Corrections, repudiations, and revisions

2020 has been a strange year for many reasons. By February of 2020, the Pandemic was already impacting many parts of the world, and by April, a majority of human lives across the globe were well and truly disrupted by the Covid-19 virus. Some might remember this period as that time when hand sanitizer and toilet paper couldn't be obtained, even at gouged prices. Others may remember this past summer as the time when violence against Black people at the hands of the police achieved a visibility that forced all of us in the US, like it or not, to stop and take note. By the end of the summer headlines heralded what some thought might be the end of the modern university system as colleges and universities across the country announced mass lay-offs and even the dismantling of longstanding majors and departments. Even those with tenure found themselves suddenly without a job. By early fall, the death toll in the U.S. had slowed to the point that schools considered reopening, bars and restaurants unshuttered their doors, and house parties reappeared, if they ever disappeared to begin with. As the positive counts began to surge again, the only thing spreading faster than the virus was misinformation on social media. We end the year in the US with a new President Elect, an emergency approved vaccine, and hope. So many tumultuous events have occurred in this single year that it behooves us to pause for a minute or ten and reflect on what we've learned about the role we want computing to play moving forward.

A 2600-year summer climate reconstruction in central Japan by integrating tree-ring stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes

Oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) of tree-ring cellulose are a novel proxy for summer hydroclimate in monsoonal Asia. In central Japan, we collected 67 conifer wood samples, mainly Chamaecyparis obtusa, with ages encompassing the past 2600 years. The samples were taken from living trees, archeological wood, architectural wood, and buried logs. We analyzed stable isotope ratios of oxygen (δ18O) and hydrogen (δ2H) in tree-ring cellulose in these samples (more than 15 000 rings in total) without using a pooling method and constructed a statistically reliable tree-ring cellulose δ18O time series for the past 2500 years. However, there were distinct age trends and level offsets in the δ18O record, and cellulose δ18O values showed a gradual decrease as an individual tree matures. This suggested it is difficult to establish a cellulose δ18O chronology for low-frequency signals by simple averaging of all the δ18O time series data. In addition, there were opposite age trends in the cellulose δ2H, and δ2H gradually increased with tree age. There were clear positive correlations in the short-periodicity variations between δ18O and δ2H, probably indicating a common climate signal. A comparison of the δ18O and δ2H time series in individual trees with tree-ring width suggested that the opposite age trends of δ18O and δ2H are caused by temporal changes in the degree of post-photosynthetic isotope exchange with xylem water (physiological effect), accompanied by changes in stem growth rate that are influenced by human activity in the forests of central Japan. Based on the assumptions that cellulose δ18O and δ2H vary positively and negatively with constant proportional coefficients due to climatological and physiological effects, respectively, we solved simultaneous equations for the climatological and physiological components of variations in tree-ring cellulose δ18O and δ2H in order to remove the age trend. This enabled us to evaluate the climatic record from cellulose δ18O variations. The extracted climatological component in the cellulose δ18O for the past 2600 years in central Japan was well correlated with numerous instrumental, historical, and paleoclimatological records of past summer climate at various spatial and temporal scales. This indicates that integration of tree-ring cellulose δ18O and δ2H data is a promising method to reconstruct past summer climate variations on annual to millennial timescales, irrespective of the growth environment. However, analytical and statistical methods need to be improved for further development of this climate proxy.

An Engineering Model of the COVID-19 Trajectory to Predict Success of Isolation Initiatives

Much media and societal attention is today focused on how to best control the spread of Covid-19. Every day brings us new data, and policymakers are implementing different strategies in different countries to manage the impact of Covid-19. To respond to the first wave of infection, several countries, including the UK, opted for isolation/lockdown initiatives, with different degrees of rigour. Data showed that these initiatives have yield the expected results in terms of containing the rapid trajectory of the virus. When this manuscript was first prepared, the affected societies were wondering when the isolation/lockdown initiatives should be lifted. While detailed epidemiologic, economic as well as social studies would be required to answer this question completely, we employ here a simple engineering model. Albeit simple, the model is capable of reproducing the main features of the data reported in the literature concerning the Covid-19 trajectory in different countries, including the increase in cases in countries following the initially successful isolation/lockdown initiatives. Keeping in mind the simplicity of the model, we attempt to draw some conclusions, which seem to suggest that a decrease in the number of infected individuals after the initiation of isolation/lockdown initiatives does not necessarily guarantee that the virus trajectory is under control. Within the limit of this model, it would appear that rigid isolation/lockdown initiatives for the medium term would lead to achieving the desired control over the spread of the virus. This observation seems consistent with the past summer months, during which the Covid-19 trajectory seemed to be almost under control across most European countries. However, recent data show that the virus trajectory is again on the rise. The latter is also consistent with the simple model proposed here. Because the optimal solution will achieve control over the spread of the virus while minimising negative societal impacts due to isolation/lockdown, which include but are not limited to economic and mental health aspects, the engineering model presented here is not sufficient to provide the desired answer. However, the model seems to suggest that to keep the Covid-19 trajectory under control, a series of short-to-medium term isolation measures should be put in place until one or more of the following scenarios is achieved: a cure has been developed and has become accessible to the population at large; a vaccine has been developed, tested, and distributed to large portions of the population; a sufficiently large portion of the population has developed resistance to the Covid-19 virus; or the virus itself has become less aggressive. It is somewhat remarkable that an engineering model, despite all its approximations, provides suggestions consistent with advanced epidemiologic models developed by several experts in the field.

Mentorship During a Pandemic: Transitions from Lab and Sea to Virtual

With mentorship having gone virtual this past summer, three geosciences programs offer case studies about how to form meaningful connections during a time of social distancing.

Dominant Factors Determining Differences of COVID-19 Fatalities Between India and Other Large-Population Regions

We analyze the Covid-19 mortality scenario in India and compare it with those in other large-population regions such as Asia-excluding-China, Africa, European Union, South America, and USA. We compare existing fatality data and offer an interpretation for low fatality based on immunity due to endemic malaria and TB. We identify the hot climate in the past summer as a possible cause for low death count in southern-hemisphere countries without endemic malaria and TB. We also make India-specific observations for easing the lockdown and estimations for the time required to attain herd immunity. Whatever optimism we present should be viewed as a guarded optimism. There should not be room for complacency.

Reflections on the ‘Sound Health-An NIH-Kennedy Center Partnership’

It’s been a busy season for the international community of music and medicine. An inspiring, beautifully executed conference in Barcelona this past Summer rendered some evolving global themes of Music Therapy and Medical Practitioners-and how those whose work in hospitals and clinics in cities and countries near and far, have influenced the growth of our community...

5. Beyond the 'Vestibule': Amelia Alderson Opie's Letters to Henry Perronet Briggs, R. A.

This past summer, under the supervision of Dr. Shelley King, I transcribed and annotated two hundred-odd letters written by the Romantic-Victorian writer, Amelia Alderson Opie, to her cousin and Royal Academy artist, Henry Perronet Briggs. Opie was a somewhat enigmatic character: to reduce her life to its broadest strokes, she transformed from a bubbling, republican member of London's literary scene into a conservative, demure Quaker lady. Her first biographer, C. L. Brightwell, claims that Opie escaped the "various dangerous and seductive influences" of her youth, preferring in time the company of those "cultivated minds" which "actuated by holy principle" encouraged her own "awakened spiritual interest" (36-38). But the correspondence between Amelia Opie and her cousin, artist Henry Perronet Briggs, complicates that narrative of radical change. Although a practicing Quaker when she penned these letters, Opie displays some distinctly un-Quaker-like tendencies. In a much earlier letter, Opie likened correspondents who did not reveal their "real feelings" to her to those who refused her entry into their houses ("11 Mar. 1820"). Henry Perronet Briggs is, therefore, someone who is permitted to see far beyond Opie’s own public persona — beyond what Opie once likened to an individual's "vestibule" — for he is someone with whom she felt entirely at ease. This project thus sheds light not only on Opie's own character, but also points to the larger issues of identity and how they relate to the genre of biography itself.