bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Surface and Groundwater Quality and Health, with a Focus on the United Kingdom
Authors: Neal Colin
Published: November 2020

Freshwater environments are of major importance to health issues in both direct (e.g., drinking water and sanitation) and indirect (e.g., industry, agriculture, and amenity/recreation) ways. However, water resources are finite, and, though renewable, demands have multiplied over the last 100 years due to escalating human populations and the growing requirements of industry and agriculture. Hence, there are increasing global concerns over the extent of present and future good quality water resources. As Gleick (1998) emphasizes: . . . ·Per-capita water demands are increasing, but percapita water availability is decreasing due to population growth and economic development. . . . . . . ·Half the world’s population lacks basic sanitation and more than a billion people lack potable drinking water; these numbers are rising. Incidences of some water-related diseases are rising. . . . . . . ·The per-capita amount of irrigated land is falling and competition for agricultural water is growing. . . . . . . ·Political and military tensions/conflicts over shared water resources are growing. . . . . . . ·A groundwater overdraft exists, the size of which is accelerating; groundwater supplies occur on every continent except Antarctica. . . . . . . ·Global climate change is evident, and the hydrological cycle will be seriously affected in ways that are only beginning to be understood. . . . The chemical composition of surface and groundwaters is influenced by a wide range of processes, some of which are outside the influence of humans while others are a direct consequence of anthropogenic pollution or changing of the environment. Starting with the range and nature of the processes involved, the changing nature of surface and groundwater quality is illustrated here, based on the evolution of the United Kingdom from a rural to an industrial and to a post- industrial society. The issue of what constitutes a health risk is outlined in relation to the pragmatic approaches required for environmental management. Surface and groundwater exhibit a wide range of chemical compositions, and, in ecosystems uninfluenced by humans, the range of compositions can vary considerably.
Breast and Prostate Cancer: Sources and Pathways of Endocrine-disrupting Chemicals
Authors: Plant Jane A. , Davis Devra L.
Published: November 2020

Cancers of the breast and prostate, which together with those of the ovaries, endometrium and testes are hormone-dependent, are among the most common forms of cancers affecting women and men respectively throughout the developed world (IARC VII 1997, Miller and Sharp 1998). The incidence of breast, prostate, and testicular cancers has risen dramatically in most European and North American countries and in Japan and Australasia since cancer registries were first compiled in the 1960s (WHO/IARC Web site). For instance, women and men born in Generation X in the U.S. and Europe today have twice the risk of developing breast and prostate cancer than their grandparents faced (Dinse et al. 1999). Several lines of evidence indicate that environmental factors, broadly conceived, may account for some of the recent changes in patterns of hormonally dependent cancers. Although rates are about 4 times lower in Asian countries than in European ones, they are increasing most rapidly in the former (Hoel et al. 1992). People who migrate tend to develop the cancer rate of their new countries. Studies of highly exposed workers consistently find that those working with certain plastics, organic solvents, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals tend to have higher risks of several hormonally dependent cancers (Davis and Muir 1995). Dietary factors can be involved in these patterns in two ways. Food constituents, such as dairy and animal protein products, can affect hormonal metabolism directly. In addition, foods can contain contaminants such as growth stimulating substances, pesticides, and packaging materials that can function as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). In the past decade, a number of major national and international reports have noted the possible role of EDCs for hormone-related illnesses including breast and prostate cancer, including the Weybridge report of the European Environment Agency of 1996 (EUR 17549 1997) and the Royal Society Report on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (Royal Soc. 2000). This chapter presents some recent information on the sources of EDCs in the environment, outlines mechanisms by which these materials can increase the risk of hormonally dependent cancers, and discusses insights from geochemistry that may be pertinent to this work.
Geochemistry and Vertebrate Bones
Authors: Skinner H. , Catherine W.
Published: November 2020

The human body has been a focus of attention for thousands of years. The ancients wished to mummify it to assure transposition to the life hereafter. Today we expend a lot of effort and money to forestall the effects of aging of such a complicated machine. The mineralized portion of the body, the skeleton, is the most permanent portion of the body and records the basic size and shape of the individual. Underscoring the wish for properly functioning bones and teeth, we today have a medical ‘spare parts’ industry that provides substitute knees, hips, or an entire denture. The need to accomplish these implants/transplants successfully has aligned physicians and dentists with cell and molecular biologists, materials scientists, bioengineers, and mineralogists. All wish to create faithful replicas of the mineralized parts, but any substitutes must be in harmony with the internal dynamic biochemical environment, and be part of a viable functioning skeleton. The general health of every human is a response to the local, regional, and global environment. The interaction noted in the scientific literature almost 50 years ago (Warren 1954) continues (Hopps and Cannon 1972, Ross and Skinner 1994). There is burgeoning interest as many scientists, with ever increasing abilities to detect and measure extremely small amounts of certain elemental species or potentially hazardous substances, focus on the relationships of the environment and health. The roles of the skeletal mineral substance as a participant and faithful recorder in this crossover are outlined here. “Bone” can refer to any one of the more than 200 individual organs with distinctive shapes that make up every human skeleton or to the tissue that is present in each of these organs. The tissues of bone, and teeth, are composites of organic matrix, mineral matter, and specialized cells (Skinner 1987, Albright and Skinner 1987). The cells not only form but also maintain, reconstruct, and repair the bone tissues as required. Cells known as osteoblasts produce a protein and polysaccharide matrix in and on which mineral is deposited. The cells become embedded in this extracellular mineralized matrix but continue to assist and sustain the viability of their products.
Minerals in Human Blood Vessels and Their Dissolution in Vitro
Authors: Pawlikowski Maciej
Published: November 2020

Cardiovascular disease knows no ethnic, national, or geographic boundaries. Men and women throughout the world can become affected by the obstruction of their arteries by cholesterol and the mineral hydroxylapatite (HA).This complex process leads to dysfunction of the arterial system and, because of the necessity of circulation of oxygenated blood, it also affects many tissues and organs. The whole process of occlusion (mineralization of the blood vessels), including precipitation and inorganic crystal formation, takes place in stages. The first stages are thought to involve cholesterol deposits (atherosclerotic plaque formation) in the interior of the vessel walls, or “intima,” as it is known. The formation of hydroylapatite, or “calcification,” begins with the attraction and localization of ions, mainly Ca2+ and PO43+, within the arteries. The vessels become altered and lose their suppleness, effectively interfering with their function as conduits for the blood (Pawlikowski 1986, 1991a,b, 1993, Pawlikowski et al. 1994). The initial stages of deposition can be detected with sensitive physical and chemical methods in vivo and with traditional laboratory methods and techniques on excised samples. In the mineralization stage, grains and crystals may become visible on heart valves as well as in the aortic tissue. (Pawlikowski and Pfitzner 1995,1999), and the new compounds can be identified using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Reasons for the destruction of tissues and the nucleation of minerals can be attributed to allodefects and autodefects. Autodefects in vessels are those attributable to abnormalities in the component tissues in the wall or pre-existing physical conditions. For example, at arterial bifurcations, intense local trauma from the flowing blood fluid might cause changes in those regions and attract cirulating ions. Autodefects are the result of reactions between biological tissues and foreign materials, such as small particles (dust) of all sorts, including bacteria or minerals that have been inhaled and travelled from the lungs via the blood into vessels throughout the body. Alternatively, allodefects may arise from poisons produced by bacteria and viruses during infections, or by other and various chemical products, such as food preservatives, that might be part of the circulating blood.
The Political Geography of Conflict : Civil Wars in the Hegemonic Shadow
Authors: O’loughlin John
Published: November 2020

The attack by the United States on Iraq in March 2003 was atypical of contemporary conflicts. While the attempt to kill Saddam Hussein on March 19 marked the opening of hostilities and was broadcast worldwide instantaneously, a much more destructive conflict that had raged for five years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued to receive hardly any notice. The war to depose the Hussein regime resulted in fewer than 12,000 dead (122 U.S. and U.K. troops, 6,000–7,000 civilians, and about 5,000 Iraqi military casualties). The civil wars in the Congo (formerly Zaire) since 1998 have resulted in 3.1 to 4.7 million dead, with 250,000 killed in the fighting near Bunia (eastern Congo) in 2002–2003. Conflict directly caused 300,000 deaths worldwide in 2000, more than half of them in Africa. Conflict directly accounts for 0.5% of all global deaths; the indirect effects are significantly larger. These gruesome comparative statistics on casualties illustrate well the main themes of this chapter about post–Cold War conflicts. First, contemporary wars are disproportionately civil conflicts; only a handful of interstate wars have occurred in the last decade. Second, the United States has been disproportionately involved in both interstate and civil wars, either directly by attacking another country (Panama in 1989, Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003) or indirectly by supporting governments that are under pressure from rebels (e.g., Haiti, Pakistan, Colombia, Israel, Turkey, the Philippines, Macedonia, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia). Third, civil wars are lasting longer than ever before; the average length is now eight years. Fourth, civil wars are much more destructive of life and property than interstate wars, partly because international structures and rules are either unavailable or ignored. More mechanisms exist to resolve interstate disputes. Fifth, overwhelming U.S. military power and a growing disparity with its opponents have resulted increasingly in asymmetric use of force and “risk-transfer wars.” Tiny U.S. casualties stand in sharp contrast to large numbers of civilian and military deaths in the countries under attack. The gap is expected to grow as U.S. military expenditures soon equal those of all other countries combined and new high-tech weaponry is rushed into production.
Landscapes of Drugs and War : Intersections of Political Ecology and Global Conflict
Authors: Steinberg Michael K. , Mathewson Kent
Published: November 2020

The maxim of the moment and for the new millennium (at least for now) is that “after 9/11 the world changed.” Focused, amplified, and projected by the media, the September 2001 events have echoed with an apparent immensity and a rending of the global geopolitical fabric that merit comparison with Waterloo in June 1815 and Sarajevo in June 1914. In each case, an epoch is said to have ended, the first by conventional battle in concert with peace conventions that ended several decades of global conflict, the latter two with acts of terrorism that precipitated global wars of vastly differing intensities and probable durations. Each of these turning points in global history has, of course, its own character, dynamics, and contexts, which largely transcend the narrower episodes and scenes that constitute the intersections of drugs, war, and peace. Nevertheless, one of the persistent and little-noticed elements in the history and geography of warfare during the past half millennium has been the role played by psychoactive substances. With the exception of the Sino-British Opium Wars (1830s–1840s), drugs as aids or obstacles, let alone causal factors, of war have been largely overlooked. Yet even a cursory overview, as presented here, should establish the contours of a topic that merits in-depth attention. Here we have only the space to point to some key instances and promising case studies. Future researchers may find these useful points of departure. The three pivotal events noted earlier, plus October 1492 as the antecedent and fourth key moment, mark a fivefold periodization that provides a convenient way of framing the differing historical relations between drugs and warfare. Prior to Europe’s transatlantic expansion and the coeval eruption of capitalism across the globe, the varying articulations between drugs and war were largely local, individual, and particular. With the rise of long-distance trade networks structured by mercantile capitalism, prime commodities such as sugar and tropical spices launched European-based empires and provoked wars from the East Indies to the West Indies, as well as points north and south.
The Geography of Diplomacy
Authors: Henrikson Alan K.
Published: November 2020

Why do diplomatic encounters—international meetings of all kinds, including major international conferences—occur where they do? What are the reasons for and what may be the effects of the selection of one meeting site rather than another for discussions between nations? The focus of attention, for diplomats themselves as well as for scholars of diplomacy, usually has been on the participants, on their instructions and interests, on their tactics and strategies, on the interplay of these in actual negotiation, and on the outcomes of the process in terms of formal agreement and other results. The fascination of diplomacy is thought to lie in the “foreground”—that is, the dynamics of the meeting itself. The physical setting, including the geographic location, of diplomatic encounters tends to be taken for granted. The purpose of this chapter is not to propose that this emphasis be reversed, but rather to suggest that the question of where diplomacy takes place is of much greater significance than is generally appreciated. Moreover, it is to suggest that the selection of a diplomatic venue—the physical location and surrounding environment—is not entirely free or a matter of arbitrary choice. Territorial and other factors, including the history of diplomacy, work to produce a field, or geography, of diplomacy that conditions and can even constrain the choice of site and setting. On one level, the issues involved in what here is called “the geography of diplomacy” are pragmatic in nature and sometimes can be the primary ones. The “where” question is often the first one to be considered. “Site selection, in fact, is always an important decision in negotiation,” as the analysts of negotiation Jeswald Salacuse and Jeffrey Rubin point out. “Parties frequently negotiate long and hard about where they are to meet long before they sit down to discuss what they will negotiate. The reason for this concern is that disputants almost always assume— and with good reason—that the particular location in which they negotiate will have consequences for the ensuing process and, ultimately, its results.”
Hypothesis Testing
Authors: Hibbert D. Brynn , Gooding J. Justin
Published: November 2020

• To understand the concept of the null hypothesis and the role of Type I and Type II errors. • To test that data are normally distributed and whether a datum is an outlier. • To determine whether there is systematic error in the mean of measurement results. • To perform tests to compare the means of two sets of data.… One of the uses to which data analysis is put is to answer questions about the data, or about the system that the data describes. In the former category are ‘‘is the data normally distributed?’’ and ‘‘are there any outliers in the data?’’ (see the discussions in chapter 1). Questions about the system might be ‘‘is the level of alcohol in the suspect’s blood greater than 0.05 g/100 mL?’’ or ‘‘does the new sensor give the same results as the traditional method?’’ In answering these questions we determine the probability of finding the data given the truth of a stated hypothesis—hence ‘‘hypothesis testing.’’ A hypothesis is a statement that might, or might not, be true. Usually the hypothesis is set up in such a way that it is possible to calculate the probability (P) of the data (or the test statistic calculated from the data) given the hypothesis, and then to make a decision about whether the hypothesis is to be accepted (high P) or rejected (low P). A particular case of a hypothesis test is one that determines whether or not the difference between two values is significant—a significance test. For this case we actually put forward the hypothesis that there is no real difference and the observed difference arises from random effects: it is called the null hypothesis (H0). If the probability that the data are consistent with the null hypothesis falls below a predetermined low value (say 0.05 or 0.01), then the hypothesis is rejected at that probability. Therefore, p<0.05 means that if the null hypothesis were true we would find the observed data (or more accurately the value of the statistic, or greater, calculated from the data) in less than 5% of repeated experiments.
Method Validation
Authors: Hibbert D. Brynn
Published: November 2020

Many aspects of a chemical analysis must be scrutinized to ensure that the product, a report containing the results of the analysis, fulfills the expectations of the client. One of the more fundamental factors is the analytical method itself. How was it chosen? Where does it come from? When a laboratory is faced with a problem requiring chemical analysis, there may be set methods described in a standard operating procedure, but often the analyst might have to make a choice among methods. For the majority of analytical methods used in field laboratories, there is neither the expertise nor the inclination to start from scratch and reinvent the wheel. The analyst wants a method that can be implemented in his or her laboratory. Compilations of methods that have been evaluated do exist and have the imprimatur of international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Failing this, the scientific literature abounds in potential methods that have the recommendation of the authors, but may not always be as suitable as claimed. This chapter has two aims: to demonstrate the necessity of using properly validated and verified methods and to explain what constitutes a validated method, and to provide an introduction to method validation for in-house methods. There is an abundance of published material that defines, describes, and generally assists with method validation, some of which is referenced here (Burgess 2000; Christensen et al. 1995; EURACHEM 1998; Fajgelj and Ambrus 2000; Green 1996; Hibbert 2005; ICH 1995, 1996; LGC 2003; Thompson et al. 2002; USP 1999; Wood 1999). “Method validation” is a term used for the suite of procedures to which an analytical method is subjected to provide objective evidence that the method, if used in the manner specified, will produce results that conform to the statement of the method validation parameters. Like many aspects quality assurance, method validation is of a relative nature. As with the concept of fitness for purpose, a method is validated for a particular use under particular circumstances. If those circumstances vary, then the method would need to be re-validated at least for the differences.
Agricultural Drought and Its Monitoring and Prediction: Some Concepts
Authors: Boken Vijendra K.
Published: November 2020

Droughts develop largely due to below-average precipitation over a land area, and they adversely affect various economic sectors in a region. Some of these adverse effects include reductions in agricultural production, hydropower generation, urban and rural water supplies, and industrial outputs. These effects lead to other consequences, secondary and tertiary, that further impact an economy. For instance, when agricultural production declines, food and other commodities tend to cost more and cause economic inflation in a society. Chain effects of persistent droughts can shatter an economy and even cause famine and sociopolitical upheaval in some countries. How does one define a drought? Usually, either precipitation or a form of drought impact is used to define a drought. Because precipitation and drought impacts vary spatially, there is a geographical dimension to definitions of drought. In Saudi Arabia or Libya, droughts are recognized after two to three years without significant rainfall, whereas in Bali (Indonesia), any period of six days or more without rain is considered drought (Dracup et al., 1980; Sen, 1990). In Egypt, any year in which the Nile does not flood is considered a drought year. More than 150 definitions of drought are available in the literature (Gibbs, 1975; Krishnan, 1979; Dracup et al., 1980; Wilhite and Glantz, 1987). For example, a drought can be characterized as climatological, meteorological, water management, socioeconomic, absolute, partial, dry spell, serious, severe, multiyear, design, critical, point, or regional (Palmer, 1965; Herbst et al., 1966; Joseph, 1970a, 1970b; Askew et al., 1971; Beard and Kubik, 1972; Karl, 1983; Santos, 1983; Alley, 1984; Chang, 1990). Often, the difference between an estimated water demand and an expected water supply in a region becomes the basis to define a drought for that region (Kumar and Panu, 1997). A few of the chapters in this book provide a brief description of drought definitions that have been adopted in some countries. Despite the variation in drought definitions, a drought is broadly categorized as meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or socioeconomic. A meteorological drought is said to occur when seasonal or annual precipitation falls below its long-term average.
Monitoring Drought Using Coarse Resolution Polar-Orbiting Satellite Data
Authors: Anyamba Assaf , Tucker Compton J.
Published: November 2020

There are two distinct categories of remotely sensed data: satellite data and aerial data or photographs. Unlike aerial photographs, satellite data have been routinely available for most of the earth’s land areas for more than two decades and therefore are preferred for reliably monitoring global vegetation conditions. Satellite data are the result of reflectance, emission, and/or back scattering of electromagnetic energy from earth objects (e.g., vegetation, soil, and water). The electromagnetic spectrum is very broad, and only a limited range of wavelengths is suitable for earth resource monitoring and applications. The gaseous composition (O2, O3, CO2, H2O, etc.) of the atmosphere, along with particulates and aerosols, cause significant absorption and scattering of electromagnetic energy over some regions of the spectrum. This restricts remote sensing of the earth’s surface to certain “atmospheric windows,” or regions in which electromagnetic energy can pass through the atmosphere with minimal interference. Some such windows include visible, infrared, shortwave, thermal, and microwave ranges of the spectrum. The shortwave-infrared (SWIR) wavelengths are sensitive to moisture content of vegetation, whereas the thermal-infrared region is useful for monitoring and detecting plant canopy stress and for modeling latent and sensible heat fluxes. Thermal remote sensing imagery is acquired both during the day and night, and it measures the emitted energy from the surface, which is related to surface temperatures and the emissivity of surface materials. This chapter focuses on the contribution of visible and infrared wavelengths to global drought monitoring, and chapter 6 discusses visible, infrared, and thermal wave contributions. Under microwave windows, the satellite data can be divided into two categories: active microwave and passive microwave. Chapters 7 and 8 describe applications of passive and active microwave remote sensing to drought monitoring, respectively. Early use of satellite data was pioneered by the Landsat series originally known as the Earth Resource Technology Satellite (ERTS; http://landsat7. usgs.gov/index.php). Landsat was the first satellite specifically designed for broad-scale observation of the earth’s land surface.
NOAA/AVHRR Satellite Data-Based Indices for Monitoring Agricultural Droughts
Authors: Kogan Felix N.
Published: November 2020

Operational polar-orbiting environmental satellites launched in the early 1960s were designed for daily weather monitoring around the world. In the early years, they were mostly applied for cloud monitoring and for advancing skills in satellite data applications. The new era was opened with the series of TIROS-N launched in 1978, which has continued until present. These satellites have such instruments as the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and the TIROS operational vertical sounder (TOVS), which included a microwave sounding unit (MSU), a stratospheric sounding unit (SSU), and high-resolution infrared radiation sounder/2 (HIRS/2). These instruments helped weather forecasters improve their skills. AVHRR instruments were also useful for observing and monitoring earth surface. Specific advances were achieved in understanding vegetation distribution. Since the late 1980s, experience gained in interpreting vegetation conditions from satellite images has helped develop new applications for detecting phenomenon such as drought and its impacts on agriculture. The objective of this chapter is to introduce AVHRR indices that have been useful for detecting most unusual droughts in the world during 1990–2000, a decade identified by the United Nations as the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction. Radiances measured by the AVHRR instrument onboard National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellites can be used to monitor drought conditions because of their sensitivity to changes in leaf chlorophyll, moisture content, and thermal conditions (Gates, 1970; Myers, 1970). Over the last 20 years, these radiances were converted into indices that were used as proxies for estimating various vegetation conditions (Kogan, 1997, 2001, 2002). The indices became indispensable sources of information in the absence of in situ data, whose measurements and delivery are affected by telecommunication problems, difficult access to environmentally marginal areas, economic disturbances, and political or military conflicts. In addition, indices have advantage over in situ data in terms of better spatial and temporal coverage and faster data availability. The AVHRR-based indices used for monitoring vegetation can be divided into two groups: two-channel indices, and three-channel indices.
Agricultural Drought in North-Central Mexico
Authors: Alfredo Rodríguez-Pineda José , Giddings Lorrain
Published: November 2020

Drought is the most significant natural phenomenon that affects the agriculture of northern Mexico. The more drought-prone areas in Mexico fall in the northern half of the country, in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes (figure 10.1). The north-central states form part of the Altiplanicie Mexicana and account for 30.7% of the national territory of 1,959,248 km2. This area is characterized by dry and semidry climates (Garcia, 1981) and recurrent drought periods. The climate of Mexico varies from very dry to subhumid. Very dry climate covers 21%, dry climate covers 28%, and temperate subhumid and hot subhumid climates prevail in 21% and 23% of the national territory, respectively. About 20 years ago, almost 75% of Mexico’s agricultural land was rainfed, and only 25% irrigated (Toledo et al., 1985), making the ratio of rainfed to irrigated area equal to 3. However, for the northern states this ratio was 3.5 during the 1990–98 period (table 10.1). Because of higher percentage of rain-fed agriculture, drought is a common phenomenon in this region, which has turned thousands of hectares of land into desert. Though the government has built dams, reservoirs, and other irrigation systems to alleviate drought effects, rain-fed agriculture (or dryland farming) remains the major form of cultivation in Mexico. In Mexico, there is no standard definition for agricultural drought. However, the Comisión Nacional del Agua (CNA; i.e., National Water Commission), which is a federal agency responsible for making water policies, has coined its own definition for drought. This agency determines whether a particular region has been affected by drought, by studying rainfall records collected from the national climatic network. The national climatic network is spread throughout the country and is managed by the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (SMN; i.e., National Meteorological Services). The CNA determines, for a municipal region, if the rainfall is equal to or less than one standard deviation from the long-term mean over a time period of two or more consecutive months. If it is, then the secretary of state declares drought for the region.
Harnessing Radio and Internet Systems to Monitor and Mitigate Agricultural Droughts in Rural African Communities
Authors: Bandason Tsitsi
Published: November 2020

Humankind has not yet discovered a way to prevent drought entirely. Hence, the provision of timely and accurate climate and weather information can help rural and semiurban producers to better prepare for and mitigate the effects of insufficient precipitation (IRI, 2001). Communicating drought information to remote rural populations, however, has been a major challenge in Africa (Stern and Easterling, 1999). Seasonal rainfall forecasts, precipitation, and stream flow monitoring products, key environmental information, and even lifesaving early warnings are commonly trapped in the information bottleneck of Africa’s capital cities, due to the relative lack of infrastructure in rural areas (Glantz, 2001). Without access to reliable communication networks, the majority of Africa’s farmers and herders are cut off from the scientific and technological advances that support agricultural decision-making in other parts of the world. Before the proliferation of radios, cell phones, and televisions, Africans used local methods—interpreting wind speed and direction, cloud formations, vegetation, and insect and bird migrations, for example—to predict weather patterns and the advent or cessation of precipitation. This chapter describes a Radio and Internet (RANET; http://www.ranetproject.net) system for communicating drought information to the rural communities in Niger and Uganda. This system was developed under a disaster mitigation program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The need for a drought communications system tailored to the realities of rural Africa was initially communicated to the director of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD; http:// www.acmad.ne) by a nomad in the desert of southeastern Algeria when he declined the gift of a radio offered by the young meteorologist researching desert locusts near Djanet. The nomad did agree that information was vital to his survival. “Just tell me where it has rained. I will know where to take my flocks” (personal communication with Boulahya, Hirir, Algeria, February 1988). He explained that he was familiar with every rise and fall of the terrain and would lead his animals every rainy season to meet the water as it flowed in streams to form pools at low spots in the landscape.
Monitoring and Managing Agricultural Drought in India
Authors: Rao A.S. , Boken Vijendra K.
Published: November 2020

Agriculture is the mainstay of more than 70% of India’s more than 1 billion population. Indian agriculture is predominantly rain-fed and depends on the spatial and temporal distribution of rains from southwest (June– September) and northeast (October–December) monsoons. A monsoon refers to seasonal alteration of atmospheric flow. The Indian subcontinent is predominantly characterized by a tropical monsoon climate, where climatic regimes are governed by rainfall rather than by temperature. The southwest monsoon accounts for 70–90% of the annual rainfall. The Technical Committee on Drought Prone Areas Program (DPAP) and the Desert Development Program (DDP) identified about 120 million ha of the country’s land spread in 185 districts as drought prone (DPAP/DDP,1994). Though the country as a whole receives an average annual rainfall of 1100 mm, the arid regions receive between 100 and 500 mm, and semiarid regions receive between 350 and 1500 mm of rainfall. Arid and semiarid regions of the country experience frequent droughts. The arid region in Rajasthan state produces 76% of pearl millet production of the country, but the average productivity is only 267 kg/ha for the whole of Rajasthan compared to 452 kg/ha for the country. Drought frequency is once in 2.5 years in arid zones and once in 4 years in semiarid regions (table 23.1). India experienced droughts in 1792, 1804, 1812–13, 1833–34, 1838– 39, 1848–49, 1850–51, 1853–54, 1868–69, 1877, 1891, 1896, 1899, 1905, 1911, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1941, 1951, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1999, and 2000. A higher frequency of drought occurred during 1891 –20, 1965–90, 1997 –2000, and 2002. The main food crops affected by drought are rice, wheat, pearl millet, sorghum, and pegion pea that are grown during southwest monsoon season under rain-fed conditions. Legumes and pulses, which are short-duration crops, are less affected. Persistent droughts cause crop failures and lead to acute shortage of food, fodder, and water (for drinking or irrigation), affecting human and livestock health. During drought years, people and livestock in the arid parts of Rajasthan migrate to neighboring states in search of food, fodder, drinking water, and employment.
Monitoring Agricultural Drought in China
Authors: Tian Guoliang , Boken Vijendra K.
Published: November 2020

Droughts account for more than half of the total number of natural disasters faced by China. Serious droughts impact industrial production, water supply, people’s lives, and the ecological environment, which causes significant losses to the national economy. Because of increasing water shortages, drought has become one of the most important factors that limits agricultural production, especially in the north where droughts occur frequently. According to the Chinese terminology, if reduction in crop yields in an area is more than three-tenths of the average, the area is called a “damaged area,” and if the reduction is more than eight-tenths, the area is declared a “nonyield area” (Lu and Yang, 1992; State Statistical Bureau, 1996; Chen, 2000). Drought has been the most serious natural disaster in Chinese history. Serious droughts occurred more than 1000 times from 206 B.C. to 1949 A.D. (Zhang, 1990; Li and Lin, 1993), or once about every two years. Over the years, the eastern part of China has become more drought prone. Drought impacts have lessened since 1949 because the government has improved irrigation facilities. Nevertheless, agricultural production is still affected by drought because yields of most crops depend on weather conditions. Figure 28.1 shows the yearly variation in the total area affected by droughts since 1949. The most serious droughts occurred during the 1960s and the 1970s, and drought area has gradually increased. Although serious drought occurred during 1978–79, droughts were mild during 1970–77. The droughts always damaged a greater area than did floods in a decade. Figure 28.2 presents the spatial distribution of droughts from 1951 to 1991. In particular, four regions were identified where the frequency of drought was significantly high (Li and Lin, 1993): (1) Huanghuaihai region in the North China Plain, (2) Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, and Shaanxi provinces, (3) the coastal south China, in particular the coastal area in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, and (4) the southwestern part of southwest China, mainly the southern part of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.
John H. Holland, Facetwise Models, and Economy of Thought
Authors: Goldberg David E.
Published: November 2020

Noted complex adaptive system researcher John H. Holland now receives acclaim from many quarters, but it is important to understand that this man and his ideas have been controversial since the beginning of his career. Genetic algorithms (GAs) were ignored or disparaged throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and even now, as these and his other ideas receive worldwide recognition in broad outline, the specifics of his mode of thought and insight are rejected by many who claim to embrace his key insights. This is a mistake. I have known John Holland for 23 years, and I have learned many things from him, but a critical influence has been his style of thought, in particular, his style of modeling. John has an uncanny knack of getting to the heart of a matter through the construction of what I call little models. Sometimes these models are verbal, sometimes they are mathematical, but they almost always shed a great deal of light on some nagging question in the analysis and design of complex systems. In this chapter, I propose to briefly explore John Holland's style of little modeling, and better understand its nature, its essence, and why some of those who embrace the broad outlines of his teaching have been slow to embrace the details of his modeling and the style of his thought. The exploration begins by recalling my own first impressions of John Holland and his style of thought, impressions made 23 years ago in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It continues with a case study in Holland-style facetwise model building in constructing a takeover time model. It continues by integrating the takeover time model with a model of innovation on dimensional grounds. Finally, the Hollandian mode of model building is placed on intellectual terra firma with an economic argument, suggesting that the costs of modeling or thought must be weighed in relation to the model's benefits in understanding or designing a complex system.
Had We But World Enough and Time...
Authors: Selfridge Oliver G.
Published: November 2020

This chapter will cover a general discussion of changes and improvement in software systems. Nearly all such systems are today programmed; that is, all the steps that the software should perform are specified ahead of time by the programmer. There are three areas of exception to that overwhelmingly usual practice: the first is an increasing (although still comparatively minute) effort still called machine learning; a second is a popular but ill-defined practice termed neural networks; and the third is evolutionary computation (or genetic algorithms), the kind that was invented by John Holland and which has been gathering momentum and success for some time. This chapter will focus on some special aspects of that evolutionary process, and we propose extensions to those techniques and approaches. The basic idea is to regard each evolutionary unit as a control structure; we then build complexity by controlling each unit with others, each subject to continuing adaptation and learning. The essence of the control unit is its triple soul in a kind of feedback loop: it has a power to act, that is, to exert some choice of action; it has a sensor to perceive and filter the response that is external to it; and it must evaluate that response to generate and influence its next control action. The general evolutionary or genetic system uses but a single evolutionary feedback—life on earth, for example, considers "survival" as its primary feedback. Here the generational improvements reside in the genotype, and are merely expressed in the individual organisms that are the successive programs. This chapter stresses the concept of control by evolving units; the essence of the control is the establishment of evaluation functions in other units. It is then useful to consider each evaluation function as a lower-level purpose. A piece of evolutionary software, in this way of looking at it, is then a complex expression of a purpose structure, and all the units evolve with separate and usually different purposes. The conceptual and linguistic vocabularies must then be established to deal with the many different kinds and levels of purposes. Higher-level purposes can be as general as moral values, and the lowest ones may be merely setpoints that control where muscles or motors are trying to go.
Favored Places in the Selfish Herd: Trading OS Food and Security
Authors: Low Bobbi S. , Finkbeiner Douglas
Published: November 2020

A key element in John Holland's approach to the study of complex adaptive systems has been the emergence of interesting macro-level phenomena from a number of simple rules at the micro level. Hamilton, an early member of the BACH brainstorming group that Holland thanks in his introduction to Emergence, used this approach to show that group formation could emerge naturally from individuals' "concerns" over predation in a one-dimensional environment. In this chapter, we use Holland's approach to extend Hamilton's study to include food competition, along with predation, in a two-dimensional world. In the spirit of Holland's approach, we combine empirical data, mathematical modeling, and computer simulation to understand more completely the behaviors that emerge at the group level from individual activities. Group living over extended time entails automatic and substantial costs: disease and parasite transmission, and constant competition for resources. It will, thus, evolve only when specific benefits outweigh the automatic costs [1, 4, 14, 16, 24, 26, 29, 35]. Yet many animals group together, under a variety of conditions. Determining the functionally important costs and benefits in any case is important, but often difficult. Hamilton's seminal paper "Geometry for the Selfish Herd" [4] used a functionally one-dimensional model in which extremely simple rules generated grouping: in a one-dimensional system with a random predator, a prey's domain of danger (the arc in which it was the individual closest to the predator) was reduced by having neighbors. Empirical work since has suggested a variety of particular ways in which heightened safety might arise; these are neither true alternatives, nor easy to distinguish empirically. Other benefits proposed have been: increased foraging efficiency under specified circumstances (i.e., patchily distributed food that is neither consumable nor economically defensible), and for fish, possibly efficiency of movement generated by use of vortices (see Parrish and Hamner [25] for a recent review). Here we examine groups of fish to focus our discussion of the costs and benefits of grouping in fish "congregations" [27]. Congregations typically (1) have distinct edges and relatively uniform densities, and (2) can show alignment and coordinated movement of individuals ("schooling" in fish).
Cognition: The Black Box of Economics
Authors: Arthur W. Brian
Published: November 2020

John Holland's ideas have always been marked by a deep instinct for the real—for what works. Thus, in his design of computer algorithms, he avoids mathematical formalisms and goes instead to deeper sources—to mechanisms drawn from biology. In his investigation of human cognitive thinking, he avoids frameworks based on deduction, logic, and choices over closed sets; and goes instead to induction, generative creation, and choices over open-ended possibilities. Running through all Holland's work, in fact, is an instinct for the generative and for the open-ended. Holland's worlds are ones where new entities are constantly created to be tested in the environment, and where these are not drawn from any closed and labeled collection of predetermined possibilities. This makes his science algorithmic rather than analytical, evolutionary rather than equilibriumbased, and novelty-generating rather than static. It makes his science, in a word, realistic. Insofar as the standard sciences are analytical, equilibrium-based, and nongenerative in their possibilities, Holland's thinking offers them a different approach. Here I want to see what a John Holland approach has to offer economics. My involvement with Holland's ideas began in the late summer of 1987. He and I were the first Visiting Fellows of the newly formed Santa Fe Institute, and we shared a house. I had taken up Holland's fascination with evolutionary algorithms, and, by 1988, John and I were attempting to design what was to become the first artificial stock market. It took me some time to realize that John Holland had thought deeply about a great deal more than evolutionary algorithms, and that he had interesting ideas also in psychology. Over the next thirteen years, I found myself applying Holland's thinking about cognition to problems within economics. At first it appeared that Holland's approach—based largely on induction—applied best to specific problems, and I tried to think of the simplest possible problem in economics that would illustrate the need for induction. The result was my El Farol bar problem. Later I began to realize that economics does not need inductive approaches to specific problems as much as it needs to reexamine the foundations of its assumptions about decision making.