Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> An article by Nigel Williams (News &amp; Comment, <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" page="1792" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:type="simple">27 Sept., p. 1792</jats:related-article> ) and a Policy Forum by Stephen Blackmore ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" page="63" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:type="simple">4 Oct., p. 63</jats:related-article> ) raise three issues: (i) How can the biodiversity information associated with natural history museum collections be made available to a wider range of users? (ii) How can international support and funding for this activity be increased? and (iii) Do we need a new international organization, responsible for coordination and strategic planning, to facilitate these two objectives? </jats:p> <jats:p>Multilateral and bilateral international funding agencies have already demonstrated a willingness to fund systematic collections and biodiversity information systems, in the context of “demand driven” projects that have close links to users, lead to clearly identifiable outputs, and can be achieved in discrete time-frames. Present examples include the Indonesian Biodiversity Collections Project, a 5-year international program to strengthen the institutional capacity of the national herbarium (Herbarium Bogoriense) and the national zoological museum (Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense), under the Research and Development Center for Biology of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. This project is funded in part by a $7.2-million grant from the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund under the supervision of the World Bank. Closely associated with this project is the Indonesian Biodiversity Conservation Project, which includes $14 million in grant aid from the government of Japan to construct a new, custom-built museum to rehouse the zoology collections.</jats:p> <jats:p>The urgent need for these projects was first identified in the Biodiversity Action Plan for Indonesia. The Government of Indonesia has since reaffirmed this goal as a national priority and provided substantial counterpart funding.</jats:p> <jats:p>Careful consideration should be given to how these and other projects are being implemented before the systematics community develops proposals to create new international organizations for the promotion of natural history collections or new financial instruments to facilitate access to information held in these collections.</jats:p>

<jats:p> The article “Mathematical and computational challenges in population biology and ecosystems science” by Simon A. Levin <jats:italic>et al</jats:italic> . ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" page="334" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:href="10.1126/science.275.5298.334" xlink:type="simple">17 Jan., p. 334</jats:related-article> ) discusses exciting developments and challenges for studies of complex ecological systems, with special emphasis on simulation and analytical approaches. The authors highlight how increased computation capability is affecting our ability to tackle tough questions about complex system behavior. Another related area with similar challenges and advances, however, is the statistical analysis of data from complex systems. Extracting a clear understanding of how complex ecological systems operate will depend not only on our ability to simulate component processes but will also require us to go beyond traditional experimental approaches, which are limited in their scope, duration, and realism, for practical reasons. </jats:p> <jats:p>Relative to their rapid adoption of simulation and analytic approaches, ecologists have been slow to exploit the most recent advances in multivariate analyses. Traditional statistical approaches have often distinguished between ANOVA/MANOVA (analysis of variance/multivariate analyses of variance) approaches—which have a limited capability to deal with multivariate, interacting factors—and descriptive multivariate methods such as principal component analysis, factor analysis, and multiple regression. With the development of new programs that use the ready availability of increased computing power, data analysts are examining more of the whole covariance structure that occurs in complex systems. Expanded capacity for covariance analysis within ANOVA as well as capabilities in structural equation modeling are leading toward more general and less restricted methods of analysis. In the forefront of this enterprise should be the difficult task of interpreting the results from these analyses. No doubt, mistakes will be made and major refinements required. Nonetheless, in order to make useful predictions about the behavior of ecological systems, the challenge of conducting and interpreting multivariate analyses of interacting components must be tackled with vigor.</jats:p>

<jats:p> With respect to the News &amp; Comment article “Ionosphere research lab sparks fears in Alaska” by Lisa Busch ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" page="1060" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:href="10.1126/science.275.5303.1060" xlink:type="simple">21 Feb., p. 1060</jats:related-article> ), I would like to make two points. </jats:p> <jats:p> First, the anti-HAARP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) activists overestimated the power of the Gakona, Alaska, facility by a factor of more than a million and then used statements in patents ( <jats:xref ref-type="bibr">1</jats:xref> ) to fuel speculations on the part of the public about possible effects such as weather manipulations, mind warping, and communication disruptions. This incorrect information has been refuted in hearings in the Alaska legislature, in a video prepared by Senator Frank H. Murkowski (R-AK) for airing in Alaska, and at open-house sessions at the site for interested visitors. </jats:p> <jats:p>Second, the Gakona site is now intended to be a world-class facility for studying the upper atmosphere, although the function has evolved from an over-the-horizon radar (never constructed), to a high-frequency facility (under construction) to generate ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) radio waves in the ionosphere, to a major center for upper atmosphere studies using a variety of diagnostics (some in place) with a powerful incoherent scatter radar (ISR) as the core instrument (to be constructed). The core instrument will join with existing ISRs at Svalbard and Tromsø in Norway; Sondrestrom, Greenland; and Boston, Massachusetts, and with the proposed ISR at Resolute Bay, Canada, to form an Arctic network of radars to observe virtually the whole Polar Cap and to track disturbances produced by solar inputs in the form of waves and particles. The network will be a remarkable additon to the tools available to the atmospheric science community with applications to space weather, Arctic and satellite communications, and electric power-grid problems.</jats:p> <jats:p>In the early days of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico there were concerns expressed about the facility, but these have long since been replaced by satisfaction with the scientific outcomes and the benefits to the local economy. The residents of Alaska will find similar benefits.</jats:p>

<jats:p> <jats:bold>Corrections and Clarifications</jats:bold> </jats:p> <jats:p> The Research News article “Obesity sheds its secrets” by Trisha Gura ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" page="751" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:href="10.1126/science.275.5301.751" xlink:type="simple">7 Feb., p. 751</jats:related-article> ) erroneously attributed the initial cloning of the <jats:italic>agouti</jats:italic> gene to Bill Wilkison's team at Glaxo Wellcome in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The mouse version of the gene was instead cloned in 1992 by Richard Woychik at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and his colleagues Scott Bultman and Edward Michaud. Woychik also collaborated with Wilkison on the 1994 cloning of the human <jats:italic>agouti</jats:italic> gene. </jats:p> <jats:p>The Introduction to the Letters section of 13 December (p. 1821) should not have implied that the quartz spear point shown on the cover of the 19 April 1996 issue (and reprinted with the Introduction) was found at the excavation at Caverna da Pedra Pintada at Monte Alegre in the Brazilian Amazon. The point was found at a nearby site on the Tapajós River.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Readers offer views on a number of topics: “[R]esidents of Alaska will find … benefits” from a “world-class” ionosphere research facility (below); publishing raw genetic sequences will “not likely” thwart the patenting and commercialization of gene products; to avoid “victimization” of unknowing authors, journals should insist that coauthors consult one another before their names appear on a paper; the challenge of predicting the “behavior of ecological systems” should be “tackled vigorously”; “flexible funds” should be made available to medical schools for the “support [of] their academic objectives”; and international support for the “biodiversity information associated with natural history museum collections” should be made more widely available.</jats:p>