bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Derek Curtis Bok and the Worldly University
Authors: Keller Morton , Keller Phyllis
Published: November 2020

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the meritocratic Harvard of Conant and Pusey evolved into the more worldly university of Derek Bok (1971–91) and Neil Rudenstine (1991–2001). This is not to suggest that Harvard sloughed off its intensely meritocratic character, or even its Brahmin antecedents. And of course Harvard faculty at least since World War II had been conspicuously engaged in public affairs. But the prevailing culture shifted. Worldliness—Harvard as a participant in, as much as an observer of, the larger society—became the dominant tone in the late twentieth century. To the social elitism of Brahmin Harvard, and the disciplinary emphasis of meritocratic Harvard, there now was the ever-expanding social engagement of worldly Harvard. After Nathan Pusey announced his intention to leave the presidency in June 1971, Harvard turned to the heady business of deciding who was to be his successor. Students wanted someone young, accessible, sensitive to their educational wants and needs. Faculty members sought an eminent scholar attentive to the life of the (academic) mind. Nor could politics be ignored in this post-1969 age: one professor called for “a man who conveys a sense of sympathy with values from quite far left to somewhat right of center.” Corporation fellow Hugh Calkins later recalled that the search committee “saw Harvard as within a forest of perplexing issues, through which no clear path was visible.” The most troubling problem was an apparent shift in the prevailing view of the university’s purpose. Harvard, he observed, traditionally sought to educate “leaders of high intellectual capacity in scholarly, professional, business and public life.”Now there was a widespread sense that “intellectual capacity is suspect as a confederate of inequality and injustice.” Given these conditions, Calkins and his colleagues were uncertain whether to look for a leader with a clear vision of Harvard’s future or for one without preconceptions.
The Professional Schools
Authors: Keller Morton , Keller Phyllis
Published: November 2020

Harvard’s graduate and professional schools were where the tension between social responsibility and teaching the technical skills demanded by a complex society most fully emerged. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the traditional Big Three of Law, Business, and Medicine continued to dominate the Harvard professional school scene (though the Kennedy School of Government was coming up fast). From 1940 to 1970, they and the smaller schools took on their modern configuration: meritocratic, intensely professional, intellectually ambitious. From 1970 to 2000 they faced a variety of internal challenges to that academic culture, as well as constant competition from their counterparts in other universities. After he became president in 1971, Derek Bok devoted his first annual report to Harvard College, his second to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This was not surprising: the closely linked College and Graduate School were Harvard’s traditional academic core. What, he asked, was GSAS’s essential mission? Now as before, it was to train scholars and add to basic knowledge. But the Graduate School was in trouble. One problem was student attrition. Up to half of those who entered failed to get their Ph.D.s, compared to a drop-out rate of less than 5 percent in Law and Medicine. The fault, Bok thought, lay in the lack of structure in many doctoral programs, and he prodded the faculty to do something about that. Another concern was the Ph.D. job shortage. Nonscientists had to be ready to have careers in colleges, not just in research universities. That meant that the Graduate School would have to teach its students how to teach. At his urging in 1976 the Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning (renamed the Bok Center in 1991) was set up to tend to the pedagogical instruction of graduate students.1 Declining academic job prospects cast the longest shadow over GSAS in the 1970s. More than 1,000 students entered in the peak year of 1966–67; by 1971–72 the number was down to 560. The humanities were particularly hard hit: the 1975–76 entering class in English Literature was 16, compared to 70 a decade before.
Are You Sure It’s Really Fibromyalgia?
Authors: Wallace Daniel J. , Brock Wallace Janice
Published: November 2020

A week doesn’t go by without a patient wanting my reassurance that he or she is not seriously ill or making it all up. “Are you just telling me it’s fibromyalgia because you don’t want me to be upset?” “A friend of mine told me that fibromyalgia is a ‘garbage can’ diagnosis that doctors give when they don’t know what you have.” These are frequent remarks or queries. How is your doctor really sure that something is not being missed? This chapter reviews some diseases with features that can overlap with or be mistaken for fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia can seem to be working in concert with other diseases. For example, untreated inflammation associated with an autoimmune disease (such as rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus), other forms of inflammatory arthritis (such as ankylosing spondylitis), or a chest disease known as sarcoidosis are associated with coexisting fibromyalgia. Withdrawal from or tapering of medications such as corticosteroids typically precipitates or aggravates fibromyalgia. Many disorders interact with or can be mistaken for fibromyalgia. They are reviewed here, as well as in other parts of this book, and listed in Table 11. Linda was not herself. Over a period of several months, she found it increasingly difficult to make it through the day. Her muscles started to ache, she gained 15 pounds while on the same diet, found it difficult to tolerate cold weather, and her voice became husky. Dr. Bridges did a complete blood count and a blood panel that was normal. He was impressed with her muscle aches and diagnosed her as having fibromyalgia. When Dr. White saw Linda in a rheumatology consultation, certain things did not fit. Weight gain, a hoarse voice, and cold intolerance of recent onset are not typical features of fibromyalgia, so she obtained additional tests that included a complete thyroid pel (triiodothyronine [T3], thyroxine [T4], thyroid-stimulating hormone [TSH]). Although the T3 and T4 levels were normal (as they had been with Dr. Bridges), the TSH (which was not part of Dr. Bridges’s panel) was quite high, indicating hypothyroidism. Linda was started on thyroid replacement therapy and was back to herself within a few weeks.
Choice
Authors: Hochschild Jennifer L. , Scovronick Nathan
Published: November 2020

ALL OF THE REFORMS DISCUSSED SO FAR seek to promote the individual and collective goals of education by improving public schooling—making schools and classrooms more racially integrated, more equitably funded, more academically challenging, more focused on student learning. The most vehement critics of public education, however, look at the forty-year history of reform in this country and conclude that pursuit of the American dream through public schooling is bound to fail. They believe that the current system of public education exists for the adults who work in it and eats money, that the public has invested more than enough time and resources in trying to make the system work and should try another approach. In the words of a mother and choice advocate from New Hampshire, the public system is about “Power and money! The public school system is a powerful monopoly. The people running this monopoly fear change. They fear the resulting demise of their power.” To her mind, only by fighting this “chokehold” can we promote collective as well as individual goals of schooling: … If the school system doesn’t live up to our standards, we should have the right to “save” our children. . . . Any child not educated to be the best that he can be is heartbreaking to most parents. Any child not educated to be the best that he can be is of less value to the community he lives in. . . . This is where the concept of “school choice” becomes so important as a civil right…. Advocates of choice believe that public schooling cannot work and dooms poor children. “The combination of monopoly in the public sector, significant profitability for those who serve the monopoly and the unique ability for the wealthy to choose the best schools has translated into a nightmare of predictable results for ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’” says Lisa Keegan, the former superintendent of public instruction in Arizona:… Public education in the United States should be that in which the money necessary for an education follows a child to the school his or her parent determines is best. . . . The nation cannot abide a system that is blatantly unfair in the access it provides its students to excellent education. This battle for the right of all children to access a quality education is the civil rights movement of our time, and it will succeed.
Public Schools in the New America
Authors: Hochschild Jennifer L. , Scovronick Nathan
Published: November 2020

THE LANDSCAPE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLING in the United States has changed dramatically over the past 40 years, in part because of substantial movement toward the collective goals of education. Schools are more racially integrated than before Brown v. Board of Education; desegregation continues to contribute to the growth of the black middle class. Levels of school funding are higher than a generation ago, and in many states funding is more equitable across districts. Children with severe disabilities spend more of their days in the mainstream; children with subtle learning problems are increasingly identified and helped; parents have the legal right either to challenge the separation of children with disabilities or to demand special services for them. Most English language learners get at least some help in making the transition to English-speaking classes. Dropout rates have declined for whites and for blacks (although not for Hispanics). NAEP scores are higher in many subjects in most grades, with the greatest gains being made by black students. Most states have adopted standards and are developing curricula and professional development programs to bring those standards into the classroom; some states have shown demonstrable improvement in student learning as a consequence. Schools are increasingly sensitive to students from varied religious and ethnic backgrounds, and curricula are more multicultural. Ability grouping is more flexible than it used to be, more students have access to Advanced Placement classes, more take a reasonably demanding curricula, and more attend college. Through it all, despite concerns and disagreements, Americans have sustained their commitment to public schooling. While conflicts over education policy remain serious and policy irrationality persists, policy and practice have changed in ways that bring the ideology of the American dream closer to reality. These developments took place mostly in a context of economic stability (or even great prosperity) that made it relatively easy to dedicate more resources to public education. Broader political, social, and demographic developments, beginning with civil rights protests, also strongly affected them. Yet schools would not have moved toward greater quality, equality, and inclusiveness unless enough Americans believed deeply in the American dream and expected public education to foster the institutions and practices needed both to promote the pursuit of individual dreams and to keep democracy vital.
Dynamics of Phytophagous Insects and Their Pathogens in Alaskan Boreal Forests
Authors: Werner Richard A. , Raffa Kenneth F.
Published: November 2020

Boreal forests support an array of insects, including phytophagous (plant-eating) insects, saprophagous (detritus-eating) insects, and their associated parasites, predators, and symbionts. The phytophagous species include folivorous leaf chewers and miners, phloeophagous cambial and sapwood borers, stem gallers, and root feeders. Biological diversity and distribution of insect species exhibit predictable patterns among vegetation types (Werner 1994a). In this chapter, we discuss how phytophagous species of insects differ among plant communities and how various populations of insects react to disturbances that alter forest stand composition and density. The distribution of insects differs among plant communities depending on the ecosystem type and plant height (Table 9.1; Werner 1983, 1994a). Grasses, mosses, small tree seedlings, and other herbaceous plants located on the forest floor have the highest arthropod densities. Shrubs have the lowest densities, and trees are intermediate. The herbaceous layer is inhabited primarily by scavengers, predators, and saprophages but has few defoliators (Werner 1983). Taller shrubs contain more species of phytophagous insects than do herbs, but trees have the most species of phytophagous insects, parasites, and predators (Werner 1981, 1983). Few saprophages and scavengers (carabid beetles), however, occur on shrubs and trees (Werner 1986a). Associations of plants and phytophagous insects in boreal ecosystems are similar to temperate assemblages in that insect species differ in the range of food plants that they utilize (Bernays and Minkenberg 1997, Futuyma et al. 1993, Thorsteinson 1960). Because of low plant diversity, however, many boreal phytophagous insects feed on several species of plants (Werner 1981). For example, the spear-marked black moth, Rheumaptera hastata (L.), feeds primarily on paper birch, but during periods of high populations it also feeds on alder, willow, and rose species but not on poplar (Werner 1977, 1979). When population outbreaks of phytophagous insects deplete their preferred host plants, less desirable species are sometimes consumed or starvation occurs (Werner 1981, 1986a). The biomass of phytophagous insects is greater on broad-leafed than on conifer trees (Werner 1983). Species of Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Homoptera, Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera are common on broad-leafed trees, whereas only a few taxa of Homoptera, Hymenopera, and Lepidoptera are associated with conifers such as spruce or larch (Table 9.2; Werner 1983, 1994a).
Fibrinolytic Agents
Authors: Becker Richard C. , Spencer Frederick A.
Published: November 2020

The fibrinolytic system plays a vital role in maintaining vital organ homeostasis. Fibrinolysis, defined as the dissolution of fibrin (the major scaffold for intravascular thrombus), is the process that regulates thrombus growth after hemostasis has been achieved, thus preserving tissue perfusion. An understanding of fibrinolysis has led to the development of pharmacologic agents that can be used in the treatment of arterial and venous thrombotic disorders, including acute myocardial infarction, acute ischemic stroke, and pulmonary embolism. Fibrinolytic therapy makes use of the vascular system’s intrinsic defense mechanism by accelerating and amplifying the conversion of an inactive enzyme precursor (zymogen), plasminogen, to the active enzyme plasmin. In turn, plasmin hydrolyzes several key bonds in the fibrin (clot) matrix, causing dissolution (lysis). A single-chain glycoprotein consisting of 790 amino acids, plasminogen is converted to plasmin by cleavage of the Arg560–Val561 peptide bond. The plasminogen molecule also contains specific lysine binding sites, which mediate its interaction with fibrin and α2-plasmin inhibitor. A serine protease with trypsinlike activity, plasmin attacks lysyl and arginyl bonds of fibrin at two principal sites: (1) the carboxyterminal portion α-chain (polar region) and (2) the coiled coil connectors containing α-, β-, and γ-chains. The ability of a fibrinolytic agent to dissolve an occlusive thrombus is determined by several factors. After administration the agent must be delivered to, perfuse, and ultimately infiltrate the thrombus while concomitantly being provided with an adequate amount of substrate (plasminogen) and the appropriate metabolic environment for an enzymatic reaction (conversion of plasminogen to plasmin) to take place. The intrinsic composition or ultrastructure of a thrombus also affects its lysability. Changes in the total amount and distribution of blood flow determine oxygen delivery to metabolically active tissues. They also determine the delivery of enzymatic substrate and plasminogen activators to the occlusive thrombus. In the heart, coronary blood flow correlates directly with mean arterial pressure. The flow-pressure curve is relatively flat above 65 to 70 mmHg, but becomes steeper as the mean arterial pressure decreases below this point. The relationship within the brain is more complex.
Peripheral Vascular Disease and Stroke
Authors: Becker Richard C. , Spencer Frederick A.
Published: November 2020

More than 25 million persons in the United States have at least one manifestation of atherosclerosis. Throughout the last 50 years, coronary arterial atherosclerosis has been the focus of basic and clinical investigation; however, the systemic nature of atherosclerosis must be acknowledged (Faxon et al., 2004). Stroke is the third leading cause of death and the principal cause of long-term disability in the United States. There are upward of 600,000 new or recurrent strokes annually. Black populations have a 40% higher stroke rate than white populations and experience a higher mortality. The clinical manifestations of aortic atherosclerosis include abdominal aortic aneurysm, aortic dissection, penetrating aortic ulcer, intramural hematoma, and peripheral atheroembolization. Thoracic aortic aneurysms also occur in patients with atherosclerotic risk factors, but are less common. The age-adjusted prevalence of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is approximately 12% and may exceed 20% in persons greater than 70 years of age. An ankle–brachial index of less than or equal to 0.90 is 90% sensitive and 95% specific for PAD, identifying a patient population at risk for claudication, rest pain, skin ulceration, and critical leg ischemia, prompting amputation. A majority of patients with PAD have concomitant coronary artery disease (85%) and many have carotid artery disease (60%). Although the true prevalence of renal artery disease proceeding to clinical manifestations such as hypertension or renal insufficiency is unknown, autopsy series of patients with cerebrovascular disease and stroke have identified a high incidence of concomitant disease involving at least one renal artery. Vascular disease of the peripheral arterial circulation, most often caused by atherosclerosis and less commonly by vasculitis (or other nonatherosclerotic arteriopathies), is a chronic process that is responsible for progressive and, at times, incapacitating symptoms, disability, and limb loss. The arterial beds most frequently involved, in order of occurrence, are: . . . . • Femoropopliteal-tibial . . . . . . • Aortoiliac . . . . . . • Carotid and vertebral . . . . . . • Splanchnic and renal . . . . . . • Brachiocephalic . . .
The Skull of Australopithecus afarensis
Authors: Kimbel William H. , Rak Yoel , Johanson Donald C. , Holloway Ralph L. , Yuan Michael S.
Published: November 2020

The book is the most in-depth account of the fossil skull anatomy and evolutionary significance of the 3.6-3.0 million year old early human species Australopithecus afarensis. Knowledge of this species is pivotal to understanding early human evolution, because 1) the sample of fossil remains of A. afarensis is among the most extensive for any early human species, and the majority of remains are of taxonomically inormative skulls and teeth; 2) the wealth of material makes A. afarensis an indispensable point of reference for the interpretation of other fossil discoveries; 3) the species occupies a time period that is the focus of current research to determine when, where, and why the human lineage first diversified into separate contemporaneous lines of descent. Upon publication of this book, this species will be among the most thoroughly documented extinct ancestors of humankind. The main focus of the book - its organizing principle - is the first complete skull of A. afarensis (specimen number A.L. 444-2) at the Hadar site, Ethiopia, the home of the remarkably complete 3.18 million year old skeleton known as "Lucy," found at Hadar by third author D. Johanson in 1974. Lucy and other fossils from Hadar, together with those from the site of Laetoli in Tanzania, were controversially attributed to the then brand new species A. afarensis by Johanson, T. White and Y. Coppens in 1978. However, a complete skull, which would have quickly resolved much of the early debate over the species, proved elusive until second author Y. Rak's discovery of the 444 skull in 1992. The book details the comparative anatomy of the new skull (and the cast of its brain, analyzed by R. Holloway and M. Huan) , as well as of other skull and dental finds recovered during the latest, ongoing field work at Hadar, and analyzes the evolutionary significance of A. afarensis in the context of other critically important discoveries of earliest humans made in recent years. In essence, it summarizes the state of knowledge about one of the central subjects of current paleoanthropological investigation.
Implications of A.L. 444-2 for the Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Status of Australopithecus afarensis
Authors: Kimbel William H. , Rak Yoel , Johanson Donald C. , Holloway Ralph L. , Yuan Michael S.
Published: November 2020

A.L. 444-2 is the first specimen to preserve the cranium and mandible of a single adult individual of A. afarensis. Pairing this specimen with A.L. 417-1, which includes a mandible and maxilla, enables us to compare comprehensively the craniofacial morphology of male and female individuals of the species for the first time. The occluded mandibles and maxillae of A.L. 444-2 and A.L. 417-1 reveal a distinctive hominoid snout contour, combining a strongly inclined, convexly sloping nasoalveolar clivus with a relatively upright mandibular symphysis, a straight to slightly rounded anterior symphyseal outline, and an anteriorly placed gnathion. Both A. afarensis specimens feature a very deep mandibular corpus, whose height occupies close to 70% of the orbitoalveolar height of the face. In the African great apes, this value ranges from 36% to 54%, and in modern humans, it is 66%. The high value in humans is due to a short orbitoalveolar region rather than to a deep mandible. A. afarensis appears to share a relatively deep corpus with A. robustus (the only robust species in which the feature can be determined for a single individual) but not with A. africanus. Relative to the calvarial length, the A.L. 444-2 braincase height is apelike, falling between the tall modern human braincase and the low braincase of A. boisei and A. aethiopicus. In A. africanus (Sts. 5) and H. habilis (KNMER 1813) the relative braincase height is like that of A.L. 444-2 and the great apes. According to Le Gros Clark’s (1950) index expressing the height of the calvaria above the roof of the orbit as a percentage of total calvarial height, Sts. 5 and KNM-ER 1813 have tall, “humanlike” braincases, whereas A.L. 444-2, A. boisei, A. aethiopicus, and the African great apes group together with low braincases. In contrast to the rounded, nearly circular midsagittal outline of the chimpanzee calvaria, the posterior parietal/ occipital arc in A.L. 444-2 is steep and deviates anteriorly from the circle. This is also true of the A. boisei calvaria. As expected from the calvarial height comparison, the slope of the A.L. 444-2 frontal squama is smaller than that of A. africanus and H. habilis.
Product Engineering
Authors: Wei James
Published: November 2020

The current chemical engineering curriculum concentrates on process: the efficient manufacturing in quantity of traditional chemical products such as ammonia and benzene. However, many chemical companies now invent and manufacture specialty products with particular properties such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and electronic coatings, and their employees need to know how to design the products as well as manufacture them. James Wei, a famous chemical engineer, is writing this book to provide theories and case studies in product engineering the design of new, useful products with desired properties. The first section relates historical case studies of successful product invention and development by individuals and companies. The second part of the book describes the toolbox of molecular structure-property relations. A desired product needs to have certain properties (for example, phase transition or thermal properties) and the chemist must find or design a molecular structure with the required properties This section will instruct chemists in the analysis of structure and property information. The third section is concerned with the next stage: product research and design. It will discuss improving the desired product by additives and blending, among other strategies. It will also cover future challenges in product engineering.
The Strength of Weak Ties
Authors: Granovetter Mark S.
Published: November 2020

A fundamental weakness of current sociological theory is that it does not relate micro level interactions to macro level patterns in any convincing way. Large-scale statistical, as well as qualitative, studies offer a good deal of insight into such macro phenomena as social mobility, community organization, and political structure. At the micro level, a large and increasing body of data and theory offers useful and illuminating ideas about what transpires within the confines of the small group. But how interaction in small groups aggregates to form large-scale patterns eludes us in most cases. I will argue in this paper that the analysis of processes in interpersonal networks provides the most fruitful micro-macro bridge. In one way or another, it is through these networks that small-scale interaction becomes translated into large-scale patterns and that these, in turn, feed back into small groups. Sociometry, the precursor of network analysis, has always been curiously peripheral—invisible, really—in sociological theory. This is partly because it has usually been studied and applied only as a branch of social psychology; it is also because of the inherent complexities of precise network analysis. We have had neither the theory nor the measurement and sampling techniques to move sociometry from the usual small-group level to that of larger structures. While a number of stimulating and suggestive studies have recently moved in this direction (Bott 1957; Mayer 1961; Milgram 1967; Boissevain 1968; Mitchell 1969), they do not treat structural issues in much theoretical detail. Studies which do so usually involve a level of technical complexity appropriate to such forbidding sources as the Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, where the original motivation for the study of networks was that of developing a theory of neural, rather than social, interaction (see the useful review of this literature by Coleman 1960; also Rapoport 1963). The strategy of the present paper is to choose a rather limited aspect of small-scale interaction—the strength of interpersonal ties—and to show, in some detail, how the use of network analysis can relate this aspect to such varied macro phenomena as diffusion, social mobility, political organization, and social cohesion in general.
Hydrodynamics
Authors: Bianchi Thomas S.
Published: November 2020

The hydrologic cycle has received considerable attention in recent years with particular interest in the dynamics of land–atmosphere exchanges as it relates to global climate change and the need for more accurate numbers in global circulation models (GCMs). Recent advance in remote sensing and operational weather forecasts have significantly improved the ability to monitor the hydrologic cycle over broad regions (Vörösmarty and Peterson, 2000). The application of hydrologic models in understanding interactions between the watersheds and estuaries is critical when examining seasonal changes in the biogeochemical cycles of estuaries. Water is the most abundant substance on the Earth’s surface with liquid water covering approximately 70% of the Earth. Most of the water (96%) in the reservoir on the Earth’s surface is in the global ocean. The remaining water, predominantly stored in the form of ice in polar regions, is distributed throughout the continents and atmosphere—estuaries represent a very small fraction of this total reservoir as a subcomponent of rivers. Water is moving continuously through these reservoirs. For example, there is a greater amount of evaporation than precipitation over the oceans; this imbalance is compensated by inputs from continental runoff. The most prolific surface runoff to the oceans is from rivers which discharge approximately 37,500 km3 y−1 (Shiklomanov and Sokolov, 1983). The 10 most significant rivers, in rank of water discharge, account for approximately 30% of the total discharge to the oceans (Milliman and Meade, 1983; Meade, 1996). The most significant source of evaporation to the global hydrologic cycle occurs over the oceans; this occurs nonuniformly and is well correlated with latitudinal gradients of incident radiation and temperature. The flow of water from the atmosphere to the ocean and continents occurs in the form of rain, snow, and ice. Average turnover times of water in these reservoirs can range from 2640 y in the oceans to 8.2 d (days) in the atmosphere (Henshaw et al., 2000; table 3.1). The aqueous constituents of organic materials, such as overall biomass, have an even shorter turnover time (5.3 d). These differences in turnover rate are critical in controlling rates of biogeochemical processes in aquatic systems.
Characterization of Organic Matter
Authors: Bianchi Thomas S.
Published: November 2020

In chapter 8, a general overview was provided on the dominant sources of organic matter in estuarine systems. In general, estuarine organic matter is derived from a multitude of natural and anthropogenic allochthonous and autochthonous sources that originate across a freshwater to seawater continuum. Knowledge of sources, reactivity, and fate of organic matter are critical in understanding the role of estuarine and coastal systems in global biogeochemical cycles (Simoneit, 1978; Hedges and Keil, 1995; Bianchi and Canuel, 2001). Due to a wide diversity of organic matter sources and the dynamic mixing that occurs in estuarine systems, it remains a significant challenge in determining the relative importance of these source inputs to biogeochemical cycling in the water column of sediments. Temporal and spatial variability in organic matter inputs adds further to the complexity in understanding these environments. In recent years there have been significant improvements in our ability to distinguish between organic matter sources in estuaries using tools such as elemental, isotopic (bulk and compound/class specific), and chemical biomarker methods. This chapter will provide a general overview of the biochemistry of dominant organic compounds in organic matter and the techniques used to distinguish them in estuarine systems. The abundance and ratios of important elements in biological cycles (e.g., C, H, N, O, S, and P) provide the basic foundation of information on organic matter cycling. For example, concentrations of total organic carbon (TOC) provide the most important indicator of organic matter since approximately 50% of most organic matter consists of C. As discussed in chapter 8, TOC in estuaries is derived from a broad spectrum of sources with very different structural properties and decay rates. Consequently, while TOC provides essential information on spatial and temporal dynamics of organic matter it lacks any specificity to source or age of the material. When bulk C information is combined with additional elemental information, as in the case of the C-to-N ratio, basic source information can be inferred about algal and terrestrial source materials (see review, Meyers, 1997). The broad range of C:N ratios across divergent sources of organic matter in the biosphere demonstrate how such a ratio can provide an initial proxy for determining source information.
Nitrogen Cycle
Authors: Bianchi Thomas S.
Published: November 2020

Elemental nitrogen (N2) makes up 80% of the atmosphere (by volume) and represents the dominant form of atmospheric nitrogen gas. Despite its high atmospheric abundance, N2 is generally nonreactive, due to strong triple bonding between the N atoms, making much of this N2 pool unavailable to organisms. In fact, only 2% of this N2 pool is believed to be available to organisms at any given time (Galloway, 1998). Consequently, N2 must be “fixed” into ionic forms such as NH4+ before it can be used by plants. Since N is essential for the synthesis of amino acids and proteins and because it is often in low concentrations, N is usually considered to be limiting to organisms in many ecosystems. Nitrogen has five valence electrons and can occur in a broad range of oxidation states that range from +V to -III, with NO3− and NH4+ being the most oxidized and reduced forms, respectively. Some of the most common N compounds that exist in nature, along with their boiling points, ΔH0, and ΔG0, are shown in table 10.1 (Jaffe, 2000); these thermodynamic data can be used to calculate equilibrium concentrations. Fluxes in the global N cycle have been seriously altered by anthropogenic activities (Vitousek et al., 1997; Galloway et al., 2004). For example, fluxes of many nitrogen oxides, which are largely derived from burning fossil fuels, have increased significantly in the atmosphere resulting in photochemical smog and acid precipitation (table 10.2; Jaffe, 2000). Similarly, the advent of artificial N fertilizers (e.g., the Haber–Bosch process, where N2 is fixed to NH3 by industrial processes), which were developed to compensate for the general nonavailability of N2 to most agricultural crops, has resulted in increased N loading from soils and sewage to rivers and estuaries around the world, and considerable eutrophication problems in these aquatic ecosystems. For example, biological N2 fixation accounted for a major fraction of newly fixed N before the 1800s (∼90–130 Tg N y−1) (Galloway et al., 1995).
From Stonehenge to Samarkand
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

Ever since Roman tourists scratched graffiti on the pyramids and temples of Egypt over two thousand years ago, people have traveled far and wide seeking the great wonders of antiquity. In From Stonehenge to Samarkand, noted archaeologist and popular writer Brian Fagan offers an engaging historical account of our enduring love of ancient architecture--the irresistible impulse to visit strange lands in search of lost cities and forgotten monuments. Here is a marvelous history of archaeological tourism, with generous excerpts from the writings of the tourists themselves. Readers will find Herodotus describing the construction of Babylon; Edward Gibbon receiving inspiration for his seminal work while wandering through the ruins of the Forum in Rome; Gustave Flaubert watching the sunrise from atop the Pyramid of Cheops. We visit Easter Island with Pierre Loti, Machu Picchu with Hiram Bingham, Central Africa with David Livingstone. Fagan describes the early antiquarians, consumed with a passionate and omnivorous curiosity, pondering the mysteries of Stonehenge, but he also considers some of the less reputable figures, such as the Earl of Elgin, who sold large parts of the Parthenon to the British Museum. Finally, he discusses the changing nature of archaeological tourism, from the early romantic wanderings of the solitary figure, communing with the departed spirits of Druids or Mayans, to the cruise-ship excursions of modern times, where masses of tourists are hustled through ruins, barely aware of their surroundings. From the Holy Land to the Silk Road, the Yucatán to Angkor Wat, Fagan follows in the footsteps of the great archaeological travelers to retrieve their first written impressions in a book that will delight anyone fascinated with the landmarks of ancient civilization.
Pharaohs and Pyramids
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

The Nile slashes through the eastern Sahara Desert like an arrow, a stalk of green amid some of the most arid landscape on earth. Each summer, floodwaters from deep in tropical Africa inundate the floodplain, depositing fertile silt and nourishing growing crops, enabling an Egyptian civilization to endure for five thousand years. Along the river’s banks, pharaohs, considered to be living gods, created a palimpsest of pyramids, rock-cut tombs, and temples that have fascinated the traveler since Herodotus’s day. Egypt was the land of Ra, the sun god, whose golden rays shone day after day in an unchanging chronicle of human existence and immortality— birth, life, and death. Ra’s rays shine between the serried pillars of Karnak’s Hypostyle Hall, darken the jagged contours of the Valley of Kings in deep shadow, project the steep slopes of the pyramids of Giza over the surrounding desert. Ancient Egyptian ruins cast a profound spell over the visitor, especially in the days before Egyptologists measured the ruins and recorded their secrets. They were desolate, unfamiliar, their gods irrevocably gone, the hieroglyphs on the walls unintelligible except to a privileged few—and that only after about 1830, when Jean François Champollion’s decipherment came into common use. But the sense of time and history these monuments conveyed was, and still is, pervasive. The figures on temple and tomb walls expose the habits, fantasies, and beliefs of thirty dynasties. Even today, there is an underlying sense of permanence along the Nile. The pharaohs have vanished, succeeded by caliphs, pashas, colonial overlords, and presidents, but life along the Nile still follows a timeless routine of planting and harvest, of life and death. The traveler has been part of this timeless landscape for more than two thousand years. We have already encountered Roman tourists at the Colossi of Memnon. Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem passed through, too, although travel was difficult for the faithful in what was now Islamic territory. The founding in London of the Levant Company in 1581, originally to foster trade with Turkey—among other things, trade in coffee—brought more visitors, some of them in search of mumiya, pounded-up Egyptian mummy, considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
From Babylon to Persepolis
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

Babylon, Nineveh: the ancient cities of the Old Testament lay in a remote Mesopotamian world far off the beaten track for European travelers two centuries ago. In a devout age, Western people knew about the East only through the Scriptures. The biblical cities of Nineveh and Babylon appeared in the Old Testament. At a time when the classics and the Scriptures formed the basis for most education, people considered the Bible the literal historical truth. They remembered how the prophet Zephaniah had thundered against Nineveh: “He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria; and he will make Nineveh a desolation, a dry waste like the desert.” The writings of the few travelers who crossed the desert to reach the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and Mesopotamia confirmed the prophecies. If these wanderers reached either city, they found nothing more than dusty foundations and crumbling buildings. The eminent Arab geographer al-Mas’udi, who visited Nineveh in 943, found it to be little more than “a complex of ruins.” Yet there were small villages among the mounds. “Here,” he added presciently, “one finds stone sculptures covered with inscriptions.” The few Europeans who visited what was then an impoverished province of the Ottoman Empire stayed in Baghdad, which had begun modestly as a village before 762, when the caliph al-Mansur turned it into a military camp and, later, into a thriving city that was to become a great center for both commerce and Islamic learning. The wealth and luxury of the Abbasid court resounded through the world. But eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers to Baghdad found themselves in a crumbling city living on its past, long-vanished glories. The few Europeans who lived there endured dust storms, sweltering heat, and occasional outbreaks of plague. On January 6, 1766, the Danish traveler Karsten Niebuhr rode into Baghdad on the way home from his long expedition to Persepolis via Egypt. He was the sole survivor of a government expedition to Arabia whose members had never got along with one another. All of them except Niebuhr perished of fever either during or after a long journey through the harsh deserts of Yemen.
Maya and Inca
Authors: Fagan Brian
Published: November 2020

Bernal Diaz de Castillo was a young soldier serving under Hernán Cortés on that memorable day in November 1519 when a small detachment of conquistadors gazed down at the city of Tenochtitlán, the spectacular capital of the Aztec civilization. Diaz wrote these words when he was in his seventies, the experiences of the Spanish conquest etched in his memory so clearly that it was as if they had happened a week before. The conquistadors gaped in amazement at a native American metropolis larger than Seville, then Spain’s most populous city, and certainly better planned than many chaotically organized European capitals. Diaz relished his memories, but then added an almost melancholy footnote: “Today all that I then saw is overthrown and destroyed . . . nothing is left standing.” Nothing is left standing. Diaz wrote the literal truth. Today, the architectural, cultural, and material legacy of the Aztecs lies buried under the urban sprawl of Mexico City. Cortés himself hastened the disappearance, ordering the construction of an imposing Catholic cathedral atop the central precincts of Tenochtitlán, where temples to the sun and rain god reeked with the blood of human sacrifice. The conquistadors wandered through an enormous market attended by more than 20,000 people a day. There one could buy gold and tropical feathers, jade and chocolate, every valuable and commodity possible, at the heart of a sprawling city of singlestory houses, terraced pyramids, canals, and well-defined ethnic neighborhoods. More than 200,000 people lived in Tenochtitlán in 1519. Two years later, the city was a smoking ruin. Within a century, the native population of the former Aztec domains was less than a fifth of what it had been a century earlier. Measles, smallpox, and other infectious diseases decimated the people. The population of the Basin of Mexico declined from an estimated 1.5 million to about 325,000 between 1519 and 1570. By that point, it was almost as if Aztec civilization had never existed. Those who had survived had been forcibly converted to Catholicism—the old beliefs, customs, and oral traditions destroyed by church decree.
Geographies of War : The Recent Historical Background
Authors: Black Jeremy
Published: November 2020

The dominant metanarrative of war is one that is securely located within the Western intellectual tradition. The stress is on the material culture of war, and the explanatory approach focuses on the capabilities of particular weapons and weapons systems and a belief that progress stemmed from their improvement. This approach extends across time. Thus, for example, when the Iron Age replaced the Bronze Age, the emphasis is on how the superior cutting power of iron and the relative ease of making iron weapons led to a change in civilizations. Mechanization indeed plays a major role in the modern concept of war, and in spatial terms this relates to the collapsing of distance strategically, operationally, and tactically. Thus the entire world is literally under the scrutiny of surveillance satellites, missiles and planes that benefit from midair refueling can deliver warheads continents away, and units can be rapidly transported to and on the battlefield and, once there, can use real-time information to increase their effectiveness. Space no longer appears to be an encumbrance, let alone a friction. This approach to space essentially dates from major shifts in the nineteenth century, in particular, the ability, thanks to steamships, railroads, and telegraphs, to overcome distance. This was linked to (although far from coterminous with) a more extensive application of European military power, especially in East and central Asia, Oceania, and the interior of Africa. Centers that had not hitherto been brought under European control were captured, both coastal (Algiers in 1830 and Aden in 1839) and internal (Beijing in 1860). This reconfiguration of the spatial dimension of global power was apparently dependent on new technology as applied by Western imperialism. Thus limitations on the projection of power that had been apparent earlier in the period of European expansion in the sixteenth century were overcome. For example, metal-bottomed steamships could penetrate deltas, estuaries, and other inshore waters and sail up great rivers, such as the Irrawaddy, Nile, or Paraná in a way in which the deep-draught wooden warships earlier used by Europeans could not. This transformed the geography of maritime force projection.
Violence, Development, and Political Order
Authors: Wusten Herman Van Der
Published: November 2020

How are “development” and “violence” related? What role does “political order” play as an intermediate modulator? Where is the geography in all this? These are the questions I want to tackle in this chapter. “Development” is by now a colloquial expression that needs some washing, cleaning, and pressing to be put to good use. “Violence” always was in and of the streets, but academic introspection has provided it with additional meaning that makes it a slightly ambiguous concept. “Political order” can use a tiny bit of elaboration at the outset. “Development” in conjunction with rich and poor countries is a notion mainly popularized after World War II that indicated the belief that state societies may normally pass through stages on their way from poor to rich (as individual humans do in their development from child to adult). They may be early or late, quick or slow, and they can be assisted from the outside or hindered. In hindsight one would perhaps have expected more discussion of the possible conditions of “abnormal” or “retarded” development in the case of countries. Subsequently the development of countries became increasingly encompassing (e.g., political, social), but it soon turned out that the concept was clearly overstretched in this way. In addition, “development” became part of controversies where dependency, essential difference, nonlinearity, and contingency in different packages were marshaled against the protagonists of modernization and the policy field that had been put to work to solve the “development issue.” After more than fifty years of trying, development as a practice and an intellectual field is not in good shape. The overall faith is waning and the funding does not grow, many of the recipes do not work, and the field has lost a clear demarcation though not its focus. At the same time much partial progress has been made (e.g., in the field of health and education and in regions such as East Asia). Basic notions of poverty and wealth and their backgrounds are better understood— there are many more data, better models, and more interpretive knowledge. Development is described in levels. Each level refers to an average and a distribution of certain attributes for the population of a country.