A cellular-automata model of flow in ant-trails: non-monotonic variation of speed with density

Generically, in models of driven interacting particles the average speed of the particles decreases monotonically with increasing density. We propose a counter-example, motivated by the motion of ants in a trail, where the average speed of the particles varies {\it non-monotonically} with their density because of the coupling of their dynamics with another dynamical variable. These results, in principle, can be tested experimentally.Comment: IOP style LATEX, 4 embedded EPS figures, Final published version. Journal Ref: J. Phys.A 35, L573 (2002

Importance of Piloting a Questionnaire on Sexual Health Research: Letter to the editor

Letter without Abstrac

The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring

Environment, conservation, green, and kindred movements look back to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring as a milestone. The impact of the book, including on government, industry, and civil society, was immediate and substantial, and has been extensively described; however, the provenance of the book has been less thoroughly examined. Using Carson’s personal correspondence, this paper reveals that the primary source for Carson’s book was the extensive evidence and contacts compiled by two biodynamic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards, of Long Island, New York. Their evidence was compiled for a suite of legal actions (1957-1960) against the U.S. Government and that contested the aerial spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). During Rudolf Steiner’s lifetime, Spock and Richards both studied at Steiner’s Goetheanum, the headquarters of Anthroposophy, located in Dornach, Switzerland. Spock and Richards were prominent U.S. anthroposophists, and established a biodynamic farm under the tutelage of the leading biodynamics exponent of the time, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. When their property was under threat from a government program of DDT spraying, they brought their case, eventually lost it, in the process spent US$100,000, and compiled the evidence that they then shared with Carson, who used it, and their extensive contacts and the trial transcripts, as the primary input for Silent Spring. Carson attributed to Spock, Richards, and Pfeiffer, no credit whatsoever in her book. As a consequence, the organics movement has not received the recognition, that is its due, as the primary impulse for Silent Spring, and it is, itself, unaware of this provenance

Relation between socioeconomic deprivation and death from a first myocardial infarction in Scotland: population based analysis

No abstract available

The William Kruskal Legacy: 1919--2005

William Kruskal (Bill) was a distinguished statistician who spent virtually his entire professional career at the University of Chicago, and who had a lasting impact on the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and on the field of statistics more broadly, as well as on many who came in contact with him. Bill passed away last April following an extended illness, and on May 19, 2005, the University of Chicago held a memorial service at which several of Bill's colleagues and collaborators spoke along with members of his family and other friends. This biography and the accompanying commentaries derive in part from brief presentations on that occasion, along with recollections and input from several others. Bill was known personally to most of an older generation of statisticians as an editor and as an intellectual and professional leader. In 1994, Statistical Science published an interview by Sandy Zabell (Vol. 9, 285--303) in which Bill looked back on selected events in his professional life. One of the purposes of the present biography and accompanying commentaries is to reintroduce him to old friends and to introduce him for the first time to new generations of statisticians who never had an opportunity to interact with him and to fall under his influence.Comment: This paper discussed in: [arXiv:0710.5072], [arXiv:0710.5074], [arXiv:0710.5077], [arXiv:0710.5079], [arXiv:0710.5081], [arXiv:0710.5084] and [arXiv:0710.5085]. Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000420 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org