1999 Al Sturm Award for Excellence in Faculty Research of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Virginia Tech
What if your father had Alzheimer's disease? And what if there was a test to tell you if, as you grew older, you might develop it, too? Would you have the test? And if you did, how would the results affect the way you live your life? How would they affect your family? Your job? Your medical insurance?
Breast cancer, sickle-cell anemia, Huntington disease, muscular dystrophy--every day, people have to face the fact that a hereditary disorder runs in their family. The painful knowledge that they or their children might be at risk for a genetic disorder influences all their decisions about the future. They ask, "Is there a genetic test to let us know if we are really at risk? If there is such a test, do we really want to have it done?"
For an ever-growing number of disorders, testing is possible--but the existence of a test can raise new and troubling questions. In this book, geneticist and science policy expert Doris Teichler Zallen explains clearly and sympathetically how genetic disorders are passed along in families; which hereditary disorders can be tested for using genetic technology; how the new DNA tests for genetic disorders work; what genetic tests can and can't reveal, and why the tests often do not give clear-cut answers; what questions one should ask doctors and genetic counselors; how the health care system, government policies, and insurance companies influence our options; and what the resources are for obtaining more information and counseling.
Through the stories of real families and the choices they made about genetic testing, Zallen helps readers think through their own alternatives and discuss them with relatives. Does it Run in the Family? is essential reading for every family coping with inherited medical conditions and for the medical and genetics professionals involved in their decisions. It will also interest all readers who seek a clear explanation of the new DNA tests and the issues surrounding them.
To Test or Not to Test arms readers with questions that should be considered before they pursue genetic screening.
Determining the answers to these questions is no easy task. In this highly readable book, Doris Teichler Zallen provides a template that can guide individuals and families through the decision-making process and offers additional resources where they can gain more information. She shares interviews with genetic specialists, doctors, and researchers, as well as the personal stories of nearly 100 people who have faced genetic-testing decisions. Her examples focus on genetic testing for four types of illnesses: breast/ovarian cancer (different disorders but closely connected), colon cancer, late-onset Alzheimer's disease, and hereditary hemochromatosis. From the more common diseases to the rare hereditary conditions, we learn what genetic screening is all about and what it can tell us about our risks.
Given that we are now bombarded with ads in magazines and on television hawking the importance of pursuing genetic-testing, it is critical that we approach this tough issue with an arsenal of good information. To Test or Not to Test is an essential consumer tool-kit for the genetic decision-making process.
Claudia Zaslavsky has helped thousands of men and women understand why math made them miserable. Let her introduce you to real people who, like you, fled from anything to do with math. All of them--White, African American, Asian American, Latino, artist, homemaker, manager, teacher, teenager, or grandparent--came to see that their math troubles were not their fault. Social stereotypes, poor schools, and well-meaning parents had convinced them that they couldnÕt, or shouldnÕt, do math.
Claudia Zaslavsky shows you how the school math you dreaded is a far cry from the math you really need in life (and probably know better than you ever suspected)! She gives a host of reassuring methods, drawn from many cultures, for tackling real-world math problems. She explodes the myth that women and minorities are not good at math. With Claudia Zaslavsky’s help, you can see why math matters and how to get over the math barrier that has been holding you back from your goals in life.
Arline Zatz has writtenthe first guidebook to everything equine in the Garden State: Horsing Around in New Jersey. This accessible, easy-to-use volume is essential reading for the novice who yearns to go horseback riding but doesn't know how or where to begin; for the experienced equestrian seeking new trails and campsites; for anyone wishing to attend an equestrian event; and for those seeking a job in the equestrian field, which already employs nearly 6,000 New Jerseyans. The industry generates more than 650 million dollars in annual revenue. Millions of people attend equine events in New Jersey each year. The U.S. Equestrian team makes its home there, and New Jersey's state animal is the horse.
Zatz tells readers--including those with disabilities--where they can take lessons, rent a horse, and prepare for riding. She includes safety and first aid tips. Horse history and breeds common to New Jersey are discussed, as are health concerns, including diseases, preventative medicine, and emergency care. The book showcases New Jersey's eighty-five equestrian trails and covers information on where to obtain riding permits and their accompanying rules and regulations. There is advice for both new horse owners and renters, including recommendations on tack and clothing, stable management, and horse adoption.
The book acquaints readers with year-round equine entertainment opportunities, and offers dozens of suggestions on where to watch or participate in sports on horseback. Zatz lists equine education programs for all ages, and outlines numerous employment opportunities within the equine industry. The book concludes with a glossary of common horse industry terminology, a listing of national equine associations and breed registries, equipment sources, and equine publications for further reading.
The concept of the circle is ubiquitous. It can be described mathematically, represented physically, and employed technologically. The circle is an elegant, abstract form that has been transformed by humans into tangible, practical forms to make our lives easier.
And yet no one has ever discovered a true mathematical circle. Rainbows are fuzzy; car tires are flat on the bottom, and even the most precise roller bearings have measurable irregularities. Ernest Zebrowski, Jr., discusses why investigations of the circle have contributed enormously to our current knowledge of the physical universe. Beginning with the ancient mathematicians and culminating in twentieth-century theories of space and time, the mathematics of the circle has pointed many investigators in fruitful directions in their quests to unravel nature’s secrets. Johannes Kepler, for example, triggered a scientific revolution in 1609 when he challenged the conception of the earth’s circular motion around the sun. Arab and European builders instigated the golden age of mosque and cathedral building when they questioned the Roman structural arches that were limited to geometrical semicircles.
Throughout his book, Zebrowski emphasizes the concepts underlying these mathematicians’ calculations, and how these concepts are linked to real-life examples. Substantiated by easy-to-follow mathematical reasoning and clear illustrations, this accessible book presents a novel and interesting discussion of the circle in technology, culture, history, and science.
On May 8, 1902, Mont Pelée on the island of Martinique exploded. A deadly cloud of steam and ash churned through plantations and villages, flattened the grand city of St. Pierre, then thundered into the bay where it sank eighteen ships and hundreds of smaller craft. Within a minute or two, nearly 30,000 humans died. The splintered rubble of their homes and belongings burned for three days, and the world began to understand the awesome power of nuées ardentes, glowing avalanches of hot gas and debris that sweep down the slopes of volcanoes, instantly steaming to death anything in its path. The enormous death toll was particularly tragic because it was avoidable. Had it not been for an unfortunate combination of scientific misjudgment and political hubris, most of the victims would have escaped.
In The Last Days of St. Pierre, Ernest Zebrowski Jr. counts down the days leading up to the catastrophe, and unfolds a tale intertwining human foolishness and heroism with the remarkable forces of nature. Illustrations contrast life in Martinique before and after the eruption, and eyewitness accounts bring the story to life.
Although it seems a long time since the destruction of St. Pierre, it is a mere blink of an eye in our planet’s geological history. Mont Pelée will erupt again, as will Vesuvius, Krakatau, St. Helens, Thera, and most other infamously fatal volcanoes, and human lives will again be threatened. The St. Pierre disaster has taught us much about the awesome power of volcanic forces and the devastation they can bring.
Robert Zemsky, one of a select group of scholars who participated in Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' 2005 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, signed off on the commission's report with reluctance. In Making Reform Work he presents the ideas he believes should have come from that group to forge a practical agenda for change. Zemsky argues that improving higher education will require enlisting faculty leadership, on the one hand, and, on the other, a strategy for changing the higher education system writ large.
Directing his attention from what can't be done to what can be done, Zemsky provides numerous suggestions. These include a renewed effort to help students' performance in high schools and a stronger focus on the science of active learning, not just teaching methods. He concludes by suggesting a series of dislodging events, for example, making a three-year baccalaureate the standard undergraduate degree, congressional rethinking of student aid in the wake of the loan scandal, and a change in the rules governing endowments that could break the gridlock that today holds higher education reform captive.
Making Reform Work offers three rules for successful college and university transformation: don't vilify, don't play games, and come to the table with a well-thought-out strategy rather than a sharply worded lamentation.
At one time, universities educated new generations and were a source of social change. Today colleges and universities are less places of public purpose, than agencies of personal advantage. Remaking the American University provides a penetrating analysis of the ways market forces have shaped and distorted the behaviors, purposes, and ultimately the missions of universities and colleges over the past half-century.
The authors describe how a competitive preoccupation with rankings and markets published by the media spawned an admissions arms race that drains institutional resources and energies. Equally revealing are the depictions of the ways faculty distance themselves from their universities with the resulting increase in the number of administrators, which contributes substantially to institutional costs. Other chapters focus on the impact of intercollegiate athletics on educational mission, even among selective institutions; on the unforeseen result of higher education's "outsourcing" a substantial share of the scholarly publication function to for-profit interests; and on the potentially dire consequences of today's zealous investments in e-learning.
A central question extends through this series of explorations: Can universities and colleges today still choose to be places of public purpose? In the answers they provide, both sobering and enlightening, the authors underscore a consistent and powerful lesson-academic institutions cannot ignore the workings of the markets. The challenge ahead is to learn how to better use those markets to achieve public purposes.
In this detailed and comprehensive study of contemporary Chinese America, Xiaojian Zhao uses class analysis to illuminate the difficulties of everyday survival for poor and undocumented immigrants and analyzes the process through which social mobility occurs. Through ethnic ties, Chinese Americans have built an economy of their own in which entrepreneurs can maintain a competitive edge given their access to low-cost labor; workers who are shut out of the mainstream job market can find work and make a living; and consumers can enjoy high quality services at a great bargain. While the growth of the ethnic economy enhances ethnic bonds by increasing mutual dependencies among different groups of Chinese Americans, it also determines the limits of possibility for various individuals depending on their socioeconomic and immigration status.
In Remaking Chinese America, Xiaojian Zhao explores the myriad forces that changed and unified Chinese Americans during a key period in American history. Prior to 1940, this immigrant community was predominantly male, but between 1940 and 1965 it was transformed into a family-centered American ethnic community. Zhao pays special attention to forces both inside and outside of the country in order to explain these changing demographics. She scrutinizes the repealed exclusion laws and the immigration laws enacted after 1940. Careful attention is also paid to evolving gender roles, since women constituted the majority of newcomers, significantly changing the sex ratio of the Chinese American population.
As members of a minority sharing a common cultural heritage as well as pressures from the larger society, Chinese Americans networked and struggled to gain equal rights during the cold war period. In defining the political circumstances that brought the Chinese together as a cohesive political body, Zhao also delves into the complexities they faced when questioning their personal national allegiances. Remaking Chinese America uses a wealth of primary sources, including oral histories, newspapers, genealogical documents, and immigration files to illuminate what it was like to be Chinese living in the United States during a period that—until now—has been little studied.
This biography is more than a recounting of extraordinary accomplishments. It also embraces the transatlantic life experience of Yee who traveled from China to England and then on to the United States, where he taught at Columbia University, to his return to China in 1975, after a forty-two year absence. Interwoven is the history of the communist revolution in China; the battle to save England during World War II; the United States during the McCarthy red scare era; and, eventually, thawing Sino-American relations in the 1970s. Da Zheng uncovers Yee's encounters with racial exclusion and immigration laws, displacement, exile, and the pain and losses he endured hidden behind a popular public image.
What does it mean to have grown up female in the Mao era? How can the remembered details of everyday life help shed light upon those turbulent times?
Some of Us is a collection of memoirs by nine Chinese women who grew up during the Mao era. All hail from urban backgrounds and all have obtained their Ph.D.s in the United States; thus, their memories are informed by intellectual training and insights that only distance can allow. Each of the chapters—arranged by the age of the author—is crafted by a writer who reflects back to that time in a more nuanced manner than has been possible for Western observers. The authors attend to gender in a way that male writers have barely noticed and reflect on their lives in the United States.
The issues explored here are as varied as these women’s lives: The burgeoning rebellion of a young girl in northeast China. A girl’s struggles to obtain for herself the education her parents inspired her to attain. An exploration of gender and identity as experienced by two sisters.
Some of Us offers insight into a place and time when life was much more complex than Westerners have allowed. These eloquent writings shatter our stereotypes of persecution, repression, victims, and victimizers. Together, these multi-faceted memoirs offer the reader new perspectives as they daringly explore difficult—and fascinating—issues.
Over the past two decades, concern about the environment has brought with it a tremendous increase in recycling in the United States and around the world. For many, it has become not only a civic, but also a moral obligation. Long before our growing levels of waste became an environmental concern, however, recycling was a part of everyday life for many Americans, and for a variety of reasons. From rural peddlers who traded kitchen goods for scrap metal to urban children who gathered rags in exchange for coal, individuals have been finding ways to reuse discarded materials for hundreds of years.
In Cash for Your Trash, Carl A. Zimring provides a fascinating history of scrap recycling, from colonial times to the present. Moving beyond the environmental developments that have shaped modern recycling enterprises, Zimring offers a unique cultural and economic portrait of the private businesses that made large-scale recycling possible. Because it was particularly common for immigrants to own or operate a scrap business in the nineteenth century, the history of the industry reveals much about ethnic relationships and inequalities in American cities. Readers are introduced to the scrapworkers, brokers, and entrepreneurs who, like the materials they handled, were often marginalized.
Integrating findings from archival, industrial, and demographic records, Cash for Your Trash demonstrates that over the years recycling has served purposes far beyond environmental protection. Its history and evolution reveals notions of Americanism, the immigrant experience, and the development of small business in this country.
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