bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Williams Synthesis of (–)-Khayasin
Authors: Taber Douglass F.
Published: November 2020

The tetranortriterpenoid (–)-khayasin 3 recently emerged as a potent and selective insecticide against the Coconut leaf beetle Brontispa longissima. In considering a synthetic route to 3, Craig M. Williams of the University of Queensland envisioned (J. Org. Chem. 2012, 77, 8913) the convergent preparation of the allyl vinyl ether 1 and subsequent Claisen rearrangement to the enone 2. To pursue this strategy, the ketone 8 and the allylic alcohol 15 had to be prepared in enantiomerically pure form. To this end, the DIP-Cl-derived enolate of the ketone 7 was added to the aldehyde 6 to give a secondary alcohol, exposure of which to KH led to the enone 8 in high ee. Methyl triflate converted the enone into the enol ether 9. The α-pinene used in the preparation of DIP-Cl was 83% ee. The authors have optimized (Adv. Synth. Catal. 2009, 351, 1148) the Morita-Baylis-Hillman addition of cyclohexenone 10 to formaldehyde to give, after silylation, the enone 11. Methylation followed by DIP-mediated aldol condensation with 13 led to the alcohol 14. Exposure of the derived acetate to lithium diisopropylamide induced cyclization and dehydration. Deprotection completed the preparation (Tetrahedron 2006, 62, 7355) of 15. Fortunately, the enantiomers of 15 could be separated chromatographically. Material having >99% ee was taken onto the next step. Warming of 9 and 15 in the presence of acid delivered the coupled ketone 2 accompanied by the ether 1. Further heating of 1 converted it (Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 2258) to 2. To form the last ring, the enone 2 was epoxidized to give 16. The reduction of 16 with aluminum amalgam gave preparatively useful amounts of 17. Esterification completed the synthesis of 3. Most total syntheses yield only the target natural product. In this biomimetic project, intermediates 15, 2, and 17 were themselves natural products, and oxidation of 17 delivered an additional natural product, 18. The preparation of 14 and of 8 underscores the importance of the asymmetric transformation of prochiral starting materials, cyclic and acyclic. Although DIP-Cl is used in stoichiometric amounts in both cases, it is not expensive. The preparation of 8, in particular, offers a potentially general approach to high ee-substituted cyclohexenones.
Pyrite
Authors: Rickard David
Published: November 2020

Most people have heard of pyrite, the brassy yellow mineral sometimes known as fool's gold. Pyrite behaves like stone and shines like metal, and its dual nature makes it a source of both metals and sulfur. Despite being the most common sulfide mineral on the earth's surface, pyrite's bright crystals have attracted the attention of many different cultures, and its nearly identical visual appearance to gold has led to tales of fraud, trickery, and claims of alchemy. Pyrite occupies a unique place in human history: it became an integral part of mining culture in America during the 19th century, and it has a presence in ancient Sumerian texts, Greek philosophy, and medieval poetry, becoming a symbol for anything overvalued. In Pyrite, geochemist and author David Rickard blends basic science and historical narrative to describe the many unique ways pyrite is integral to our world. He explains the basic science of oxidation, showing us why the mineral looks like gold, and inspects death zones of present oceans where pyrite-related hydrogen sulfide destroys oxygen in the waters. Rickard analyzes pyrite's role in manufacturing sulfuric acid and discusses the significant appearance of the mineral in literature, history, and the development of societies. The mineral's influence extends from human evolution and culture, through science and industry, to our understanding of ancient, modern, and future earth environments. Energetic and accessible, Pyrite is the first book to show readers the history and science of a mineral that helped make the modern world.
Crystals and Atoms
Authors: Rickard David
Published: November 2020

According to one magic crystal website, pyrite is a highly protective stone blocking and shielding you from negative energy. This may originate from Pietro Maria Canepario, who in 1619 cited Avicenna as stating that “if pyrite is worn on an infant’s neck, it defends him from all fear.” Other New Age sources maintain that pyrite can be beneficial when planning large business concepts because placing a piece on the desk energizes the area around it. Pyrite also reduces fatigue and is good for students because it is thought to improve memory and recall and to stimulate the flow of ideas. So you are certainly reading the right book . . . The magical properties of pyrite stem at least partly from the occurrence of pyritized ammonites (Figure 4.1) in ancient Egypt. Ammonites are fossils of coiled mollusks that became extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic Era, about 60 million years ago. Ammonites got their name because they resemble coiled ram’s horns and the Egyptian god Amun (or Amon, Ammon, etc.) usually wore ram’s horns. The person responsible for this flight of fancy was Pliny the Elder, who called these fossils ammonis cornua or horns of Ammon. The golden pyritized ammonites were prized as lucky charms and worn as amulets in ancient Egypt. They are common today and may be readily collected from the beach at Charmouth in southern England, particularly after a storm has caused more fresh rock from the cliffs to tumble down onto the beach. The bright golden crystals of pyrite have fascinated humankind through the ages. The crystals display a variety of distinct shapes that make them extremely attractive. Indeed, pyrite may display the greatest variety of crystal forms of any common mineral. The great American mineralogist James Dwight Dana described eighty-five different forms, and the founder of geochemistry, Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, drew line drawings of almost 700 different pyrite crystals. In this chapter I show how the explanation of this extraordinary diversity of pyrite crystal shapes (or habits, formally) has helped reveal the nature of the material universe.
Full Circle
Authors: Rickard David
Published: November 2020

The thesis in this book is that pyrite has been a key material in the development of our civilization and culture. It has figured in the foundation of nations and key industries, in the development of science, and in our current understanding of the nature of matter. It has played a key role in the development of our culture mostly through its use in the most important of human inventions: the taming of fire. Pyrite has determined the nature of the Earth’s surface environment and the origin and evolution of life itself. I have discussed how pyrite affects our present environment through its key role in the great biogeochemical cycles of fundamental substances like oxygen and carbon and how this has continued through over 4,000 million years of Earth history. This long history of the centrality of pyrite to the Earth system has enabled confident predictions about how pyrite is going to affect future Earth environment through acidification of atmo­spheres, rivers, and soils and eutrophication of the oceans, for example. Pyrite has played a central role in the development of humankind for the entire 200,000 years of the existence of Homo sapiens sapiens and this is unlikely to end now. It seems incontrovertible that pyrite will play a similar role in future human development as it has for the last 200,000 years. In this chapter I return to some of the themes from previous chapters and show how pyrite is still influencing our society and how this is likely to continue into the future. Gold occurs naturally in two basic forms: visible gold and invisible gold. Invisible gold was a term used by one of the greatest of 20th-century gold prospectors, John Livermore, to describe gold that “would not pan”—that is, gold that did not appear in the prospector’s pan when the crushed rock or natural gravel was gently swirled around with water. Livermore discovered invisible gold in Nevada, which led to the 1980s gold rush in that state that has, to date, produced gold to a value of over US$85 billion.
Encores: Five More Bad Actors Were Dispatched
Authors: Wurster Charles F.
Published: November 2020

After DDT, EDF’s next pesticide targets were aldrin and dieldrin, both made by Shell Chemical Company. We had sought to block a dieldrin application in Michigan in late 1967, shortly after EDF was founded. That action was partly successful, delaying the application for many months and resulting in the application of less dieldrin. EDF was often accused of being against all pesticides, but that was never true. We were against DDT and several other persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons. Those pesticides were uniquely hazardous because they lasted for many years, traveled freely in the environment, and were ingested by animals and humans everywhere. They were very damaging to wildlife and—as we discovered along the way—they posed cancer hazards to humans. We were also against a purely chemical approach to pest control because integrated control techniques were more effective in controlling pests and contaminated the environment with less chemicals. We had a short list of pesticides that we identified as “bad actors”—all of which were persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons—and we eventually succeeded in getting all of them banned, although this took several years and an immense effort by our attorneys and scientists. On October 16, 1970, EDF filed a legal petition with HEW requesting the establishment of zero-tolerance levels for aldrin and dieldrin in human foods. The petition was written by attorney Edward Berlin and included a comprehensive review affidavit by me with numerous scientific references (Wurster, 1971). A few weeks later, pesticide regulation was transferred from HEW to the new EPA, and from then onward the action was pursued through EPA. I was not present during the hearing that followed. Instead Dr. Ian C. T. Nisbet, then the director of science for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, provided scientific support and attended the hearing. He wrote the next two sections (on aldrin and dieldrin and on heptachlor and chlordane), in which he describes what followed. On March 18, 1971, EPA issued notices of cancellation for all registrations of aldrin and dieldrin (A/D), but the marathon hearings did not begin until July 1973.
Mechanisms of Ozone Reactions in the Troposphere
Authors: Calvert Jack G. , Orlando John J. , Stockwell William R. , Wallington Timothy J.
Published: November 2020

In Chapter I, we identified the origin of stratospheric ozone and its role in limiting the short wavelengths of sunlight reaching the Earth. We also saw the importance of trace impurities of NOx and hydrocarbons in the development of tropospheric ozone. In this chapter, we review and evaluate the chemical reactions of ozone that create the important hydroxyl (HO) radical. It is the photodecomposition of tropospheric ozone that is the major source of the important HO radical, and it is the HO radical that initiates the destruction of most of the reactive trace gases that are emitted into the atmosphere. Ozone also serves as a major reactant for removal of the alkenes and other reactive unsaturated compounds, and, in this chapter, we review and evaluate the rate coefficients and mechanisms of these reactions and the expected products that result from them. The reactions that generate oxygen atoms in their first excited electronic state, O(1D) atoms, and ultimately HO radicals within the atmosphere are initiated through ozone photodecomposition: . . . O3 (X1A1) + hν → O(1D) + O2(a1Δg) (I) . . . . . . → O(1D) + O2(X3Σ–g) (II) . . . A fraction of the O(1D) atoms formed in the reactions (I) and (II) react with water molecules to generate HO radicals in reaction (1) and a larger fraction are deactivated by collisions with N2 and O2 molecules to form ground state O(3P) atoms in reaction (2): . . . O(1D) + H2O → HO + HO (1) . . . . . . O(1D) + M (N2, O2) → O(3P) + M (N2, O2) (2) . . . The competition between H2O and other air molecules (N2, O2) for reaction with O(1D) atoms results in HO generation being dependent on relative humidity. Rate coefficients for reaction of O(1D) with H2O, N2, and O2 at 298 K (in units of 10−10 cm3 molecule−1 s−1) recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) panel are 2.14, 0.31, and 0.40, respectively (Atkinson et al., 2004). To better understand the factors that control HO formation, we will review ozone photochemistry, its cross sections, quantum yields of its major photodecomposition modes, and its photolysis frequencies under varied atmospheric conditions.
Photodecomposition of Light-Absorbing Oxygenates and Its Influence on Ozone Levels in the Atmosphere
Authors: Calvert Jack G. , Orlando John J. , Stockwell William R. , Wallington Timothy J.
Published: November 2020

Photochemistry provides the important driving force that initiates chemistry in the atmosphere. We saw in Chapter II how light absorbed by ozone generates the important HO radical, and, in Chapter III, we reviewed how light absorption by NO2 leads to ozone formation. In this chapter, we discuss the photochemistry of the light-absorbing oxygenates: their photochemical lifetimes and the nature of the modes of photodecomposition they undergo. Of course, light of sufficient energy per quantum must be absorbed by a molecule if its photodecomposition is to occur. The hydrocarbons do not absorb tropospheric sunlight, as seen in Figure VIII-A-1. The light gray and dark gray lines, respectively, show the distribution of actinic flux present in the troposphere and upper stratosphere for overhead Sun. It can be seen that the larger alkanes, alkenes, and aromatic hydrocarbons absorb at somewhat longer wavelengths than the first member of the family, but none can be electronically excited by tropospheric radiation. Among the hydrocarbons, only the polycyclic aromatics absorb appreciable tropospheric sunlight, and their π → π* excitation does not result in decomposition but likely generates O2(1Δg) molecules by energy transfer; these molecules are usually quenched by collision to ground state O2(3Σg−) molecules (see Calvert et al., 2000). As atmospheric oxidation of the hydrocarbons occurs, initiated largely by HO radicals, a multitude of oxygenated organic species are generated. The absorption region for the oxygenates is generally shifted to longer wavelengths, although the alcohols, ethers, acids, and esters still show no overlap of the regions of tropospheric actinic flux. For the families of compounds shown, the only significant absorbers of tropospheric sunlight are the aldehydes (e.g., CH2O) and the ketones (e.g., CH3C(O)CH3). Formic acid and methyl formate, as well as the larger members of the acid and ester families, absorb sunlight available only at the higher altitudes of the stratosphere, where they are expected to photodecompose. However, these species are not expected to be present in the stratosphere because they are removed in the troposphere largely via HO reactions. In this chapter, we focus on the rates and pathways for photodecomposition of the aldehydes and ketones with less detailed considerations of the other less prevalent light-absorbing trace compounds.
Coal: A Primer
Authors: Revesz Richard , Lienke Jack
Published: November 2020

This book chronicles almost five decades of efforts by the United States government to reduce the air pollution associated with burning coal, along with the often misleading political rhetoric surrounding those efforts. Given the central role that coal and its environmental consequences will play in our story, it’s helpful at the outset to understand some basic facts about the fuel. Short Answer: A combustible rock. Longer Answer: Coal is a fossil fuel—“fossil” because it’s primarily composed of the preserved remains of ancient plants and “fuel” because it can be burned to create energy. Most of the coal we use today was formed hundreds of millions of years ago when large swaths of the earth were covered in swampy forests. As plant life in these swamps died, it sank to the bottom of the water, where it was eventually buried under additional layers of sediment and slowly decomposed into a soggy, carbon-rich, soil-like substance known as peat. As still more time passed, this peat was further transformed by heat and pressure, a process known as carbonization, into the sedimentary rock we call coal. Short Answer: We mine it, mostly in Wyoming and Appalachia. Longer Answer: There are two basic methods of mining coal: underground mining and surface mining. Surface mining is typically used for shallow coal beds—those buried less than 200 feet deep. Miners access the fuel by simply removing (often with explosives) the trees and soil and rocks that sit atop it. Underground mining, by contrast, is used to extract coal that sits between 300 and 1,000 feet deep. The surface is left relatively undisturbed, and miners dig tunnels through which to enter the mine and retrieve the coal. Historically, underground mining was the more common of these two methods, but today, the majority of U.S. coal is produced at surface mines, which require far fewer workers to produce the same amount of coal. In addition to being cheaper to operate, surface mines are safer: both fatal and serious nonfatal injuries occur about three times more often in underground mines.
Bad Neighbors
Authors: Revesz Richard , Lienke Jack
Published: November 2020

In Chapter 3, we examined how and why Congress decided to shield existing sources from the bulk of the EPA’s performance standards for stationary sources. In Chapter 4, we showed how the duration of this grandfathering was extended by continued controversy over what qualified as a “modification” under the Act. What we haven’t yet explored in depth is why grandfathering proved so detrimental to public health. After all, even if existing sources weren’t subject to federal performance standards, they were hardly exempt from all regulatory control. The Clean Air Act’s most prominent element was a nationally uniform system of ambient air quality standards, the NAAQS, which were to be set at a level adequate to protect the public health. Thus, lawmakers expected that any dangers posed by emissions from a state’s existing sources would be addressed as part of the state’s plan for achieving the NAAQS. Why didn’t this happen? First, many states simply failed to meet the statutory deadline for complying with ambient standards. Indeed, significant swaths of the country are still out of compliance for certain pollutants. (To be fair, the NAAQS have become more stringent over time because the Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to periodically reassess whether the standards are adequately protecting public health in light of current science.) Second, the NAAQS system didn’t adequately account for the interstate nature of air pollution, whereby emissions originating in one state can cause the bulk of their harm in another. As a result, some states managed to achieve the ambient standards while leaving their most-polluting sources completely unregulated—not because the sources didn’t endanger public health but because their harms were felt in another jurisdiction. Had these sources been subject to direct federal regulation of their emissions of NAAQS pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, intransigent states would have had considerably less opportunity to skimp on pollution control at their neighbors’ expense. As we have emphasized in previous chapters, the Clean Air Act’s air quality goals were aggressive, as was its timeline for achieving them.
Computer- Based Assessment
Authors: Schatz Philip
Published: November 2020

Since the 1950s, academic and researchers have examined artificial intelligence and the use of computers for assistance with, or automation of, data collection (Schatz & Browndyke, 2002). In the ensuing 60+ years, considerable technological growth has occurred. Perhaps most influential in the field of clinical psychology was the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s, which allowed individuals to have computing devices in the home and/ or office. Over the past 30 years, the percentage of U.S. households with a computer has dramatically increased, from 8.2% in 1984, to 42% in 1998, to 52% in 2000, to 84% in 2013 (File & Ryan, 2014; Newburger, 2001). As of 2014, approximately 50% of households have a tablet device (such as an iPad) or an e-reader (such as a Kindle or Nook) and approximately 28% of adults age 18 and older have read an e-book in the past year (up from 17% in 2011) (Zickuhr & Rainie, 2014). However, despite widespread ownership of computing devices, in clinical practice, use of technology is not as commonplace. While the vast majority of clinical psychologists have used e-mail or Internet searches in their clinical practice, in a 2009 survey, only 47% had used computerized test administration software, 60% had used a computerized test-scoring software, and 54% had used a computerized test interpretation software (McMinn, Bearse, Heyne, Smithberg, & Erb, 2011), and only 20% (test administration), 29% (test scoring), and 22% (test interpretation) had used these technologies “fairly often” or “very often.” Even as recently as 2009, in a report of an American Psychological Association (APA) Presidential Task Force on Technology, discussion of the role of technology in the future of psychology practice was limited to the use of electronic health records (in the context of documenting service delivery and reimbursement), expanding ways for streamlining assessments and service delivery, and training psychologists to use and integrate technologies (APA, 2009).
Virtual Environment Grocery Store
Authors: Parsons Thomas D. , McMahan Timothy
Published: November 2020

Neuropsychologists are increasingly being asked to determine whether a patient can return to work, classroom, or play (e.g., sports). A difficulty for the neuropsychological assessment of cognitive functioning is that patients’ performance on a cognitive test may have little or no predictive value for how they may perform in a real-world situation (Burgess, Alderman, Evans, Emslie, & Wilson, 1998; Chaytor, Schmitter-Edgecombe, & Burr, 2006). To address this issue, neuropsychologists are increasingly emphasizing the need for tasks that represent real-world func­tioning and that tap into a number of executive domains (Chaytor & Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2003; Jurado & Rosselli, 2007). Burgess and colleagues (2006) argue that the majority of neuropsychological assessments currently in use today were developed to assess abstract cognitive “constructs” without regard for their ability to predict “functional” behavior. For example, although the construct-driven Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is one of the most widely used measures of executive function, it was not originally developed as a measure of executive functioning. Instead, the WCST was preceded by a number of sorting measures that were developed from observations of the effects of brain damage (e.g., Weigl, 1927). While Milner (1963) found that patients with dorsolateral prefrontal lesions had greater difficulty on the WCST than patients with orbitofrontal or nonfrontal lesions, other studies have shown that patients with frontal lobe pathology do not always differ from control subjects on the WCST (Stuss et al., 1983). Some may argue that while there have been some inconsistencies in the literature, data from the construct-driven WCST do appear to provide information relevant to the constructs of set shifting and working memory. However, it can also be argued that the data do not necessarily offer information that would allow a neuropsychologist to predict what situations in everyday life require the abilities that the WCST measures. A number of investigators have argued that performance on traditional tests has little correspondence to everyday activities of daily living. This can leave the neuropsychologist uncertain of the efficacy of the tests for predicting the way in which patients will manage in their everyday lives (Bottari, Dassa, Rainville, & Dutil, 2009; Manchester, Priestly, & Howard, 2004; Sbordone, 2008).
Factors Affecting Aging Services Technology Use in the Aging Population
Authors: Tam Joyce W. , Schmitter-Edgecombe Maureen
Published: November 2020

Age-related changes in physical health and cognitive functions can negatively affect quality of life as well as increase caregiver burden and societal healthcare costs. While aging services technologies (ASTs) have the potential to facilitate functional independence, they have been underutilized in the aging population due to various factors, including awareness and access. ASTs were defined in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as “health technology that meets the health-care needs of seniors, individuals with disabilities, and the caregivers of such seniors and individuals” (Public Law 111-5). For the purpose of this chapter, tools or devices not discussed in the context of older adult use are referred to as assistive technologies (ATs). Both ATs and ASTs span a spectrum from low-tech to high-tech devices. Low-tech devices are often simple, easy to operate, and economical. Magnifying glasses, pill boxes, daily planners, and canes are all considered low-tech devices. In contrast, high-tech devices are computerized, often require additional training to learn and to operate, and are more costly. Computers, tablets, smartphone software or assistive apps, wearable sensors, and smart homes are some examples of high-tech tools. An assortment of ASTs are available to address both physical changes (e.g., changes in vision or mobility) and cognitive limitations (e.g., memory decline). The devices can be used to address issues that arise from normal aging as well as symptoms associated with neurological disorders, including memory, motor, and autoimmune disorders (Cattaneo, de Nuzzo, Fascia, Macalli, Pisoni, Cardini, 2002; Constantinescu, Leonard, Deeley, & Kurlan, 2007; Padilla, 2011). In a randomized controlled study, Mann and colleagues (1999) recruited older adults who were in need of ASTs (e.g., receiving in-home services, participating in a hospital rehabilitation program) and assigned them to usual standard of care or treatment. Participants in the treatment group received an 18-month intervention that included ongoing functional assessment as well as recommendations for ASTs and home modifications.
Integrating Technologies in the Study of Attentional Networks
Authors: Posner Michael I.
Published: November 2020

The literature supports the idea that attention is not a unified concept, but involves separate mechanisms that support its varied functions (Petersen & Posner, 2012). One common taxonomy involves three such functions: obtaining and maintaining the alert state, orienting to sensory stimuli, and resolving conflict among competing responses. Each of the functions has a long history and has spawned tests designed to measure individual differences in attention. Many individual tests and batteries of tests are designed to measure attention. Tests of vigilance usually involve maintaining attention over long periods of time, originally simulating the job of scanning radar returns for low-probability targets (Mackworth, 1969; Parasuraman, 1985). Another approach is to require responses to infrequent events, as in the continuous performance test (Rosvold et al., 1956) or the serial response test (Manly et al., 1999). Vigilance varies with the diurnal rhythm and vigilance can be reduced by sleep deprivation. Collectively, the tests of performance during continuous tasks are often called measures of tonic alertness, which is thought to change rather slowly. It is also possible to cause phasic shifts of the level of alertness by the use of warning signals (Nickerson, 1967). A warning signal can bring a person from a relatively relaxed state to one fostering the very best performance within less than half a second. Recent fMRI studies have defined a default state in which a person is off task (Raichle, 2009). It seems likely that scalp electrodes recording direct current shifts following warning signals called the contingent negative variation (CNV) capture the shift from the default to the alert state. The most frequently studied area in attention research involves orienting to a sensory source that contains a target. For example, in a visual search, a target may be defined as a red triangle. If it appears in a field that contains other colored triangles and red forms other than triangles, one can ensure that the field is carefully searched until the target is found.
Advanced Technology and Assessment
Authors: Bush Shane S. , Schatz Philip
Published: November 2020

The role of technology in neuropsychological practice has expanded dramatically in recent years, and its presence and evolving nature provide both exciting opportunities and sizeable risks that challenge practitioners ethically. Computerized test administration, scoring, and interpretation are now so common that is it hard to imagine a neuropsychologist’s practice that does not incorporate some combination of these technologies. Some of the most commonly used measures have become so complex or offer so many variables to consider that their scoring and interpretation would be extremely difficult, if not prohibitive, without the use of technology. Additionally, assessment of some cognitive constructs, such as sustained attention or response time, typically requires a computer for administration. Without computers for assessing such constructs, the understanding of the test taker’s cognitive abilities would be limited, and the decision to forgo use of such measures would not be consistent with optimal practice. Some referral sources, particularly in forensic contexts, specifically require the use of measures that are computer-administered, scored, and/or interpreted. Finally, computers, or other technologic devices, such as tablets, are now widely used by practitioners for completing and storing reports and other documentation, and telecommunications like email are commonly used for transmitting reports. Thus, technology now permeates the practice of clinical neuropsychology and will likely continue to do so forever. Even practitioners who prefer to limit use of technology must accept that it is here and is here to stay. This is not a bad thing. There are many advantages to the use of digital assessment and data storage. As Wahlstrom (in press) stated: After decades of incremental technological advancements, neuropsychology is beginning to see a rapid expansion of digital applications available to clinicians. In the short-term, these applications promise to replace paper materials and will make testing more efficient, accurate, and engaging for both the examinee and examiner.
Cholera’s Frontiers
Authors: Levy Sharon
Published: November 2020

Sewage as we know it—the everyday miracle of feces disappearing down the toilet, pushed by a never-ending flow of clean water—is a recent invention. The flush toilet itself has been created, and then forgotten, many times down through the ages. But the grand scheme that we all take for granted—an endless supply of clean water piped in and limitless amounts of dirty water piped out—was thought up by Edwin Chadwick, a British lawyer turned public health crusader, in the 1840s. Back then the cities of the Old World were awash in human waste. Even the most elegant homes had privies that emptied into cesspits, where decades of accumulated filth sat rotting beneath the parlor floor. The poor lived in tenements where dozens of people might have to share one privy. Chadwick supervised a survey of sanitary conditions in English cities that came up with some amazing statistics. In parts of Manchester there was one privy to every 215 people. Some houses had yards covered six inches deep in “human ordure,” which the inhabitants crossed by stepping on bricks. “Sir Henry De La Beche was obliged at Bristol to stand up at the end of alleys and vomit while Dr. Playfair was investigating overflowing privies,” Chadwick wrote of one of his colleagues. “Sir Henry was obliged to give it up.” London had sewers, of a sort: They were open ditches that sloped toward the Thames, and were meant to drain stormwater out of the streets. But by Chadwick’s day, the gunk from thousands of overflowing cesspits emptied into these sewers, then oozed its way into the river. Parliament’s windows on the riverfront had not been opened in years because of the stench. The Chelsea Water Company, which provided drinking water to many Londoners, still had its intake a few feet from the outfall of the Ranelagh sewer. An editorial in The Spectator pointed out that city residents paid the water companies “340,000 pounds per annum for a more or less concentrated solution of native guano.”
Tides of Change
Authors: Levy Sharon
Published: November 2020

When Dan Hauser and his friend Wesley Chesbro won the Arcata city council race, their opponents did not concede gracefully. “I’m not a poor loser,” claimed Clyde Johnson, just before he called Hauser and Chesbro “rangatangs.” Then Johnson and the other disappointed candidates accused the winners of using dirty campaign tricks—just like President Nixon. Arcata’s weekly paper, the Union, ran the details of the post-election flap on its front page. That March of 1974, the national obsession with the Watergate scandal reached its peak. The president’s closest aides were on trial for burglary, wiretapping, and obstruction of justice. Nixon had become an international symbol of corruption, and the polls showed his public approval rating plummeting to an all-time low. So while Hauser and Chesbro could laugh off the comparison to an ape, when they were likened to the president the insult cut deep. It was a rough time to start a political career, especially in Arcata, an old logging town on the shores of Humboldt Bay in California’s damp northwest corner. The community was splitting in two like a redwood slat struck with an ax. On one side stood ranchers and timber workers, many of them descendants of the first pioneers to settle here in the 1850s. On the other were outsiders like Hauser and Chesbro, people who’d recently migrated to town to study or teach at Humboldt State University (HSU), and who’d decided to stay in this foggy enclave, 250 miles north of San Francisco. Now, for the first time, the outsiders controlled the city council. The old-time Arcatans felt like victims of an alien invasion. That feeling intensified when the national fad for high-speed nudity reached HSU. A few days after the election, four young guys ran naked through the University quad. Behind them, the crowns of the redwood trees at the edge of campus vanished into the fog. A cold rain fell as the earnest exhibitionists moved across the lawn, and goosebumps rose all over their bodies.
The Tide Rises
Authors: Levy Sharon
Published: November 2020

David Sedlak, an environmental engineering professor at the University of California– Berkeley, stands on a levee near San Francisco Bay’s eastern shore. Manmade embankments extend for many miles, lining much of the bay’s edge, but Sedlak, a lean, intense guy, is fired up about this newly built one. Instead of the usual barren concrete, the bayward face of the levee slopes gently beneath a dense growth of native wetland plants. From muddy clumps of roots and rhizomes placed here only a year ago, the plants have sprouted into a lush palette of green, from the deep dark of Baltic rush to the bright tones of creeping wild rye. Sedlak is part of a bold experiment. If it succeeds, the project may reshape the East Bay shoreline, restoring a vast acreage of lost tidal wetlands that will be nourished by treated wastewater. The hope is that vegetated levees (the official moniker for the concept is the Horizontal Levee) will save money and energy, recycle treated sewage to create habitat, and help the urbanized East Bay adapt to rising sea levels. Conventional levees form steep concrete or earthen walls that armor roads and buildings against the bay’s powerful waves. The Horizontal Levee is a lovely contrast, a compressed version of a natural habitat long missing from the shoreline. The transition zones, or ecotones, between land and bay were biologically rich places that once hosted a diversity of native plants and animals. Since the Bay Area was settled, wetlands have been diked off from both the open bay and the surrounding land. Between 1800 and 1998, 92 percent of tidal marshes were lost to diking and filling. “In San Francisco Bay, we’ve separated the contacts between the terrestrial and the tidal,” explains Peter Baye, a consulting ecologist whose deep knowledge of remnant natural wetlands acts as guideline for the creation of the Horizontal Levee. Habitats that once formed a continuous gradient from dry land to salt marsh have been boxed off, separated by dikes. The disappearance of what ecologists call the “back end” of tidal marshes has been a significant loss.
A Cause in the Caucasus
Authors: Toal Gerard
Published: November 2020

In December 2007, Damon wilson returned to the White House to take a position as senior director for Europe in the National Security Council of George W. Bush. Having spent the previous year in Iraq, Wilson was back working on an issue he was passionate about: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement. Prior service in the State Department, the NATO secretary general’s office, and the White House gave Wilson familiarity with Euro-Atlantic divisions on the subject. Thrust into preparation for the forthcoming NATO summit in Bucharest, he was surprised that no internal policy process had yet generated a formal presidential decision on whether the United States was willing to offer a path to NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. Both states underwent “color revolutions” that saw fraudulent election results overturned and new elections sweep dynamic Westernizing leaders into power, events many Russian officials viewed as Western-fomented coups. Three years later in 2007, things were not looking so positive in either state. In Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili’s government had violently suppressed antigovernment demonstrations a few weeks earlier, while Ukraine’s pro-Western leadership had descended into internal factionalism. Wilson, however, knew how strong the president’s instincts were on support for fledgling young democracies in post-Soviet space. Bush had announced his commitment at the outset of his presidency in a speech at Warsaw University where he declared: “No more Munichs, no more Yaltas.” During Bush’s tenure, NATO had admitted seven new member states, including the Baltic Republics, tacitly acknowledged as part of the Soviet Union at Yalta in 1945. Approaching his last NATO summit, Bush had a legacy opportunity to push enlargement farther east and south, to large strategic territories that were part of the original Soviet Union. Secretaries Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates were skeptical but others such as U.S. ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland, were supportive. After a “deep dive” into the question by White House staff, Bush decided in late February that the United States should mobilize all its diplomatic power to offer a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a first step toward NATO membership, to both Georgia and Ukraine at Bucharest.
Rescue Missions
Authors: Toal Gerard
Published: November 2020

The Georgian Military Assault on Tskhinval(i) began with an artillery barrage by truck-mounted Grad missiles that rained down in a largely indiscriminate manner on the urban area. OSCE monitors in the city counted rounds exploding at intervals of fifteen to twenty seconds. Then Georgian forces began a ground offensive. Scores were killed, mostly civilians but also combatants and, significantly, Russian soldiers serving as peacekeepers. Those wounded were taken to make­shift basement “hospitals” as fighting raged on the streets above them. Many bled to death. Inal Pliyev’s initial claim, made in the fog of war, that two thousand civilians died proved to be more than a tenfold exaggeration, but it was his number that traveled around the world before any verifiable body count got underway. And attached to the false number was the disputatious charge of “genocide” from the script of the conflict already written by the Ossetian authorities. News of the Georgian attack and Russian response reached Beijing (four hours ahead of Tbilisi), where U.S. president George W. Bush was standing in a line of visiting dignitaries in the Great Hall of the People to greet President Hu Jintao. A few places ahead of him was Vladimir Putin. They briefly talked, and when Bush returned to his hotel he placed a call to President Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev, according to Bush, was angry and charged that Mikheil Saakashvili was a war criminal responsible for the deaths of more than fifteen hundred civilians as well as Russian peacekeepers. Bush told Medvedev that the United States was concerned about the “disproportionality” of the Russian response, adding, “We are going to be with them.” In his memoir Bush recounts how he sought de-escalation while wondering if Russia would have been as aggressive if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had approved Georgia’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) application. Later, at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, Bush was in the same row as Putin and asked those in between to shift seats so they could speak. Through a translator Putin also described Saakashvili as a war criminal.
The Novorossiya Project
Authors: Toal Gerard
Published: November 2020

In breaking apart a sovereign territorial state, it is helpful, if not always necessary, to have an alternative geopolitical imaginary at the ready and for this ersatz replacement to have some degree of local credibility and support. When Putin decided to annex Crimea, the move was intuitively presented as a historic Russian territory rejoining the motherland and, further, as the correction of an arbitrary and capricious historical wrong. The demographics of Crimea were such that this storyline resonated with most but not all Crimeans. But when it came to the rest of Ukraine, the Putin administration faced a dilemma. Ukraine’s modern history was intimately entangled with that of Russia. Tsarist and Russian Orthodox Christian discourse rendered it the homeland of a common Rus(s)ian people, its capital Kyiv as the mother of all Russian cities, and its land as a Little Russia populated by little Russians. The Bolsheviks recognized Ukrainians as a distinctive nation, constituting it as a fraternal Slavic nation alongside Russians. The Great Patriotic War bound the countries together, first in trial and suffering, and then in redemption and victory. Putin evoked these very discourses—“we are one people, Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other”—in his speech recommending annexation of Crimea. Holding that Ukrainians and Russians are one people while, at the same time, seizing territory from Ukraine required a hyperbolic fascist-threat storyline to make sense. According to this scenario, anti-Semitic nationalists from western regions not part of the Russian Empire were Nazi collaborators during the Great Patriotic War. Now, in the seventieth year of Ukraine’s liberation from Nazi rule, these forces were back on the streets and through violent protests on the Maidan managed to oust a legitimate government and seize power in a military coup. Ukraine, as a consequence, was in territorial crisis as ordinary ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people, concentrated particularly in the southeast, sought protection from the fascist junta now ensconced in Kyiv. In these circumstances, it was understandable that former tsarist and Soviet identities in regions historically close to Russia resurfaced.
A Father’s Perspective on Autism
Authors: Ellis Michael
Published: November 2020

A father has a unique perspective on autism and its impact on his family. I write about my experience as a father of a child with autism as it is fairly typical in terms of the timing of concerns and the dilemmas faced during the process of a child’s diagnosis with autism (autism spectrum disorder). It is important that fathers know what is “normal” to feel and think about ASD and about their child, in general. Knowing that you are not the only one with your experience and feelings helps you not to feel alone. This by itself can be therapeutic. The diagnosis of ASD is arguably the worst diagnosis that a child psychiatrist can give a young child. It is also the most devastating diagnosis that one can give to the family. Before the official diagnosis of my daughter, at about 2½ years of age, my wife had expressed concern a couple of times regarding my daughter’s limited speech. I thought my wife was overreacting and being a “worrywart.” Although I acknowledged that my daughter’s speech was a little behind, I simply thought that she was going to catch up. “Children develop at their own pace,” I thought. However, when she had only a few words at 24 months, I knew this was not “normal.” In fact, our pediatrician, who we saw only at our daughter’s monthly checkups, had never noticed any abnormalities in our child until we finally expressed concern regarding her speech delay. She referred us to a speech therapist at our strong request. On some level, we probably knew something was wrong. My wife had actually mentioned the word autism once, but I do not think we actually thought that this was going to be her diagnosis. My wife and I knew very little about ASD, but we knew enough to be concerned that she seemed to enjoy being by herself too much, had a speech delay, and had limited eye contact.
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies
Authors: Ellis Michael
Published: November 2020

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the collective term used for treatments or therapies that have not typically been part of Western medicine. The “complementary” part of this term means that the treatment may be used along with more conventional medicine, while the “alternative” component of the term implies that it may be used in place of traditional medi­cine. Most people in the United States choose not to forgo Western medicine and instead combine CAM and conventional medicine, preferring the term “integrative medicine” over “complementary and alternative medicine.” CAM purports to focus on the whole person, including the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual components of health. A wide variety of treatments can fit under the umbrella of CAM treatments for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this chapter, we will discuss many of these treatments and the evidence base for them. According to studies, 50% to 75% of children with ASD are treated with CAM therapies. Even higher percentages of children with more severe ASD or intellectual disability are treated with CAM. Parents are also more likely to use CAM treatments if the child has seizures, gastrointestinal symptoms, or a behavioral disorder. Parents believe that these therapies are more accessible and less invasive. Most parents are more comfortable when they hear that a treatment falls under the CAM category because they believe it is more “natural” or safer (1,2). CAM therapies have varying degrees of efficacy and safety data. These different CAM therapies fall under the larger categories of nutrition/dietary interventions, immunomodulation, biochemical and metabolic therapies, detoxification, manipulative and body-based practices, music therapy, sensory integration therapy, hippotherapy (horseback riding), dolphin swim therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and so forth. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss each therapy in extensive detail, but I will give an introduction to each type of CAM treatment and then discuss the more important and controversial treatments (2).