bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Biocomputation in Ciliates
Authors: Kari Lila , Landweber Laura F.
Published: November 2020

Ciliates are unicellular protists that may have arisen more than a billion years ago. They have since diverged into thousands of species, many uncharacterized, the genetic divergence among ciliates being at least as deep as that between plants and animals. Despite their diversity, ciliates are united by two common features; the presence of short threads called cilia on their surface, whose rhythmic beating causes movement and is also useful for food capture, and the presence of two types of nuclei. The macronucleus contains DNA encoding functional copies of all the genes that regulate vegetative growth and cell proliferation. The micronucleus contains encrypted versions of the macronuclear DNA, is mostly functionally inert, and is only used for sexual exchange of DNA. In this chapter we study the decryption of the macronuclear DNA from a computational perspective. When two cells mate, they exchange micronuclear information. After they separate, the old micronuclei and macronuclei degenerate, while the newly formed micronuclei develop into new macronuclei over hours or days, depending on the species. Few ciliates have so far been studied at the level of molecular genetics: Tetrahymena and Paramecium representing the Oligohymenophorans and Oxytricha (recently renamed Sterkiella), and Stylonichia and Euplotes representing Spirotrichs. The DNA molecule in each of the approximately 120 chromosomes in the micronucleus contains on average approximately 107 basepairs (bp) in Oxytricha species and approximately 18 × 106 bp in Stylonichia lemn. The size of the DNA molecules in the macronucleus is, in contrast, very small. In various Oxytricha species and S. lemnae, macronuclear DNA molecules range in size from 400 to 15,000 bp with most molecules in the 1000–8000 bp range. Macronuclear DNA sequences are derived from the micronuclear sequences through a series of DNA rearrangements as follows. The segments that together constitute a macronuclear sequence (macronuclear destined sequences or MDSs) are present as sub-sequences in the micronuclear DNA. However, in the micronuclear DNA, MDSs are interspersed with long DNA sequences (internal eliminated sequences or IESs) that are excised in the micronucleus to macronucleus differentiation.
Background
Authors: Kimbel William H. , Rak Yoel , Johanson Donald C. , Holloway Ralph L. , Yuan Michael S.
Published: November 2020

Australopithecus afarensis is a fossil hominin species known from at least four East African Rift Valley sites ranging from northern Ethiopia in the north to northern Tanzania in the south and bridging the time period between approximately 3.6 and 3.0 million years ago (Ma). First identified in the late 1970s as the bipedal but craniodentally apelike rootstock from which later Australopithecus and Homo evolved (Johanson et al., 1978; Johanson and White, 1979), A. afarensis constituted the first substantial record of unequivocal human ancestors older than 3.0 million years (Myr). An array of more recently made discoveries have placed A. afarensis in a pivotal position in early hominin phylogeny, bracketed in time between, on the one hand, two temporally successive species, A. anamensis and Ardipithecus ramidus, that jointly extend the hominin record back to 4.4 Ma (M. Leakey et al., 1995, 1998; White et al., 1994, 1995), and, on the other hand, the earliest strong (stratigraphic) evidence for hominin lineage diversification, with the first known records of A. africanus (ca. 2.7 Ma) in southern Africa, and of A. aethiopicus (ca. 2.7 Ma) and A. garhi (2.5 Ma) in eastern Africa (Walker et al., 1986; Asfaw et al., 1999).2 The task of sorting out the relationships among all of these species hinges on the interpretation of A. afarensis itself, from its alpha taxonomy and phylogenetic role to its pattern of evolution over time. A prerequisite to achieving this goal is a more complete knowledge of the A. afarensis fossil record, narrowing gaps in our knowledge of anatomy and variation, as well as of distributions in space and time. On sample size alone, A. afarensis is the best-known hominin species in the eastern African fossil record. The vast majority of fossils in the A. afarensis hypodigm, some 360 specimens, or approximately 90% of the total, have been recovered at the Hadar site, from the 200+ meter sequence of silts, sands, and clays that comprise the Hadar Formation, which is exposed along the drainages of the Awash River in the Afar Depression of northern Ethiopia (Johanson et al., 1982a; Kimbel et al., 1994).
A.L. 444-2: The Skull as a Whole
Authors: Kimbel William H. , Rak Yoel , Johanson Donald C. , Holloway Ralph L. , Yuan Michael S.
Published: November 2020

Among the largest Plio-Pleistocene hominin skulls found to date, A.L. 444-2 is bigger, though not by much, than an average female gorilla’s skull. At first glance, A.L. 444-2 assumes a somewhat simian appearance, the outcome of a relatively small braincase combined with an inclined frontal squama and prognathic jaws. However, this apelike appearance is offset by several distinctive hominin features: a very tall face that is much less prognathic than would be expected from the skull’s general simian-like appearance; a deep, vertical mandibulosymphyseal profile; delicate supraorbital elements; and the absence of a supratoral sulcus intervening between the frontal squama and the forward-jutting supraorbital element. Nevertheless, the characteristics that account for the skull’s hominin appearance demonstrate a certain uniqueness, which is manifested in the disproportion between the considerable total height of the face and the great size of its constituent elements (primarily the zygomatic and maxillary bones), on the one hand, and the delicateness of the supraorbital element and the almost negligible degree of its anterior projection, on the other. An apparent unevenness emerges along the vertical axis of the face between its upper portion—the orbits, including the elements above and between them—and its lower portion, that is, the elements below the level of orbitale down to gnathion. Undoubtedly, part of this appearance stems from the heavy, somewhat vertical, deep, and anteriorly bulbous symphyseal region of the mandible. The corresponding region in the African apes, in contrast, is transversely pinched, as its two sides converge downward toward the midline. Furthermore, the region slopes inferoposteriorly; in anterior view, it is tucked under the alveolar element and hence is less exposed than in A.L. 444-2. The preservation of the mandible of A.L. 444-2 and its occlusion with the upper dental arcade afford a unique opportunity to evaluate some of the characteristics of an entire A. afarensis skull. Two standard measurements can be recorded: the distance between gnathion and the estimated site of nasion—a measure of the total height of the face—which is 150 mm, and the distance between gnathion and basion, estimated at 157 mm.
Child Development, the Human Group, and Survival
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

In the past several decades, the study of the behavior of nonhuman primates—monkeys and apes—has made rapid progress. We can learn from the dimly perceived past when our ancestors confronted the problems of survival without the sophisticated technological aids so inextricably linked to human adaptation in recent times. Our past is inaccessible to direct study. But by careful observation of our closest living relatives, monkeys and apes, we can begin to understand the nonhuman primate heritage from which our ancient ancestors took a long route over millions of years toward humanity. Nonhuman primates live in groups that are held together by strong and enduring bonds between individuals. These bonds may be reflected in a variety of ways: relationships between adult males and females, between adults of the same sex, between juveniles, and between adult males or females and their young. Altogether, in their natural habitats they have a rich social life. Compared with most other mammals, primates have fewer young at a time. Rather than litters, all Old World monkeys and apes have only one offspring at a time, and they give each one a great deal of attention. The young have longer periods of immaturity than other mammals, including prolonged nutritional dependence on the mother. A corollary of the prolonged physical immaturity and nutritional dependence of the primate infant is a longer and more intense mother- infant relationship and a longer period of tutelage and learning the customs and survival skills of the group. In all higher primates except humans, infants cling reflexively to their mothers from birth, and mother-infant contact is maintained virtually all of the time until the much older infant develops the ability to keep up with the mother on its own. Nursing occurs in many short bouts around the clock; in early infancy, it is initiated and terminated by the infant, an easy process, because the infant is always clinging to the mother’s body, anyway. This combination of clinging, carrying, continuous contact, and frequent nursing is characteristic of all higher nonhuman primates.
Teaching Hatred
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

We turn now to egregious examples of ways that education can be used to instill hatred, with the help of authoritarian states and fanatical leaders (either theological or secular) who shape children’s lives. There have been vivid examples of this throughout the twentieth century. The twenty-first century starts with the dramatic case of some Islamic fundamentalist schools that follow in this tradition of molding the lives of children for careers of hatred and violence.We describe these examples to provide a sharp contrast to the remainder of this book. Our fundamental aspiration is to inspire educators and leaders to embrace the important alternative role of education in fostering prosocial, empathic, and cooperative behavior—with insight into the destructive forces of human experience—that can provide the basis for a peaceful world in the long run. To be effective, we must address the obstacles to education in constructing such programs. Children can be brought up to hate, to condone killing, and even to participate in killing. That experiment has been done repeatedly. In the rest of this book, let us look briefly at examples of this destructive educational experience and then at the other side of the coin—learning to live together peacefully. The human capacity to shape child and adolescent development toward a pervasive culture of hatred and violence was vividly demonstrated by the Nazi experience. The his- torian Klaus Fischer writes on youth and education, and women and the family, in his book Nazi Germany—A New History. We begin with the origin of youth groups as a countercultural protest and move to the creation of the Hitler Youth movement and ways in which it exploited these relatively innocent youthful protests. Nazi education, its philosophy, and the creation of elite schools are described in terms of their attempt to shape the minds and bodies of boys toward devotion to the Führer and toward their future as Nazi leaders. Teachers, as well, were indoctrinated and obligated to behave in a prescribed manner toward the same end. The family, particularly the woman’s role in it, was seen as the social underpinning of society. The Nazi glorification of motherhood and the family was a means of creating more children to serve Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Education for Conflict Resolution: From Public Concern to Research to Practice
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

Public interest in education for conflict resolution has increased in response to the violence of recent years. Serious articles now appear in newspapers and magazines, reporting research that might explain the background and meaning of the surge in youth violence. This widening concern suggests the real possibility of building a public constituency for education on conflict resolution and related questions. Probing educational policy issues are also being raised in the media. For example, Alina Tugend asked the question, “Do conflict-resolution programs really deliver on their promises to reduce school violence and teach conflict resolution?” in her November 2001 article in the “Education Life” supplement to the New York Times. She examined the existing conflictresolution program of Public School 217 in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist-induced tragedies. She also looked at other conflict-resolution programs nationwide, along with studies that assess their effectiveness. Based on these data, she concludes that overly aggressive and hateful behavior among students can often be reduced, but she noted that to be effective, lessons must be frequent. Brief exposure to one or two presentations of conflict-resolution techniques will do nothing toward improving behavior. In cases of peer mediation, the greatest beneficiaries are the student mediators themselves. Disadvantaged minority students have unique needs that require specific attention. For these students, there are significant differences between the culture at school and the culture in their own homes and communities. These differences can give rise to disputes or overt aggression. The New York Times article goes on to describe the student interest in understanding the events of September 11 and some responses by teachers. For example, the teachers at Brooklyn’s Public School 217 were looking for ways to explain the tragic attacks to their students. They began by using a simple lesson from their existing conflict-resolution program. Because children were almost exclusively focused on the U.S. desire to retaliate, teachers, drawing on the conflict-resolution program, were able to give the students a basis of understanding conflict on an international scale and a framework in which they could identify and articulate their feelings related to conflict. They also offered grief and trauma counseling.
Media as an Educational System: Can the Media Help?
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

The media, even in democratic societies, have been faulted for glorifying violence, especially in the entertainment industry. And we have seen how the harsh use of hateful propaganda through the media, by nationalist and sectarian leaders, can inflame conflicts in many parts of the world. The international community can support media that portray accurate information on current events, show constructive relations between different groups, and report instances in which violence has been prevented. Foundations, commissions, and universities can work with broadcasters to help provide responsible, insightful coverage of serious conflicts. For example, through constructive interactions with the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, CNN International moved to balance coverage of violence and strategies for peaceful conflict resolution. Social action for prosocial media may become an effective function of nongovernmental organizations, similar to their achievements in human rights. Research findings have established a causal link between children’s television viewing and their subsequent behavior in the United States and a variety of other countries (e.g., Australia, Finland, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland). Both aggressive and prosocial behaviors can be evoked, depending on the content of programs. There is no reason to assume that the impact of movies is substantially different. As early as age 2, children imitate behaviors (including violent behaviors) seen on television, and the effects may last into their teen years. Must violent content predominate forever? How can the media help to prevent deadly conflicts in the future? The proliferation of media in all forms constitutes an important aspect of globalization. Films, television, print, radio, and the Internet have immense power to reach people with powerful messages, for better and worse. At present, the United States is largely responsible for the output of film and television content seen by people worldwide. But advances in technology are making it increasingly feasible for media to be produced in all parts of the world—all too often with messages of hate, and they may become even more dangerous than the excessive violence in U.S. television and movies. Films have great, unused potential for encouraging peace and for nonviolent problem solving. They entertain, educate, and constitute a widely shared experience.
Putting Education for Peace into Practice
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

Now let us turn our attention toward the practice of education for peace from several perspectives. We will examine some developmentally appropriate approaches to children and youth in understanding issues of war and peace, practical applications of teaching the prevention of deadly conflict and conflict resolution in schools, international relationships in education for peace, and other institutions with strong potential to promote peace education and conflict resolution. Even first-grade children can distinguish between societal conventions, noncontroversial questions, and controversial issues. Also, they expect their teachers to teach these types of knowledge differently. They are able to recognize that others may hold opposing viewpoints different from their own. With increasing age, elementary school children in democratic societies expect teachers to present different viewpoints on questions about which there is little societal consensus. And teachers are expected to present different viewpoints in addition to the one that students favor. Adolescence is the period when students markedly increase their ability to generalize the perspective of society, which is most important when discussing issues related to war, peace, and conflict. It is also a time when young people are most interested in issues related to fairness, justice, and equality. In the 1960s, Joseph Adelson, conducted a series of classic studies involving young people aged 11 to 18 from the United States, Great Britain, and West Germany. Interviews were conducted about concepts of law, community, individual rights, and the public good. It was found that at the age of 14, a shift in quality of thought occurred. They could see the possibility of conflict between individual rights and public good; they could connect specific examples of rights with abstract principles; they could consider long-term consequences of specific actions on individuals and communities. Similar findings were noted in subsequent research, leading to the belief that the period of adolescence is appropriate for developing critical thinking skills.
Overview: Toward a Better World for Our Grandchildren
Authors: Hamburg David A. , Hamburg Beatrix A.
Published: November 2020

The growing destructive capacities of humanity make this the prime problem of the twenty-first century. How we cope with this problem will have a profound bearing on the world of our grandchildren. The twentieth century was the bloodiest ever. World War II caused at least 50 million deaths. Six million died in the Holocaust. At Hiroshima, one bomb caused 100,000 deaths. Now thousands of such bombs (smaller and more conveniently transportable tactical bombs) are housed in Russia. Many are poorly guarded, susceptible to theft and bribery. Others may be made elsewhere. Danger increases with the number of such weapons existing in the world.Why? There is a greater chance of error, theft, and bribery—and ultimately their use in war or terrorism. Therefore, we should diminish the numbers as much as we can and secure responsible stewardship for those that remain. Moreover, there are still thousands of nuclear weapons that are far more powerful than the smaller tactical weapons. Biological and chemical weapons are easier to make than nuclear warheads and therefore have special appeal to terrorists. Small arms and light weapons now cover the world wall-to-wall. They include highly lethal machine guns, mortars, automatic rifles, and rocket launchers. Altogether, the destructive capacity of humanity is almost beyond imagination. Moreover, there is an exciting effect of today’s vast weapons on political demagogues, religious fanatics, and ethnic haters—and plenty of them exist in the world. Incitement to hatred and violence can occur with radio, TV, the Internet, and many other media. Thus, we can more powerfully incite violence, utilize more lethal weapons, and do much more damage than ever imaginable before. No group is so small or so far away as to prevent it from doing immense damage anywhere. The time has come to move beyond complacency, fatalism, denial, and avoidance. We must urgently seek to understand and strengthen an array of institutions and organizations that have the capacity to use tools and strategies to prevent deadly conflict. The first author (D.A.H.) considered many such possibilities in his recent book, No More Killing Fields: Preventing Deadly Conflict. Overall, this gives humanity a greater range of possibilities than ever before for building a system for preventing war and genocide. It will not be easy.
Modeling Extinction
Authors: Newman M. E. J. , Palmer R. G.
Published: November 2020

Developed after a meeting at the Santa Fe Institute on extinction modeling, this book comments critically on the various modeling approaches. In the last decade or so, scientists have started to examine a new approach to the patterns of evolution and extinction in the fossil record. This approach may be called "statistical paleontology," since it looks at large-scale patterns in the record and attempts to understand and model their average statistical features, rather than their detailed structure. Examples of the patterns these studies examine are the distribution of the sizes of mass extinction events over time, the distribution of species lifetimes, or the apparent increase in the number of species alive over the last half a billion years. In attempting to model these patterns, researchers have drawn on ideas not only from paleontology, but from evolutionary biology, ecology, physics, and applied mathematics, including fitness landscapes, competitive exclusion, interaction matrices, and self-organized criticality. A self-contained review of work in this field.
Fitness Landscape Models
Authors: Newman M. E. J. , Palmer R. G.
Published: November 2020

Kauffman (1993, 1995; Kauffman and Levin 1987; Kauffman and Johnsen 1991) has proposed and studied in depth a class of models referred to as NK models, which are models of random fitness landscapes on which one can implement a variety of types of evolutionary dynamics and study the development and interaction of species. (The letters N and K do not stand for anything; they are the names of parameters in the model.) Based on the results of extensive simulations of NK models, Kauffman and co-workers have suggested a number of possible connections between the dynamics of evolution and the extinction rate. To a large extent it is this work which has sparked recent interest in biotic mechanisms for mass extinction. In this chapter we review Kauffman's work in detail. An NK model is a model of a single rugged landscape, which is similar in construction to the spin-glass models of statistical physics (Fischer and Hertz 1991), particularly p-spin models (Derrida 1980) and random energy models (Derrida 1981). Used as a model of species fitness the NK model maps the states of a model genome onto a scalar fitness W. This is a simplification of what happens in real life, where the genotype is first mapped onto phenotype and only then onto fitness. However, it is a useful simplification which makes simulation of the model for large systems tractable. As long as we bear in mind that this simplification has been made, the model can still teach us many useful things. The NK model is a model of a genome with N genes. Each gene has A alleles. In most of Kauffman's studies of the model he used A = 2, a binary genetic code, but his results are not limited to this case. The model also includes epistatic interactions between genes—interactions whereby the state of one gene affects the contribution of another to the overall fitness of the species. In fact, it is these epistatic interactions which are responsible for the ruggedness of the fitness landscape.
Non-Equilibrium Models
Authors: Newman M. E. J. , Palmer R. G.
Published: November 2020

Sibani and co-workers have proposed a model of the extinction process, which they call the "reset model" (Sibani et al. 1995,1998), which differs from those discussed in the preceding chapters in a fundamental way; it allows for, and indeed relies upon, nonstationarity in the extinction process. That is, it acknowledges that the extinction record is not uniform in time, is not in any sense in equilibrium, as it is assumed to be in the other models we have considered. In fact, extinction intensity has declined on average over time from the beginning of the Phanerozoic until the Recent. Within the model of Sibani et al., the distributions of section 1.2 are all the result of this decline, and the challenge is then to explain the decline, rather than the distributions themselves. In figure 1.9 we showed the number of known families as a function of time over the last 600 My. On the logarithmic scale of the figure, this number appears to increase fairly steadily and although, as we pointed out, some of this increase can be accounted for by the bias known as the "pull of the recent," there is probably a real trend present as well. It is less clear that there is a similar trend in extinction intensity. The extinctions represented by the points in figure 1.1 certainly vary in intensity, but on average they appear fairly constant. Recall however, that figure 1.1 shows the number of families becoming extinct in each stage, and that the lengths of the stages are not uniform. In figure 6.1 we show the extinction intensity normalized by the lengths of the stages—the extinction rate in families per million years—and on this figure it is much clearer that there is an overall decline in extinction towards the Recent. In order to quantify the decline in extinction rate, we consider the cumulative extinction intensity c(t) as a function of time. The cumulative extinction at time t is defined to be the number of taxa which have become extinct up to that time.
Designs for Working : Why Your Bosses Want to Turn Your New Office into Greenwich Village
Authors: Gladwell Malcolm
Published: November 2020

In the early 1960s, Jane Jacobs lived on Hudson Street, in Greenwich Village, near the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Bleecker Street. It was then, as now, a charming district of nineteenth-century tenements and townhouses, bars and shops, laid out over an irregular grid, and Jacobs loved the neighborhood. In her 1961 masterpiece, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” she rhapsodized about the White Horse Tavern down the block, home to Irish longshoremen and writers and intellectuals— a place where, on a winter’s night, as “the doors open, a solid wave of conversation and animation surges out and hits you.” Her Hudson Street had Mr. Slube, at the cigar store, and Mr. Lacey, the locksmith, and Bernie, the candy-store owner, who, in the course of a typical day, supervised the children crossing the street, lent an umbrella or a dollar to a customer, held on to some keys or packages for people in the neighborhood, and “lectured two youngsters who asked for cigarettes.” The street had “bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher’s,” and “teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips show or their collars look right.” It was, she said, an urban ballet. The miracle of Hudson Street, according to Jacobs, was created by the particular configuration of the streets and buildings of the neighborhood. Jacobs argued that when a neighborhood is oriented toward the street, when sidewalks are used for socializing and play and commerce, the users of that street are transformed by the resulting stimulation: they form relationships and casual contacts they would never have otherwise. The West Village, she pointed out, was blessed with a mixture of houses and apartments and shops and offices and industry, which meant that there were always people “outdoors on different schedules and . . . in the place for different purposes.” It had short blocks, and short blocks create the greatest variety in foot traffic. It had lots of old buildings, and old buildings have the low rents that permit individualized and creative uses.
Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg : She’s a Grandmother, She Lives in a Big House in Chicago, and You’ve Never Heard of Her. Does She Run the World?
Authors: Gladwell Malcolm
Published: November 2020

Everyone who knows Lois Weisberg has a story about meeting Lois Weisberg, and although she has done thousands of things in her life and met thousands of people, all the stories are pretty much the same. Lois (everyone calls her Lois) is invariably smoking a cigarette and drinking one of her dozen or so daily cups of coffee. She will have been up until two or three the previous morning, and up again at seven or seven-thirty, because she hardly seems to sleep. In some accounts—particularly if the meeting took place in the winter—she’ll be wearing her white, fur-topped Dr. Zhivago boots with gold tights; but she may have on her platform tennis shoes, or the leather jacket with the little studs on it, or maybe an outrageous piece of costume jewelry, and, always, those huge, rhinestonestudded glasses that make her big eyes look positively enormous. “I have no idea why I asked you to come here, I have no job for you,” Lois told Wendy Willrich when Willrich went to Lois’s office in downtown Chicago a few years ago for an interview. But by the end of the interview Lois did have a job for her, because for Lois meeting someone is never just about meeting someone. If she likes you, she wants to recruit you into one of her grand schemes—to sweep you up into her world. A while back, Lois called up Helen Doria, who was then working for someone on Chicago’s city council, and said, “I don’t have a job for you. Well, I might have a little job. I need someone to come over and help me clean up my office.” By this, she meant that she had a big job for Helen but just didn’t know what it was yet. Helen came, and, sure enough, Lois got her a big job. Cindy Mitchell first met Lois twenty-three years ago, when she bundled up her baby and ran outside into one of those frigid Chicago winter mornings because some people from the Chicago Park District were about to cart away a beautiful sculpture of Carl von Linne´ from the park across the street.
Nonextensive Diffusion Entropy Analysis and Teen Birth Phenomena
Authors: Scafetta N. , Grigolin P.
Published: November 2020

A complex process is often a balance between nonscaling and scaling components. We show how the nonextensive Tsallis g-entropy indicator may be interpreted as a measure of the nonscaling condition in time series. This is done by applying the nonextensive entropy formalism to the diffusion entropy analysis (DEA). We apply the analysis to the study of the teen birth phenomenon. We find that the number of unmarried teen births is strongly influenced by social processes that induce an anomalous memory in the data. This memory is related to the strength of the nonscaling component of the signal and is more intense than that in the married teen birth time series. By using a wavelet multiresolution analysis, we attempt to provide a social interpretation of this effect…. One of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of modern research is the quantitative study of "complexity." Complexity has special interdisciplinary impacts in the fields of physics, mathematics, information science, biology, sociology, and medicine. No definition of a complex system has been universally embraced, so here we adopt the working definition, "an arrangement of parts so intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with." Therefore, the main goal of the science of complexity is to develop mathematical methods in order to discriminate among the fundamental microscopic and macroscopic constituents of a complex system and to describe their interrelations in a concise way. Experiments usually yield results in the form of time series for physical observables. Typically, these time series contain both a slow regular variation, usually called a "signal," and a rapid erratic fluctuation, usually called "noise." Historically, the techniques applied to processing such time series have been based on equilibrium statistical mechanics and, therefore, they are not applicable to phenomena far from equilibrium. Among the fluctuating phenomena, a particularly important place is occupied by those phenomena characterized by some type of self-similar or scaling-fractal structures [4]. In this chapter we show that the nonextensive Tsallis g-entropy indicator may be interpreted as a measure of the strength of the nonscaling component of a time series.
Coarse-Graining, Scaling, and Hierarchies
Authors: Pérez-Mercade Juan
Published: November 2020

We present a scenario that is useful for describing hierarchies within classes of many-component systems. Although this scenario may be quite general, it will be illustrated in the case of many-body systems whose space-time evolution can be described by a class of stochastic parabolic nonlinear partial differential equations. The stochastic component we will consider is in the form of additive noise, but other forms of noise such as multiplicative noise may also be incorporated. It will turn out that hierarchical behavior is only one of a class of asymptotic behaviors that can emerge when an out-of-equilibrium system is coarse grained. This phenomenology can be analyzed and described using the renormalization group (RG) [6, 15]. It corresponds to the existence of complex fixed points for the parameters characterizing the system. As is well known (see, for example, Hochberg and Perez-Mercader [8] and Onuki [12] and the references cited there), parameters such as viscosities, noise couplings, and masses evolve with scale. In other words, their values depend on the scale of resolution at which the system is observed (examined). These scaledependent parameters are called effective parameters. The evolutionary changes due to coarse graining or, equivalently, changes in system size, are analyzed using the RG and translate into differential equations for the probability distribution function [8] of the many-body system, or the n-point correlation functions and the effective parameters. Under certain conditions and for systems away from equilibrium, some of the fixed points of the equations describing the scale dependence of the effective parameters can be complex; this translates into complex anomalous dimensions for the stochastic fields and, therefore, the correlation functions of the field develop a complex piece. We will see that basic requirements such as reality of probabilities and maximal correlation lead, in the case of complex fixed points, to hierarchical behavior. This is a first step for the generalization of extensive behavior as described by real power laws to the case of complex exponents and the study of hierarchical behavior.
Dissolved Gases in Water
Authors: Bianchi Thomas S.
Published: November 2020

Dissolved gases are critically important in many of the biogeochemical cycles of estuaries and coastal waters. However, only recently have there been large-scale collaborative efforts addressing the importance of coupling between estuaries and the atmosphere. For example, the Biogas Transfer in Estuaries (BIOGEST) project, which began in 1996, was focused on determining the distribution of biogases [CO2, CH4, CO, non-methane hydrocarbons, N2O, dimethyl sulfide (DMS), carbonyl sulfide (COS), volatile halogenated organic compounds, and some biogenic volatile metals] in European estuaries and their impact on global budgets (Frankignoulle and Middelburg, 2002). The role of the estuaries and other coastal ocean environments as global sources and/or sinks of key greenhouse gases, like CO2, have also been a subject of intense interest in recent years (Frankignoulle et al., 1996; Cai and Wang, 1998; Raymond et al., 1997, 2000; Cai, 2003; Wang and Cai, 2004). Similarly, O2 transfer across the air–water interface is critical for the survival of most aquatic organisms. Unfortunately, many estuaries around the world are currently undergoing eutrophication, which commonly results in low O2 concentrations (or hypoxic ≤ 2 mg L−1), due to excessive nutrient loading in these systems (Rabalais and Turner, 2001; Rabalais and Nixon, 2002). To understand how gases are transferred across the air–water boundary we will first examine the dominant atmospheric gases and physical parameters that control their transport and solubility in natural waters. The atmosphere is also composed of aerosols, which are defined as condensed phases of solid or liquid particles, suspended in state, that have stability to gravitational separation over a period of observation (Charlson, 2000). Chemical composition and speciation in atmospheric aerosols is important to understanding their behavior after deposition, and is strongly linked with the dominant sources of aerosols (e.g., windblown dust, seasalt, combustion). The importance of aerosol deposition to estuaries and coastal waters, via precipitation (rain and snow) and/or dry particle deposition, has received considerable attention in recent years. For example, dry and wet deposition of nutrients (Paerl et al., 2002; Pollman et al., 2002) and metal contaminants (Siefert et al., 1998; Guentzel et al., 2001) has proven to be significant in biogeochemical budgets in wetlands and estuaries.
The World of the Pueblos
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

The search for El Dorado, the fabled land of gold, brought Spanish conquistadors north from New Spain into the harsh deserts of the North American Southwest. They were searching for the Seven Lost Cities of Cibola, cities said to have been founded as long ago as the eighth century by a legendary bishop who had fled west from Lisbon, Portugal, in fear of the Moors and Islam. When a Franciscan friar, Fray Marcos of Niza, returned to Mexico City from a preliminary expedition in 1539 with stories of a “faire citie with many houses builded in order” and gold and silver in abundance, the viceroy of New Spain quickly organized a major expedition under Francisco Coronado. The expedition ranged widely over the Southwest and far into the interior plains from 1540 to 1542. The disappointed Spaniards found no gold, however, just crowded pueblos “looking as if [they] had been crumpled all up together.” Coronado and his men visited Zuñi pueblos, as well as Pecos in what is now northern New Mexico, where the pueblo was “square, situated on a rock, with a large court or yard in the middle, containing the steam rooms. The houses are all alike, four stories high. One can go over the whole village without there being a street to hinder.” Coronado returned to Mexico City empty-handed from a seemingly desolate and unproductive land. The pueblos were largely forgotten until a sparse population of Catholic friars and then colonists moved northward into the arid lands about a century later. By the early nineteenth century, the great pueblos of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde were but vague memories, except to the Native Americans who claimed ancestry from them, and were never visited by outsiders. In 1823, José Antonio Vizcarra, governor of the Mexican province of New Mexico, rode through Chaco Canyon with a small military party during a campaign against the local Navajo. He was in a hurry and contented himself with the observation that the great houses were built by unknown people. Sixteen years later, an American government expedition against the Navajo descended into the Chaco Canyon drainage and sighted “a conspicuous ruin” on a low hill.
Geological Epidemiology: Coal Combustion in China
Authors: Finkelman Robert B. , Belkin Harvey E.
Published: November 2020

In a recent report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has concluded that, with the possible exception of mercury, there is no compelling evidence that emissions from U.S. based coal-burning electric utility generators cause human health problems (EPA 1998). However, worldwide, the use of poor quality coal and/or the improper use of coal may cause or contribute to significant widespread human health problems. Health problems caused by impurities in coal, such as arsenic and fluorine, have been reported from the former Czechoslovakia (Bencko 1997) and from China. The World Bank (1992) estimates that between 400 and 700 million women and children are exposed to severe air pollution, generally from cooking fires. A substantial proportion of these people rely on coal for domestic cooking and heating and are thereby exposed to particulates, metal ions, gases (such as SOx), and organic compounds causing potentially serious respiratory problems and toxic reactions. Although addressing human health problems is the domain of biomedical and public health scientists, geoscientists have tools, skills, databases, and perspectives that may help the medical community address environmental health problems. Geoscientists are best equipped to characterize natural resources such as rocks, soils, and water. Various analytical tools used to characterize these natural materials have also been used effectively to characterize materials such as ambient dust and the products of coal combustion that cause or contribute to human health problems. In this chapter, we describe some of the geologic and geochemical tools being used to address arsenism and fluorosis caused by residential coal combustion in Guizhou Province, China. Wood had long been the primary energy source in southwest China, but by the early part of the twentieth century the forests were largely denuded and the residents were forced to use alternate sources of fuel. In southwest Guizhou Province, surface exposures of coal are plentiful and coal quickly became the primary fuel for domestic use. Unfortunately, some of these coals have undergone mineralization, causing their enrichment in potentially toxic trace elements such as arsenic, fluorine, mercury, antimony (Sb), and thallium (Tl). Burning the mineralized coals in unvented stoves volatilizes toxic elements and exposes the local population to these emissions.
Mitigation of Endemic Arsenocosis with Selenium: An Example from China
Authors: Wuyi Wang , Linsheng Yang
Published: November 2020

Endemic arsenocosis (chronic arsenic poisoning) in China comes from two sources of arsenic (As). One source is drinking water, with As concentrations 2-40 times that of the state standard of 0.05 mg/l As. The second is smoke pollution from combustion of coal with high concentrations of As; this can be inhaled or ingested from smoke-contaminated food. Over 2,000,000 people live in areas of high geological As concentrations (Cao 1996), and more than 17,000 arsenocosis patients in 21 counties of five provinces or Autonomous Regions have been identified. Long-term exposure to As in air, diet, or drinking water can result in permanent and severe damage to health, including lesions of the skin, mucous membranes of the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems, and rhagades (skin cleft on palm and feet). Elevated As intake is also associated with skin, liver, and lung cancers (Centeno 2000, Liang 1999, Wang Lianfang 54-61 1997). At present, there are few studies of efficient measurement of treatment of endemic arsenocosis patients. Our study demonstrates that treatment of these patients with dietary selenium (Se) can cause both excretion (elimination) of As accumulated in the human body and remediation of some health damages. We report the results of this experiment. Data were collected on 3 test groups of people: 186 patients, from BaYinMaoDao Farm in Inner Mongolia suffering from endemic arsenocosis, were divided into a treatment group (100 patients) and a control group (86 patients). A third group, consisting of 70 families, received no treatment but drank ambient well water, >0.10 mg/l As. All participants had been exposed to high-As drinking water (>0.10 mg/l) since 1983. Throughout the experiment, water containing 0.05 mg/1 As was supplied for both treatment and control groups. Of the 186 patients, 100 were treated with Se-enriched yeast tablets, containing 100 μg Se/tablet. The treatment lasted 14 months. Treated patients received 100-200 μg Se/day. All patients were examined for clinical criteria of arsenocosis: characteristic pigmentation, depigmentation, hyperkeratosis, rhagades (skin cleft), and incidence of secondary symptoms of headaches, dizziness, thoracalgia (chest pain), numbness of hands or feet, convulsions, or lumbago.
Biogeochemical Cycling of Iodine and Selenium and Potential Geomedical Relevance
Authors: Steinnes Eiliv
Published: November 2020

An increasing number of the 92 naturally occurring elements on Earth are now known to be essential to humans and other vertebrate species. In addition to the ten main constituents (H, N, O, Na, Mg, P, S, Cl, K, Ca), twelve elements present in trace quantities are generally accepted to have necessary functions in the human body. These essential trace elements are Mn, Cr, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, Se, Mo, F, bromine (Br), Si, and I. Most of these elements are present in human serum at levels orders of magnitude lower than their mean concentrations in the Earth’s crust (e.g., Mn and Cr are less than 10-6 of average rock composition), except for I and Se, which occur in similar concentrations in human serum and in rocks. This indicates that the pathways of these two elements to humans are basically different from those of other essential trace elements. There is now substantial evidence to suggest that the marine environment is an important source of I and Se to humans and other terrestrial species through biogeochemical cycling involving atmospheric transport. The dissolved matter in ocean water is enriched relative to the earth’s crust in a few elements (e.g., Na, Mg, S, Cl, Br) but depleted in most others. Some elements, such as I and Se, are strongly enriched in marine organisms relative to their concentrations in sea water. Fish and other marine food may constitute an important source of these elements to humans. It has become increasingly evident, however, that atmospheric transport of substances from marine to terrestrial systems may constitute an alternative pathway of some essential elements to humans and livestock.