bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Stoichiometry
Authors: Oriakhi Christopher O.
Published: November 2020

Stoichiometry is the study of the quantities of reactants and products involved in a chemical reaction. In addition to identifying the reactants and products in a chemical reaction, a balanced equation gives useful information that is helpful in calculations. Consider the equation for the reaction between ammonia and oxygen to produce nitrogen (II) oxide: 4 NH3(g)+5 O2(g) −→4 NO (g)+6 H2O (g) The following information can be obtained: 1. Molecules of reactant and products: 4 molecules of NH3 react with 5 molecules of O2 to form 4 molecules of NO and 6 molecules of H2O. 2. Moles of reactants and products: 4 mol of NH3 react with 5 mol of O2 to produce 4 mol of NO and 6 mol of H2O. 3. Mass of reactants and products: 68 g of NH3 (4 mol) react with 160 g of O2 (5 mol) to produce 120 g of NO (4 mol) and 108 g of H2O (6 mol). 4. Volumes of gases: 4 volumes of NH3 react with 5 volumes of O2 to produce 4 volumes of NO and 6 volumes of H2O at the same temperature and pressure (by Avogadro’s law, which will be discussed in detail in section 11.5 of chapter 11). There are several types of stoichiometric problems. The common types include: 1. Mole – Mole 2. Mass – Mass 3. Mass – Mole (or Mole – Mass) 4. Mole – Volume (or Volume to Mole) 5. Mass – Volume (or Volume to Mass) 6. Volume – Volume The following general steps can be used to solve many stoichiometric problems: 1. Write the balanced chemical equation for the reaction. 2. Organize your data; determine which quantities you know and which ones you need to find. 3. Write the mole relationship between the given substance (a reactant or a product) and the required substance (a reactant or a product). 4. Calculate molar masses and convert masses, molecules, or volumes of the known substance to moles. 5. Use stoichiometric coefficients or conversion factors (mole ratios) from the equation to determine the moles of the unknown substance. 6. Convert moles of the unknown substance to the desired mass, molecules, or volume.
Ionic Equilibria and pH
Authors: Oriakhi Christopher O.
Published: November 2020

Water is a weak acid. At 25°C, pure water ionizes to form a hydrogen ion and a hydroxide ion: H2O ⇋ H+ + OH− Hydration of the proton (hydrogen ion) to form hydroxonium ion is ignored here for simplicity. This equilibrium lies mainly to the left; that is, the ionization happens only to a slight extent. We know that 1 L of pure water contains 55.6 mol. Of this, only 10−7 mol actually ionizes into equal amounts of [H+] and [OH−], i.e., [H+] = [OH−] = 10−7M Because these concentrations are equal, pure water is neither acidic nor basic. A solution is acidic if it contains more hydrogen ions than hydroxide ions. Similarly, a solution is basic if it contains more hydroxide ions than hydrogen ions. Acidity is defined as the concentration of hydrated protons (hydrogen ions); basicity is the concentration of hydroxide ions. Pure water ionizes at 25°C to produce 10−7 M of [H+] and 10−7 M of [OH−]. The product Kw = [H+]×[OH−] = 10−7 M×10−7 M= 10−14 M is known as the ionic product of water. Note that this is simply the equilibrium expression for the dissociation of water. This equation holds for any dilute aqueous solution of acid, base, and salt. The pH of a solution is defined as the negative logarithm of the molar concentration of hydrogen ions. The lower the pH, the greater the acidity of the solution. Mathematically: pH=−log10[ H+] or −log10[H3O+] This can also be written as: pH = log10 1/[H+] or log10 1/[H3O+] Taking the antilogarithm of both sides and rearranging gives: [H+] = 10−pH This equation can be used to calculate the hydrogen ion concentration when the pH of the solution is known.
Administrative Interlude
Authors: Fish Stanley
Published: November 2020

But you can’t do it in a vacuum. And although academics would be reluctant to admit it, the conditions that make what they do possible are established and maintained by administrators. When I was a dean, the question I was most often asked by faculty members was, “Why do administrators make so much more money than we do?” The answer I gave was simple: administrators work harder, they have more work to do, and they actually do it. At the end of my tenure as dean, I spoke to some administrators who had been on the job for a short enough time to be able still to remember what it was like to be a faculty member and what thoughts they had then about the work they did now. One said that she had come to realize how narcissistic academics are: an academic, she mused, is focused entirely on the intellectual stock market and watches its rises and falls with an anxious and selfregarding eye. As an academic, you’re trying to get ahead; as an administrator, you’re trying “to make things happen for other people”; you’re “not advancing your own profile, but advancing the institution, and you’re more service oriented.” A second new administrator reported that he finds faculty members “unbelievably parochial, selfish, and selfindulgent.” They believe that their time is their own even when someone else is paying for it. They say things like “I don’t get paid for the summer.” They believe that they deserve everything and that if they are ever denied anything, it could only be because an evil administrator has committed a great injustice. Although they are employees of the university (and in public universities, of the state), they consider themselves independent contractors engaged fitfully in free-lance piecework. They have no idea of how comfortable a life they lead. Neither, said a third administrator recently up from the ranks, do they have any idea of how the university operates. They seem proud of their parochialism and boast of their inability to access the many systems that hold the enterprise together.
Don’t Let Anyone Else Do Your Job
Authors: Fish Stanley
Published: November 2020

Of course, there’s no shortage of people who will step in to do your job if you default on it. The corporate world looks to the university for its workforce. Parents want the university to pick up the baton they may have dropped. Students demand that the university support the political cause of the moment. Conservatives believe that the university should refurbish and preserve the traditions of the past. Liberals and progressives would like to see those same traditions dismantled and replaced by what they take to be better ones. Alumni wonder why the athletics teams aren’t winning more. Politicians and trustees wonder why the professors aren’t teaching more. Whether it is state legislators who want a say in hiring and course content, or donors who want to tell colleges how to spend the funds they provide, or parents who are disturbed when Dick and Jane bring home books about cross-dressing and gender change, or corporations that want new departments opened and others closed, or activist faculty who urge the administration to declare a position on the war in Iraq, there is no end of interests intent on deflecting the university from its search for truth and setting it on another path. Each of these lobbies has its point, but it is not the university’s point, which is, as I have said over and over again, to produce and disseminate (through teaching and publication) academic knowledge and to train those who will take up that task in the future. But can the university defend the autonomy it claims (or should claim) from public pressures? Is that claim even coherent? Mark Taylor would say no. In a key sentence in the final chapter of his book The Moment of Complexity (2001), Taylor declares that “the university is not autonomous but is a thoroughly parasitic institution, which continually depends on the generosity of the host so many academics claim to reject.” He continues: “The critical activities of the humanities, arts, and sciences are only possible if they are supported by the very economic interests their criticism so often calls into question.”
Panic Disorder With and Without Agoraphobia
Authors: Starcevic, MD, PhD Vladan
Published: November 2020

Panic disorder is characterized by two components: recurrent panic attacks and anticipatory anxiety. Panic attacks within panic disorder are not caused by physical illness or certain substances and they are unexpected, at least initially; later in the course of the disorder, many attacks may be precipitated by certain situations or are more likely to occur in them. Anticipatory anxiety is an intense fear of having another panic attack, which is present between panic attacks. Some patients with panic disorder go on to develop agoraphobia, usually defined as fear and/or avoidance of the situations from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing or in which help might not be available in case of a panic attack; in such cases, patients are diagnosed with panic disorder with agoraphobia. Those who do not develop agoraphobia receive a diagnosis of panic disorder without agoraphobia. Components of panic disorder are presented in Figure 2—1. Patients with agoraphobia who have no history of panic disorder or whose agoraphobia is not related at least to panic attacks or symptoms of panic attacks are relatively rarely encountered in clinical practice. The diagnosis of agoraphobia without history of panic disorder has been a matter of some controversy, especially in view of the differences between American and European psychiatrists (and the DSM and ICD diagnostic and classification systems) in the conceptualization of the relationship between panic disorder and agoraphobia. The conceptualization adhered to here has for the most part been derived from the DSM system, as there is more empirical support for it. Although panic disorder (with and without agoraphobia) is a relatively well-defined psychopathological entity whose treatment is generally rewarding, there are important, unresolved issues. They are listed below and discussed throughout this chapter. …1. Are there different types of panic attacks based on the absence or presence of the context in which they appear (i.e., unexpected vs. situational attacks)? Should the ‘‘subtyping’’ of panic attacks be based on other criteria (e.g., symptom profile)? 2. Because panic attacks are not specific for panic disorder, should they continue to be the main feature of panic disorder? Can panic attacks occurring as part of panic disorder be reliably distinguished from panic attacks occurring as part of other disorders or in the absence of any psychopathology? 3. What is the relationship between panic attacks, panic disorder, and agoraphobia?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Authors: Starcevic, MD, PhD Vladan
Published: November 2020

As its name implies, the main characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are obsessions and/or compulsions. Different types of obsessions and compulsions make OCD a heterogeneous condition. Also, OCD exists on a continuum from mild cases to those with extremely severe and incapacitating manifestations generally not seen in other anxiety disorders. Clinical manifestations of OCD are striking and leave few people who observe them unimpressed. This is arguably due to the seriousness with which persons with OCD take their own obsessions and compulsions along with concurrent realization that these same obsessions and compulsions are senseless and should be gotten rid of. Indeed, there are few other examples in psychopathology where insight and deficiency of insight stand together, and where espousing and fighting the absurd are so intertwined. For all these reasons, OCD is often portrayed as a puzzling or intriguing disorder; in addition, it often represents a treatment challenge. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is probably the least controversial condition within the anxiety disorders because its clinical features are well described and relatively easily recognized and because hardly anyone doubts its existence as a psychopathological entity. What is controversial about OCD, however, is where it belongs and how it should be classified. This is a consequence of a number of features of OCD that make it look different from other anxiety disorders and of the close relationship that OCD has with some conditions outside of the realm of anxiety disorders. Listed below are a number of key questions about OCD…. 1. In view of its different clinical features and the vastly different severity of these features, should OCD be considered a unitary condition or divided into subtypes? 2. If OCD is to be divided into subtypes, on the basis of what criteria should it be done? Types of obsessions and compulsions, reasons for performing compulsions, severity of illness, degree of insight, age of onset, or something else? 3. Should neutralizing responses other than compulsions be given a more prominent role in the description and conceptualization of OCD? 4. How does insight contribute to the conceptualization of OCD? 5. What are the core features of OCD? Is OCD primarily an affective disorder, is it characterized by a primary disturbance in thinking, or is it essentially a disorder of repetitive behaviors?
Psychosocial Treatments for Early Psychosis
Authors: Compton Michael T , Broussard Beth
Published: November 2020

People experiencing psychosis often have to deal with a number of problems. These problems may stem from certain symptoms. As explained in Chapter 2, these symptoms may include positive symptoms (such as hearing voices or having unusual beliefs), negative symptoms (such as being isolated, withdrawn, or slow), cognitive dysfunction (such as difficulties with attention, learning, or memory), and other types of symptoms. However, psychosocial difficulties (like problems with school, work, relationships, and recreation/leisure activities) may disrupt life as well, even though they are not necessarily thought of as symptoms. Unfortunately, these types of problems are very common for people dealing with a psychotic disorder. Treating the se difficulties in addition to the specific symptoms is necessary to begin to feel better and to live a full life. In fact, the recovery process focuses as much on resuming school, work, relationships, and leisure activities as it does on remission (see Chapter 11 on Promoting Recovery). Although medicines are extremely important in treating symptoms, especially positive symptoms (see Chapter 6 on Medicines Used to Treat Psychosis), another type of treatments, called psychosocial treatments, focus more on helping patients with these broader problems. Normal psychosocial development begins in childhood but continues throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescence and early adulthood are extremely important times when most people develop social skills and build relationships. Late adolescence and early adulthood is typically a time of finishing high school, starting college, getting a first job, having a first romantic relationship, beginning to live more independently from parents, buying a car, and establishing career goals. Success in all of these domains of life requires both psychological skills and social skills. The term psychosocial brings together these two words. So, psychosocial development refers to the important developmental stage when psychological and social skills mature. Unfortunately, for people who develop a psychotic disorder, late adolescence and early adulthood is the period of time when a first episode of psychosis usually begins. Thus, psychosis that first happens in this time period often interrupts psychosocial development, leading to psychosocial problems. Psychosocial problems refer to difficulties at school, at work, in relationships, or in recreation and leisure activities.
Approach
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

It might seem a little foolish to attempt to predict the future, especially when you consider how often earlier predictions failed. For instance, the imminent depletion of our main fossil fuel reserves has often been proclaimed. Back in 1865 Stanley Jevons predicted that Britain’s coal reserves would run out within a few years. The U.S. government calculated in 1914 that there was enough oil left in the ground for just one more decade; subsequent forecasts in 1939 and again in 1951 predicted that the oil would be gone within 13 years. In the 1960s, optimism about the advent of nuclear energy was so high that it was actually argued that the available gas and oil should be consumed as quickly as possible because the advent of virtually cost-free nuclear energy would soon render them worthless. In 1972, the Club of Rome was forecasting that we had only enough oil for another 20 years. Peak oil—the moment at which consumption reaches its historic plateau—was called during the 2008 surge in oil prices, only for the prophets of doom to clam up when prices began to fall again. Nowadays, if you ask different energy experts how long our oil reserves will last, their projections will vary by a factor of at least three, and some will simply reply, “forever.” There are many more examples we could add. Predictions for future events fail time and again. The reason should be obvious when you consider major developments in our past. Small haphazard events can change the course of history. One spark of genius by a German mechanic changed the world of transport forever. A single decision by an Arab sheikh could bring our oil-based economy to its knees. Or a new battery technology could change our approach to transportation forever. Turning points like these can’t be foreseen. They depend on one person’s thought processes or on a stroke of experimental luck by a group of scientists. History can only be recounted in hindsight. That means futurologists have their work cut out for them: They can merely extrapolate from trends that are already visible.
Vital Networks
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

The explosion in the world’s population appears to be slowing down. Fifty years ago, an average woman had between five and six children. The global average now is just 2.6. In a mere two generations, therefore, the reproduction rate has sunk to slightly above the replacement level, which is currently 2.3. In half the world, people are having fewer children than needed to maintain the species. This includes countries like the United States, China, and Indonesia. In the European Union, Japan, and Russia, the population is shrinking for the first time in human history for reasons other than war, disease, or other calamities. It is a matter instead of free will, with women’s education and rising prosperity helping produce a remarkable slowdown. Worldwide, the number of births is no longer increasing, which gives reason for optimism. The human race is incredibly flexible when it comes to procreation. Only in certain strongholds of Islam and Christianity— along with much of Africa—are birth rates still well above replacement level. The overall world population continues to grow, however, because lots of countries have relatively young demographic profiles. Life expectancy is rising in many places, too. Our species is currently growing by 75 million a year, which means we’ll need more food, water, and housing in the future. The real problem, however, is that wealth has been growing at a much faster rate than the population. Many nations are undergoing rapid economic development, which is in turn changing patterns of consumption. People have begun to eat more meat, use more dairy produce, and consume more energy. We now live in a world where more children are obese than are underfed. With demand exceeding supply, it is invariably the poorest who suffer. China and a number of Arab countries are already buying up huge areas of farmland in Africa to secure their own food supplies. How can we reduce the amount of waste in wealthy regions while simultaneously securing food and water for those who have no choice in the matter? Can we cope with increasing prosperity?
Food for All
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

Can we feed the world? Although the rate of increase is falling, the world’s population continues to grow at an explosive rate, doubling since the early 1960s. Fortunately, the quantity of food has increased even faster. The average human being in 2010 has 25 percent more food than in 1960 despite the huge increase in population. Although that’s an average figure, the proportion of humanity that is undernourished has also fallen. Extending and intensifying has improved our fate. But we have reached a point where not much more nature can be converted into farmland without serious negative impacts on other vital environmental services such as water catchments, carbon sequestrations, and conservation of biodiversity. A quarter of the world’s ice-free surface is already used for farming. So how can we increase food production to feed the increasing number of people as well as improve the nutrition of the millions who are still malnourished, especially in Africa? Pessimists regularly predict catastrophic food shortages. The specter of starvation can be traced back to the ideas of the English parson Thomas Malthus, who fretted about the population explosion he witnessed toward the end of the eighteenth century. A typical couple at the time had four children and sixteen grandchildren, which meant the population was growing exponentially. Malthus anxiously predicted a shortage of food, as he didn’t believe new farmland could be cleared fast enough to keep feeding all those extra mouths. Linear growth in the area under cultivation—and hence, the production of food—was the best that could be hoped for. Something would have to give, and Malthus was convinced that humanity would be stricken by genocidal war, plague, and other epidemics. Starvation on a massive scale would then restore the balance between population levels and food supply. Yet the catastrophe he predicted never came about. The world’s population continues to grow rapidly. Fortunately, the food supply has expanded even faster in most parts of the world. Overall, there is more than enough for all of us. The fact that shortages exist is a question of politics, communication, and knowledge transfer.
Clean Factories
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

If you ask a child to draw a factory, you’ll most likely see a picture of huge chimneys pouring out dark smoke. Adults might come up with associations like explosions, barren industrial estates, and wasted energy and raw materials. Chemical plants, with their endless pipes and weird smells, have a particularly bad name when it comes to damaging our soil and atmosphere. Chemistry today is—we have to admit—far from ideal. Many of the industry’s perceived sins relate directly to its gigantic size. You only have to look at our power stations or the factories that produce our plastics: They’re growing bigger all the time. They often need huge cooling installations to get rid of all the excess heat. This is just another way of saying that they use far too much energy. Bigger plants bring bigger dangers. Things can go very badly in a large installation. The repercussions of an accident can be dramatic, which is why safety is such a key feature when designing them. But that imposes restrictions on the installation’s operations. It often means that we have to operate the processes far from the optimum. Operators need to play it safe at the expense of additional material and energy consumption. Truckloads of by-products must be removed—often in such vast quantities that there’s hardly any useful purpose they can serve. In classic refining techniques, for instance, it’s hard to adjust the ratio between light and heavy oil products. If you need a lot of gasoline, you end up with an excess of fuel oil, or vice versa. Increased scale has long been the chemical industry’s watchword and for compelling technical and financial reasons. A large vessel, for instance, is easier to insulate than a small one. There are other arguments in favor of large scale: Investment costs, personnel levels, maintenance, administrative costs, and land use have all traditionally been lower per unit of product in a big plant. Until recently, it’s always been an issue of bigger meaning more efficient and cheaper. Nowadays, however, the classic approach is incresingly unnecessary.
Smarter Electronics
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

It can be pretty dispiriting to go into an electronics shop shortly after you’ve bought yourself a new computer. Every month, you seem to get more computing power for the same money. And every year, the devices get smaller. The pace of progress is so intense that you’re out of date again within a few months. If you look back 10 years, the most advanced computers of the time now appear clumsy. Ten years from today, our current computers will no doubt seem ridiculously primitive, too. It may be frustrating, but that same rapid progress offers an important source of hope for humanity, as it will enable us to apply the power of computers to areas that have so far proved resistant. All sorts of pressing issues in health care and the global economy stand to benefit from the ever-decreasing price of electronics and the ability to pack more and more computing and communication power into a smaller space. That’s why electronics lies at the heart of many of the solutions we describe in the remainder of this book. The promise held out by electronics amounts to more than the wishful thinking of unworldly nerds laboring in dust-free labs to develop yet more powerful microchips. It is bound up with the nature of the new kind of problems we face. Electronics is proving increasingly important in complex situations that are difficult to control. A tiny oscillation in the earth’s interior, for instance, has the potential to induce an earthquake. It’s therefore vital that we install inexpensive devices around the globe that can pick up these early signals before they intensify, while there’s still time to warn the people in harm’s way. The same applies to many other complex contemporary issues. Powerful computers could routinely analyze masses of financial data to detect the next crisis in the making, and a few years from now, we may have computers powerful enough to identify tipping points in the climate. Rapid calculation, accurate measurement, and automatic control will give us a firmer grip on complex problems.
More Communication
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

Things were very different 20 years ago. There was no Internet and no e-mail. The first text message had yet to be sent. Many European countries were still opening enormous transmission towers to put the finishing touches to their national television networks. Go back another 20 years, just as the first push-button phones were hitting the market, and a single computer would have taken up an entire living room should anyone have ever considered installing one. International phone calls were so expensive that people often timed them with stopwatches. The world has shrunk considerably since those days. E-mailing a research report or chatting online has become second nature. We can collaborate with someone on the other side of the world almost as easily as we can with a person two streets away. Companies use the Internet to outsource their accounts to India. Photographers sell their work all over the world. And if we want to, we can listen to Japanese radio in our European offices. Much of this book was written far away from the experts we interviewed. Yet in all the hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, and video sessions that went into its production, nobody paid the slightest thought to the physical distances separating us. As the world shrinks, the way we use our communication networks intensifies. The volume of data we send is doubling every year, and the capacity of computer networks and telephone cables inexorably increases, too. Communication technology continues to improve at a rapid rate. And with each doubling of capacity, the price of transporting information halves. Things will no doubt look very different again 20 years from now. By that time, for instance, regions that currently lack Internet access will have been connected. The first signs of these changes are already apparent. Africans are playing an important part in computer projects set up around the world by volunteers. They are involved, for instance, in developing Linux—the open-source alternative to the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Projects like this give programmers the chance to take part in global technological developments.
Essential Education
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

The helplessness of newborn babies is very endearing. They can just about breathe unaided, but they are otherwise entirely unadapted and dependent. Babies can barely see, let alone walk or talk. Few animals come into the world so unprepared, and no other species is as dependent on learning as human beings are. Elephant calves, for instance, can stand up by themselves within a few minutes of being born. Most animals are similarly “preprogrammed.” Female elephants carry their young for no fewer than 22 months, whereas we humans have to go on investing in our offspring long after they are born. Children need years of adult protection. They guzzle fuel, too; their brains consume fully 60 percent of the newborn’s total energy intake. In the first year of life, the infant’s head buzzes with activity as neurons grow in size and complexity and form their innumerable interconnections. The way the brain develops is the subject of the next chapter (chapter 5.2). Here we concentrate on the way we are educated from the first day on. There is virtually no difference between Inuits and Australian aborigines in terms of their ability—at opposite ends of the earth and in climates that are utterly different—to bear children successfully. Other animal species are far more closely interrelated with their environment. Other primates have evolved to occupy a limited biotope determined by food and climate. Humans are much more universal. Every human child has an equal chance of survival wherever they are born. As a species, we delay our maturation and adaptation until after birth, which makes the inequality of subsequent human development all the more acute. Someone who is born in Mali or Burkina Faso is unlikely ever to learn to read. A person whose father lives in Oxford, by contrast, might have spoken his or her first words of Latin at an early age. Inuit and aboriginal babies may be born equally, but their chances begin to diverge the moment they start learning how to live. We are not shaped by our inborn nature but by the culture that is impressed upon us by the people with whom we grow up.
Maintaining Identity
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

Baroness Susan Greenfield’s origins are humbler than her title might suggest. Her father was a machine operator in an industrial neighbour-hood of London. In Britain, unlike many other countries, it is possible to earn a peerage through your own merits rather than pure heredity. Lady Greenfield is a leading world authority on the human brain. She is concerned that technology has invaded our lives so profoundly that it has begun to affect the way our brains operate and hence our very personalities. “People are longing for experiences rather than searching for meaning,” she says. “They live more in the moment and have less of a sense of the narrative of their lives—of continuity. They lack a sense of having a beginning, a middle, and an end. They have less of a feeling that they are developing an identity throughout their life with a continuing story line from childhood, youth, parenthood, to grandparenthood. The emphasis is more on process than content. You now have people who are much more ‘sensitive’ rather than ‘cognitive.’ ” Susan Greenfield identifies one of the causes of this development as the impressions our brains receive from a very early age. Modern life, she argues, with its hectic rhythm of visual impressions is very different from the past, in which she includes her own childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s in our youth that our brains are shaped: They grow like mad during the first 2 years of life, developing a maze of connections. And in the years that follow, they remain extremely nimble, forming new connections rapidly and changing in response to our surroundings. It is very much the world around us during infancy, childhood, and early adolescence that determines the outcome of this stage of brain formation. The brain displays an immense degree of what Greenfield likes to call “plasticity” during this stage; connections are formed as and when they are needed. The foundations of Baroness Greenfield’s own personality were laid in a similar way during her youth.
Disaster Scenarios
Authors: van Santen Rutger , Khoe Djan , Vermeer Bram
Published: November 2020

A hurricane striking the Chinese coast is ten times as lethal as one hitting the United States. The number of U.S. victims is limited because of better precautions, warning systems, and evacuation methods. More effective observation and communication can save lives. A century ago, hurricanes killed around 7,000 Americans every year, whereas nowadays there are only very few hurricanes of the lethality of Katrina. That progress has yet to reach every corner of Earth, says Guus Berkhout regretfully. This Dutch geophysicist has immersed himself in the mechanisms of disasters and disaster prevention since the beginning of his scientific career—first as professor of seismic imaging and later as professor of innovation at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. We talked to him at the university campus that lies 3 meters below sea level. At his laboratory, Berkhout analyzes the early warning systems and contingency plans that will be needed to protect both his lab and his compatriots. “We can’t stop earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, or tidal waves from happening,” he stresses. “And we may never be able to predict hurricanes or earthquakes with sufficient accuracy. Nor can we hope to prevent people from living in dangerous places. They are simply too attractive.” Human beings indeed seem addicted to living on the edge of catastrophe. The World Bank has calculated that a fifth of all countries are under permanent threat of natural disaster, with some 3.4 billion people—roughly half the world’s population—at heightened risk of being killed by one. Yet unsafe regions are often exceptionally popular places to live and work, one reason being that floodplains and the slopes of volcanoes are highly fertile. The climate is milder along the coast, the soil better, and transport more efficient than farther inland. Even the likelihood of earthquakes isn’t enough to persuade people to live elsewhere, as witnessed by some of the most densely populated areas of California and Japan. Current migration trends—moving to where the action is—suggest that the proportion of people living in unsafe areas will only increase.
Implementing Screening as Part of Enhanced Care: Screening Alone is Not Enough
Authors: Gilbody Simon , Beck Dan
Published: November 2020

There are conflicting conclusions and policy recommendations relating to the effects of screening on the outcome of depression, but what does the latest evidence suggest? Based on the best available information to date, it emerges that screening alone is not a sufficient intervention to improve the quality and outcomes of care for depression. What is less clear is whether screening is a necessary condition for enhanced and improved quality of care and, given additional components, to what extent screening programs can potentially improve quality of routine care. Depression is the most common mental health problem and is associated with decrements in functioning and quality of life comparable to other chronic physical diseases. The prevalence, chronicity, and burden of suffering are such that the World Bank has predicted that depression will become the second leading cause of global disability by 2020. The economic consequences of depression are also profound, with the healthcare costs, welfare costs, and losses to productivity amounting to £9 billion ($20 billion) in the United Kingdom3 and $53 billion in the United States. Depression is most commonly encountered in primary care and in hospital settings, yet it often goes unrecognized by healthcare professionals. This has led to calls to implement screening programs to aid in the detection and management of this problem. The rationale and evidence base to support screening for depression is the focus of the present book and is discussed extensively in other chapters (see Chapters 2, 4, and 9). In the United States, screening has shifted from being an intervention that was not initially supported in national policy recommendations to being one that is regarded as being of proven effectiveness. An evolution in thinking has occurred that places screening at the center of mental health policy and practice, and is based upon the general assumption that screening will logically lead to improvements in the quality and outcome of care. Some have termed this the screening– detection–treatment–improvement paradigm. Recently screening for common mental health problems in the United States has become the cornerstone of the president’s agenda to improve the mental health of the U.S. population.
Uveitis
Authors: Khaimi Mahmoud A.
Published: November 2020

Delayed-onset postoperative inflammation can result from a diverse range of factors, such as blebitis, bleb-related endophthalmitis, underlying uveitis, mitomycin-C mediated inflammation, herpes infection, phaco-anaphylactic and phacogenic uveitis, intraocular lens (IOL) chafing of the iris, and sympathetic ophthalmia. Delayed postoperative uveitis is defined as inflammation occurring 6 weeks or later postoperatively and is a rare condition that may occur following a glaucoma filtering procedure. Currently, there are very few documented cases of this condition. Even though it is rare, it is important to differentiate the infectious sources of delayed-onset postoperative uveitis after glaucoma filtering surgery from those that are noninfectious so that the appropriate treatment is administered. Infectious cases of uveitis should be considered first. The most common form of late-onset postoperative uveitis after a filtering procedure is blebitis . Brown and colleagues were the first to use the term “blebitis” to describe a limited infection centered around a bleb with or without anterior chamber reaction and no vitreous involvement. In contrast, on the other end of the spectrum, is bleb-related endophthalmitis , which is characterized by a more fulminant course with anterior chamber reaction and the presence of vitritis. Blebitis and bleb-related endophthalmitis typically manifest several months to years after the surgery. Blebitis may often be a precursor to bleb-related endophthalmitis, and early recognition of late-onset bleb-related infections should be taken seriously and promptly treated to avoid severe ocular and visual sequelae. Both forms of bleb-related infection can be differentiated by the extent of ocular inflammation. Patients with blebitis typically complain of redness, foreign body sensation, pain, photophobia, and conjunctival discharge. The conjunctiva around the bleb is also significantly injected. Additionally, the bleb itself usually has a whitish or chalky appearance with or without an epithelial defect. The anterior chamber may have variable degrees of reaction, and a hypopyon may be present in the anterior chamber as well as in the bleb itself. Conversely, patients with bleb-related endophthalmitis typically present with a more fulminant course, which includes rapidly deteriorating vision, redness, pain, and diffuse conjunctival injection. Vitritis, while absent in blebitis, is present in bleb-related endophthalmitis.
Ptosis
Authors: Criden Marc R.
Published: November 2020

Ptosis of the upper eyelids is a well-known complication of most forms of ocular surgery. The incidence of ptosis following glaucoma surgery is reported to range from 6 to 12%. The etiology has not been entirely established; however, it is believed to be multifactorial, and several contributing factors have been identified. Identification of the etiology is important since this will often dictate the management. The ptosis may be transient, resolving within days, or persistent. The management of acquired ptosis following glaucoma surgery is critical since surgical over correction can expose a filtering bleb and lead to serious complications, including endophthalmitis. Transient ptosis following surgery is more common than persistent ptosis and may recover within 12 to 72 hours. It may be caused by anesthetic, lid edema, or hematoma formation in the eyelid or muscle. A retrobulbar or peribulbar block with lidocaine may affect the levator muscle. Similarly, direct infiltration of the eyelid will block the distal fibers of the oculomotor nerve. The primary factors postulated to cause ptosis include muscle or nerve damage from local block, a superior rectus bridle suture or corneal traction suture, general anesthesia, eyelid edema, traction applied by the speculum, and levator aponeurosis dehiscence. The lid speculum has been identified as a cause of ptosis regardless of the type of ocular surgery. Superior forces are placed on the upper eyelid while a superior bridle suture or corneal traction suture directs forces downward. These opposing forces may cause a stretching or frank dehiscence of the levator aponeurosis. One study specifically looked at the role of the bridle suture and did not find a significant contribution to ptosis development versus those cases that did not use a bridle suture. Rather, lid edema, neuromuscular block, and the lid speculum itself were identified as causative factors. It has been suggested that prolonged eyelid edema leads to disinsertion of the levator aponeurosis in susceptible populations, such as the elderly. This has not been borne out in other studies; however, some of the same factors that cause prolonged edema may also cause persistent ptosis, specifically inflammation.
Naked City
Authors: Zukin Sharon
Published: November 2020

As cities have gentrified, educated urbanites have come to prize what they regard as "authentic" urban life: aging buildings, art galleries, small boutiques, upscale food markets, neighborhood old-timers, funky ethnic restaurants, and old, family-owned shops. These signify a place's authenticity, in contrast to the bland standardization of the suburbs and exurbs. But as Sharon Zukin shows in Naked City, the rapid and pervasive demand for authenticity--evident in escalating real estate prices, expensive stores, and closely monitored urban streetscapes--has helped drive out the very people who first lent a neighborhood its authentic aura: immigrants, the working class, and artists. Zukin traces this economic and social evolution in six archetypal New York areas--Williamsburg, Harlem, the East Village, Union Square, Red Hook, and the city's community gardens--and travels to both the city's first IKEA store and the World Trade Center site. She shows that for followers of Jane Jacobs, this transformation is a perversion of what was supposed to happen. Indeed, Naked City is a sobering update of Jacobs' legendary 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Like Jacobs, Zukin looks at what gives neighborhoods a sense of place, but argues that over time, the emphasis on neighborhood distinctiveness has become a tool of economic elites to drive up real estate values and effectively force out the neighborhood "characters" that Jacobs so evocatively idealized.
Living Local in the East Village
Authors: Zukin Sharon
Published: November 2020

You’re waiting to meet the Japanese college students at 10 A.M. on the corner of Broadway and Astor Place. It’s a cool and drizzly day in June, passersby are buttoned up against the chill, and at this early hour downtown doesn’t have its usual buzz. When the students show up, you’re surprised to see they’re all young women, led by a middle-aged male professor who has some contacts in the city. They’re excited to be in New York, especially in Greenwich Village, and they whip out their digital cameras when you show them the colored tiles that Jim Power, the otherwise unemployed “Mosaic Man,” has spent the past twenty years gluing onto lampposts in a single-handed effort to beautify the neighborhood. They giggle in soft, high voices when you point out the Japanese pastry shop around the corner. “Beard Papa’s,” you hear them say to each other. They know the name of this chain from home. But they don’t know about local institutions such as Astor Place Hair Stylists, which occupies a basement in the building behind you, with its multiethnic team of eighty barbers who use their old-school expertise with the clippers to style the most eye-catching, gravity-defying Mohawks of the Lower Manhattan punk scene. In the 1980s young men used to make the pilgrimage to Astor’s barbers in the East Village from the suburbs and overseas, walking in with a shaggy mane and walking out with a towering crest, sprayed and lacquered and often dyed an unnatural black or red or green that went much better with their black leather jacket and metal studs. Opened in 1945 by an Italian American barber, the salon is still family owned and run. Now it shares the block with a branch of Cold Stone Creamery, the ice cream chain, Arche, the French shoe store chain, and a big Barnes & Noble bookstore. Neither do the Japanese students know that the Walgreen’s drugstore on the corner was until recently Astor Wines.
A Tale of Two Globals: Pupusas and IKEA in Red Hook
Authors: Zukin Sharon
Published: November 2020

It’s a Saturday afternoon in mid-July and the city is swooning in 96-degree heat and fearsome humidity. You think it will be cooler out on the water than in the subway, so you line up at the Wall Street pier in Lower Manhattan to take the free water taxi across the East River to Red Hook, on the Brooklyn waterfront. The ride is sponsored by IKEA, the Swedish big-box chain that opened its first New York City outpost in Red Hook a few weeks earlier. Because the neighborhood is notoriously difficult to reach on public transportation and IKEA is hoping to lure shoppers whose apartments are starved for Scandinavian modern couches but who don’t own cars, the store has decided to sponsor water taxis from Manhattan. They have a system to discourage free riders from Brooklyn. You get your hand stamped before you walk onto the ferry so the taxi company’s employees, on IKEA’s instructions, can refuse to carry any passenger on the return trip who didn’t come to Brooklyn to make a purchase. Sitting on the top deck of the ferry, you’re caught up in an air of joyful anticipation. The small boat is full, with more than thirty passengers, some of them young children and their parents, all smiling and laughing from the unusual pleasure of being out on the water on a sunny afternoon, and from the pleasure of a shopping trip as well. The kids snap photos with cell phone cameras, everyone admires the Statue of Liberty on the other side of the harbor, and a few passengers point out the artificial waterfalls designed by the Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson that have been installed on the river for the summer as a public art project. Though the ride takes less than ten minutes, it’s the kind of entertainment New Yorkers love: a chance to act like tourists on the town.