bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
After the Wall: Pride before the Fall, 1961–89
Authors: Rodden John G.
Published: November 2020

East Berlin. August 13, 1961. As the sun peeks over the horizon on this beautiful Sunday morning, most East Berliners sleep on, but some rise for work; a few thousand of them are Grenzgänger, who cross town—quite legally—to work in the “other” Berlin, mostly as hotel and restaurant employees and in other service jobs made lucrative by the uneven exchange rate. Each day they make the trip to West Berlin—by foot, by bicycle, by S-Bahn and U-Bahn, showing their DDR identity cards and special work permits to the bored Grepos (Grenzpolizei, border police) stationed at the gates. But this morning the Grepos are not bored; today, as the would-be commuters discover as they reach streets and subway stations along the East Berlin border, no Grenzgänger will cross. “Die Grenze ist geschlossen!” people scream to each other in the early-morning stillness. “The border is closed!” No subway cars are running westward; Grepos guard the U-Bahn tunnels to prevent subway commuters from fleeing to the West on foot; Vopos turn back Grenzgänger at every checkpoint. The SED has apparently found a way to secure its future and halt the flight of DDR and skilled labor—by walling them in. WHO HAS THE YOUTH, HAS THE FUTURE! As the Grenzgänger stumble home and the DDR capital—“die Hauptstadt der DDR”—awakens to the nightmare, it is as if a tremendous howl—the anguished wail of cornered, trapped, desperate animals—has gone up throughout East Berlin— as it soon will over the DDR. For almost a decade, East Germany’s 600-mile border has been sealed by barbed wire and 12-foot electrified fencing; just inside the fence is a strip of land about 50 yards wide that is cleared of brush, dotted with mines, and covered by machine guns in high watchtowers. And so, most aspiring refugees make their way to East Berlin, where many of the streets and subway stations along the city border are guarded casually, if at all.
Weimar, 1991; Weimar/Röcken, 1994 Zarathustra as Educator? To the Nietzsche Archives
Authors: Rodden John G.
Published: November 2020

“Silberblick.” Bright moment, lucky chance. A sunny day in Weimar, November 1991. Hedwig, 38, waits solemnly for me in the town square still known as Karl Marx Platz (formerly Adolf Hitler Platz). A spirited, voluble woman, Hedwig has been eager to show me the cultural splendors of her hometown—the Goethehaus, the Schillerhaus, the Liszthaus, all lining the Frauenplan in the center of old Weimar. But today she is reluctant; today, warm morning rays beaming down upon us, Hedwig seems reserved as we stride along the Schillerstrasse toward the outskirts of town. Today our destination is Humboldtstrasse 36, the Villa Silberblick, home of the Nietzsche Archive, which opened in May to the public for the first time since 1945. Hedwig hands me a May issue of Die Zeit. “The Banished One Is Back!” blazons the headline: The reopening of the Archives has been the cultural event of the year in Weimar. As we walk, I muse on the significance of the return to eastern German life of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900): the author of notorious neologisms and catch phrases such as the Will to Power, the Übermensch (Superman), the Antichrist, master and slave morality, the blond beast, the free spirit, the last man, eternal recurrence, “God is dead,” “Live dangerously!” “Become hard!” “philosophize with a hammer,” and “beyond good and evil”; the writer who inspired thinkers such as Heidegger, artists such as Thomas Mann, and men of action such as Mussolini; the philosopher exalted by the Nazis and reviled by the communists. No discussion of eastern German education “after the Wall”—and the ongoing political re-education of eastern Germans—would be complete without reference to the return of the writer regarded as the most important educator in Germany during the first half of this century. Indeed, Nietzsche als Erzieher (Nietzsche as Educator) was the title of a popular book in Wilhelmine Germany written by Walter Hammer, a leader of the Wandervögel (birds of passage) youth movement.
Serial Computations of Levenshtein Distances
Authors: Hirschberg D.S.
Published: November 2020

In the previous chapters, we discussed problems involving an exact match of string patterns. We now turn to problems involving similar but not necessarily exact pattern matches. There are a number of similarity or distance measures, and many of them are special cases or generalizations of the Levenshtein metric. The problem of evaluating the measure of string similarity has numerous applications, including one arising in the study of the evolution of long molecules such as proteins. In this chapter, we focus on the problem of evaluating a longest common subsequence, which is expressively equivalent to the simple form of the Levenshtein distance. The Levenshtein distance is a metric that measures the similarity of two strings. In its simple form, the Levenshtein distance, D(x , y), between strings x and y is the minimum number of character insertions and/or deletions (indels) required to transform string x into string y. A commonly used generalization of the Levenshtein distance is the minimum cost of transforming x into y when the allowable operations are character insertion, deletion, and substitution, with costs δ(λ , σ), δ(σ, λ), and δ(σ1, σ2) , that are functions of the involved character(s). There are direct correspondences between the Levenshtein distance of two strings, the length of the shortest edit sequence from one string to the other, and the length of the longest common subsequence (LCS) of those strings. If D is the simple Levenshtein distance between two strings having lengths m and n, SES is the length of the shortest edit sequence between the strings, and L is the length of an LCS of the strings, then SES = D and L = (m + n — D)/2. We will focus on the problem of determining the length of an LCS and also on the related problem of recovering an LCS. Another related problem, which will be discussed in Chapter 6, is that of approximate string matching, in which it is desired to locate all positions within string y which begin an approximation to string x containing at most D errors (insertions or deletions).
Suffix Tree Data Structures for Matrices
Authors: Giancarlo R. , Grossi R.
Published: November 2020

We discuss the suffix tree generalization to matrices in this chapter. We extend the suffix tree notion (described in Chapter 3) from text strings to text matrices whose entries are taken from an ordered alphabet with the aim of solving pattern-matching problems. This suffix tree generalization can be efficiently used to implement low-level routines for Computer Vision, Data Compression, Geographic Information Systems and Visual Databases. We examine the submatrices in the form of the text’s contiguous parts that still have a matrix shape. Representing these text submatrices as “suitably formatted” strings stored in a compacted trie is the rationale behind suffix trees for matrices. The choice of the format inevitably influences suffix tree construction time and space complexity. We first deal with square matrices and show that many suffix tree families can be defined for the same input matrix according to the matrix’s string representations. We can store each suffix tree in linear space and give an efficient construction algorithm whose input is both the matrix and the string representation chosen. We then treat rectangular matrices and define their corresponding suffix trees by means of some general rules which we list formally. We show that there is a super-linear lower bound to the space required (in contrast with the linear space required by suffix trees for square matrices). We give a simple example of one of these suffix trees. The last part of the chapter illustrates some technical results regarding suffix trees for square matrices: we show how to achieve an expected linear-time suffix tree construction for a constant-size alphabet under some mild probabilistic assumptions about the input distribution. We begin by defining a wide class of string representations for square matrices. We let Σ denote an ordered alphabet of characters and introduce another alphabet of five special characters, called shapes. A shape is one of the special characters taken from set {IN,SW,NW,SE,NE}. Shape IN encodes the 1x1 matrix generated from the empty matrix by creating a square.
Tropical Soils
Authors: Juo Anthony S. R. , Franzluebbers Kathrin
Published: November 2020

Agricultural ecology, or agroecology, deals in general with the structure and function of agroecosystems at different levels of resolution. In this text/reference, the authors describe in terms of agroecology the tropical environments of sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin and Central America, focusing on production and management systems unique to each region.
Controls on Decomposition Processes in Alpine Tundra
Authors: Seastedt Timothy R. , Walker Marilyn D.
Published: November 2020

The snowpack gradient in the alpine generates a temperature and moisture gradient that largely controls organic matter decomposition. While low temperatures constrain decomposition and mineralization (chapter 12), moisture appears to be the strongest source of landscape variation in the alpine, with surface decay rates of plant materials highest in moist and wet meadow habitats. Despite a longer snow-free season and higher surface temperatures in dry meadows, decay in these areas is substantially lower than in moist meadows. Studies of decay rates of roots within the soil indicate that decay is uniformly low in all habitats and is limited by low temperatures and perhaps by the absence of certain groups of decomposer invertebrates. As in other ecosystems, substrate quality indices such as nitrogen and lignin content can be shown to be important factors influencing the rate of decay of specific substrates. Alpine ecosystems were overlooked during the flurry of activity associated with the extensive ecosystem science programs of the 1960s and 1970s. With the few exceptions to be discussed here, decomposition studies in cold regions were conducted in arctic tundra or northern temperate and boreal forests. The need for this information in conjunction with efforts to understand carbon cycling in the alpine stimulated a substantial research effort in the 1990s. Studies have included both the effects of landscape location on decay (O’Lear and Seastedt 1994; Bryant et al. 1998), information on the importance of substrate chemistry on decomposition processes (Bryant et al. 1998), and preliminary information on some of the decomposer organisms (O'Lear and Seastedt 1994; Addington and Seastedt 1999). Niwot Ridge researchers also participated in the Long-term Intersite Decomposition Experiment Team (LIDET) study, which involved placement of a dozen different litter types in the alpine and in 27 other sites from the tropics to the arctic tundra (Harmon 1995). All but one of the plant species used in the LIDET experiments were exotic to the alpine. Collectively these studies have provided sufficient information to represent the alpine in global decomposition modeling efforts.
The Rejection of Continental Drift
Authors: Oreskes Naomi
Published: November 2020

In the early twentieth century, American earth scientists were united in their opposition to the new--and highly radical--notion of continental drift, even going so far as to label the theory "unscientific." Some fifty years later, however, continental drift was heralded as a major scientific breakthrough and today it is accepted as scientific fact. Why did American geologists reject so adamantly an idea that is now considered a cornerstone of the discipline? And why were their European colleagues receptive to it so much earlier? This book, based on extensive archival research on three continents, provides important new answers while giving the first detailed account of the American geological community in the first half of the century. Challenging previous historical work on this episode, Naomi Oreskes shows that continental drift was not rejected for the lack of a causal mechanism, but because it seemed to conflict with the basic standards of practice in American geology. This account provides a compelling look at how scientific ideas are made and unmade.
Grazing Livestock Management in an Arid Ecosystem
Authors: Havstad Kris M. , Huenneke Laura F.
Published: November 2020

The history of livestock grazing in the Jornada Basin of southern New Mexico is a relatively recent story, but one of profound implications. For four centuries this region has supported a rangeland livestock industry— initially sheep (Ovis aries), goats (Capra aegagrus hircus), and cattle (Bos taurus and Bos indicus), but primarily beef cattle for the past 130 years. Throughout this brief history of a domesticated ruminant in an ecosystem without a significant presence of large hoofed mammals as part of its evolutionary development, the livestock industry has continually grappled with high degrees of temporal and spatial variation in forage production. Management of this consumptive use, whether during Spanish, Mexican, U.S. territorial, U.S. federal, or New Mexican governments, has constantly reaffirmed the need for grazing management to be flexible and responsive to the stress of droughts. The history of anecdotal experiences has been more recently augmented by scientific investigations first initiated in 1915. This chapter outlines the general history of livestock in this region, defining characteristics of herbivory in arid lands, and principles of grazing management derived from nearly a century of studies on grazing by large domesticated herbivores. Seventeen ships carried 1,200 people and enough cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs to colonize northern Hispaniola during Columbus’s second voyage in 1493. Livestock originating from the Andalusian Plain of southern Spain were loaded aboard ship at the southern port of Cádiz and the Canary Islands before making the 22- day voyage (Rouse 1977). It was not until 1521 that Gregorio Villalobos unloaded livestock in New Spain (Mexico) near Tampico; the actual number of cattle and their origin are disputed. Rouse (1977) claimed that 50 calves were transported to the mainland from either Cuba or Hispaniola, whereas Peplow (1958) and Wellman (1954) claimed 6 animals arrived from Hispaniola. Irrespective of the initial numbers, livestock were soon moved north from the Mexico City area during the early sixteenth century with both missionaries and resource extraction industries as retired military officers and Spanish nobility built a mining- and grazing-based economy throughout the region of present-day northern Mexico.
Discovering Patterns in DNA Sequences by the Algorithmic Significance Method
Authors: Milosavljević Aleksandar
Published: November 2020

The parsimony method for reconstruction of evolutionary trees (Sober, 1988) and the minimal edit distance method for DNA sequence alignments (e.g., Waterman, 1984) are both based on the principle of Occam’s Razor (e.g., Losee, 1980; also known as the Parsimony principle). This principle favors the most concise theories among the multitudes that can possibly explain observed data. The conciseness may be measured by the number of postulated mutations within an evolutionary tree, by the number of edit operations that transform one DNA sequence into the other, or by another implicit or explicit criterion. A very general mathematical formulation of Occam’s Razor has been proposed via minimal length encoding by computer programs (for recent reviews, see Cover and Thomas, 1991; Li and Vitányi, 1993). Algorithmic significance is a general method for pattern discovery based on Occam’s Razor. The method measures parsimony in terms of encoding length, in bits, of the observed data. Patterns are defined as datasets that can be concisely encoded. The method is not limited to any particular class of patterns; the class of patterns is determined by specifying an encoding scheme. To illustrate the method, consider the following unusual discovery experiment: . . . 1. Pick a simple pseudorandom generator for digits from the set {0, 1, 2, 3}. 2. Pick a seed value for the generator and run it to obtain a sequence of 1000 digits; convert the digits to a DNA sequence by replacing all occurrences of digit 0 by letter A, 1 by G, 2 by C, and 3 by T. 3. Submit the sequence to a similarity search against a database containing a completely sequenced genome of a particular organism. . . . Assume that after an unspecified number of iterations of the three steps, with each iteration involving a different random generator or seed value or both, the search in the third step finally results in a genomic sequence highly similar to the query sequence. Does the genomic sequence contain a pattern? To argue for the presence of a pattern, one may directly apply the algorithmic significance method.
A Framework for Biological Pattern Discovery on Networks of Workstations
Authors: Li Bin , Shasha Dennis
Published: November 2020

Biological pattern discovery problems are computationally expensive. A possible technique for reducing the time to perform pattern discovery is parallelization. Since each task in a biological pattern discovery application is usually time-consuming by itself, we might be able to use networks of workstations (NOWs) that communicate infrequently. Persistent Linda (PLinda) is a distributed parallel computing system that runs on NOWs and it automatically utilizes idle workstations (Anderson and Shasha, 1992; Jeong, 1996). This means that labs can do parallel pattern discovery without buying new hardware. We propose an acyclic directed graph structure, exploration dag (E-dag for short), to characterize computational models of biological pattern discovery applications. An E-dag can first be constructively formed from specifications of a pattern discovery problem; then an E-dag traversal is performed on the fly to solve the problem. When done in parallel, the process of E-dag construction and traversal efficiently solves pattern discovery problems. Parallel E-dag construction and traversal can be easily programmed in PLinda. Finding active motifs in sets of protein sequences and in multiple RNA secondary structures are two examples of biological pattern discovery. Before discussing the framework, we introduce these two applications and briefly describe their computational models. Consider a database of imaginary protein sequences D = {FFRR, MRRM, MTRM, DPKY, AVLG} and the query “Find the patterns P of the form *X* where P occurs in at least two sequences in D and the size of P |P| ≥ 2.” (X can be a segment of a sequence of any length, and * represents a variable length don’t care [VLDC].) The good patterns are *RR* (which occurs in FFRR and MRRM) and *RM* (which occurs in MRRM and MTRM). Pattern discovery in sets of sequences concerns finding commonly occurring subsequences (sometimes called motifs). The structures of the motifs we wish to discover are regular expressions of the form *S1 * S2 * ... where S1,S2,… are segments of a sequence, that is, subsequences made up of consecutive letters, and * represents a VLDC. In matching the expression *S1 * S2 * … with a sequence S, the VLDCs may substitute for zero or more letters in S.
Adaptive Evolution
Authors: West-Eberhard Mary Jane
Published: November 2020

Adaptive evolution—phenotypic improvement due to selection—is the central theme of Darwinian evolutionary biology. The concept of adaptive evolution by selection on heritable variation underlies every evolutionary analysis of form, function, and fitness. How biologists view adaptive evolution— how they are taught to view it—has a profound influence on thinking and research in virtually every area of biology. Despite the importance of adaptive evolution, there is still controversy over how to relate development and selection in discussions of adaptive design (e.g. see Charlesworth, 1990; Amundson, 1996). It is a controversy that began in the late nineteenth century, when biologists unfortunately began to dichotomize development and selection, as if they were opposing factors in evolution (see the discussion of gradualism in chapter 24). The modern version of this debate dichotomizes selection and developmental constraints (e.g., see Maynard Smith et al., 1985; Bell, 1989; Ridley, 1993; Amundson, 1996; see also chapter 1). Phylogenetic constraint is another version of developmental constraint, since it refers to limits imposed by ancestry (inherited developmental patterns) on current form as does the idea of developmental constraint. The dichotomy between selection and development, as if they were opposed factors in adaptive evolution, is misconceived. Adaptive evolution is a two-step process: first the generation of variation by development, then the screening of that variation by selection (Mayr, 1962; Endler and McLellan, 1988, p. 395). If an established trait (one widespread in a population) persists through phylogenetic branching events, this is not evidence against selection as an explanation for the trait (cf. Coddington, 1988), as if speciation reduces the importance of selection. Rather, it could be taken as evidence that selection is important for maintenance of the trait in more than one lineage: trait persistence over long time spans certainly does not represent absence of continued selection, since it is known that traits no longer favored by selection, such as the eyes of cave animals and walking limbs in whales, are often lost (for other classic examples, see Rensch, 1960).
Safeguarding Our Precious Heritage
Authors: Shaffer Mark L. , Stein Bruce A.
Published: November 2020

Nestled amid the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee lies the Clinch Valley, the nation’s leading hot spot for imperiled aquatic organisms. The Clinch River is the only undimmed headwater of the Tennessee River basin, which in turn is the nation’s most biologically diverse drainage system. The surface waters of the Clinch run rich indeed: They are home to at least 29 rare mussels and 19 rare fish. Underground, the region’s limestone bedrock is honeycombed by more than a thousand caves and uncounted underground springs and streams. This little-known world is filled with a menagerie of rare beetles, isopods, and other subterranean insects. These underground realms have yielded more than 30 species new to science in just the past few years. The Clinch Valley is largely rural and sparsely populated. Most residents make their living directly from the land, either mining coal, harvesting timber, grazing cattle, or planting crops. These rural lifestyles have maintained much of the region in a relatively natural state, and more than two-thirds of the Clinch Valley remains forested. The forested hills mask a history of ecologically unsound land use practices, however, that have degraded the legendary quality of the region’s waterways. Virtually anything released in the valley flows downhill into the streams and rivers. Among the greatest threats to the valley’s extraordinary aquatic life are heavy metals leaching from abandoned coal mines, sediment eroding from cutover slopes, and nutrients released by streamside-grazing cattle. These and other threats have already taken a toll on the region’s extraordinary biological richness. Where once there were 60 kinds of freshwater mussels, only about 40 remain. Coastal southern California, in contrast, is one of the most densely populated regions in the nation. It, too, is a hot spot for imperiled species. Its dry Mediterranean climate and varied topography have favored the evolution of a host of unique plants and animals. Altogether, some 86 imperiled species are found along the coast and in the mountains of this nationally significant center of biodiversity. Certain areas stand out even by California standards as having a truly extraordinary diversity of rare species.
Women, Sex, and Rural Life
Authors: Goldberg Ann
Published: November 2020

The making of nymphomaniacs occurred not only within the confines of the asylum walls, but in the wider social world that produced mental patients. Before incarceration, twenty-five of the nymphomania cases were already regarded as such (as nymphomaniacs or as sexually overexcited) in the commitment reports of medical officers, whose information was heavily dependent on family and community informants; in government reports; and even in the direct statements of community members. These women had become threats to their families and/or communities, and the latter, as a result, had desired their incarceration as much as any intrusive state or medical profession. Moreover, the sexual danger that medical science perceived in nymphomaniacs was not wholly fabricated. In many of the cases, the women were behaving in sexually aberrant and out-of-control ways, and these actions were not incidental to their communities’ perceptions of insanity and danger. Though redefining that experience, medicine worked in the first instance with the material of village conflicts, complaints, and interests in forming the nymphomania diagnosis. These interests could coincide with those of medicine and state, and it was in the cooperation of these parties (state, medicine, and community) that nymphomania initially evolved in the cases where it was diagnosed before commitment. To understand the origins of the nymphomania diagnosis, it is thus necessary to examine those communities, their norms of sexuality and mental health, and to look at the women themselves: who they were, their problems, and the language—in action and word—they used to articulate those problems. Statements of community members in three of the cases show that a popular version of the nymphomania concept did exist in rural society, a version covered by the term man-craziness (Mannstollheit or mannssüchtig). Its meaning, in fact, overlapped in some ways with that of the more technical, medical term. This similarity, it seems, reflected less the incorporation of medical ideas into popular culture than the reverse: the extent to which the science was saturated by and drew from nonscientific sexual mores and moral codes in the society at large.
The Concept and Ethical Justification of Informed Consent
Authors: Berg Jessica W. , Appelbaum Paul S. , Lidz Charles W. , Parker Lisa S.
Published: November 2020

The values underlying informed consent—autonomy and concern for individual well-being—are deeply embedded in American culture, in our religious traditions, and in Western moral philosophy. It is not surprising that informed consent is a cornerstone doctrine of contemporary medical ethics and health law in the United States. There is widespread agreement about the importance of the concept, goals, and practice of informed consent. Even when there are differences of opinion about the best way to implement informed consent in clinical practice, or when there is debate about the core meaning of the concept, the attention paid to these controversies only reinforces recognition of the importance of informed consent in contemporary health care and medical research. The concept of informed consent has multiple meanings and draws its ethical justification from several sources. Some consider informed consent to be synonymous with the ideal of shared decision making between physician and patient, or at least to embody this ideal (1). Others emphasize that informed consent is a particular sort of decision made by a particular sort of decision maker (2). Still others focus on informed consent as a norm-governed social practice that is embedded in social institutions, specifically law and medicine. This chapter discusses these different but often overlapping conceptions of informed consent. From a patient’s perspective, informed consent appears to be a right, while from the physician’s viewpoint, it is a duty or obligation. In fact, informed consent imposes responsibilities on both patient and physician. The relationship between ethical rights and duties, as well as the possibility of conflict between them, form another topic of this chapter. In this chapter we also discuss the ethical values and goals that underlie informed consent. Informed consent is grounded in some of the ethical values most prized in American society and Western ethical thought, especially autonomy— auto from the Greek word for self, and nomos from the Greek for rule—literally “self-rule.” It is interesting to observe how the fundamental goals of informed consent usually coincide, but sometimes conflict, both in theory and as manifest in particular cases.
The Legal Requirements for Disclosure and Consent: History and Current Status
Authors: Berg Jessica W. , Appelbaum Paul S. , Lidz Charles W. , Parker Lisa S.
Published: November 2020

The translation of ethical principles into concrete requirements for physicians’ behavior has been largely a function of the courts (usually state, occasionally federal) as they consider patients’ allegations that their physicians improperly obtained their consent to treatment. To a lesser extent, state legislatures have been involved in making law in this area. The combined efforts of courts and legislatures have resulted in the creation of two legal requirements: the historical requirement that physicians obtain patients’ consent before proceeding with treatment, and the more recent requirement that physicians disclose such information to patients as will enable them to participate knowledgeably in making decisions about treatment. (Chapters 4 and 5 describe the exceptional circumstances in which some or all of the basic legal requirements do not apply.) Despite some uncertainty about the origins of legal actions for lack of consent to medical treatment, in theory, non-consensual medical treatment has always been remediable at common law (i.e., judge-made as opposed to statutory law). The law’s concern for the bodily integrity of the individual can be traced to the writ of trespass for assault and battery and to the criminal law’s proscription of homicide, battery, and mayhem (1). A similar, though less intense, concern for psychic integrity has existed for almost as long and has received increasing support in this century as evidenced by the cases recognizing causes of action in tort law for intentional and, more recently, negligent infliction of emotional distress (2, §§12, 54). Similarly, the development of the constitutional and tort law of privacy reflects the continued vitality of society’s concern for the individual’s right to be let alone, both by agents of the state and by private parties (2, §117; 3). Early medical practice codes did not speak of consent—it was more likely that a physician would conceal his actions from the patient than seek his or her consent to treatment. However, patient consent is not completely a modern legal creation. Historically, the notion that physicians must inform patients about what will be done to them has its origins in eighteenth-century English law (4).
Environment, Technology, and Community in Salisbury
Authors: Gordon Robert B.
Published: November 2020

Salisbury’s particular combination of natural resources allowed iron- making to continue for nearly 200 years from its 1736 start. In the first hundred years of mining and smelting, the district’s entrepreneurs had established a place for themselves in the national market for high-quality iron products while they managed their mineral, waterpower, and forest resources to meet the demands of expanded production. Each resource offered different challenges. An ironmaker could cut wood without thought of replacement or could manage woodland for sustained yield. As miners dug deeper for ore, they had more spoil to dispose of. They also had to devise drainage systems for their pits. Waterpower systems needed maintenance, repairs after freshets, control of their watersheds if siltation of the power ponds was to be avoided, and cooperative agreements among users. To meet the demands of expanding business, a forge owner might have to develop a new power site, as Forbes & Adam did when they put their second rolling mill in Woodville instead of Canaan. Fuel supply eventually proved the most critical natural resource problem for the ironmakers. Woodland previously burned by Indians made a good initial source of ironworks fuel, since wood from small trees coaled easily. The Lakeville blast furnace had a capacity of 2.5 tons of iron per day and fuel consumption of 250 bushels of charcoal per ton of iron made. In 1776 the furnace operated seven months, the length of a typical blast, and so would have made about 525 tons of iron while consuming fuel from about 200 acres (0.3 square miles) of woodland. At this rate of production, the furnace would have consumed at most 5.4 square miles of forest, 9 percent of the area of the town of Salisbury, between its start-up date (1762) and 1780. An eighteenth-century bloomery typically made about 250 pounds of iron per day with a fuel rate of about six. If it worked 300 days per year (a high estimate), it would have used wood at the rate of 42 acres per year. From 1736 to 1780, one bloomery would have consumed the wood from 2.9 square miles of forest.
A Landscape Transformed
Authors: Gordon Robert B.
Published: November 2020

Fluctuations in the national economy buffeted the Salisbury iron industry, but choices Salisbury’s own ironmakers made about metallurgical technique determined both its course and its demands on the environment. A year-by-year count of the number of Salisbury forges and furnaces shows the rise and decline of the district’s ironmaking, modulated by fluctuations in the national (or, earlier, colonial) economy. The district’s bloomery forges made the wrought-iron products most wanted in the early eighteenth century. Because of the limited demand for castings (as well as the large investment required), a single blast furnace sufficed in the district until 1810. By then, the Salisbury ironmakers had entered the market for high-quality wrought iron made by the indirect process and needed to enlarge the supply of pig iron for the new finery forges that began to supplant the old bloomeries. Local entrepreneurs added two new furnaces. By 1848, sixteen furnaces met the demand for pig from the additional finery forges built from 1825 through 1833, together with the requirements of the new puddling works. The smaller furnaces that specialized in making forge pig lost their market as the fineries, followed by the puddling works, closed in the 1850s. The remaining furnaces, making pig iron for foundries that specialized in chilled-iron railroad wheels, carried on until the railroads’ adoption of steel wheels curtailed this market in the twentieth century. The national ebb and flow of business, along with disruptions caused by war, modulated the trends established by the techniques the Salisbury ironmasters chose and the types of products they sold. Investment in bloomeries accelerated during the colonial prosperity of the 1740s and slowed during the wars with the French and the Revolution. Return of settled times in the early Republic led many individuals and partnerships to build bloomery forges in the years up to 1807 and to invest in furnaces and finery forges. Hard times after the War of 1812 suspended new investment. The period of the district’s greatest growth fell in the economic expansion from 1824 through 1837, when New England entrepreneurs made rapid progress in developing the American system of manufactures based on interchangeable parts and power-driven machine tools.
Realism, Essentialism, and Intrinsic Properties: The Case of Molecular Shape
Authors: Ramsey Jeffry L.
Published: November 2020

Figure, or shape, has long been ensconced in modern philosophy as a primary or essential quality of matter. Descartes, Malebranche, Hobbes, and Boyle all apparently endorsed the Lockean claim that shape is “in Bodies whether we perceive them or no” (Locke, [1700] 1975, p. 140). In addition, most seventeenth-century philosophers endorsed the inference that because shape is primary, it is one of the “ultimate, irreducible explanatory principles” (Dijksterhuis, 1961, p. 433; cf. Ihde, 1964, p. 28). Locke has often been read in this way, and in Origins of Forms and Qualities, Boyle claims the “sensible qualities . . . are but the effects or consequents of the . . . primary affections of matter,” one of which is figure (quoted in Harré, 1964, p. 80). Little appears to have changed. Most analytic philosophers and realist-minded philosophers of science “would endorse a distinction between primary and secondary qualities” (Smith, 1990, p. 221). Campbell (1972, p. 219) endorses the claim that “shape, size and solidity are generally held to be primary,” even though he argues that “the philosophy of primary and secondary qualities” is confused. Mackie (1976, p. 18) discounts solidity but endorses spatial properties and motion as “basic” physical features of matter. Most philosophers also endorse the inference to the explanatory character of the primary qualities. Mackie (1976, p. 25) asserts spatial properties are “starting points of explanation.” Boyd (1989, pp. 10-11) claims “realists agree” that “the factors which govern the behavior . . . of substances are the fundamental properties of the insensible corpuscles of which they are composed.” As befits our current situation, explanation purportedly flows from spatial microstructure. A body “possesses a certain potential only because it actually possesses a certain property (e.g., its molecular structure)” (Lange, 1994, pp. 109-110). Even Putnam, who argues all properties are Lockean secondaries, claims powers “have an explanation . . . in the particular microstructure” of matter (Putnam, 1981, p. 58).
Models and Explanations: Understanding Chemical Reaction Mechanisms
Authors: Carpenter Barry K.
Published: November 2020

In 1997, Ross Kelly and his coworkers at Boston College reported their results from an experiment with an intriguing premise (Kelly et al., 1997; see also Kelly et al., 1998). They had synthesized the molecule shown in figure 12.1. It was designed to be a “molecular ratchet,” so named because it appeared that it should undergo internal rotation about the A—B bond more readily in one direction than the other. The reason for thinking this might occur was that the benzophenanthrene moiety—the “pawl” of the ratchet—was anticipated to be helical. Thus, in some sense, this might be an inverse ratchet where the asymmetry dictating the sense of rotation would reside in the pawl rather than in the “teeth” on the “wheel” (the triptycene unit) as it does in a normal mechanical ratchet. Kelly and coworkers designed an elegant experiment to determine whether their molecular ratchet was functioning as anticipated, and they were (presumably) disappointed to find that it was not—internal rotation about the A—B bond occurred at equal rates in each direction. In 1998 Davis pointed out that occurrence of the desired behavior of the molecular ratchet would have constituted a violation of the second law of thermodynamics (Davis, 1998). With hindsight, I think most chemists would agree that Davis’s critique is unassailable, although the appeal of the mechanical analogy was so strong that I imagine those same chemists would also understand if Kelly et al. had overlooked the thermodynamic consequences of their proposal in the original design of the experiment. But now comes the interesting question: Suppose Kelly et al. had been fully aware that their experiment, if successful, would undermine the second law of thermodynamics, should they have conducted it anyway? Davis, in his critique writes: . . .Some would argue that this experiment was misconceived. To challenge the Second Law may be seen as scientific heresy (a nice irony, considering the Jesuit origins of Boston College), and the theoretical arguments against molecular ratchets and trapdoors are well developed. . . .
Landfills: How Do They Work?
Authors: Tammemagi Hans
Published: November 2020

Throughout history the landfill has been the bottom line of waste management: this is where the buck stops. Because of its fundamental importance, a thorough understanding of how a landfill is designed and operated is necessary. Municipal landfills are the most common; they accept our household garbage and often take some commercial and industrial waste as well. They are generally operated by local municipalities, although some are privately owned. We are all stakeholders in the landfill, however, contributing our share when we place our garbage by the curbside each week. Another type of landfill is that used by industries. These are generally situated near the industrial plants they serve and are usually dedicated to the specific process wastes produced at the factory. In terms of design, they do not differ significantly from municipal landfills. There are also “secure” landfills for hazardous waste, known in the United States as Subtitle C hazardous waste disposal sites. These different landfills do not differ greatly in design, and the following descriptions are largely applicable to all of them. A number of specific case histories are presented in chapter 11. Historically, it has been convenient to site landfills in depressions such as ravines, canyons, abandoned quarries, and open pits that could be easily filled up. These locations were selected largely on the basis of convenience, with proximity to the centers being served and price of land being key parameters. In the early 1900s, and even as late as the early 1970s, landfills were seen as an ideal way of “reclaiming” swamps and wetlands. With the loss of natural areas to urbanization and agriculture, and with the recognition that wetlands play an important role in the ecosystem, this practice is no longer condoned. It is now recognized that one of the most effective ways of protecting the environment is by carefully siting landfills at locations that provide natural security. In particular, the geological formation should contain or naturally attenuate contaminants to acceptable concentrations. If natural attenuation is not possible, then engineered barriers must be incorporated. Today, the trend is toward both incorporating extensive engineered barriers and seeking sites that offer geological containment.
Introduction
Authors: Mark James E. , Allcock Harry R. , West Robert
Published: November 2020

A polymer is a very-long-chain macromolecule in which hundreds or thousands of atoms are linked together to form a one-dimensional array. The skeletal atoms usually bear side groups, often two in number, which can be as small as hydrogen, chlorine, or fluorine atoms or as large as aryl or long-chain alkyl units. Polymers are different from other molecules because the long-chain character allows the chains to become entangled in solution or in the solid state or, for specific macromolecular structures, to become lined up in regular arrays in the solid state. These molecular characteristics give rise to solid-state materials properties, such as strength, elasticity, fiber-forming qualities, or film-forming properties, that are not found for small molecule systems. The molecular weights of polymers are normally so high that, for all practical purposes, they are nonvolatile. These characteristics underlie the widespread use of polymers in all aspects of modern technology. Attempts to understand the relationship between the macromolecular structure and the unusual properties characterize much of the fundamental science in this field. Polymers are among the most complicated molecules known. They may contain thousands of atoms in the main chain, plus complex clusters of atoms that form the side groups attached to the skeletal units. How, then, can we depict such molecules in a manner that is easy to comprehend? First, an enormous simplification can be achieved if we remember that most synthetic polymers contain a fairly simple structure that repeats over and over down the chain. This simplest repetitive structure is known as the repeating unit, and it provides the basis for an uncomplicated representation of the structure of the whole polymer. For example, suppose that a polymer consists of a long chain of atoms of type A, to which are attached side groups, R. The polymer chain can be represented by the formula shown in 1.1. The two horizontal lines represent the bonds of the main chain. The brackets (or parentheses) indicate that the structure repeats many times. The actual number of repeating units present is normally not specified, but is represented by the subscript, n.
Evolutionary Conservation Biology
Authors: Hedrick Philip W.
Published: November 2020

Conservation biology as a discipline focused on endangered species is young and dates only from the late 1970s. Although conservation of endangered species encompasses many different biological disciplines, including behavior, ecology, and genetics, evolutionary considerations always have been emphasized (e.g., Frankel and Soule 1981). Many of the applications of evolutionary concepts to conservation are ones related to genetic variation in small or subdivided populations. However, the critical status of many endangered species makes both more precision and more caution necessary than the general findings for evolutionary considerations. On the other hand, the dire situations of many endangered species often require recommendations to be made on less than adequate data. Overall, one can think of the evolutionary aspects of conservation biology as an applied aspect of the evolution of small populations with the important constraint that any conclusions or recommendations may influence the actual extinction of the populations or species under consideration. From this perspective, all of the factors that influence continuing evolution (i.e., selection, inbreeding, genetic drift, gene flow, and mutation; e.g., Hedrick 2000) are potentially important in conservation. The evolutionary issues of widest concern in conservation biology—inbreeding depression and maintenance of genetic variation— can be seen in their simplest form as the joint effects of inbreeding and selection, and of genetic drift and mutation, respectively. However, even in model organisms such as Drosophila, the basis of inbreeding depression and the maintenance of genetic variation are not clearly understood. In addition, findings from model laboratory organisms may not provide good insight into problems in many endangered species, the most visible of which are generally slowly reproducing, large vertebrates with small populations. Here we will first focus on introductions to two important evolutionary aspects of conservation biology: the units of conservation and inbreeding depression. Then, we will discuss studies in two organisms as illustrations of these and related principles—an endangered fish species, the Gila topminnow, and desert bighorn sheep—to illustrate some evolutionary aspects of conservation. In the discussion, we will mention some of the other evolutionary topics that are relevant to conservation biology.