bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Chest Medicine
Authors: Sinharay Rudy
Published: November 2020

Respiratory conditions are common, and the burden of morbidity on the general population is high. You only have to take part in a few general medical takes as a junior doctor to realize this. As the on- call bleep goes off again, you are referred another exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma, a breathless patient (is it a pul­monary embolism, pneumothorax, or something less common?), or a patient with haemoptysis and weight loss [is it lung cancer or tuberculosis (TB)?] or productive cough (pneumonia or bronchiectasis?). The number of different respiratory conditions can be bewildering, and it is essential for the developing physician to be able to manage ‘common presenta­tions’, as well as potentially life- threatening situations such as an asthma attack or an acute pulmonary embolism. The nuances of history taking is often key to successfully clinching a diagnosis: ● What chronic conditions, respiratory or otherwise, do your patients have? ● What is the onset of symptoms? Sudden breathlessness may indicate a pneumothorax or pulmonary embolus. A chronic productive cough may indicate COPD or bronchiectasis. ● Social history— do they smoke, what are their living conditions, what is their occupation? Luckily, we have other tools to help us. The age- old art of inspec­tion, palpation, percussion, and auscultation during an examination is essential when assessing the patient. Combined with imaging techniques, including chest radiography, CT scanning, and bedside thoracic ultra­sound, the answer is often easily obtained. Keeping an open mind to the less common causes of breathlessness, cough, and haemoptysis is important. Combined with lung function testing, autoimmune blood tests, and bronchoscopy, subtler diagnoses such as interstitial lung dis­ease, fungal lung disease, and autoantibody- induced haemoptysis may be revealed. And a word to the wise— not all breathlessness originates from the lungs! For instance, an increased body mass index will cause a physical restriction on the mechanics of breathing and a compensated metabolic acidosis may cause tachypnoea. As with all chronic diseases, the management of chronic respira­tory disease is becoming increasingly complicated with the advent of biologics, immunotherapy, antifibrotic therapy, and a genuinely confusing array of inhalers.
How Common is Schizophrenia?
Authors: Glatt Stephen J. , Faraone Stephen V. , Tsuang Ming T.
Published: November 2020

To this point, we have been providing consensus descriptions of schizophrenia, what it is and what it is not, and describing the means by which it is detected and diagnosed. In this and later chapters, we present the evidence about the causal factors, treatments, and outcomes of schizophrenia from scientific studies. Such studies sometimes find results that differ from each other due to differences in the methods used or the types of patients that are studied. Random differences in measurement between studies also leads to discrepancies, which is perfectly normal.How, then, can we come to firm conclusions in the presence of variable results from different studies? Our approach as scientists, and as authors trying to distil the facts, is to always rely on the preponderance of evidence, or the best estimate that can be made when putting all the evidence together. Thus, as we present the facts moving forward, we will base our claims on the largest studies avail­able, since these usually give more reliable results than small studies. Whenever possible, we will present the results of analyses that put the results of otherstudies together using a formal statistical method called ‘meta- analysis’. Thus, instead of comparing and contrasting the results from two or more studies, we will let the reader know the overall result found when all studies were pooled together. In some instances, however, it is instructive to compare and contrast studies because each study tells us something different and uniquely important, and we will point this out when doing so.In this chapter, we describe the epidemiology of schizophrenia. Epidemiology is a branch of science concerned with the distribution and determinants of illness in the population, and the transmission of illness within families. Two important epidemiologic measures of disease burden in society are prevalence and incidence. The prevalence of schizophrenia (i.e., the number of affected individuals in the population) has been estimated at least 60 times in 30 dif­ferent countries. The prevalence estimates seen in these studies are very consistent, despite cultural differences between samples and the dif­ferent methods used and timeframes sampled in the studies.
Is Schizophrenia A Brain Disorder?
Authors: Glatt Stephen J. , Faraone Stephen V. , Tsuang Ming T.
Published: November 2020

In the language of psychiatry, disorders that change the functioning of psy­chological processes or emotion are called either ‘symptomatic’ or ‘idiopathic’. Symptomatic disorders are those for which there is a known physical cause. For example, temporal lobe epilepsy, strokes, and brain tumours can change mental functioning and emotional expression. In these cases, the physical cause can be found by using electroencephalograms (which measure the electrical activity of the brain), X- rays, or similar, but more sophisticated, methods of assessment. In contrast, we say a disorder is idiopathic if it has no known phys­ical cause. We emphasize the word ‘known’ because most scientists expect that physical causes of schizophrenia will some day be found when we can look moreclosely at the molecular level. The term ‘idiopathic’ originally reflected the be­lief that these disorders were due to psychological and social events that had no physical effects on the brain.When the first edition of this book was published, psychiatry was undergoing a revolution in its approach to mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Many scientists and clinicians were starting to question the idea that schizophrenia was rooted in psychological and family conflict. Instead, they thought that the massive alterations in thought and emotion in people with schizophrenia were due to a disease of the brain.This chapter reviews evidence showing that biological processes are altered in the brains of individuals with schizophrenia. During the past century, scien­tists have created many methods for studying the brain. As each of these new neuroimaging technologies emerged, they were swiftly applied to the study of schizophrenia. As we shall see, most of these measurements led to the same con­clusion: that the structure and function of the brains of some individuals with schizophrenia were not normal. We are, however, still uncertain about many of the details of the aetiology and pathophysiology of the disorder. Aetiology re­fers to the causes of brain dysfunction (e.g., defective genes, environmental risk factors); pathophysiology denotes the specific modifications of the brain that lead to illness (e.g., brain atrophy, too much dopamine).
How is Schizophrenia Treated?
Authors: Glatt Stephen J. , Faraone Stephen V. , Tsuang Ming T.
Published: November 2020

In earlier chapters, we described the many advances in our understanding of schizophrenia. Unfortunately, we still do not have a detailed blueprint of what exactly goes wrong in the brain in schizophrenia, or a means for ‘fixing’ the brain. But even without a clear grasp of all the underlying, hidden facts, we have still made many gains. While we search for more clues, we need to use the facts on hand to help individuals with schizophrenia and their families to relieve their suffering. As the saying goes, ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good’, and some good treatment options exist. So while we work toward a perfect under­standing of schizophrenia and develop treatments that are targeted toward each individual’s personal form of the disorder, we must rely on the evidence for existing treatments to separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’. Bad treatments are those that are ineffective, counterproductive, or have a high risk of very serious side effects. Good treatments are those that have good evidence of helping a fair number of patients to reduce at least the positive symptoms of the disorder while having a relatively low risk of serious side effects. No current treatment for the disorder will work for all affected individuals, and we do not yet have a way of being able to tell before treatment what chance the affected individual has of improving with a given treatment. These are all goals for future research, including the discovery of brand new medicines. For now, we review the cur­rently available treatments with the best evidence of being able to help a good number of patients. The onset of schizophrenia can be frightening, for both affected individuals and their families. Affected individuals begin to express many odd beliefs: that people are trying to harm them— friends, relatives, strangers, or celebrities; that others can hear their thoughts as if spoken aloud; that voices talk to them, even when they are alone. In addition, they cannot express feelings and thoughts clearly and are frustrated by the doubts expressed by relatives and friends.
Decoding Reality
Authors: Vedral Vlatko
Published: November 2020

For a physicist, all the world is information. The Universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digital code called DNA. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour -- effects such as 'entanglement', which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance', and explores cutting edge work on harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world. Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself. This edition includes a new foreword from the author, reflecting on changes in the world of quantum information since first publication. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.
Digital Romance: Life is a Four-Letter Word
Authors: Vedral Vlatko
Published: November 2020

Lennon and McCartney were ‘spot on’ with their rendition of the age-old adage that ‘Life goes on’. As well as being one of the catchiest tunes from their 1968 White Album, this is also one of the simplest and most profound statements known to us. Underneath its innocuous exterior lies a message that is of fundamental importance. The fact that there was life on Earth almost since Earth was formed clearly demonstrates its robustness, and yet this is all the more impressive given that every day we see how fragile individual living beings appear to be. So the question that comes up again and again in scientific circles is ‘how can something that is so imperfect survive for so long?’ This was one of the great mysteries of biology. Interestingly it was a mathematician and not a biologist who made the first major step in answering this question. We met this mathematician earlier, when he advised Shannon to use the word ‘entropy’ to define his information function – yes, enter once more, John von Neumann. Von Neumann showed how something that was near perfect could be constructed out of imperfect components. This seems a little weird, doesn’t it? One would intuitively think that to construct something perfect, each piece would also necessarily have to be perfect. This is one of the central problems for living systems. But how could a mathematician without any access to experimental evidence, and to be fair not much knowledge of biology either, be able to understand life so well? Here is how. Von Neumann actually asked the question: ‘How can we make something of long duration from parts that are very short lived?’ Imagine we want to make sure that we write a message down that should exist for the next ten millennia, so that all the future generations can benefit from it. Imagine, for example, that I have discovered the secret to eternal happiness. (I haven’t, of course, I am as clueless as you are, though sometimes I think the answer lies somewhere between a cigar and a single malt whiskey.) And imagine that I would like my great-great-great-grandchildren to benefit from my acquired wisdom.
Introduction
Authors: Hauser Kitty
Published: November 2020

In his introduction to a selection of verse and prose by John Betjeman, Slick but not Streamlined (1947), W. H. Auden attempted to define ‘topophilia’, a particular kind of attachment to landscape and environment which, he said, suffused Betjeman’s writings. ‘Topophilia’, he wrote, has little in common with nature love. Wild or unhumanised nature holds no charms for the average topophil because it is lacking in history; (the exception which proves the rule is the geological topophil). At the same time, though history manifested by objects is essential, the quantity of the history and the quality of the object are irrelevant; a branch railroad is as valuable as a Roman wall, a neo-Tudor teashop as interesting as a Gothic cathedral. Auden regrets (disingenuously, perhaps) that he himself is ‘too short-sighted, too much of a Thinking Type, to attempt this sort of poetry, which requires a strongly visual imagination’. It is a particular brand of literary topophilia, typified by Betjeman, that Auden discusses; but broadly defined it is a far more widespread sensibility in British culture. Requiring not only a visual imagination, but also a wilfully parochial outlook and a reluctance to engage with the homogenizing forces of urban modernity, a topophilia of one sort or another was characteristic of a whole generation of artists and writers in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. This topophilia is not the same as a love of the countryside, as Auden points out, although that is what it might sometimes be mistaken for. What unites these ‘topophils’ is an interest, sometimes amounting to an obsession, with local landscapes marked by time, places where the past is tangible. For some, such as Betjeman, John Piper, and Geoffrey Grigson, this topophilia—as Auden suggests— is eclectic, including medieval churches, Gothic and mock Gothic architecture, Regency terraces and ancient sites. Some topophils of this generation, such as Paul Nash with his fascination with the genius loci, made atmospheric prehistoric landscapes a particular focus. Others, like painter Graham Sutherland, were attracted towards scarred nature and geological vistas. In the Four Quartets T. S. Eliot looked for redemption and history in an English village: ‘History is now and England’.
The economic role of Sus in early human fishing communities
Authors: Masseti Marco
Published: November 2020

Recent archaeological excavations of the cave of Cyclops, located in the southern cliffs of the islet of Youra (northern Sporades, Greece) have provided evidence of continuous human activity from the Mesolithic Period (10000–6800 BC) up to the beginning of the Final Neolithic (4600/ 4500–3300/3200 BC). The results of the investigation of its Mesolithic stratigraphy lead to the assumption that the economy of the prehistoric local human community was based predominantly upon the exploitation of marine resources (Sampson 1996a, 1996b, 1998; Powell 2003). Archaeological evidence suggests that the island fishermen also exploited mammals, as indicated by the discovery of a huge assemblage of bones of Sus scrofa, particularly numerous in the Lower Mesolithic levels, where they also displayed a larger size in comparison to those of the same species found in the Upper Mesolithic layers (Trantalidou 2003). Thus, beyond the marine resources, Sus appears to represent the wild animal most widely consumed by the local human community. The date of 7530 cal. BC–7100 cal. BC (8th millennium BC) was obtained for the oldest bones of these prehistoric ungulates, by radiocarbon analysis performed at the Beta Analytic Laboratory of Miami (USA) (Masseti 2002). In the light of archaeozoological evidence, early human societies which based their subsistence mainly on marine resources also feature a certain association with pigs, which has been registered from other prehistoric European and Mediterranean archaeological contexts. In Italian coastal areas, for example, this can be observed in the reports from the II Mesolithic phase of the cave of Uzzo, in north-western Sicily (Tagliacozzo 1993), from the Early Neolithic–Chalcolithic layers of the Grotta del Genovese on the small island of Levanzo in the Egadi archipelago (Sicily) (Graziosi 1962; Cassoli & Tagliacozzo 1982), and possibly also from the proto-Mycenaean settlement (Middle–Late Bronze Age) of the islet of Vivara, in the Phlegraean archipelago (Gulf of Naples) (Marazzi 1998, 2001; Costantini & Costantini 2001; Pepe 2001). In northern Europe, the exploitation of pig resources has been found associated with several postglacial human settlements of the Baltic area, such as the Ertebølle Mesolithic culture of western Denmark (Rowley- Conwy 1984), of southern Sweden (Rowley-Conwy 1998), and of the Jutland peninsula (Rowley-Conwy 1994).
Fusion energy
Authors: Llewellyn Smith Chris , Ward David
Published: November 2020

Fusion powers the Sun and stars, and is potentially an environmentally responsible and intrinsically safe source of essentially limitless energy on earth. Experiments at the Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, which has produced 16MW of fusion power, and at other facilities, have shown that fusion can be mastered on earth. Fusion power is still being developed, and will not be available as soon as we would like. We are confident that it will be possible to build viable fusion power stations, and it looks as if the cost of fusion power will be reasonable. But time is needed to further develop the technology in order to ensure that it would be reliable and economical, and to test in power station conditions the materials that would be used in its construction. Assuming no major surprises, an orderly fusion development programme— properly organized and funded—could lead to a prototype fusion power station putting electricity into the grid within 30 years, with commercial fusion power following some ten or more years later. A fusion power station is effectively a tiny ‘artificial sun’. Reactions between light atomic nuclei in which a heavier nucleus is formed with the release of energy are called fusion reactions. The reaction of primary interest as a source of power on Earth involves two isotopes of hydrogen (Deuterium and Tritium) fusing to form helium and a neutron: . . . D + T → 4He + n + energy (17.6 million electric volts [Me V]) (7.1) . . . Energy is liberated because Helium-4 is very tightly bound: it takes the form of kinetic energy, shared 14.1 MeV/3.5MeV between the neutron and the Helium-4 nucleus (a chemical reaction typically releases ∼1 eV [electron volt], which is the energy imparted to an electron when accelerated through 1 volt). To initiate the fusion reaction (1), a gas of deuterium and tritium must be heated to over 100 million◦C (henceforth: M◦C)—ten times hotter than the core of the Sun. At a few thousand degrees, inter-atomic collisions knock the electrons out of the atoms to form a mixture of separated nuclei and electrons known as a plasma.
Single-species dynamics
Authors: Coulson Tim , J. Godfray H. Charles
Published: November 2020

What determines the densities of the different species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms with which we share the planet, why do their numbers fluctuate and extinctions occur, and how do different species interact to determine each other’s abundance? These are some of the questions addressed by the science of ecological population dynamics, the subject that underpins all the chapters in this book. In this chapter we introduce some of the basic principles of the subject by concentrating on the dynamics of singlespecies systems. These are species whose population biology can be studied without also explicitly including the dynamics of other species in the community. The chief justification for this brutal abstraction is that it allows many of the underlying processes to be described simply and more clearly. Moreover, arguments based on the analysis of single-species population dynamics are often surprisingly useful in understanding real populations, especially those in relatively simple environments such as agro-ecosystems. At the core of population dynamics is a simple truism: the density or numbers of individuals in a closed population is increased by births, and decreased by deaths. If the population is not closed then we need also to include immigration and emigration in our calculation. A population in which births exceed deaths will tend to increase and one where the reverse is true will tend to decrease. But more significant is the mode of change. If birth and death rates remain constant then the consequent increase or decrease in population numbers occurs exponentially—population dynamics occurs on a geometric rather than an arithmetic scale. In the first section of this chapter we describe the calculation of exponential growth rates for different types of population, and explore how such calculations, even though they are based on the simplistic assumption of constant demographic rates, can be very useful for a variety of problems in applied population biology. The fact that populations persist over appreciable periods of time inescapably means that demographic rates—births and deaths, immigration and emigration—do not remain constant. In fact, population persistence in the long term requires that as populations increase in density the death rate must rise relative to the birth rate and eventually exceed it.
Interspecific competition and multispecies coexistence
Authors: Tilman David
Published: November 2020

Interspecific competition is an interaction in which species inhibit each other such that increased abundance of one species leads to lower growth rates of the other species. Numerous field studies have shown that interspecific competition is a major force determining species abundances for a wide variety of taxa in many different ecosystems (Harper, 1977; Tilman, 1982; Connell, 1983; Schoener, 1983; Aarssen and Epp, 1990; Goldberg and Barton, 1992; Casper and Jackson, 1997; Miller et al., 2005). Predator–prey interactions can also be of simultaneous importance in determining the abundances and dynamics of species (e.g. Sih et al., 1986), as can host–pathogen interactions (e.g. Hassell and Anderson, 1989; Hochberg et al., 1990; Dobson and Crawley, 1995; Mitchell and Powers, 2003) and mutualistic interactions (e.g. Kawanabe et al., 1993; Richardson et al., 2000; Stachowicz, 2001). Although this chapter focuses on competition, all types of interaction operate simultaneously in nature. Much of the early and continuing interest in competition has centered on how so many competing species coexist. G.E. Hutchinson (1959, 1961) posed the paradox of the plankton, asking how 30 or more species of algae could coexist in a few milliliters of lake or ocean water when there were only one, two, or three limiting resources and when the open waters of lakes and oceans were so homogeneous because of wind-driven mixing. Theory predicted that no more species could coexist than there were limiting factors or resources (e.g. MacArthur and Levins, 1964; Levin, 1970; Armstrong and McGehee, 1980). The same paradox occurred for terrestrial plants and animals. The Earth’s 250 000 species of vascular plants compete for a few limiting factors (usually a subset of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, water, and light).Alarge part of their diversity can, of course, be explained by the heterogeneity seen along major continental-scale and smaller-scale spatial gradients (Tilman, 1988). Expressed another way, these 250 000 vascular species are spread among perhaps 50 different biomes that occur in each of the five major biogeographic realms of Earth. One might expect different species in different biomes because of their differing climates.
Dynamics of infectious disease
Authors: Grenfell Bryan , Keeling Matthew
Published: November 2020

Host–pathogen associations continue to generate some of the most important applied problems in population biology. In addition, as foreshadowed in Chapter 5 of this volume, these systems give important insights into the dynamics of host– natural enemy interactions in general. The special place of pathogens in the study of host–natural enemy dynamics arises partly from excellent longterm disease-incidence data, reflecting the public health importance of many infections. However, we argue that host–pathogen dynamics are also distinctive because the intimate association between individual hosts and their pathogens is often reflected with particular clarity in the associated population dynamics. Throughout this chapter we focus in parallel on the population dynamics of host–pathogen interactions and the insights that host–pathogen dynamics can provide for population biology in general. Population-dynamic studies of infectious disease have a long history, which predates the modern foundations of ecology (Bernoulli, 1760). During the twentieth century, the preoccupation of population ecologists with the balance between extrinsic and intrinsic influences on population fluctuations and the role of nonlinearity and heterogeneity (Bjørnstad and Grenfell, 2001) find strong parallels in epidemiological studies of human diseases (Bartlett, 1956; Anderson and May, 1991). In terms of the ecological effects of parasitism, the traditional view held that ‘welladapted’ parasites would not have a consistent impact on the ecology of their hosts (Grenfell and Dobson, 1995). The 1970s saw a new departure, when Anderson and May pointed out the potential of infectious agents to exert nonlinear—regulatory or destabilizing—influences on the population dynamics of their hosts (Anderson and May, 1978, 1979; May and Anderson, 1978, 1979). There has since been an explosion of work on the population biology of human, animal, and plant pathogens. This work spans a huge range: from highly applied to basic theoretical work; from within-host to the metapopulation scale; from short-term population dynamics to long-term evolutionary processes. In this chapter we first outline the simple theory of epidemiological models; we then refine this picture to illustrate the potential impact of pathogens on the population dynamics of their hosts, as well as aspects of host–pathogen interactions which provide important insights into more general ecological dynamics.
A Doubly Green Revolution: ecology and food production
Authors: Conway Gordon
Published: November 2020

Ecology has informed and underpinned agricultural production since the first faltering steps in domestication and cultivation. When someone (probably a woman) living in the Fertile Crescent carried seeds of wild wheats and barleys from the great natural cereal stands of the region and sowed them near her house she initiated the process of domestication. She also began the process of crop cultivation, creating what were to become ecologically complex, home gardens. Similarly swidden agriculture was based on imitations of ecological processes that would create a sustainable form of agriculture. The first articulation of this concept was not for many thousands of years later. The great Roman writer and agriculturalist of the first century bc, Marcus Terentius Varro, wrote as follows (Hooper and Ash, 1935) : . . . Agri cultura est ‘Non modo est ars, sed etiam necessaria ac magna; eaque est scientia, quae sint in quoque agro serenda ac facienda, quo terra maximos perpetuo reddat fructus’ . . . Agriculture is ‘not only an art but an important and noble art. It is, as well, a science, which teaches us what crops are to be planted in each kind of soil, and what operations are to be carried on, in order that the land may regularly produce the largest crops.’ (Varro, Rerum Rusticarum I, III) Not only does Varro place crops in their environment but the phrase quo terra maximos perpetuo reddat fructus (which can be translated as ‘that the land yields the highest in perpetuity’) struck me, when I first came upon it in one of the little red Loeb Classical Library translations, as an extraordinarily clear, elegant, and concise definition of sustainability. In this chapter I want to illustrate how ecological concepts illuminate the building blocks of agriculture—gardens, swiddens, pastures, orchards, and fields—and provide a basis for the continuing challenge of feeding everyone in an increasing population. The transformation of an ecosystem into an agroecosystem involves a number of significant changes. The system itself becomes more clearly defined, at least in terms of its biological and physico-chemical boundaries. These become sharper and less permeable, the linkages with other systems being limited and channeled.
100 Million Years AD
Authors: Zalasiewicz Jan
Published: November 2020

A storyteller arrives, one hundred million years from now, to tell the tale of the human species. It is an interval that will add a couple of per cent to the age of the Earth and a little under one per cent to the age of the Universe. Geologically, it is the near future. Cosmologically, we are almost there. There will be an Earth, that which we now call our own. On it there will be, very probably but not quite certainly, oceans of liquid water, an oxygen-rich atmosphere, and an abundance of complex, multicellular life. The Earth is abnormal, and that will draw any interstellar travellers in. The spaceship’s sensors—a simple spectroscope will suffice here—will immediately register the highly reactive surface chemistry that is out of any sort of normal equilibrium. An oxygen-rich atmosphere is not normal. Even from a distance of many millions of miles, this will be a planet that is obviously alive. Closer up, the living skin on the planet, regulator of that planetary surface chemistry, can begin to be glimpsed, as the green wavelengths that mingle with the blue of the oceans of liquid water and the brown of the rock surfaces. Our future visitors would not yet be aware of chlorophyll, but that unexpected signal shining through in the light spectrum would certainly arouse their curiosity. Rock, oceans . . . and green stuff. The geography of the Earth, to our own human and contemporary eyes, would look oddly familiar, but distorted: as though remodelled by Salvador Dali. Familiar landmasses will be displaced. But where to? Unfortunately, we cannot predict where the Earth’s continents will be in one hundred million years’ time. Will the Atlantic Ocean continue to widen, and the Pacific Ocean shrink? Will the East African Rift expand into an ocean? Will the continents aggregate into super-continents, as has happened in the past? Long-term tectonic forecasts, like long-range weather forecasts, are subject to such uncertainties that detailed prediction becomes useless; there are simply too many possible alternative futures. Our planet’s physiography will simply be different, one hundred million years from now, though with elements we would find partly familiar, rearranged as though by the hand of some gigantic and playful child.
Remote Sensing for Ecology and Conservation
Authors: Horning Ned , Robinson Julie A. , Sterling Eleanor J. , Turner Woody , Spector Sacha
Published: November 2020

The work of conservation biology has grown from local studies of single species into a discipline concerned with mapping and managing biodiversity on a global scale. Remote sensing, using satellite and aerial imaging to measure and map the environment, increasingly provides a vital tool for effective collection of the information needed to research and set policy for conservation priorities. The perceived complexities of remotely sensed data and analyses have tended to discourage scientists and managers from using this valuable resource. This text focuses on making remote sensing tools accessible to a larger audience of non-specialists, highlighting strengths and limitations while emphasizing the ways that remotely sensed data can be captured and used, especially for evaluating human impacts on ecological systems.
The Environmental Resources of Rural People’s Farms
Authors: Pallot Judith , Nefedova Tat'yana
Published: November 2020

In Fig. 4.1 we show diagrammatically the contrasting relationships and dependencies of rural households in the forested region of European Russia, north of Moscow and in the black earth steppe to the south. In this and the following chapters we analyse the various components making up these food production systems, beginning with the land. At the heart of personal subsidiary farming in rural Russia is the household plot or uchastok; the small parcel of land lying within the boundary of rural settlements on which rural dwellers may grow crops and construct outbuildings. Ever since the translation of Karl Wadekin’s (1973) seminal work, the uchastok has been referred to in English language literature as the ‘private plot’, and ‘personal subsidiary farming’ as ‘private farming’. The underlying conceit of the Western view, which it must be remembered grew out of the Cold War ideological battles between communism and market capitalism, was that the private plot was proof of the efficacy of individualism and private property over collectivism and social ownership. In reality, of course, household plots were not ‘private’ in the neoclassical understanding of property rights, since they could be neither bought nor sold (nor, indeed, was there much protection for their users from their alienation) and the food individuals produced did not originate exclusively from the plot but drew on other environmental resources, access to which was covered by a variety of often ill-defined rights and obligations. Since 1991, there have been some important improvements in property rights for the rural population. In particular, they have acquired title deeds to their plots (although there are size limits and their conveyance has to take place according to normative prices) and the use of other resources has, in some cases, been subject to legal regulation or (re)codified. At the local level, land use often remains governed more by custom than by the provisions of statutes and codes. It thus makes sense when discussing rural people’s access to resources to define ‘property rights’ broadly as a field of public claims and entitlements over a variety of resources, rather than as a bundle of clearly defined rights.
Household Production’s Nearest Neighbours: Small and ependent Farming in the Russian Countryside
Authors: Pallot Judith , Nefedova Tat'yana
Published: November 2020

The Russian countryside has a rich variety of small and independent farmers, in addition to household producers. While many appear in records, the existence of others is hidden or is misrepresented in official typologies. Like household producers, these other independent producers cover a spectrum from those that are engaged primarily in producing for personal consumption to those that are oriented to the market and may employ hired labour. Their legal status varies; some are formally registered with local authorities as a separate farm, business, or smallholding but others exist within the framework of a larger organization or on the basis of informal contracts. Among the former are peasant farm economies (krestyankie fermskie khozyaistva) hereafter private farms, formed under the provisions of the land reform, small specialized agricultural businesses, and the allotments and smallholdings of urban residents. Among the latter is a rich variety of permanent and temporary businesses that use land under sharecropping and other rental agreements negotiated with larger farms and local authorities. They include the ranches (koshary) and peripatetic teams or rental brigades (arendnie brigady) described in the previous chapter, and more orthodox types of tenant farms. The justification for pulling this mixed bag together into a single chapter is that they either overlap or share some crucial characteristic with household producers: it may be the small scale of their operations or that much of their activity takes place ‘in the shadows’, or that like household producers they can be simultaneously involved in producing for their own consumption and for the market. Their existence suggests the need to examine the ways in which capital is reworking economic and social relationships in rural Russia, inside and outside existing institutions and the formal structures of power. Soviet collective and state farms were not unchanging institutions; their management structure, forms of labour organization, methods of remuneration, and forward and backward linkages evolved over the course of the sixty years after collectivization.
‘The Race that is Set Before Us’: The Athletic Ideal in the Aesthetics and Culture of Early Roman Britain
Authors: Henig Martin
Published: November 2020

I first met Barry Cunliffe when I came to dig at Fishbourne, and I still remember my amazement at seeing what were clearly stylobate blocks of Mediterranean type being unearthed. In that first season I excavated for only three days, but the memory lingered with me and I later returned to supervise on the east and north wings of this extraordinary site. Subsequently, on my arrival in Oxford to embark on a doctoral dissertation upon Roman intaglios and cameos excavated from British sites, I wrote to Barry to ask whether he knew of any gemstones I might not yet have located. In a characteristically terse, but very courteous and helpful, reply he told me there were over thirty at Bath and that if I were to write them up in two or three months he would be delighted to publish my work in a Research Report he was preparing for the Society of Antiquaries (Henig 1969). Thus, I owe to Barry my first lucky break in the Weld of archaeological publication. Subsequently, and not too long afterwards, I was invited by him to publish the gems from Fishbourne (Henig 1971). It seems appropriate to return to those intaglios from Bath and Fishbourne, in order to survey a little of this glyptic evidence, in association with gems and other material from elsewhere, in order to explore a very small but fascinating aspect of a theme which has so often aroused Barry’s attention and mine, that of Romanization or, as we have been urged to call it by Greg Woolf, ‘Becoming Roman’ (Woolf 1998) especially in the first century BC and first century AD. My starting point will be an intaglio from Bath cut with a Greek theme, that of a discobolos who is about to throw his discus (figure 24.1). In front of him is his prize, a palm in a vase. This image has previously been used by me to illustrate an essay about Greek themes in Romano-British art (Henig 2000: 133, fig. 5) for the spa at Bath was clearly a sophisticated cultural centre with connections across the Graeco-Roman world ; and it has long seemed very probable that the patron who sponsored this stupendous work was none other than the Atrebatan client ruler Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus, whose titulature as Great King in Britain must surely have been borrowed from the Hellenistic East (Bogaers 1979; Henig 2000: 126).
Introduction: Or, Why Fat is a Paranoid Issue
Authors: Freeman Daniel , Freeman Jason
Published: November 2020

Over the past few years, a new and deadly epidemic has stalked the land. Britain and the US, just like much of the rest of the world, are getting fat. Around 60 per cent of adults in the UK are heavier than they should be. It’s a similar story in the US, where two-thirds of adults are overweight or extremely overweight (obese). That’s a pretty shocking statistic, but we all know that keeping in shape when you’re trying to balance the demands of work and family life is tough. Who’s got time to get to the gym? Who has the energy to do more than heat up a ready meal after ten hours in the office? Besides, we all get bigger as we get older, don’t we? It’s a metabolism thing—isn’t it? But if you think the statistics for adults are alarming, wait till you find out how our kids are faring. In 2003, 27 per cent of children under 11 in England were either overweight or obese. In the US, where different methods to measure obesity are used, nearly 20 per cent of children aged 6 to 11 were classified as overweight or obese in 2004. The numbers have almost doubled in a decade. How did so many children get to be overweight before they’ve even reached the ripe old age of 11? How do you become overweight when so much of your day is taken up with charging round a playground or park, when you can’t drive, and when you’re not free—like the rest of us—to stuff your face at will with chocolate, crisps, and alcohol? The answer, of course, is a complex one. If adults are eating much less healthily than they used to, so are their kids. Instead of spending their evenings playing outside, children now have the delights of multi-channel television, computer games, and the Internet to choose from. And then there’s the fact that increasing numbers of us just won’t let our children outside on their own. Back in the mid 1970s, we were 6 years old.
Forest Types and their Implications
Authors: Pérez-Salicrup Diego
Published: November 2020

The southern Yucatán peninsular region contains the largest and most rapidly disappearing continuous tract of tropical forest in Mexico (Flores and Espejel Carvajal 1994; Delfín Gonzales, Parra, and Echazarreta 1995; Acopa and Boege 1998). Vegetation in the region is a mosaic of forest types with different structural appearances (Flores and Espejel Carvajal 1994; Hernández-Xolocotzi 1959; Miranda 1958) that primarily reflect variation in environmental and edaphic conditions (Ibarra-Manríquez 1996). However, the structure and tree composition of forests in the region, as elsewhere in the central Maya lowlands, has been and remains strongly influenced by human activity (Ch. 2). In spite of the abundance of botanical work throughout the Yucatán peninsula, little attention has been devoted to characterizing the forests in this frontier region quantitatively, and the variation and distribution of forests remain poorly documented. Yet, it is precisely this kind of documentation that is required for integrated land studies of the kind that the SYPR project is undertaking (Turner et al. 2001). Since the third decade of the twentieth century, botanical interest has focused on the flora of the Yucatán Peninsula, especially that located in the historically more accessible portion of the peninsula (Ibarra-Manríquez 1996). Early twentieth-century studies (Lundell 1938; Standley 1930) led to a broad classification of the primary vegetation as deciduous tropical forests (Miranda 1958), or evergreen tropical forests (Rzedowski 1981), controlled in distribution by the northwest to southeast precipitation gradient, distinctive dry season, and karstic terrain (Ch. 2). Today, the entire region is appropriately labeled a seasonally dry tropical forest (Bullock, Mooney, and Medina 1995). During the rainy season (May–October) most species have their canopies fully displayed and light is a limiting factor in the forest understory (Martínez-Ramos 1985, 1994). For the remainder of the year, monthly precipitation usually does not exceed 100mm. During the lowest rainfall months (February–April), water may become limiting and considerable defoliation takes place, especially in the north and west. Other factors controlling forest structure and composition include topography, twentieth-century land-use history, and hurricanes (Brokaw and Walker 1991; Cooper-Ellis et al. 1999).
The Coastal Environment of Southeast Asia
Authors: Wong P. P.
Published: November 2020

Several physical features combine to make Southeast Asia one of the most distinct and unique coastal regions in the world. The mainland or continental part of Southeast Asia consists of a number of peninsulas extending south and southeast from the Asian continent and separated by gulfs and bays. The world’s two largest archipelagos form the islands of Southeast Asia. During much of the Pleistocene, a large part of the South China Sea was dry land, and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo were linked to the mainland by the exposed shallow Sunda Shelf. Southeast Asia comes under the influence of the monsoons, or seasonal winds, which have an important impact on its coasts. The region is also a high biodiversity zone, characterized by its rich coral reefs and mangroves. This chapter examines the coastal environments of Southeast Asia in three stages. First, the major elements that make the coastal environments of Southeast Asia distinctive are discussed. The focus is on the coastal processes, as the geological framework and Quaternary have been covered in earlier chapters. Secondly, the various coastal environments in the region (excluding estuaries and deltas discussed in Chapter 13) are described next in terms of their extent, characteristics, and significance, with sufficient examples given to show their variability. Finally, the chapter ends with an assessment of the major environmental problems facing the region’s coastal environments—coastal erosion and rising sea level associated with climate change. Overall, this chapter provides the physical basis for a better appreciation of coastal development in Southeast Asia. The coastal environments of Southeast Asia bear the impact of significant geological and climatic factors. Geologically, the core of the region is an extension of the Eurasian Plate meeting the Indo-Australian and the Pacific Plates and two lesser ones (Philippines and Molucca Sea) with mountain chains trending in a general north–south direction. The island of New Guinea is part of the Indo-Australia Plate. Island arcs have developed along the convergent margins, and many are volcanically active and also associated with shallow to deep earthquakes.