bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hunger, Overpopulation, and National Security : A New Strategic Theory for Plant Breeding, 1945-1956
Authors: Perkins John H.
Published: November 2020

The Mexican Agricultural Program (MAP) was the catalyst that brought plantbreeding science into the arena of international relations. During the first few years of the MAP’s operations, however, no programmatic framework existed to promote plant breeding on a global basis. Although a private philanthropy like the Rockefeller Foundation might support plant-breeding research, it was not clear that governments would be interested in the field as a way of achieving their international ambitions. The trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, with their sense that success with MAP might lead to further ventures, were possibly the only group with even the rudiments of an idea about the international importance of plant breeding. By 1970, however, plant breeding was firmly entrenched in global international relations. Extensive national research organizations in many countries, a collection of prestigious international research stations, and an international coordinating network of supporters created a complex institutional nexus within which plant breeding and allied sciences were well supported. Research conducted in this network of national and international experiment stations led to the high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice that significantly altered regional, national, and international economies. Several factors governed the ability of plant breeding to become a “normal” part of international dealings. First, the science had to have something to offer. As described in chapters 3 through 5, by 1945 plant breeding had demonstrated that it could produce results of interest. Second, national governments wanting to extend or receive international aid in plant breeding had to have a national capacity to con duct the science. Chapters 4 and 5 provide an account of how the United States, Britain, India, and Mexico each gained this capacity. A full comprehension of why and how wheat breeding entered the international arena requires attention to three additional points. First, what was the general intellectual and political climate that promoted the science’s entry into international relations? Second, what specifically did individual countries do to participate in aid programs including wheat-breeding research? Finally, what was the research program that led to the high-yielding wheat varieties, and how was this program created? In this chapter we turn to the first of these three questions.
Wheat Breeding and the Exercise of American Power, 1940-1970
Authors: Perkins John H.
Published: November 2020

American power at the end of World War II was paramount. The usual image of this might, however, is formed more by the array of military and industrial components of American culture than by something as seemingly mundane as wheat breeding. Nuclear-tipped missiles, airplane and tank factories, engineering prowess, and motivated soldiers are more generally assumed to be the components of military strength, not scientists patiently crossing one strain of wheat with another and searching through the progeny for a better variety. In the direct exercise of military power, of course, the weapon systems and soldiers are the most important elements of power. Armies, however, exist only on the foundation of food supplies that are adequate for both the military personnel and their civilian support force. American strategists in both world wars were acutely aware of the role of agriculture in the projection of military might, and they considerably amplified agriculture’s importance in the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, through a variety of public and private initiatives, wheat breeding and other lines of agricultural science became an integral part of postwar American strategic planning. Put somewhat differently, after 1945, wheat breeding by American scientists became more than just an exercise in the modernization of agriculture. Old motivations for seeking new varieties did not disappear, but new motivations arose to justify expenditures. In addition, American scientists came to do their work not only in the United States for American farmers but overseas for foreign governments. Wheat breeding acquired ideological dimensions more elaborate than simply “the promo tion of progress.” Instead, wheat breeding and other agricultural science became part of the “battle for freedom.” In the process, many countries moved to new relationships with each other and with their own natural resource base. How did wheat breeding get caught up with strategic and national security considerations? It is necessary to follow a somewhat convoluted trail to answer this question, and the story can begin with the status of the United States after the collapse of Germany and Japan in 1945.
Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse
Authors: Rodden John G.
Published: November 2020

This is the first English-language study of GDR education and the first book, in any language, to trace the history of Eastern German education from 1945 through the 1990s. Rodden fully relates the GDR's attempt to create a new Marxist nation by means of educational reform, and looks not only at the changing institution of education but at something the Germans call Bildung--the formation of character and the cultivation of body and spirit. The sociology of nation-building is also addressed.
Leipzig, 1990 Karl Marx-Universität, RIP: Postmortems on the God that Failed
Authors: Rodden John G.
Published: November 2020

What was it like to be a junior faculty member and longtime SED supporter under the Honecker regime? “I had a place secured, a paved road before me,” came the answer, as if from a great distance. “You—you’ve spent your whole life competing. We haven’t. My career track was clear—Dozent, then Professor, then Ordinarius. In time, if I were reasonably productive, it would have all been there. Now, no university in Germany will have me. Probably I’ll have to emigrate. That’s the only way to escape everyone forever asking me what I did in the Party and why I did it.” On a cold, drizzling, smoggy Leipzig afternoon in December 1990, Jürgen, a wissenschaftlicher Assistent (lecturer) in political science, sits in a dingy, secondfloor cafe a few blocks from the Karl-Marx Universität, telling me in a low voice about his life as a Party activist and organizer at the University. Authorities have just announced that several departments—among them law, political science, journalism, and M-L, will soon be shut down; Jürgen expects to be released in six months. He has spent the last 10 years at the oldest university in eastern Germany, widely regarded as the second-leading DDR university after Humboldt University of East Berlin. Talk has been buzzing that Humboldt could soon be closed down altogether, since united Berlin doesn’t need a rival to the Free University—and since old Cold Warriors at the FU have hardly forgotten being driven from Humboldt in the late ’40s. Such a scenario would leave the Karl-Marx Universität the top university in the east. But Jürgen’s mind is elsewhere. Academic politics holds little interest for him now; it all seems curiously irrelevant. Abwicklung is the order of the day in Leipzig, a city of 560,000, the second largest in eastern Germany. Those who served the Karl-Marx Universität in “ideologically burdened” departments, or who held Party offices, or who had contact with the Stasi, will probably not retain their positions.
Weimar, 1994 Difficulties with the Truth: Coping with the DDR’s Past in the New Eastern Classroom
Authors: Rodden John G.
Published: November 2020

Eight thirty A.M. Another school day, another school—this time the Schiller Gymnasium in the Thomas Mann Street. It’s a fine morning in late October. I greet Frau Losart, a German teacher, and Herr Gerrelov, a Russian teacher. They’re happy to talk to me about changes at the school since my visit during the dying days of the DDR in the fall of 1990, when it was still the Schiller EOS, the only EOS in Weimar. Weimar has witnessed many changes since then, especially in education, including the transformation of three POS into Gymnasien: the Goethe Gymnasium, the Hoffman von Fallersleben Gymnasium, and the Sophiengymnasium. The classical names reflect the importance of German culture in Weimar. Indeed, “Weimar— the Heart of German Culture,” runs the slogan in the official tourist brochure, which features, incongruously, both a picture of a young couple drinking Coca-Cola (the caption [in English]: “You can’t beat the feeling!”) and a pitch for a private bus tour line: “For more than a century,” says the ad, in stately German script, Weimar “has been a magnet for all those who revere German classicism. . . .” Or: those who mummify it. “Stadt der toten Dichter” (Dead Poets’ City), journalistic wags from the west have dubbed Weimar instead. But the eastern and western slogans do, ironically, somehow fit together. For certainly the city’s two biggest cultural drawing cards are its two greatest dead poets: Goethe and Schiller. Not the least of the city’s honors to the latter dead poet is the Schiller Gymnasium itself. Built in 1927, it was originally a Berufsschule (trade/vocational school) for girls; two years later, it became a coeducational Realschule. In 1936, the auditorium with its Nietzsche window was added, in honor of the city’s third great dead poet. In 1945, the school was used as an emergency hospital for soldiers wounded at the front. After the war, the Schiller Oberschule was the only school in Weimar to confer the Abitur; it became one of the first EOS in 1960 and a Gymnasium in 1991.
Water and Food in Developing Countries in the Next Century
Authors: Yudelman M.
Published: November 2020

The world’s supply of water is fixed. It is estimated that 97% of the world’s water exists in the oceans, 2.2% exists as ice and snow, mostly in the polar regions, and only about 0.7% of the total supply is the freshwater that sustains mankind, including the global agricultural system. This quantity of freshwater — around 40,500 km3 — which is the difference between precipitation and evapotranspiration, is continuously replenished by nature’s hydrological cycle. Most climatologists and hydrologists agree that there is no natural process short of climate change, especially global warming, that can increase the world’s rainfall and so the supply of freshwater. The greater the warming, the larger the expected increase in precipitation. One “simple level of analysis” suggests that global warming of 30° C could well lead to a 10% increase in evaporation and an average increase in precipitation of 10%. The biggest increases would be at high latitudes, smaller increases would occur close to the equator (Gleick, 1992). The weight of evidence suggests that this is unlikely to happen within the next several decades (Rosenzweig, 1994). It is an open question, though, as to what might happen in the second half of the next century. There are some manmade processes that can increase the supply of fresh water. One of the most important of these is the conversion of saline water from the ocean into fresh water by removing salt through desalinization or by filtration. Thus far, however, the processes that have been developed are highly energy intensive and costly; the plants presently in operation are mostly in the oil-rich, water-poor nations of the Persian Gulf. It is estimated that there are more than 11,000 desalting plants operating worldwide, but together they produce less than 0.2% of the world’s total fresh water (Postel, 1991). The costs of desalting sea water range currently from about $0.80 to $1.60 m-3, and costs of treating brackish water are about $0.30 m -3, well above the costs of fresh water used for irrigation (Wolf, 1996).
Methods, Principles, Strengths, and Limitations
Authors: Graham Alan
Published: November 2020

Methods of paleovegetation analysis can be grouped into two broad categories. Those that use plant microfossils for reconstructing terrestrial vegetation, past environments, migrations, and evolutionary histories constitute a part of paleopalynology that includes the study of pollen, spores, other acid-resistant microscopic structures, and phytoliths (distinctive, microscopic silicate particles produced by vascular plants). Those that use plant megafossils such as leaves, cuticles, cones, flowers, fruits, and seeds constitute paleobotany. Two important subdisciplines of paleobotany are dendrochronology (fossil woods) and analysis of packrat middens. The latter are sequences of nesting materials, constructed by packrats of the genus Neotoma, preserved in arid environments of the American southwest. The study of fossil fruits and seeds is a specialized field within paleobotany, and it is also used in studies on Quaternary vegetational history in the preparation of seed diagrams accompanying pollen and spore profiles from bog and lake sequences. In 1916 Swedish geologist Lennart von Post demonstrated that pollen grains and spores were abundantly preserved in Quaternary peat deposits and could be used to trace recent forest history and climatic change (Davis and Faegri, 1967). The term palynology was subsequently introduced by Hyde and Williams in 1944 to include all studies concerned with pollen and spores. Paleopalynology has come to denote the study of acid-resistant microfossils generally, while pollen analysis designates those investigations dealing specifically with the Quaternary. In the early 1950s researchers in the petroleum industry began to routinely apply paleopalynology to problems of stratigraphic correlation and the reconstruction of depositional environments in Tertiary and older strata (Hoffmeister, 1959). This added a practical dimension to a mostly academic pursuit and fostered interest in applied palynology and its use as a paleoecological research tool. This important development is reflected in the increased number of publications after about 1955. As the history of other innovations might predict, there was a period of exuberant claims, isolated specialization, and exaggerated charges of deficiency in the method; but for palynology this seemingly inevitable period was mercifully brief. The different terminology, principles, and techniques involved in megafossil paleobotany and paleopalynology still result in specialization, but this limitation is frequently overcome by coordinated or collaborative projects, and an increasing number of practitioners work in both disciplines.
Two Dimensional Matching
Authors: Amir A. , Farach M.
Published: November 2020

String matching is a basic theoretical problem in computer science, but has been useful in implementating various text editing tasks. The explosion of multimedia requires an appropriate generalization of string matching to higher dimensions. The first natural generalization is that of seeking the occurrences of a pattern in a text where both pattern arid text are rectangles. The last few years saw a tremendous activity in two dimensional pattern matching algorithms. We naturally had to limit the amount of information that entered this chapter. We chose to concentrate on serial deterministic algorithms for some of the basic issues of two dimensional matching. Throughout this chapter we define our problems in terms of squares rather than rectangles, however, all results presented easily generalize to rectangles. The Exact Two Dimensional Matching Problem is defined as follows: . . . INPUT: Text array T[n x n] and pattern array P[m x m]. OUTPUT: All locations [i,j] in T where there is an occurrence of P, i.e. T[i+k+,j+l] = P[k+1,l+1] 0 ≤ k, l ≤ n-1. . . . A natural way of solving any generalized problem is by reducing it to a special case whose solution is known. It is therefore not surprising that most solutions to the two dimensional exact matching problem use exact string matching algorithms in one way or another. In this section, we present an algorithm for two dimensional matching which relies on reducing a matrix of characters into a one dimensional array. Let P' [1 . . .m] be a pattern which is derived from P by setting P' [i] = P[i,l]P[i,2]…P[i,m], that is, the ith character of P' is the ith row of P. Let Ti[l . . .n — m + 1], for 1 ≤ i ≤ n, be a set of arrays such that Ti[j] = T[i, j] T [ i , j + 1 ] • • • T[i, j + m-1]. Clearly, P occurs at T[i, j] iff P' occurs at Ti[j].
Linking Biogeochemical Cycles to Cattle Pasture Management and Sustainability in The Amazon Basin
Authors: Dias-Filho Moacyr B. , Davidson Eric A.
Published: November 2020

Pasture development has become the largest anthropogenic disturbance of forest land in the Amazon basin (Skole et al. 1994, Serrão and Toledo 1990). The area of forests converted to cattle pasture in Amazonia is currently estimated at approximately 20 million hectares. In the Brazilian Amazon basin, most of the conversion of forest land to pasture began during the early 1960s to the late 1980s, as a consequence of the opening of Amazon highways and government policies aimed at regional development (Hecht 1982, Nepstad et al. 1991, Serrão et al. 1979). Pasture productivity and longevity in the Amazon basin seem to be closely related to soil fertility and nutrient cycling (e.g., Dias Filho and Serrão 1987, Serrão et al. 1979). Thus, understanding the major biogeochemical cycles that influence soil fertility under pasture is vital for predicting the consequences of continued conversion of tropical forests to cattle pastures. This understanding is also important for devising management technologies that enhance the sustainability of these areas and thus slow further deforestation. Although during the first three to five years after establishment, the productivity of pastures is often good, after that period a rapid decline in productivity of the planted grasses associated with an increased presence of herbaceous and woody invaders is generally observed (reviewed by Serrão and Toledo 1990). If left uncontrolled, these invader species slowly become dominant and lead to “pasture degradation,” a condition characterized by a complete dominance of the weedy community. If left to secondary succession, forest vegetation usually becomes reestablished on these degraded pasture lands in the Amazon, although the species composition is usually different than that of the primary forest (Nepstad 1989). The nutrient status of the degraded pasture soils is among the factors that affect the rate of regrowth of the secondary forests. One of the first attempts to study soil nutrient dynamics under cultivated pastures in the Amazon basin was conducted in the early 1970s by Falesi (1976). The results of that chronosequence study in different soil types suggested that soil nutrient cycling in pastures differed from that of the traditional slash-and-burn agriculture.
Mineralogy
Authors: Juo Anthony S. R. , Franzluebbers Kathrin
Published: November 2020

Soils are weathering products of rocks and minerals. The rocks in Earth’s outer surface can be classified as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks are formed from molten magma. They are composed of primary minerals, which are minerals that have not been altered chemically since they formed as molten lava solidified. Examples of primary minerals are the light-colored minerals quartz, muscovite, feldspars, and orthoclase, and the dark-colored minerals biotite, augite, and hornblende. In general, dark-colored minerals contain iron (Fe) and magnesium (Mg) and are more easily weathered than light-colored minerals. Coarse-grained igneous rocks, such as granite and diorite, contain mainly lightcolored minerals, while medium-grained igneous rocks such as gabbro, peridotite, and hornblendite are composed of dark-colored primary minerals. Rhyolite and andesite are medium-grained igneous rocks containing light-colored primary minerals. Basalt is dark-colored with an intermediate to fine rock texture, and basaltic volcanic glass has a fine texture. Examples of light-colored igneous rocks with a fine texture are felsite and obsidian. Sedimentary rocks are the most common type of rock, covering about 75% of Earth’s land surface. They are mainly composed of secondary minerals, which are minerals that are recrystallized products of the chemical breakdown and/or alteration of primary minerals. Sedimentary rocks form when weathering products from rocks are cemented or compacted. For example, quartz (SiO2) sand, a weathering product of granite, may become cemented into sandstone. Another common sedimentary rock is limestone. There are two types of limestone, namely, calcite (CaCO3), and dolomite (CaCO3.MgCO3). Clays may become cemented into a sedimentary rock, which is known as shale. A sedimentary rock with several dominant minerals is called a conglomerate, in which small stones with different mineralogy are cemented together. Metamorphic rocks are formed by the metamorphism of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Great pressure and high temperatures, caused by the shifting of continental plates, can compress, distort, and/or partially re-melt the original rocks. Igneous rocks are commonly modified to form schist and gneiss, in which light and dark minerals have been reoriented into bands. Sedimentary rocks, such as limestone and shale, may be metamorphosed to form marble and slate, respectively.
Modeling the Unique Attributes of Arid Ecosystems: Lessons from the Jornada Basin
Authors: Reynolds James F. , Kemp Paul R.
Published: November 2020

The Jornada Basin is typical of arid ecosystems of the Southwestern United States and many other regions of the globe: It is water-limited with low annual net primary production (ANPP) and low-standing crop (Szarek 1979; Ludwig 1987). Yet paradoxically, arid ecosystems are structurally and functionally quite complex, exhibiting a remarkable range of species compositions and system behaviors. This can be attributed in part to the presence of complex topography and landscape physiography (Mabbutt 1997; see also chapter 2) which, when combined with extreme variability in precipitation (Cavazos et al. 2002; Weltzin et al. 2003; see also chapter 3), produces striking spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the availability of essential limiting resources, such as water and mineral nutrients (MacMahon and Wagner 1985; see also chapters 5 and 6). In view of these complexities, one of the long-term objectives of the research in the Jornada Basin is to develop a synthetic understanding of the mechanisms and processes governing the complex patterns of arid land structure and functioning. It is clear that understanding and predicting potential cause–effect relationships will require considerable insights at multiple spatial and temporal scales (chapter 18). Models are expected to play an important role in this synthesis because most experiments and observations tend to take place at small spatial (e.g., 1–100 m2) and brief temporal scales (e.g., days, months, one to five years) (Levin 1992), whereas many ecosystem responses are the result of interacting factors and feedbacks operating over larger spatial and longer time periods (O’Neill et al. 1989; Levin 1992). In this chapter, we present a summary of some of the mechanistic models we developed as part of the Jornada Basin research program. Although our initial goal was largely focused on the relationship between precipitation and ecosystem functioning in the Jornada Basin, our work is sufficiently general that it should be applicable to other arid land regions of the world. Simulation modeling has a key role to play because it is difficult to experimentally examine even a partial spectrum of ecosystem-level responses that could result from abrupt perturbations, such as overgrazing and especially longer term external forcings, such as shifts in precipitation.
Representation and Matching of Small Flexible Molecules in Large Databases of 3D Molecular Information
Authors: Rigoutsos Isidore , Platt Daniel
Published: November 2020

In recent years, the need to process and mine available information repositories has been increasing. The variety of the data contained in the targeted databases has given rise to a variety of tools for mining them, and computers have assumed an increasingly important role in this process. One of the many domains in which this scenario has been repeated is that of the drug discovery and design process. Computers have helped researchers to quickly eliminate unlikely drug candidates, to home in on promising ones, and to shorten the lead-compound-search cycle. Researchers are helped in this multidisciplinary effort by accessing proprietary and public resources containing crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, toxicology, pharmacology, and other types of data. Using the computer to filter out unlikely candidates can greatly shorten the length of a cycle in this iterative process. Some scenarios encountered in the context of the drug design process include . . . (a) a pharmacophore model that has been proposed from several active molecules—one wishes to determine other molecules that either corroborate or refute the model; (b) a set of untested molecules that exhibit biological activity—one wishes to identify relationships between their 3D structure and the activity; (c) a ligand that has been proposed to be active in a certain conformation- -other molecules that mimic the ligand’s behavior are sought. . . . The common element in all of these cases is that they are in essence searches for member elements in one or more repositories, each of the elements having some desired properties or behavior. Let us take a step back and reexamine the problem we are trying to solve. Two basic elements of the problem are “representation” and “storage.” If answers to both of these questions are available, then one can implement a retrieval system the properties and behavior of which are directly related to those of the two basic elements. We begin with a body of knowledge D that consists of D data items {di / i = 1,..., D}. Each data item is represented by a set of k properties and their respective values.
Making the University Safe for Democracy, 1902-1910
Authors: Kemeny P. C.
Published: November 2020

The service of institutions of learning is not private but public,” Woodrow Wilson proclaimed at his inauguration as Princeton University’s thirteenth president. “Princeton for the Nation’s Service,” the title of Wilson’s 1902 inaugural address, captured his vision of Princeton’s mission. The nation, Wilson believed, desperately needed the university. The nation and its affairs, he observed, continued to “grow more and more complex” as a result of industrialization and bureaucratization. Furthermore, as successive waves of non-Protestant and non- Anglo-Saxon immigrant groups—”the more sordid and hapless elements” of southern Europe, as he described them elsewhere—congregated in the nation’s growing cities, Wilson, like other Protestant leaders of his day, feared that America’s democratic society stood on the verge of chaos. The very fabric of American society seemed to be ripping apart under the weight of ethnic and religious diversity. Like other educators of the day, Wilson envisioned the modern university’s playing a crucial role in ordering the nation’s business and political affairs and shaping the aspirations and values of the American people. A university education, Wilson explained, was “not for the majority who carry forward the common labor of the world” but for those who would lead the nation and mold the “sound sense and equipment of the rank and file.” The university’s task was twofold: “the production of a great body of informed and thoughtful men and the production of a small body of trained scholars and investigators.” The latter function gave the university a larger civic mission than a college. According to Wilson’s vision, Princeton would not train “servants of a trade or skilled practitioners of a profession.” By enlarging the minds of students and giving them a “catholic vision” of their social responsibilities, Princeton instead would cultivate “citizens” who would live under the “high law of duty.” “Every American university,” Wilson concluded, “must square its standards by that law or lack its national title.” Wilson’s inauguration appeared to confirm the New York Sun’s assessment of his election: “the secularization of our collegiate education grows steadily more complete.”
Effective Water Use—Irrigation
Authors: Keefer Robert F.
Published: November 2020

Soils that are suitable for irrigation are deep soils that are permeable and have a high available water-holding capacity (usually containing much organic matter). Limitations for irrigation include presence of restrictive layers (pans), erodible soils, sloping land, susceptibility to stream overflow, salinity or alkalinity, stoniness, and hazard of soil blowing. The amount of plant-available water in a soil depends on rooting depth and soil texture. Coarse textured sands hold much less available water than finer textured clayey soils. Available water increases as the texture becomes finer up to a silt loam. Any soil texture finer than that results in no additional increase in available water. In shallow soils, the rooting depth is limited by the soil depth. In deep soils, root depth is determined by the kind of plants present: . . . Trees and large shrubs 48 inches depth Medium shrubs and vines 40 inches depth Small shrubs and ground cover 24 inches depth . . . A number of techniques can be used to determine when water should be applied to soil in which plants are growing. These techniques include observing the plants, especially for wilting; feeling the soil; using tensiometers or electrical resistance meters installed in the soil; and measuring temperatures of plant leaves. Wilting—When plants begin to lose water they droop and wilting results. If plants remain in this condition very long, they soon die. It is better to water plants before they become wilted. Any plant that is wilted will require some time to reestablish its water equilibrium, thereby slowing the growth of that plant. The amount of moisture in a soil can be roughly estimated by the “feel method”. The degree of moisture can be determined by rolling or squeezing the soil into a ball. The soil moisture condition can be divided into six categories from dry to very wet: . . . a. If a ball will not form → soil is too dry for plants. b. If the ball formed will not crumble when rubbed → soil is too wet for plants. . . .
Cyclical Patterns of Human Population: Summary of Previous Research
Authors: Chu C. Y. Cyrus
Published: November 2020

According to Chesnais (1992), the fluctuation of human populations can be summarized into three broad categories: the pretransitional, transitional, and posttransitional cycles. In the pretransitional period before the Industrial Revolution, population fluctuations appear to reflect natural constraints of the environment. In more recent centuries, there were changes of the vital rates from high fertility-high mortality to low fertility-low mortality, which are referred to as demographic transitions. In this transitional period, because the decline of mortality usually leads that of fertility, fluctuations in the population age structure are a natural consequence of such a transition. After this transitional period, in many developed countries the mortality rate is stabilized, and female fertility becomes a typical family decision. Since family fertility decisions are related to other market institutions, the posttransitional population cycles have close interactions with these institutional elements. Although the population cycles can be separated into the three above-mentioned types, these cyclical movements share one common feature: the Malthusian environmental check always plays a direct or indirect role. In the next few chapters, I will discuss how the environmental checks interact with human decisions and institutions and how these interactions affect the cyclical movement of the population. Thomas Malthus argued that all populations are subject to environmental constraints and that these constraints operate through a variety of checks to population growth. If there are no such checks, we have a stationary branching process as described in chapters 2-6. In that case, the population will converge to a steady state under weak assumptions, and there are fluctuations only in the process of convergence. When there are environmental checks, the strength of the checks determines the speed with which the system tends toward equilibrium; this speed, relative to response lags that are intrinsic to the process, heavily influences the dynamic behavior of the economic-demographic system. When checks are weak, shocked populations tend to converge slowly without overshooting and to move in cycles one generation long (Lee, 1974). If checks arc stronger, overshooting may occur, and longer cycles of periodicity spanning two generations or more are possible, as population size and growth rates oscillate about their equilibrium values.
Population Dynamics in the Very Long Run
Authors: Chu C. Y. Cyrus
Published: November 2020

In the last chapter we reviewed the role of population in early economic development. In that ancient period, mortality was significantly affected by exogenous shocks such as famines, epidemics, floods, droughts, and various other direct or indirect environmental uncertainties, and parents’ preferences for children were by and large checked by natural constraints. Not until the last three centuries have human beings been able to make significant progress in hygiene and medical knowledge, progress which has facilitated the recent sharp increase in human population. In the twentieth century, the life expectancy of human beings in many areas of the world has more than doubled compared to the numbers two hundred years ago. Moreover, advanced radar facilities have been able to forecast extreme weather conditions, satellites are able to detect the locations of natural resources accurately, advanced agricultural technology makes barren land cultivable, and computers have also made possible many complex jobs. All these technological advances have increased the welfare of human beings and appear to have pushed back the exogenous constraints we face. As I mentioned in chapter 13, with the support of a sufficiently large population size, the division of labor becomes ever finer, and more and more labor can be devoted to the research and development sector, which in turn facilitates the various technological advances. These advanced technologies are endogenously determined by entrepreneurs, in sharp contrast to the situation in ancient times when the existing technology constituted the natural exogenous limit to population growth. As Romer (1990) pointed out, since knowledge has the nonrivalry property, the societal production technology (which embodies the available knowledge frontier) may naturally have the property of increasing returns with respect to physical resource inputs. As a result, the natural-resource carrying capacity constraint becomes relatively inessential. Then it seems that infinite economic growth can be compatible with any size of population without ever being restricted by exogenous checks. Some environmental economists have challenged the above optimistic prediction. They argue that economic development in fact has gradually damaged the environment and eventually will hurt the economy. Those challenges, however, have never been serious enough to fully counter the above-mentioned infinite-growth argument.
Material for a Synthesis
Authors: West-Eberhard Mary Jane
Published: November 2020

The inconsistencies discussed in chapter 1 point toward two fundamental problems in need of solution: how to relate the environmental influence inherent in phenotype development to the genetic emphasis of evolutionary theory—Lewontin’s dilemma—and how to view the diverse phenomena of plasticity and development so as to illuminate evolutionary thinking in new ways—Wallace’s challenge. This chapter briefly describes some important, previously recognized connections among phenotypic flexibility, development, and evolution. It then defines key concepts for the chapters that follow. Important contributions toward a synthesis of development and evolution have accumulated over a period of many years. Some insights appear repeatedly in that cycle of inspiration and amnesia that characterizes important discoveries ahead of their times (for a concise review, see Hall, 1992, pp. 171-174). Some of these insights deal with the phenomenology of development and evolution—evidence that certain behavioral and developmental phenomena have influenced evolution in particular groups or in particular ways. These ideas, long familiar to evolutionary biologists, are the starting points for any attempt at a modern synthesis. Each of them will reappear again in later chapters. It does not require great sophistication in biology to realize that juveniles and adults have distinctive, divergent adaptations. Familiar extreme examples are the caterpillar and the butterfly, the tadpole and the frog. In such metamorphosing species, the juvenile has a dramatically different morphology, behavior, and ecology from that of the adult. Some hypermetamorphic insects show a striking series of differently specialized larval stages, and it is probably true of most organisms that juveniles and adults have different, evolved characteristics appropriate to their different niches, if for no other reason than the different requirements for dispersal, respiration, feeding, and defense that confront individuals of differing size (Schmidt-Nielsen, 1984; see also McKinney and McNamara, 1991). As a corrolary of this, different life stages evolve semi-independently. Thus, immature stages may evolve and diversify, undergoing their own adaptive radiations. Many authors have been impressed with the conservatism of certain aspects of early development.
Darwin’s Theory of Development and Evolution
Authors: West-Eberhard Mary Jane
Published: November 2020

Biologists are fond of saying that Darwin was misled by an inadequate theory of inheritance—his the-ory of “pangenesis”—and that this was remedied by the rediscovery of Mendel’s experiments in 1900: . . . As long as no coherent theory of heredity existed, the basis of natural selection could not be understood. Darwin’s theory of pangenesis was an unfortunate anomaly. It was almost his only venture into the field of pure speculation. . . . One might speculate whether Darwin would have formulated his theory of pangenesis if he had been aware of Mendel’s experiments. (J. L. Stebbins, 1977, p. 14; see also, e.g., Mayr, 1963, p. 10; 1966, p. xxvi; Selander, 1972, p. 185) . . . I have argued that some aspects of development can be related to natural selection by visualizing the phenotype as a mosaic of semi-independent sub-units that are dissociated, recombined, lost, and recalled during evolution and that adaptive plasticity plays a role in evolutionary change. Darwin insisted on the same view in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), where he gave the most complete exposition of his ideas about development and evolution. In a section titled “The Functional Independence of the Elements or Units of the Body,” Darwin (1868a [1875a], p. 364) wrote that “the whole organism consists of a multitude of elemental parts, which are to a great extent independent of one another. Each organ . . . has its proper life, its autonomy; it can develop and reproduce itself [in descendent individuals] independently of the adjoining tissues” (p. 364). And, “[T]he body consists of a multitude of organic units, all of which possess their own proper attributes, and are to a certain extent independent of all others. Hence it will be convenient to use indifferently the terms cells or organic units, or simply units” (p. 366). Furthermore, Darwin insisted that an acceptable theory of inheritance had to include development: “Two distinct elements are included under the term ‘inheritance’—the transmission, and the development of characters; but as these generally go together, the distinction is often overlooked”.
Alternative Phenotypes as a Phase of Evolution
Authors: West-Eberhard Mary Jane
Published: November 2020

So far I have discussed two aspects of the origins of novel traits, their initiation and spread under selection (chapter 6), and their sources in preexisting, ancestral phenotypes (part II). This chapter addresses another aspect of origins, namely, that qualitative novelties must pass through an alternativephenotype phase during their evolution. If new traits first arise in single individuals and then increase in frequency, they automatically render their population polymorphic (Roth, 1991, p. 185). The four chapters of this section discuss the farreaching evolutionary consequences of this. The branching nature of development implies that a novel trait originates as a new branch in a previously existing developmental pathway (Oster and Alberch, 1982)—a new modular alternative to another, previously established one. The new trait may then evolve to fixation and persist alongside preexisting traits as a simultaneously expressed complementary form, representing an increase in complexity. Or it may be maintained indefinitely as a polymorphism or polyphenism, representing an increase in both complexity and developmental plasticity. Both kinds of new traits are modular subunits with the properties of dissociability and independent selection. Polyphenisms, polymorphisms, and alternative behavioral and life-history or physiological traits, collectively called alternative phenotypes (West- Eberhard, 1986), are of special interest for evolution because they are adaptive options of potentially great complexity that can come to characterize different phylogenetic lines. Alternatives permit the elaboration of a new trait without elimination of an established one, thereby facilitating the evolution of new adaptive specializations. They can represent a crucial phase in the evolution of discrete adaptive novelties, allowing macroevolutionary changes to occur via microevolutionary processes within species, and without disruption of preexisting adaptations (West-Eberhard, 1986, 1989; see chapter 29). They also set the stage for punctuated rates of change in quantitative traits (see chapter 30). The four chapters of part III describe the nature and evolution of alternative phenotypes themselves, as a prelude to showing their broad evolutionary significance. Alternative phenotypes are different traits expressed in the same life stage and population, more frequently expressed than traits considered anomalies or mutations, and not simultaneously expressed in the same individual (West-Eberhard, 1986).
Root System Architecture, Density, and Measurement
Authors: Tinker Peter B. , Nye Peter
Published: November 2020

The behaviour and properties of roots are central subjects in this book. A number of biochemical and physiological properties have already been described, for individual roots, in chapters 2, 5, 7, and 8. However, the macroscopic properties of root systems are of very great importance, to an extent that may not be immediately apparent from the point of view of the laboratory. These properties include the root/shoot ratio, the root system dimensions, its topological properties, and its distribution in the soil profile. The property of greatest practical importance is the way in which root length density (length per unit volume of soil) is distributed in the soil, because this defines the spatial limits to the efficiency of a root system in absorbing water and nutrients. For these reasons, we have collected material relating to root system properties here in a separate chapter. This may be particularly helpful to readers because there are very few single-part recent publications that deal with this subject. It appears logical to start with a discussion of how much root a plant possesses, its dependence upon the allocation of fixed carbon, and the efficiency with which this is used to form root tissue. Carbon is the basic currency of plants, and the way in which they distribute and use it is part of their growth strategy. The allocation of carbon in plants has been extensively researched within the above-ground part, but not the below-ground part, because of the difficult access to the root system, and the difficulty of separating the root, root surface and soil processes. It is important to understand the way in which carbon is allocated to both the root system as a whole, and then to the different parts of the root system, its symbiotic partners, exudates and other root products. Some broader issues are also relevant. Some of the carbon allocated to the root could be wasted, from the point of view of the plant or the farmer (Gregory 1994a).
Jews and the Criminalization of Madness
Authors: Goldberg Ann
Published: November 2020

Distinctions between delinquency and illness were ill-defined and problematic, as we have seen in the case of the masturbator Johann A. And it was precisely in this vague grey zone between the two that psychiatry was able to insert itself in defining a new mental pathology. The problem of deciphering the difference between delinquency/criminality and madness was further complicated and given a unique twist in the cases of Jewish patients, whose Jewishness (in the eyes of the asylum) was by definition a kind of criminality and immorality. Jewishness, in other words, represented a category of interpretation distinct from illness, one which, in turn, had become highly politicized in the debates about Jewish emancipation since the eighteenth century. Therefore, when race was used to interpret patient behavior, it constituted a form of thinking outside of the medical domain in the strictest sense. In this way, it was potentially at odds with the medical process, and could, as I will show in two case studies, function to prevent the asylum staff from seeing and treating patients as ill. This chapter thus examines the limits of the medicalization of deviancy— the points where, in contrast to the “illnesses” discussed heretofore (male masturbation, nymphomania, and religious madness), medicine pulled back, seeking explanations for the person in a framework outside of the terms of medicine. That extramedical framework drew from long-standing stereotypes of Jews as immoral and criminal; but it also had a more immediate source in a contemporary trope that united Jewishness and criminality in a social type: the jüdischer Gauner (Jewish crook). Such images of Jews had in turn become part of the political arsenal of those opposing Jewish emancipation on the grounds of an incorrigible Jewish “character.” My argument here runs counter to the few historical works on Jews and insanity, which, consistent with the medicalization thesis, have focused exclusively on the conflation of Jewishness and illness in medical theories. In part, this approach derives from their focus on the second half of the nineteenth century, where the conflation was indeed overwhelming, psychiatry and medicine (as well as other human sciences) having become saturated with racial and degeneration theories.