bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
International Trade and Environment: Towards Integrative Responsibility
Authors: Juma Calestous
Published: November 2020

The rise of environmental awareness and the advent of globalization have emerged as two of the most important forces shaping international trends in the new century (Taylor and Thomas 1999). Interest in environmental and trade issues is not new; however, the intensity with which these forces are considered to be in conflict with each other is new. These two forces represent two seemingly different stylized epistemological outlooks. On the one hand, international trade is driven by technological innovation and expressed as discrete and reducible entities such as products and prices. Environmental concerns, on the other hand, are linked to the growing understanding of the complex relationships between natural and cultural evolution. As globalization continues to rise, growing efforts are under way to ensure that international trade be consistent with other societal goals, such as environmental conservation. Finding complementary goals for these two regimes has been challenging in the past (Repetto 1993). This is not just an academic exercise but a serious attempt to create international agreements on how to integrate environment and trade activities. The results of such efforts are codified in the Rio Declaration1 and Chapter 2 of Agenda 21, as well as reflected in a number of international environmental agreements dealing with toxic chemicals and genetically modified organisms. These treaties contain provisions that seek to ensure that international trade and environmental protection are mutually supportive. These agreements are also matched by efforts at the national level to integrate economic and environmental considerations. Such efforts received global legitimacy with the adoption of Our Common Future, the report of the Commission on Environment and Development released in 1987 under the chairmanship of Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The report advanced the principle of integrative responsibility, which became the basis for the work of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). UNCED adopted Agenda 21—forging the most elaborate effort yet to provide guidelines for implementing integrative responsibility. Also adopted were the Rio Principles on Environment and Development, which also articulate and push for integrative responsibility among these two factions.
Water Resources
Authors: Margat Jean
Published: November 2020

The geography of natural water resources in the Mediterranean basin cannot simply be reduced to the study of water inputs, water distribution, and the pattern of runoff-generating precipitation determined by climate and relief—although these are, of course, fundamental controls (Margat 1992; Benblidia et al. 1996). Any consideration of basin-wide water resources also needs to consider a range of territorially determined factors affecting water resources. These include: (1) the nature of surface and underground flows, which depends on river basin and hydrogeological characteristics; (2) the natural storage capacity of lakes and aquifers and their role in regulating flows, and any losses from these stores which reduce the resulting flows; (3) the existence of favourable conditions for water management and exploitation such as suitable sites for dam construction and the productivity of aquifers, as these factors dictate accessibility to water resources and the production costs; (4) the natural quality of the water, its vulnerability to pollution and its capacity for self-purification; (5) any constraints imposed for reasons of environmental conservation, which may effectively exclude a proportion of water reserves from the category of exploitable resources. It is important to appreciate that each of these factors influences the assessment of water resources in a given area and each factor has its own geography (Margat 1997; Margat and Vallée 1999a). In spite of the broad similarities in climate and landscape between the different parts of the Mediterranean basin, there are considerable variations between regions that impact upon the availability of water resources. Many of the factors affecting water resources cited above are subject to a similar degree of variation (Grenon and Batisse 1989; Chapter 8) and these are discussed in turn below. Marking the transition between the temperate climate of Europe and the aridity of North Africa and the Near East, the Mediterranean climate contains wide variation, and this is reflected in a highly uneven distribution of rainfall (Benblidia et al. 1996; Margat and Vallée 1999a; Chapter 3). For example, moving from one extreme to another, average annual rainfall ranges from more than 3,000 mm in parts of the Dinaric Alps to less than 50 mm in Libya.
Peatlands, Past and Present
Authors: Koster Eduard , Favier Tim
Published: November 2020

Peatlands are fascinating wetland ecosystems. They provide a habitat for a wide range of highly adapted plant and animal species. In addition to the floristic and ornithological richness, peatlands have been recognized for many other values. For instance, drained peatland soils often have good agricultural properties, and peat has been and still is in some places extensively used as fuel. In coastal wetlands peat has even been used for salt extraction. Furthermore, peat is an interesting material for science, as it contains information on the palaeoecological environment, climate change, carbon history, and archaeology. In north-western Europe, peatlands were once quite extensive, covering tens of thousands of square kilometres. However, most of them have been strongly exploited by humans during past centuries. Many peatlands have been cultivated for agriculture and forestry, or have been exploited by commercial or domestic peat extraction for fuel. As a result, only a very small part of north-western Europe’s peatlands remains today in a more or less natural state. This chapter focuses on the peat deposits and peatlands in north-western Europe that have formed since the Late Glacial (c.13 ka BP). First, the most common concepts in peatland terminology are explained, and the distribution of peatlands is described. Next, processes of peat formation and the relationship between peatforming processes and climate, hydrology, vegetation, and other factors are discussed. In the following section, frequently used classification methods are presented. A historical overview of the cultivation and exploitation of peatlands is given and the present land use and characteristics of peatland soils are discussed. The following section deals with methods of conservation and rehabilitation of the remaining mires. The importance of peatlands as palaeoecological archives is examplified. Finally, the role of peatlands as a source and/or sink of CO2 and the relations with climate change are briefly explained. Peat is the unconsolidated material that predominantly consists of slightly decomposed or undecomposed organic material in which the original cellular and tissue structures can often be identified. Peat forms in lakes and mires under waterlogged, anaerobic conditions.
Freedom’s Just Another Word . . .
Authors: Harvey David
Published: November 2020

For any way of thought to become dominant, a conceptual apparatus has to be advanced that appeals to our intuitions and instincts, to our values and our desires, as well as to the possibilities inherent in the social world we inhabit. If successful, this conceptual apparatus becomes so embedded in common sense as to be taken for granted and not open to question. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of human dignity and individual freedom as fundamental, as ‘the central values of civilization’. In so doing they chose wisely, for these are indeed compelling and seductive ideals. These values, they held, were threatened not only by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, but by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgements for those of individuals free to choose. Concepts of dignity and individual freedom are powerful and appealing in their own right. Such ideals empowered the dissident movements in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union before the end of the Cold War as well as the students in Tiananmen Square. The student movements that swept the world in 1968––from Paris and Chicago to Bangkok and Mexico City––were in part animated by the quest for greater freedoms of speech and of personal choice. More generally, these ideals appeal to anyone who values the ability to make decisions for themselves. The idea of freedom, long embedded in the US tradition, has played a conspicuous role in the US in recent years. ‘9/11’ was immediately interpreted by many as an attack on it. ‘A peaceful world of growing freedom’, wrote President Bush on the first anniversary of that awful day, ‘serves American long-term interests, reflects enduring American ideals and unites America’s allies.’ ‘Humanity’, he concluded, ‘holds in its hands the opportunity to offer freedom’s triumph over all its age-old foes’, and ‘the United States welcomes its responsibilities to lead in this great mission’. This language was incorporated into the US National Defense Strategy document issued shortly thereafter.
An Explosion of Subparadigms
Authors: Dasgupta Subrata
Published: November 2020

In 1962, purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in the United States opened a department of computer science with the mandate to offer master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science. Two years later, the University of Manchester in England and the University of Toronto in Canada also established departments of computer science. These were the first universities in America, Britain, and Canada, respectively, to recognize a new academic reality formally—that there was a distinct discipline with a domain that was the computer and the phenomenon of automatic computation. There after, by the late 1960s—much as universities had sprung up all over Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries after the founding of the University of Bologna (circa 1150) and the University of Paris (circa 1200)—independent departments of computer science sprouted across the academic maps on North America, Britain, and Europe. Not all the departments used computer science in their names; some preferred computing, some computing science, some computation. In Europe non-English terms such as informatique and informatik were used. But what was recognized was that the time had come to wean the phenomenon of computing away from mathematics and electrical engineering, the two most common academic “parents” of the field; and also from computer centers, which were in the business of offering computing services to university communities. A scientific identity of its very own was thus established. Practitioners of the field could call themselves computer scientists. This identity was shaped around a paradigm. As we have seen, the epicenter of this paradigm was the concept of the stored-program computer as theorized originally in von Neumann’s EDVAC report of 1945 and realized physically in 1949 by the EDSAC and the Manchester Mark I machines (see Chapter 8 ). We have also seen the directions in which this paradigm radiated out in the next decade. Most prominent among the refinements were the emergence of the historically and utterly original, Janus-faced, liminal artifacts called computer programs, and the languages—themselves abstract artifacts—invented to describe and communicate programs to both computers and other human beings.
Understanding Vineyard Soils
Authors: White Robert E.
Published: November 2020

The first edition of Understanding Vineyard Soils has been praised for its comprehensive coverage of soil topics relevant to viticulture. However, the industry is dynamic--new developments are occurring, especially with respect to measuring soil variability, managing soil water, possible effects of climate change, rootstock breeding and selection, monitoring sustainability, and improving grape quality and the "typicity" of wines. All this is embodied in an increased focus on the terroir or "sense of place" of vineyard sites, with greater emphasis being placed on wine quality relative to quantity in an increasingly competitive world market. The promotion of organic and biodynamic practices has raised a general awareness of "soil health", which is often associated with a soil's biology, but which to be properly assessed must be focused on a soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties. This edition of White's influential book presents the latest updates on these and other developments in soil management in vineyards. With a minimum of scientific jargon, Understanding Vineyard Soils explains the interaction between soils on a variety of parent materials around the world and grapevine growth and wine typicity. The essential chemical and physical processes involving nutrients, water, oxygen and carbon dioxide, moderated by the activities of soil organisms, are discussed. Methods are proposed for alleviating adverse conditions such as soil acidity, sodicity, compaction, poor drainage, and salinity. The pros and cons of organic viticulture are debated, as are the possible effects of climate change. The author explains how sustainable wine production requires winegrowers to take care of the soil and minimize their impact on the environment. This book is a practical guide for winegrowers and the lay reader who is seeking general information about soils, but who may also wish to pursue in more depth the influence of different soil types on vine performance and wine character.
The Nutrition of Grapevines
Authors: White Robert E.
Published: November 2020

Grapevines must have 16 of the 118 known elements to grow normally, flower, and produce fruit. These essential elements, listed in table 3.1, are also called nutrients and as such are divided into • Macronutrients, which are required in relatively large concentrations • Micronutrients, which are required in smaller concentrations Box 3.1 discusses the different ways of calculating nutrient concentrations in soil, plants, and liquid. Vines draw most of their nutrients from the soil, and so table 3.1 also shows the common ionic form of each element in soil. Ions, the charged forms of elements, are introduced in box 2.4, chapter 2. For example, carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is a compound of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O), dissociates in water into the ions H+ and HCO3−. This is a chemical reaction that can be written in shorthand form as . . . H2CO3 ↔ H+ + HCO3− . . . The double arrow shows that the reaction can go either forward (to the right) or backward (to the left), depending on the concentrations of H+ and HCO3− relative Concentration (symbol C)a is the amount of a substance per unit volume or unit weight of soil, plant material, or liquid. For example, the concentration C of the element nitrogen (N) can be expressed as micrograms (μg) of N per gram of soilb, noting that . . . 1 μg N/g = 1 mg N/kg = 1 part per million (ppm N) (B3.1.1) . . . An amount is the product of concentration and weight. For example, the total amount of N of concentration C (measured in μg/g) in a soil sample of 100g is . . . 100C μg or 0.1C mg (B3.1.2) . . . Because all soil and plant materials contain some water, analyses are best expressed in terms of oven-dry (o.d.) weights. The o.d. weight of a soil sample is obtained by drying it to a constant weight at 105ºC; for plant material the drying temperature is 70ºC. The amount of a nutrient is often expressed per hectare (ha) of vineyard.
Why We Need Nuclear Power
Authors: Fox Michael H.
Published: November 2020

Nuclear power may just be the most important solution to our search for clean, sustainable energy sources. Although wind and solar can contribute to our energy mix, we need a reliable source to meet large-scale energy demands and break our dependence on fossil fuels. However, most people are wary, if not downright afraid, of nuclear power. Given nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima, it's not difficult to see why. In the wake of these events, fear has clouded the public's understanding of the facts. It's time to clear up those misconceptions and examine the science behind nuclear power, in order to determine what role it could and should play in our future. In Why We Need Power: The Environmental Case, radiation biologist Michael H. Fox argues that nuclear power is essential to slowing down the impact of global warming. He examines the issue from every angle, relying on thirty-five years of research spent studying the biological effects of radiation. Fox begins with the problem, carefully laying out how our current energy uses and projections for the future will affect greenhouse gases and global warming. The book then evaluates each major energy source and demonstrates the limits of renewable energy sources, concluding that nuclear power is the best solution to our environmental crisis. Fox then delves into nuclear power, looking at the effects of radiation, the potential for nuclear accidents, and the best methods to dispose of nuclear waste. By systematically analyzing each aspect of the nuclear issue, Fox clarifies which concerns have a scientific basis and which remain unsupported. His in-depth exploration of the facts persuasively demonstrates that nuclear power is critical to reducing the effects of energy production on the global climate. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Why We Need Nuclear Power is an invaluable resource for both general readers and scientists interested in the facts behind nuclear energy.
Risk Perception and Probability
Authors: Gorman Sara E. , Gorman Jack M.
Published: November 2020

Each day, when you take your morning shower, you face a 1 in 1,000 chance of serious injury or even death from a fall. You might at first think that each time you get into the shower your chance of a fall and serious injury is 1 in 1,000 and therefore there is very little to worry about. That is probably because you remember that someone once taught you the famous coin-flip rule of elementary statistics: because each toss is an independent event, you have a 50% chance of heads each time you flip. But in this case you would be wrong. The actual chance of falling in the shower is additive. This is known in statistics as the “law of large numbers.” If you do something enough times, even a rare event will occur. Hence, if you take 1,000 showers you are almost assured of a serious injury—about once every 3 years for a person who takes a shower every day. Of course, serious falls are less common than that because of a variety of intervening factors. Nevertheless, according to the CDC, mishaps near the bathtub, shower, toilet, and sink caused an estimated 234,094 nonfatal injuries in the United States in 2008 among people at least 15 years old. In 2009, there were 10.8 million traffic accidents and 35,900 deaths due to road fatalities in the United States. The CDC estimates a 1-in-100 lifetime chance of dying in a traffic accident and a 1-in-5 lifetime chance of dying from heart disease. But none of these realities affect our behaviors very much. We don’t take very many (if any) precautions when we shower. We text, eat, talk on the phone, and zone out while driving, paying little attention to the very real risk we pose to ourselves (and others) each time we get in the car. And we keep eating at McDonald’s and smoking cigarettes, completely disregarding the fact that these behaviors could eventually affect our health in extreme and fatal ways. On the other hand, there is zero proven risk of death as a result of the diphtheria- tetanus- pertussis (DTP) vaccine.
Why Do We Age?
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

In 2004, the amazing ‘Flying Phil’ Rabinowitz broke the world 100 m sprint record for a centenarian, setting a time of 30.86 s and beating the previous world record time by over 5 s. Despite this impressive statistic, most 20 and 30 year-olds can readily run at these speeds when dashing for a bus, and the overall world record for 100 m currently stands at 9.69 s (set by Usain Bolt at the age of 21). Age-related degeneration in bodily function is familiar to all of us, and is known as ‘senescence’, or more colloquially, as ‘ageing’. Of course, this loss of physiological functioning not only impairs our ability to run: as individuals get older they typically experience an increase in the likelihood that they will die, and also a decrease in fecundity. The incidence rates of cancers and heart attack, for example, are considerably higher in older than in younger individuals. For these reasons, ageing has been dubbed ‘the most potent of all carcinogens’, but it has also long been considered as one of the world’s worst diseases (‘senectus enim insanabilis morbus est’—a sickness for which there is no cure). . . . Live long and prosper? . . . Organisms die for all sorts of reasons. They may get run over by a bus, they may be eaten by a predator, or they may succumb to a lethal disease. However, even if individuals survive all of these ‘extrinsic’ challenges, then the odds are that they will begin to experience the signs of senescence. While being eaten by a predator is unfortunate, it is also eminently understandable as a cause of death. Natural selection will tend to act on individuals to reduce the likelihood of this extrinsic mortality (for instance, by promoting higher vigilance or the development of some form of defence) but death from accidents, predators, and parasites cannot be completely avoided. Ageing, however, poses much more of a dilemma for evolutionary biologists. In particular, one might expect that those individuals who managed to slow down the ageing process would leave more offspring, so that natural selection would favour extreme longevity.
Shakespeare and Ecology
Authors: Martin Randall
Published: November 2020

Shakespeare and Ecology is the first book to explore the topical contexts that shaped the environmental knowledge and politics of Shakespeare and his audiences. Early modern England experienced unprecedented environmental challenges including climate change, population growth, resource shortfalls, and habitat destruction which anticipate today's globally magnified crises. Shakespeare wove these events into the poetic textures and embodied action of his drama, contributing to the formation of a public ecological consciousness, while opening creative pathways for re-imagining future human relationships with the natural world and non-human life. This book begins with an overview of ecological modernity across Shakespeare's work before focusing on three major environmental controversies in particular plays: deforestation in The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Tempest; profit-driven agriculture in As You Like It; and gunpowder warfare and remedial cultivation in Henry IV Parts One and Two, Henry V, and Macbeth. A fourth chapter examines the interdependency of local and global eco-relations in Cymbeline, and the final chapter explores Darwinian micro-ecologies in Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra. An epilogue suggests that Shakespeare's greatest potential for mobilizing modern ecological ideas and practices lies in contemporary performance. Shakespeare and Ecology illuminates the historical antecedents of modern ecological knowledge and activism, and explores Shakespeare's capacity for generating imaginative and performative responses to today's environmental challenges.
Gold!
Authors: Zalasiewicz Jan
Published: November 2020

This is the beginning of the long goodbye to the surface realm. The flakes and grains of the pebble material are now in utter darkness (except perhaps for occasional flickers of phosphorescence from some of that microbial life), at the bottom of that deep, stagnant sea. The strata that we see in the pebble are a few centimetres thick. But now, of course, they are made of good, hard, respectable, tightly compressed rock. Back then, they made a layer of mud—waterlogged, sticky, slimy, and very likely evil-smelling mud—a quarter of a metre thick or more, that formed part of a layer on the sea floor that extended for tens of kilometres in every direction. Let us catch it at just this point in time, before it became buried by further influxes of sediment from those endless turbidity currents. The mud was full of life, particularly at the surface, most of which will have been occupied by those infinitely complex microscopic city-states that are microbial mats. But even below that, in the buried mud itself, there will have been considerable activity. In fact, as microbes are extremely good at clinging to life in all kinds of conditions, that activity was to carry on for quite some time yet. Those indefatigable microbes, though, still had to earn their keep. One way of doing that was by making use of the soft tissues of the fallen plankton, that were dismantled and recycled in the process that we call decay. Even in these anoxic conditions, where decay was slow, the magnificent, complex molecular architecture of body tissues was beginning to degrade, to transform into smaller, simpler molecules, leaving just the considerable inedible remnants that are the cases of the acritarchs and the chitinozoa, and the living quarters of the graptolites, upon which the microbes did not seem to manage to get much of a foothold (so to speak), even though they had decades and centuries in which to make the attempt. It is one thing to be occupied in this microscopic breaker’s yard, amid the wreckage of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
Statistics
Authors: Carr James
Published: November 2020

Here, we’ll attempt to provide an introduction to what statistics are, some key concepts, and some of the more common tests used in clinical research. It is not a definitive chapter — whole books exist detailing just one of the tests we’ll talk about here and it’s not likely that you have the time or inclination for that! Rather, it is an attempt to help you think about the uses and limitations of statistics and how they might fit into the overall process of your research design. In clinical research much of the data you will collect will be numerical. Collecting the data is, however, just the first stage — then, you have to make sense of it. This is where statistics come into play. The science of collecting and interpreting numerical data, statistics can be used to describe data, such as by calculating averages and distributions ( descriptive statistics) or to draw inferences by analysing patterns and relationships within the data ( inferential statistics). Inferential statistics will usually form the main part of any analysis. Statistical analysis hinges on the use of sampling. In clinical research it is rarely possible to examine whole populations and as a result a sample is drawn from the relevant population. The difficulty with this is that one can never be certain that the sample is representative of the population as a whole and so that some form of bias is not operating. Good experimental design can minimize but not eliminate this possibility; consequently there will always be an element of doubt as to whether a genuine effect is being observed or if we are simply witnessing random variations in a data set. Statistics allow us to analyse patterns within the sample data and to draw inferences about the wider population. One must always bear in mind that statistical tests are used to determine if a prediction we make can actually be supported. They do not provide actual proof that we are correct; if our theory holds up statistically, we are less likely to be incorrect. Equally, if our theory were incorrect the statistics would be unlikely to support it.
Crystals
Authors: Glusker Jenny Pickworth , Trueblood Kenneth N.
Published: November 2020

The elegance and beauty of crystals have always been a source of delight.What is a crystal? A crystal is defined as a solid that contains a very high degree of long-range three-dimensional internal order of the component atoms, molecules, or ions. This implies a repetitious internal organization, at least ideally. By contrast, the internal organization of atoms and ions within a noncrystalline material is totally random, and the material is described as “amorphous.” Studies of crystal morphology, that is, of the external features of crystals, have been made since early times, particularly by those interested in minerals (for practical as well as esthetic reasons) (Groth, 1906–1919; Burke, 1966; Schneer, 1977). It was Max von Laue who realized in 1912 that this internal regularity of crystals gave them a grating-like quality so that they should be able to diffract electromagnetic radiation of an appropriate wavelength. From Avogadro’s number (6.02 × 1023, the number of molecules in the molecular weight in grams of a compound) and the volume that this one “gram molecule” of material fills, von Laue was able to reason that distances between atoms or ions in a crystal were of the order of 10−9 to 10−10m (now described as 10 to 1 Å). A big debate at that time. was whether X rays were particles or waves. If X rays were found to be wavelike (rather than particle-like), von Laue estimated they would have wavelengths of this same order of magnitude, 10−9 to 10−10 m. Therefore, since diffraction was viewed as a property of waves rather than particles, von Laue urged Walther Friedrich and Paul Knipping to test if X rays could be diffracted by crystals. Their resulting diffraction experiment was dramatically successful. The crystal, because of its internal regularity, had indeed acted as a diffraction grating. This experiment was therefore considered to have demonstrated that X rays have wavelike properties (Friedrich et al., 1912). We now know that particles, such as neutrons or electrons, can also be diffracted.
The principles of physical examination
Authors: Zengeya Stanley Tamuka , Serane Tiroumourougane V
Published: November 2020

Examination of the child combines science with art; developing competence in paediatric examination requires both knowledge of the correct technique and hours of hard work and practise. Lack of either will make the examination technique incomplete or inadequate. Perhaps the greatest difficulty an inexperienced doctor faces is to gain the confidence and trust of the child and their carers, while creating an impression of grounded self-confidence. In the examination, one should carry oneself well. This means you should be a good listener, be interested, cheerful, respectful, warm, caring, friendly, empathic, competent, and diplomatic. It is imperative to listen actively to the child and their carers and be as natural as possible—just as you would be with your friend’s child or indeed your own. The examination begins the moment you enter the room. It is essential to understand that the general approach to the physical examination of the child will be different from that of an adult and will vary according to the age of the child. As the child’s cooperation cannot be guarantied, you should remember that it is impossible always to use a set protocol while examining the child. We have listed the essential steps of examination in a particular order so that all areas are covered, but the candidate needs to adapt the examination sequence according to the needs of the child and the situation. As a general rule, anything that will inevitably be uncomfortable or unpleasant for the child (e.g. otoscopy or rectal examination) should be the ‘last act’ of the examination. A common mistake made by nervous candidates is to talk too fast; this is a trait that will always be more exaggerated under the stress of the exam. Pausing at the end of each sentence is an effective way of slowing down. Ensuring that each word is pronounced completely will also lessen the pace of your speech. Talking slowly and clearly with a smile on your face will help to hide nervousness. In this book and the accompanying videos, examinations are performed in a systematic manner. These steps provide a useful framework. Although there can be some flexibility, following the steps listed here will improve your technique.
Long Cases for the Final FRCR 2B
Authors: Hanlon Rebecca , Curtis John , Wieshmann Hulya , White David , Landes Caren , Gough Val
Published: November 2020

This comprehensive revision book contains 42 practice long cases, to help radiology trainees revise for and succeed at the Final FRCR Part 2B examination. Each case is presented as it would appear in the exam, with a selection of high quality imaging and clinical details, followed by a separate model answer section, formatted in line with the Royal College guidance notes. Each case also comes with key points explaining the answer and a further reading list. Written by a highly-qualified team of authors, with a wealth of clinical, teaching and exam experience, the book also contains essential hints and tips on exam technique to help radiology trainees pass this final hurdle.
Effects of Ocean Acidification on Nektonic Organisms
Authors: Pörtner Hans-O. , Gutowska Magda
Published: November 2020

The average surface-ocean pH is reported to have declined by more than 0.1 units from the pre-industrial level ( Orr et al. 2005 ), and is projected to decrease by another 0.14 to 0.35 units by the end of this century, due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Caldeira and Wickett 2005 ; see also Chapters 3 and 14). These global-scale predictions deal with average surface-ocean values, but coastal regions are not well represented because of a lack of data, complexities of nearshore circulation processes, and spatially coarse model resolution (Fabry et al. 2008 ; Chapter 3 ). The carbonate chemistry of coastal waters and of deeper water layers can be substantially different from that in surface water of offshore regions. For instance, Frankignoulle et al. ( 1998 ) reported pCO2 (note 1) levels ranging from 500 to 9400 μatm in estuarine embayments (inner estuaries) and up to 1330 μatm in river plumes at sea (outer estuaries) in Europe. Zhai et al. (2005) reported pCO2 values of > 4000 μatm in the Pearl River Estuary, which drains into the South China Sea. Similarly, oxygen minimum layers show elevated pCO2 levels, associated with the degree of hypoxia (Millero 1996). These findings suggest that some coastal and mid-water animals, both pelagic and benthic, are regularly experiencing hypercapnic hypercapnic conditions (i.e. elevated pCO2 levels), that reach beyond those projected in the offshore surface ocean. These organisms might, therefore, be preadapted to relatively high ambient pCO2 levels. The anthropogenic signal will nonetheless be superimposed on the pre-existing natural variability. These phenomena lead to the question of whether future changes in the ocean’s carbonate chemistry pose a serious problem for marine organisms. Those with calcareous skeletons or shells, such as corals and some plankton, have been at the centre of scientific interest. However, elevated CO2 levels may also have detrimental effects on the survival, growth, and physiology of marine animals more generally (Pörtner and Reipschläger 1996; Seibel and Fabry 2003; Fabry et al. 2008; Pörtner 2008; Melzner et al. 2009a).
Ultrasound in radiology —state of the art
Authors: Cosgrove David O.
Published: November 2020

The practice of ultrasound in radiology has continued to develop and shows no signs of slowing down. The changes affect the systems themselves, with important technical developments, as well as the ways they are used, and to some extent these are interlinked. The earliest static scanners were so difficult to use that only dedicated personnel could find the time and make the effort required to use them. This led to a small cohort of enthusiasts offering a limited and expensive service. Strangely, they were a mixture of doctors (many of whom were not radiologists) and physicists, perhaps reflecting the complexity of the scanners. with the development of real-time systems and increasingly as they have become easier to operate, ultrasound found its place within radiology departments and, in parallel, in cardiology and obstetric units as well as in vascular labs. Here the role of physicists faded and most of the people performing the scans were medical, a situation that still obtains in many parts of the world, notably in the Far East (in China, the doctors are ultrasound specialists) and in many European countries. In others, especially in the United States, technologists or radiographers took over the actual scanning, leaving radiologists or their equivalent (cardiologists, obstetricians) to read and report the studies by analogy with other scanning modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The driver for this major change has mainly been financial: medics are expensive and sharing the workload with technologists is cost-effective. However, this shift comes with a penalty: as ultrasound is a real-time method and the techniques required to make the studies are very interactive, simply reading a set of images on a PACS (picture archiving and communication system) workstation deprives the radiologist of dynamic information that can be critical to making the diagnosis. In some places the response to this has been to train the technicians or radiographers to interpret and report their own cases. Though often disapproved of by the regulatory authorities and exposing practitioners to risks of litigation, this approach has been popular amongst radiographers only partly because their extended role is rewarded by additional pay.
X-ray analysis
Authors: Sawyer L. , Turner M. A.
Published: November 2020

This chapter covers the preliminary characterization of the crystals in order to determine if they are suitable for a full structure determination. Probably more frustrating than failure to produce crystals at all, is the growth of beautiful crystals which do not diffract, which have very large unit cell dimensions, or which decay very rapidly in the X-ray beam, though this last problem has been largely overcome by freezing the sample. It is impossible in one brief chapter to give more than a flavour of what the X-ray crystallographic technique entails and it is assumed that the protein chemist growing the crystals will have contact with a protein crystallographer, who will carry out the actual structure determination and in whose laboratory state-of-the-art facilities exist. However, preliminary characterization can often be carried out with little more than the equipment which is widely available in Chemistry and Physics Departments and so the crystal grower remote from a protein crystallography laboratory can monitor the success of their experiments. The reader should refer to the first edition for protocols useful for photographic characterization but such techniques are seldom used nowadays. It must be remembered, in any case, that X-rays are dangerous and the inexperienced should not try to X-ray protein crystals without help. It is necessary to provide an overview of X-ray crystallography, to put the preliminary characterization in context. For a general description of the technique the reader should refer to Glusker et al. (1) or Stout and Jensen (2). For protein crystallography in particular, the books by McRee (3) and Drenth (4) describe many of the advances since the seminal work of Blundell and Johnson (5). Amongst many excellent introductory articles, those by Bragg (6), published years ago, and Glusker (7) are particularly recommended. The scattering or diffraction of X-rays is an interference phenomenon and the interference between the X-rays scattered from the atoms in the structure produces significant changes in the observed diffraction in different directions. This variation in intensity with direction arises because the path differences taken by the scattered X-ray beams are of the same magnitude as the separation of the atoms in the molecule.
Convergent peptide synthesis
Authors: Barlos Kleomenis , Gatos Dimitrios
Published: November 2020

Besides the classical step-by-step synthesis, the convergent solid phase peptide synthesis (CSPPS) was developed for the preparation of complex and difficult peptides and small proteins. According to this method, suitably protected peptide fragments spanning the entire peptide sequence and prepared on the solid phase are condensed, either on a solid support or in solution, to the target peptide. Convergent synthesis is reviewed in recent publications. In this chapter, full experimental details are given for the preparation of complex peptides by applying convergent techniques, using 2-chlorotrityl chloride resin (CLTR) and Fmoc-amino acids. In the step-by-step peptide chain elongation the resin-bound C-terminal amino acid is reacted sequentially with suitably protected and activated amino acids. The peptide is thus elongated steadily towards the N-terminal direction. This is advantageous over the opposite direction where the elongation is performed from the N- to the C-terminus, because in the second case the growing peptide is activated at the C-terminal amino acid, which leads to its extensive racemization. This limits considerably the synthetic possibilities of the method. In convergent synthesis, no directional restrictions exist and the chain elongation can be performed with equal possibility to be successful to any direction. Figure 1 describes schematically the C- to N-terminal synthesis which is the most studied to date. The strategies where the synthesis begins from a central fragment and the peptide chain is extended to both C- and N-terminal directions and from the N-terminal towards the C-terminal can be considered, at the present time, to be in its infancy. In general, protected peptide fragments of any length can be used in the condensation reaction, if they are of satisfactory purity and solubility. Usually, fragments of up to 15 amino acids in length are used, because of their simpler purification by RP-HPLC compared with the longer peptides. The solubility of protected peptide acids is independent of their length. The selection of the correct fragments is very important for the success of convergent synthesis. It is helpful to analyse all available structural information, determined or calculated, for the target peptide. Peptide regions where β-turns are known to occur are readily identified as ‘difficult’ sequences during their synthesis.
SBA MCQs for the MRCS Part A
Authors: Thrumurthy Sri G. , De Silva Tania Samantha , Moinuddin Zia , Enoch Stuart
Published: November 2020

Specifically designed to help candidates revise for the MRCS exam, this book features 350 Single Best Answer multiple choice questions, covering the whole syllabus. Containing everything candidates need to pass the MRCS Part A SBA section of the exam, it focuses intensively on the application of basic sciences (applied surgical anatomy, physiology, and pathology) to the management of surgical patients. The high level of detail included within the questions and their explanations allows effective self-assessment of knowledge and quick identification of key areas requiring further attention. Varying approaches to Single Best Answer multiple choice questions are used, giving effective exam practice and guidance through revision and exam technique. This includes clinical case questions, 'positively-worded' questions, requiring selection of the most appropriate of relatively correct answers; 'two-step' or 'double-jump' questions, requiring several cognitive steps to arrive at the correct answer; as well as 'factual recall' questions, prompting basic recall of facts.
Colliding Continents
Authors: Searle Mike
Published: November 2020

The Himalaya is the greatest mountain range on Earth: the highest, longest, youngest, the most tectonically active, and the most spectacular of all. Unimaginable geological forces created these spectacular peaks. Indeed, the crash of the Indian plate into Asia is the biggest known collision in geological history, giving birth to the Himalaya and Karakoram, one of the most remote and savage places on Earth. In this beautifully illustrated book, featuring spectacular color photographs throughout, one of the most experienced field geologists of our time presents a rich account of the geological forces that were involved in creating these monumental ranges. Over three decades, Mike Searle has transformed our understanding of this vast region. To gather his vital geological evidence, he has had to deploy his superb skills as a mountaineer, spending weeks at time in remote and dangerous locations. Searle weaves his own first-hand tales of discovery with an engaging explanation of the processes that formed these impressive peaks. His narrative roughly follows his career, from his early studies in the north west Himalaya of Ladakh, Zanskar and Kashmir, through several expeditions to the Karakoram ranges (including climbs on K2, Masherbrum, and the Trango Towers, and the crossing of Snow Lake, the world's largest ice cap outside polar regions), to his later explorations around Everest, Makalu, Sikkim and in Tibet and South East Asia. The book offers a fascinating first-hand account of a major geologist at work-the arduous labor, the eureka moments, and the days of sheer beauty, such as his trek to Kathmandu, over seven days through magnificent rhododendron forests ablaze in pinks, reds and white and through patches of bamboo jungle with hanging mosses. Filled with satellite images, aerial views, and the author's own photographs of expeditions, Colliding Continents offers a vivid account of the origins and present state of the greatest mountain range on Earth.
Pressure, Temperature, Time, and Space
Authors: Searle Mike
Published: November 2020

After the summer field season of 1989 in the Pakistani Karakoram, I drove to Oxford, the ‘city of dreaming spires’ and arrived in the Department of Earth Sciences. In those days Oxford was probably the best field-geology ‘hard-rock’ department in the country and one of the best in the world. It was a wonderful place for me, buzzing with excitement and full of talented geologists working on projects all over the world. John Platt had post-graduate students working on several projects in the European Alps and the Spanish Betics, Simon Lamb was starting a major new field project in the Andes of Bolivia, and the department had some of the world’s leading igneous petrologists working on volcanic and granitic rocks all over the world. The department was overflowing and I was given an office on the top floor of the ‘annexe’ a wonderful old Victorian building at 62, Banbury Road. My office was up in the attic and I called this grandly the ‘Oxford Centre of Himalayan Research’. Right across the Banbury Road was an excellent public house, the Rose and Crown on North Parade, and we used to congregate there regularly for discussions on geology, and the world in general over a pint or two of traditional real ale. It was an excellent life. In the 1830s the first Professor of Geology in Oxford was the Reverend William Buckland who naturally came with a lot of religious baggage. Buckland was a bit of an eccentric in many ways including living with and eating a whole variety of wild animals and doing his geological fieldwork dressed in full academic gown. Following Buckland the department settled down to a more conventional geological approach, studying the stratigraphy and palaeontology of Oxfordshire. By the 1950s Oxford had become one of the leading departments of geology and mineralogy in the world. The head of department was Lawrence Wager, who had made his name studying the classic Skaergaard igneous intrusion of Greenland. Wager had earlier joined the 1933 Everest expedition climbing to 27,500 feet on the north ridge and collecting an extremely useful set of samples from the north slopes of Everest.