” acts of murder, or more dramatic outbreaks of terrorism or war. Particularly in an age of mass death, when individuals become statistics signifying the anonymous death of millions, such response is about more than providing a tranquil sacred space for rituals of mourning. It is a protest, a way of saying, “We will not let these dead become faceless and forgotten. This memorial exists to keep their names, faces, stories in our memories.” Increasingly, memorial expression has become an immediate language of engagement, not just a language of commemoration. This is clearly evident in the rise of a new generation of activist memorial environments, in particular the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Oklahoma City National Memorial, consciously modeled after the Holocaust Museum. Both include memorial space, museum exhibition space, archival space, educational space, and outreach programs, promoting activist agendas designed to spark civic energies to combat anti- Semitism, terrorism, and other ills of modernity. Ideally, these institutions are sites of conscience on the civic landscape. Their role is to immerse visitors in a compelling and often horrific story, and transform them into actively engaged citizens. The terrorist attacks in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, and in New York on September 11, 2001, brought communities together and at the same time tore them apart. Whether represented in thousands of letters suggesting appropriate memorial forms, in the creation of so called spontaneous memorials—so popular now that they represent “planned spontaneity” and perhaps even memorial cliché—or in the formation of formal memorial processes, memorial expression helps people to transform bereavement, anger, fear, and resolve into an active communal grief that mournfully celebrates ongoing life, albeit transformed. There is instability in memorial expression, however. The fragility of memory is never more apparent than when memorials are envisioned. Memorial expression tasks creators to ensure remembrance through significant memorial forms, since the danger of forgetfulness, even oblivion, is enduring. There is instability as well in the rhetoric of civic resilience, which bravely proclaims that just as those murdered will be intensely remembered through memorials, the cityscape will be intensely remembered through acts of civic renewal.
Thinking Molecularly, Anything Goes: From Mummies to Oil Spills, Doubts to New Directions
Authors: Gaines Susan M. , Eglinton Geoffrey , Rullkötter Jürgen
Published: November 2020

Though the biomarker saga began with attempts to understand the ancient provenance of petroleum and with the concept of “fossil molecules” and search for early forms of life, the explorations of the past 50 years have led organic geochemists far afield of these first endeavors. As Geoff and Max Blumer recognized back in the 1960s, and as microbiologists began to realize in the early 1980s, the usefulness of the biomarker concept is not restricted to geologic time. Most organic geochemists have, at one time or another, applied their techniques and expertise to the resolution of environmental problems, or found a way to address some archaeological mystery. One of the Bristol group’s most vibrant research programs now has its chemists brushing shoulders not with geologists and oceanographers, but with archaeologists and anthropologists concerned with the evolution of human civilizations and societies. Much of the impetus for the application of biomarker concepts to archaeologists’ questions in the 1970s and 1980s came from petroleum geochemists, not least from Arie Nissenbaum, a geochemist at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science who developed a keen interest in the role that geological events and circumstance might have played in the history of civilizations in the Fertile Crescent region. Nissenbaum was fascinated by the bizarre geology and chemistry of the Dead Sea Basin area, where oil seeps and impressive raftlike chunks of asphalt floating on the surface of the lake had long tempted oil prospectors to no avail. Renewed interest in the area’s oil potential in the early 1980s attracted a wave of geochemical studies, and Israeli geochemists scrambled for laboratory resources and funding from abroad. Jürgen, still with Dietrich Welte’s group, did a detailed biomarker study at the behest of an Israeli colleague, and when Nissenbaum saw the results he suggested to Jürgen that they apply Jülich’s considerable GC-MS capability to solving an entirely different sort of mystery. Excavations of archaeological sites in the vicinity of the Dead Sea had turned up solid chunks of black, sticky material that was used as early as 3000 B.C., either in materials used for construction or as a glue to attach tool heads to wooden handles.
Introduction: Where Statistical Physics Meets Computation
Authors: Percus Allon G. , Istrate Gabriel
Published: November 2020

Computer science and physics have been closely linked since the birth of modern computing. This book is about that link. John von Neumann’s original design for digital computing in the 1940s was motivated by applications in ballistics and hydrodynamics, and his model still underlies today’s hardware architectures. Within several years of the invention of the first digital computers, the Monte Carlo method was developed, putting these devices to work simulating natural processes using the principles of statistical physics. It is difficult to imagine how computing might have evolved without the physical insights that nurtured it. It is impossible to imagine how physics would have evolved without computation. While digital computers quickly became indispensable, a true theoretical understanding of the efficiency of the computation process did not occur until twenty years later. In 1965, Hartmanis and Stearns [227] as well as Edmonds [139, 140] articulated the notion of computational complexity, categorizing algorithms according to how rapidly their time and space requirements grow with input size. The qualitative distinctions that computational complexity draws between algorithms form the foundation of theoretical computer science. Chief among these distinctions is that of polynomial versus exponential time. A combinatorial problem belongs in the complexity class P (polynomial time) if there exists an algorithm guaranteeing a solution in a computation time, or number of elementary steps of the algorithm, that grows at most polynomially with input size. Loosely speaking, such problems are considered computationally feasible. An example might be sorting a list of n numbers: even a particularly naive and inefficient algorithm for this will run in a number of steps that grows as O(n2), and so sorting is in the class P. A problem belongs in the complexity class NP (non-deterministic polynomial time) if it is merely possible to test, in polynomial time, whether a specific presumed solution is correct. Of course, P ⊆ NP: for any problem whose solution can be found in polynomial time, one can surely verify the validity of a presumed solution in polynomial time.
Proving Conditional Randomness using the Principle of Deferred Decisions
Authors: Kaporis Alexis C. , Kirousis Lefteris M.
Published: November 2020

In order to prove that a certain property holds asymptotically for a restricted class of objects such as formulas or graphs, one may apply a heuristic on a random element of the class, and then prove by probabilistic analysis that the heuristic succeeds with high probability. This method has been used to establish lower bounds on thresholds for desirable properties such as satisfiability and colorability: lower bounds for the 3-SAT threshold were discussed briefly in the previous chapter. The probabilistic analysis depends on analyzing the mean trajectory of the heuristic—as we have seen in chapter 3—and in parallel, showing that in the asymptotic limit the trajectory’s properties are strongly concentrated about their mean. However, the mean trajectory analysis requires that certain random characteristics of the heuristic’s starting sample are retained throughout the trajectory. We propose a methodology in this chapter to determine the conditional that should be imposed on a random object, such as a conjunctive normal form (CNF) formula or a graph, so that conditional randomness is retained when we run a given algorithm. The methodology is based on the principle of deferred decisions. The essential idea is to consider information about the object as being stored in “small pieces,” in separate registers. The contents of the registers pertaining to the conditional are exposed, while the rest remain unexposed. Having separate registers for different types of information prevents exposing information unnecessarily. We use this methodology to prove various randomness invariance results, one of which answers a question posed by Molloy [402].
Introduction
Authors: Posner Richard A.
Published: November 2020

You wouldn’t see the asteroid, even though it was several miles in diameter, because it would be hurtling toward you at 15 to 25 miles a second. At that speed, the column of air between the asteroid and the earth’s surface would be compressed with such force that the column’s temperature would soar to several times that of the sun, incinerating everything in its path. When the asteroid struck, it would penetrate deep into the ground and explode, creating an enormous crater and ejecting burning rocks and dense clouds of soot into the atmosphere, wrapping the globe in a mantle of fiery debris that would raise surface temperatures by as much as 100 degrees Fahrenheit and shut down photosynthesis for years. The shock waves from the collision would have precipitated earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, gargantuan tidal waves, and huge forest fires. A quarter of the earth’s human population might be dead within 24 hours of the strike, and the rest soon after. But there might no longer be an earth for an asteroid to strike. In a high-energy particle accelerator, physicists bent on re-creating conditions at the birth of the universe collide the nuclei of heavy atoms, containing large numbers of protons and neutrons, at speeds near that of light, shattering these particles into their constituent quarks. Because some of these quarks, called strange quarks, are hyperdense, here is what might happen: A shower of strange quarks clumps, forming a tiny bit of strange matter that has a negative electric charge. Because of its charge, the strange matter attracts the nuclei in the vicinity (nuclei have a positive charge), fusing with them to form a larger mass of strange matter that expands exponentially. Within a fraction of a second the earth is compressed to a hyperdense sphere 100 meters in diameter, explodes in the manner of a supernova, and vanishes. By then, however, the earth might have been made uninhabitable for human beings and most other creatures by abrupt climate changes.
Introduction
Authors: Ross John , Schreiber Igor , Vlad Marcel O.
Published: November 2020

Chemical kinetics as a science has existed for more than a century. It deals with the rates of reactions and the details of how a given reaction proceeds from reactants to products. In a chemical system with many chemical species, there are several questions to be asked: What species react with what other species? In what temporal order? With what catalysts? And with what results? The answers constitute the macroscopic reaction mechanism. The process can be described macroscopically by listing the reactants, intermediates, products, and all the elementary reactions and catalysts in the reaction system. The present book is a treatise and text on the determination of complex reaction mechanisms in chemistry and in chemical reaction systems that occur in chemical engineering, biochemistry, biology, biotechnology, and genomics. A basic knowledge of chemical kinetics is assumed. Several approaches are suggested for the deduction of information on the causal chemical connectivity of the species, on the elementary reactions among the species, and on the sequence of the elementary reactions that constitute the reaction pathway and the reaction mechanism. Chemical reactions occur by the collisions of molecules, and such an event is called an elementary reaction for specified reactant and product molecules. A balanced stoichiometric equation for an elementary reaction yields the number of each type of molecule according to conservation of atoms, mass, and charge. Figure 1.1 shows a relatively simple reaction mechanism for the decomposition of ozone by light, postulated to occur in a series of three elementary steps. (The details of collisions of molecules and bond rearrangements are not discussed.) All approaches are based on the measurements of the concentrations of chemical species in the whole reaction system, not on parts, as has been the practice. One approach is called the pulse method, in which a pulse of concentration of one or more species of arbitrary strength is applied to a reacting system and the responses of as many species as possible are measured. From these responses causal chemical connectivities may be inferred. The basic theory is explained, demonstrated on a model mechanism, and tested in an experiment on a part of glycolysis.
Hazards of the Caribbean
Authors: Hough Susan Elizabeth , Bilham Roger G.
Published: November 2020

The Caribbean is a place of romance. Idyllic beaches, buoyant cultures, lush tropical flora; even the Caribbean pirates of yore often find themselves romanticized in modern eyes, and on modern movie screens. Yet it requires barely a moment’s reflection to appreciate the enormous resilience that must exist in a place that is so routinely battered by storms of enormous ferocity. News stories tend to focus on large storms that reach the United States, but many large hurricanes arrive in the United States by way of the Caribbean. Before it slammed into South Carolina in 1989, Hurricane Hugo brushed the Caribbean islands, skimming Puerto Rico and devastating many small islands to its east. Other hurricanes have hit the islands more directly. These include Inez, which claimed some 1,500 lives in 1966, and the powerful Luis, which caused $2.5 billion in property damage and 17 deaths when it pummeled the Leeward Islands and parts of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in 1995. Hurricanes also figure prominently in the pre-20th-century history of the Caribbean—storms that had no names, the sometimes lethal fury of which arrived unheralded by modern forecasts. Most people know that the Caribbean is hurricane country; probably few realize that it is earthquake country as well. After all, the western edge of North America is the active plate boundary; earthquakes occur in the more staid midcontinent and Atlantic seaboard, but far less commonly. What can be overlooked, however, is North America’s other active plate boundary. To understand the general framework of this other boundary, it is useful to return briefly to basic tenets of plate tectonics theory. As discussed in earlier chapters, the eastern edge of North America is known as a passive margin. Because the North American continent is not moving relative to the adjacent Atlantic oceanic crust, in plate tectonics terms, scientists do not differentiate between the North American continent and the western half of the Atlantic ocean.