bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
International Education: A Global Outlook
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

The world is rapidly moving toward greater interdependency and globalization, driven by technological advances, economic opportunities, and intellectual curiosity. There is more movement across national boundaries than ever before: of people, money, information, ideas, images, and much more. We are embedded among billions of people, mostly strangers, yet we need them and they need us: to make a living; to travel; to cope with widespread problems like infectious diseases and terrorism; to secure the safety of our food, water, and environment; and to protect us physically. So now we humans in virtually every country must of necessity find decent ways to interact with strangers, move beyond stereotypes, and to the extent possible turn strangers into familiar people, even turn potential adversaries into friends. Yet this is a task that goes far beyond the prior experience of humanity. Yes, we have done some of this before, but much less than we will have to do as a practical matter in the twenty first century. In our ancient past, this would have been exceedingly difficult. Among monkeys and apes, a very powerful instigator for harmful aggression is the crowding of strangers in the presence of valued resources. Probably the same was true for our early human ancestors over many millennia. Now we have to learn how to transcend ancient suspicions and biases, learn how to live together with people who are initially strange and perhaps implicitly threatening. To do so, we must widen the horizons of education from childhood onward and learn—in a reasonable sampling process—about other peoples, cultures, ideas, preferences, ways of life. In this process, strangeness can be converted to familiarity, suspicion to fascination. That is why international education bears not only on economic well-being in a world of technoeconomic globalization, but it also bears on the vital issues of war and peace. Americans have typically focused their attention on domestic concerns rather than looking abroad. But this mindset is no longer viable. As the world community continues to become evermore interconnected, U.S. citizens will need to look beyond their shores with an attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness. The same need exists in many nations throughout the world. And this extends to our children.
Product Development to Business
Authors: Wei James
Published: November 2020

Many historians and journalists conclude an exciting story of innovation at the discovery phase, when there emerges a plausible idea of a new product. However, for most innovative products, the exciting story has barely begun. Usually, many years of hard work still lie ahead, to modify and adapt the technology to the needs of the marketplace, and to find solutions to many problems. Sometimes, the development work is accomplished mainly inside a single organization, such as in the development of nylon by DuPont; at other times, the development work is accomplished by many units under a loose network of cooperation, such as in the development of penicillin and of taxol by numerous companies and organizations. The innovation project will not go forth unless sponsors can be found and persuaded that the product can be manufactured from available technology and raw materials, accepted in the marketplace as superior in quality to other products at a competitive price, acceptable in safety and environmental concerns, and make a handsome profit for the manufacturer. The critical go-ahead signal is in obtaining finance to pay for the capital cost of land, building, and equipment, as well as the working capital cost of hiring management and staff, buying raw materials, and paying for utility and transportation. Other major landmarks are the start-up of the first manufacturing plant and the initial product offer in the market. If the product is to remain viable in the marketplace for many years, then there must be vigilance in monitoring the reactions of the customers, as well as that of the competition and the government, and taking appropriate actions. The development stories of numerous products are not well recorded or are completely lost. We are grateful that there are a few stories that have received attention from the innovators who took pains to record their stories. The book Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902–1980 by Hounshell and Smith (1988) presents a well-documented story of the long journey of nylon from discovery to the marketplace. A large number of people were involved.
Predictions by Correlations
Authors: Wei James
Published: November 2020

After searching the literature and making predictions based on theory without getting sufficient satisfactory results, the next move would be to make estimates. We need the property y of substances pi from a population P that has not been investigated and reported in the literature. Fortunately, there exists a subset S of P that has been investigated, and we have the values for the property y. For instance, we may want the boiling points of all the hydrocarbons, but we have only the boiling points of the normal paraffins from 1 to 20 carbon atoms. Can we use this piece of information on normal paraffins to estimate the boiling points for the rest of the hydrocarbon population? How much effort would be involved and how accurate would the results be? The number of isomers of paraffin is very large; see table 5.1. We see that the iso-paraffins are not as well investigated as the normal paraffins. We have the boiling points of all three isomers of pentane, but not the 75 isomers of decane. It is inevitable that we have to resort to estimations. When we have obtained a good correlation for normal paraffins, we would naturally want to know if we can extend this to the branched paraffins, and onward to the population of all the saturated hydrocarbons (by including the cyclic paraffins), and onward to the population of all hydrocarbons (by including olefins, acetylenes, and aromatic compounds), and then onward to the population of all organic compounds (by including compounds with heteroatoms, such as O, N, Cl). A correlation that applies accurately to a larger domain is more useful than one that works only for a smaller domain. Another example is polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have 10 hydrogen atoms that can be substituted by chlorine atoms. There are three types of site: the four α sites near the bridge between the two phenyl fragments, the four β sites farther away from the bridge, and the two γ sites that are the farthest away from the bridge. The number of isomers is shown in table 5.2.
Diffusion Networks
Authors: Rogers Everett
Published: November 2020

Here we explore what is known about diffusion networks and how they function to convey innovation-evaluation information to decrease uncertainty about a new idea. We begin with a discussion of opinion leadership, the degree to which an individual is able informally to influence other individuals’ attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency. Opinion leaders are individuals who lead in influencing others’ opinions about innovations. The behavior of opinion leaders is important in determining the rate of adoption of an innovation in a system. In fact, the S-shape of the diffusion curve occurs because once opinion leaders adopt and tell others about the innovation, the number of adopters per unit of time takes off. We explore in this chapter the role of social modeling in diffusion networks, and how interpersonal communication drives the diffusion process through creating a “critical mass” of adopters. In order to understand better the nature of opinion leadership and diffusion networks, we now examine several models of mass communication flows, roughly in the temporal sequence of their entrance on the stage of communication study. The hypodermic needle model postulated that the mass media had direct, immediate, and powerful effects on a mass audience. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change. The omnipotent media were pictured as conveying messages to atomized masses of individuals (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955). Evidence of the power of the mass media was drawn from such historical events as (1) the role of the Hearst newspapers in arousing public support for the Spanish-American War, (2) the power of Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda apparatus during World War II in Europe, and (3) the influence of Madison Avenue advertising on consumer and voting behavior in the United States. Eventually, when more sophisticated methods were used in communication research, considerable doubt was cast on the hypodermic needle model. This survey research was directed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld of Columbia University, a pioneering mass communication scholar (Rogers, 1994).
Contagion, Semantic, and Cognitive Theories
Authors: Monge Peter R. , Contractor Noshir
Published: November 2020

This chapter reviews theory and research that seeks to explain the emergence of communication networks based on individuals’ cognitions about other people and the relations among those individuals. Contagion theories seek to explain networks as conduits for “infectious” attitudes and behavior. Semantic theories attempt explanations on the basis of networks that map similarities among individuals’ interpretations. Theories of cognitive social structures examine cognitions regarding “who knows who” and “who knows who knows who,” while theories of cognitive knowledge structures examine cognitions of “who knows what” and “who knows who knows what.” Finally, cognitive consistency theories explain how networks are understood on the basis of individuals’ cognitions of consistency or balance in their networks. The remainder of this chapter discusses each of these areas and their extensions. Contagion theories are based on the assumption that the opportunities for contact provided by communication networks serve as a mechanism that exposes people, groups, and organizations to information, attitudinal messages, and the behavior of others (Burt, 1980, 1987; Contractor & Eisenberg, 1990). This exposure increases the likelihood that network members will develop beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes that are similar to those of others in their network (Carley, 1991; Carley & Kaufer, 1993). The contagion approach seeks to explain organizational members’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior on the basis of information, attitudes, and behavior of others in the network to whom they are linked. Rogers and Kincaid (1981) refer to this as the convergence model of communication. Theories that are premised on a contagion model, at least in part, include social information processing theory (Fulk, Steinfield, Schmitz, & Power, 1987; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), social influence theory (Fulk, Schmitz, & Steinfield, 1990; see also Marsden & Friedkin, 1993), structural theory of action (Burt, 1982), symbolic interactionist perspectives (Trevino, Lengel, & Daft, 1987), mimetic processes exemplified by institutional theories (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977), and social cognitive and learning theories (Bandura, 1986). Fulk (1993) notes that these constructivist perspectives “share the core proposition that social and symbolic processes produce patterns of shared cognitions and behaviors that arise from forces well beyond the demands of the straightforward task of information processing in organizations”.
Estuarine–Coastal Interactions
Authors: Bianchi Thomas S.
Published: November 2020

The coastal ocean is a dynamic region where the rivers, estuaries, ocean, land, and the atmosphere interact (Walsh, 1988; Mantoura et al., 1991; Alongi, 1998; Wollast, 1998). Coastlines extend over an estimated 350,000 km worldwide, and the coastal ocean, typically defined as a region that extends from the high water mark to the shelf break (figure 16.1; Alongi, 1998), covers approximately 7% (26 × 106 km2) of the surface global ocean (Gattuso et al., 1998). Although relatively small in area, this highly productive region (30% of the total net oceanic productivity) supports as much as 90% of the global fish catch (Holligan, 1992). In recent years, the coastal ocean has been recognized for its global importance with both national and international programs such as the Land–Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) program, a subprogram of the International Global Change Program (IGBP) started in 1993 (Pernetta and Milliman, 1995), the European Union coastal core project (European Land–Ocean Interaction Studies, ELOISE) (Cadée et al., 1994), and in the U.S. Shelf Edge Exchange Processes Program (SEEP I and SEEP II) (Walsh et al., 1988; Anderson et al., 1994), the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) program, Ocean Margins Program (OMP), and Land–Margin Ecosystem Research (LMER), to name a few. SEEP I and SEEP II were designed to test the Walsh et al. (1985) hypothesis that increased anthropogenic nutrient supply to the coastal ocean would result in enhanced burial of organic matter in continental margins due to higher offshore export of new productivity in the nearshore waters. While the hypothesis of offshore transport and burial was shown to be valid along certain regions of the eastern U.S. coast, other regions showed a more along-shelf transport (Walsh, 1994). More recent work in the OMP, which revisited some of the objectives of SEEP I and SEEP II, found that the accumulation of organic matter in upper slope sediments was only <1% of the total primary production in the entire continental margin of North Carolina (DeMaster et al., 2002). There are many factors that will ultimately determine if and how much nearshore production is exported offshore from the coastal ocean.
Travel as Commodity
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

Thomas Cook started it all with his meticulously organized archaeological tours up the Nile. He harnessed the revolutionary technologies of Victorian travel to a growing desire on the part of the middle class to explore the world and its ancient history. Cook was the first to realize the potential of the railroad for group tours. A devout Baptist and an advocate for temperance, he began his business by organizing rail excursions to temperance meetings in nearby towns in central England. The enterprise was so successful that he took advantage of steamships and continental railroads to organize what we now call package tours to France and Germany. From that, it was not much more difficult to organize tours to Egypt and the Holy Land, now readily accessible thanks to the new technology for Victorian travel: the railroad, the steamship, and the telegraph. Then, in the twentieth century, came ocean liners, massive cruise ships, and the Boeing 707, followed by the jumbo jet, all of which together made archaeological travel part of popular culture. We live in a completely accessible world of intricate airline schedules and instant communication, where you can visit the great moiae of Easter Island as easily as you can take a journey to Stonehenge or the Parthenon, the difference being a longer flight and the need for the correct visas and a foreign rental car at the other end. And if you become sick or injured, you can be evacuated from most places within hours: Peter Fleming or Ella Maillart would have been in real trouble had they become sick or injured in the vast expanses of central Asia. We forget that to travel east of the Holy Land was considered highly adventurous until after World War II, and that central Asia was virtually inaccessible to outsiders until the late twentieth century. Much of the adventure of archaeological travel has vanished since the 1960s in a tidal wave of mass tourism and its attendant businesses. Leisure travel is now the world’s largest industry, and the mainstay of many national economies, including that of Egypt, where at last count six mil-lion tourists visit each year. According to Statistics Canada, global cultural tourism will grow at a rate of about 15 percent annually through the year 2010.
Linking Health To Geology
Authors: Berger Antony R.
Published: November 2020

In staking the ground for any new field of science, its distinct character needs to be established. In our opinion, the already large literature on geology and health, including the chapters in this volume, provide two clear arguments for distinctiveness. First, medical geology extends the primary concern of geologists with the interactions between rocks, soils, water, and air to the effects of these interactions on the health of humans and other living organisms. Though one focus of medical geology is the search for the origins of disease in the natural geological background, there is also interest in the obvious benefits that the major, minor, and trace elements and the essential molecules found in soils, surface, and groundwater, and in the air we breathe, bring to health and well-being. Second, this new field is truly cross-disciplinary; it requires the melding of two distinct research efforts, the one focused on geology, with all its subdisciplines, and the other on living forms. Different viewpoints can be myopic, and to increase understanding of the health implications of the natural background requires the involvement not only of a wide range of earth scientists, but also of researchers and practitioners in medicine, dentistry, veterinary science, biology, botany, agriculture, and ecology, among others. From the viewpoint of the life scientists, medical geology could be regarded as a subdivision of “environmental medicine” (Möller 2000). This increasingly important aspect of medicine includes consideration of airborne pathways of disease, ozone depletion, algal blooms, the organohalogens, and mycotoxins found as part of the ‘ecology’ of the built environment (buildings, factories). In general, the purview is any factor in the natural or human environment that affects health. The term “geomedicine” has been used extensively, especially by the late J. Lag (1990). However, unlike the well-established fields of geophysics and geochemistry, in which physics and chemistry are applied to geology, the new field is clearly not about the relevance of medical principles to geology. Rather, it is concerned with the application of geological knowledge and techniques to a more integrated approach to public health.
Environmental Geochemistry on a Global Scale
Authors: Plant Jane A. , Smith Barry
Published: November 2020

Recent population growth and economic development are extending the problems associated with land degradation, pollution, urbanization, and the effects of climate change over large areas of the earth’s surface, giving increasing cause for concern about the state of the environment. Many problems are most acute in tropical, equatorial, and desert regions where the surface environment is particularly fragile because of its long history of intense chemical weathering over geological timescales. The speed and scale of the impact of human activities are now so great that, according to some authors, for example, McMichael (1993), there is the threat of global ecological disruption. Concern that human activities are unsustainable has led to the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development Our Common Future (Barnaby 1987) and the establishment of a United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development responsible for carrying out Agenda 21, the action plan of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Considerable research into the global environment is now being undertaken, especially into issues such as climate change, biodiversity, and water quality. Relatively little work has been carried out on the sustainability of the Earth’s land surface and its life support systems, however, other than on an ad-hoc basis in response to problems such as mercury poisoning related to artisanal gold mining in Amazonia or arsenic poisoning as a result of water supply problems in Bangladesh (Smedley 1999). This chapter proposes a more strategic approach to understanding the distribution and behavior of chemicals in the environment based on the preparation of a global geochemical baseline to help to sustain the Earth’s land surface based on the systematic knowledge of its geochemistry. Geochemical data contain information directly relevant to economic and environmental decisions involving mineral exploration, extraction, and processing; manufacturing industries; agriculture and forestry; many aspects of human and animal health; waste disposal; and land-use planning. A database showing the spatial variations in the abundance of chemical elements over the Earth’s surface is, therefore, a key step in embracing all aspects of environmental geochemistry. Although environmental problems do not respect political boundaries, data from one part of the world may have important implications elsewhere.
Analysis of Variance
Authors: Hibbert D. Brynn , Gooding J. Justin
Published: November 2020

• What ANOVA is, and what it is used for. • To perform and interpret a one-way ANOVA. • To determine which effects are significant using least significant difference. • To perform and interpret a two-way ANOVA. … ANOVA is the workhorse method of using statistics to compare means and determine the effects of influence factors on measurement results (i.e., anything that can be varied or measured that may affect the result). In chapter 3 we learned how to use Student t-tests to compare two means. There is nothing to stop us performing a series of t-tests on pairs of means that must be compared, but a different approach that looks at the variance of data, ANOVA, can decide if there is a significant effect caused by a factor for which we have any number of sets of data. ANOVA relies on an understanding of two things. First, how the variances of different components can be combined to give the overall observed variance of data. Second, that a difference in means can lead to a spread of results of the combined data that can be detected in terms of an increased variance. As an example, consider an attempt to determine if there is a significant difference between the means of replicate analyses conducted by two methods. The standard deviation of each set of results will estimate the repeatability of the measurement. If the two methods have different means then the standard deviation of the combined data will be increased by any differences arising from the methods. This is illustrated in figure 4.1. When the means are far apart, even though the individual standard deviations are not great, the combination has a huge standard deviation. ANOVA is powerful because it can determine if there is significant difference among a number of instances of the same factor (e.g., if we wanted to know if there were any difference in the result between three or more analytical methods), and also among different factors (e.g., what is the effect of temperature and concentration on the yield of a reaction?).
Interlaboratory Studies
Authors: Hibbert D. Brynn
Published: November 2020

No matter how carefully a laboratory scrutinizes its performance with internal quality control procedures, testing against other laboratories increases confidence in a laboratory’s results and among all the laboratories involved in comparison testing. Although without independent knowledge of the value of the measurand it is possible that all the laboratories involved are producing erroneous results, it is also comforting to know that your laboratory is not too different from its peers. An interlaboratory study is a planned series of analyses of a common test material performed by a number of laboratories, with the goal of evaluating the relative performances of the laboratories, the appropriateness and accuracy of the method used, or the composition and identity of the material being tested. The exact details of the study depend on the nature of the test, but all studies have a common pattern: an organizing laboratory creates and distributes a test material that is to be analyzed to the participants in the study, and the results communicated back to the organizing laboratory. The results are statistically analyzed and a report of the findings circulated. Interlaboratory studies are increasingly popular. Ongoing rounds of interlaboratory studies are conducted by most accreditation bodies; the Key Comparison program of the Consultative Committee of the Amount of Substance (CCQM) is one such interlaboratory study (BIPM 2006). There is a great deal of literature on interlaboratory studies (Hibbert 2005; Horwitz 1995; Hund et al. 2000; Lawn et al. 1997; Maier et al. 1993; Thompson and Wood 1993), and an ISO/IEC guide for the conduct of proficiency testing studies is available (ISO/IEC 1997). There are three principal groups of studies: studies that test laboratories (proficiency tests), studies that test methods, and studies that test materials (table 5.1). Laboratories that participate in method and material studies are chosen for their ability to analyze the particular material using the given method. It is not desirable to discover any lacunae in the participating laboratories, and outliers cause lots of problems. The aim of the study is to obtain information about the method or material, so confidence in the results is of the greatest importance.
Drought-Related Characteristics of Important Cereal Crops
Authors: Ingram Keith T.
Published: November 2020

Humans cultivate more than 200 species of plants, but this chapter reviews responses of 5 important cereal crops to drought. These crops are maize (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum and Triticum turgidum L. var. durum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench), and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R. Br), which provide the majority of food in the world. In general, farmers cultivate millet in the most drought-prone environments and sorghum where a short growing season is the greatest constraint to production. Some sorghum cultivars set grain in as short as 50–60 days (Roncoli et al., 2001). Rice is grown under a wide range of environments, from tropical to temperate zones, from deep water-flooded zones to nonflooded uplands. Rice productivity is limited mostly by water (IRRI, 2002). Drought limits, to a varying extent, the productivity of all of these crops. Although water is likely the most important manageable limit to food production worldwide, we should recognize that water management cannot be isolated from nutrient, crop, and pest management. Life on earth depends on green plants, which capture solar energy and store chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis. Although plants use a small amount of water in the reactions of photosynthesis and retain small amounts of water in plant tissues, as much as 99% of the water that plants take up is lost through transpiration (i.e., gaseous water transport through the stomata of leaves). Stomata, which are small pores on leaf surfaces, must open to allow carbon dioxide to enter leaf tissues for photosynthesis and plant growth, but open stomata also allow water to escape. In addition to transpiration, there are several other avenues of water loss from a crop system. Water may exit the crop system by evaporation from the soil, transpiration of weeds, deep drainage beyond the root zone, lateral flow beneath the soil surface, or runoff. We can sum the daily additions and losses of water to form a water balance equation: . . . S = G + P + I − E − T − Tw − D − L − R [2.1] . . .
Passive Microwave Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture and Regional Drought Monitoring
Authors: Jackson Thomas J.
Published: November 2020

Mitigating the effects of drought can be improved through better information on the current status, the prediction of occurrence, and the extent of drought. Soil moisture can now be measured using a new generation of microwave remote sensing satellites. These measurements can be used to monitor drought conditions on a daily basis over the entire earth. The quality of these products will continue to improve over time as new sensors are launched. These satellite products, combined with existing in situ observations and models, should be exploited in drought monitoring, assessment, and prediction. Measuring soil moisture on a routine basis has the potential to significantly improve our understanding of climatic processes and strengthen our ability to model and forecast these processes. Leese et al. (2001) concluded that the optimal approach to monitoring soil moisture would be a combination of model-derived estimates using in situ and remotely sensed measurements. In this regard, each method produces soil moisture values that are both unique and complementary. This concept is essentially the process of data assimilation described by Houser et al. (1998). In situ measurements of soil moisture have been made in a few countries over the past 70 years (Robock et al., 2000). However, due to cost and sensor limitations, there are few soil moisture sensor systems available today, especially for automated measurements. A lack of routine observations of soil moisture has led to the use of surrogate measurements (i.e., antecedent precipitation index) and modeled estimates, which limits the possibility of physically based model validation and acceptance. Current tools to predict drought, such as drought indices and Global Climate Models (GCMs), do not include any direct observations of the soil condition, which is critical for agriculture. Passive microwave remote sensing instruments respond to the amount of moisture in the soil. Several methods have the potential to provide both soil moisture and drought information. In the past, the options have been limited by the availability of satellite systems. Even with these limitations, investigators have explored the potential of these data in soil moisture studies with some success.
Agricultural Drought Phenomenon in Latin America with Focus on Brazil
Authors: Brunini Orivaldo , Grimm Alice M.
Published: November 2020

Latin America encompasses a vast territory between 12°30'N and 55°30'S latitude and between 29°W and 82°W longitude. This subcontinent has 13 countries with complex climatic conditions. Extremely humid weather is typical closer to the equator, while semiarid, arid, and desertic conditions prevail in the Bolivian and Chilean high plains. The wide variation in climatic conditions leads to distinct agricultural conditions across Latin America. For example, forests, equatorial fruits, and perennial vegetation exist throughout the Amazonian region. Farther from the equator, toward the Andes and at higher latitudes, there is a noticeable change in agricultural systems. There is a greater emphasis on growing cereal/grain crops in Argentina and Brazil. The countries that compose the Amazon River basin experience a higher amount of annual precipitation, and drought is not a characteristic phenomenon there, except during high-intensity El Niño years (Marengo et al., 2001). In contrast, drought is a regular event commonly observed in parts of Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina (Scian and Donnari, 1996), Uruguay, and Brazil. The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the most arid regions on the earth, where the average annual precipitation is as low as 0.8 mm in Arika or even 0.5 mm in other regions of this desert. Figure 12.2 provides a more detailed description on climatic conditions of Brazil. Although the average annual precipitation in the northeastern region is less than 300 mm, it exceeds 2500 mm in some other regions of Brazil (Grimm, 2003). Agricultural operations take place during the rainy season (March–October). The northeast region is drought prone, but the central, west, and southeast regions are traditionally grain-producing regions. In the northeast and central-west regions, water deficiency is higher, which seriously affects food production. Table 12.1 shows production losses in Brazil due to climate anomalies including droughts that occurred during 1978–1986 (Mota, 1979) and 1991–1994 (Rossetti, 2001). About 33% (about 50% in the northeast region) of these losses were attributed to droughts. Maize production also significantly declined due to drought that occurred during 1990–91, 1993–94, 1996–97, and 1997–98.
Agricultural Drought in Indonesia
Authors: Boer Rizaldi , Subbiah Arjunapermal R.
Published: November 2020

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world and comprises 5 main islands and about 30 smaller archipelagos. In total, there are 13,667 islands and islets, of which approximately 6,000 are inhabited. The estimated area of the Republic of Indonesia is 5,193,250 km2, which consists of a land territory of slightly more than 2,000,000 km2 and a sea territory of slightly more than 3,150,000 km2. Indonesia’s five main islands are Sumatra (473,606 km2); Java and Madura (132,187 km2), the most fertile and densely populated islands; Kalimantan or two-thirds of the island of Borneo (539,460 km2); Sulawesi (189,216 km2); and Irian Jaya (421,981 km2), the least densely populated island, which forms part of the world’s second largest island of New Guinea. Of about 200 million ha of land territory, about 50 million ha area is devoted to various agricultural activities. There is nearly 20 million ha of arable land, of which about 40% is wetland (rice fields), 40% is dryland, and 15% is shifting cultivation. In the early 1970s, agriculture contributed about 33% to the gross domestic product. Its share decreased to 23% by the early 1980s and to 16.3% in 1996. However, agriculture is the most important sector in the national economy due to its capacity to employ 41% of the labor force (MoE, 1999). Agriculture is vulnerable to drought. Ditjenbun (1995) reported that in 1994 many seedlings and young plants died due to a long dry season: about 22% of tea plants at age of 0–2 years, 4–9% of rubber plants at age of 0–1 year, 4% of cacao plants at age of 0–2 years, 1.5–11% of cashew nut plants at age of 0–2 years, 4% of coffee plants at age of 0–2 years, and 5–30% of coconut plants at age of 0–2 years. The impact of a long dry season on yields of plantation crops becomes known only a few months later. For example, oil palm production is known 6–12 months after a long dry season (Hasan et al., 1998). Rice is the main food crop severely affected by drought.
Monitoring Agricultural Drought in South Korea
Authors: Byun Hi-Ryong , Hong Suk-Young
Published: November 2020

South Korea (hereinafter referred to as Korea) lies in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Until the 1960s, Korea was a typical agrarian country, with agriculture generating roughly half of its gross national product (GNP) and employing more than half of the labor force. Agriculture still plays an important role in the Korean national economy, but it accounts for a relatively much lower share of the GNP (5.3% in 1997) and engages much less of the population (11.0%). The agricultural share of the national economy is declining continuously. Farms in Korea, as in many other Asian countries, have traditionally been small. Average farm size has been growing slowly from 0.86 ha in 1960 to 1.39 ha in 2001, despite a significant reduction in the average number of persons per household engaged in farming—from 6.20 persons to 2.91 persons. As a result, agriculture has become more intensive. The country has four distinct seasons: summer, fall, winter, and spring. Summer and winter have a longer duration than spring or fall. The summer rainy season (Changma) in the Korean Peninsula includes the period from late June to late July. About three quarters of the annual precipitation falls during the summer season. The average annual precipitation in Korea is 1,274 mm, which is about 1.3 times the world average (973 mm). The variation in annual precipitation is larger, with an annual minimum of 784 mm and an annual maximum of 2675 mm in Seoul. Heavy rains fall during the Changma season, which is influenced by monsoons. The National Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (NIAST) classified Korea (except Jeju Island) into 19 climate zones to efficiently use agricultural resources for wetland rice production. Among the 19 zones, zone 14, which is the Southern Charyeong Plain, yields the best harvest and the most stable rice production. Zones 11 (Yeongnam Basin), 17 (the northeastern coast), and 18 (the mid-eastern coast) are categorized as drought-risk areas at transplanting stage based on the ratio of evaporation to precipitation (Choi and Yun, 1989).
Food and Agriculture Organization and Agricultural Droughts
Authors: Mukhala Elijah
Published: November 2020

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was founded in 1945 with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to improve the condition of rural populations in the world. Today, FAO is the largest specialized agency in the United Nations system and is the lead agency for agriculture and rural development. FAO is composed of eight departments: Agriculture, Economic and Social, Fisheries, Forestry, Sustainable Development, Technical Cooperation, General Affairs, and Information and Administration and Finance. As an intergovernmental organization, FAO has 183 member countries plus one member organization, the European Union. Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition, and the pursuit of food security—defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life. Food production in the world has increased at an unprecedented rate since FAO was founded, outpacing the doubling of the world’s population over the same period. Since the early 1960s, the proportion of hungry people in the developing world has been reduced from more than 50% to less than 20%. Despite these progressive developments, more than 790 million people in the developing world— more than the total population of North America and Western Europe combined—still go hungry (FAO, 2004). FAO strives to reduce food insecurity in the world, especially in developing countries. In 1996, the World Food Summit convened by FAO in Rome adopted a plan of action aimed to reduce the number of the world’s hungry people in half by 2015. While the proper foundation of this goal lies, among others, in the increase of food production and ensuring access to food, there is also a need to monitor the current food supply and demand situation, so that timely interventions can be planned whenever the possibility of drought, famine, starvation, or malnutrition exists. With an imminent food crisis, actions need to be taken as early as possible because it takes time to mobilize resources, and logistic operations are often hampered by adverse natural or societal conditions, including war and civil strife.
Climate Change, Global Warming, and Agricultural Droughts
Authors: Menzhulin Gennady V. , Savvateyev Sergey P.
Published: November 2020

The climate of a region is a representation of long-term weather conditions that prevail there. Over the millions of years of the existence of the atmosphere on the earth, the climate has changed all the time; ice ages have come and gone, and this has been the result of natural causes. Recently (on geological time scales) the human population has expanded—from half a billion in 1600, to 1 billion in 1800, to almost 3 billion in 1940, and it now stands at about 6 billion. The climate may well now be influenced not only as before by natural events but also by human activities. For example, we are producing vast amounts of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels, and this is causing the temperature of the earth to rise significantly. If we argue that we should control our activities to preserve this planet as a habitable environment for future generations, we need to have some scientific knowledge of the effects of our present activities on climate. In recent years the evidence has been accumulating that on the time scale of decades there is global warming (i.e., the global annual mean surface temperature is increasing). There is also evidence accumulating that part of this increase is a consequence of human activities. The evidence is largely statistical. Within this trend there are bound to be temporal fluctuations and spatial variations. Moreover, in addition to the increase in temperature, it is reasonable to assume that there is, overall, an increase in evaporation of water from the surface of the earth and that there will be a consequent increase in precipitation. But within this overall scenario there are bound to be local variations; some areas may experience more precipitation, but some areas may experience less precipitation. The effect of climate change on the proneness to drought is therefore not uniform but can be expected to vary from place to place. Therefore, whether one is concerned with considering the relation between climate and proneness to drought from the historical evidence or whether one is trying to use models to predict the effect of future climatic conditions, it is necessary to consider the local spatial variations.
Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence by Means of Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Koza John R.
Published: November 2020

The subtitle of John Holland's pioneering 1975 book Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems correctly anticipated that the genetic algorithm described in that book would have "applications to.. .artificial intelligence." When the entities in the evolving population are computer programs, Holland's genetic algorithm can be used to perform the task of searching the space of computer programs for a program that solves, or approximately solves, a problem. This variation of the genetic algorithm (called genetic programming) enables the genetic algorithm to address the long-standing challenge of getting a computer to solve a problem without explicitly programming it. Specifically, this challenge calls for an automatic system whose input is a high-level statement of a problem's requirements and whose output is a satisfactory solution to the given problem. Paraphrasing Arthur Samuel [33], this challenge concerns "How can computers be made to do what needs to be done, without being told exactly how to do it?" This challenge is the common goal of such fields of research as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Arthur Samuel [32] offered one measure for success in this pursuit, namely "The aim [is].. .to get machines to exhibit behavior, which if done by humans, would be assumed to involve the use of intelligence." Since a problem can generally be recast as a search for a computer program, genetic programming can potentially solve a wide range of problems, including problems of control, classification, system identification, and design. Section 2 describes genetic programming. Section 3 states what we mean when we say that an automatically created solution to a problem is competitive with the product of human creativity. Section 4 discusses the illustrative problem of automatically synthesizing both the topology and sizing for an analog electrical circuit. Section 5 discusses the problem of automatically determining the placement and routing (while simultaneously synthesizing the topology and sizing) of an electrical circuit. Section 6 discusses the problem of automatically synthesizing both the topology and tuning for a controller. Section 7 discusses the importance of illogic in achieving creativity and inventiveness.
Good Old-Fashioned AI and Genetic Algorithms: An Exercise in Translation Scholarship
Authors: Simon Herbert A.
Published: November 2020

In both the GA and GOFAI traditions, invention or design tasks are viewed as instances of problem solving. To invent or design is to describe an object that performs, in a range of environments, some desired function or serves some intended purpose; the process of arriving at the description is a problem-solving process. In problem solving, the desired object is characterized in two different ways. The problem statement or goal statement characterizes it as an object that satisfies certain criteria of structure and/or performance. The problem solution describes in concrete terms an object that satisfies these criteria. The problem statement specifies what needs to be done; the problem solution describes how to do it [9]. This distinction between the desired object and the achieved object, between problem statement and problem solution, is absolutely fundamental to the idea of solving a problem, for it resolves the paradox of Plato's Meno: How do we recognize the solution of a problem unless we already knew it in advance? The simple answer to Plato is that, although the problem statement does not define a solution, it contains the criteria for recognizing a solution, if and when found. Knowing and being able to apply the recognition test is not equivalent to knowing the solution. Being able to determine, for any given electrical circuit, whether it would operate, to a sufficiently good approximation, as a low-pass filter does not imply that one knows a design for a circuit that meets this condition. In asserting that we do not know the solution in advance, we must be careful to state accurately what the problem is. In theorem proving, for example, we may know, to the last detail, the expression we are trying to prove; what we do not know is what proof (what sequence of expressions, each following inferentially from the set of its predecessors) will terminate in the specified one. Wiles knew well the mathematical expression that is Fermat's last theorem; he spent seven years or more finding its proof. In the domain of theorem proving, the proof is the problem solution and the recognition criteria are the tests that determine whether each step in the proof follows from its predecessors and whether the proof terminates in the desired theorem.
Serpentine Soils as Media for Plant Growth
Authors: Alexander Earl B. , Coleman Roger G. , Keeler-Wolfe Todd , Harrison Susan P.
Published: November 2020

Plants and animals require water, energy sources, and nutrients to make tissues and perform vital functions. The primary source of energy is the sun. Green plants use solar energy to manufacture organic compounds that are later oxidized to produce energy for both plants and animals. Many microorganisms produce energy by inorganic chemical reactions, but that source of energy is minor compared to the very large amounts of solar energy used by green plants. The major source of water and nutrients (other than CO2) for green plants is soil. Barren rocks, including ultramafic rock outcrop and talus, are colonized by lichens, which are symbiotic alliances of fungi and either cyanobacteria or green algae. These and other small organisms promote weathering and contribute to soil formation. Once soils are deep enough to support vascular plants (plants with roots), plants are the primary users of soils and producers of ecosystem biomass. Vascular plants send roots into soils and exploit both a high soil particle surface area and soil solutions, neither of which are available to lichens growing on rock surfaces. The surface area of particles in a soil 10 cm deep is about a thousand times greater than a planar bedrock surface if the soil is coarse sand, or about a billion times greater if the soil is clayey. With these dramatic increases in surface area accompanying soil formation, and lack of water retained on rock surfaces, it is easy to understand that ecosystem productivity is relatively low on rock surfaces and increases greatly with soil depth in very shallow soils. Annual plants approach maximum productivity in moderately deep soils and trees in deep or very deep soils. Ecosystems with serpentine soils are generally less productive than ecosystems with other kinds of soils, and they have unique plant species distributions. Therefore, serpentine soils attract attention from botanists who are interested in the profound effects that serpentine soils have on plant distributions and growth. These effects include those that affect the supply of water (section 8.1) and those that affect the supply of nutrients (section 8.2) to plants. These in turn affect plant growth and productivity (section 8.3).