bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Proof Procedures for Logic Programming
Authors: Loveland Donald W. , Nadathur Gopalan
Published: November 2020

A proof procedure is an algorithm (technically, a semi-decision procedure) which identifies a formula as valid (or unsatisfiable) when appropriate, and may not terminate when the formula is invalid (satisfiable). Since a proof procedure concerns a logic the procedure takes a special form, superimposing a search strategy on an inference calculus. We will consider a certain collection of proof procedures in the light of an inference calculus format that abstracts the concept of logic programming. This formulation allows us to look beyond SLD-resolution, the proof procedure that underlies Prolog, to generalizations and extensions that retain an essence of logic programming structure. The inference structure used in the formulation of the logic programming concept and first realization, Prolog, evolved from the work done in the subdiscipline called automated theorem proving. While many proof procedures have been developed within this subdiscipline, some of which appear in Volume 1 of this handbook, we will present a narrow selection, namely the proof procedures which are clearly ancestors of the first proof procedure associated with logic programming, SLD-resolution. Extensive treatment of proof procedures for automated theorem proving appear in Bibel [Bibel, 1982], Chang and Lee [Chang and Lee, 1973] and Loveland [Loveland, 1978]. Although the consideration of proof procedures for automated theorem proving began about 1958 we begin our overview with the introduction of the resolution proof procedure by Robinson in 1965. We then review the linear resolution procedures, model elimination and SL-resolution procedures. Our exclusion of other proof procedures from consideration here is due to our focus, not because other procedures are less important historically or for general use within automated or semi-automated theorem process. After a review of the general resolution proof procedure, we consider the linear refinement for resolution and then further restrict the procedure format to linear input resolution. Here we are no longer capable of treating full first-order logic, but have forced ourselves to address a smaller domain, in essence the renameable Horn clause formulas. By leaving the resolution format, indeed leaving traditional formula representation, we see there exists a linear input procedure for all of first-order logic.
Functional Genomics
Authors: Raychaudhuri Soumya
Published: November 2020

The overarching purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to some of the essential elements of biology, genomics, and bioinformatics. It is by no means a comprehensive description of these fields, but rather the bare minimum that will be necessary to understand the remainder of the book. In the first section we introduce the primary biological molecules: nucleic acids and proteins. We discuss genetic information flow in living beings and how genetic material in DNA is translated into functional proteins. In the second section we present a short primer on probability theory; we review some of the basic concepts. In the third section we describe how biological sequences are obtained and the common strategies employed to analyze them. In the fourth section, we describe the methods used to collect high throughput gene expression data. We also review the popular methods used to analyze gene expression data. There are many other important areas of functional genomics that we do not address at all in this chapter. New experimental and analytical methods are constantly emerging. For the sake of brevity we focused our discussion on the areas that are most applicable to the remainder of the book. But, we note that many of the analytical methods presented here can be applied widely and without great difficulty to other data types than the ones they have been presented with. Here we present a focused review of molecular biology designed to give the reader a sufficient background to comprehend the remainder of the book. A thorough discussion is beyond the scope of this book and the interested reader is referred to other textbooks (Alberts, Bray et al. 1994; Stryer 1995; Nelson, Lehninger et al. 2000). The central dogma of molecular biology is a paradigm of information flow in living organisms (see Plate 2.1). Information is stored in the genomic deoxyriboculeic acid (DNA). DNA polymerase, a protein that synthesizes DNA, can replicate DNA so that it can be passed on to progeny after cell division.
Describing assemblages of sediment-living organisms
Authors: Gray John S. , Elliott Michael
Published: November 2020

One of the most fruitful aspects of ecological research is the search for common patterns in the bewildering variability of nature. Given current concerns about global warming, climate change, and habitat degradation, the determination and protection of biodiversity has become paramount. There are essentially three ways of describing an assemblage of organisms, and each of these gives more information on the patterns and interrelationships. First, we have the classical taxonomic method of identifying all species in the assemblage, to the highest taxonomic separation possible (usually to species) and then counting the abundance and weighing the biomass of each taxon. Secondly, we can determine the size and/or biomass spectra of all organisms in the assemblage irrespective of their identities, on the basis that organisms of different sizes or body weights play a different role in the ecosystem. Thirdly, we can determine the role that each organism can play in the system, again irrespective of its name, and define these as ecological groups or guilds—hence separating those feeding in different ways or those building tubes from their free-living associates (e.g. see Elliott et al. 2007 for a discussion of the guild concept). There are many methods of analysing assemblage data; for example Elliott (1994) identified over 25 groups of techniques for macrobenthic analysis (these are mentioned throughout this book and summarized in Chapter 11). Using these methods, when considering assemblages of marine organisms living in sediment, we can ask if there are any ‘rules’ that can be applied to patterns of abundance, size, and biomass distributions and how data on species distributions can be organized. Here, we first treat abundance, then size and biomass spectra, and finally how species assemblages can be assessed. Another way of describing assemblages is to examine the number of species and how abundance is distributed among species, although these are aspects of species diversity which will be addressed in the next chapter. In any sample of a biological community, whether marine, terrestrial, or freshwater, the immediately observable pattern is that most species are rare, represented by one or a few individuals, and only a few species are very common, represented by many individuals.
An Introduction to Quantum Computing
Authors: Kaye Phillip , Laflamme Raymond , Mosca Michele
Published: November 2020

This concise, accessible text provides a thorough introduction to quantum computing - an exciting emergent field at the interface of the computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences. Aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in these disciplines, the text is technically detailed and is clearly illustrated throughout with diagrams and exercises. Some prior knowledge of linear algebra is assumed, including vector spaces and inner products. However, prior familiarity with topics such as tensor products and spectral decomposition is not required, as the necessary material is reviewed in the text.
Systems-based risk analysis
Authors: Haimes Yacov Y.
Published: November 2020

Risk models provide the roadmaps that guide the analyst throughout the journey of risk assessment, if the adage ‘To manage risk, one must measure it’ constitutes the compass for risk management. The process of risk assessment and management may be viewed through many lenses, depending on the perspective, vision, values, and circumstances. This chapter addresses the complex problem of coping with catastrophic risks by taking a systems engineering perspective. Systems engineering is a multidisciplinary approach distinguished by a practical philosophy that advocates holism in cognition and decision making. The ultimate purposes of systems engineering are to (1) build an understanding of the system’s nature, functional behaviour, and interaction with its environment, (2) improve the decision-making process (e.g., in planning, design, development, operation, and management), and (3) identify, quantify, and evaluate risks, uncertainties, and variability within the decision-making process. Engineering systems are almost always designed, constructed, and operated under unavoidable conditions of risk and uncertainty and are often expected to achieve multiple and conflicting objectives. The overall process of identifying, quantifying, evaluating, and trading-off risks, benefits, and costs should be neither a separate, cosmetic afterthought nor a gratuitous add-on technical analysis. Rather, it should constitute an integral and explicit component of the overall managerial decision-making process. In risk assessment, the analyst often attempts to answer the following set of three questions (Kaplan and Garrick, 1981): ‘What can go wrong?’, ‘What is the likelihood that it would go wrong?’, and ‘What are the consequences?’ Answers to these questions help risk analysts identify, measure, quantify, and evaluate risks and their consequences and impacts. Risk management builds on the risk assessment process by seeking answers to a second set of three questions (Haimes, 1991): ‘What can be done and what options are available?’, ‘What are their associated trade-offs in terms of all costs, benefits, and risks?’, and ‘What are the impacts of current management decisions on future options?’ Note that the last question is the most critical one for any managerial decision-making.
Plagues and pandemics: past, present, and future
Authors: Kilbourne Edwin Dennis
Published: November 2020

This chapter is about pandemics, a somewhat ambiguous term, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a disease prevalent throughout a country, a continent, or the world’. In present modern usage the term takes greater cognizance of its original Greek derivation and is largely restricted to global prevalence (pan demos) – all people. The same source tells us that ‘plague’ has a broader meaning, implying a sudden unexpected event that is not necessarily a disease, but introducing the concept of acute, lethal, and sudden danger – characteristics that are connoted but not specifically denoted by the term ‘pandemic’. It will become apparent that glimpses of the future must consider the emergence of new pathogens, the re-emergence of old ones, the anthropogenic fabrication of novel agents, and changes in the environment and in human behaviour. In other words ‘the problem’ in addressing infectious disease threats is not one but many separable problems, each of which must be isolated in traditional scientific fashion and separately evaluated as components of what I like to call ‘holistic epidemiology’. This emerging discipline comprises microbial and human genetics, human behaviour, global ecology, toxicology, and environmental change. As we leave our mothers’ wombs and enter this vale of tears (and sometimes before) we are invaded by microbes that may become our lifelong companions, profiting from this intimate relationship by the food and shelter that our bodies offer. They, in turn, often provide us with nutrients or vitamins derived from their own metabolic processes and may even immunize us against future assaults by related but less kindly microbes. In other words, we and they (usually) coexist in a state of armed neutrality and equilibrium. But humans bear a chronic burden of infectious diseases. Included in this burden are some diseases that have demonstrated a capacity to break out in pandemic form, depending on the circumstances that are defined later. The less overt contributors to human misery will be briefly reviewed before discussing the nature of the acute aberrations that comprise the more dramatic pandemics and plagues that suddenly burst forth in a catastrophic manner.
The totalitarian threat
Authors: Caplan Bryan
Published: November 2020

During the twentieth century, many nations – including Russia, Germany, and China – lived under extraordinarily brutal and oppressive governments. Over 100 million civilians died at the hands of these governments, but only a small fraction of their brutality and oppression was necessary to retain power. The main function of the brutality and oppression, rather, was to radically change human behaviour, to transform normal human beings with their selfish concerns into willing servants of their rulers. The goals and methods of these governments were so extreme that they were often described – by friend and foe alike – as ‘total’ or ‘totalitarian’ (Gregor, 2000). The connection between totalitarian goals and totalitarian methods is straightforward. People do not want to radically change their behaviour. To make them change requires credible threats of harsh punishment – and the main way to make such threats credible is to carry them out on a massive scale. Furthermore, even if people believe your threats, some will resist anyway or seem likely to foment resistance later on. Indeed, some are simply unable to change. An aristocrat cannot choose to have proletarian origins, or a Jew to be an Aryan. To handle these recalcitrant problems requires special prisons to isolate dangerous elements, or mass murder to eliminate them. Totalitarian regimes have many structural characteristics in common. Richard Pipes gives a standard inventory: ‘[A]n official all-embracing ideology; a single party of the elect headed by a “leader” and dominating the state; police terror; the ruling party’s control of the means of communication and the armed forces; central command of the economy’. All of these naturally flow from the goal of remaking human nature. The official ideology is the rationale for radical change. It must be ‘all-embracing’ – that is, suppress competing ideologies and values – to prevent people from being side-tracked by conflicting goals. The leader is necessary to create and interpret the official ideology, and control of the means of communication to disseminate it. The party is comprised of the ‘early-adopters’ – the people who claim to have ‘seen the light’ and want to make it a reality.
Dispersive Cases
Authors: Chemin Jean-Yves , Desjardins Benoit , Gallagher Isabelle , Grenier Emmanuel
Published: November 2020

It is well known that dispersive phenomena play a significant role in the study of partial differential equations. Historically, the use of dispersive effects appeared in the study of the wave equation in the whole space Rd with the proof of the so-called Strichartz estimates. The idea is that even though the wave equation is time reversible and preserves the energy, it induces a time decay in Lp norms, of course for exponents p greater than 2. In particular, the energy of the waves over a bounded subdomain vanishes as time goes to infinity. These decay properties also yield smoothing effects, which have been the beginning of a long series of works in which the aforementioned smoothing is used in the analysis of nonlinear wave equations to improve the classical well-posedness results. Similar developments have been applied to the non-linear Schrödinger equations. Let us give a flavor of the proof of dispersion estimates in the case of simple systems.
Events Reconsidered
Authors: Weiner J. S. , Stringer Chris
Published: November 2020

It is unfortunately not possible to follow in any detail every stage of Smith Woodward’s activities at Piltdown. No diaries or note-books exist of the work done, there is nowhere a complete record of the various finds as they were made. Woodward kept copies of very few of his own letters and we have only the letters written to him and now preserved at the British Museum. When the American palaeontologist Osborn came over in 1920, Woodward dictated some notes which help to allocate the various discoveries. Apart from these notes and the one-sided record of the correspondence, there are only the reports in the scientific literature and popular lectures on Piltdown as primary sources. Woodward does not appear in general to have been a secretive man, but over the Piltdown material he went to some lengths to keep the whole affair as quiet as possible until near the time of the public meeting in December 1912. He did not consult any of his colleagues in the Museum about the finds or about the interpretation he was to place on them. Mr. Hinton says that to his colleagues at South Kensington Woodward’s diagnosis of E. dawsoni came as a surprise mingled with some dismay, for there was much scepticism of the new form amongst his museum colleagues, including Oldfield Thomas and Hinton himself. They would have advised caution, he says. Keith knew nothing of the events in Sussex until rumours reached him in November. He wrote asking for a view of the exciting material, but on his visit on 2 December to the Museum he was received rather coldly and allowed a short twenty minutes. But, judging from Dawson’s letters in 1912, it seems fair to say that Woodward was merely seeking to avoid a premature disclosure, for he had decided early on that Piltdown would indeed prove a sensational event. Woodward did not want any of Dawson’s ‘lay’ friends to come along on his first visit to the gravel when he had yet to make up his mind about the real importance of Dawson’s find and of the necessity for systematic excavation.
North America I: The Southwest and the Southern Plains
Authors: Mitchell Peter
Published: November 2020

Ruled from Mexico City for about a century longer than they have thus far been from Washington, New Mexico and Arizona lie in what English speakers generally term ‘the Southwest’. I follow that usage here, even though calling them the ‘Northwest’ (of first colonial New Spain and then an independent Mexico) would, for this chapter’s purposes, be more accurate, as well as emphasizing that the cultural area to which their Indigenous inhabitants belonged extended across modern Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa, and Sonora. Together with the Southern Plains, to which trade links intimately tied it before and after Spanish arrival, the Southwest constituted the cradle within which the first Horse Nations of North America took shape. I start by highlighting key aspects of the two regions’ ecologies and prehistories. Next, I look at the horse’s impact on the Southwest’s settled farming peoples, particularly the Pueblos, many of whom came under Spanish rule after 1598. Its take-up by their Athapaskan-speaking neighbours, the Apache and Navajo, gives us our first view of how more mobile societies understood and used the horse, including—in the Navajo case—the development of a distinctive pastoralist way of life. Attention then turns to the Comanche, another pivotal player in the horse’s expansion across western North America, for whom it altered not just how they secured food, but also their social organization and entire economy. Trade—especially trade in horses—was critical in this, and so I end by examining the horse’s arrival among some of the Comanches’ trade partners, the village communities of the eastern edge of the Southern Plains, an area to which Native farmers-with-horses from the American South moved, and were forced to move, in the early 1800s. The Southwest is one of the driest parts of North America (Plate 4). Its climate is also strongly seasonal, with cold winters and hot summers. Major drainages are few: the Colorado in the west and northwest, southern Arizona’s Gila, the Río Grande, which snakes south through New Mexico and then along the present Texas/Mexico border, and the rivers draining into the Gulf of California from Mexico’s rugged Sierra Madre Occidental.
North America III: West of the Rockies
Authors: Mitchell Peter
Published: November 2020

This chapter looks at three more regions of North America: the Columbia Plateau and adjacent areas of the Pacific Northwest Coast; the Great Basin; and California. It also focuses on three main themes: the development of new identities as many groups adapted aspects of the lifestyle and customs of those on the Plains and more coherent tribal entities emerged; raiding for captives; and raiding for horses. A fourth topic, which casts these into relief, is why some groups rejected the horse, or chose to adopt it very late in their history. The Great Basin was the first of the three areas to receive the horse. It is an arid region of desert, salt lakes, and mountains where rainfall is unpredictable and low, but increases eastward (Plate 15). Except for the Colorado along its southern edge and the headwaters in the rockies of streams draining towards the Missouri, none of its rivers reach the sea. Fremont farmers had once made a living across Utah, but by the 1600s cultivation was restricted to a few groups in the south and west. Elsewhere, the Basin’s inhabitants depended entirely on hunting and gathering, though strategies like burning enhanced the productivity of wild plants and game. Very broadly, two subsistence patterns were followed: one emphasized fish and waterfowl around wetlands, the other a more mobile, broadly based foraging economy in deserts and mountains in which pine nuts (piñons), grass seeds, rabbits, and larger game were important. Except for the Washoe near Lake Tahoe in eastern California, all the region’s historic inhabitants spoke Numic languages. Major groups included Utes in the southeast, Shoshones in the north and centre, and Paiutes in the west and southwest. To the north of the Great Basin lies the Plateau, centred on the Columbia River and its tributaries, which collectively send their waters into the Pacific Ocean (Plate 16). Coniferous forest covers its northern and eastern parts (including several ranges running parallel to but west of the Rockies), but the drier, hilly country of Oregon and eastern Washington is more steppe-like, with sagebrush common and trees more localized.
South America II: The Southern Cone
Authors: Mitchell Peter
Published: November 2020

Taking in the Andean cordillera, the Pampas grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay, the desert steppes of southern Patagonia, and the temperate lowlands of south-central Chile (Araucanía), this chapter explores the horse’s arrival and impact in South America’s Southern Cone. Convention divides the Cone along the spine of the mountains between Chile and Argentina. To their east it contrasts the Pampas in the north with Patagonia in the south. I follow most recent scholarship in stressing the historical connections that such boundaries obscure. Similarly, I emphasize not only the acquisition of horses, but also the significance of hunting, taking, and trading feral livestock and the adoption of elements of food production. Both developments formed part of the inclusion of ‘free’ Native Americans within broader international political and commercial systems. At the same time, the work of anthropologists and the comments of contemporary European observers make the Southern Cone one of the most richly documented regions of all for studying the emergence of Horse Nations post-1492. The Southern Cone is environmentally far more complex than a simple tripartite classification into Araucanía, Patagonia, and Pampas suggests. In the north the Pampas reach to the Paraná and Salado drainages, to the south as far as the Río Colorado and its tributaries. They extend east to include Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and in the west reach the Andean foothills. A basic division follows the 500 mm isohyet: to its west the Dry Pampa is increasingly water-deficient, while to the east the Humid Pampa ultimately benefits from as much as 800 mm of rain a year (Plate 23). The Uruguayan Savannah forms a third ecological subdivision that includes areas with palms and some forest enclaves. Generally, the Pampas comprise a gently sloping plain covered by extensive grasslands, but drier-adapted shrub occurs in the west and a wedge of forest penetrates their centre from the north. The Sierra de Tandilia and Sierra de la Ventana south of Buenos Aires are rare areas of higher relief. Climate is temperate, but surface water is often scarce, stone for tool-making rare, game dispersed.
Neck lump
Authors: Farne Hugo , Norris-Cervetto Edward , Warbrick-Smith James
Published: November 2020

Considering the anatomy and associated pathology, the lump may represent: • Artery: carotid artery aneurysm, subclavian artery aneurysm, carotid body tumour (i.e. chemodectoma or paraganglioma of the carotid body) • Nerves: neurofibroma, schwannoma • Lymphatics: lymphatic malformations • Lymph nodes: infective, neoplastic (primary or metastatic), granulomatous • Salivary glands: infective, autoimmune, neoplastic • Larynx: laryngocele • Pharynx: pharyngeal pouch • Branchial arch remnant: branchial cyst/sinus/fistula • Skin/superficial subcutaneous: lipoma, epidermal cyst, abscess, dermoid cyst • Muscle/cartilage/bone: sarcomas (e.g. rhabdomyosarcoma, fibrosarcoma, osteosarcoma), cervical rib, torticollis The age of the patient has an enormous bearing upon the pathology you should expect to encounter: • In children, about 75% of neck lumps are benign. Congenital and inflammatory lumps are most common. Thus the differential diagnosis will be weighted in favour of branchial cleft cysts, lymphatic malformations, and lymphadenitis. If malignancy is diagnosed in paediatric neck lumps, it is usually a lymphoma or sarcoma, or sometimes a papillary thyroid carcinoma. • In adults over 40, as many as 75% of lateral neck lumps are malignant. Of the malignant neck lumps, about 80% are metastases and the rest are mostly lymphomas. In fact, ▲ in the absence of signs of infection, a lateral neck mass in an adult is lymphadenopathy due to metastatic carcinoma (usually squamous cell) until proven otherwise. • How long has the lump been there? ■ Less than a few weeks: most likely infective or inflammatory lymphadenopathy, although some patients will present with malignant neck lumps that have only been noticed within the last few days. ■ More than a few weeks: must exclude malignancy. ■ Years, with little change: most likely benign. ■ Note that congenital neck lumps, despite being ‘congenital’, may only ‘appear’ later in life as they may fluctuate in size (e.g. following an infection). • Has the lump got bigger, smaller, or stayed the same size? A lump that is gradually increasing in size must be regarded as a malignancy until proven otherwise. Remember that a progressive increase in size of a malignant neck lump may be reported as a sudden appearance by the patient.
Right upper quadrant pain
Authors: Farne Hugo , Norris-Cervetto Edward , Warbrick-Smith James
Published: November 2020

Yes, the likelihood of certain diseases would change considerably. In older patients, certain pathologies are relatively more common, such as pneumonia, cancer (e.g. hepatocellular carcinoma), or vascular disease (aortic dissection, abdominal aortic aneurysm, inferior myocardial infarction). Of course, the differential would still include those diseases seen in a 38-year-old Mrs Cole. Characterize the pain. One useful way is to follow the mnemonic SOCRATES: Site of pain, and has it moved since it began? Onset of pain—was it sudden or gradual, and did something trigger it? Character of pain—stabbing, dull, deep, superficial, gripping, tearing, burning? Radiation of pain—does the patient have pain elsewhere? Attenuating factors—does anything make the pain better (position? medications?) Timing of pain—how long has it gone on for, has it been constant or coming and going? Exacerbating factors—does anything make the pain worse (moving? breathing?) Severity—on a scale of 0–10, where 10 is the worst pain ever (e.g. childbirth). Once you have characterized the pain, you should ask: • Has the patient had any symptoms other than pain? (e.g. fever, weight loss). The reason is that certain other symptoms will help you refine your diagnosis. Thus, fever suggests an infective process and makes a myocardial infarction less likely. Significant weight loss over the preceding months may be due to a cancer, which is a catabolic process (breakdown of tissues for energy). • When did they last open their bowels or pass any flatus (wind)? A patient who hasn’t opened their bowels may be constipated, but a patient who isn’t even managing to pass wind (‘absolute constipation’) may be obstructed—a surgical emergency. • Have they noticed any change in their stool recently? (e.g. colour, floating, smelly). If the common bile duct is obstructed, bilirubin and fat-dissolving bile salts won’t reach the bowel and thus stools will be pale, floating, and smelly (steatorrhoea). If blood is entering the bowel lumen via a bleeding ulcer, the iron (haemoglobin) in the blood will be oxidized, making stools appear very dark, black, tarry, and smelly (melaena).
Diarrhoea
Authors: Farne Hugo , Norris-Cervetto Edward , Warbrick-Smith James
Published: November 2020

Strictly speaking, diarrhoea is an increase in the amount of stool passed daily to over 300 g of stool per day. This is usually accompanied by increased frequency and loosening of the stools. However, many patients will talk of ‘diarrhoea’ when they actually have melaena (dark, tarry stools from digested blood), steatorrhoea (pale, floating stools from undigested lipid), haematochezia (bright red stools from frank blood), or simply loose stools (soft faeces but no increase in frequency or quantity). Diarrhoea can be caused by: • Infection of the bowel (infectious diarrhoea) • Inflammation of the bowel (e.g. inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), diverticular disease) • Increased bowel motility (e.g. hyperthyroidism, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)) • Malabsorption of nutrients (e.g. coeliac disease, pancreatic insufficiency) • Obstruction overflow due to a mass allowing only liquid stool to pass beyond it (e.g. constipation—counterintuitively, hard faeces stuck in the bowel are a common cause of overflow diarrhoea in elderly people, colon cancer, ovarian cancer) • Medications (e.g. laxatives, colchicine, digoxin, metformin, thiazide diuretics, some antibiotics, etc.) For a young adult with acute diarrhoea, the most likely diagnoses are shown in Figure 20.1. Yes, it would. In elderly patients, neoplastic disease (villous polyps, colonic adenocarcinoma, pancreatic cancer), diverticular disease, overflow diarrhoea secondary to constipation, ischaemic colitis, microscopic colitis, and bacterial overgrowth (e.g. in patients with diabetes mellitus) are much more likely, whereas coeliac disease is less likely to present for the first time (as it tends to present in younger patients). Curiously, ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease are thought to have a bimodal distribution in incidence, with peaks at 15–25 and 50–80 years. • Airway, breathing, and circulation (ABC): always, always, always start the management of a patient with ABC. Although the ABCs will be obviously normal in a large number of patients presenting in a non-emergency setting, you should always keep this in mind when admitting patients to hospital. Note that hypotension is a late and worrying sign in young patients. • Dehydration: in a patient with a 3-day history of diarrhoea, one should be concerned about the possibility of dehydration (hypovolaemia).
Constructing histories
Authors: Potts Charlotte R.
Published: November 2020

Religious buildings are central to histories of ancient architecture and reconstructions of ancient societies. While this is in large part due to the prominence of their remains in the archaeological record, it also reflects the variety of ways in which religious buildings dominated early settlements. Their construction affected the appearance of towns and landscapes; the activities that occurred in and around them were closely connected to religious beliefs and the economy; and the resources involved in their creation and maintenance demonstrated the authority and priorities of certain individuals and communities. These factors allow religious architecture to be studied as either a corpus of structures displaying technical and artistic achievements or, alternatively, as a diagnostic tool for assessing how ancient societies functioned and changed. The ability of histories of religious architecture to be histories of both buildings and people means that they are now referenced in a variety of scholarship ranging from archaeology to anthropology and social and religious histories, and as such have an impact far beyond the formulation of architectural typologies. Religious architecture is so often incorporated into studies of the ancient world that it is important to regularly review, and sometimes revise, what we know about these buildings. This is particularly the case for cult buildings in pre-Roman central Italy, as five decades of new excavations, artefact studies, and interdisciplinary analyses have transformed our knowledge of Etruscan and Latial societies and their material cultures. The systematic excavation of settlements including Luni sul Mignone, Ficana, and Marzabotto, for example, now allows Etruscan scholars, long reliant on information from cemeteries and burials, to examine evidence of the living alongside that of the dead. Standard histories of Etruscan buildings and architectural decoration have been revised as a consequence of data from sites such as Poggio Civitate and Acquarossa. New excavations of sanctuaries at Tarquinia, Veii, Gravisca, and Pyrgi have given form to cult sites and practices that were previously reconstructed using only literary texts, and landmark conferences and publications on votive deposits have yielded unprecedented information on Etruscan gods and rituals. The study of sites and communities in Latium has also been enriched.
Conclusions
Authors: Potts Charlotte R.
Published: November 2020

This book began by stating that histories of religious architecture can be accounts of both buildings and people. This particular history, focused on the archaeological evidence for the development of cult buildings in early central Italy, has reconsidered traditional narratives about the form and function of Etrusco-Italic religious architecture and proposed an alternative reconstruction of how their architects and audiences may have interacted with one another in Rome, Latium, and Etruria between the ninth and the sixth centuries BC. Comparison with the construction of monumental temples elsewhere also indicated that settlements including Rome, Satricum, Pyrgi, and Tarquinia can perhaps be considered part of a network of Archaic Mediterranean settlements with material, commercial, and religious connections, and that monumental architecture may have been a mechanism for successful social interaction. This study has therefore supported the suggestion that the physical and social fabric of ancient communities were closely linked, and that regional studies of Latium and Etruria may furthermore benefit from being set in Italic and Mediterranean contexts. This concluding chapter briefly recapitulates the arguments made in the main body of the book and the significance of each of those arguments for studies of ancient architecture and society. It also assesses how these findings relate to broader debates about Archaic Italy. Finally, it acknowledges the limitations of this analysis and highlights opportunities for future research. Part I of this book demonstrated that ancient religious architecture was a protean phenomenon. Three chapters analysed the ambiguous evidence for Iron Age sacred huts, the range of different buildings types associated with ritual activities in the seventh century BC, and the emergence of a separate architectural language for religious buildings during the Archaic period. Detailed analyses of foundations and roofs revealed that as changes in technology and society led to the widespread use of more permanent building materials, the physical fabric of central Italic settlements was also increasingly marked by the use of particular architectural forms and decorations to differentiate cult buildings from other structures, setting them apart in a form of architectural consecration.
Fayned News
Authors: Rose Jonathan
Published: November 2020

When my students ask me, “What will be the next big thing in historical studies?,” I tell them to watch out for the history of public relations. The University of Bournemouth in the UK has a fairly new center devoted to the subject, Baruch College in Manhattan has just set up a Museum of Public Relations, and I think that’s just the beginning. Yes, plenty of work has been done on the history of advertising and propaganda, but PR is different: Dan Draper and Joseph Goebbels were perfectly upfront about what they were doing, but PR is a medium that commonly and deliberately disguises its own authorship. Let me state at the outset that everyone today uses publicists, and much of their work is entirely ethical. For publishers, they write up promotional material, send out review copies, arrange author interviews, and extract blurbs from reviews of their books—this one, for instance. But the main focus of this chapter is the kind of PR that surreptitiously plants stories in various media. It works only insofar as readers don’t recognize it, and therefore distrust of the media is in large measure a function of reader recognition of PR. The standard narrative holds that public relations was invented by Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays in the early twentieth century, but the basic concept of publicity can be traced back as far as Socrates’s Phaedrus, who observed that “an orator does not need to know what is really just, but what would seem just to the multitude who are to pass judgment, and not what is really good or noble, but what will seem to be so; for they say that persuasion comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth” (260a). One of the most brilliant PR agents of the pre-newspaper era was working before Shakespeare staged his first play.
Death to Gradgrind
Authors: Rose Jonathan
Published: November 2020

There has always been a “reading crisis,” at least for the last two hundred years. Up to the end of the nineteenth century critics fretted over the spread of mass literacy, which (they anticipated) would degrade the quality of literature. And then, at various points over the twentieth century, critics warned that the Book-of-the-Month Club, or middlebrow literature, or paperbacks, or the Great Books of the Western World, or Oprah Winfrey would mean the end of serious reading. As documented here, none of these irrational fears had any basis in reality. But even if others frequently cried wolf in the past, there are real and present threats to reading, and often (ironically) they come from the very quarters that warn that reading is in a crisis that must be addressed. Perhaps the most deeply troubling development on the reading instruction front is Common Core, a set of educational standards that promises “career and college readiness.” It has been adopted by most of the fifty states in the US, though several are having second thoughts and pulling back. The Gates Foundation has heavily promoted Common Core, donating a total of $150 million to teachers’ unions, universities, foundations, state departments of education, and think tanks that support the program. What Bill Gates prefers to call “ philanthropy” was in this case more like an investment, given that the Common Core would require much greater use of computers in classrooms. Likewise, publishing giant Pearson stood ready to corral a huge and largely captive market for textbooks oriented to Common Core. (Historians of textbooks know that, because they are usually sold to a government monopsony, opportunities for corruption are enormous.) Championed as well by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and many state governors, Common Core thus involves the takeover of school reading instruction not by capitalism, but by crony capitalism, cutting out both teachers and parents in shaping educational policy. Pearson was awarded contracts that effectively ensured that the company would be the only qualified bidder. In a 28 February 2014 meeting, Pearson CEO John Fallon and CFO Robin Freestone discussed the company’s long-term profitability with eight market analysts.
Beowulf and Archaeology: Megaliths Imagined and Encountered in Early Medieval Europe
Authors: Williams Howard
Published: November 2020

Since the mid nineteenth century AD, the poem Beowulf has long been a quarry for inspiration, analogy and insight for those exploring the archaeology of Early Medieval Britain and Scandinavia (Cramp 1957; Hills 1997; Webster 1998; Owen-Crocker 2000). The dialogue of archaeology and poem has been employed to explore a range of Early Medieval social practices and structures: the production and circulation of weapons and armour through inheritance and gift-giving, the role of vessels and feasting practices, hall-building and ceremony, the hoarding of treasure, and various dimensions of funerary practice including barrow-burial, boat-burial, and cremation. In discussing many of these practices, scholars have recently pointed to the sense of the past in the poem as a practice-orientated form of social memory. Synergies have been identified between heroic poetry and the ceremonial use of material culture, monuments, architectures, and landscapes identified in poetry and archaeological evidence as distinct but related technologies of remembrance within the hierarchical Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerge during the mid to late seventh century AD (Williams 1998; 2006; 2011a; 2011b; Owen-Crocker 2000; Semple 2013). In this fashion, the assertions of legitimacy and identities by Early Medieval elites, including their claims to land, power and people, were performed through the ritualized reuse, appropriation and naming of ancient monuments and their deployment within rituals and oral performances, including poetry (Semple 2013; see also Price 2010). The locations and immediate environs of major later Anglo-Saxon churches and elite residences, and the maritime and land routes connecting them, provided the dramaturgical and ritualized settings and media by which social memories were transmitted and reproduced. Landmarks such as ancient monuments were actively integrated through reuse for a variety of functions from burial to assembly (Williams 2006; Reynolds and Langlands 2011; Semple 2013). In particular, Sarah Semple’s (2013) important interdisciplinary survey and analysis of Anglo-Saxon perceptions and reuse of prehistoric monuments from the fifth to the eleventh centuries AD, identifies the variegated and shifting perceptions of prehistoric monuments revealed by later Anglo-Saxon texts, manuscript illustrations, place-names and archaeological evidence (see also Semple 1998; 2004).
The Future of Fire
Authors: Scott Andrew C.
Published: November 2020

I only encountered the term ‘wildland–urban interface’ a few years ago. It describes situations or physical boundaries where human urban populations and infrastructure impinge on wild vegetated areas. Two specific cases are worth highlighting. One is simply due to the expansion of population centres, where towns and cities continue to spread into rural areas and, in some cases, impinge on natural vegetation. The other situation occurs when individuals or small communities build homes and infrastructure within the bounds of an area of wild vegetation. The ultimate getting away from it all! This wish for exclusivity and privacy is growing at an ever-increasing rate and is becoming a major global challenge. And even before the houses and communities encroach into the wilderness, the natural vegetation is experiencing the effects of human activity and climate change. Simply put, an invasive plant is a plant that has gone wild in an area where it never occurred naturally before being introduced. We are all familiar with bringing exotic plants into our garden, but less aware of what happens to the plants if they spread outside our own area. In general this may not be a problem. Across many parts of the world, introduced plants are confused with natives. Rhododendrons, for example, are very widespread in the UK, and in some places they may also be considered a ‘weed’. But they were introduced into our gardens from China. In any case, what does it really mean to say a plant is native? It isn’t always obvious. While the cultivated species Rhododendron may have been a relatively recent import to Britain, wild forms did exist in England more than 55 million years ago. Equally, we may not realize that a plant is not a native of a region, or what potential problems they may cause. While in some cases such plants may be escapees from our gardens, plants may also have been introduced for another use, such as to provide feedstock for animals. There are those who think that plant invasives are not really a problem, but I would challenge this view in relation to fire.
Antiquarian Entrepreneurs: Mounds and Meaning in the Jacksonian Era
Authors: Snead James E.
Published: November 2020

In his 1838 Peter Pilgrim, or a Rambler’s Recollections, Robert Bird noted the abundant evidence for ancient human activity in the caverns of the western country, with the associated ironies of modern exploitation: . . . it is quite plain that the Mammoth Cave was once the dwelling-place of man—of a race of the Anakim, as some will have it, whose bones were disinterred in the vestibule . . . The tribe has vanished, and their bones (to what base uses we may return!) converted into gunpowder, have been employed to wing many a death against their warring descendants. . . . Although he included a garbled account of the Caney Branch mummies— “petrified ancients”—Bird did not mention the Kentucky Mummy herself. Thus her transformation over twenty-odd years into an archaeological icon, and then into institutional capital, also effectively obscured the intimate connection between those remains and their place of origin. Indeed, refractions of the discovery can be found in the broader American literature of the 1830s. William Cullen Bryant’s 1832 short story “The Skeleton in the Cave” adapts literary gothic imagery to a distinctively American setting, which features caverns and bones. Over time, however, the Kentucky Mummy reappeared in lore specific to Mammoth Cave itself. Visitors saw sites associated with the Mummy, variously along the “Gothic Avenue” or in the “Haunted Chamber.” A complex web of tales developed of bodies excavated, reburied, or lost, of Indian children long dead but perfectly preserved. Tours stopped at a niche associated with the Mummy and took “time for reverie. It cost me no coaxing to have mine,” wrote Nathaniel Parker Willis; “of all the ladies of past ages I doubt whether there is one who is the subject of a more perpetual series of unwritten poems.” The 1840s invention of traditions concerning the Kentucky Mummy reflects a deepening of the relationship between settlers and the western landscape, which with time and familiarity had evolved from a featureless wilderness into a place with history and meaning.