Monthly Archives: November 2009

New Books: Science At Sea, Oral Health And Emergency Care

It’s an abbreviated week with the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, so Wednesday afternoon is taking the place of Friday afternoon in the announcements of what new has hit our site this week. For the Americans in our audience, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Featured New Book

Science at Sea: Meeting Future Oceanographic Goals with a Robust Academic Research Fleet (final)

The U.S. academic research fleet is an essential national resource, and it is likely that scientific demands on the fleet will increase. Oceanographers are embracing a host of remote technologies that can facilitate the collection of data, but will continue to require capable, adaptable research vessels for access to the sea for the foreseeable future. Maintaining U.S. leadership in ocean research will require investing in larger and more capable general purpose Global and Regional class ships; involving the scientific community in all phases of ship design and acquisition; and improving coordination between agencies that operate research fleets.

More New Books This Week

The U.S. Oral Health Workforce in the Coming Decade: Workshop Summary (final)

The National Emergency Care Enterprise: Advancing Care Through Collaboration: Workshop Summary (final)

New Books This Week: Data Integrity, Counterterrorism, The Biology Revolution and More

Friday brings us to the close of the week and the usual recap of what’s fresh and new here at nap.edu. Next week’s post may be a little delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday, but if there’s new stuff, we’ll be sure you know.

Featured New Book

Experimentation and Rapid Prototyping in Support of Counterterrorism (final)

The U.S. military forces currently face a nontraditional threat from insurgents and terrorists who primarily employ improvised explosive devices, and have shown a cycle of adaptation of less than 12 months to responses by U.S. forces to counter these attacks. This constantly evolving threat requires U.S. military forces to adapt and respond more rapidly with modified tactics, technologies, and/or equipment.

In response to this need for new technologies, the Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) was established in 2006 to develop technologies that can mature in 6 to 18 months for purposes of counterterrorism. Although RRTO appears to be successfully fulfilling its mission, the agency seeks to understand and address barriers to and opportunities for meeting future counterterrorism needs–including the need to accelerate the transition of technologies for counterterrorism with an eye to countering emerging and anticipated threats. This book reviews RRTO approaches and provides a set of recommendations for potential improvements to help meet these needs for rapid technology development.

All New Books This Week

Disposal of Legacy Nerve Agent GA and Lewisite Stocks at Deseret Chemical Depot: Letter Report (final)

Research at the Intersection of the Physical and Life Sciences (prepublication)

Landscapes on the Edge: New Horizons for Research on Earth’s Surface (prepublication)

Crisis Standards of Care: Summary of a Workshop Series (prepublication)

Review of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Corrosion Prevention Standards for Ductile Iron Pipe (final)

Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age (final)

Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2008 (final)

A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring the United States Leads the Coming Biology Revolution (final)

Biographical Memoirs: V. 91

New From NAP: Mathematics Education, US Construction Industry and more

It’s the end of the week, so it’s time to round up the books new to our website this week. Check back here every Friday afternoon to get all the latest, or better yet, subscribe to the New From NAP RSS feed to get the newest books every day.

Featured New Book

Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity (final)

Early childhood mathematics is vitally important for young children’s present and future educational success. Research has demonstrated that virtually all young children have the capability to learn and become competent in mathematics. Furthermore, young children enjoy their early informal experiences with mathematics. Unfortunately, many children’s potential in mathematics is not fully realized, especially those children who are economically disadvantaged. This is due, in part, to a lack of opportunities to learn mathematics in early childhood settings or through everyday experiences in the home and in their communities. Improvements in early childhood mathematics education can provide young children with the foundation for school success.

Relying on a comprehensive review of the research, Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood lays out the critical areas that should be the focus of young children’s early mathematics education, explores the extent to which they are currently being incorporated in early childhood settings, and identifies the changes needed to improve the quality of mathematics experiences for young children. This book serves as a call to action to improve the state of early childhood mathematics. It will be especially useful for policy makers and practitioners-those who work directly with children and their families in shaping the policies that affect the education of young children.

All New Books This Week

2007-2008 Assessment of the Army Research Laboratory (final)

Systems for Research and Evaluation for Translating Genome-Based Discoveries for Health: Workshop Summary (final)

Evaluating Occupational Health and Safety Research Programs: Framework and Next Steps (final)

Advancing the Competitiveness and Efficiency of the U.S. Construction Industry (final)

NAS Members Appointed Science Envoys

As you may have heard, former NAS President Bruce Alberts, former NIH Director and IOM member Elias Zerhouni, and Nobel prize-winning chemist and NAS member Ahmed Zewail have been appointed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve as science envoys to Muslim majority countries.

According to the State Department press release, the envoys will engage with international partners on topics ranging from scientific and health issues, to climate change, environmental issues, and cooperation on satellites and global positioning systems. Their aim will be to “promote responsible environmental governance, foster innovation, and increase public engagement on shared environmental and health challenges.” You can view a video of Secretary Clinton’s remarks here.

The National Academies has ample experience working across borders to further scientific causes. In fact, the newly released book, Interacademy Programs Between the United States and Eastern Europe 1967-2009 documents how the Academies has been able to establish and maintain scientific contacts with colleagues in Eastern Europe prior to and after the lifting of the Iron Curtain.

From the book:

Beginning in 1965, several foreign secretaries of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) decided to try to bring the well established but isolated scientific communities of Eastern Europe closer to the mainstream of international science.

A review of the early stages of the program was conducted in 1989 and found several positive outcomes, including a furthering of scientific knowledge and a more in-depth understanding of the complex relationships between politics, scientific priorities, and cultural and social trends.

Following the lifting of the Iron Curtain, the program evolved to a more natural mode of cooperation. In 1993 the NAS began annual and open competitions among American Scientists who wished to work with colleagues from the former Soviet Union. As closed doors in the region were opening during the 1990s, these connections proved invaluable for helping to integrate the region’s scientists into the international science community. As time went on, meetings became more frequent:

At low cost, the NAS could sponsor annual regional scientific meetings in Europe, rotating from capital to capital. Such forums, organized in cooperation with interested academies and co-funded by these academies, could provide opportunities to exchange up-to-date information on scientific advances in selected fields, trends in efforts to promote sustainable knowledge-based economies, and mechanisms to expand scientist-to-scientist cooperation. The scientific and political payoff from such high visibility demonstrations of U.S. interest in the region would be substantial.

New Books This Week on NAP

Friday brings us once again to the end of the work week and a roundup of the books that were new to nap.edu this week. Almost all of our books can be read online for free, and many have free PDFs to download, so check under each book’s title in this post for links to read online or if a free PDF is available.

Assessing and Improving Value in Cancer Care: Workshop Summary (final)

Unlike many other areas in health care, the practice of oncology presents unique challenges that make assessing and improving value especially complex. First, patients and professionals feel a well-justified sense of urgency to treat for cure, and if cure is not possible, to extend life and reduce the burden of disease. Second, treatments are often both life sparing and highly toxic. Third, distinctive payment structures for cancer medicines are intertwined with practice. Fourth, providers often face tremendous pressure to apply the newest technologies to patients who fail to respond to established treatments, even when the evidence supporting those technologies is incomplete or uncertain, and providers may be reluctant to stop toxic treatments and move to palliation, even at the end of life. Finally, the newest and most novel treatments in oncology are among the most costly in medicine.

This volume summarizes the results of a workshop that addressed these issues from multiple perspectives, including those of patients and patient advocates, providers, insurers, health care researchers, federal agencies, and industry. Its broad goal was to describe value in oncology in a complete and nuanced way, to better inform decisions regarding developing, evaluating, prescribing, and paying for cancer therapeutics.

Interacademy Programs Between the United States and Eastern Europe 1967-2009: The Changing Landscape (final)

Improving the Measurement of Late-Life Disability in Population Surveys: Beyond ADLs and IADLs: Summary of a Workshop (final)

Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public: A Summary of the February 2009 Summit (final)

Spectrum Management for Science in the 21st Century (prepublication)

Nurturing and Sustaining Effective Programs in Science Education for Grades K-8: Building a Village in California: Summary of a Convocation (final)

New Video: A New Biology For The 21st Century

A great new video from the Division of Earth And Life Sciences joins our growing stable of videos on the National Academies YouTube channel.

The official description:

“Following the release of a National Academies report on the future of biological science, three of the study’s authors discuss its key findings. A New Biology for the 21st Century identifies how biology can help meet challenges like feeding a growing population, providing adequate health care, generating energy to meet increasing demands, and coping with global climate change. In this video, Dr Phillip Sharp, Dr. Anthony Janetos, and Dr. Keith Yamamoto explain the study’s goals and conclusions.”