The spatial distribution of P. falciparum malaria Pf PR 2–10 predictions stratified by endemicity class. They are categorized as low risk Pf PR 2–10 ≤ 5%, light red; intermediate risk Pf PR 2–10 > 5% to ≥ 40%, medium red; and high risk Pf PR 2–10 > 40%, dark red.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Malaria Atlas Project
The spatial distribution of P. falciparum malaria Pf PR 2–10 predictions stratified by endemicity class. They are categorized as low risk Pf PR 2–10 ≤ 5%, light red; intermediate risk Pf PR 2–10 > 5% to ≥ 40%, medium red; and high risk Pf PR 2–10 > 40%, dark red.
Shared Mobile Phone Network Infrastructures
Source: 'Mobile telecoms: Sharing the load,' The Economist, March 26th 2009.
In developing nations, firms providing mobile phone services often share physical infrastructure, and this article suggests that that may also increasingly take place in developed nations. Moreover, "three big European operators—France Telecom, KPN and Vodafone—have recently decided to outsource the running of their networks in some countries to equipment-makers: Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson respectively."
Modalities include “site sharing” in which operators use the same antenna masts and equipment cupboards.
However, operators are reluctant to share one thing: the radio gear, known as the “radio access network” (RAN), that communicates with subscribers’ handsets. Telefónica and Vodafone have ruled out such sharing, at least for now. One reason is that firms which have competed for years on the quality of their networks still see the RAN as a source of advantage. Moreover, regulators in many countries do not want operators to get too chummy, because it could limit competition. In some countries RAN sharing is not allowed.Advantages of sharing infrastructure include reductions in capital requirements, reduced operating costs, enabling providers to focus on core competencies, and smaller environmental footprint.
Animal Spirits Led to this and other Economic Crises
The Economist has another of the good "Economic Focus" columns. This time it focuses on Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, a Nobel Prize winner and another economist with a very good track record. The book apparently provides a taxonomy of the ways in which people's behavior departs from the rational "economic man" of the models loved by so many economists.Blogging is an example of an activity which not only has little or no economic return, which one must assume is done by this author and millions of others because we like doing it. People have lots of motivations other than maximizing income or net worth. Of course, as this blog points out from time to time, we also think with our brains as we emote with our brains, and the amazing thing is that we are as rational as we actually are, not that we mis-estimate probabilities and values and assume that trends will continue indefinitely.
The authors apparently worked for six years on this book, and then rushed it into publication because the current bust of the previous boom needed the explanation that they were providing.
There is a very good video of Robert Shiller (who is also the author of Irrational Exuberance and The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It) describing how Animal Spirits helps to explain the sources of the current economic crisis. He also provides opinions on the U.S. Government's efforts to ameliorate the crisis and put us back on an even economic keel.
Democrats Move Forcefully to Protect Wilderness
According to the Washington Post,
Comment: Another reason why I am glad I voted for Obama! Perhaps now he will repair the stupid departure from the World Network of Biosphere Reserves by the Bush administration. JAD
"Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (CANM) in southwestern Colorado contains a huge number of archaeological sites-- more than 6000 recorded so far, and up to 100 per square mile in some places-- representing Ancestral Puebloan and other Native American cultures. CANM is managed as an integral cultural landscape containing a wealth of historic and environmental resources."
President Obama signed a sweeping land conservation package into law Monday, protecting more than 2 million acres as wilderness and creating a national system to conserve land held by the Bureau of Land Management.Termed "the most significant wilderness effort in at least 15 years", the Obama initiative "would provide the highest level of federal protection to areas such as Oregon's Mount Hood and part of Virginia's Jefferson National Forest, along with sites in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia.......The law also establishes the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System, which aims to protect the most environmentally and historically significant lands controlled by the BLM. The new system, which encompasses 850 sites, including the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado, Agua Fria National Monument in Arizona and Nevada's Black Rock Desert National Conservation Area, requires the agency to make conservation a priority when managing these areas."
Comment: Another reason why I am glad I voted for Obama! Perhaps now he will repair the stupid departure from the World Network of Biosphere Reserves by the Bush administration. JAD
"Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (CANM) in southwestern Colorado contains a huge number of archaeological sites-- more than 6000 recorded so far, and up to 100 per square mile in some places-- representing Ancestral Puebloan and other Native American cultures. CANM is managed as an integral cultural landscape containing a wealth of historic and environmental resources."
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Global Voices Book Challenge
April 23rd is a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. The date has been chosen by UNESCO and the United Nations for the annual celebration of World Book and Copyright Day.
The Global Voices Book Challenge is as follows:
- Read a book during the next month from a country whose literature you have never read anything of before.
- Write a blog post about it during the week of April 23.
UPDATE: Tag your posts with #gvbook09 so we can find your posts.
"World Bank Lowers Remittances Forecast for 2009 as Financial Crisis Deepens"
According to the World Bank:
- Remittances will fall to $290 billion in 2009, from last year's high of $305 billion
- Even with the drop, remittances will outstrip private capital flows and official development aid
- India: $45 billion
- China: $34 billion
- Mexico: $26 billion
- Philippines: $18 billion
- Poland: $11 billion
How Bad Is the Threat of (Pandemic) Flu
Source: "Pandemic Influenza: An Inconvenient Mutation," Scott P. Layne, Arnold Monto and Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Science 20 March 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5921, pp. 1560 - 1561.
Source of photo: "Antibodies Resurrected from 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million," Posted by Casey Kazan. (Adapted from a Vanderbilt University Medical Center release.) The Daily Galexy, August 18, 2008.
Seasonal influenza affects 10% of the population annually, killing up to one million persons worldwide. Pandemic viruses have even greater potential for mortality.......Comment: The most recent flu pandemics occurred in 1957 and 1968, and the Spanish flu that occurred during World War I killed tens of millions of people. The question, failing to have radically new vaccines, radically improved medicines, radically improved case finding and sentinal warning systems, and radically improved public health measures would seem to be now whether but when the next pandemic will kill millions of people. JAD
About 425 million doses of trivalent influenza vaccine are produced annually, enough to protect less than 7% of the world's population. In the event of a pandemic, well-matched protective vaccines against a novel agent would not be available for at least several months, highlighting the importance of therapeutic options.
By 2009, however, 98% of circulating influenza A/H1N1 strains in North America have become resistant to the frequently prescribed and widely stockpiled neuraminidase inhibitor oseltamivir (Tamiflu), and 98% of A/H3N2 strains are resistant to the adamantanes. The alternative neuraminidase inhibitor zanamivir and the two approved adamantanes--amantadine and rimantadine--are all in short supply, and the adamantanes have substantial side effects. Influenza therapeutic options are clearly unraveling at a time when public health officials are appropriately concerned about pandemic emergence.
Source of photo: "Antibodies Resurrected from 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million," Posted by Casey Kazan. (Adapted from a Vanderbilt University Medical Center release.) The Daily Galexy, August 18, 2008.
The Value of Empirical Knowledge
In a recent editorial in Science, Kurt Gottfried and Harold Varmus offer the hope that the Obama administration will restore the traditional harmonious relationship between science and government in the United States, a relationship that (in my opinion) had become discordant under the Bush administration. They write:
On the other hand, Jefferson, Franklin, Thompson were prototypical men of the enlightenment who had a great deal of accurate empirical knowledge. America's innovators included Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford, characterized by empirical rather than scientific knowledge.
Readers of this blog will recognize the high value I place on scientific knowledge, but I also place high value on empirical knowledge. In developing countries we should perhaps place more emphasis on the developing "empirical knowledge societies" in which people are encouraged to distinguish between their empirical knowledge and their unfounded beliefs, and to utilize their analytic abilities accordingly. JAD
The authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were children of the Enlightenment. They understood the power that flows from combining human reason with empirical knowledge, and they assumed that the political system they were creating would thrive only in a culture that upheld the values of the Enlightenment. And thrive it did, in large part because our people and government upheld those values throughout most of U.S. history. Recently, however, the precepts of the Enlightenment were ignored and even disdained with respect to the manner in which science was used in the nation's governance. Dogma took precedence over evidence, and opinion over facts.Comment: I really like that paragraph! On the other hand, I note that the authors focus on "empirical knowledge" not "scientific knowledge". Of course the spread of what we would today consider scientific knowledge among even the most knowledgeable Americans was very limited not only at the time of the American Revolution, but until after World War II.
On the other hand, Jefferson, Franklin, Thompson were prototypical men of the enlightenment who had a great deal of accurate empirical knowledge. America's innovators included Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford, characterized by empirical rather than scientific knowledge.
Readers of this blog will recognize the high value I place on scientific knowledge, but I also place high value on empirical knowledge. In developing countries we should perhaps place more emphasis on the developing "empirical knowledge societies" in which people are encouraged to distinguish between their empirical knowledge and their unfounded beliefs, and to utilize their analytic abilities accordingly. JAD
Factoid: World Trade
"The volume of trade in merchandise is set to fall by 9% this year, according to the World Trade Organisation. It would be the biggest one-year decline in trade since the second world war. Last year trade volumes grew by a sluggish 2%."
Source: The Economist
Source: The Economist
Freeman Dyson on the Future
I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years.I came across a talk by Freeman Dyson from several years ago that makes an interesting point:
Freeman Dyson
New York Review of Books, July 19, 2007
I'm not saying the (global) warming doesn't cause problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and more important—poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.He also told the new holders of graduate degrees:
Your precious PhD or whichever degree you went through long years of hard work to acquire may be worth less than you think. Your specialized training may become obsolete. You may find yourself overqualified for the available jobs. You may be declared redundant. The country and the culture to which you belong may move far away from the mainstream.Comment: This is a nice talk, suggesting that biotechnology will follow the path of information technology, in that it will confound the expectations of its originators and become popularized over the decades to eventually become ubiquitous. That sounds quite possible to me -- unintuitive but possible.
But those misfortunes are also opportunities. It's always open to you to join the heretics and find another way to make a living. With or without a PhD there are big and important problems for you to solve.
He also suggests that in the coming decades the United States will follow Spain, France and England in giving up its status as the world's leading economic power, perhaps being replaced by one of the BRICs. That too sounds likely. JAD
Sunday, March 29, 2009
What U.S. Higher Ed Can Learn From European Reforms
Source of Map: Bologna and Lisbon: Two Processes or OnePer Nyborg, Global Higher Education, February 1, 2008
UNESCO has been negotiating a series of regional conventions on the recognition of credentials from institutions of higher education. The Lisbon Convention, signed in 1997, was for the European region. The European Commission notes:
The Bologna Process aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which students can choose from a wide and transparent range of high quality courses and benefit from smooth recognition procedures. The Bologna Declaration (pdf format) of June 1999 has put in motion a series of reforms needed to make European Higher Education more compatible and comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans and for students and scholars from other continents. Reform was needed then and reform is still needed today if Europe is to match the performance of the best performing systems in the world, notably the United States and Asia.In this process, the Europeans have learned quite a bit from the U.S. system of higher education, notably the division of higher education into bachelors, masters and doctoral cycles.
Clifford Adelman has written an interesting long paper titled "What U.S. Higher Education Can Learn from a Decade of European Reconstruction" which seeks both to encourage dialog in the United States about reforms of our higher educational system and to suggest some reforms that might be useful, such as dealing better with part time students and setting up a process to improve harmonization among state higher educational systems.
Click here for an appreciation of the Adelman paper, with a number of comments.
According to Wikipedia:
The Lisbon Strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda or Lisbon Process, is an action and development plan for the European Union. Its aim is to make the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010". It was set out by the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000.Thus the Lisbon Process and the Bologna Process are complementary
Comment: The 46 countries participating in the Bologna process span the continent from Russia to Spain. Other countries are copying the efforts of the Europeans. In a global competition for students and for excellence in higher education, it seems obvious that we should watch this process carefully, learn from it, and if possible surpass the Europeans in striving for excellence.
And indeed, the United States should seek to learn from the Lisbon Process in case its lessons will help us improve our innovation system and move more quickly towards a knowledge society. JAD
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009
"Denmark and Sweden once again lead the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009, released for the eighth consecutive year by the World Economic Forum. The United States follows suit, up one position from last year, thus confirming its pre-eminence in networked readiness in the current times of economic slowdown. Singapore (4), Switzerland (5) and the other Nordic countries together with the Netherlands and Canada complete the top 10. "The Report underlines that good education fundamentals and high levels of technological readiness and innovation are essential engines of growth needed to overcome the current economic crisis. Under the theme “Mobility in a Networked World”, this year’s Report places a particular focus on the relationship and interrelations between mobility and ICT."
The Report is produced by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with INSEAD, a business school, and is sponsored by Cisco Systems.Comment: The new edition of the most influential of eReadiness studies. JAD
Friday, March 27, 2009
"On Being a Scientist: Third Edition"
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of MedicineNational Academy Press, 2009
Description:
The scientific research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Scientists trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the world accurately and without bias. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct.
On Being a Scientist was designed to supplement the informal lessons in ethics provided by research supervisors and mentors. The book describes the ethical foundations of scientific practices and some of the personal and professional issues that researchers encounter in their work. It applies to all forms of research--whether in academic, industrial, or governmental settings-and to all scientific disciplines.
This third edition of On Being a Scientist reflects developments since the publication of the original edition in 1989 and a second edition in 1995. A continuing feature of this edition is the inclusion of a number of hypothetical scenarios offering guidance in thinking about and discussing these scenarios.
On Being a Scientist is aimed primarily at graduate students and beginning researchers, but its lessons apply to all scientists at all stages of their scientific careers.
An Interesting Case Study in Public Health Decision Making
Source: "A Vaccine Debate Once Focused on Sex Shifts as Boys Join the Target Market," Rob Stein, The Washington Post, March 26, 2009.
Gardasil, a vaccine, protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection. HPV causes genital warts and, in women, can lead to cervical cancer -- a disease that strikes about 10,000 American women a year and kills about 3,700.
Any vaccine carries risks to the vaccinated; even when there are large studies of the safety and efficacy of a new vaccine there is a possibility that problems will arise in mass immunization campaigns that were not seen in the research. The public health decision involves comparing the costs and risks of the immunization to the potential benefits. Those benefits include both the benefits to the immunized person, and the benefits to others.
If you can get enough of the population immunized, even the unvaccinated are protected since epidemics are limited. If you can immunize enough people, as was done for smallpox, the disease may be eliminated entirely.
Think also about flu vaccines, which are given to old and sick people who are likely to suffer worse cases of flu if they are infected. In this case, the vaccine is also given to young, healthy people if they might infect a more vulnerable person if they catch the flu.
The HPV vaccine is different in that the direct benefits to males are different than those for females, and one may assume that the indirect benefits in terms of protecting sexual partners and the public are also different. The indirect benefits are especially hard to estimate.
As always in immunization campaigns, there is the problem of conforming individual decisions to the public good. How do you get mothers of young boys to subject their sons to even the small risk of an immunization, and spend the money for the vaccine, in order to provide protection for a possible wife in the distant future?
I suspect this is an especially important public policy issue because its solution will set a pattern for future immunization policy decisions. The genetics of sex are very obvious, but in the future we are going to know a lot more about the genetic makeup of people and how their genome affects their response to vaccines and vulnerability to communicable diseases. We will have lots of situations in which the same vaccine will have different risks and different benefits for different, identifiable groups of people. Making the right decision on immunization policy for boys for the HPV vaccine may help us to make better decisions in many cases in the future. JAD
Gardasil, a vaccine, protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection. HPV causes genital warts and, in women, can lead to cervical cancer -- a disease that strikes about 10,000 American women a year and kills about 3,700.
The virus causes at least 250,000 new cases of genital warts and an estimated 7,500 cancers in males each year, causing perhaps about 1,000 deaths. Vaccinating boys and men would also help prevent the spread of the virus to their sexual partners.......Comment: This vaccine presents an interesting problem. It is the first case I can think of in which a vaccine was recognized to have different benefits for males than for females.
After the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in 2006 for girls as young as 9, medical authorities recommended that they receive it at age 11 or 12 to protect them before they start having sex......in December, Merck asked the FDA to approve the vaccine for males ages 9 to 26.......The relatively pricey vaccine costs about $500 for three shots and the associated office visits.
Any vaccine carries risks to the vaccinated; even when there are large studies of the safety and efficacy of a new vaccine there is a possibility that problems will arise in mass immunization campaigns that were not seen in the research. The public health decision involves comparing the costs and risks of the immunization to the potential benefits. Those benefits include both the benefits to the immunized person, and the benefits to others.
If you can get enough of the population immunized, even the unvaccinated are protected since epidemics are limited. If you can immunize enough people, as was done for smallpox, the disease may be eliminated entirely.
Think also about flu vaccines, which are given to old and sick people who are likely to suffer worse cases of flu if they are infected. In this case, the vaccine is also given to young, healthy people if they might infect a more vulnerable person if they catch the flu.
The HPV vaccine is different in that the direct benefits to males are different than those for females, and one may assume that the indirect benefits in terms of protecting sexual partners and the public are also different. The indirect benefits are especially hard to estimate.
As always in immunization campaigns, there is the problem of conforming individual decisions to the public good. How do you get mothers of young boys to subject their sons to even the small risk of an immunization, and spend the money for the vaccine, in order to provide protection for a possible wife in the distant future?
I suspect this is an especially important public policy issue because its solution will set a pattern for future immunization policy decisions. The genetics of sex are very obvious, but in the future we are going to know a lot more about the genetic makeup of people and how their genome affects their response to vaccines and vulnerability to communicable diseases. We will have lots of situations in which the same vaccine will have different risks and different benefits for different, identifiable groups of people. Making the right decision on immunization policy for boys for the HPV vaccine may help us to make better decisions in many cases in the future. JAD
Last Comment on Overthrow
1. American foreign policy is made by imperfect people, at best working from limited rationality on imperfect and incomplete information, and at worst on the basis of ignorance, superstition, or bullheadedness.
2. In the century in which America had the power to overthrow foreign governments, presidents have used that power more than a dozen times to do so. The exercise of superior military force is not an aberration but a common aspect of American foreign policy.
3. When American government leaders decide to overthrow a foreign government they understand the people living under that government only poorly and barely consider the welfare of those people, who after all are likely to be the most affected.
4. Americans who understand and care about the people affected by the regime change don't have the power to make the policy; people who do make the policy tend not to understand or care about the people.
5. The long term effects of overthrowing a foreign government are almost always negative for the United States and for the people of the other nation, in part because the U.S. does not make the investment in development it would seem to owe the people of the foreign nation.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Invention, Innovation and Beyond
Invention is the creation of something new to the world. It's earmark is the novelty that is a basis for patent protection. Innovation is the introduction of something new, but not necessarily an invention. Thus a technology imported from abroad can be an innovation for a country that does not already use that technology. We talk about the diffusion of innovations, reflecting the fact that even though an innovation has reached a country, its adoption by new enterprises within the country can still be innovations within the adopting enterprises.
Economic progress is associated with increased productivity, especially the increase in labor productivity, which underlies improvements in per capita income. Labor productivity can be improved by capital accumulation, either in the form of physical capital or human capital. I have noticed however that increases in capital per worker are often associated with innovations.
Capital accumulation is limited, and it has long been observed that the rate of economic growth can be as much as doubled by high rates of innovation. It has seemed to me in fact that a high rate of productive innovation in an economy should lead to more rapid investment, since there are new things in which to invest offering future profits.
In the United States there has been a tendency to promote invention fueled innovation. Perhaps this is not surprising in a country that early in my career funded more than half of global research and development.
Certainly there are advantages in invention led innovation, especially under the monopoly rights granted by intellectual property rights protection. Not only does the inventor have control of the market for a significant period, but also enjoys an early innovator advantage.
With economic development, countries increase the portion of their domestic product devoted to research and development, and the economic growth of European and Asian nations has resulted in an increase in their R&D and a decrease in the relative importance of U.S. R&D. With five percent of the world's population it is more surprising that we still fund one-third of global R&D than that the percentage of R&D funded by the rest of the world is increasing.
I strongly suggest that as a result of this long term trend, the United States should increasingly emphasize the adoption of inventions from abroad within our domestic innovation strategy. We need to continuously scan the globe for inventions that we can impor and we need to provide an environment in which enterprises have the resources they need to adopt foreign innovations and profit from them. Indeed, we need to encourage government and civil society similarly to adopt appropriate foreign innovations as well as to invent new ones.
All this seems to be more or less commonly accepted. What seems not to be recognized it is not doing something new that is important, but doing it well. The innovations must lead to efficient efforts of high quality. If not, in an evolving global knowledge society, others in other nations will appropriate the advantages from the innovation -- they will eat our lunch.
Americans have historically worked long and hard, and have innovated not only in what they produced by in how it was produced, seeking to organize ever better and work ever smarter. The challenge is to continue to do so faced with the challenges of workers from other nations who are increasingly enabled by better systems to put energy to work in innovating well.
We have done well be expanding educational opportunities since the Great Depression, integrating women into the workforce, and reducing the barriers to productivity imposed by racism and prejudice. Still much more needs to be done. It seems especially that the geographic spread of innovation and excellence must increased.
Source: "Benchmarking Economic Transformation in USA," Panagiotis Tsarchopoulos
Economic progress is associated with increased productivity, especially the increase in labor productivity, which underlies improvements in per capita income. Labor productivity can be improved by capital accumulation, either in the form of physical capital or human capital. I have noticed however that increases in capital per worker are often associated with innovations.
Capital accumulation is limited, and it has long been observed that the rate of economic growth can be as much as doubled by high rates of innovation. It has seemed to me in fact that a high rate of productive innovation in an economy should lead to more rapid investment, since there are new things in which to invest offering future profits.
In the United States there has been a tendency to promote invention fueled innovation. Perhaps this is not surprising in a country that early in my career funded more than half of global research and development.
Certainly there are advantages in invention led innovation, especially under the monopoly rights granted by intellectual property rights protection. Not only does the inventor have control of the market for a significant period, but also enjoys an early innovator advantage.
With economic development, countries increase the portion of their domestic product devoted to research and development, and the economic growth of European and Asian nations has resulted in an increase in their R&D and a decrease in the relative importance of U.S. R&D. With five percent of the world's population it is more surprising that we still fund one-third of global R&D than that the percentage of R&D funded by the rest of the world is increasing.
I strongly suggest that as a result of this long term trend, the United States should increasingly emphasize the adoption of inventions from abroad within our domestic innovation strategy. We need to continuously scan the globe for inventions that we can impor and we need to provide an environment in which enterprises have the resources they need to adopt foreign innovations and profit from them. Indeed, we need to encourage government and civil society similarly to adopt appropriate foreign innovations as well as to invent new ones.
All this seems to be more or less commonly accepted. What seems not to be recognized it is not doing something new that is important, but doing it well. The innovations must lead to efficient efforts of high quality. If not, in an evolving global knowledge society, others in other nations will appropriate the advantages from the innovation -- they will eat our lunch.
Americans have historically worked long and hard, and have innovated not only in what they produced by in how it was produced, seeking to organize ever better and work ever smarter. The challenge is to continue to do so faced with the challenges of workers from other nations who are increasingly enabled by better systems to put energy to work in innovating well.
We have done well be expanding educational opportunities since the Great Depression, integrating women into the workforce, and reducing the barriers to productivity imposed by racism and prejudice. Still much more needs to be done. It seems especially that the geographic spread of innovation and excellence must increased.
Source: "Benchmarking Economic Transformation in USA," Panagiotis TsarchopoulosFive states—Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey—are leading the United States’ transformation into a global, entrepreneurial and knowledge- and innovation-based New Economy, according to The 2008 State New Economy Index, released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
TB, Made Worse by HIV, is Still With Us
According to WHO:The total number of new tuberculosis (TB) cases remained stable in 2007, and the percentage of the world's population becoming ill with TB has continued the slow decline that was first observed in 2004, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) today.However, the 2009 Global TB Control Report also reveals that one out of four TB deaths is HIV related, twice as many as previously recognized. In 2007, there were an estimated 1.37 million new cases of tuberculosis among HIV-infected people and 456,000 deaths. This figure reflects an improvement in the quality of the country data, which are now more representative and available from more countries than in previous years.
U.S. Government Hiring for Foreign Assistance Posts
Source: "Uncle Sam Wants You for Foreign Service," Joe Davidson, The Washington Post, March 25, 2009.
Officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the government's Millennium Challenge Corp. were recruiting at a job fair last week at the Ronald Reagan Building, USAID's headquarters. USAID plans to double, to 2,200, its ranks of foreign service officers by 2012; it plans to hire more than 300 people this year.
Officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the government's Millennium Challenge Corp. were recruiting at a job fair last week at the Ronald Reagan Building, USAID's headquarters. USAID plans to double, to 2,200, its ranks of foreign service officers by 2012; it plans to hire more than 300 people this year.
Leopard Cub at the National Zoo
These pictures have nothing to do with the theme of this blog, but I could not resist adding the photos of new-born cubs that are being raised in the Front Royal facility of the National Zoo. Photo: Tracy Woodward, Photo source: The Washington Post.Tuesday, March 24, 2009
IMPACT on Cyber Security
The International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Threats (IMPACT) in Cyberjaya, Malaysia will host the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), which promotes international cooperation to make cyberspace more secure in an increasingly networked information society. It has just opened.
Natural Disasters
Source: The Economist"More than 240,000 people lost their lives to natural and man-made catastrophes last year, according to Swiss Re. The insurance firm puts the total cost of damages at $269 billion, less than a fifth of which was covered by insurance......China’s earthquake in May left almost 88,000 people dead or missing. The worst catastrophe was tropical cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, which claimed 140,000 victims."
Comment: I was surprised by the huge number of deaths from natural disasters, but such numbers should always be understood in context. Disaster mortality fades in importance when seen in light of some 60 million deaths per year globally. Indeed, compare the mortality from infectious diseases in low income with that in high income countries in the graph below and you will see that there are millions of preventable deaths per year from infections.
That is not to say that we should ignore better protection against natural disasters.
Last week I heard that there is a city of more than 600,000 people in Indonesia with hundreds of thousands living in the coastal plain who are at risk of tsunamis which are all but sure to arrive in the next decade or two. The tsunami warning system has been greatly improved since the 2004 disaster, but donor support is beginning to wane. JAD
Comment: I was surprised by the huge number of deaths from natural disasters, but such numbers should always be understood in context. Disaster mortality fades in importance when seen in light of some 60 million deaths per year globally. Indeed, compare the mortality from infectious diseases in low income with that in high income countries in the graph below and you will see that there are millions of preventable deaths per year from infections.
That is not to say that we should ignore better protection against natural disasters.
Last week I heard that there is a city of more than 600,000 people in Indonesia with hundreds of thousands living in the coastal plain who are at risk of tsunamis which are all but sure to arrive in the next decade or two. The tsunami warning system has been greatly improved since the 2004 disaster, but donor support is beginning to wane. JAD
Monday, March 23, 2009
Hunger Map
Estimated food security conditions, 1st Quarter 2009 (January-March), FEWS Net.The Famine Early Warning Center predicts high levels of food insecurity in Somalia and parts of the Sahel.
Smart Power
There is an interesting column in the current issue of USAID's Frontlines by Joe Nye. I quote:
President Obama reminded us [Jan. 20] that “our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering
qualities of humility and restraint.”
A week ago, in her confirmation hearings to become secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America.... We must use what has been called ‘smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal.”
Smart power is the combination of hard and soft power. Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. Opinion polls show a serious decline in American attractiveness in Europe, Latin America and, most dramatically, the Muslim world.
Thoughts on Reading "Overthrow"
I have been reading Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer. Kinzer writes and interesting story, and in this book he makes a good case that American governments over a period of more than a century have sought to overthrow foreign governments repeatedly and often successfully. He suggests that the results were often much worse than the instigating government officials perceived as a result of the unwillingness of the government to follow through with nation building support for the long periods such efforts require.
Because he has chosen to deal with many case studies in a short book, each is perhaps too brief to fully deal with the complexity involved.
I lived in Chile in the mid 1960s and am perhaps better able to evaluate Kinzer's treatment of the overthrow of Salvador Allende, that was completed in 1973. Kinzer describes overt and covert measures by the U.S. government to undermine the Allende regime, and rightly points out that some of these measures, such as limiting foreign assistance to Chile, were quite within the rights of the United States. Some of the covert efforts, when they were revealed, were widely condemned in the United States as well as abroad.
In my opinion, Kinzer ascribes too much influence to the American efforts and not enough to the Chilean. By 1967 a lot of people I knew predicted that Allende would win the 1970 election and that the military would overthrow the elected government. The rich and powerful in Chile, who were mostly against the leftest government were quite capable of raising public sentiment against Allende, and when the right wing of the military gained control there was little that the civilians could do to resist a military coup. Kinzer does say that the impact of the American actions may have been to change the timing and form of these coups, and I would accept the possibility/probability that the coup in Chile took place earlier and with a more right wing tinge than might have occurred without the U.S. interventions.
I would suggest that the leftest groups in Chile were more revolution and more subversive than Kinzer seems to indicate. I assume that the Chilians were quite capable of anti-American actions without much support from Russia or China, and that some factions of the Chilian left might well have had revolutionary intent. Chile might well have been on a course toward major troubles no matter what the United States did.
The book is very effective in painting senior officials in the United States foreign policy apparatus as elitists with very little understanding of the common man in foreign societies, and as very easily affected by biased inputs from foreign elites. Secretaries of State seem overly willing to ignore the advice of CIA and State Department staffers who have lived in and studied foreign societies for decades.
Kinzer writes that Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, the president of Guatemala overthrown in 1954 was a nationalist rather than a Communist as perceived by the Dulles family and the Eisenhower administration. I think of "nationalism" as an ideology that seeks to allow nations to be self governing -- to align the boundaries of the state with the distribution of an ethnic group, creating nation-states. Guatemala is a multiethnic society which in the 1950s still had a strong colonial heritage of European and mestizo domination of indiginous peoples. I think of Arbenz as anti-imperialist and socially progressive politician. Still, my experience of Latin American leftists suggests that they are not likely to be willing to subordinate their own interests to those of distant powers.
It seems to me that there is a widely shared "leftest" ideology in Latin America that emphasizes social justice and national independence and opposes foreign multinational enterprises as neo-imperial. In that climate, many actors in many countries may independently choose anti-American positions and act against the rightist powers in their own countries. This did not necessarily imply an effective international Communist conspiracy. It also did not necessarily require U.S. government support of right wing regimes, no matter how coercive or venial.
I hope the government is not making the same error with respect to the Islamic peoples. It seems to me quite possible that there is a wide spread set of cultural attitudes that result in many individuals embarking on anti-American activities, without the need for a central terrorist network to plan and organize the efforts.
It seems to me that the way to deal with wide spread cultural attitudes is through both to recognize the justice in the complaints and reform, as well as to educate people as to the real situation. I hope that American policy makers share that approach.
Because he has chosen to deal with many case studies in a short book, each is perhaps too brief to fully deal with the complexity involved.
I lived in Chile in the mid 1960s and am perhaps better able to evaluate Kinzer's treatment of the overthrow of Salvador Allende, that was completed in 1973. Kinzer describes overt and covert measures by the U.S. government to undermine the Allende regime, and rightly points out that some of these measures, such as limiting foreign assistance to Chile, were quite within the rights of the United States. Some of the covert efforts, when they were revealed, were widely condemned in the United States as well as abroad.
In my opinion, Kinzer ascribes too much influence to the American efforts and not enough to the Chilean. By 1967 a lot of people I knew predicted that Allende would win the 1970 election and that the military would overthrow the elected government. The rich and powerful in Chile, who were mostly against the leftest government were quite capable of raising public sentiment against Allende, and when the right wing of the military gained control there was little that the civilians could do to resist a military coup. Kinzer does say that the impact of the American actions may have been to change the timing and form of these coups, and I would accept the possibility/probability that the coup in Chile took place earlier and with a more right wing tinge than might have occurred without the U.S. interventions.
I would suggest that the leftest groups in Chile were more revolution and more subversive than Kinzer seems to indicate. I assume that the Chilians were quite capable of anti-American actions without much support from Russia or China, and that some factions of the Chilian left might well have had revolutionary intent. Chile might well have been on a course toward major troubles no matter what the United States did.
The book is very effective in painting senior officials in the United States foreign policy apparatus as elitists with very little understanding of the common man in foreign societies, and as very easily affected by biased inputs from foreign elites. Secretaries of State seem overly willing to ignore the advice of CIA and State Department staffers who have lived in and studied foreign societies for decades.
Kinzer writes that Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, the president of Guatemala overthrown in 1954 was a nationalist rather than a Communist as perceived by the Dulles family and the Eisenhower administration. I think of "nationalism" as an ideology that seeks to allow nations to be self governing -- to align the boundaries of the state with the distribution of an ethnic group, creating nation-states. Guatemala is a multiethnic society which in the 1950s still had a strong colonial heritage of European and mestizo domination of indiginous peoples. I think of Arbenz as anti-imperialist and socially progressive politician. Still, my experience of Latin American leftists suggests that they are not likely to be willing to subordinate their own interests to those of distant powers.
It seems to me that there is a widely shared "leftest" ideology in Latin America that emphasizes social justice and national independence and opposes foreign multinational enterprises as neo-imperial. In that climate, many actors in many countries may independently choose anti-American positions and act against the rightist powers in their own countries. This did not necessarily imply an effective international Communist conspiracy. It also did not necessarily require U.S. government support of right wing regimes, no matter how coercive or venial.
I hope the government is not making the same error with respect to the Islamic peoples. It seems to me quite possible that there is a wide spread set of cultural attitudes that result in many individuals embarking on anti-American activities, without the need for a central terrorist network to plan and organize the efforts.
It seems to me that the way to deal with wide spread cultural attitudes is through both to recognize the justice in the complaints and reform, as well as to educate people as to the real situation. I hope that American policy makers share that approach.
An Arab Plan of Action for Science and Technology
The Economic Summit of the Kings, Heads of State and Governments of the Arab League has adopted an Arab Plan of Action for Science and Technology. The plan was adopted at the summit held in Kuwait from 19 to 20 January 2009. UNESCO and the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) are spearheading efforts to implement the plan.
Under the plan, a network of centres of excellence in the Arab world will be set up. These centres will work together on joint research projects to facilitate cooperation and thereby strengthen scientific ties and mobility within the Arab world. As many Arab scientists are living and working farther afield, the plan includes a collaborative research programme with the diaspora.
An Arab observatory of science and technology will be set up to monitor progress in research and development (R&D) and the application of research results to problem-solving in Arab society. Four priority areas for R&D have been identified: water, food, energy and agriculture.
100 Hours of Astronomy
100 Hours of Astronomy
The 100 Hours of Astronomy Cornerstone Project is a worldwide event consisting of a wide range of public outreach activities, live science center, research observatory webcasts and sidewalk astronomy events.One of the key goals of 100 Hours of Astronomy is to have as many people as possible look through a telescope as Galileo did for the first time 400 years ago. 100 Hours of Astronomy will take place from 2-5 April when the Moon goes from first quarter to gibbous, good phases for early evening observing. Saturn will be the other highlight of early evening observing events.
The 100 Hours of Astronomy Cornerstone Project is a worldwide event consisting of a wide range of public outreach activities, live science center, research observatory webcasts and sidewalk astronomy events.One of the key goals of 100 Hours of Astronomy is to have as many people as possible look through a telescope as Galileo did for the first time 400 years ago. 100 Hours of Astronomy will take place from 2-5 April when the Moon goes from first quarter to gibbous, good phases for early evening observing. Saturn will be the other highlight of early evening observing events.
Warming leads to disease leads to forest loss
Source: "ECOLOGY: Western U.S. Forests Suffer Death by Degrees," Elizabeth Pennisi, Science, 23 January 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5913, p. 447
I quote:
An insidious problem has taken hold in the forests of the American West, quietly thinning their ranks. Mortality rates in seemingly healthy conifer stands have doubled in the past several decades. Often, new trees aren't replacing dying ones, setting the stage for a potentially dramatic change in forest structure, says Phillip J. van Mantgem, a forest ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Arcata, California. Warmer temperatures and subsequent water shortfalls are the likely cause of the trees' increased death rate, he and his colleagues report on page 521.
"This is a stunningly important paper," says David Breshears, an ecologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson. For years, he and others have lamented massive diebacks that occur when fungal and insect pests ravage stands of trees. "What's harder to detect," he explains, is any subtle but significant shift in the trees' background death rate. "They have done a very thorough job" of documenting it."
Original Source
Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States"
Phillip J. van Mantgem, Nathan L. Stephenson, John C. Byrne, Lori D. Daniels, Jerry F. Franklin, Peter Z. Fulé, Mark E. Harmon, Andrew J. Larson, Jeremy M. Smith, Alan H. Taylor, and Thomas T. Veblen (23 January 2009)
Science 323 (5913), 521. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1165000]
Abstract:
Persistent changes in tree mortality rates can alter forest structure, composition, and ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration. Our analyses of longitudinal data from unmanaged old forests in the western United States showed that background (noncatastrophic) mortality rates have increased rapidly in recent decades, with doubling periods ranging from 17 to 29 years among regions. Increases were also pervasive across elevations, tree sizes, dominant genera, and past fire histories. Forest density and basal area declined slightly, which suggests that increasing mortality was not caused by endogenous increases in competition. Because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality rates cannot be attributed solely to aging of large trees. Regional warming and consequent increases in water deficits are likely contributors to the increases in tree mortality rates.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
"Ratifying the Law of the Sea"
Source: Melissa Bert and Mark Schlakman, The Boston Globe, March 16, 2009.
President Obama has a chance to promote global security and stability by advocating for ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
President Obama has a chance to promote global security and stability by advocating for ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The United States has 12,500 miles of coastline and 360 major commercial ports. Among the world's largest importers and exporters of goods and services, it has more to gain by ratifying the convention than by avoiding it, especially against the backdrop of global recession.Comment: Sounds reasonable to me! JAD
In the absence of such a legal framework, history is replete with examples of rogue nations unduly restricting maritime access and encroaching upon others' interests, potentially compromising military operations, disrupting commerce, and flouting accountability for environmental degradation.
So far, 156 countries and the European Community have ratified the treaty.......
Support for ratification is bipartisan. Proponents include both former presidents Bush and Clinton; former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard; major environmental groups and many others.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Holder on Science Decision Making
I found the following report of an exchange in the confirmation hearing of the new White House Science Advisor:
In the search for knowledge, one might well choose to accept as probably true the most likely alternatine.
If you are making decisions that involve the interpretation of scientific data, one probably should "bet" based on the costs and benefits of the alternative interpretations as well as their likelihood. JAD
Rockefeller then asked how divergent views should be resolved inComment: What an unfortunate quote!
areas such as climate change. Holdren's reply indicates how he will
approach such issues, as well as his position on climate change:
". . . there is always, has always been, always will be diversity of
opinion among scientists about any complicated issue. Scientists are
as diverse a group as any other you will find, and people come to
different conclusions about how to interpret the same data. This is
routine.
"My position would be that in matters of public policy, policymakers
should bet with the odds. You look at the range of scientific
opinion. You look at the center of gravity of that scientific
opinion. You look at what the bodies that have accumulated the most
expert knowledge and brought it to bear on the question have to say.
And while you can never conclude that any particular interpretation
in science is final. All science is contingent. It could change
with new information, new data, new observations, new analysis. But
if you're making policy, it is wise, in my judgment, to go with the
opinion of the bulk of the part of the scientific community that has
studied that particular question.
In the search for knowledge, one might well choose to accept as probably true the most likely alternatine.
If you are making decisions that involve the interpretation of scientific data, one probably should "bet" based on the costs and benefits of the alternative interpretations as well as their likelihood. JAD
Transition in Research Intensity
I wanted to share this great graph prepared by Carl Dahlman for a paper he delivered at the Joint OECD-World Bank Conference on Innovation and Sustainable Growth in a Globalised World. (He and Carlos Braga presented their papers again last week in a session at the World Bank that I was able to attend.)The size of the circles on the graph are the total R&D expenditures for the countries. The graph compares R&D indicators for emerging S&T powers (Brazil, India, China, and South Korea) with advanced developed nations (France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States).
The obvious conclusions are:
- That there is a transition from lower to higher investments in R&D with social and economic development;
- China, because of its large population, has become the third largest funder of R&D in the world (after the United States and Japan) even with relatively low per capita expenditures on R&D and per capita R&D personnel.
I recommend the seminar!
THE ROLE OF INNOVATION POLICIES IN THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS
This is a brief summary of an informal consultation held at the OECD.
"Confronting the financial crisis : Its impact on the ICT industry"
This report was prepared by the International Telecommunications Union in preparation for the World Telecommunication Policy Forum. The theme of the Forum is "the theme Confronting the Crisis". The Forum will be held in Lisbon from 21-24 April.
AfriGadget
Erik Hersman posted a story on AfriGadget (March 13) about Alfred Sirleaf, "an analog blogger". Sirleaf "runs the 'Daily News', a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia.......He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 (he says) that read his blackboard daily."AfriGadget is a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute their pictures, videos and stories from around the continent. The stories of innovation are inspiring. It is a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges.
This is a great website!
'Disappearing Birds'
Source: The Washington Post"Habitat loss has sent many bird species into decline across the United States."
State of the Birds Report
Comment: I don't really know what this graph means. There are good trends -- wetlands and all birds in the last decade. There are trends of concern in grasslands and arid lands. However, we need to balance the needs for agricultural production with the concern to maintain a healthy environment. Converting some grasslands and arid lands to agriculture would be expected to reduce the populations of birds living in natural grasslands and arid lands. The question is whether the decrease in bird populations is excessive.
Probably the recovery in the past decade is testimony to better pesticide application policies. Don't get too comfortable with that. As global population increases by another three billion, and as people eat more meat, there will be social and economic pressures to increase agricultural production and the birds may suffer! JAD
Probably the recovery in the past decade is testimony to better pesticide application policies. Don't get too comfortable with that. As global population increases by another three billion, and as people eat more meat, there will be social and economic pressures to increase agricultural production and the birds may suffer! JAD
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A David Dickson Editorial Worth Quoting
"Anyone seeking to tackle the problems facing the developing world must remember two simple facts of life. First, none of these problems — from food shortages and the spread of disease, to achieving sustainable economic growth — can be addressed without the use of science and technology.
"Second, harnessing science for development depends on the skills of a country's people. And that in turn requires a robust and effective higher education system — the only mechanism that can produce and sustain these skills."
An interesting idea: put new grads to work on research
There is an interesting proposal today from Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt via the New York Times. They propose that rather than funding traditional research grants competitions with the large science component ($21.5 Billion for Federal R&D) of the government stimulus package. They propose
I would suppose that the way to do this would be to create a grant program to fund university and other organization proposals for small research programs. The proposals would have to justify the relevance and importance of the research, would have to demonstrate that young people could be recruited to do the research, and that there would be suitable guidance to guarantee quality of the experience and results. JAD
using some of the windfall to provide an opportunity for fresh college graduates to pursue two years of research in the nation’s service while the job market is bottoming out. Call it “Research for America.” Our proposal would put young Americans to work and support science — without setting off a later bust cycle in research support, as previous funding booms have done.Comment: This sounds like a good idea to me, for at least a part of the funding. It would probably generate new employment; more grants via the standard grants programs might not do that. The young researchers, with proper guidance, could produce useful results. Some of them would go on to other jobs with a better understanding of research and the value of scientific evidence; some would go back to get doctorates and become professional researchers.
I would suppose that the way to do this would be to create a grant program to fund university and other organization proposals for small research programs. The proposals would have to justify the relevance and importance of the research, would have to demonstrate that young people could be recruited to do the research, and that there would be suitable guidance to guarantee quality of the experience and results. JAD
OECD Observer: Hot issues: Financial crisis
"The financial crisis and economic downturn are likely to put upward pressure on government debt. The trouble is, according to OECD in Figures 2008, public debt (general government debt, which includes central and local government) had already risen quite sharply in the OECD as a whole since 1987, from 59% of GDP to 75% in 2007. Two decades ago, Belgium had the highest public debt, but today that position is filled by Japan, whose debt rose from below 60% to 170% of GDP. Italy’s debt has also shot above 100% of GDP in the past 20 years."Check out this great OECD website on the financial crisis!
Science & Innovation Policy: Aid for higher education
This is a new dossier from SciDev.Net, providing news, features, opinion, policy briefs, book reviews, practical guides, links, etc. "Donors are increasingly recognising that they have a key role to play in strengthening higher education in developing countries. But how should aid be delivered? And which areas need most support?"
"Higher Education to 2030 (Vol. 1): Demography"
Japan and Korea have already started to see their enrolments in tertiary education decline, but other countries like Turkey and Mexico can still expect a boom. What might be the future impact of demographic changes on tertiary education systems and institutions? How can and do countries address these changes? What opportunities and challenges do they bring? Drawing on trend data and projections, this book takes an in-depth look at these important questions from both a qualitative and quantitative standpoint.OECD, 2008.
The Executive Summary, contents, and three chapters are available online.
This is a publication of the OECD Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). CERI’s work covers learning at every age, from birth to old age. It goes beyond the formal education system. We have a particular concern with emerging trends and issues, futures thinking in schools and universities. We often have a longer timeframe than most work, typically aiming to set an agenda for the next 5-10 years orlonger.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Can A Company Patent the Medical Application of Decision Support Systems?
Science magazine had a story in the February 27, 2009 issue about a dispute relating to the HIV Drug Resistance Data Base.
At the center of the dispute are U.S. patents owned by Advanced Biological Laboratories (ABL) S.A. in Luxembourg that involve computer methods to guide treatment of patients with HIV infection and other diseases. In early 2007, ABL notified Stanford that its popular Internet-accessible HIV Drug Resistance Database (HIVdb) possibly infringed two of the company's patents.
This seems to be one of the patents.
And this seems to be another.
The patents linked above were awarded for the application of expert systems to HIV diagnosis, which seems an obvious application of an approach that had been around for decades.
What is meant be reduction to practice in this kind of an application? I would think it would take more than a mock-up, but a system that could really provide useful information. Was such a system ever provided to the examiner?
Some 50 years ago I worked on the demonstration device for a patent application for an automatic price reader for grocery stores. The machine would not have withstood the rigors of real clerks in real stores, but it did recognize the prices in sample price tags. It really demonstrated that such a device could be built. For an expert system, the demonstration that a useful device could be built would be quite hard.
Am I missing something?
In any case, it certainly seems that someone should help to defend a medically useful website such as the HIV Data Base, and make the firms claiming patent infringement prove their claim!
And this seems to be another.
I thought patents were to be awarded to inventions based that were innovative, non-obvious, and reduced to practice. I checked on the Wayback Machine, and the HIV Drug Resistance Data Base was online a couple of years before the patents seem to have been submitted.
The patents linked above were awarded for the application of expert systems to HIV diagnosis, which seems an obvious application of an approach that had been around for decades.
What is meant be reduction to practice in this kind of an application? I would think it would take more than a mock-up, but a system that could really provide useful information. Was such a system ever provided to the examiner?
Some 50 years ago I worked on the demonstration device for a patent application for an automatic price reader for grocery stores. The machine would not have withstood the rigors of real clerks in real stores, but it did recognize the prices in sample price tags. It really demonstrated that such a device could be built. For an expert system, the demonstration that a useful device could be built would be quite hard.
Am I missing something?
In any case, it certainly seems that someone should help to defend a medically useful website such as the HIV Data Base, and make the firms claiming patent infringement prove their claim!
'Comparison Shopping for Medicine'
Subtitle: "Obama's Stimulus Package Funds Research on Cutting Costs"
By Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, March 17, 2009.
By Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, March 17, 2009.
President Obama has dedicated $1.1 billion in the economic stimulus package for federal agencies to oversee studies on the merits of competing medical treatments.Comment: The Europeans have better health status indicators and lower medical costs than we do in America. You certainly would not want to go to their system. Of course, their system allocates their health resources more on the basis on need less on ability to pay. In terms of the thrust of this blog, I don't know which would be worse:
The approach, known as comparative effectiveness research, is aimed at finding the best treatments at the best prices. Proponents say reducing ineffective or unproven care is one way to rein in health costs, which consume nearly 18 percent of the gross domestic product, straining family budgets, company profits and the federal government.
Skeptics, however, say Obama's decision to invest heavily in such research will lead to European-style rationing in which patients are denied lifesaving therapies to save money.
- limiting the development of the efficacy and efficiency of alternative remedies, or
- failing to use such information as it becomes available.
Scientific Research on Alternative Medicine
The Washington Post has an article today describing a move to eliminate the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health. NCCAM's budget this year is about $122 million; the National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine also has a budget of $122 million. The total NIH alternative medicine portfolio is about $300 million a year. The total NIH budget is about $29 billion.
I am no expert, but I tend to trust the NIH. A lot of medicine has roots in traditional therapy (aspirin is based on willow bark therapy, something like on-third of drugs have natural product bases). It may well be that some traditional therapies hold promise for treatments that have not been added to our current medical practice.
It may be even more important to demonstrate danger or lack of efficacy in alternative medical practices. Negative results add to our knowledge. More than that, there is a huge market for these alternative medical treatments, and those that can be demonstrated dangerous or ineffective can through such demonstrations be more effectively removed from use.
I am no expert, but I tend to trust the NIH. A lot of medicine has roots in traditional therapy (aspirin is based on willow bark therapy, something like on-third of drugs have natural product bases). It may well be that some traditional therapies hold promise for treatments that have not been added to our current medical practice.
It may be even more important to demonstrate danger or lack of efficacy in alternative medical practices. Negative results add to our knowledge. More than that, there is a huge market for these alternative medical treatments, and those that can be demonstrated dangerous or ineffective can through such demonstrations be more effectively removed from use.
Anthony O'Daly
On St. Patrick's Day I thought I would share this piece with you. The music is from Reincarnations by Samuel Barber sung by the Taipei Chamber Singers. It is a setting of the following poem:
Anthony O'DalyStephens, in turn wrote the poem as a "reincarnation" of the lament in Irish by my several times great grandfather, Anthony (Blind) Raftery (Antoine Ó Raifteiri also Antoine Ó Reachtabhra, 1784-1835). The original was written for Anthony O'Daly, a young Irishman hanged by the British as a rebel in 1820. Raftery is supposed to have witnessed the hanging.
Anthony!
Since your limbs were laid out
the stars do not shine!
The fish leap not out
in the waves!
On our meadows the dew
does not fall in the morn,
for O Daly is dead!
Not a flow'r can be born!
Not a word can be said!
Not a tree have a leaf!
On our meadows the dew
does not fall in the morn,
for O Daly is dead!
Anthony!
After you
there is nothing to do!
There is nothing but grief!
by James Stephens (1882-1950)
from Reincarnations, published 1918
Raftery was never published in his lifetime but the poems were stored in memory and in the Gaelic Renaissance were collected and published. Douglas Hyde, later president of Ireland, published Abhráin Atá Leagtha Ar an Reachtúire, Or, Songs Ascribed to Raftery in 1903. The book which is in both Irish and English has been made available on the Internet by Google Books. The Irish version of the poem, Anthony O'Daly, is on page 128 for those who might be interested.
John Anthony Daly
A Bit of Yeats on St. Patrick's Day
Easter, 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse.
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vain-glorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it
Where long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call.
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead.
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse --
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
-- William Butler Yeats
Comment: The great Irish poet wrote this after the Easter uprising in which Irish insurgents sought to revolt against England's colonial rule. As I understand it, Yeats was converted to a more militant nationalism after the execution of the leaders of the rebellion. The final lines of the poem ring down until today:
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse.
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vain-glorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it
Where long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call.
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead.
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse --
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
-- William Butler Yeats
Comment: The great Irish poet wrote this after the Easter uprising in which Irish insurgents sought to revolt against England's colonial rule. As I understand it, Yeats was converted to a more militant nationalism after the execution of the leaders of the rebellion. The final lines of the poem ring down until today:
I write it out in a verse --Of course, it was not only Yeats, but most in Ireland who were moved by the events of Easter 1916, and those events led directly to the creation of the Republic of Ireland. JAD
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Monday, March 16, 2009
"Crisis 'will cost Africa $49bn'"
Source: BBC News, 16 March 2009.
"The financial crisis and global recession will see African economies lose up to to $49bn by the end of this year, research by ActionAid suggests.
"About $27bn of this was a fall in aid, export earnings and income from richer recession-hit nations said the charity.
"The lost income is equivalent to a 10% pay cut for the continent, it added."
Comment: BBC is reporting that while the economic crisis is going to produce unemployment, losses of homes, and general belt tightening in Europe and the United States, it is going to kill people in Africa.
The ActionAid story is just one more piece of evidence as to the seriousness of the current crisis in developing nations. JAD
"The financial crisis and global recession will see African economies lose up to to $49bn by the end of this year, research by ActionAid suggests.
"About $27bn of this was a fall in aid, export earnings and income from richer recession-hit nations said the charity.
"The lost income is equivalent to a 10% pay cut for the continent, it added."
Comment: BBC is reporting that while the economic crisis is going to produce unemployment, losses of homes, and general belt tightening in Europe and the United States, it is going to kill people in Africa.
The ActionAid story is just one more piece of evidence as to the seriousness of the current crisis in developing nations. JAD
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Where Does All the Computing Power Go: Simulating Crowd Behavior
An army of orcs from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogySource: "Crowd modeling: Model behavior," The Economist, March 5th 2009
The battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings were so good in part because the computer-generated imagery included as many as half a million virtual actors in a single shot, each not only pictorially right, but also because each one
was modelled as a software “agent” with its own desires, needs and goals, and the ability to perceive the environment and respond to the immediate surroundings in a believable way.Now that technology is being used in a range of applications, from helping architects to design safer buildings (by realistically simulating occupant behavior when faced by an emergency), to planning train stations, to simulating crowd behavior when someone is injured.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
FY 2008 Data Show Downward Trend in Federal R&D Funding
I quote from a new NSF infoBrief:
The most recent data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) show a $3.5 billion decline—from $116.7 billion in FY 2007 to $113.2 billion in FY 2008—in federal funds obligated for research and development and R&D plant (facilities and fixed equipment). Adjusted for inflation, the data reflect a 4.8% decrease in R&D and R&D plant obligations. The expected FY 2008 total is 7.3% lower, in constant dollars, than that recorded in FY 2005. In contrast, during the 4 preceding years (FY 2001–05) total obligations rose 22.2% in real terms (table 1).Comment: Given the current economic crisis, the funding may get lower still in the next few years. JAD
"When Science Is a Siren Song"
Source: David A. Shaywitz, The Washington Post, March 14, 2009.
Shaywitz points out that not only are a lot of published scientific studies wrong but scientists are as human as the rest of us, often driven by less than a sublime search for truth. He writes:
Comment: Right on!!! JAD
Shaywitz points out that not only are a lot of published scientific studies wrong but scientists are as human as the rest of us, often driven by less than a sublime search for truth. He writes:
Does all this mean the system is broken? Surprisingly, no. Ultimately, science tends to be self-correcting, and flawed ideas are eventually recognized and disregarded. There really does seem to be a marketplace of ideas, and many good ideas eventually gain traction and persist, while many attractive but incorrect hypotheses eventually fall under the weight of compelling evidence. The system is far from perfect -- especially with regard to the exploitation of the most junior (and most vulnerable) researchers, who support much of this ecosystem -- but like capitalism, it may represent the best available option.His point is that it would be as dangerous for the Obama administration to put too much faith in the advice of individual scientists as it was for the Bush administration to ignore the advice of the scientific community that conflicted with its ideological positions.
Comment: Right on!!! JAD
We need a new law!
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Source: "Salazar's Wolf Decision Upsets Administration Allies," Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, March 14, 2009.
According to the referenced article, based on the analysis of scientists in the Fish and Wildlife Service wolves are to be removed from endangered species protection and subjected to regulated hunting in Idaho and Montana "because the states have pledged to maintain at least 500 and 400 wolves, respectively, in the short term, and the animals will be able to migrate and interbreed with thousands of gray wolves in Canada." It is estimated that there are now 1650 wolves living free in the Rockies.
While it seems unintuitive that 400 wolves in an area as large as Montana are enough to maintain a viable population of the species, I defer to the scientists. Moreover, I am glad to read that the Secretary of the Interior is seeking to follow the law and the factual findings of government scientists.
The experience in Yellowstone has indicated that wolves are a keystone species, and that the return of wolves to the park has resulted in changes in the populations of many other species of both animals and plants. I would very much doubt that 1650 wolves are enough to maintain the Rocky Mountain ecology in anything like its pre-Columbian richness. We need a law that protects ecosystems by maintaining adequate populations of their keystone species, not simply a law that protects the most endangered individual species.
In the case of wolves, there are very many Americans who love these animals and who want to know that they exist in significant numbers in the wild. I, like many others, would love some day to see a wild wolf in the Rockies. There should be a law that supports our interest. Clearly wolves will kill some livestock if they roam free in the wild, and clearly there should be some recompense for the owners of those animals that are killed while in leased grazing areas. A law that protects keystone species in adequate numbers should also protect the people who live in affected areas from losses due to the action of the protected animals.
According to the referenced article, based on the analysis of scientists in the Fish and Wildlife Service wolves are to be removed from endangered species protection and subjected to regulated hunting in Idaho and Montana "because the states have pledged to maintain at least 500 and 400 wolves, respectively, in the short term, and the animals will be able to migrate and interbreed with thousands of gray wolves in Canada." It is estimated that there are now 1650 wolves living free in the Rockies.
While it seems unintuitive that 400 wolves in an area as large as Montana are enough to maintain a viable population of the species, I defer to the scientists. Moreover, I am glad to read that the Secretary of the Interior is seeking to follow the law and the factual findings of government scientists.
The experience in Yellowstone has indicated that wolves are a keystone species, and that the return of wolves to the park has resulted in changes in the populations of many other species of both animals and plants. I would very much doubt that 1650 wolves are enough to maintain the Rocky Mountain ecology in anything like its pre-Columbian richness. We need a law that protects ecosystems by maintaining adequate populations of their keystone species, not simply a law that protects the most endangered individual species.
In the case of wolves, there are very many Americans who love these animals and who want to know that they exist in significant numbers in the wild. I, like many others, would love some day to see a wild wolf in the Rockies. There should be a law that supports our interest. Clearly wolves will kill some livestock if they roam free in the wild, and clearly there should be some recompense for the owners of those animals that are killed while in leased grazing areas. A law that protects keystone species in adequate numbers should also protect the people who live in affected areas from losses due to the action of the protected animals.
The Millennium Development Goals – bankable pledge or sub-prime asset?
The bad news is that projections of economicconditions are getting worse and worse.
The not so bad news is that they may not
be very credible.
Kevin Watkins and Patrick Montjourides of the team writing the Education for All Monitoring Report made a presentation to a UNESCO Future Forum session titled "The Global Financial and Economic Crisis: What Impact on Multilateralism and UNESCO?" (Others of the presentations at the session are available online.)
A UNESCO press release summarizes the presentation, beginning with this assessment:
We are in the greatest economic crisis since 1929 – international experts at the UNESCO Future Forum (Monday, 3 March) were in agreement on this. Its consequences could be disastrous, starting with the deaths of two million children between now and 2015.The report from which this presentation was drawn is not yet published, but I have obtained a copy of the presentation itself which you can download from Box.net.
A further 200 million people, mostly in Africa, could be living on less than US$1.25 per day (up 6.1% on 2007 figures) and, as Aart de Geus, Deputy Secretary-General of OECD, pointed out, the world’s unemployed could swell to 30 million, even 50 million, over the course of the coming years, if the situation continues to worsen (see interview). This would mean an unemployment rate of 7.1% with 230 million job seekers worldwide, over half of them women.
The Gender Mainstreaming facet of the UNESCO website makes streaming videos available of some of the presentations from the Future Forum that focused specifically on women and gender equality.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Quotation
Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A thought about an application of computer vision
There is an article in the Technology Quarterly of The Economist (March 5, 2009) about recent advances in computer vision. For example, "a computer scientist at the University of Buffalo in New York, is designing software that helps determine the authenticity of expressions."
It is my impression that in the past doctors got a lot of information from the appearance and even the smell of their patients. It might be that the current reliance on computer imagry and laboratory tests has reduced not only their reliance on the appearance of patients but even their attention to that appearance.
It might be that appropriately developed computer vision systems could help physicians to attend to and interpret patient appearance, and even that with super computers and improved sensors, more diagnostic information could be inferred from appearances than even the best old time practitioners would have achieved.
Fujitaka’s new machines refuse to sell cigarettes if their software detects plumpness in the skin (a tell-tale sign of adolescence) around a potential customer’s eyes. Tests show that the system is slightly better at estimating people’s ages than nightclub bouncers are.......I wonder whether computer vision systems could be developed to help in the phyzician's consulting room? The examples above suggest potentially useful applications, such as detecting when a patient's responses are not authentic, or estimating the age of a patient. Indeed, monitoring movement might provide insights for the physician.
Computer scientists at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in Canada have been testing a computer-vision system for monitoring people living in nursing homes or alone. A cheap camera, stuck to the ceiling, wirelessly relays images to a small computer that monitors how people move.
It is my impression that in the past doctors got a lot of information from the appearance and even the smell of their patients. It might be that the current reliance on computer imagry and laboratory tests has reduced not only their reliance on the appearance of patients but even their attention to that appearance.
It might be that appropriately developed computer vision systems could help physicians to attend to and interpret patient appearance, and even that with super computers and improved sensors, more diagnostic information could be inferred from appearances than even the best old time practitioners would have achieved.
"Between Hubris and Vision"
Source: Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post, March 12, 2009
In this article from his regular series on psychology, Vedantam addresses the impact of confidence on behavior and of status on confidence. He cites an experiment in which the researcher had
Perhaps it is a good thing that we have academics and historians, who pretty much lack power and political or economic influence, to analyze the decisions made by the rich and powerful, and help the rest of us to understand when and why the system is going haywire.
Perhaps also, we should be a little wary when these thoughtful people are suddenly put into positions of government power that their historical analytic accuracy may not accurately predict their practical performance. Still, I would rather have good economists taking charge of economic policy in the current situation than titans of wallstreet. JAD
In this article from his regular series on psychology, Vedantam addresses the impact of confidence on behavior and of status on confidence. He cites an experiment in which the researcher had
one group of volunteers recall a time in their lives when they felt powerful and another group recall a time when they felt powerless. All of them were then seated in a room uncomfortably close to a fan blasting air at them. Those who had been reminded of feeling powerful tended to switch off the fan or divert the blast. The poor volunteers who had recalled feeling powerless mostly sat and shivered.He extrapolates
the central characteristic of power is not that it triggers optimism, self-esteem and action -- all of which are true -- but that it produces a sense of control.Bringing the concepts home to current problems, Vedantam cites other research:
Financial titans may believe they can get away with extraordinary risks for no better reason than that they happen to be financial titans.Comment: This is another example of the reality that we think with our brains with which we also feel our emotions, and the two get mixed up.
Between 1998 and 2001, shareholders of companies that acquired other companies lost $240 billion of value after the merger announcements, according to research by Sara B. Moeller at the University of Pittsburgh and others. And an unusual 15-year analysis conducted by Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate at the University of California found that personal overconfidence among CEOs appeared to be a potent predictor of excessively risky takeovers.
Perhaps it is a good thing that we have academics and historians, who pretty much lack power and political or economic influence, to analyze the decisions made by the rich and powerful, and help the rest of us to understand when and why the system is going haywire.
Perhaps also, we should be a little wary when these thoughtful people are suddenly put into positions of government power that their historical analytic accuracy may not accurately predict their practical performance. Still, I would rather have good economists taking charge of economic policy in the current situation than titans of wallstreet. JAD
Time for Generosity
Source: Al JazeeraThe Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush has been given a three-year jail sentence after pleading not guilty to assaulting a foreign head of state.
Wouldn't it be a great gesture for George Bush to make a public request that the sentence by commuted or that the journalist be pardoned. If Mr. Bush does not do so, perhaps President Obama should.
The thrown shoes were not ever likely to injure the President, and the journalist was obviously expressing an opinion rather than seeking to injure the man.
Wouldn't it be a great gesture for George Bush to make a public request that the sentence by commuted or that the journalist be pardoned. If Mr. Bush does not do so, perhaps President Obama should.
The thrown shoes were not ever likely to injure the President, and the journalist was obviously expressing an opinion rather than seeking to injure the man.
Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment
Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the U.S. EPA, National Research Council, 2008
Description: "Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been instrumental to the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis.
"However, risk assessment is at a crossroads. Despite advances in the field, risk assessment faces a number of significant challenges including lengthy delays in making complex decisions; lack of data leading to significant uncertainty in risk assessments; and many chemicals in the marketplace that have not been evaluated and emerging agents requiring assessment.
"Science and Decisions makes practical scientific and technical recommendations to address these challenges. This book is a complement to the widely used 1983 National Academies book, Risk Assessment in he Federal Government (also known as the Red Book). The earlier book established a framework for the concepts and conduct of risk assessment that has been adopted by numerous expert committees, regulatory agencies, and public health institutions. The new book embeds these concepts within a broader framework for risk-based decision-making. Together, these are essential references for those working in the regulatory and public health fields."
The Obama Memo on Scientific Integrity
I quote from the memo:
The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking. The selection of scientists and technology professionals for positions in the executive branch should be based on their scientific and technological knowledge, credentials, experience, and integrity.The memorandum is a great step in correcting the abuses of the Bush administration, and indeed the purposes and means it adduces should be emulated in other nations.
Rites of Peace: Final Comment
I have posted twice before on Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski. (March 8 and March 6) Last night my book club discussed the book, and want to add one thought that came out of that discussion.
The book seems odd in the juxtaposition of materials.
When we think of a Congress making decisions on matters with such grave impacts, I suppose we are all tempted to suppose that the decisions are made rationally based on detailed analysis of options, costs and benefits. Zamoyski's exposition makes it clear that in the Congress of Vienna the decisions were in fact made by very human people in difficult circumstances, with quite limited rationality and quite limited information, who could not have foreseen the long term impacts of their actions and might indeed have been much more concerned with the impacts in the near future.
There is a famous article on "muddling through" (Lindblom, Charles E. 1959. The Science of "Muddling Through." Public Administration Review, 19, 79-88.) which comes to mind. The discussion made me realize that Zamoyski in the construction of his book made the process of muddling through in the Congress of Vienna very clear and intuitive. One of my friends said it was terrifying, thinking of similar exercises after World Wars I and II, as well as the current economic crisis and the conflicts in Asia and the Middle East.
On the other hand, I am somewhat reassured by the fact that while systems are larger and more complex today, we have two centuries more of accumulated knowledge and understanding with which to approach them, and much better education systems that have trained our decision makers. Indeed, I am glad that our political systems are more meritocratic and less likely to give power to the scion of a famous family, and indeed that we can replace our chief executive officers by a less painful process than the French Revolution. The Congress of Vienna could have been worse -- think if England had been ruled by Mad King George rather than his son the Regent.
The book seems odd in the juxtaposition of materials.
- It describes the complexity of the issues faced by the Congress in terms of the redrawing of the boundaries of European nations,
- It draws the contrast between the clear purpose of the four great powers that combined and added lesser powers to their coalition to depose Napoleon versus the diversity and conflicts among the differing purposes of the leaders from the many states involved in the Congress, each of which had security concerns as well as economic, political and military interests to advance.
- It draws the contrast between the interests of the monarchs and aristocrats in maintaining the legitimacy of the system which legitimized their authority and the interests of the peoples in the regions that they ruled which might have been better served by the liberal ideas that emerged in revolutionary movements.
- It draws the distinction between "nations" in the sense of people with a common culture and language and "states" or political entities. (The Germans and the Italians of the time were divided into many states, with unification to come only later in the 19th century.)
- It emphasizes the complexities of the motivations of the individuals who were the principals in the negotiations, including their ideological positions, the interests of the states which the believed they were representing, the needs to accommodate interests of their constituencies, the financial interests which they were accommodating through what we would now consider the acceptance of bribes, and the ambition for personal honor and prestige and influence.
- It describes in great detail the complexity of sexual intrigue, with principals moving from affair to affair while managing wives and families, while participating in the most complex of social seasons with a multitude of events which combined pleasure and negotiation.
- The physical demands of the Congress and related meetings which went on for months, at times in the most difficult of physical surroundings, with people sometimes ill and often exhausted, and changes in the participants as minister would replace minister.
When we think of a Congress making decisions on matters with such grave impacts, I suppose we are all tempted to suppose that the decisions are made rationally based on detailed analysis of options, costs and benefits. Zamoyski's exposition makes it clear that in the Congress of Vienna the decisions were in fact made by very human people in difficult circumstances, with quite limited rationality and quite limited information, who could not have foreseen the long term impacts of their actions and might indeed have been much more concerned with the impacts in the near future.
There is a famous article on "muddling through" (Lindblom, Charles E. 1959. The Science of "Muddling Through." Public Administration Review, 19, 79-88.) which comes to mind. The discussion made me realize that Zamoyski in the construction of his book made the process of muddling through in the Congress of Vienna very clear and intuitive. One of my friends said it was terrifying, thinking of similar exercises after World Wars I and II, as well as the current economic crisis and the conflicts in Asia and the Middle East.
On the other hand, I am somewhat reassured by the fact that while systems are larger and more complex today, we have two centuries more of accumulated knowledge and understanding with which to approach them, and much better education systems that have trained our decision makers. Indeed, I am glad that our political systems are more meritocratic and less likely to give power to the scion of a famous family, and indeed that we can replace our chief executive officers by a less painful process than the French Revolution. The Congress of Vienna could have been worse -- think if England had been ruled by Mad King George rather than his son the Regent.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
If we want to innovate, import potential innovators
There is an important article in the current issue of the Economist. I quote:
William Kerr, an economist at Harvard Business School, used name-matching software to identify the ethnicity of each of the 8m scientists who had acquired an American patent since 1975. He found that the share of patents awarded to scientists born in America fell between 1975 and 2004. The share of all patents given to scientists of Chinese and Indian descent living in America more than tripled, from 4.1% in the second half of the 1970s to 13.9% in the years between 2000 and 2004. Nearly 40% of patents filed in 2005 by Intel, a silicon-chip maker, were for work done by people of Chinese or Indian origin. Some of these patents may have been awarded to American-born children of earlier migrants, but Mr Kerr reckons that most changes over time arise from fresh immigration.....
What of the criticism that these workers are displacing native scientists who would have been just as inventive? To address this, Mr Kerr and William Lincoln, an economist at the University of Michigan, used data on how patents responded to periodic changes in the number of H-1B entrants. If immigrants were merely displacing natives, increases in the H-1B quota should not have led to increases in innovation. But Messrs Kerr and Lincoln found that when the federal government increased the number of people allowed in under the program by 10%, total patenting increased by around 2% in the short run. This was driven mainly by more patenting by immigrant scientists. But even patenting by native scientists increased slightly, rather than decreasing as proponents of crowding out would have predicted. If anything, immigrants seemed to “crowd in” native innovation, perhaps because ideas feed off each other. Economists think of knowledge, unlike physical goods, as “non-rival”: use by one person does not necessarily preclude use by others.
- William Kerr and William Lincoln, “The Supply Side of Innovation: H1-B Visa Reform and US Ethnic Innovation”. HBS Working paper 09-005, December 2008.
- Ajay Agrawal, Devesh Kapur and John McHale, “Brain Drain or Brain Bank? The Impact of Skilled Emigration on Poor-Country Innovation”. NBER Working paper No. 14592, December 2008.
President Obama has expressed an interest in innovation as the long term motor for the economy, and wanted the stimulus package to serve the interest of long term economic progress, including for example strong support for energy and health information systems innovations.
On the other hand, the Democratic party has strong labor support and tends to attract people concerned with the transfer of American jobs abroad.
However, we should distinguish between immigration that creates jobs for the other Americans and immigration that substitutes an immigrant for someone who is already here. The H1 visa program is specifically oriented to filling jobs that we need filled which can not be filled with the existing workforce.
It is the natural vehicle for importing the innovators who will create new industries and new technologies, which in turn will create new jobs.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer I did a production study for a canning factory in Chile which indicated that the firm could make money by expanding production, creating 130 jobs. Thus as a guest worker, over a short time, I probably catalyzed the creation of more than 100 jobs. That is the kind of multiplier effect we can hope to achieve through smart use of the H1 visa program. JAD
"Can We Increase Our Intelligence?"
Source: Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, The New York Times, March 10, 2009
"A key contribution to this subject comes from James Flynn......Flynn first noted that standardized intelligence quotient (I.Q.) scores were rising by three points per decade in many countries, and even faster in some countries like the Netherlands and Israel. For instance, in verbal and performance I.Q., an average Dutch 14-year-old in 1982 scored 20 points higher than the average person of the same age in his parents’ generation in 1952. These I.Q. increases over a single generation suggest that the environmental conditions for developing brains have become more favorable in some way........
"Flynn has pointed out that modern times have increasingly rewarded complex and abstract reasoning. Differences in working memory capacity account for 50 to 70 percent of individual differences in fluid intelligence (abstract reasoning ability) in various meta-analyses, suggesting that it is one of the major building blocks of I.Q....... This idea is intriguing because working memory can be improved by training."
Comment: I don't think it is at all surprising that the ability to take I.Q. tests improves visibly over a period of decades. Society changes, and different abilities are developed over time. It is no more surprising that kids have been getting less exercise or that they are getting fatter on the average. (No, I don't think all these trends are equally desirable!)
The idea that working memory can be improved by practice is also not surprising. My Dad who went through Irish schools that emphasized rote learning had a great memory, and I always attributed it in significant degree to the training he had received as a youth, perhaps developed by continued building on a good base.
On the other hand, I had not realized that working memory capacity is related to analytic capacity. I do recognize that experts tend to have very good working memory with respect to their areas of expertise. A chess master will be able to recreate his recent games in detail, as a bridge master will be able to recall all the hands of a recent tournament. One of the characteristics of expertise is that the expert can recall the stuff that matters. (I suppose that neither the chess nor the bridge master would be any better than average in remembering the clothing worn by his/her oponents.) JAD
"All Brains Are the Same Color"
Source: RICHARD E. NISBETT, The New York Times, December 9, 2007.
This old article seeks to debunk the idea that blacks may be less intelligent than whites. He writes:
The hereditarians begin with the assertion that 60 percent to 80 percent of variation in I.Q. is genetically determined. However, most estimates of heritability have been based almost exclusively on studies of middle-class groups. For the poor, a group that includes a substantial proportion of minorities, heritability of I.Q. is very low, in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, according to recent research by Eric Turkheimer at the University of Virginia. This means that for the poor, improvements in environment have great potential to bring about increases in I.Q.Comment: I.Q. is, of course, that which is tested by I.Q. tests. The score on one I.Q. test is most useful in predicting the score on the next I.Q. test. Which is not very useful in the real world. For what its worth, I think race is a rather silly way to estimate competence. The differences within groups swamps that between groups. It is also obvious that what we learn has huge impacts on what we can do and how well we can do it whatever our genetic endowment. But think for a minute about a ten percent difference in genetic endowment. Think about someone who is 75 inches tall versus someone ten percent taller, or 79.5 inches tall. Is a basketball coach going to be more interested in someone 6'3" tall or someone 6'10 1/2" tall? Now think about how much practice and coaching a guy 6'10 1/2" tall is going to get to develop his natural talent. A ten percent difference in height may lead to a radical difference in the time and effort devoted to developing basketball skills, which in turn may lead to a career in the NBA rather than one limited to a high school team. Very few of us can excel in basketball to the degree of playing pro ball, but most of us could excel in something if we found a comparative talent and developed it fully. The shame of it is that far too often people are deprived of that opportunity because of some prejudice. JAD
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
More on Stem Cell Research
The New York Times has a good article on the history of the limitations on stem cell research in the United States. It concludes:
The more important arguments are:
But scientists are still merely at the threshold of understanding how the body’s 200 different types of cell interact with one another. It seems likely to be years before biologists know all the settings that must be adjusted in a human cell’s chromosomes to make it become a well-behaved cone cell in the retina or a dopamine-making neuron of the type destroyed in Parkinson’s.The Washington Post also has an article on stem cell research today, focusing on the possibility that Maryland's $18.4 million budget for stem cell research this year may be cut. The article stresses:
Even critics acknowledge that interest in Maryland's program -- which also funds other, less controversial types of stem cell research -- has been strong. During fiscal 2008, the program received 122 applications for funding, of which 58 were approved, including research related to prostate cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer, cartilage repair and liver regeneration.Even recognizing that severe cuts are going to have to be made in the state budget, this is not the place to do so. First there is a considerable sunk cost which has gone into the preparation of 147 research proposals, and it would be wasted if none are funded. Moreover, scientists who have competed for funds in good faith tend to go elsewhere if the government reneges on the promise of funding.
The more important arguments are:
- Stem cell research is important, offering huge potential for biomedical applications as well as for the creation of knowledge:
- Maryland has a great potential in this field with Johns Hopkins, the NIH, and other research centers, and may well develop an important commercial hub with stable funding for the early stage research;
- Federal funding will not flow this year in adequate amounts, and indeed as other states are cutting back, it is an opportunity for Maryland to get a further lead.
Monday, March 09, 2009
More on the Economy
Source: "A Rising Dollar Lifts the U.S. but Adds to the Crisis Abroad," PETER S. GOODMAN, The New York Times, March 8, 2009.Bad as the economy is in the United States, it appears to be worse in much of the rest of the world. The United States looks to many hear and abroad to be a safe haven for their savings, and as a result the Obama administration may have funds to finance its stimulus packages; however, Eastern Europe and other economies may not have the money that they need.
"Developing world may need $700 billion"
Reuters had an article yesterday, quoting the World Bank, indicating that the development aid needed for poor nations will be of the same order as the incentive package in place for the United States:
Developing countries could face a financing gap of $270-$700 billion -- equivalent to the latest U.S. economic rescue package -- to help deal with the effects of the global crisis, the World Bank said Sunday.Comment: Another confirmation of the gravity of the current problem. I fear that foreign aid, foreign direct investment, remittances to developing counties, and other sources of development finance will all shrink during this global recession! JAD
The World Bank said even at the lower end of that estimate, resources of international institutions would not be sufficient to meet the financing needs as more and more emerging and developing countries are hit.
Here is the World Bank study.:
Swimming Against the Tide:
How Developing Countries Are
Coping with the Global Crisis (235k pdf)
Swimming Against the Tide:
How Developing Countries Are
Coping with the Global Crisis (235k pdf)
2008 State of the Future
Some quotes from the Executive Summary:
International Alert in the U.K. lists 102 vulnerable countries. The Center for Naval Analyses in the U.S. identifies 46 countries (2.7 billion people) at high risk of armed conflict, and an additional 56 states (1.2 billion people) at risk of political instability. By mid-2008 there were 14 wars (conflicts with 1,000 or more deaths)—one fewer than in 2007. These wars were in Africa (5), Asia (4), the Americas (2), the Middle East (2), and worldwide anti-extremism.
FAO estimates that 37 countries face a crisis over food due to increased demand from rapidly developing nations, high oil prices, the use of crops for biofuels, high fertilizer costs, global stocks at 25-year lows, and market speculation. Basic food prices are doubling around the world. Prices of cereals, for example, including wheat and rice, are up 129% since 2006. With nearly 3 billion people making $2 or less per day, long-term global social conflict seems inevitable without more serious food policies, useful scientific breakthroughs, and dietary changes.......
About 1.4 billion people (21% of the world) are connected to the Internet, with 37.6% of them in Asia, 27.1% in Europe, and 17.5% in North America. The Internet and mobile phones are merging, increasing access to the world’s knowledge. There are 3.3 billion mobile phones active around the world as of 2008.....
Some 700 million people face water scarcity today. Without major interventions, this number could grow to 3 billion by 2025. Water tables are falling on all continents, and 40% of humanity depends on watersheds controlled by two or more countries. The world will need 50% more food by 2013 and twice as much within 30 years. This means more water, land, and fertilizer—yet for the past several years we have been consuming more than was being produced, and the factors increasing food prices seem long-term........
Freedom House’s world review found that democracy and freedom declined over the last two years in one-fifth of the world’s countries. Four times as many countries showed declines in this measure during 2007 as showed improvements, and press freedom continued a six-year negative trend across the world, with increased intimidation of journalists and rising control of media in the hands of a few in business or government.......
Total military expenditures are about $1.3 trillion per year. There are an estimated 20,000 active nuclear weapons in the world, approximately 1,700 tons of highly enriched uranium, and 500 tons of separated plutonium that could produce nuclear weapons.
Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics
Subtitle: "Memo to Accompany Stem Cell Action," Rob Stein, The Washington Post, March 9, 2009.
"When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday."
Comment: Great!!! Now all he has to do is revive the global economy, bring peace to the middle east, reform our health system, negotiate a greenhouse gas pact to control climate change, and run the government. JAD
Barack Obama On Science And Charles Darwin
"When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday."
Comment: Great!!! Now all he has to do is revive the global economy, bring peace to the middle east, reform our health system, negotiate a greenhouse gas pact to control climate change, and run the government. JAD
Barack Obama On Science And Charles Darwin
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Your memory isn't what you think it is
There was an interesting segment (in four parts) on 60 Minutes about the reliability of eye witness testimony in criminal proceedings:
The program made the point that juries tend to ascribe more credibility to eye witness testimony than it deserves. It also suggested that unless witnesses are handled very carefully, they too tend to give more credence to their memories of the crime than the memories actually deserve.
Of course, there is information in eye witness accounts, and consequently of course eye witnesses should testify to the police and to the courts. However, police should be well trained as to how to avoid biasing identifications. One possibility that was suggested is to have photo and live lineups handled by computers, with the interface carefully managed by professional psychologists to minimize bias.
It might also be useful to provide some training to jurors on the credibility of eye witnesses, in a standardized fashion.
I would extrapolate that we tend to believe eye witnesses too much in other circumstances, even when there are fewer constraints on their honest description of what they witnessed.
The program made the point that juries tend to ascribe more credibility to eye witness testimony than it deserves. It also suggested that unless witnesses are handled very carefully, they too tend to give more credence to their memories of the crime than the memories actually deserve.
Of course, there is information in eye witness accounts, and consequently of course eye witnesses should testify to the police and to the courts. However, police should be well trained as to how to avoid biasing identifications. One possibility that was suggested is to have photo and live lineups handled by computers, with the interface carefully managed by professional psychologists to minimize bias.
It might also be useful to provide some training to jurors on the credibility of eye witnesses, in a standardized fashion.
I would extrapolate that we tend to believe eye witnesses too much in other circumstances, even when there are fewer constraints on their honest description of what they witnessed.
Nominate technology innovators for The Tech Awards 2009
The Tech Museum of Innovation presents the Tech Awards to honor innovators from around the world who are applying technology to serve humanity. Innovators are nominated by the public; a panel of international judges chooses 25 Laureates in the categories of environment, economic development, education, equality, and health. The top five Laureates -- one in each category-- receive $50,000 each at The Tech Awards in November.
This year for the first time, USAID is partnering with the Tech Museum to nominate and promote Tech Laureates to applaud and generate innovation for international development.
Nominations for The Tech Awards 2009 will be accepted through March 27, 2009. Nominate today at www.techawards.org/nominate/. Read the criteria.
This year for the first time, USAID is partnering with the Tech Museum to nominate and promote Tech Laureates to applaud and generate innovation for international development.
Nominations for The Tech Awards 2009 will be accepted through March 27, 2009. Nominate today at www.techawards.org/nominate/. Read the criteria.
Readings of My Book Club
I have been participating in a book club since December, 2005. These days we tend to choose relatively short histories, thought to be well written, which are recently released in paperback after success as hardbacks, dealing with events that occurred before living memory. The lady leading the club has just supplied a full list of past readings, which is shared below:
July
January
January
June
January
January
January
January
List Borders History Book Club selections through March 09
2002
July
Founding Brothers, Joseph EllisAugust
World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, Portrait of an Age by William ManchesterSeptember
The Militant South: 1800-1861 by John Hope FranklinOctober
People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present, Howard ZinnNovember
Boxer Rebellion, Diana PrestonDecember
The Great Depression, America 1929-1941, Robert S. McElvaine
2003
January Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding by Robert HughesFebruary
The World that Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy 1400 to the Present by Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven TopikMarch
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in it by Arthur HermanApril
Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter HopkirkMay
The Templars by Piers Paul ReadJune
King Leopold’s Ghost: The Hidden Horror in Colonial Africa by Adam HochschildJuly
Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician by Anthony EverittAugust
The Middle East:A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years by Bernard LewisSeptember
Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by Donald R. MorrisOctober
Black Sea by Neal AschersonNovember
Paris – 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacmillanDecember
Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
2004
January
Worldly Philosophers: The lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers by Robert HeilbronerFebruary
Guns of August: When the 19th Century Ended by Barbara TuchmanMarch
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America by Nicholas LemannApril
Theodore Rex, Edmund MorrisMay
Realm of Prester John, Robert SilverbergJune
Moorish Spain, Richard FletcherJuly
Seven Ages of Paris, Alistair HorneAugust
Age of Jackson, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.September
Confusions of Pleasure, Commerce & Culture in Ming, Timothy BrookOctober
Lion and the Tiger, Rise and Fall of British Raj, 1600-1947 by Denis JuddNovember
Mekong, Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future by Milton OsborneDecember
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill
2005
January
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared DiamondNO MEETING - RECESS
June
Genghis Khan & Making of Modern World by Jack WeatherfordJuly
1968, When all the World Changed by Mark KurlanskyAugust
Ornament of the World: How Muslim, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Maria Rosa MenocalSeptember
Brief History of the Great Moguls by Bamber GasciogneOctober
Moscow 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March, Adam ZamoyskiNovember
Balkan Ghosts, A Journey Through History by Robert D. KaplanDecember
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
2006
January
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. FriedmanFebruary
Collapse by Jared DiamondMarch
Blood Feud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England by Richard FletcherApril
All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.May
The Basque History of the World by Mark KurlanskyJune
Continent for the Taking: Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard FrenchJuly
Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus by Robert KaplanAugust
Liberators: Latin America’s Struggle for Independence by Robert HarveySeptember
Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey KayeOctober
Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by David Von DrehleNovember
The Devil’s Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth-Century Italy by Frances Stonor SaundersDecember Cancelled
2007
January
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles MannFebruary
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orphan PamukMarch
Modern History of the Kurds by David McDowallApril
Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alastair HorneMay
Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy EganJune
American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon MeachamJuly
Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom HollandAugust
Benjamin Franklin by Edmund S. MorganSeptember
Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence BergenOctober
Sailing from Byzantium by Colin WellsNovember
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung ChangDecember
1776 by David McCullough
2008
January
Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia, by Peter HopkirkFebruary
Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean by John Julius NorwichMarch
Salt by Mark KurlanskyApril
God’s Chinese Son by Jonathan SpenceMay
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam HochschildJune
Henry VIII, The King and the Court by Alison WeirJuly
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J SherwinAugust
Toussaint Louvertore by Martin Smartt BellSeptember
Dogs of War: Columbus, the Inquisition, and Defeat of the Moors by James Reston, Jr.October
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. TuchmanNovember
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of the Middle East Terror by Stephen KinzerDecember
Mysteries of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Modern World by Thomas Cahill
2009
January
Commonwealth of Thieves, The Improbable Birth of Australia by Thomas KenneallyFebruary
Justinian’s Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire by William RosenMarch
Rites of Peace, The Fall of Napolean and the Congress of Vienna by Adam ZamboyskiComment: I have not read all of the books, even in the three and a half years I have been participating in the club. For the faithful, long term members, the club represents a pretty good education in history. Having a month to read each book, and a couple of hour discussion with 10 to 20 people who have read it works well. It both encourages care in reading and illuminates the content. I have been impressed by the folk who turn up at the local book store each month. JAD
Book Review: Rites of Peace
I have been reading Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski. I posted on the book on Friday, but it seems to me I did not do the author justice.
I recently thought about the old idea:
So what is the paragraph that Zamoyski left in my mind, and how credible is it?
The Thesis
The end of the Napoleonic wars was a critical period in European history, marked by the conflict between liberal and reactionary ideas and by the disparity between constitutional monarchies with some expansion of participation in government versus the remaining monarchical governments based on a narrow aristocratic constituency. In France the conflict between revolutionary and reactionary forces was resolved by a constitutional monarchy; Prussia emerged as the unifying power in the early stages of creation of a German nation; Italy remained fragmented. The making of the peace, while it perhaps contained seeds of a united Europe, was the product of a relatively small number of influential people; these people were not only working out the future of Europe, but also dealing with the complexities of the political decision making within their own countries, feathering their own nests, and often living messy and complicated personal lives. The culture within the aristocratic international community of their time was much different than ours, not looking back on Victorian culture as we do, and filled with excesses.
The Credibility
I can only judge the credibility on the basis of appearances, lacking the historical background to compare the picture with that painted by other historians. On that basis the book seems credible, filled with detail and supported with footnotes and references. The general argument made by Zamoyski seems intuitively credible. The portraits of the people he provides seem credible, although they are perhaps not so different as people today as the author seems to believe. On the other hand, I have read reviews of the book which suggest there are factual errors and misinterpretations.
I recently thought about the old idea:
What one remembers from one's college education after ten years would only take about 15 minutes to communicate. Unfortunately, while you are going to college you don't know which things will show up in memory ten years later.I have also been telling my students to figure out the paragraph they would want other students to write as a synopsis of their class presentation, and plan the hour presentation and hour discussion to make that paragraph both inevitable and credible.
So what is the paragraph that Zamoyski left in my mind, and how credible is it?
The Thesis
The end of the Napoleonic wars was a critical period in European history, marked by the conflict between liberal and reactionary ideas and by the disparity between constitutional monarchies with some expansion of participation in government versus the remaining monarchical governments based on a narrow aristocratic constituency. In France the conflict between revolutionary and reactionary forces was resolved by a constitutional monarchy; Prussia emerged as the unifying power in the early stages of creation of a German nation; Italy remained fragmented. The making of the peace, while it perhaps contained seeds of a united Europe, was the product of a relatively small number of influential people; these people were not only working out the future of Europe, but also dealing with the complexities of the political decision making within their own countries, feathering their own nests, and often living messy and complicated personal lives. The culture within the aristocratic international community of their time was much different than ours, not looking back on Victorian culture as we do, and filled with excesses.
The Credibility
I can only judge the credibility on the basis of appearances, lacking the historical background to compare the picture with that painted by other historians. On that basis the book seems credible, filled with detail and supported with footnotes and references. The general argument made by Zamoyski seems intuitively credible. The portraits of the people he provides seem credible, although they are perhaps not so different as people today as the author seems to believe. On the other hand, I have read reviews of the book which suggest there are factual errors and misinterpretations.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Innovation and globalisation: OECD through its looking glass
Innovation and globalisation: OECD through its looking glassThis article from the current OECD Observer provides a brief overview of the trends of its economic analysis, especially its focus on innovation systems, over the five decades of its existence.
It seeks to draw lessons from that experience that may be useful in the current economic crisis.
The OECD has rightly started a debate on the creative society. The educational sector should now take the lead, because education has always been the institution for preparing the future, as well as transmitting to young people the heritage of the past.
"Measuring the Internet Economy - The ICT Development Index"
According to a UNESCO news release, this report, published in 2009 by the ITU, compares developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) in 154 countries over a five-year period from 2002 to 2007.
The Index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level. These are related to ICT access, use and skills, such as households with a computer, the number of Internet users and literacy levels.
Comment: Woops, where is the United States????!!!! JAD
The Index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level. These are related to ICT access, use and skills, such as households with a computer, the number of Internet users and literacy levels.
Comment: Woops, where is the United States????!!!! JAD
"Small Technology - Big Impact: Practical Options for Development"
This publication presents a few examples of the practical application of
information and communication technologies that are having a big impact around the developing world.
information and communication technologies that are having a big impact around the developing world.''Technology has dramatically changed the world - now almost anyone can 'move' at Internet-speed; people who were marginalized are able to find information on acquiring micro-loans to start businesses, and villages previously unconnected to the telecommunications grid now have affordable cell phone access. As technology becomes easier to use, more affordable and widespread, new sustainable development solutions are a reality.Source: AED
"Obama To Loosen Stem Cell Funding"
Rob Stein has an article in today's Washington Post stating that the Obama administration is going to remove some of the limits imposed by the Bush administration on embryonic stem cell research.
I am no expert on stem cells, but this seems to me to be a significant step forward. The current regulation refuses to allow federal funding for stem cell research, except for a very few lines of cells that existed before the ban. Obviously there could be differences among stem cell lines as profound as the differences among people, and limiting research to only a few lines seems foolish, given the hopes that we have for medical breakthroughs via stem cell research.
Every once and a while there is a newspaper article stating that some new approach has been found to produce pluripotent stem cells from other than embryos, which is all to the good, but as far as I can tell that work does not eliminate the importance of embryonic stem cell research. So too, a number of states and private funding agencies have stepped in to fund U.S. embryonic stem cell research in the absence of federal funding, and there are of course programs in other nations, but the Bush administration effectively chained the "800 pound gorilla" of biomedical research funding -- the federal government. Moreover, it is both morally and economically wrong to depend on other countries to develop stem cell technology.
The Bush administration was concerned that creating embryonic stem cell lines required the sacrifice of embryos. They were unmoved by the fact that large numbers of embryos are discarded every year when no longer needed for implantation, and that it is clearly better to use these for something that could benefit mankind than to flush them.
Of course we should regulate stem cell research, but we should not let religious superstitions get in the way of reasoning as to the most moral approach to that regulation, much less should we let pandering to a narrow political constituency dominate this or any area of public policy.
I am no expert on stem cells, but this seems to me to be a significant step forward. The current regulation refuses to allow federal funding for stem cell research, except for a very few lines of cells that existed before the ban. Obviously there could be differences among stem cell lines as profound as the differences among people, and limiting research to only a few lines seems foolish, given the hopes that we have for medical breakthroughs via stem cell research.
Every once and a while there is a newspaper article stating that some new approach has been found to produce pluripotent stem cells from other than embryos, which is all to the good, but as far as I can tell that work does not eliminate the importance of embryonic stem cell research. So too, a number of states and private funding agencies have stepped in to fund U.S. embryonic stem cell research in the absence of federal funding, and there are of course programs in other nations, but the Bush administration effectively chained the "800 pound gorilla" of biomedical research funding -- the federal government. Moreover, it is both morally and economically wrong to depend on other countries to develop stem cell technology.
The Bush administration was concerned that creating embryonic stem cell lines required the sacrifice of embryos. They were unmoved by the fact that large numbers of embryos are discarded every year when no longer needed for implantation, and that it is clearly better to use these for something that could benefit mankind than to flush them.
Of course we should regulate stem cell research, but we should not let religious superstitions get in the way of reasoning as to the most moral approach to that regulation, much less should we let pandering to a narrow political constituency dominate this or any area of public policy.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Academies of Sciences and the Transition to Knowledge Societies. Challenges and Perspectives for the Academies of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
Academies of Sciences and the Transition to Knowledge Societies. Challenges and Perspectives for the Academies of Eastern and South-Eastern EuropeUNESCO Science Policy Series. 6th volume. Report based on the outcomes of the International Conference “Global Science and National Policies: the Role of Academies” (May 2007, Chisinau)
On 4 and 5 May 2007 Academies of Sciences from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (ESEE) took part in a Conference on “Global Science and National Policies: the Role of Academies”. The Conference was organized by UNESCO (Venice and Moscow Offices) and the International Council for Science (ICSU) and it was hosted by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova at its headquarters in Chisinau.
This publication represents, in summary form, the main outcome of the discussions held during the Conference in Chisinau of the eighteen Academies of the region organized around these lines of reflection. In addition to a brief account of the presentations and discussions, it includes an analysis of, and proposals for, possible roles that the Academies from the Eastern and South-Eastern European countries can assume in order to play an active role while adapting to the new local realities, as well as to global development and trends. One Annex presents a set of model statutes that could assist Academies in their thinking about organizational and membership issues.
Good News for Maryland
The International Baccalaureate Organization (IB), a non-profit educational organization with more than 2,500 IB World Schools around the globe, has selected Maryland as the location of its new global center for the IB Americas region. The new center, which will be located in Montgomery County and will be operational by 2010, will have more than 100 employees who will manage operations and assessment for nearly 1,500 schools in 28 countries and territories in the Americas.
There are 91 IB World Schools in the Maryland, DC and Virginia area, more than two dozen public schools across Maryland.
Founded in 1968, the IB works with more than 2,519 schools in 132 countries to offer programs to more than 684,000 students ranging in ages 3 to 19.
To learn more about the IB Americas visit www.ibo.org/iba/.
There are 91 IB World Schools in the Maryland, DC and Virginia area, more than two dozen public schools across Maryland.
Founded in 1968, the IB works with more than 2,519 schools in 132 countries to offer programs to more than 684,000 students ranging in ages 3 to 19.
To learn more about the IB Americas visit www.ibo.org/iba/.
Help Reverse a Bush Administration Mistake
President Obama has begun the process of overturning the Bush administration rule that limits the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate reproductive health information and services. In order to overturn the Bush administration rule, President Obama has to allow the public to comment on what he plans to do.
Access to the benefits of science is a fundamental human right, and the Government has a legal responsibility to make that information available to those who might benefit. The Bush ruling was wrong, and support is needed for it to be rescinded.
Will you please take a moment right now and add your name to the list of people who support reversing Bush's dangerous rule?
Access to the benefits of science is a fundamental human right, and the Government has a legal responsibility to make that information available to those who might benefit. The Bush ruling was wrong, and support is needed for it to be rescinded.
Will you please take a moment right now and add your name to the list of people who support reversing Bush's dangerous rule?
Scientists Without Borders
The New York Academy of Sciences and the United Nations Millennium Project conceived of founding Scientists Without Borders, and the organization is now supported by a number of volunteers and partners. The organization "aims to mobilize and coordinate science-based activities that improve quality of life in the developing world." It has launched a Web portal for which the cornerstone is a database that serves as a digital repository for information on resources and needs for the application of science to development and poverty reduction. The organization is focusing on areas such as global health, agricultural progress, and environmental well-being.
I have been thinking about the economic crisis
We have been told that the bailout of AIG is necessary to protect the banks, and the bailout of the banks is necessary so that they will return to making loans.
We are also told that the financial crisis is due to excess liquidity, which lead to a bubble in the prices of homes and property. Lots of money around made it possible to borrow at low enough interest rates to buy expensive homes. Of course, the development of poorly understood derivatives, and the lack of oversight of the market for contracts insuring these derivatives lead to the subprime mortgage glut.
Asians were saving too much. The American middle class was seeing their houses going up in value year after year. Why save from your income when your net worth is increasing due to the increasing value of your house. Why worry about your credit card dept when your net worth is still increasing. So the middle class was spending too much and saving too little.
Then the housing bubble burst, subprime mortages were for more than houses were worth, derivatives tanked, banks which had called their portfolios of these "AAA" rated papers "capital" found that they could no longer make loans, the insurers found that they could not pay off on the policies that they had written, and so it goes. People in debt, and people in doubt stop consuming so much; stores sell less and companies make fewer products; they lay off personnel; the newly unemployed stop consuming so much; even those employed have more doubt and save more; and so it goes.
We are told that there are still big pots of money in many funds, and held by some investors, but they are not putting that money in circulation.
We are told that a key to getting out of this mess is getting the banks to lend again. Perhaps the banks are wary of lending to people to buy property that is going down in value, or to companies that are facing falling markets in a dramatic recession. Do we really want them to make more "subprime" loans? Is that how we got into this mess in the first place?
We are also told that the financial crisis is due to excess liquidity, which lead to a bubble in the prices of homes and property. Lots of money around made it possible to borrow at low enough interest rates to buy expensive homes. Of course, the development of poorly understood derivatives, and the lack of oversight of the market for contracts insuring these derivatives lead to the subprime mortgage glut.
Asians were saving too much. The American middle class was seeing their houses going up in value year after year. Why save from your income when your net worth is increasing due to the increasing value of your house. Why worry about your credit card dept when your net worth is still increasing. So the middle class was spending too much and saving too little.
Then the housing bubble burst, subprime mortages were for more than houses were worth, derivatives tanked, banks which had called their portfolios of these "AAA" rated papers "capital" found that they could no longer make loans, the insurers found that they could not pay off on the policies that they had written, and so it goes. People in debt, and people in doubt stop consuming so much; stores sell less and companies make fewer products; they lay off personnel; the newly unemployed stop consuming so much; even those employed have more doubt and save more; and so it goes.
We are told that there are still big pots of money in many funds, and held by some investors, but they are not putting that money in circulation.
We are told that a key to getting out of this mess is getting the banks to lend again. Perhaps the banks are wary of lending to people to buy property that is going down in value, or to companies that are facing falling markets in a dramatic recession. Do we really want them to make more "subprime" loans? Is that how we got into this mess in the first place?
The End of the Napoleonic Era
I have been reading Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski. It is a good read, although it provides more detail than I really want.Zamoyski seems convinced that the sexual peccadillos and the social rounds in Vienna and Paris affected the outcome of the treaty negotiations, I suppose he is right. The fact that so many of the principals were writing to both their wives and their mistresses certainly provides more material for historians of the Congress. But perhaps if the principals had been less distracted, the negotiations would have been better conducted. Or perhaps not!
I wonder whether our current crop of diplomats and Chiefs of Government would be less likely to be distracted by their personal lives in similar negotiations. Perhaps not!
The assumption of the title of Emperor by Napoleon and the restoration of Louis XVIII may represent a step backward in the lengthly process of replacement of monarchy by democratic government in Europe. However, it is this process that seems to motivate the movement in the book. France's revolutionary model, and I suppose that of the United States, threatening the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria, the Czar of Russia, and Regent of England, and a throng of petty kings and princes is contraposed with their retaliation. I suppose that the circumstances make Marxian analysis more intelligible. The growth of industry and trade in the late 18th century may well have empowered others than the aristocracy.
It is hard to believe that people who rise to national power in our more meritocratic society could be as silly as the hereditary monarchs as portrayed by Zamoyski.
The end of the Napoleonic wars was a critical period in the process of nation building for the Germans and the Italians, which France, Britain and Spain had gone through that process earlier. The throngs of petty rulers in the German and Italian lands were clearly fighting for their continued status, and the concomitant power and wealth.
All in all, an interesting time.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
"Recession Watch: Boost the developing world"
Source: Jeffrey Sachs, Nature 457, 958 (19 Feb
ruary 2009).
"Sub-Saharan Africa's income growth in 2009 is projected at just 3.25%, down from 6.9% in 2007, and around 3 percentage points below the forecast of a few months ago. The Institute of International Finance based in Washington DC projects a collapse of private-sector financial flows to the world's emerging market economies (mainly middle-income countries such as Morocco in North Africa), from US$928.6 billion in 2007 to just $165.3 billion in 2009. International banks are expected to reduce their loans to the middle-income countries by around $60 billion, compared with a net loan increase of $410 billion in 2007. Money sent from expatriates to their families in poor countries is plummeting, and millions of workers are returning home after losing jobs, work permits and visas. Long-promised aid is already being cut by some of the largest donor countries. Italy, the host of the Group of Eight (G8) Summit this year, has cut its 2009 aid budget by around half."
Professor Sachs makes this suggestion:
The economic crisis is going to hurt in the United States and other rich nations, but there are resources to ameliorate the pain. This country at least is far better prepared to deal with an economic crisis than it was in 1929.
The economic crisis is going to kill in the poorest countries, and kill in large numbers. They need help! JAD
Incidentally, Nature (the British science journal, considered with Science to be the most important in the world) has a good website on the financial crisis.
ruary 2009)."Sub-Saharan Africa's income growth in 2009 is projected at just 3.25%, down from 6.9% in 2007, and around 3 percentage points below the forecast of a few months ago. The Institute of International Finance based in Washington DC projects a collapse of private-sector financial flows to the world's emerging market economies (mainly middle-income countries such as Morocco in North Africa), from US$928.6 billion in 2007 to just $165.3 billion in 2009. International banks are expected to reduce their loans to the middle-income countries by around $60 billion, compared with a net loan increase of $410 billion in 2007. Money sent from expatriates to their families in poor countries is plummeting, and millions of workers are returning home after losing jobs, work permits and visas. Long-promised aid is already being cut by some of the largest donor countries. Italy, the host of the Group of Eight (G8) Summit this year, has cut its 2009 aid budget by around half."
Professor Sachs makes this suggestion:
The G20 countries, meeting in London in early April, would be wise to devote at least $25 billion in urgent additional funding for African sustainable investments in 2009, and another $25 billion for low-income countries in other regions.Comment: It is worth reading the whole, short article. Professor Sachs is the economist, and I don't know how much would be appropriate as an emergency package for Africa and other poor nations, but clearly he is right that the need is urgent and large.
The economic crisis is going to hurt in the United States and other rich nations, but there are resources to ameliorate the pain. This country at least is far better prepared to deal with an economic crisis than it was in 1929.
The economic crisis is going to kill in the poorest countries, and kill in large numbers. They need help! JAD
Incidentally, Nature (the British science journal, considered with Science to be the most important in the world) has a good website on the financial crisis.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
"Obama’s Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact"
Elisabeth Rosenthal has an article in today's New York Times indicating that the Obama administration is seriously supporting the negotiation towards a new global climate pact, and in doing so is re-energizing other nations and the negotiations themselves.
The perception that the United States is now serious has set off a flurry of diplomacy around the globe. “The lesson of Kyoto is that if the U.S. isn’t taking it seriously there is no reason for anyone else to,” said Bill McKibben, who runs the environmental organization www.350.org.Comment: I am really glad to see that the administration is not ignoring the long term problems as it seeks to deal with the immediate financial crisis. Of course, the administration is investing in low-emission energy technology as part of the stimulus package, which will also benefit the economy in the long run, especially if there is a climate pact with real teeth that actually moves people into better energy technologies. JAD
This week the United Nation’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, will make the rounds in Washington to discuss climate issues. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is organizing a high-level meeting on climate and energy. Teams from Britain and Denmark have visited the White House to discuss climate issues. In China, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made climate a central focus of her visit and proposed a partnership between the United States and China. And a special envoy from China is coming soon.
Science With Africa
This website, built for the Science With Africa conference contains a variety of information on the subject. It is an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA, UNECA).
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