bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Practical reasoning and deductive agents
Authors: Walton Christopher
Published: November 2020

In constructing a reactive agent system, we explicitly define the behaviour of each agent. This behaviour is predefined, and dependent on events in the environment. We now consider a more powerful kind of agent that can make decisions on its own, i.e. an agent with proactive behaviour. Our motivation is the construction of agents with capabilities that are closer to the way that we reason as human beings. Our starting point in this approach is to base the internal processes of the agent directly on current understanding of how human reasoning is performed. This is the principle behind the design of a practical reasoning agent. Practical human reasoning is directed towards actions, that is, figuring out what to do. This is different from purely logical reasoning, which is directed towards beliefs. Human reasoning is believed to consist of two distinct phases: 1. The first phase is deliberation, in which we decide what state of affairs to achieve. 2. The second phase is means–ends reasoning, in which we decide how to achieve the desired state of affairs. To better illustrate human reasoning, it is helpful to consider a small example. Suppose that I wish to find a method of transportation in order to get to work each day. I would typically proceed by considering the various available options and weighing up the pros and cons. For example, I may consider travelling by car, but the available parking may be insufficient. This process of decision-making is deliberation. Once I have fixed upon an appropriate method of transport, e.g. by bicycle, then I must decide how to bring about a situation where this method of transport is possible. This process is means–ends reasoning, and the result is a plan of action. For example, my plan may involve: obtaining the money for the bicycle, finding a shop that sells an appropriate bicycle, and then purchasing the bicycle. If I am able to successfully follow the plan, then I will have reached the intended state of affairs, i.e. I will be able to travel to work by bicycle.
Agent communication
Authors: Walton Christopher
Published: November 2020

In the preceding chapters, we have described in detail the various techniques that can be used to construct reasoning agents for the Semantic Web. However, as we have repeatedly emphasized, this reasoning capability provides only part of the functionality that will be instrumental in the construction of Semantic Web applications. To supply the remaining functionality, we must also provide a communicative capability to the agents that we construct. This capability will allow our agents to interact and cooperate with other agents on the Semantic Web, and thereby realize more complex tasks than could be accomplished with a single agent in isolation. The focus of this chapter is on how we can design and build agents which can interact together successfully on the Semantic Web. To address the issues of communication and coordination in this environment, it is useful to take our inspiration from human social systems, where these issues are solved in the real world. Following this approach, we treat a group of agents as a society, where these agents typically share a common interest, e.g. solving a specific type of problem. To become a member of this society, an agent must agree to observe certain rules and conventions. In return, the agent can itself benefit from the society, e.g. the expertise of other agents. In this societal view, it becomes possible to define conventions for the agents to follow, and the incentives for agents to operate together are made clear. This in turn makes the challenges of agent-based communication and coordination more manageable. The societal view is a popular approach in the field of MASs, and has important consequences for the way we define our systems. Our discussion is structured around the following five considerations, which must be addressed if we are to design agents that can successfully participate in a society: 1. The ability to communicate with other agents. 2. A basis on which to understand what is being communicated. 3. The ability to structure communication into coherent patterns.
Palaeolithic Art in Isolation: The Case of Sicily and Sardinia
Authors: Mussi Margherita
Published: November 2020

The archaeological record of Italy is long and complex, suggesting continuous peopling since the Middle Pleistocene (Mussi 2001; Mussi et al. in press). The evidence of Palaeolithic art, however, is rather restricted: Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) art is close to nil, including just a few notched implements; the Middle Upper Palaeolithic (MUP), admittedly, is much richer, with some twenty Gravettian Wgurines, the largest such sample in Western Europe (Mussi et al. 2000; Mussi 2004); parietal art is also documented at Grotta Paglicci, where painted horses and positive handprints were discovered (Boscato and Palma di Cesnola 2000; Zorzi 1962); when Late Upper Palaeolithic (LUP) lithic industries were produced which belong to the Epigravettian, portable and parietal art is known at a number of sites. In the late 1980s, Zampetti (1987) reviewed twenty-one Epigravettian cave sites, and a single open-air site, all of them with zoomorphic art. Three more have been discovered since: Riparo Dalmeri, Riparo di Villabruna, and Grotta di Settecannelle. I will examine below the artistic record of Sicily and Sardinia, both of them at the periphery of Italy, which, in turn, is secluded from Europe by the Alps. My aim is to contrast the effects of geographic isolation, with the circulation of people and ideas, if any, as documented by portable and cave art. Sicily, currently an island of 25; 700km2 and the largest in the Mediterranean, lies 140 km from Africa, and a few kilometres off southern Italy. The strait of Messina is 3 to 25 km wide, but is far from easy to cross, because of violent tidal currents, and whirlpool, also known as ‘Charybdis’ by Greeks and Romans. The depth is just 72 m at the Sill of Peloro. Because of intense neotectonic activity, however, any palaeogeographic reconstruction is highly speculative. Analysis of the faunal assemblages, which during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 2 include a limited number of species, none of which is endemic, suggests that intermittent connection with the mainland possibly existed around the Last Glacial Maximum (Mussi et al. in press). The large mammals, found in varying percentages, are the deer, Cervus elaphus, the aurochs, Bos primigenius, the small steppe horse, Equus hydruntinus, and Sus scrofa, the wild boar.
Glimpses of a Scientific Style
Authors: Dasgupta Subrata
Published: November 2020

In august 1951, David Wheeler submitted a PhD dissertation titled Automatic Computing with the EDSAC to the faculty of mathematics (D. F. Hartley, personal communication, September 7, 2011) at the University of Cambridge. The year after, in November 1952, another of Maurice Wilkes’s students, Stanley Gill, submitted a thesis titled The Application of an Electronic Digital Computer to Problems in Mathematics and Physics. Wheeler’s was not the first doctoral degree awarded on the subject of computing. That honor must surely go to Herman Hollerith for his thesis submitted to Columbia University in 1890 on his invention of an electrical tabulating system (see Chapter 3, Section IV). Nor was Wheeler’s the first doctoral degree on a subject devoted to electronic computing. In December 1947, Tom Kilburn (codesigner with Frederic C. Williams of the Manchester Mark I [see Chapter 8, Section XIII]) had written a report on the CRT-based memory system he and Williams had developed (but called the Williams tube). This report was widely distributed in both Britain and the United States (and even found its way to Russia), and it became the basis for Kilburn’s PhD dissertation awarded in 1948 by the University of Manchester (S. H. Lavington, personal communication, August 31, 2011). Wheeler’s doctoral dissertation, however, was almost certainly the first on the subject of programming. And one might say that the award of these first doctoral degrees in the realm of computer “hardware” (in Kilburn’s case) and computer “software” (in Wheeler’s case) made the invention and design of computers and computing systems an academically respectable university discipline. As we have witnessed before in this story, establishing priority in the realm of computing is a murky business, especially at the birth of this new discipline. Thus, if by “computer science” we mean the study of computers and the phenomena surrounding computers (as three eminent computer scientists Allan Newell, Alan Perlis (1922–1990), and Herbert Simon suggested in 1967), then—assuming we agree on what “computers” are—the boundary between hardware and soft ware, between the physical computer and the activity of computing, dissolves.
Proteins Perform Multiple Functions: Enzymes, Receptors, Ion Channel Proteins
Authors: Cordes Eugene H.
Published: November 2020

As emphasized in the preceding chapter, there are an unimaginably large number of possible protein structures based on the sequence of amino acids along the amino acid chain. Through the process of evolution, nature has chosen a minute fraction of them to create proteins that provide for the necessities of life. Among all the functions that proteins serve in living organisms, I focus on the three that relate most directly to my tales of drug discovery: catalysis, information transfer, and control of the intracellular milieu. These functions are served by, respectively, enzymes, receptors, and ion channel proteins. I spend most of the time discussing enzymes, because most of the stories in the later chapters focus on enzymes. There are occasions when I refer to receptors and ion channels, as well, but because enzymes are the stars of the stories, let’s start there. Chemical reactions are processes during which one or more molecules are converted into different ones. Chemical reactions involve breaking and forming of the chemical bonds that hold atoms together in molecules. Certain chemical bonds in the starting molecules (the reactants) are broken, followed by the formation of new ones, leading to the end products. All the atoms in the reactants are found in the products; they are just rearranged. A simple example is provided by diamond and graphite. Diamond is brilliant and the hardest natural substance known; graphite is black and very soft. Yet, both diamond and graphite are composed entirely of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are linked differently by the chemical bonds holding them together, yielding substances with very different properties. It may surprise you to know that graphite is actually very slightly more stable than diamond. So if we wait long enough, the chemical reaction . . . Diamond → Graphite . . . might be expected to occur. However, do not search for evidence of black dots in your wedding diamond. This may be the slowest chemical reaction of all and may take longer than the age of the universe to get anywhere.
Basic Research, Snake Venoms, and ACE Inhibitors: Ondetti, Cushman, and Patchett
Authors: Cordes Eugene H.
Published: November 2020

On April 6, 1981, the U.S. FDA approved a molecule captopril for the treatment of elevated blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension. This action marked the beginning of a major change in the treatment of high blood pressure and, later, congestive heart failure, diabetic kidney damage, postheart attack management, and stroke prevention. The health of millions of people worldwide has been sustained or restored through the use of captopril and its pharmaceutical relatives. Captopril is the product of research and development work at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research, at the time a branch of Squibb Pharmaceuticals, now Bristol-Myers Squibb. Captopril was marketed worldwide under the trade name Capoten. Its patent life has long since expired and it is available as a generic drug. Captopril is remarkable for two reasons. First, it is the pioneer drug in a new class of treatments for high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. This new class is known as ACE inhibitors. ACE is the chemical acronym for angiotensin converting enzyme. The names of enzymes reflect an effort to describe what they do, and the names are often complicated. Later, I explain what ACE does, and perhaps the name will make sense then. In the meantime, ACE will have to do. Second, captopril was among the first drugs approved for use in clinical medicine discovered by a process of rational drug design, as opposed to a more-or-less random hunt for molecules having promise of use in human medicine. The discovery of captopril followed the earlier work of James Black, Gertrude Elion, and George Hitchings, pioneers in the formulation of the principles of drug design and treatment. They shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1988. The goal of this chapter is to pull together the various threads of the story of ACE inhibitors and weave a revealing fabric. Physicians have been measuring blood pressure for a lot longer than they have had effective means to deal with excursions beyond the normal range.
Putting it All Together
Authors: White Robert E.
Published: November 2020

In reality, there can be no generic definition of an “ideal soil” because a soil’s performance is influenced by the local climate, landscape characteristics, grape variety, and cultural practices and is judged in the context of a winegrower’s objectives for style of wine to be made, market potential, and profitability of the enterprise. This realization essentially acknowledges the long-established French concept of terroir: that the distinctiveness or typicity of wines produced in individual locations depends on a complex interaction of biophysical and human cultural factors, interpreted by many as meaning a wine’s sense of place. As discussed in “Soil Variability and the Concept of Terroir” in chapter 1, because of this interaction of factors that determine a particular terroir, it is not surprising that no specific relationships between one or more soil properties and wine typicity have been unequivocally demonstrated. While acknowledging this conclusion, it is still worthwhile to examine how variations in several single or combined soil properties can influence vine performance and fruit character. These properties are: • Soil depth • Soil structure and water supply • Soil strength • Soil chemistry and nutrient supply • Soil organisms Provided there are no subsoil constraints, the natural tendency of long-lived Vitis vinifera, on own roots or rootstocks, to root deeply and extensively gives it access to a potentially large store of water and nutrients. In sandy and gravely soils that are naturally low in nutrients, such as in the Médoc region of France, the Margaret River region in Western Australia, and the Wairau River plain, Marlborough region, New Zealand, the deeper the soil the better. A similar situation pertains on the deep sandy soils on granite in the Cauquenas region, Chile. However, such depth may be a disadvantage where soils are naturally fertile and rain is plentiful, as in parts of the Mornington Peninsula, King and Yarra Valley regions, Victoria, Australia, and the Willamette Valley region in Oregon (see figure 1.11, chapter 1), because vine growth is too vigorous and not in balance.
How Dangerous Is Radiation?
Authors: Fox Michael H.
Published: November 2020

Many people think that radiation is extremely dangerous. Helen Caldicott, a long-time anti-nuclear activist, claims that “a single mutation in a single gene can be fatal,” meaning it could cause a fatal cancer. She is a physician and she ought to know better. Plutonium is frequently stated as the most dangerous element on earth. Helen Caldicott also says: “Plutonium is so carcinogenic that the half ton of plutonium released from the Chernobyl meltdown is theoretically enough to kill everyone on earth with lung cancer 1,100 times if it were to be distributed uniformly in the lung of every human being”. This is sort of like saying that a man theoretically has enough sperm to impregnate every woman on earth. The big problem is distribution! Nobody actually died from plutonium released in the Chernobyl accident, and a man cannot impregnate all the women in the world! These kinds of hypothetical scare-mongering statements get a lot of press, but they are far removed from the reality of the risks of radiation. But what are the actual risks? To understand the risks of radiation, we must begin at the atomic level to see what radiation does, and we have to consider the different kinds of radiation and, most important, the dose. This is going to be a somewhat technical chapter, but I hope you will stick with it. If you do, you will have a much better understanding of what radiation actually does to cells and how different types of radiation have different consequences. Let’s begin with the various kinds of radiation and how they interact with atoms. There are four kinds of radiation associated with nuclear power— α , β , γ and neutrons— as discussed in Chapter 6. X-rays and γ rays are basically the same type of radiation, and they interact with matter in exactly the same way, so I will consider them as one type: electromagnetic radiation. Their interactions with matter depend on their particle nature as photons with energy hf. The rules governing electromagnetic radiation are different from the rules governing charged particle radiation, such as α and β radiation.
Olanzapine (Zyprexa)
Authors: Li Jie Jack
Published: November 2020

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder, inflicting 1.1% of the population over the age of 18, which translates to 51 million people worldwide including 2.2 million people in the United States. Schizophrenia strikes men and women at different ages; the average onset age is 18 for men and 25 for women. Schizophrenia is characterized by positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech/behavior and negative symptoms including apathy, withdrawal, lack of pleasure, and impaired attention. While it might be relatively easy to treat positive symptoms with antipsychotics, negative symptoms are more difficult to treat. Other symptoms include depressive/anxious symptoms and aggressive symptoms such as hostility, verbal and physical abusiveness, and impulsivity. Because of schizophrenia’s complexity, it is challenging to find therapeutics that are both efficacious and safe, especially considering that the patient has to take them for a prolonged period of time. In ancient times, an “insane” person was often thought to be possessed by the devil, or he was being punished by God for his sins. As a consequence, beating, bleeding, starvation, hot- and cold-water shock treatment, restraint, and incarceration were widely practiced on mental patients, which only worsened their conditions. In 1927, Austrian neurologist Julius Wagner von Jauregg invented the fever shock treatment, introducing malaria in psychotics. Egaz Moniz invented the lobotomy to “introduce an organic syndrome” for the treatment of schizophrenia; both men won the Nobel Prize (for Physiology or Medicine). Today, neither malaria introduction nor lobotomy is still in use. Although there is still a certain stigma attached to mental illnesses, we have now amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge with regard to the genetic, biochemical, and environmental impacts on the human brain. Psychopharmacological drugs such as olanzapine (Zyprexa, 1) have significantly contributed to managing and understanding mental diseases including schizophrenia. Before chlorpromazine (2) became available in 1962, early treatments for schizophrenia included prolonged narcosis, known as “narcosis for psychosis.” Meanwhile, history also saw the use of excruciating treatments such as electroshock and shock introduced by fever, methiazole, and insulin.
Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi)
Authors: Li Jie Jack
Published: November 2020

Viruses are humanity’s invisible enemy. They wreak daily havoc by causing the flu, measles, rabies, hepatitis, smallpox, polio, and even human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although viruses have existed on the earth much longer than humans, it was not until in 1892 when the concept of virus took root when Chamberland experimented with viruses using the Pasteur–Chamberland filter. Solid evidence emerged when tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) crystal was isolated in 1935. However, human ingenuity afforded successful measures to combat viruses long before 1892. For instance, Jenner successfully pioneered a vaccination for preventing smallpox in 1796, nearly one hundred years before Chamberland’s exploits and before Pasteur developed the first vaccination for rabies in 1885. The scourge of polio has been nearly wiped out thanks to Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) available since 1954 and Sabin’s oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) popularized in 1960. The 1951 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Theiler for his contributions to yellow fever vaccines. In terms of small molecule antiviral drugs, the nucleoside iododeoxyuridine (IDU, 2), a simple analog of thymidine (3), was first synthesized and used as an antiviral drug in 1959 by Prusoff. Unfortunately, due to its systemic cardiotoxicities, IDU is now only used topically to treat herpes simplex keratitis. A similar antiviral nucleoside, trifluorothymidine (TFT, Viroptic, 4), is less toxic than 2, and is also primarily used topically in eyes to kill the herpes simplex virus (HSV). Under the leadership of future Nobel laureate Elion, Burroughs Wellcome introduced the nucleoside analog acyclovir (Zovirax, 5) in 1978 for the treatment of HSV infection.3 While not the first antiviral agent on the market, Zovirax (5) was the first small molecule drug to be widely used to control a viral infection. Introduction of valacyclovir (Valtrex, 6), a prodrug of Zovirax (5) with higher oral bioavailability, afforded the patient a more convenient regimen because it does not have to be taken as frequently as the parent drug Zovirax (5).
The Human Right … to Glaciers?
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: November 2020

Yes. The right to glaciers! The very title of this presentation creates a sense of discomfort for some legal experts, much like the discussion about the “right to water” did several years ago. This discomfort is intentional. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, you will agree that, at the very least, we do need to have a discussion on the role glaciers play in terms of human rights realization, one that may lead us to deepen this discussion on the human rights dimension of glaciers. Glaciers are melting: we know that. And climate change, including natural ecosystemic millenary cycles of climate change, is causing glacier melt. But so is anthropogenic climate change, which is accelerating natural melt at alarming rates. Glacier melt will lead to both flooding in greatly populated areas—particularly downstream from rivers born in the Himalayas—and to the disappearance of massive water reserves in our glaciers and polar ice¬caps, which will in turn cause sea levels to rise and flood many low-lying island states. Some entire populations in the South Pacific, such as islanders on Tuvalu, are in fact already looking for a new nation. They simply have to move or be submersed by the sea. Glacier melt is also an enormous risk to the stability of massive ice bodies in high mountain altitudes. As these bodies deform (as often occurs due to melt), they can collapse and come rushing down-mountain with ice blocks as large as skyscrapers, sometimes pounding into glacier lakes formed by natural dams (formed in turn by moraines left by receding glaciers). These impacts can cause tsunami waves many meters high, taking out anything in their path. In the not-so-distant past, glacier tsunamis have taken thousands of lives in the mountainous areas of Peru, in parts of the Himalayas, and in certain parts of Europe. We read and hear about such predicaments in the media daily and are pretty much desensitized to this issue, although we know very little about the specifics or technical aspects of glacier melt.
From Concept to Movement
Authors: Caradonna Jeremy L.
Published: November 2020

A self-defined sustainability movement crystallized between the late 1970s and the 1990s. No longer was sustainability merely a concept or set of ideas. There was now a set of organizations—the Worldwatch Institute, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the United Nations (UN ), and so on—that promoted something called “sustainability” and a growing number of individuals who sought to “live sustainably.” Scholars began to describe in vivid detail what a sustainable society might look like and discussed in no uncertain terms the unsustainability of modern industrial society. In 1975, a conference was held near Houston, Texas, on “how a modern society might be organized to provide a good life for its citizens without requiring ever-increasing population growth, energy resource use, and physical output.” A stream of books between 1976 and 1981 drew on cutting-edge science and ecological economics to sketch out the “qualitative components of a sustainable society.” In the 1980s, sustainability became the centerpiece of international agreements; a strategy objective for at least some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, and governments and a philosophy of balance and durability with a wide range of applications. It found its greatest champion in the United Nations though, which recast sustainability as “sustainable development” and integrated its principles into international accords. Sustainability had thus become part of a political agenda and a clearly articulated ecological philosophy, and a plethora of frameworks, systems, and models were developed as a means of studying, measuring, and advancing its central tenets. This is the period, for instance, in which the three Es appeared as the basic model for sustainability. By the 1990s, sustainists had begun implementing principles of sustainability into economic analyses, planning commissions (on all governmental levels), the energy sector, education, agriculture, housing, transportation, business operations, and many other domains. The media picked up on the term, too, and sustainability became, by the end of the century, a buzzword meant to signify anything associated with green values. This chapter offers a brief overview of the formation, triumphs, and challenges of the sustainability movement at the end of the twentieth century.
Sustaining Long-Term Research: Collaboration, Multidisciplinarity and Synthesis in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program
Authors: Waide Robert B.
Published: November 2020

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program was created by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to encourage comparative study of ecological phenomena that occur over decades and centuries. The vision, mission, and goals of the LTER network have evolved to address current societal needs: to understand the dynamics of key ecosystems, to interpret effects on ecosystem services of importance to humans, and to forecast the effects of future ecosystem scenarios. Challenges inherent in sustaining a long-term research program include building effective plans for research, governance, and transitions among generations of scientists. The LTER program has been extremely successful at meeting its original goals, but increased expectations for cross-site and network-level synthesis are not yet fully realized. The initial absence of a shared conceptual model inhibited progress toward large-scale synthesis. Recent agreement on a conceptual framework that includes multiple disciplines has begun to address this issue. On February 12, 1980, I began my first real job with the Center for Energy and Environment Research (CEER) at the University of Puerto Rico. I was hired to work on an ongoing program funded by the Department of Energy that had begun 17 years earlier under the direction of Howard Odum. Along with my colleagues, Laurence Tilly and Douglas Reagan of CEER, and Ariel Lugo of the US Forest Service, I was also to participate in a proposal that had just been submitted for a new NSF initiative called the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program. None of us knew very much about this program, and the request for proposals described it in five short paragraphs. Not only was it a new program, it was very different from other NSF programs. Proposals needed to involve groups of investigators working on core research topics, and the proposed work should be coordinated in some way with a network of other sites. Principal investigators were warned to be prepared to make long-term time commitments. Little did we know. Our first proposal was unsuccessful, as was the second. By 1986, I had become head of the Terrestrial Ecology Division at CEER. In that capacity, I represented the University of Puerto Rico as co–principal investigator, along with Ariel Lugo, on our third attempt at becoming an LTER site.
Data, Data Everywhere!
Authors: Stafford Susan G.
Published: November 2020

My association with the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest (AND) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program defined my research and shaped my professional character. Creating the data and information system for the AND program became the focus of my research, and ensuring that protocols and methodology were established for effectively stewarding long-term data and metadata across the LTER network became my mission. Designing the system in such a way that it could continue to evolve in tandem with the growth and evolution of the LTER program was an enjoyable challenge! Recognizing the need to ensure that data were initially collected, managed, and coordinated with research objectives to produce statistically sound results from future analyses became the cornerstone of my research methods courses and workshops. Research at the AND site was conceptually positioned at the interface of basic and applied research. Communicating research results across a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including state, national, international, and nongovernmental organizations, was commonplace. Watching the leadership of the AND program cultivate, nurture, and build these enduring partnerships provided invaluable lessons for effective communication with diverse and numerous constituencies. Learning how to work toward successful conflict resolution by tackling issues directly to find common ground has served me well throughout my career. Direct participation, early in my career, in the collaborative and openly inclusive atmosphere of the AND program honed my skills for working with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams. I embrace this approach in my research, teaching, and management style to this day. I credit my early leadership opportunities afforded by the LTER program as contributing significantly to my overall professional success. I encourage all young researchers, from student to junior faculty, to seek out LTER sites that are nearest to them intellectually or geographically and build their network of professional colleagues early in their careers. They will not be disappointed! One of the most significant aspects of my professional career was being associated with the AND site of the LTER program. The AND site has literally defined my research focus and shaped my professional identity.
Forty Arctic Summers
Authors: Shaver Gaius R.
Published: November 2020

I was committed to long-term, site-based, research long before the Arctic (ARC) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site was established in 1987. Working with the LTER program since then has allowed me to reach my goals more easily than would have been possible otherwise. Because of my deep involvement in research in the LTER program, most of the examples I use in teaching now come from LTER sites. For the same reason, most of my communications with the public are about research in the LTER program. I learned the value of collaboration as a graduate student, from my earliest mentors and collaborators. Being a part of the LTER program has helped me to develop a wide array of enjoyable, comfortable, and productive collaborations. A message to students: be generous in all aspects of your research and professional life, because there is much more to be gained from generosity than there is to be lost. I helped set up the ARC site of the LTER program in 1987 and have made it the focus of my scientific career for the past 27 years. My experience with integrated, site-based, multidisciplinary ecosystem research actually began in 1972, however, when as a graduate student I worked with the US Tundra Biome Study at Barrow, Alaska (Brown et al. 1980; Hobbie 1980). The Tundra Biome Study and its umbrella organization, the International Biological Program (IBP), ended officially in 1974, but the ideas developed and lessons learned from these programs were central to the later development of the LTER program (Coleman 2010). These lessons were central to the formation of my own professional worldview; key among them was the idea that long-term approaches, including long-term, whole-ecosystem experiments, were essential to understanding distribution, regulation, and change in populations, communities, and ecosystems everywhere. My dissertation research, on root growth at the Barrow site, benefited greatly from the interactions I had with the diverse group who worked there. I finished my PhD in 1976, during a period when the need for a federally supported program of long-term, multidisciplinary, site-based ecological research was becoming increasingly clear.
Long-Term Ecological Research on the Urban Frontier: Benefiting from Baltimore
Authors: Pickett Steward T. A.
Published: November 2020

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has made me a more effective scientist because I have had to learn about disciplines that are very distant from my own, and it has helped me see the relevance of my own interests in the context of rapidly changing systems in which human agency is inescapable. Being a part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) site has extended my educational activities to primary and secondary school situations. It has been both an eye opener and personally very rewarding to interact in city classrooms and after-school programs. I have found myself in demand as a public speaker as a result of serving as leader of one of the two urban LTER programs. My communication skills and strategies have been greatly improved as a result. Collaboration has taught me to listen more effectively and to emphasize dialogue rather than exposition. Multidisciplinary urban field trips are powerful tools for joint research and for communication with people in the community. My role in the LTER network has been as principal investigator of the BES site from its inception in 1997. Before involvement in the LTER program, I conducted urban ecological research in metropolitan New York. My interests beyond urban studies include vegetation dynamics, natural disturbance, and landscape ecology. At the time that my involvement in the LTER program began, I became part of a multidisciplinary and international team conducting a 10-year study of the linkages between rivers and upland savannas in Kruger National Park, South Africa. In the LTER network, I have been a member of the committee on scientific initiatives and the Science Council. I have also contributed to cross-site integration through workshops at the LTER network’s triennial All Scientists Meetings and to cross-site activities such as comparison of disturbance across the network (Peters et al. 2011). I hold a BS and a PhD in botany, specializing in plant ecology. I am currently Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, a flexible position that has allowed me to explore the cross-disciplinary and synthetic approaches required to lead an urban LTER program.
The Socializing of an Ecosystem Ecologist: Interdisciplinarity from a Career Spent in the Long-Term Ecological Research Network
Authors: Childers Daniel L.
Published: November 2020

The broad interdisciplinarity of my science and my worldview are direct products of my career spent in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. I attribute the holistic systems approaches that I use in my teaching and mentoring to my career spent in the LTER program. I am able to converse with a broad array of collaborators and practitioners because of my career spent in the LTER program. My career is rich with interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships thanks to the LTER program. My life is rich with friends that I have met throughout my career spent in the LTER program. There are probably few mid-career scientists who have spent virtually all of their careers associated with the LTER network. As one of these few, I view this as a tremendous asset. My experiences in the LTER program began in 1983 with the North Inlet Program (NIN), where my master’s research, advised by the late Hank McKellar, involved modeling salt marsh ecosystem dynamics. After completing my PhD at Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1989, I returned to the NIN for a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship with Fred Sklar at the Baruch Marine Laboratory. I worked with Fred on another of his National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, but there was considerable overlap between that research and the work being done at NIN. When the NSF released a solicitation for new coastal LTER sites in 1998, I was an assistant professor at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. We gathered a core group of Everglades colleagues and answered this solicitation with a proposal to study coastal ecosystem dynamics in the Florida Everglades. Our proposal was successful, and by early 2000 the new Florida Coastal Everglades LTER program (FCE) was off and running. I directed FCE from its inception until I left FIU in 2008 for Arizona State University (ASU). On arriving at ASU in 2008, I immediately became involved with the Central Arizona–Phoenix (CAP) LTER program. I was excited about my move to ASU and the new School of Sustainability because I felt as if it were a rare mid-career opportunity to change the trajectory of, and perhaps even the impact of, my career.
A Glimpse of the Tropics Through Odum’s Macroscope
Authors: Lugo Ariel E.
Published: November 2020

The philosophy of research in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program expanded what I learned in graduate school from H. T. Odum by providing an approach for a holistic understanding of ecological processes in the tropics. Participation in the LTER program enabled collaborations with many talented people from many parts of the world and enabled the mentoring and education of a new cadre of tropical natural and social sciences students. By expanding the opportunities for research and analysis at larger scales, the LTER program allowed me to address tropical ecosystem responses to such phenomena as hurricanes, floods, landslides, and past land uses and to do so at the appropriate scales of time and space. Paradigms of tropical forest resilience and adaptability in the Anthropocene emerged from research at the Luquillo (LUQ) LTER site. I first became aware of the LTER program in 1978 as I walked by the White House in Washington, DC, with Sandra Brown, then an intern on the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and Wayne Swank, a US Forest Service employee on detail with the National Science Foundation (NSF). I was a staff member at CEQ, and W. Swank explained to us a new long-term ecological research program that he was helping develop at the NSF. Although the first cadre of sites appeared to have been selected, I was immediately captured by the concept and expressed my interest in developing a proposal for a tropical site in Puerto Rico. Little did I know at the time that my whole scientific career was about to change, in part because of the LTER program, but also because I was to become a US Forest Service scientist. The first 30 years of my US Forest Service career would be heavily influenced by the LTER program and the people I worked with while developing a new way of thinking about tropical forest ecosystems. I am an ecologist trained at the Universities of Puerto Rico and North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My experience before becoming part of the LTER program involved (1) teaching at the University of Florida at Gainesville and (2) government work at the Commonwealth (Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources) and federal (President’s Council on Environmental Quality) levels.
Kelp Forests, Coral Reefs, and the Long-Term Ecological Research Program: Synergies and Impacts on a Scientific Career
Authors: Holbrook Sally J.
Published: November 2020

Involvement with the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has enabled me to ask novel and exciting science questions at larger spatial and longer temporal scales than I could have otherwise. It has enhanced my ability to engage in interdisciplinary collaborative research. The LTER program has afforded my graduate students a variety of opportunities that have enhanced their training and experiences as early career scientists. My undergraduate students learn about LTER research findings in my classes and have the opportunity to work as research assistants in the field and the laboratory. My experiences with LTER- funded research have made me aware of the importance of community and K–12 outreach, and it has provided me opportunities to plan such activities. Engaging in the LTER program has provided me with a myriad of opportunities to collaborate with other sites and groups to address network-level science questions. My collaborators include investigators from within the LTER network, as well as international scientists. My experience in the LTER network began in 2000, when the Santa Barbara Coastal (SBC) LTER project was established, and expanded in 2004 with the founding of the Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) LTER site. I have been a co–principal investigator at both of these sites since their inception. Because I am a marine community ecologist, my research interests and those of my graduate students are closely aligned with the goals and activities of both sites. My LTER network-level experiences include a 3-year term on the LTER Executive Board, participation in several LTER All Scientists Meetings, and a network-sponsored working group on abrupt state shifts. Currently, I am a professor of ecology in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara. My disciplinary background is population and community ecology, and prior to my involvement with the LTER program, my research and that of my students focused mainly on questions related to population dynamics and species interactions.
Scholarly Learning in an Ecological Setting: Applying the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors Framework to Perceived Outcomes from Participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program
Authors: Boyer Mark A. , Brown Scott W.
Published: November 2020

Using the conceptual framework of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors (KABs), we develop a structured aggregate analysis of the essays in this volume. Building from the KAB analysis, we examine how the Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) program altered career paths (or not), perhaps changed original scholarly directions, and led to more integrative and important research over the course of careers. Our primary finding is that the LTER program has successfully affected ecological research careers, mostly because the involved participants were predisposed to thriving in an interdisciplinary environment. Every scholar can point to events or experiences in his or her career that had a significant impact on his or her intellectual trajectory. For example, the authors of this chapter began collaborating as a result of a happenstance phone call in 1998 that led to more than 15 years of fruitful scholarly interactions centering around online international studies education in middle school through college environments. About a decade ago, one (Boyer) made a distinct turn in his scholarly agenda away from political economy and toward environmental inquiry. The other (Brown), a psychologist by training, has spent large portions of his career in K–12 and college settings working to promote research-based educational practices. The point is, many scholars develop their careers in ways unimagined early on, some by happenstance, as in our own case. With this type of “we know intellectual change happens, but how do we understand it?” in front of us, this collection of essays by participants in the LTER program provides a rich body of data on which to develop a macro-level analysis of patterns of intellectual evolution in environmental research. We will begin by laying out the conceptual framework of KABs as a means to develop a structured aggregate analysis of the chapters in this volume. In using this conceptual framework and associated qualitative methodology, we hope to provide insights into whether participation in the LTER program did in fact affect the scholars involved in the enterprise and, if so, in what ways.
Trade-offs of Participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program: Immediate and Long-Term Consequences
Authors: Walker Lawrence R. , Willig Michael R.
Published: November 2020

For those who may have skipped to this chapter and not read the 3 introductory chapters, the 36 essays, or the 4 evaluative chapters of this book, the answer to the burning question “Does participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program change scientists?” is an unequivocal “Yes!” As Boyer and Brown (Chapter 41) point out, however, those changes are mostly in the realms of knowledge acquisition and behavior adoptions in the practice of science. Participation in the program did not appear to have a substantial effect on the development of attitudes. Could such changes have occurred outside of the LTER program? Schlesinger (Chapter 40) thinks so. He suggests that the LTER program provides “some structure and modest standardization to a set of common measurements” but that it has not substantially broadened or deepened the ecological sciences. Yet the effect of the LTER program on science, while a fascinating and often-addressed question, is not the focus of this book (see Willig and Walker, Chapter 1). Of course, to address how scientists change also involves understanding how they approach and conduct science. In addition, personal change occurs in a broad societal context. For example, the LTER program has coincided with and helped promote a transition in ecology from research done by one or a few investigators on a particular organism or process in a particular habitat to investigations involving multidisciplinary teams working together to test models about how ecosystem dynamics unfold across large spatial and temporal scales. However, going to “big programs” and “big data sets” does not mean losing a sense of place or being divorced from the natural history of particular organisms. Even as spatial and temporal scales increase, ecological research is ideally still “place aware” (Bestelmeyer, Chapter 19). Using the essays of this book as a rich source of information to address fundamental questions about the nature of scientists, we provide some final thoughts on how the LTER program has affected its participants, particularly on how they view time and space, collaboration, and communication. We end with reflections on the future of ecology and society, based on the views expressed in this book and on our own participation in the LTER program.