bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Between Laboratory and Leviathan: Technological Development and the Cyborg State
Authors: Whitehead Mark , Jones Rhys , Jones Martin
Published: November 2020

To talk about technology when exploring the relationship between states and nature may seem paradoxical. The paradoxical nature of this assignment is twofold. First, many argue that to speak of the technological is to speak of the anti-political—here technology is understood not as something of the state, but as an external arena that can simultaneously be used by the government to verify its policies, or, if unchecked, undermine the governing capacities of politicians (Barry 2001: ch. 1). Others claim that technology is the antithesis of nature—if nature is the un-produced eternal substratum of existence, technology is a socio-cultural artefact, a fragment of produced nature and a mechanism for ecological transformation (Luke 1996). Despite this apparent conundrum, this chapter argues that technology provides a crucial basis upon which many of the interplays between the state and nature continue to be expressed. Within his recent book on the links between states, government, and technologies—Political Machines—Andrew Barry (2001: 9) suggests that we need to think of technologies in two related but distinct ways. He argues that our first recourse when considering technologies is often to technological devices—or those labour-saving and labour-enhancing gadgets, tools, instruments, and gizmos that make new socio-economic practices possible and speed-up existing exercises (see also Harvey 2002). Secondly, Barry discerns a broader understanding of technology, which incorporates a wider set of procedures, rules, and calculations in and through which a technological device is animated and put to use. In this chapter we explore the technological devices and supporting technological infrastructures through which the contemporary politics of state– nature relations are being played out. We interpret the role of technology within state–nature relations in two main ways. First, we explore the ways in which various technologies have been synthesized with and within the state apparatuses in order to enhance governments’ capacities to manage nature. The role of technology in facilitating the governance of nature can be conceived of at a number of levels. It can, for example, be related to a Marxist reading of technologies as tools/machines deployed in the physical transformation of the natural world (Harvey 2002: 534).
Geological Controls in the Evolution of Granite Areas
Authors: Migon Piotr
Published: November 2020

The preceding chapters have already indicated that granite properties and structures play a key role in the progress of rock weathering, the development of many medium and small-scale landforms, and in the patterns of mass movement phenomena on slopes. But the influence of geological factors sensu lato is by no means limited to these, rather restricted spatial scales. Geotectonic settings, modes of emplacement, and long-term geological histories are all relevant to the understanding of the diversity of granite landforms and landscapes. The aim of this section is show the variety of geological controls and how they are reflected in granite landscapes, moving progressively from large to small spatial scales. If plate tectonics is used as a framework, then granite intrusions form in two major settings: orogenic, including transitional, and anorogenic (see Chapter 2). Geographically, the former take place at convergent plate margins, whereas the latter take place at divergent plate margins (rift zones) and within continental interiors, at hot spots. However, for the purpose of a geomorphological approach to granite landscapes of the world, the time-independent plate tectonics framework is less useful. This is because many granite intrusions occur in settings different than those in which they formed millions of years ago, and it is their post-emplacement long-term geological history and current location that are crucial to understanding the landscapes that have developed upon them. For example, late Paleozoic granite intrusions in central and western Europe took place within the Hercynian orogenic belt, hence in a convergent plate margin setting, but their present-day morphology is mainly the legacy of long-term evolution in an anorogenic regime and late Cainozoic rejuvenation, including plateau uplift and faulting. In a somewhat similar manner, ancient orogenic granite intrusions have been incorporated into shield interiors and passive margins. Figure 8.1 is an attempt to relate the tectonic settings of granite intrusions to the distribution of granite areas, as we see them today, against the background of global tectonics. From this point of view, granite landscapes occur within the following five main geodynamic settings: (1) orogenic zones along convergent plate margins, (2) eroded and rejuvenated ancient orogenic belts, subject to geologically recent plateau uplift, (3) passive margins at divergent plate boundaries, (4) stable shield interiors, and (5) oceanic islands.
German Uplands and Alpine Foreland
Authors: Koster Eduard
Published: November 2020

From north to south in Germany there is a rough symmetry in the distribution of the major geological and landform units. Quaternary glacial and fluvioglacial deposits and landforms characterize the Northern Lowlands and the Alpine Foreland in the south. Relief in both these areas is relatively flat, mostly of the order of a few tens of metres to 200 metres. The central part of the country, roughly between a line from Bonn–Dortmund–Hannover–Leipzig–Dresden in the north and the river Danube in the south, is dominated by uplands and basins, mainly consisting of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic rocks, exhibiting a relief of several hundred metres. This central region is bordered in the western and eastern part by fault block mountains and massifs consisting of Palaeozoic, partly crystalline rocks. These massifs attain heights of c.500–1,500 m. Based on a combination of morphotectonic evolution and landform associations, most authors distinguish five major landform regions: • The North German Lowlands as a part of the North European Lowlands, extending from the north-western tip of France, through Belgium and The Netherlands to the Polish–Russian border and beyond. The southern border of this region more or less coincides with the 100–200 m contour lines as well as with the maximum extension of the Fennoscandian ice sheets. The usual thickness of the glacial/fluvioglacial sediment sequence is between 100 and 300 m; the maximum thickness is almost 500 m. In contrast to Ahnert (1989b), the Lower Rhine graben and the Munster Embayment are included in this region by Semmel (1996) and Liedtke and Marcinek (2002). • The Central German Uplands. This region is characterized by a relief between 200 and 1,000 m, locally to 1,500 m, old Palaeozoic (Variscan) massifs, denudational landforms with planation surfaces, cuestas, hogbacks, basins, and deeply incised river valleys. Concerning the southern border of this region there also appears to be some difference of opinion. Semmel (1996) obviously includes the Saar-Nahe Upland and the Thüringer Wald, the Erzgebirge, the Bayerischer Wald, and Böhmer Wald. This is also the case with the geomorphic map in the Nationalatlas by Liedtke et al. (2003). Liedtke and Marcinek (2002), however, do not include the Saar-Nahe Upland nor the Bayerischer Wald and Böhmer Wald.
Geomorphic Hazards and Natural Risks
Authors: Maquaire Olivier
Published: November 2020

Western European countries are subject to natural phenomena that can cause disasters. Their origins are various: geophysical (earthquakes), hydrometeorological (sea storms, floods, and avalanches), or geomorphologic (landslides). They are fairly widespread but less frequent and of relatively low intensity compared with other regions of the world; for example, an earthquake in France or Belgium is not likely to be as violent as in Greece or Japan. Some of the countries concerned, such as France and Germany, are subject to all the hazards mentioned above, while Denmark and The Netherlands are seldom exposed to earthquakes and never to avalanches because they have no mountains. Man is not responsible for phenomena such as earthquakes, but contributes significantly to the onset and aggravation of other hazards, and is sometimes largely responsible for the direct and indirect consequences, having built and maintained installations in ‘risk’ sectors. The number of victims and the cost of the damage may be high, depending on the circumstances, the intensity, and the duration of the phenomenon. Western European countries have experienced real natural disasters in the distant or recent past. Floods following a storm wave in The Netherlands in 1953 were responsible for some 2,000 deaths and damage amounting to over 3 billion Euros. Two hundred people died in the most destructive flood ever known in France in 1930 in the Tarn (Ledoux 1995). Natural phenomena such as these can recur with at least the same intensity but may entail much greater damage because of increased human occupation in the sectors concerned: the flooding submerges zones which are much more urbanized than they were in the nineteenth century. Whether prevention measures are taken depends on the level of risk which the populations concerned are prepared to accept. These measures should be associated with spatial and temporal forecasts and preceded by an analysis of the processes for these phenomena to be fully understood. In order to remove the ambiguities and the inaccuracies of terminology that are observed all too often, it is necessary in the first instance to define ‘geomorphic hazards and natural risks’, particularly in terms of the notions of risk, hazards, and vulnerability.
Approaches to the Origins of Agriculture
Authors: Barker Graeme
Published: November 2020

Humans have occupied our planet for several million years, but for almost all of that period they have lived as foragers, by various combinations of gathering, collecting, scavenging, fishing, and hunting. The first clear evidence for activities that can be recognized as farming is commonly identified by scholars as at about 12,000 years ago, at about the same time as global temperatures began to rise at the end of the Pleistocene (the ‘Ice Ages’) and the transition to the modern climatic era, the Holocene. Subsequently, a variety of agricultural systems based on cultivated plants and, in many areas, domesticated animals, has replaced hunting and gathering in almost every corner of the globe. Today, a relatively restricted range of crops and livestock, first domesticated several thousand years ago in different parts of the world, feeds almost all of the world’s population. A dozen crops make up over 80 per cent of the world’s annual tonnage of all crops: banana, barley, maize, manioc, potato, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugar beet, sugar cane, sweet potato, and wheat (Diamond, 1997: 132). Only five large (that is, over 100 pounds) domestic animals are globally important: cow, sheep, goat, pig, and horse. The development of agriculture brought profound changes in the relationship between people and the natural world. Archaeologists have usually theorized that, with the invention of farming, people were able to settle down and increase the amount and reliability of their food supply, thus allowing the same land to support more people than by hunting and gathering, allowing our species tomultiply throughout the world. The ability to produce food and other products from domesticated plants and animals surplus to immediate subsistence requirements also opened up new pathways to economic and social complexity: farming could mean new resources for barter, payment of tax or tribute, for sale in a market; it could mean food for non-food producers such as specialist craft-workers, priests, warriors, lords, and kings. Thus farming was the precondition for the development of the first great urban civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, China, the Americas, and Africa, and has been for all later states up to the present day.
Introduction
Authors: Thomas Edmund
Published: November 2020

Roman buildings are among the most impressive and conspicuous legacies of the ancient world. To the millions who visit their ruins and reconstructed forms every year they are an absorbing and fascinating sight, not only because of their physical size and beauty as works of art, but for their historical value as a suggestive reminder of the past. For Edward Gibbon, these architectural remains were evidence of cultural and economic prosperity and supported his conclusion that: ‘[i]f a man were called to fix the period during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian [AD 96] to the accession of Commodus [AD 180].’ Since Gibbon’s time, excavation and scholarly analysis have reinforced this impression. Most regions within the Roman Empire have produced archaeological evidence of imposing buildings from this period. Foundations, scattered finds of building materials and architectural decoration, and building inscriptions, together suggest that the volume of buildings erected at this time was substantially greater than the surviving structures might suggest. This book is about Roman monumental architecture erected under the Antonine emperors, particularly during the reigns of Antoninus Pius (AD 138–61) and Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–80). Although there have been many individual regional and site studies, there has never been a general synthesis which evaluates the architecture of the Antonine period as a whole in the light of the increasing quantity of evidence. The present book does not aim to provide that synthesis in the manner of a conventional art-historical analysis of forms and styles. Nor does it set out to analyse the technologies and materials of Roman buildings, the logistics or practicalities of their construction, or the processes of their design, aspects which have been well studied in recent years. It attempts, rather, to consider the significance of the architecture of this period for contemporaries. Its focus is the question of architectural meaning. In the ancient world, buildings were not only a backdrop and setting for social interaction but also a form of social language.
The Cities and the Emperor
Authors: Thomas Edmund
Published: November 2020

Monumental architecture, then, strengthened a sense of public or civic identity in Antonine cities. But, because a public building could assert the political power of a city and, in so doing, challenge the aspirations of a rival city, it was potentially destabilizing in the context of the Empire as a whole. A balance had to be struck between the development of urban forms that reinvigorated a city’s urban identity and promoted the power of local elites loyal to Rome, and the consolidation of the unity of the Empire. Public buildings were the symbols of their city’s separate identity, but they could also represent the power of Rome and its ruling dynasty. Although provincial public buildings were mainly funded by the largesse of local elites, they could also be the result of imperial initiatives or a combination of local funding and imperial support. How far was this involvement of the emperor and his staff motivated by the attempt to control or ‘harmonize’ the architectural appearance of provincial cities? The following two chapters address the question of how, under the Antonines, supposedly civic buildings became, in effect, ‘imperial architecture’. This chapter examines the role of Antoninus Pius and his successors in two instances, the cities of Ionia in the East and the reconstruction of Carthage in the West; and considers the extent to which new buildings there promoted an imperial, rather than a local, ideology. Chapter 8 explores the characteristics of such ‘imperial architecture’ more generally. Local civic pride was a strong factor in the architecture of cities in the Roman East. Public buildings were a marriage of civic loyalty and personal desire for fame. Benefactors competed to advance their own architectural projects as of particular importance to a city in her rivalry with her neighbours. When Dio ‘Chrysostom’ Cocceianus paid for the construction of a stoa in Prusa at the beginning of the second century, he was attacked by others for ‘digging up the city’ and creating a desert. Later, when he planned to erect another public building for the city, opponents urged that he had brought down ‘monuments and sacred buildings’.
Weaving Algebraic Patterns
Authors: Dasgupta Subrata
Published: November 2020

The Analytical Engine has a startling place in the history of computing. To the best of our knowledge, no machine had ever before been conceived along its lines. More remarkably, some of its key principles of design would actually be reinvented a century later by people who were, apparently, ignorant of it. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then so is re invention or re discovery, at least when born from ignorance. It tells us much about how ahead of one’s time the original creator was. This reinvention of Babbage’s idea was particularly poignant because it would become the fount of fruitful and rich phylogenetic pathways in the later evolution of the digital computer and the emergence of computer science. Dissatisfaction is a prime generator of the creative urge, dissatisfaction with the status quo and the desire to change it to something better. Charles Babbage was unhappy with the waste of human mental labor in computing mathematical tables, which led to his desire to free human beings from this tedium—hence, the Difference Engine. However, the Difference Engine produced its own discontent. As Luigi Frederico Menabrea (1809–1896), an Italian military mathematician (and, later, prime minister of Italy) would explain apropos the Difference Engine, its use was limited to one particular kind of computation. It could not be applied to the solution of “an infinity of other questions” of interest to mathematicians. It was this limitation and the attendant discontent that led Babbage to conceive the machine he called the Analytical Engine, the operation of which he believed would encompass the full range of algebraic problems. The Difference Engine was not general enough. Babbage desired a computing engine that could range over the whole of “mathematical analysis.” As he explained in a letter to the Earl of Rosse, then president of the Royal Society, his Analytical Engine would have the power to perform the “most analytical complicated operations.” Here, then, is Babbage’s promise: a mathematical machine with “nearly unlimited” powers. Babbage’s name for his new machine is significant.
About Those Accidents
Authors: Fox Michael H.
Published: November 2020

A nuclear power plant is undergoing an emergency shutdown procedure known as a “scram” when there is an unusual vibration and the coolant level drops precipitously. Subsequent investigation by a shift supervisor reveals that X-rays of welds have been falsified and other problems exist with the plant that could potentially cause a core meltdown that would breach the containment building and cause an explosion. However, the results of the investigation are squelched and the plant is brought up to full power. The shift supervisor takes the control room hostage but is then shot by a SWAT team as the reactor is scrammed. A meltdown does not actually occur. No, this did not really happen, but these events—portrayed in the movie The China Syndrome —evoked a scenario in which a nuclear core meltdown could melt its way to China and contaminate an area the size of Pennsylvania. It also exposed a nuclear power culture that covered up safety issues rather than fixing them. It made for a compelling anti-nuclear story that scared a lot of people. And then a real core meltdown happened, 12 days later. The worst commercial nuclear power reactor accident in US history began on Three Mile Island, an island in the Susquehanna River three miles downstream from Middletown, Pennsylvania (hence its name). Two nuclear reactors were built on this island, but one of them (TMI-1) was shut down for refueling while the other one (TMI-2) was running at full power, rated at 786 MWe. At 4:00 a.m., what should have been a minor glitch in the secondary cooling loop began a series of events that led to a true core meltdown, but no China syndrome occurred and there was little contamination outside the plant. Nevertheless, it caused panic, roused anti-nuclear sentiment in the country, and shut down the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States for decades. The nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island were pressurized water reactors (PWR), the type of reactor that Admiral Rickover had designed for power plants in US Navy nuclear submarines.
Life Without Glaciers
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: November 2020

Climate change is accelerating glacier melt. In the same month that this book first went to the editors, scientists reported the irreversible collapse of a massive portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet at Thwaites Glacier. Thwaites Glacier had already been news years earlier when a massive piece of ice 50 km (31 mi) wide, nearly 150 km (93 mi) long, and 3 km (1.8 mi) thick—that’s more than thirty city blocks of ice stacked on top of each other—broke off into the ocean and became Thwaites iceberg. Imagine an ice cube about seventy-five times the size of Manhattan Island floating away into the ocean. With the new reported collapse, the entire West Antarctic ice sheet has now entered into a rapid and irreversible melting phase (Figure 6.1). Thwaites Glacier, as well as others in the Amundsen Bay sector, such as the Pine Island Glacier, form part of a massive ice sheet on Antarctica that is falling to pieces. This is an ice sheet larger than France, Spain, Germany, and Italy combined, and it contains nearly 30 million cubic kilometers of ice (that’s about seven million cubic miles; Gosnell, 2005, p. 109). As these colossal ice bodies fall into the warmer ocean, they will begin to melt away, eventually raising global sea levels by about 1.2 meters (4 ft) (Figure 6.2). The breakdown has come much more quickly than expected and has now entered into an irreversible “runaway process.” What should have taken thousands of years in the natural evolution of things will now be complete in just centuries or less. The Pine Island Glacier is a long, flowing ice stream in the northeastern part of Amundsen Bay, and it is the world’s greatest contributor of ice to the oceans through melting and calving processes. It is also another of the glaciers at risk of collapsing entirely into the ocean. Thwaites Glacier’s collapse is an indicator that the whole ice sheet may be in imminent danger.
The Benefits of Long-Term Environmental Research, Friendships, and Boiled Peanuts
Authors: Gaiser Evelyn E.
Published: November 2020

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has enabled me to conduct more broadly relevant science by addressing questions within an interdisciplinary framework and to unravel the causes for surprising ecological phenomena through persistent studies and collaborations. Educational opportunities within the LTER program have connected me to students from grades K–12 to graduate levels in new ways from the field to the classroom, across places from Florida to Alaska, and among disciplines in a collaborative setting. The audience for my research expanded as a consequence of my experiences in the LTER program, and I have learned how to more effectively communicate integrative research to large audiences of scientists, policy-makers, and the public, often through nontraditional media. The LTER program is foremost a network of people, and I have found that science evolves most successfully when ideas and information are shared voluntarily across backgrounds, disciplines, and cultures in a network of cultivated, trusting relationships. The Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) is the LTER site where I am currently the principal investigator, but the LTER program has been a part of my life for most of my career. My experiences in the LTER program began in the early 1990s when I was a graduate student at the University of Georgia, where the Coweeta (CWT) LTER site is based. Although I was not formally a part of CWT, many of my friends and professors were, so the program influenced my development as a scientist. I remember my first field trip to CWT, led by Gene Helfman and Judy Meyer, and the fun of snorkeling in mountain streams where we camped and conducted a few experiments, including examining the effects of rapid consumption of s’mores and boiled peanuts on preschool children (Judy and Gene’s kids). LTER-related activities wove in and out of my graduate student experience, and the rewards of sharing of ideas, data, friendships, and boiled peanuts created in me a lifelong commitment to persistent, collaborative science. This sense of fulfillment, of being part of something larger, was reinforced at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL), where I conducted my research.
Critical Infrastructure in Extreme Events
Authors: Birkland Thomas A. , Warnement Megan K.
Published: November 2020

The September 11 attacks triggered concern about the performance of “critical” infrastructure on which social, political, and economic activity depend. The attacks moved terrorism to the top of the national security agenda and led to significant legislative, regulatory, and behavioral changes. Furthermore, the shift in focus to the threat of terrorism diminished policymakers’ appreciation and preparation for the natural disasters that communities typically face every year (Boin and McConnell 2007). The increasing number of declared natural disasters, coupled with the threat of terrorism, suggests that “extreme events” can lead to failures in critical infrastructure. These failures have national implications that can ripple through society and the economy. This chapter is about the performance of our interdependent infrastruc­ture systems in extreme events, which are outside shocks to infrastructures; we do not consider failures internal to a system, such as major power blackouts that are not triggered by some significant external shock. We argue that “infrastructure” is best considered as systems of technical and social systems that interact in both predictable and unpredictable ways. As such, we cannot simply consider their design and performance as solely technological problems. There is no one universally accepted definition of “infrastructure.” The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise” but uses the example sentence “the social and economic infrastructure of a country,” suggesting that the term is very broad and very vague. The term came into widespread use in the 1960s and 1970s to mean “public works” (Boin and McConnell 2007). Alternative definitions link “public works” with narrowly defined systems, such as telecommunications and electrical systems, as well as broader systems such as finance, health care, and food production and distribution. The broader definition of infrastructure, which gained currency after September 11, refers to what’s become known as “critical” infrastructure.
Global Obesity and Global Hunger
Authors: Moore Kelly , Wittner Judith
Published: November 2020

Chances are you’ve heard that, around the globe, people are getting fatter. In fact, you may have read about the “epidemic” of obesity that is causing costly health problems such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and premature death. Most scientific evidence suggests that approximately 10% of the world’s population is obese (World Health Organization [WHO] WHO 2012b; 2012c, p. 36) and that most of these people live in the northern hemisphere in wealthier countries. The WHO and other groups call obesity a preventable epidemic, like SARS, AIDS, and the flu, caused by the failure of individuals to follow scientific and other rules for increasing exercise and reducing energy intake (calories) and the consumption of specific foods such as sugars and fats (Nestle 2002; Pollan 2008; United States Department of Health and Human Services 2012; WHO 2012c). At the same time that so much attention is given to obesity, hunger and food insecurity imperil almost a billion people globally. While we hear less about the problem of hunger in Western news media, chronic hunger affects approximately 13% of the world’s population, nearly as many people now as it did in the 1970s. Most of these people live in Africa and Southeast Asia (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] 2012a, pp. 8–9). Many observers believe that hunger is caused by inadequate access to agricultural technologies (International Food Policy Research Institute 2012; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2013; Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research 2013) or short-term problems such as war or drought (FAO 2012b). Global obesity and global hunger might be seen as independent problems, caused by the personal habits of individuals in the case of obesity or by short-term problems such as war or lack of technical knowledge in the case of hunger. In this chapter, we take a different approach by examining these two phenomena as two sides of the same coin. The causes of hunger and obesity are connected through scientific and technological applications and mediated by political and economic considerations.
Food Sovereignty, Food Security: Markets and Dispossession
Authors: Desmarais Annette Aurélie , Handy Jim
Published: November 2020

The ongoing global food crisis combined with the growing environmental crisis manifested in climate change provides a special political moment for the international community to define what policies might best eradicate poverty and ensure the full realization of the right to food. There are essentially two very different models of agriculture being proposed, one associated with the idea of “food security” and the other associated with the idea of “food sovereignty.” Both models, if not the terms used to label them, have a long history and reflect opposing views of economic and social development. Food security can be represented by the 2008 High Level Task Force’s Comprehensive Framework for Action and more recently the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture Initiative report titled “Achieving the New Vision for Agriculture: New Models for Action” released in January 2013. Both promote more investment in agriculture and highlight the need to increase global production and foster greater market integration. On the other hand, La Via Campesina—now considered to be the world’s most significant transnational agrarian movement—and a growing number of civil society organizations advocate new food systems based on food sovereignty. They claim that the official food secu­rity responses are essentially “more of the same”—that is, they emphasize increasing production and productivity, expanding liberalized trade, and pursuing another Green Revolution through the greater use of genetically modified organisms in agricultural production. In other words, the official solutions being proposed are further modernization and industrialization of agriculture aimed at producing more food. However, as Murphy and Paasch (2009) point out, the official solutions on offer focus on increasing production “yet the FAO itself has said that lack of food is not the reason for the food crisis” (p. 6). The tragedy is that hunger persists in a world that produces sufficient food for every human being on the planet (United Nations [UN] Human Rights Council 2011). Surely not starving is a simple justice. Food sovereignty tackles the issue of justice head on.
Solvated Ions in Water
Authors: Bunker Bruce C. , Casey William H.
Published: November 2020

In most undergraduate chemistry classes, students are taught to consider reactions in which cations and anions dissolved in water are depicted as isolated ions. For example, the magnesium ion is depicted as Mg2+, or at best Mg2+(aq). For anions, these descriptions may be adequate (if not accurate). However, for cations, these abbreviations almost always fail to describe the critical chemical attributes of the dissolved species. A much more meaningful description of Mg2+ dissolved in water is [Mg(H2O)6]2+, because Mg2+ in water does not behave like a bare Mg2+ ion, nor do the waters coordinated to the Mg2+ behave anything like water molecules in the bulk fluid. In many respects, the [Mg(H2O)6]2+ ion acts like a dissolved molecular species. In this chapter, we discuss the simple solvation of anions and cations as a prelude to exploring more complex reactions of soluble oxide precursors called hydrolysis products. The two key classes of water–oxide reactions introduced here are acid–base and ligand exchange. First, consider how simple anions modify the structure and properties of water. As discussed in Chapter 3, water is a dynamic and highly fluxional “oxide” containing transient rings and clusters based on tetrahedral oxygen anions held together by linear hydrogen bonds. Simple halide ions can insert into this structure by occupying sites that would normally be occupied by other water molecules because they have radii (ranging from 0.13 to 0.22 nm in the series from F− to I−) that are comparable to that of the O2− ion (0.14 nm). Such substitution is clearly seen in the structures of ionic clathrate hydrates, where the anion can replace one and sometimes even two water molecules. Larger anions can also replace water molecules within clathrate hydrate cages. For example, carboxylate hydrate structures incorporate the carboxylate group within the water framework whereas the hydrophobic hydrocarbon “tails” occupy a cavity within the water framework, as in methane hydrate (see Chapter 3). Water molecules form hydrogen bonds to dissolved halide ions just as they can to other water molecules, as designated by OH−Y−.
Nucleation and Growth of Solid Oxide and Hydroxide Phases
Authors: Bunker Bruce C. , Casey William H.
Published: November 2020

In this chapter, we consider what happens when solids begin to form from solution. To grow solids from solution, solution conditions are changed from a condition in which all species are completely soluble to a condition in which they are insoluble. In the context of hydrolysis diagrams, the solution composition moves in pH and total dissolved metal concentration from a regime below a solubility or saturation limit (given by the bold solid line in Figs. 5.2 and 5.3) to a regime above this limit where the solution is supersaturated. Supersaturated solutions are inherently unstable and have the potential to generate hydroxide or oxide solids. Sometimes these solutions can be maintained in a metastable state in which precipitation does not occur immediately. However, Mother Nature eventually reduces the energy of the solution by forming a stable mixture of solids plus solution species. As solids form, soluble complexes are removed from solution until concentrations drop back to the solubility limit. The precipitation of a solid from an aqueous solution is a surprisingly complex process, involving nucleation and growth phenomena that occur at nanometer-length scales. Nucleation involves reactions between oligomers to form new clusters or particles that are sufficiently large that they do not redissolve spontaneously via the reversible reactions denoted in hydrolysis diagrams. Homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation processes represent events that occur within the bulk solution or at the interface of another phase, respectively. Growth involves the addition of monomers to clusters in solution or oligomers to existing particles or surfaces. The combination of nucleation and growth phenomena can lead to oxides exhibiting a bewildering range of sizes, shapes, and crystal structures. How do metal complexes decide whether to form a new particle or add to an existing particle? What determines the size, shape, and crystal structure of evolving particles? Do the particles aggregate with one another in an organized fashion? Because nucleation typically involves extremely rapid (<1 millisecond) events involving objects that are extremely small (on the order of a nanometer), it is difficult to probe such phenomena at a molecular level.
Abdomen System
Authors: Mehta Gautam , Iqbal Bilal
Published: November 2020

1. Jaundice is a marker of severity of liver disease, as well as a consequence of decompensation. Yellow discolouration is not usually seen until the serum bilirubin is >40μmol/L (twice the upper limit of normal), although the earliest signs of jaundice can be detected in the periphery of the conjunctivae, or in the buccal mucosa. Remember, there are other causes of jaundice in liver disease, such as Zieve’s syndrome (haemolysis and hyperlipidaemia in alcohol misuse), or biliary obstruction. 2. Cachexia can be established by demonstrating muscle and fat loss. Wasting of the temporalis muscle is an early sign of generalized muscle atrophy. A reduced triceps skin-fold thickness is a marker of loss of fat stores. This can be demonstrated by palpating for redundant skin over the triceps area between your thumb and forefingers. 3. Anaemia is most reliably demonstrated by looking for conjunctival pallor. This is thought to be more sensitive than looking for pallor of skin creases, nails, or other mucosal membranes. If there is no evidence of anaemia, it is an important negative to mention to the examiner. The principal causes of anaemia in chronic liver disease are blood loss from portal hypertensive gastropathy, alcohol excess causing bone marrow suppression and poor nutrition. 4. Other gastrointestinal (GI) causes of clubbing include inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), coeliac disease, GI lymphoma and rare causes of malabsorption such as tropical sprue and Whipple’s disease. 5. Leuconychia is a non-specific finding which is associated with hypoalbuminaemia as well as other conditions such as heart failure, renal disease, Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) and diabetes mellitus (see Case 8—Nephrotic Syndrome). 6. Palmar erythema reflects the vasodilated state of cirrhosis. Other causes of palmar erythema include hypercapnoea, rheumatoid arthritis, thyrotoxicosis, pregnancy, fever, and exercise. 7. Spider naevi are vascular lesions, with a central arteriole that supplies smaller surrounding vessels. Generally, the number and size correlate with the severity of liver disease, although they may occur in normal individuals and pregnancy. Spider naevi, palmar erythema, gynaecomastia, and loss of body hair are thought to be the consequence of altered sex hormone metabolism, and an increase in the oestradiol:free testosterone ratio.
The nursing care of older people with mental health problems
Authors: Jenkins Catharine , Coventry Glyn
Published: November 2020

In this chapter you will learn about working with older people with mental health problems. The aim is to clarify your understanding of the issues that more often affect older people, and guide your learning about the process of placing these difficulties in context, and of assessment and care planning. Of course, older people can experience the same problems as younger people, such as low mood, hearing voices, substance abuse, and worries due to the problems of life. In this chapter we will concentrate on some of the difficulties felt more often by older people – memory problems, depression related to loss and the stress of caring, and emotional distress following the difficulties of growing old in a second homeland. Nursing older people is both challenging and rewarding. The lifetime’s experience of an older service user, together with a combination of physical, social, spiritual, and emotional factors mean that individuals’ situations will be different, complex, and at times, confusing. Diagnostic labels do not always ‘fit’, which means the holistic assessment carried out by the nurse within a multidisciplinary team (MDT) is even more crucial for planning personalized and sensitive care. In this chapter you meet three service users. The first two are Albert and Vera, a married couple, who have been together through thick and thin, but are facing a serious threat to their relationship caused by Albert’s increasingly poor memory. Vera is struggling to make sense of it, and cannot understand why Albert is changing. She faces the gradual loss of the man she knows and relies upon, while Albert himself is distressed by the feeling of not knowing what is going on, and the frustration he senses in his normally kind and cheerful wife. The third service user, Mrs Bibi, is an older woman from Pakistan, who is saddened by the separation from dearly loved members of her family, and despite strong support from her family in this country, still struggles with the pressures of growing old – she has arthritis and diabetes. Mrs Bibi does not speak English, and does not really understand the health and social care system nor the advice she has been given so far. People are living longer, and consequently the elderly population is increasing (Cantley 2001).
Theory and Politics
Authors: Harrison Rodney , Schofield John
Published: November 2020

If we are to undertake an archaeology of the contemporary past, we need Wrst to be able to characterize it—to understand both those quotidian aspects of contemporary life as well as what makes this period distinct from other periods that preceded it. Although we have already suggested in Chapter 1 that the archaeology of the contemporary past should not be considered a period study, it is nonetheless important to understand both the continuities and discontinuities in contemporary life that might form the object of an archaeology of the present. This chapter will introduce a theoretical framework on which to build an archaeology of the contemporary past through a consideration of what various cultural theorists have written about the nature of the subject and its relevance to the study of contemporary places and material culture. There is a large literature on the nature of modernity and late modernity (a term we use to describe both ‘postmodernity’ and ‘supermodernity’ in a historical sense, see further discussion below), from which we have drawn a selection that we consider helpful in understanding the topic of contemporary archaeology, and that provides a theoretical background to the work of archaeologists who study the contemporary past. This chapter will also explore the ways in which archaeology as a form of documentation becomes a political and social intervention when its gaze is turned towards the contemporary past. We argue that this political dimension is one of the defining characteristics of the archaeology of the contemporary past. Although we noted in Chapter 1 that this is not a book about heritage, the issue of heritage is in many ways integral to understanding the role of contemporary archaeology, as it relates to the ways in which we engage with, and understand, the past in the present. Indeed, in this chapter we argue that the rise of a heritage industry is itself a tangible artefact of the same impulse that led to the rise of contemporary archaeology as a distinct Weld of study (see also Ferguson, Harrison, and Weinbren 2010). At the same time, understanding these impulses that have given rise to heritage and the archaeology of the recent past helps us to understand what makes the period unique, and lays the foundation for a thematic framework for undertaking an archaeology of the contemporary past.
Why is the Sea Blue?
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

One answer to this chapter’s question is straightforward and based on high-school physics. The early SCUBA divers quickly discovered that if they took underwater colour photographs, even if they were only a few metres down, their pictures had a strong blue cast to them. However, if they illuminated their subjects with a flash, then a more colourful world emerged in their pictures—especially if they were photographing the rich diversity of highly coloured fish that can be found in some parts of the tropics. The reason for the blueness is that as sunlight passes through water the colours of the spectrum are absorbed at different rates, with the long wavelengths (e.g. red) absorbed first and the higher-energy shorter wavelengths (e.g. blue) penetrating deeper into the depths. It follows that underwater available light is predominantly blue and that any light reflected from within the water body is more likely to be from the bluer end of the spectrum of visible light. So, light coming from the sea to our eyes is mainly blue because these wavelengths are least absorbed; indeed oceanographers who have studied some of the cleanest waters describe them as looking ‘violet blue’. As biologists we are interested in a more ecological answer to the question, ‘Why is the sea blue’? The physics explanation only works if seawater is reasonably clear, and it is this clarity that biologists need to explain. Consider our opening quotation, which comes from Peter Matthiessen’s book describing early attempts to film the great white shark in its natural habitat. It raises an interesting ecological question—why can a SCUBA diver or snorkeler see where they are going in the ocean? Put another way, why is the sea blue rather than green? The upper layer of the ocean with enough light for photosynthesis is called the euphotic zone (defined as extending down to the point where only 1% of photosynthetically usable light is present compared with surface light levels); this is often only a few tens of metres deep, but in extremely clear water near Easter Island in the Pacific it has recently been found to extend down to 170 m depth.
Structure of the Presentation
Authors: Issever Cigdem , Peach Ken
Published: November 2020

Just as a house consists of a harmonious arrangement of some common elements (door, hall, kitchen, lounge, bedroom, bathroom, garage), so a presentation consists of a set of standard components (title, outline, introduction, message, conclusion) arranged in such a way that the audience can be informed, educated and entertained. The structure of the talk is important in keeping the audience engaged—a poorly structured talk leaves the audience confused and disorientated. And just as with architecture, there are some conventions. In a house, the main door is usually near the front of the house, the bathrooms tucked away at the side, the kitchen somewhere near the dining room, the lounge leading to a pleasant garden, the bedrooms upstairs and so on. Similarly, a talk usually starts with a title slide, follows with an outline, continues with the introduction, delivers the main message and reaches some conclusions. But sometimes, as with architecture, you may wish to depart, perhaps radically, from this conventional structure—for example, starting with the conclusions because you want the audience to know where you are taking them. However, as with architecture, you need to be sure that this departure from convention serves a purpose—to help the audience understand your message. Failure to structure the talk properly risks reducing your message to a pile of rubble—unattractive, unappreciated and soon forgotten. If the structure of the talk as a whole is like the architecture of a building, the structure of the slides is like the interior decoration of the rooms. Each room, and each slide, is different, but all usually share some common features. In general, slides should have a title which tells the audience what the slide is about, just as, for example, it is often useful to label the bathroom as the bathroom—obvious but, if you are new to it, helpful. The body of the slide contains your message; a figure or figures, lists, tables, pictures, etc. We will discuss the design of the slides in Chapter 5. We note here that the structure of the slides and the structure of the talk must be harmonious.