Critical Mineral Resources of the United States


Book Description

As the importance and dependence of specific mineral commodities increase, so does concern about their supply. The United States is currently 100 percent reliant on foreign sources for 20 mineral commodities and imports the majority of its supply of more than 50 mineral commodities. Mineral commodities that have important uses and face potential supply disruption are critical to American economic and national security. However, a mineral commodity's importance and the nature of its supply chain can change with time; a mineral commodity that may not have been considered critical 25 years ago may be critical today, and one considered critical today may not be so in the future. The U.S. Geological Survey has produced this volume to describe a select group of mineral commodities currently critical to our economy and security. For each mineral commodity covered, the authors provide a comprehensive look at (1) the commodity's use; (2) the geology and global distribution of the mineral deposit types that account for the present and possible future supply of the commodity; (3) the current status of production, reserves, and resources in the United States and globally; and (4) environmental considerations related to the commodity's production from different types of mineral deposits. The volume describes U.S. critical mineral resources in a global context, for no country can be self-sufficient for all its mineral commodity needs, and the United States will always rely on global mineral commodity supply chains. This volume provides the scientific understanding of critical mineral resources required for informed decisionmaking by those responsible for ensuring that the United States has a secure and sustainable supply of mineral commodities.







The Threat of Pandemic Influenza


Book Description

Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.




Popular Science


Book Description

Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.




Science Research Writing: For Native And Non-native Speakers Of English (Second Edition)


Book Description

This book enables STEMM researchers to write effective papers for publication as well as other research-related texts such as a doctoral thesis, technical report, or conference abstract.Science Research Writing uses a reverse-engineering approach to writing developed from extensive work with STEMM researchers at Imperial College London. This approach unpacks current models of STEMM research writing and helps writers to generate the writing tools needed to operate those models effectively in their own field. The reverse-engineering approach also ensures that writers develop future-proof strategies that will evolve alongside the coming changes in research communication platforms.The Second Edition has been extensively revised and updated to represent current practice and focuses on the writing needs of both early-stage doctoral STEMM researchers and experienced professional researchers at the highest level, whether or not they are native speakers of English. The book retains the practical, user-friendly format of the First Edition, and now contains seven units that deal separately with the components of written STEMM research communication: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Abstract and Title, as well as extensive FAQ responses and a new Checklist and Tips section. Each unit analyses extracts from recent published STEMM journal papers to enable researchers to discover not only what to write, but, crucially, how to write it.The global nature of science research requires fast, accurate communication of highly complex information that can be understood by all participants. Like the First Edition, the Second Edition is intended as a fast, do-it-yourself guide to make both the process and the product of STEMM research writing more effective.Related Link(s)







Operations Research


Book Description




Increasing Seismic Safety by Combining Engineering Technologies and Seismological Data


Book Description

The current state-of-the-art allows seismologists to give statistical estimates of the probability of a large earthquake striking a given region, identifying the areas in which the seismic hazard is the highest. However, the usefulness of these estimates is limited, without information about local subsoil conditions and the vulnerability of buildings. Identifying the sites where a local ampli?cation of seismic shaking will occur, and identifying the buildings that will be the weakest under the seismic shaking is the only strategy that allows effective defence against earthquake damage at an affordable cost, by applying selective reinforcement only to the structures that need it. Unfortunately, too often the Earth’s surface acted as a divide between seism- ogists and engineers. Now it is becoming clear that the building behaviour largely depends on the seismic input and the buildings on their turn act as seismic sources, in an intricate interplay that non-linear phenomena make even more complex. These phenomena are often the cause of observed damage enhancement during past ear- quakes. While research may pursue complex models to fully understand soil dyn- ics under seismic loading, we need, at the same time, simple models valid on average, whose results can be easily transferred to end users without prohibitive expenditure. Very complex models require a large amount of data that can only be obtained at a very high cost or may be impossible to get at all.