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GLOBEC studies have greatly expanded our understanding of the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems, in particular demonstrating the importance of life history dynamics in determining the influence of physical processes on organisms in the ocean. The linkages between physical and biological processes were explored through novel approaches to experimentation in the laboratory, in the field, and through biophysical models of the coupled dynamics. New observations and the development of realistic physical circulation models have made it possible to quantitatively explore the relation between advection by large‐scale hydrodynamic fields, motions of actively behaving organisms at the scale of the individuals, and the response of organisms to dynamically evolving predator—prey fields. Scale dependence has also been demonstrated through observations that cover a wide geographic range and models that allow high resolution ranging from continental shelf to oceanic basin scales. The complexity of the interactions in marine ecosystems has required consideration of as many factors as possible while at the same time focusing on the primary factors, given the challenges of disentangling the complexity. These ideas and approaches to biophysical coupling are reviewed through presentation of the research that has been carried out during the GLOBEC programme over the past two decades.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the emergence of a neuromolecular vision of the brain. This means a new scale at which the brain and nervous system was conceptualized, and a new way in which their activities were understood. At this molecular level, the structure and processes of the brain and central nervous system were made understandable as material processes of interaction among molecules in neurons and the synapses between them. These were conceived in terms of the biophysical, chemical, and electrical properties of their constituent parts. At this scale, in a profoundly reductionist approach, despite the recognition that there was much that could not yet be explained, there seemed nothing mysterious about the operations of the nervous system. Indeed, mental processes—cognition, emotion, volition—could be explained in entirely material ways, as the outcome of biological processes in the brain.

This chapter examines James Lovelock's assertion that the Earth's atmosphere is a biological construct that is distinctly different from any expected abiotic chemical equilibrium. This claim can be broadened to the wider claim that Earth's environment bears the definite and considerable imprint of biological processes and is distinctly different from the environment that would be present if Earth did not possess life. Based on the evidence covered in this chapter, from atmosphere and oceans, Lovelock was clearly correct to claim that the coexistence of oxygen and methane in Earth's atmosphere is evidence of life, and that life can alter the planet. Other examples that could also be used as evidence to prove this point include the effects of vegetation in creating and stabilizing soils, the effects of plant transpiration on the cycling of water, and the fossil evidence for the effects of diatoms on silicon concentrations.

This concluding chapter talks about how the Earth's climate is fundamental to the well-being of humanity, and any factor with the potential to affect that is obviously of concern. Thus, an understandable interest in the body that provides the energy for all life on Earth has driven a long history of study of how changes in the Sun might influence the climate. The wealth of physical, chemical, and biological processes involved also makes the topic of intrinsic scientific fascination. Observations of the Sun, alongside theoretical advances and developments in models, are helping to further understanding of its behavior. In particular, significant advances have been made in determining how different activity indicators relate to the physical processes involved in the evolution of the solar magnetic field, sunspots, and radiation over the 11-year cycle.

This chapter details some contributions of the results of biological and cognitive processing to natural speech. It presents the general concept of classifying basic and secondary emotions. A vector model of emotion is suggested and the importance of dynamic modeling is emphasized. The problems of an adequate approach to modelling variability, and the relationship between variability and adequate acoustic modeling is discussed. Problems inherent in collecting useable data bases are identified.

This chapter presents a commentary on Chapters 10–14. By situating cognitive aging in the broad context of health, physiological, and biological processes, the chapters in this section seem to underscore the need for large-scale, comprehensive investigations that are able to tease apart the often subtle main and interaction effects among the multitude of causes of cognitive aging. These kinds of investigations will need to be longitudinal in order to ferret out changes that occur within individuals, and cutting-edge statistical methods will be required for data analysis.

The argument of this chapter is that alternative learning spaces offer alternative versions and visions of life-itself. That is, they do not just proffer alternative approaches to education, but to the very thinking and doing of life. This argument is inspired by a trans-disciplinary series of thinkers who have propounded distinct but overlapping theories of life-itself. Their theories have, in some circles, come to be termed ‘vital materialisms’ – inspired by poststructural theories of materiality, diverse economic practices, and ongoing developments in biology, neuroscience and social psychology. Significantly, these theorists say little about education, explicitly. Using extended empirical evidence from alternative learning spaces, the chapter explores how the social and the biological are interwoven in the constitution of autonomy as something that is more-than-social and collaborative. An emphasis on the biological and material represents a departure from previous theorisations of autonomy. The chapter also examines how alternative educators are intimately involved with other attempts to live life differently – from local food networks to (inter)national developments in sustainable building. Thus, the chapter closes by understanding some alternative learning spaces as utopian – but in ways that are more obdurate than the prefigurative, experimental utopias favoured by poststructural utopian theorists.

A social network can be defined as any number of individuals interconnected via social ties between them (e.g. sexual, cooperative, etc.). Understanding social network structure is of great importance because the structural characteristics of the network will affect its constituent members. For example, a social network can support a diverse array of behaviours (which in turn will be influenced by its structure), including finding and choosing a sexual partner, developing and maintaining cooperative relationships, and engaging in foraging and anti-predator behaviour. This book provides an overview of the insights that network analysis has provided into major biological processes such as cooperation, mating, and communication and how it has enhanced our understanding of the social organization of several important taxonomic groups (e.g. primates, fishes, birds, etc.). Furthermore, it introduces some important methodological developments regarding the network approach and outline priority areas for future research.

It has been 25 years since the criminal trajectory methodology was first introduced. Scientists from multiple fields have now arrived at a much more balanced view of its strengths and weaknesses. The final chapter of this book looks back at the accumulated research on criminal trajectories and renews the call on criminological trajectory researchers to interface better with contemporary developmental science frameworks. This call is not intended to replace extant developmental and life-course theories of crime but, rather, to complement them by incorporating meta-theoretical propositions from the field of developmental science. To this end, this chapter offers 12 suggestions for the next generation of trajectory researchers. They range from methodological issues, including the need for stricter reporting standards and greater methodological rigor, to substantive research needs, such as the exploration of the role of biological processes, and the study of prospective links to trajectory groups of distinct behaviors and intentional self-regulatory strategies that foster desisting pathways of crime.

Earth, like the other inner planets, receives virtually all of its energy from space in the form of solar electromagnetic radiation. Its total heat content does not vary significantly with time, indicating a close overall balance between absorbed solar radiation and the diffuse stream of low-temperature, thermal radiation emitted by the planet. The transformation of the incident solar radiation into scattered and thermal radiation, and the thermodynamic consequences for the earth’s gaseous envelope, are the subjects of this book. The scope must be narrowed, however, because in its broadest interpretation our title could include atmospheric photochemistry and many other topics usually treated in books dealing with the upper atmosphere. By restricting attention to the thermodynamic aspects, this problem of selection usually resolves itself. For example, the absorption of energy accompanying photodissociation or photoionization will be considered if the energy involved is comparable to that of other sources or sinks, but not otherwise. Similarly, the oxygen airglow has some thermodynamic consequences in the upper atmosphere, but the important topic of the airglow will be mentioned only in this limited context. The irradiance at mean solar distance—the solar constant—is slightly less than 1400 Wm-2, giving an average flux of solar energy per unit area of the earth’s surface equal to 350 W m-2 (the factor 4 is the ratio of surface area to cross section for a sphere). Of this energy, approximately 31% is scattered back into space, 43% is absorbed at the earth's surface, and 26% is absorbed by the atmosphere. The ratio of outward to inward flux of solar radiation is known as the albedo. We may speak of the albedo of the entire earth or of individual surfaces with reference either to monochromatic radiation or to a weighted average whole is about 0.31, and an average of 224 Wm-2 is available for heating, directly and indirectly, the earth and its atmosphere. The redistribution of this absorbed solar energy by dynamic and radiative processes and its ultimate return to space as low-temperature planetary or terrestrial radiation are the most important topics of this book.

This chapter examines the effects of four factors in determining the species composition and richness of northeastern deciduous forest communities in the context of spatially and temporally heterogeneous environments. These factors are disturbance, patterns in physical factors (soils, microclimate), biological processes (e.g., competition, dispersal, colonization, and extinction), and history (land use, anthropogenic impacts, and successional age). In most cases, spatial heterogeneity appears to provide a means by which species are maintained in the community. This maintenance may be a result of the presence of a specialized microsite in which a species finds a tolerable environment with minimal competition (pits), or the presence of a keystone competitor in a rich microsite (mounds) that allows coexistence of numerous species with lower population sizes by preventing other potential dominants from exerting greater influence.

Psychologists have long been interested in the relationship between visualization and the mechanisms of human reasoning. Mathematicians have been aware of the value of diagrams and other visual tools both for teaching and as heuristics for mathematical discovery. As the chapters in this volume show, such tools are gaining even greater value, thanks in large part to the graphical potential of modern computers. But despite the obvious importance of visual images in human cognitive activities, visual representation remains a second-class citizen in both the theory and practice of mathematics. In particular, we are all taught to look askance at proofs that make crucial use of diagrams, graphs, or other nonlinguistic forms of representation, and we pass on this disdain to our students. In this chapter, we claim that visual forms of representation can be important, not just as heuristic and pedagogic tools, but as legitimate elements of mathematical proofs. As logicians, we recognize that this is a heretical claim, running counter to centuries of logical and mathematical tradition. This tradition finds its roots in the use of diagrams in geometry. The modern attitude is that diagrams are at best a heuristic in aid of finding a real, formal proof of a theorem of geometry, and at worst a breeding ground for fallacious inferences. For example, in a recent article, the logician Neil Tennant endorses this standard view: . . . [The diagram] is only an heuristic to prompt certain trains of inference; . . . it is dispensable as a proof-theoretic device; indeed, . . . it has no proper place in the proof as such. For the proof is a syntactic object consisting only of sentences arranged in a finite and inspectable array (Tennant [1984]). . . . It is this dogma that we want to challenge. We are by no means the first to question, directly or indirectly, the logocentricity of mathematics arid logic. The mathematicians Euler and Venn are well known for their development of diagrammatic tools for solving mathematical problems, and the logician C. S. Peirce developed an extensive diagrammatic calculus, which he intended as a general reasoning tool.