bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Standard and alternative taxonomic data in the multi-institutional Natural Heritage Data Center Network
Authors: Morse Larry E 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Natural Heritage Inventory Programs (or Conservation Data Centers), established with the assistance of The Nature Conservancy, operate in all 50 US states, two Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, and 13 Latin American nations. A highly integrated database system in Advanced Revelation is supplied to these data centres by the Conservancy. Each inventory maintains a classification file, using locally acceptable taxonomies, of species and natural communities of conservation importance in their state or nation, as well as full species lists for vertebrate animals and, increasingly, vascular plants. Conservation priorities are determined for each entity (‘element’) on these lists from a state, national, and global perspective. Locality-by-locality occurrence data for priority elements is mapped, computer indexed, and used in conservation planning and environmental review. Central databases at the Conservancy’s headquarters include the conservation status of each species of interest, as well as its distribution and various additional biological, ecological, and management data. For the better known groups of plants and animals, the Conservancy adopts a widely used standard classification, such as the Kartesz checklist for vascular plants of North America. Major monographs are used when no regional flora is available. Co-operating programmes are encouraged to follow these specified classifications to the extent they can, and itemize any divergences they make. Taxon and name codes link synonymy and variant usages, so data can be consolidated under the standard species for range-wide assessments and reports. Simple synonyms, such as differences in generic.
A view of the future for floristic research
Authors: GÓmez-Pompa Arturo , Plummer Orlay Edward 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Floristic research faces the challenge of major losses of its study material: plant diversity, especially in the tropics. One outlook on this challenge is to increase our efforts in describing the plants before they become extinct. Another is to modify the forces that are threatening this biodiversity so we can have more time to do the urgently needed research and with luck more plants will escape extinction. The one outlook that we all tend to reject is to continue as we have been doing and let what will be become reality. Accepting this challenge entails a close analysis of the current manner and means of floristic research in terms of how well our current procedures are meeting it and how can we change them in order to better meet it. The experience of the Flora of Veracruz The experience of the flora for the state of Veracruz illustrates the issues. In 1967 the Flora de Veracruz was begun (Gomez-Pompa and Nevling 1988). The project faced real and great difficulties because of the scarce resources in Mexico for this type of research-a very poor herbarium and library and a very limited number of trained taxonomists.
Instability in biological nomenclature: problems and solutions
Authors: Mcneill J 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The species is a human concept that has proven useful in categonzmg natural diversity, but there is not necessarily a single correct species circumscription in any particular group of organisms. Legitimate diversity of view is even greater for other ranks. Any species information system requires as its core feature an unambiguous reference system for the basic components, the species. Since 1753 (1758 for animals) the binomial system of nomenclature introduced by Linnaeus has generally served this function. The development of this in the present-day International Code of Botanical Nomenclature specifies that ‘each taxonomic group [e.g. a species] with a particular circumscription, position and rank can bear only one correct name . . .’ This highlights the sources of in-built instability in this system in that changes of circumscription, position, and rank can, and generally will, induce changes in the basic reference system, which in turn will tend to create ambiguity. Alternative systems are discussed and their inadequacies noted. The limitations of the type method of applying names, the need to accommodate alternative taxonomic treatments while recognizing the demand for a single preferred treatment, and some necessary components of an optimal species-based reference system are discussed. Means of minimizing instability are noted and a plea is made for greater participation by designers and users of a global plant species information system in the process of developing and modifying the internationally established rules governing the nomenclature of biological organisms.
Lists of names in current use and their possible role in a global plant species information system
Authors: Greuter Werner 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Changes in taxonomy unavoidably result in name changes. As long as scientific plant names reflect the accepted position and rank of a taxon, and as long as taxonomy progresses, such changes must be accepted. ‘Consensus taxonomy’ cannot be the final answer. Lack of certainty with respect to basic nomenclatural parameters also results in nomenclatural instability. Such uncertainty may concern priority (date of publication, existence of overlooked earlier synonyms or homonyms), availability (effectivity and validity of publication, legitimacy of names), application (choice and identity of nomenclatural types), and minor points such as correct orthography and gender. In order to avoid such uncertainty and the resulting instability, the compilation of vetted lists of names in current use is being actively promoted by IUBS and IAPT, among others.
Botanical strategies for compiling a global plant checklist
Authors: Bisby Frank A 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Compiling an integrated world checklist of plants is not a simple matter. Alternative treatments, problems of taxonomic integrity, poorly known groups, and partial taxonomic treatments each provide particular problems to be overcome. The two main strategies for achieving a complete checklist, flora-by-flora and family-by-family differ markedly in the level and stage at which these problems are met. The seeming advantage of family-by-family has to be balanced against the larger fraction of plants available by the flora-by-flora route. In practice the choices are limited by availability and a global project will have to pick and mix between sources. The co-ordinated plan proposed is to use family-by-family for all groups where it is available; to follow this with flora-by-flora for all remaining groups; and finally to revert to piecemeal compilation for plants covered by neither route.
Botanical decision-making and data-collection strategies—the role of small institutions
Authors: Eggli Urs 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The many small institutions in the botanical and systematic community are highly heterogeneous, but can be characterized by low budgets and few scientific staff. The few of them active in research are potential contributors: the many more active, say, in public education and displays are potential users. The participation of small institutions, whether as contributors or as users implies certain constraints on a general information system. Copyright and ownership must be clarified both so that contributions can be made by a range of sorts of small institution, and so that the whole system can be used by them. Hardware and software choices must allow for the low-cost mass-market machines used in small institutions. This may impose technical restrictions for instance on character sets. Entry to the system, as contributor or as user, must include low-cost options for those that clearly cannot pay the full cost of what they are using. Introduction The task of outlining the participation possibilities of small institutions in the context of a global plant species information system is not an easy one. Apart from the difficulty of defining the term ‘small institution’, the group of organizations and institutions probably falling under this term will be extremely heterogeneous, and it is difficult to establish a common base of needs and wishes or possibilities of co-operation.
Designing a world service: a BIOSIS viewpoint
Authors: Dadd* Michael N , Kellyꝉ Maureen C 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Experience in the compilation and distribution of bibliographic and factual databases covering the world literature in biology provides a number of lessons relevant to the design of a global plant species information system. A common problem to many non-taxonomists is the need to produce lists of organisms, or to verify that names, often from conflicting sources, are ‘correct’, all without becoming submerged in a mass of irrelevant taxonomic detail. In developing a system, it is important to consider what advantages it will offer over existing services, and to make sure that the needs of the users, not the needs that the developers think that the users have, are met. In addition to the basic service, system design must take account of the need to make the user aware of the service, and subsequently for user training and support. The differences in approach between the academic and commercial worlds to both the technology and the costs of exchanging information are also important. The technologically most advanced solutions are not necessarily the most suitable in this case. BIOSIS BIOSIS is an independent, not-for-profit publisher of printed and computer-readable products in the life sciences, established in 1926. It is governed by a Board of Trustees drawn from both the academic and industrial sectors.
Networks and communications: the Internet
Authors: Roubicek Karen C 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
A design for a global plant species information system must provide for mechanisms that facilitate collaboration and communications between geographically separated research groups working on common problems and that provide remote access to unique resources. Computer networks reach users at thousands of institutions in countries throughout the world. Wide-area computer networks, once the exclusive domain of computer scientists, have become an indispensable tool to members of the scientific community. Researchers in biology, physics, chemistry, and other disciplines routinely use supercomputers, databases, and on-line bibliographic information regardless of their locations. As the academic, government, and industrial sectors within and outside the United States commit more resources to communications infrastructures, the use of applications such as videoteleconferencing and high-resolution image transfer will become more common. New developments in very-high-speed networking and networked digital library systems will play an important role in the way that scientists do their work and in the kinds of research that they can pursue.
Alternative models for taxonomic data
Authors: Zellweger* Catherine , Allkinꝉ Robert 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
A sequential series of data analysis and design stages should precede implementation of any information system. This chapter describes the sequential nature of design and then concentrates on the earliest, more conceptual stages. We emphasize that important botanical decisions are necessary at the beginning of any project and explore the repurcussions of such design decisions. The first design step is to generate a conceptual model for a particular research area (for example, systematics) that identifies the objects under study and their properties. This model should also define the relationships among those objects. There are alternative modelling methods and any conceptual model built will reflect the constraints implict in the data model used to build it. The conceptual model is, however, independent of implementation constraints and serves as a formal tool to interpret and understand what data analysts term the ‘real world’. This term gives the misguided, if reassuring, impression that there is a single reality: a unified view of objects and their interrelations. Unfortunately, in practice, even the conceptual model for an information system will reflect the particular purpose of those building the system. Different projects, or even individuals within a project, will have different purposes and priorities. Depending on one’s purpose and priorities one model or another may be more ‘elegant’: none is uniquely correct.
Practical links between specimen and taxon databases
Authors: Magill Robert E 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The development of a general-purpose indexing scheme capable of providing cross-reference addresses to related, although not necessarily format-compatible, databases will be required for access to the complete range of botanical data incorporated in a ‘global botanical database’. Botanists and horticulturists are no longer content with access to a single data source. They want easy access to a variety of resources with transparent seams between them. An indexing scheme using a modular names approach, similar to that currently in use by several database projects, could provide for greater access to data by either providing properly formatted entry identifiers to multiple databases running on the same platform or by providing access to summarized data capsules provided by other data sources. A data bank of name elements would be a necessary component to provide a library of units available for sending a name to the index and would also serve as a glossary of available, correct, or ‘accepted’ pieces of a modular name. The records in the indexing scheme would point to record identifiers for data stored by names from a variety of sources, for example, botany (nomenclatural and/or taxonomic), horticultural (hybrid, grex, cultivated), ecological, floristic (flora, checklist), and could provide additional cross referencing to specimen or collections data associated with a specific name.
A strategy for the evolution of database designs
Authors: White* Richard J , Allkinꝉ Robert 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Inadequate and incompatible database designs, lack of awareness of the benefits of a common structure design, and failure to promote such a design can impede the creation of biological information systems. The ideal of such systems and possible ways to implement them are discussed, but the resources and the consensus for such an effort are lacking at present. Some collaborative projects are assembling databases around a common core of essential data, using common software where possible and a standard exchange mechanism for data sets which incorporate information describing their structure and contents. The XDF data exchange format permits simple field conversions and rearrangements within a table and the splitting and merging of tables during the transfer of data sets from one database to another. These manipulations are already permitting data exchange within and between several projects, but do not realize the full power of the relational database model underlying XDF. Interfacing XDF to a relational database management system would give the ability to relate database tables of divergent structure and information content. Such a system must have a suitable internal structure, underlining the need for a universal database structure design.
Power Generation and the Environment
Authors: Roberts L E J , Liss P S , Saunders P A H 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Energy policy is one of the central questions on the political agenda. The problems involved in satisfying the world's ever-increasing energy needs have been compounded by the realization that increasing use of fossil fuels may damage the environment and cause irreversible climatic changes. The consumption of electricity is likely to grow because of its versatility, cleanliness, and efficiency at the point of use. The authors review the environmental effects of the large-scale generation of electricity. After tracing the reasons for the pattern of generation we have today, they consider generation from fossil fuels, from nuclear energy, and from some of the more promising 'renewable' technologies. The book is aimed primarily at the general reader rather than the technical expert, and the object throughout has been to set out the evidence in sufficient detail for readers to reach their own conclusions. An extensive bibliography is included.
The Telling Image
Authors: Davies Duncan , Bathurst Diana , Bathurst Robin 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Almost unnoticed, profound changes are taking place in society as our methods of communication come to depend more on pictures and images and less on words and numbers. These changes, which are largely being brought about by the increasing use of computers, affect a wide range of human activities: science and technology, commerce and industry, medicine, education, the media, and the everyday world of shopping, entertainment, and travel. Bringing to bear a wide range of scientific, technological, and industrial experience on this phenomenon, this highly readable account reviews its history and examines the implications for science, technology, and society. It explores the problems of storing and indexing images in digital computers and goes on to discuss present and future trends in the use of images for communication.
Introduction
Authors: Cartledge Bryan 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Few areas of public policy confront the governments of the world with sharper or more complex dilemmas than that of energy generation. This second series of Linacre Lectures exposes and defines the dilemmas, principally in the environmental context; but, as several of the lecturers acknowledged, few governments can give absolute priority to minimizing the adverse environmental impact of energy generation. A few countries, blessed in this respect by geography, are able to generate all or most of their electricity from the renewable and (usually) environmentally benign resource of hydropower: in Europe, Norway and Iceland and to a lesser extent Austria and Switzerland are in this fortunate position. As Peter Hardi shows, however, even hydroelectric power can be highly controversial in the environmental context: the Nagymaros dam project in Hungary, which would have deformed the outstandingly beautiful Danube Bend, has been suspended in deference to sustained public protest and to Hardi’s own report on the environmental impact of the project.
Energy and the environment: the differing problems of thedeveloped and developing regions
Authors: Bondi Hermann 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Professor Sir Hermann Bondi, K CB, FRS, is one of the great polymaths of British science. After serving in the Admiralty during the Second World War, he was appointed to a lectureship in mathematics at Cambridge University where he also held a Fellowship at Trinity College. In 1954 he became Professor of Mathematics at King’s College, London, a post which he held until 1971 and which he still retains in an emeritus capacity. Professor Bondi then began a long and valuable association with Government, first as Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence and then, in 1977, as Chief Scientist at the Department of Energy; in 1980 he was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council. in 1983 Sir Hermann returned to Cambridge on his election as Master of Churchill College, from which post he retired in 1990, while continuing as a Fellow of the College. He holds honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Sussex, Bath, Surrey, York, Southampton, Salford, Birmingham, and St Andrews. in 1988 Sir Hermann was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. His many publications include works on cosmology, relativity, and astrophysics. He has been, and remains, an indispensable bridge between the world of research and that of policy.
Clean power from fossil fuels
Authors: Chester Peter 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
After taking a First in physics at Queen Mary College, London, and completing his research for a Doctorate, Dr Peter Chester spent seven years in North America, first as a Post-doctoral Fellow with the National Research Council in Ottawa and then at the Westinghouse Research Laboratory in Pittsburgh. In 1960 he returned to the United Kingdom to set up the Solid State Physics Section in the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL); six years later he was appointed Research Manager (Sciences) at the Electricity Council’s Research Centre. Dr Chester moved back in 1970 to the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), where he served successively as Controller of Scientific Services (NW Region), Director of the Central Electricity Research Laboratories, Director of the Technology Planning and Research Division, and, finally, Director for the Environment. When the CEGB was dismantled as a result of the privatization of the electricity generating industry, Peter Chester was appointed Executive Director for Technology and Environment on the Board of National Power pie. In 1984 he gave the Institute of Electrical Engineers Faraday Lectures and in 1985 was awarded the Robens Coal Science Medal. He has written extensively in the fields of solid state and low temperature physics and on energy and the environment. In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and to an Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary and Westfield College. He is currently Chairman of National Wind Power Limited.
Nuclear power and the environment
Authors: Marshall Walter 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
When the history of nuclear power in the United Kingdom is written, the name of Lord Marshall of Goring, FRS, will have more index references than most. He has been involved with the industry, both as a distinguished scientist and as an energetic and sometimes controversial manager, for most of his career. He joined the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell as a research physicist in 1954 and remained there, apart from two years of research in the United States, until 1975; by then he had been Director of the AERE for nine years, following six years as Head of the Establishment’s Theoretical Physics Division. During his term as Director at Harwell, Walter Marshall served simultaneously as Chief Scientist at the Department of Energy (1974-7) and as Director of the Research Group of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) (1969-75). He was appointed Chairman of the UKAEA in 1981 and then moved a year later to take over the Chairmanship of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). He occupied that position until 1989 and was consequently in the thick of the argument, during Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, over the proposed privatization-and consequently fragmentation-of the British power generating industry. Lord Marshall (as he had become in 1985) opposed privatization with characteristic vigour, on economic and managerial rather than political grounds: he lost the battle, but many of his arguments were vindicated when the Government was obliged to withdraw the nuclear power industry from the privatization programme. Shortly after the Chernobyl disaster and partly because of it, Lord Marshall founded and stimulated wide international support for the World Association of Nuclear Operators, of which he is now Chairman. The Association’s objective is to raise standards of the training of, and encourage the exchange of information between, those responsible for operating the nuclear power industry worldwide.