bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Northern Alaska–Kuskokwim Mountains, Domain 10
Authors: Alexander Earl B. , Coleman Roger G. , Keeler-Wolfe Todd , Harrison Susan P.
Published: November 2020

The ultramafic rocks in this domain are in the western part of the Brooks Range, the interior Alaska lowlands of the Koyukuk–Yukon Basin, the interior Alaska highlands of the Tanana–Yukon Upland, and the Kuskokwim Mountains. This domain extends east to the Seventymile River, a tributary of the Yukon River that is near the Canadian border, and presumably to the Clinton Creek area in the Yukon Territory. Although the highest elevations in the Brook Range are near 2700 m, those in the western mountains of the range are mostly <1400 m. Flatlands, hills, and low mountains dominate the Koyukuk–Yukon Basin and Tanana–Yukon Uplands, Elevations in the Kuskokwim Mountains are mostly <1000 m. Some of the mountains in uplands of the Tanana–Yukon Uplands are higher than 1600 m. Although the Brooks Range was glaciated during the Pleistocene, there was no glaciation in the Koyukuk–Yukon Basin, and only the higher elevations in the Tanana-Yukon Upland were glaciated during the Quaternary. Today, permafrost prevails throughout the Brooks Range, but it is discontinuous in the Koyukuk–Yukon Basin and Tanana–Yukon Upland and in the Kuskokwim Mountains (Ferrians 1965). Loess is extensive in the basins of interior Alaska and at lower elevations in the Kuskokwim Mountains, with some deposits >60 m thick (Péwé 1975). The climate is very cold throughout the domain, with severe winters and relatively short summers, although mean maximum summer (July) temperatures are >20°C (up to 24°C or 25°C) in the interior basins. With latitudes from 61°N to 68°N, days are very long during summers and very short during winters. The mean annual precipitation is 15–45 cm, with the greatest precipitation during summers. Even though the precipitation is low, the climate is not arid because evapotranspiration is limited by short and relatively cool summers. The freeze-free period is on the order of 60–90 days. The northern and interior Alaska ultramafics (serpentine) consist of Paleozoic and Mesozoic thrust slices emplaced onto Precambrian and Paleozoic marine sediments. They all belong to well-defined belts and are related to low-angle thrust faults or to later high strike–slip faults.
Assembly of Continents and Establishment of Lower Crust and Upper Mantle
Authors: Rogers John J. W. , Santosh M.
Published: November 2020

Continents are very large areas of stable continental crust. After their initial accretion, they rift and move about the earth but undergo compressional deformation almost entirely on their margins. We start our discussion of continents by identifying the varieties of terranes that come together to create them. Because accretion of terranes requires closure of oceans between them, we continue our discussion by describing two different processes of closure. Then we recognize that assembly merely develops a group of terranes, and they must be “fused” or “welded” together before they can be a coherent continent. This process takes place partly during assembly, but most of it appears to be the result of post-collisional processes that continue for tens to hundreds of millions of years. This fusion develops lower continental crust and subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM), the part of the upper mantle directly underlying continental crust, that have similar, although slightly variable, properties across the entire continent. The lower crust and SCLM are separated by the seismic discontinuity known as the Moho (chapter 1), and we finish this chapter by describing the lower crust and SCLM and variations in the depth of the Moho through time. Many of the blocks involved in continental accretion are “exotic” terranes that formed somewhere away from the continent and became “allochthonous” when they accreted to the continent. They include large continental blocks that collide with each other, small continental fragments that accrete to the margins of existing continents, intraoceanic island arcs, and small amounts of oceanic lithosphere. Terranes formed on the margin of a growing continent are regarded as “autochthonous” terranes. We recognize two of them: continental-margin magmatic arcs and sediments accumulated on passive margins. Collision of large continental blocks causes intense orogeny. We illustrate this process with the collision of the Russian platform and the Siberian plate to form the Urals in the Late Paleozoic (fig. 5.1; Fershtater et al., 1997; Puchkov, 1997; Friberg and Petrov, 1998; Brown and Spadea, 1999). The East European (Russian) platform was formed by the fusion of the Baltic and Ukrainian cratons at ~2 Ga.
Which Operating System Is Right For You?
Authors: Pournelle Jerry
Published: November 2020

It’s the age-old computer question, approached with the same intensity as politics and sports: which operating system (OS for short) is right for you? But ask yourself a more fundamental question first: what will you use your computer for? Is it casual word processing and e-mail? The Great American Novel? Number crunching? The Internet? Recreational gaming? Video editing? Graphic design? The point is this: how you use your computer determines what software you need, and the availability of that software for a given operating system in turn guides your choice of OS. But remember, an operating system is linked to a specific kind of computer. For the home buyer, that means, essentially, a choice between a Mac and a PC. And your comfort level, as you try out different user interfaces, will ultimately have a profound effect on your choice of computer and operating system. Broadly, there are three popular OS families currently available: Windows, Macintosh OS’s, and countless flavors of Linux. Windows—If we include versions from Win 95 on, Microsoft Windows has the largest present and potential market share— so much so that many third-party software companies simply cannot afford to develop programs for any other OS. This alone is reason enough for many people to choose it. But others point out that just because 100 million cows eat grass, that doesn’t mean that they should eat it too. For those dissident cows among us, there are indeed some conspicuous cons to consider: Windows (particularly in its older incarnations—95 through ME) is notorious for its frequent crashes as well as its dangerous security holes, with Microsoft having to release dozens of security patches annually. And nearly all of those nasty computer viruses, trojans, and worms that you hear about are written to exploit its weaknesses. In addition, a Windows PC generally requires more technical support over its lifetime than an Apple Macintosh. On the other hand, there are pros to balance the cons. Recent versions of the OS (2000, XP, and beyond) are much more reliable, Microsoft promises updates and long-term support, and—more important—Windows systems are compatible with the largest variety of the latest software applications (from office suites, reference works, and utilities to vast quantities of games) as well as with the newest peripherals.
Do You Need a PDA?
Authors: Pournelle Jerry
Published: November 2020

You’ve seen them and they look seductive, those tiny electronic devices that are half appointment book and half Star Trek tricorder. But do you really need one? Do you already have an organizer that works? If you’re committed to your paper planner or to a calendar function on your desktop computer, it may be more trouble than it’s worth to switch to a PDA. Do you travel often? Travelers often find PDAs attractive for two reasons: their small size and the automatic backup of data to a computer at home or work. Losing a paper planner while traveling can be traumatic. Losing a PDA is a little less so, since at least you know that you haven’t lost the information, just the information container. Are you happy with gadgets? If your VCR is unprogrammed and you regularly swear at your desktop computer, a PDA might be more than you want to wrestle with. However, most PDAs have good interfaces and can be learned quickly, even by the most tech-averse of users. What kind of information do you need to access? If you only need a basic calendar, names and phone numbers, and a calculator, there are smaller, less expensive electronic devices that may meet your needs at any office supply store. Check them out before springing for a larger PDA. Will your desktop computer support a PDA? Many older computers may not have the USB (universal serial bus) connectors that modern PDAs require. Adapters are available but are an extra expense and may add to your setup and troubleshooting time.You don’t want to have to upgrade your entire system just to use a PDA. Will your desktop software support a PDA? One of the main advantages to using a PDA is being able to synchronize data from your desktop applications to the PDA. If your company mandates a particular e-mail, meeting coordination, or calendar software, make sure that it will ‘sync’ with your PDA. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time manually entering information, or wishing you had.
Introduction
Authors: Dryfoos Joy G.
Published: November 2020

A strong research base supports the rationale for community schools. We have selected a few exemplary studies that document the impact of various community-school components on the problems children confront. Children come to school with an array of issues that limit their capacity to learn. They do better in school if they have access at very early ages to health and mental health services and family supports. . . . Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers provided sustained and comprehensive education, family and health services, and included half-day preschool at ages 3 to 4 years, half- or full-day kindergarten, and school-age services in linked elementary schools at ages 6 to 9 years. Relative to a preschool comparison group, children who participated in the preschool intervention for one or two years had a higher rate of high-school completion (49.7% versus 38.5%; P = .01); more years of completed education (10.6 versus 10.2; P = .03); and lower rates of juvenile arrest (16.9% versus 25.1%; P = .003) [and] violent arrests (9.0% versus 15.3%; P = .002). . . . Both preschool and school-age participation were significantly associated with lower rates of grade retention and special education services. The effects of preschool participation on educational attainment were greater for boys than girls, especially in reducing school dropout rates (P = .03). . . . These findings are among the strongest evidence that established programs administered through public schools can promote children’s long-term success. Parents need help not only with parenting skills but also in many other aspects of their lives. Strong parent centers in schools can assist parents with many of the obstacles that stand in their way—for example, learning English as a Second Language (ESL), gaining employment, finding housing, and dealing with immigration problems. When parents are involved in their children’s school experience, everyone benefits. Henderson and Mapp’s review of 20 studies provides ample evidence that when families are engaged in their children’s education, the results are better. No matter what the income or background, students with involved parents earned higher grades and test scores, were more frequently promoted, attended school regularly, had improved social skills and behavior, and tended to graduate and go on for further education.
After-School and Summer Enrichment Programs
Authors: Jonas Sarah
Published: November 2020

Research has demonstrated that nonschool hours provide a powerful opportunity for community-based organizations to help children and schools reach their academic goals. For example, Reginald Clark says, “Youngsters who engage in constructive learning activities outside of school are more likely to excel in school and in life than those who do not. By participating in a well-rounded array of activities, they are able to practice and thoroughly learn skills required for academic success.” Based on this knowledge, The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) aims to integrate after-school and summer enrichment programs with classroom instruction through a model that both supports the school’s academic mission and promotes healthy youth development. The vast majority of students in CAS’s 10 community schools, which are located in New York City, struggle with basic skills; in addition, more than half are Spanish speakers grappling with English as a second language. Their parents, teachers, and principals look to after-school and summer programs to help address their needs. The challenge for CAS is to answer this call in a way that is fun and engaging for children and achievable for program staff. A crucial feature of high-quality after-school programs is balanced programming. In keeping with this concept, CAS after-school programs offer children an array of purely recreational activities (such as sports, dance, and visual and dramatic arts) along with academically enriching curricula that meet children’s developmental needs and align with school standards. However, having strong curricula is only the first step. Critical to program quality has been the creation of a support system that incorporates key members of the school community and ensures that curricula are presented clearly so as to be accessible to a range of staff. Simply being located in a community school does not guarantee that an after-school program will align with the school’s academic goals for children. Rather, we have achieved this by partnering with the principal and lead teachers for program planning, by choosing curricula that support the school’s academic goals for children, and by hiring a lead teacher or staff developer from the school to serve as the after-school education coordinator.
Family Systems Issues in Pediatric Sickle Cell Disease
Authors: Barakat Lamia P. , Boyd Rhonda C.
Published: November 2020

Because sickle cell disease (SCD) largely affects individuals of African descent, throughout this chapter the importance of a culturally sensitive and competent family systems approach to understanding family issues in SCD is advocated. After African American families are described in some depth, including their strengths, unique features, and special concerns, frameworks for understanding how SCD may have an impact on family functioning are presented with emphasis on the developmental-ecological model of family functioning (Kazak, 1989). This model is used to characterize family systems issues associated with SCD, and specific elements are examined. Developmental changes in family adaptation over the course of the illness are considered, as are efforts to intervene in family adaptation. Broad sociocultural systems issues with an impact on families of African descent are described, and the need for culturally sensitive and respectful approaches to families affected by SCD is underscored. Finally, unexamined areas in family systems issues for pediatric SCD are considered, with suggestions for further research. Understanding family systems issues in pediatric SCD is critical to providing effective care and to facilitating optimal adaptation in the context of the disease and its treatment. A discussion of family issues pertinent to SCD must start by acknowledging that sociocultural factors, including race, ethnicity, and culture, are central because African Americans are the primary group diagnosed with SCD in the United States, and that family functioning is impacted by SCD and its treatment demands almost immediately following the birth of a child. There are a host of sociocultural factors that have an impact on African Americans that may increase resilience or risk to overall family adaptation to a child’s disease. Therefore, it is imperative to understand families of children with SCD in the context of the immediate conditions in which they live and the larger sociopolitical context in which they function (Johnson et al., 1995; Sterling, Peterson, & Weekes, 1997).
The Earth Splits, Water Rushes In
Authors: Thomson Peter
Published: November 2020

Siberia is huge, but it isn’t greedy. Of all the colors in the universe’s paint box, it asks for only a few shades of green to have its massive portrait painted. The picture starts with a ragged band of soft sage, the treeless tundra of the Arctic and subarctic. Through the middle, a thick swath of deep emerald, the taiga forest that stretches from the Pacific to the Urals and beyond to Scandinavia. Finally, in the far lower left corner, a wedge of soft yellowish green, Siberia’s share of the fertile Eurasian steppe. From a distance, this rough canvas is a study in chlorophyll, with just a single, stark break in the color scheme—a thin blue crescent slicing through the lower middle of the emerald taiga. It’s almost as if the same gigantic hand that wielded the paintbrush then picked up a monstrous stiletto and in an impulsive Dadaist gesture cut a gigantic gash into the taut canvas, which pulled open and filled up with cobalt paint. And I suppose if you believed in such things, you could say that’s actually what’s happened here, that the hand was God’s and that after the earth was sliced open, the gash grew ever wider and filled up with more and more blue water. Earth’s surface has been torn apart here, and water has been flowing into the gash for eons. A lake is a simple thing, really—just a big hole in the ground filled with water. And our restless planet finds all kinds of ways to make them. The earth is constantly reshaping itself, through processes great and small—from the epochal smashing and tearing of crustal plates, to the periodic growth and recession of glaciers, to the daily flow of wind, water, and sediment. As long as water flows and the earth moves, lakes will continue to be born, grow, and die. Lakes can be formed in the buckling and cracking seams between the earth’s tectonic plates, as with the Great Lakes of East Africa. They can be formed in the wake of receding glaciers, which leave long grooves, moraines, and kettle holes.
Buryatia, in Black & White and Color
Authors: Thomson Peter
Published: November 2020

The trail along the eastern shore of the Holy Nose south of our campsite is maybe a foot wide, just a narrow track of compacted leaves and dirt, a path that could just as easily have been made by centuries of hooves and paws as by shod human feet. And perhaps it was. I’ve walked such trails in the Arctic, etched into the tundra by caribou and wolves and musk oxen. It’s a humbling and exhilarating experience, the trails a simple but stark reminder that you are in someone else’s habitat and that humans are not the only species to have left their mark on the planet. This one weaves between thick-barked evergreens and leathery aspens, clinging precariously to a slope that could easily throw a clumsy hominid to the waves fifty or more feet below. Andrei is lost in the thickets ahead, charging on to the next clearing, at which he’ll wait for us, again. James, Elisa, Chanda, and I keep to a more leisurely pace, in no more of a hurry to see the next sparkling facet of Baikal than this one, or to catch a toe on the next stone or gnarled root than the previous one. Igor stayed behind with our stuff at the campsite, to be picked up by the Lonesome Boatman. We’ll rendezvous with them farther down the coast this afternoon. Yesterday’s ragged clouds blew out in the evening, and the sky over Baikal today has the clarity of vodka and carries a cool, yellowish luminescence, as if after their ninety-three million mile dash the sun’s photons have slowed down to admire the little corner of the solar system that they’ve been lucky enough to have been sent to. There is no sign that any of the billions of humans who have ever lived have set foot in this place. We walk mostly in silence. From high above the lake, the trail drops down to the water, the steep slope giving way ahead to a thin, gracefully arcing beach dividing the lake from a narrow stand of wispy wetland trees and a soft amber field beyond.
Zigzag to Russia
Authors: Thomson Peter
Published: November 2020

The Fukuoka train station feels nearly asleep as the clock heads toward 11:00 p.m. Perhaps the station in this small city on Japan’s western shore always feels nearly asleep, no matter where the clock is heading, but we hope not to have to find out. There’s a train leaving for Kyoto in a few minutes, and we hope to be on it. We had no idea when we left Korea whether there actually was an overnight train from Fukuoka to Kyoto, but the way I figured it, it’s Japan, the place that’s supposed to have the best train system in the world—there has to be. And now here we are in Fukuoka and we’ve found out that I’d guessed right, and we’ve caught the snappy little bus that was waiting outside the terminal to take us to the station, hauled our stuff off the bus, quickly tried to ascertain from the kaleidoscope of Japanese signs and strange symbols which way the ticket lobby might be, and turned to head in that direction. What we still have no idea about is whether we’ll be able to find out if there are any seats left on the train, get our rail passes validated, get tickets, and find our way to the platform before the train slips off into the warm September night in less than half an hour—especially since it quickly became apparent that few people out here in the Japanese hinterlands speak English. And now as we hitch up our backpacks and take our first steps toward the lobby, a voice comes from behind us, a female voice in heavily accented but well-practiced English, and it’s saying, “Can I help you?” We turn back and where not a moment ago there was nothing but still night air there is now a beautiful young woman and, I’m pretty sure, the fading swirls of a puff of smoke. Out of nowhere has materialized our own little Glinda the Good Witch, only Japanese, and without all the glitter and lace.
Dr. Hope and Dr. Despair
Authors: Thomson Peter
Published: November 2020

The road from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal, unlike the roads we traveled with Andrei approaching the lake’s eastern shore, is smooth, straight, and well maintained. But in the first snow of the Siberian winter, it’s almost impassible nonetheless, as it struggles on its arrow-straight trajectory to negotiate wave after wave of steep hills. Its stubborn course ignores the promise of an easier if somewhat longer approach were it to wander to one side or the other, dooming local residents to a treacherous journey for six months of the year, and it suggests the firm determination of a ministry chief in Moscow that the most direct road be built between the regional capital and the lake, no matter what. And in fact, I will learn after traveling this road that this is exactly what happened. In 1960, at the height of the cold war, the U.S. and the USSR brokered a deal for President Eisenhower to visit Russia. Included on his itinerary was to be a stop in Irkutsk, and a visit to Siberia’s famous lake, sixty kilometers away. There was no modern road between the two, so Moscow commanded that one be built, and it was—in just two months. But Eisenhower never came. Just before he was to depart, Gary Francis Powers’s U2 spy plane was shot down over Russia. The trip was canceled, and a new freeze settled over relations between the two adversaries. But, as imperfect as it is, the region did get a road between Irkutsk and Baikal, and after forty years local residents have gotten quite used to the sometimes white-knuckle ride. Over forty years, I might get used to it, too. The little white minibus into which James and Olga and I are now crammed with a dozen or so other passengers rises and falls like a roller coaster cart, except that this feels like even less sturdy and dependable transportation. Snow squalls are blowing through the Angara Valley, and when the bus isn’t being buffeted by gusts of wind, it’s straining to climb a slippery slope.
Expanding Promise, Debating Means: Separate and Integrated Schooling for Immigrants, English-language Learners, Girls, and Boys,
Authors: Minow Martha
Published: November 2020

Spurred by the social and legal struggles surrounding Brown, parents and advocates during the twentieth century and into the present have pursued equal schooling along other dimensions of exclusion and inequality by working through court challenges, legislation, and other initiatives. Brown enshrined equality as the entitlement for all students, even as the work leading to and following Brown identified avenues for advocates concerned for students learning English, immigrants, girls, boys, and others left out or mistreated by public schooling. American public schools have grown preoccupied with the aspiration of equality and the language of inclusion. Yet no less pervasive is the struggle over whether equality is to be realized through integrated or separate settings. The debates involve politics, prejudices, and social science studies. Shifting political tides and cultural attitudes, as well as legal debates, reflect and also aggravate uncertainties about what kinds of instruction actually promote equal opportunities for all children. Often called “a nation of immigrants” (with the elision, then, of Native Americans and slaves), the United States has offered opportunities but also presided over mistreatment of newcomers on the basis of language, accent, derogatory ideas about their country of origin, or general negative attitudes toward foreigners. Such attitudes include the conflation of “foreign” with “illegal,” the confusion of immigrant with noncitizen, and the equation of being a speaker of Spanish (and other native tongues) with being “non-American.” The tradition of forced assimilation starts first not with immigrants but with the Native Americans, beginning with the Civilization Act of 1819, under which the government removed Indian children from their family cultures and placed them in federally funded missionary schools, not to further integrate them with other students but to “civilize” them. In addition, as the United States displaced Mexico in parts of the Southwest, families who never moved gradually found themselves dealing with a contest over language, race, and culture.
Small Newspapers
Authors: Seely Ron
Published: November 2020

Some days, now that I have crested 50, I find myself surprised to be, of all things, a science reporter on a daily newspaper in a small but sophisticated city and immersed every day in a world of stem cells, radio-collared bald eagles, flakes of Martian meteorites, and strange deer diseases. I can't imagine a place I'd rather be at this point in my life, though sometimes the haphazard way I got here, the serendipitous nature of it all, makes my head spin—not to mention the fearful task of trying to make something called “proteomics” understandable for an audience that has maybe a minute and a half to read what I've written. After all, I made a terrible mess of the frog I was supposed to dissect in high school all those years ago. And trying to figure out exactly what Mendel was doing with all of those pea plants drove me nuts. Math? Well, suffice it to say that my problems with algebra and equations are what drove me to a career in journalism. Still, here I am, settled in Madison, Wisconsin, in the upper Midwest of America, carrying around business cards that identify me as science and environment reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. In a recent, typical week, I researched and wrote a column about robotics, pounded out a quick news feature about why the human body gets cold in winter, made pesky phone calls to state officials about why they aren't enforcing the state's new pollution law, and churned out news briefs on everything from clouds of ionized hydrogen in the solar system to a pollution permit hearing for a local manufacturing plant. Between assignments, I had time to give a talk about science writing to a local high school biology class and to win one of the ongoing games of Scrabble in the cubicle at the newspaper where I make my workday home. Not a day goes by that I don't worry about losing this good job. That's because full-time science reporters on small to mid-sized daily newspapers in this country are an endangered species.
Explanatory Writing
Authors: Johnson George
Published: November 2020

I remember with some precision when I began believing that there is nothing so complex that a reasonably intelligent person cannot comprehend it. It was a summer day, when I was 15 or 16, and my best friend, Ron Light, and I decided that we wanted to understand how a guitar amplifier works. We both played in a mediocre I96os-era garage band. While Ron went on to become a fairly accomplished guitarist, I was slowly learning that any talent I had didn't lie within the realm of music. Already the aspiring little scientist, I was able to learn enough of the logic of basic harmony theory to execute the mindlessly simple algorithms called bass riffs, and if pressed I could even fire off a bass solo, the dread of concertgoers everywhere. But my approach to the performance was purely intellectual. I didn't have rhythm, or maybe soul. Poring over the symbols on the circuit diagram of Ron's Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier seemed infinitely more interesting than trying to read music. I wanted to know what that impressively convoluted blueprint really meant, how electricity flowing through the labyrinth of wires and components could cause the tiny vibration of a guitar string to be multiplied so many times that it rocked the walls of the living room, inciting the neighbors to call the police. This was still the era of the vacuum tube, before those glowing glass envelopes were replaced by coldly efficient transistors and microchips. Electronics was pretty simple to understand. I had already learned some basics from The Boys' Second Book of Radio and Electronics and the guide for the Boy Scout electricity merit badge (the colorful embroidered patch was decorated with a human fist clutching zigzag lightning bolts). In a typical circuit, there were resistors that, true to their calling, resisted electricity, pinching the flow of electrons. There were capacitors, also aptly named, that stored electrical charges. There were tightly wound coils of copper wire called inductors that would hold energy in the form of electromagnetic fields. Finally, there were the vacuum tubes themselves, mysterious pockets of illuminated nothingness inside of which the actual amplification took place.
Medicine
Authors: Brownlee Shannon
Published: November 2020

Medical writers have gone through a period of soul searching, a reappraisal of our role as journalists and members of the fourth estate. Are we supposed to simply cover the medical news: the new findings, the “breakthroughs” that appear in medical journals? Or are we also supposed to serve as critics of medicine, uncovering corruption and wrongdoing like our colleagues who cover politics, the military, and business? When I started in this business in the early 19805, we medical journalists liked to talk about ourselves as translators. Our job was to sort through the medical journals, decide what was newsworthy, and then put the jargon of science and statistics into language that ordinary readers could understand. In the intervening years we've done a superb job of translating and conveying information. In fact, we might have done the job too well, because in simply reporting each newsworthy finding in the professional journals, the lay press has helped sell medical products and procedures to a public eager for good news about their health. The upshot is that we've inadvertently helped put a high gloss on medicine, rather than actually keeping the enterprise honest. As medicine has become increasingly commercial and political, medical writers have increasingly assumed the role of critic and watchdog. We still have to cover the medical news, but we also have to provide the social, political, and scientific context for each new finding. These days, getting a medical story right requires more than simply understanding molecular biology, or clinical trial design, or how to express relative risk versus absolute risk. Getting it right also means understanding the role that industry plays in driving medical science. It means questioning assumptions about how disease works. Do a Nexis search for the words “C-reactive protein” and “heart disease,” for instance, and you will find dozens of stories that say, in effect, that C-reactive protein (CRP) is the latest and greatest new predictor of heart disease. But what you won't easily find in all that ink are questions about whether CRP is any better than current predictors of heart disease, like serum cholesterol levels or stress tests.
Nutrition
Authors: Squires Sally
Published: November 2020

Twenty years ago, if someone had suggested that nutrition news would regularly make the “A” section of major newspapers—and often the front page—I probably would have laughed. Sure, through the years, the occasional nutrition or weight-related story has made it to the front page. In 1998, a committee convened by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute changed the definition of “overweight.” Twenty-nine million Americans went to sleep thinking they were fine and woke up to learn that the government now said they needed to shed 6 to 12 pounds to be at a healthy weight. That story, which I covered for the Washington Post, made it not to just to the front page but above the fold. The straight news story began this way: . . . The federal government plans to change its definition of what is a healthy weight, a controversial move that would classify millions more Americans as being overweight. . . . . . . Under the new guidelines, an estimated 29 million Americans now considered normal weight will be redefined as overweight and advised to do everything they can to prevent further weight gain. Those who are already experiencing health effects, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol or diabetes, will be encouraged to lose small amounts of weight—about six to 12 pounds—to bring them back to safer weight levels. . . . But in a follow-up piece that I did for the Health section, I had a little more fun with the off-the-news lead and wrote this: . . . What do Olympic gold medal skier Picabo Street and Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken Jr. have in common? . . . . . . According to new federal guidelines, they are both overweight. . . . . . . So what should they and the millions of other adults suddenly classified as overweight do about their extra pounds? Athletes like Street and Ripken may be special cases, but what about the rest of us? . . . In this follow-up story, I was able to offer a more in-depth explanation of the body mass index—a screening measure for determining a healthy weight that has replaced the old Metropolitan Life Insurance height and weight charts, which used body frame size, height, and gender to offer healthy body weight.
Mental Health
Authors: Raeburn Paul
Published: November 2020

It wasn't until I had a profound personal experience with mental illness in my family that I started covering psychiatry and psychology. In the late 19905, my son, Alex, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A few years later, my daughter, Alicia, began suffering from repeated bouts of severe depression. Even after they became ill, I resisted turning my reporting to mental health. But as I continued to experience the suffering that these illnesses can cause, I finally succumbed. If I was going to help my children, I needed to learn a lot more about psychiatry, both research and treatment. With a background covering research, I could have confined my reporting to published studies and conferences, the bread-and-butter of science coverage. But I quickly realized that by taking that approach, I would be getting only a small piece of the story. For one thing, research in the behavioral sciences is, as I had always suspected, at a rather primitive stage. Researchers know far more about the heart, the kidneys, and tumor cells than they do about the brain. That's understandable; the brain is a far more complex organ. The scandal, however, is that what is known about the brain is rarely taught to psychiatrists. “Most of the more advanced training for psychiatric residents is really apprenticeship training in which brain science plays little or no part,” write the Harvard psychiatrist J. Allan Hobson and the writer Jonathan A. Leonard in their book, Out of Its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis (2002). “The brain science knowledge of many practicing psychiatrists remains mostly informal or even anecdotal, leaving psychotherapy and psychopharmacology separated, isolated, and diminished at a time when brain science has the ability to nourish and combine them in an empowering fashion.” The message to reporters is that if we are to understand psychiatry, psychology, and mental illness, and write capably about them, we must do more than peruse the scientific journals and attend the neuroscience meetings. We need to get out there in the trenches, by which I mean the homes and the minds and hearts of the families who are suffering from mental illness.
Human Genetics
Authors: Regalado Antonio
Published: November 2020

Genetic research is moving faster than a nematode poked by a platinum needle. Every week, the scientific journals report a score of new gene discoveries made in mice, worms, and men. How can a science journalist cover it all? It's hopeless, of course. So one thing I always keep in mind is it's often the methods or scientific tools behind these molecular discoveries, not the discoveries themselves, that present the best story possibilities. Examples of topics for such “tool stories” include DNA chips, proteomics, and new imaging technologies like the green-fluorescent protein used to make zebrafish and other laboratory critters glow. In writing about the technologies that drive biological research, I've found a formula that has worked well for me, time and again. Of course, not every story fits the same mold, and the best ones break it. But it's important to be familiar with how a tool story typically comes to be, and how to write one. I like to think about biology as a big onion that's rapidly being peeled. There are tens of thousands of biologists peeling away every day, figuring out all of life's working parts. But I never saw much sense in inspecting every peel for its news potential. (And some editors I know refer dismissively to the latest uncovering of a gene for heart attack or schizophrenia as “gene-of-the-week” stories.) It's better, sometimes, to focus on the new techniques and ideas for peeling the onion. Tool stories are big-picture stories that can be newsy, but the trends tend to have a long shelf life. They endure through numerous news cycles, and ultimately nearly every outlet in the journalistic food chain will cover the big ones. Your decision is when to catch the wave. Some reporters put a big emphasis on being first, but others will be content to watch the story unfold and cover their piece of it when it's right for whatever market they happen to be writing for. Either way, a tale of how a new technology is changing biological research is a great way to teach your readers—and yourself—about how science really works.
Determination of Complex Reaction Mechanisms
Authors: Ross John , Schreiber Igor , Vlad Marcel O.
Published: November 2020

In a chemical system with many chemical species several questions can be asked: what species react with other species: in what temporal order: and with what results? These questions have been asked for over one hundred years about simple and complex chemical systems, and the answers constitute the macroscopic reaction mechanism. In Determination of Complex Reaction Mechanisms authors John Ross, Igor Schreiber, and Marcel Vlad present several systematic approaches for obtaining information on the causal connectivity of chemical species, on correlations of chemical species, on the reaction pathway, and on the reaction mechanism. Basic pulse theory is demonstrated and tested in an experiment on glycolysis. In a second approach, measurements on time series of concentrations are used to construct correlation functions and a theory is developed which shows that from these functions information may be inferred on the reaction pathway, the reaction mechanism, and the centers of control in that mechanism. A third approach is based on application of genetic algorithm methods to the study of the evolutionary development of a reaction mechanism, to the attainment given goals in a mechanism, and to the determination of a reaction mechanism and rate coefficients by comparison with experiment. Responses of non-linear systems to pulses or other perturbations are analyzed, and mechanisms of oscillatory reactions are presented in detail. The concluding chapters give an introduction to bioinformatics and statistical methods for determining reaction mechanisms.
General Properties
Authors: Mark James E. , Schaefer Dale W. , Lin Gui
Published: November 2020

Many of the properties of the polysiloxanes have been tabulated in handbooks of polymer science and engineering. Recent work has included the stretching of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chains, in some cases to their rupture points. The nature of the bonding in siloxane molecules has been of long-standing interest. Force fields for calculations of PDMS properties have been revised over the years and are now at an advanced state of development. Some of the simplest approaches employ the methods of molecular mechanics. Most of the experimental results have been obtained on solutions of polysiloxanes in thermodynamically good solvents. The first member of this series, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), [–Si(CH3)2O–]x, has been studied extensively with regard to its configuration-dependent properties. PDMS (figure 2.1) is very similar in structure to the polyphosphate chain in that the successive bond angles are not equal. The Si–O bond length in polysiloxanes is 1.64 Å, and bond angles at the Si and O atoms are 110 and 143°, respectively. This inequality of bond angles causes the all-trans form of the molecule (with rotational angles ϕ = 0°) to form a closed structure after approximately eleven repeat units. The torsional barrier for rotations about the skeletal bonds is very low, which accounts for the high dynamic flexibility and low glasstransition temperature of the PDMS chain. Not surprisingly, low temperature properties are superb. Trans states are of lower energy than gauche states (ϕ = ±120°) in the PDMS chain. This conformational preference may arise from favorable van der Waals interactions between pairs of CH3 groups separated by four bonds in trans states. This factor is apparently more important than favorable coulombic interactions between oppositely charged Si and O atoms separated by three bonds, which are larger in gauche states because of the reduced distance. Comparisons between experimental and theoretical values of various configuration-dependent properties, however, yield a value for this energy difference that is significantly larger than that obtained from the semi-empirical calculations of interactions between nonbonded atoms.
Molecular Theories for the Viscoelasticity of Flexible Homogeneous Polymeric Liquids
Authors: Han Chang Dae
Published: November 2020

The fact that a polymer consists of a number of chains of different lengths, each in turn consisting of a series of monomer units, means that the motion of one part of the polymer chain will profoundly affect the motion of other parts. Hence, for a given polymer, a description of microscopic processes occurring under a given flow field depends on hypotheses regarding the molecular structure and mechanisms of flow in the polymer. Today, it is well-known, gained from practical experience, that the molecular weight, the molecular weight distribution, and the degree of long-chain branching influence the rheological properties of polymeric liquids. Therefore, a better understanding of the relationship between molecular parameters and rheological properties is very important from the standpoints of both polymer synthesis and polymer processing. However, the theoretical development of this aspect of the problem is far from complete, although some important progress has been made. In the preceding chapter, we discussed the viscoelastic behavior of polymeric liquids from the phenomenological point of view, without associating the significance of theoretical predictions to molecular origin(s). Specifically, we have seen that the rheological equations of state contain parameters that vary from polymer to polymer. Since it has amply been demonstrated by experiment that the extent of a particular viscoelastic behavior is greatly influenced by the molecular parameters, such as molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, and the degree of long-chain branching, predictions of any viscoelastic behavior of polymers on the basis of phenomenological theory is of very limited use to either control the quality of polymers produced or improve the performance of polymers, unless the parameters appearing in various continuum constitutive equations are related to molecular parameters.
Experimental Methods for Measurement of the Rheological Properties of Polymeric Fluids
Authors: Han Chang Dae
Published: November 2020

There has been a continuing interest in developing experimental techniques for the measurement of the rheological properties of viscoelastic fluids. As discussed in Chapter 3, reliable experimental data are needed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a constitutive equation in its ability to predict the rheological properties of viscoelastic fluids. Also, as is presented in later chapters, a better understanding of the rheological properties of polymers is very important for the determination of optimum processing conditions, as well as for the attainment of desired physical/mechanical properties in the finished product. Further, reliable measurement of the rheological properties of polymers can be used to control polymerization reactors in industry and also to control polymer processing operations. In this chapter, we present experimental methods for measurement of the rheological properties of polymeric fluids. For this, we discuss experimental methods to determine (1) steady-state simple shear flow and oscillatory shear flow properties using cone-and-plate rheometry, (2) steady-state shear flow properties using capillary/slit rheometry, and (3) elongational flow properties of polymeric fluids. There are other rotational types of rheological instruments, such as those with concentric-cylinder and eccentric-parallel plates. However, such rheological instruments are not widely used today and thus in this chapter we do not present the principles and applications of such rheological instruments. In presenting the experimental methods for rheological measurements we refer to the fundamentals presented in Chapters 2 and 3. For further details of the experimental methods, there are monographs (Collyer and Clegg 1998; Dealy 1982; Ferry 1980; Walter 1975) that are devoted entirely to the discussion of rheological measurements. The primary purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the fundamentals presented in Chapters 2–4 can be used in the measurement of the rheological properties of polymeric fluids. Optical rheometry is an important experimental technique for investigation of the relationship between any microphase morphology dynamics and the rheological behavior of complex polymeric fluids (e.g., liquid-crystalline polymers), which exhibit strong chain orientation during flow (Fuller 1995).