Agricultural development, labour migration, and the resurgence of malaria in Swaziland, 1950-1981

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented July 1985The introduction of DDT and related pesticides in the war against malaria in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the 1940s had a dramatic impact on anopheles mosquito populations and consequently on the worldwide incidence of malaria. The initial success of pesticide spraying created immense optimism on the part of health officials and economic planners. For the first time, it appeared that malaria, which had had such a devastating impact on human populations and had retarded economic development in tropical and sub-tropical areas, could be controlled or even eradicated. Thirty years later, however, malaria has made a major comeback. … The resurgence of malaria in many areas has been linked to the so-called "green-revolution", the development of large scale agricultural projects combined with the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides to increase agricultural production. The heavy use of pesticides succeeded in controlling some crop destroying peats, however, it had the unforseen consequence of producing DDT resistant strains of anopheles mosquitoes, short circuiting vector control measures and making possible the recommencement of malaria transmission in areas in which the disease had been brought under control

How Jeffries Wyman put Florida and Shell Mounds on the Map

The state of Florida is an intermittent flashpoint of shell mound research. This process was initiated in the 19th century by Jeffries Wyman, whose 1875 publication Fresh-Water Shell Mounds of the St. John’s River, Florida highlighted methods that are now commonplace. Wyman’s innovations are often attributed to familiarity with the Scandinavian shell midden school. I examine how Wyman’s experiences engaging with the archaeology of northeast Florida also structured his methods and interpretations. I employ GIS to reconstruct Wyman’s reconnaissance surveys based on his daily field journals. I consider the characteristics of his encampments and changing field methods. By visualizing Wyman’s excursions, I consider why he emphasized certain sites and observations over others, and reconstruct how he conducted his excavations. The results have significance for local researchers who use Wyman’s research, and anyone interested in the influence of field experiences on the emergence of prehistory as scientific inquiry and its theoretical consequences.Funding for this research was generously provided by the American Philosophical Society through a Franklin Grant.Ye

Thermodynamic Computing

The hardware and software foundations laid in the first half of the 20th Century enabled the computing technologies that have transformed the world, but these foundations are now under siege. The current computing paradigm, which is the foundation of much of the current standards of living that we now enjoy, faces fundamental limitations that are evident from several perspectives. In terms of hardware, devices have become so small that we are struggling to eliminate the effects of thermodynamic fluctuations, which are unavoidable at the nanometer scale. In terms of software, our ability to imagine and program effective computational abstractions and implementations are clearly challenged in complex domains. In terms of systems, currently five percent of the power generated in the US is used to run computing systems - this astonishing figure is neither ecologically sustainable nor economically scalable. Economically, the cost of building next-generation semiconductor fabrication plants has soared past $10 billion. All of these difficulties - device scaling, software complexity, adaptability, energy consumption, and fabrication economics - indicate that the current computing paradigm has matured and that continued improvements along this path will be limited. If technological progress is to continue and corresponding social and economic benefits are to continue to accrue, computing must become much more capable, energy efficient, and affordable. We propose that progress in computing can continue under a united, physically grounded, computational paradigm centered on thermodynamics. Herein we propose a research agenda to extend these thermodynamic foundations into complex, non-equilibrium, self-organizing systems and apply them holistically to future computing systems that will harness nature's innate computational capacity. We call this type of computing "Thermodynamic Computing" or TC.Comment: A Computing Community Consortium (CCC) workshop report, 36 page