Review Readers Research Articles

Quantitative Geophysics and Geology

Most college instructors of geophysics are on the lookout for new textbooks. This is especially the case for instructors of survey courses at the upper division or graduate level, where choices are limited and opinions differ as to what ought be included and the level of detail. As one of those instructors, I was eager to review Quantitative Geophysics and Geology. Its title seemed to fit several courses taught at my institution. But upon reading the book, I found it was not useful for most of our courses.The variety of geophysical topics is so vast that an orderly exposition simply is not possible for all. The book's strong point is that a number of chapters provide succinct and readable reviews of traditional topics, which makes it well suited for an introduction or review at the graduate level.

Clinical Oncology

2nd ed, edited by Martin D. Abeloff, James O. Armitage, Allen S. Lichter, and John E. Niederhuber, 2963 pp, with illus, Philadelphia, Pa, Churchill Livingstone, 2000.The second edition of Clinical Oncology is a comprehensive overview of human cancer as it stood in the year 2000. The editors are to be commended for gathering together and publishing a wide array of thorough yet very readable reviews on a wide spectrum of topics. As described in the “Preface” to the second edition, the intent of the editors was to provide a substantial knowledge base in an accessible format that would be useful to a wide range of individuals. The target audience includes practicing oncologists, primary care physicians, and nononcologic specialists, as well as students, residents, and fellows undergoing active study and training. This goal has been successfully achieved.The textbook is laid out in 4 parts. Each part is separated into various sections, totaling 96 chapters, and each includes thorough discussions of state-of-the-art technology and therapeutic approaches. Part I of the textbook is organized into 5 sections: “Genetic Basis of Cancer,” “Immunologic Basis of Cancer,” “Environmental Basis of Cancer,” “Principles of Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment,” and “Understanding Risk.” Part I thus provides the reader with a thorough scientific overview of modern oncology. There is a strong emphasis on the implications and applications of molecular genetics in the practice of oncology. Based on our ever-increasing understanding of the immune system and biologic processes, such as angiogenesis and signal transduction, part I also focuses on new developmental therapies arising from this understanding.Parts II, III, and IV of Clinical Oncology focus on problems common to cancer and its therapy, management of specific malignancies, and rehabilitation of the cancer patient, respectively. The 6 sections of part II, entitled “General Problems,” “Hematologic Problems,” “Infections,” “Metabolic Problems,” “Surgical Problems,” and “Local Effects of Cancer and Its Metastasis,” are familiar areas to all those who deal with and treat cancer patients. These discussions are well organized and referenced, so much so that this part of the textbook could easily stand alone in its own right. The authors of all 42 of the chapters in part III, “Specific Malignancies,” have done an outstanding job of not just cataloguing recent information, but also emphasizing their own interpretation of data. Each of these chapters or chapter sections includes a quick orientation of the subject matter in summary form at its opening, allowing the reader an overview of the discussion. A unique and valuable aspect of these patient management chapters is the display of personal strategies and algorithmic approaches to clinical problems in nonreferenced editorial sections. This information is set off from the main text and highlighted in red so that the reader can easily identify these personalized approaches. The 3 chapters in part IV, “Rehabilitation of the Cancer Patient,” are valuable and essential components to the comprehensive care of these patients. These chapters, entitled “Physical Rehabilitation,” “Evaluation and Management of Sexual Dysfunction,” and “Psychosocial Rehabilitation,” once again give a personalized overview of the rehabilitative approach.This edition of Clinical Oncology brings together a balanced overview of all aspects of cancer medicine, including the scientific, clinical, and humanistic disciplines, which affords the reader an invaluable resource. It is highly recommended.

Comment on A.F. Desmond's paper: Optimal estimating functions, quasi-likelihood and statistical modelling

Professor Desmond should be congratulated for providing such a readable review on the theory of estimating function, which has enjoyed and continues to enjoy increasing popularity in statistics as well as in other disciplines of science. In my comment on this paper, I will discuss an application of this estimating function approach that arises in the following scenario. In working with survey data, researchers are often confronted with two data sets. The primary data set contains rich information for each observation. but is very limited in size. In contrast, the secondary data set has only a subset of information contained in the primary data set, but is large in terms of observation. The question is how to optimally combine the auxiliary information from the secondary data set with the information contained in the primary data set. More specifically, let {zi}n=l be n independent realizations of a random variable Z. This (primary) random sample is drawn from the sampled population. with an unknown probability density function (pdf), &(z). Here Z = (Y, X). where Y is a scalar random variable and X is a p-dimensional vector. Our objective is to estimate the parameter 13’ from the generalized linear model Y = X ‘(1” + U, where T denotes a transposition and the variance function of u need not be constant across observations. Let J,(z) be the pdf of the target population, over which distribution we have auxiliary information given by an r-dimensional vector of unbiased estimating functions [k(Z)], i.e., E,,[k(Z)] =O. where k(Z) = k(Z) k”, and E,,[k(Z)] = l%(z)dF,,(z) = k”. These estimating functions represent moments of joint distributions of some variables common to both data sets, the estimates of which can be obtained from the corresponding estimating equations. For the sake of expositional clarity, we initially assume that (i) the target and sample populations are identical, so that f&(z) =.fi,(z) ==f’(z), and E,,[k(z)] = E,,[k(z)] = E[k(z)] =O; and (ii) k, is known. Then the parameter Ho can be estimated by weighted least squares to yield 6 = [I;= l ~ili.~T] ’ J-r= 1 iixiyi. Following Qin and Lawless (1994), the weighting coefficients iii are obtained by maximizing r]:_=, oi subject to restrictions Ui > 0, CT= 1 Ui = 1 and Cr=, Uik(zi) =O. Denoting I as an r-dimensional vector of Lagrange multipliers for the restriction CT=, ajk(zi) =O. the coefficients Ui satisfy

Creating Readable Handouts, Worksheets, Overheads, Tests, Review Materials, Study Guides, and Homework Assignments through Effective Typographic Design

Creating Readable Handouts, Worksheets, Overheads, Tests, Review Materials, Study Guides, and Homework Assignments through Effective Typographic Design

Learning, remembering, believing: enhancing human performance

Can such techniques as sleep learning and hypnosis improve performance? Do we sometimes confuse familiarity with mastery? Can we learn without making mistakes? These questions apply in the classroom, in the military, and on the assembly line. Learning, Remembering, Believing addresses these and other key issues in learning and performance. The volume presents leading-edge theories and findings from a wide range of research settings: from pilots learning to fly to children learning about physics by throwing beanbags. Common folklore is explored, and promising research directions are identified. The authors also continue themes from their first two volumes: Enhancing Human Performance (1988) and In the Mind's Eye (1991). The result is a thorough and readable review of * Learning and remembering. The volume evaluates the effects of subjective experience on learning--why we often overestimate what we know, why we may not need a close match between training settings and real-world tasks, and why we experience such phenomena as illusory remembering and unconscious plagiarism. * Learning and performing in teams. The authors discuss cooperative learning in different age groups and contexts. Current views on team performance are presented, including how team-learning processes can be improved and whether team-building interventions are effective. * Mental and emotional states. This is a critical review of the evidence that learning is affected by state of mind. Topics include hypnosis, meditation, sleep learning, restricted environmental stimulation, and self-confidence and the self-efficacy theory of learning. * New directions. The volume looks at two new ideas for improving performance: emotions induced by another person--socially induced affect--and strategies for controlling one's thoughts. The committee also considers factors inherent in organizations--workplaces, educational facilities, and the military--that affect whether and how they implement training programs. Learning, Remembering, Believing offers an understanding of human learning that will be useful to training specialists, psychologists, educators, managers, and individuals interested in all dimensions of human performance.

Lesbian Ethics and the Journal Lesbian Ethics: A Review

Lesbian Ethics, a U.S. journal of lesbian culture, has offered highly readable philosophical essays, reviews, discussions, and other nonfiction since late 1984 (twelve issues to date). It provides a forum in which the meaning of “lesbian” takes shape from self concepts formed in cooperative interaction and thus lays the groundwork for lesbians becoming publicly recognized as the foremost interpreters of lesbian identity and history.

The evolution of Reviews of Geophysics

Reviews of Geophysics, in attempting to better serve the geophysical community, is now ready to undergo another stage in its evolution.Reviews of Geophysics, Including Papers on Planetary Science had its first issue 25 years ago, in February 1963, when the subscription price was $5. In February 1970 the title was changed to Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics. In 1985 the journal started using the title it has today. There were new designs of the format in 1970, 1974, 1984, and 1985. During this 25‐year period the number of pages published in AGU journals increased about fivefold, and the need for a unifying, review journal increased correspondingly, but Reviews, in its various manifestations, never attracted the readership that most AGU members thought that it should have.Two years ago, AGU asked Raymond Jeanloz to chair a search committee for a new Editor to assume responsibilities when the present Editor's term expires at the end of this year, and to consider new steps that might be taken to make this journal more effective in AGU's activities. One of the primary conclusions of that committee was that the average reader frequently does not find an article near to his interest in every issue, That committee recommended, and the AGU Council approved, a Board of Editors, with Marcia Neugebauer as Editor‐in‐Chief, and six other Editors: John Apel, Ann Henderson‐Sellers, Jack Jacobs, Jay Melosh, Dave Scholl, and Garry Sposito. As you may have seen announced in Eos, starting in 1989 the journal will try to have every issue contain a short, readable review article of interest to each member of AGU. These will all be invited articles, planned well in advance of their publication date and extensively edited for general readability.Each subscriber to any section of the Journal of Geophysical Research, Radio Science, or Water Resources Research will receive a copy of Reviews of Geophysics at no cost. This journal will then likely be the most widely distributed journal of our science and, we believe, one of the most useful.J. R. HeirtzlerEditor

Comment

Morrison and Schmittlein have provided an excellent and readable review of the negative binomial distribution (NBD) model and how various violations of its assumptions may have an impact on inferences drawn from the model. They provide a theory of the sources of bias and the qualitative impact of these bias sourcesespecially the issues of regularity, a spike at 0, and nonstationarity. Their presentation suggests that compensating errors from different sources of bias may account in large measure for the relative robustness (both in fit and in durability of use) of the NBD specification. Morrison and Schmittlein advocate a focus on the

Intersection between Elementary Particle Physics and Cosmology Vols 1 and 2: Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics

T Piran and S Weinberg (eds) 1986 Singapore: World Scientific ix + 220 pp vol 1 price £35.80 vol 2 £37.80 ISBN 9971 50 152 X One of the most active fields in physics during the last decade is the subject matter of volume 1 of this work, and it is a pleasure to find together two very readable reviews on the hot topics of galaxy formation and cosmology and particle physics from two leading experts, J E Gunn and M S Turner, respectively. These topics are covered in some detail and will be particularly useful to nonexperts who wish to gain a front-line view quickly.

Goldberg's Genetic and Metabolic Eye Diseases

The second edition of this book builds handsomely on the precocious nature of the first edition. As the eye is frequently involved in genetic and metabolic diseases, rapid advances in these fields would suggest the eventual maturation of this textbook from a collected series of essays to a sturdy reference tome; the second edition is a substantial step in this direction. The book is divided into 20 chapters, with authors including ophthalmologists, geneticists, pediatricians, biochemists, and dermatologists. The chapters have the structure of review articles, and successful attempts have been made to minimize the repetition of material, which is often the hallmark of multiauthored texts. The first chapter, Fundamentals of Genetics, by editor Dr Renie, is an articulate and quite readable review of genetic principles, which when taken in tandem with chapter 8, Human Chromosomal Disorders and the Eye, by Gieser et al, forms an excellent review on this subject.

Physics in One Dimension

J Bernasconi and T Schneider (eds) 1981 Berlin: Springer ix + 368 pp price DM65 This volume which is the proceedings of the conference entitled 'Physics in one dimension', held at Fribourg in August 1980, contains the 26 invited papers and a small selection of the poster contributions. The particular value of this book is that it contains some very readable reviews from a wider range of topics in one-dimensional physics than is normally found in this field.

Chronic Renal Failure

The bibliophile interested in publications concerned with the kidney and related matters has recently been offered an astonishing assortment of multiauthored books for his collection. Indeed, since the growth of editorship and authorship has seemed to exceed the rate at which new information has been added to this field, it may be fair to ask whether any new book can make a significant contribution to the archives of nephrology. Nevertheless, the series of texts entitled<i>Contemporary Issues in Nephrology</i>, edited by Brenner and Stein, have provided a useful and readable review of clinical topics. Each text, of monograph size, generally has centered on a single topic that is discussed in a comprehensive manner by experts in the area of interest. <i>Chronic Renal Failure</i>, the seventh volume in the series, is an eclectic group of essays on subjects related to renal failure. The contents include a review of the adaptation in

Experimental High-Resolution Electron Microscopy

The author has provided us with an excellent and readable review of the fundamental principles of high resolution electron microscopy. He has, however, managed to combine his theoretical treatment with a discussion of the pitfalls for the unwary experimentalist which, while being a delight for the sympathetic specialist, should be made compulsory reading for the research student or postdoctorate worker fresh to this potentially fruitful field.

Improving the use of information in environmental decision making

Michael 0'1tare is Director o f Policy and Management Analysis in the Massachusetts Executive Office o f Environmental Affairs, hz fall 1981, he will be Lecturer hz Public Policy at the Kennedy School o f Government, llarvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In explahzhzg his motivation for this hzvestigation, he says, "It s temmed from three perplexing phenomena, all Of which are undoubtedly familiar to the Review's readers:

Movement of Fumigants in Soil, Dosage Responses, and Differential Effects

In this review we discuss some of the recent research on usage of fumigants and the application and expansion of the various principles involved, with emphasis on the quantitative aspects. Compounds that act systemically in controlling disease in plants, or those that do not act as gases in the soil are not included. This review is not comprehensive, since a number of reviews provide auxilliary material: Goring has (25-27) reviewed the physical and biological factors involved in soil fumigation, and Wilhelm et al (78) re­ cently prepared an interesting and readable review on mixtures of fumi­ gants. The books on herbicide research edited by Audus (6, 7) are outstanding, particularly the chapters by Hartley in both editions (30, 31) and by Kaufman & Kearney (34), Crosby (18), and Grossbard (29) in the 1976 edition. Rodriguez-Kabana, Backman & Curl (69) emphasized mate­ rial not found in other reviews. Finally, reviews that reflect our views and interest are also included (57, 75).

Nephrology: An Annotated Bibliography of Recent Literature

Nephrology: An Annotated Bibliography of Recent Literature

The Pieces of a Vitamin D Puzzle Fall into Place — Almost!

One of the more rapidly advancing fields of medical research at present relates to the metabolism of vitamin D and to its mechanisms of action in mineral-ion homeostasis. The outline of this fascinating story will not be retold in detail here, but one of the major investigators in this field has recently written a very readable and comprehensive review for clinicians.1 Briefly, it is now clear that vitamin D, once absorbed in the gut or formed in the skin by ultraviolet irradiation, must undergo 25-hydroxylation in the liver and then 1α-hydroxylation in the kidney before it becomes biologically active under . . .

An Outline for Writing Sentence-Combining Problems

ably all language activities foster syntactic dexterity, and there is no reason why the teacher must consider it a separate, isolated problem. However, beginning in Grade 4 there may be a distinct developmental gain in control of written syntax for most children if they are asked to direct their attention to syntax. Grade 4 is about the time when complexity of written syntax catches and surpasses complexity of spoken syntax (O'Donnell, p. 95). As teachers know, students seem to make a breakthrough here in willingness to write and in sheer quantity of writing. It seems an appropriate time to provide them direct help with sentences. Boys particularly appear to need this help, since they temporarily fall behind the girls in writ'Kellogg W. Hunt, Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels, 1965; Walter Loban, The Language of Elementary School Children, 1963; and Roy C. O'Donnell et al, Syntax of Kindergarten and Elementary School Children, 1967. All published at Urbana, Illinois, as research reports of the National Council of Teachers of English. 2See the very thorough and readable review of research on grammar and writing in John C. Mellon, Transformational Sentence-Combining (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1969).

Principles and Management of Human Reproduction

Three experts in human reproduction have revised Reid's Textbook of Obstetrics in keeping with current changes in obstetrical knowledge and practice. Recently, classic concepts in human reproduction have broadened to include reproductive endocrinology, perinatal medicine, and total reproductive health care. This book assembles basic material and clinical obstetrics in an orderly fashion. Despite the authors' intentions, it goes beyond basic core teaching material and functions more successfully as a review book. Because it was designed as a text, it falls short of being a definitive reference work. Part one is a scholarly yet readable review, by Dr. Ryan, of the endocrine and neuroendocrine control of reproduction. He balances the basic research with a clinical perspective at a level which is understandable to the beginner but detailed enough for those with added experience. The chapters on the various reproductive hormones, the endocrine organs, and their interrelationship are by themselves worth the

The Epilepsies: Modern Diagnosis and Treatment.

The authors intend this brief monograph, The Epilepsies for medical students and physicians not primarily involved in the neurological specialties. They have produced a concise and readable review of the subject, but the cost ($6) seems excessive for such a small offering. Some of the drugs recommended are not available in the United States (sulthiame [Ospolot] and nitrazepam [Mogadon]); carbamazepine (Tegretol) is marketed only for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia. The dosage of diphenylhydantoin (Dilantin) recommended for children under one year of age (20 mg two or three times daily) would be quite likely to result in toxicity. This drug is difficult to use in the treatment of young children because of the narrow margin between therapeutic and toxic dosage. Phenobarbital is not given the prominent position which I feel it deserves, as a keystone in seizure prevention and as a major agent for treatment of status epilepsy. One might