Description: In this article, the authors report ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy studies of the clean nonhydrogen-terminated diamond (100)-2 X 1 surface showing single- and double-layer steps that are rebonded. The main defects observed are single, multiple, and row dimer vacancies, and antiphase boundaries. Buckling of dimers is not observed, consistent with symmetric dimers.

Description: This article discusses linear response and 1/f optimal information transport. Article: Nonergodic renewal processes have recently been shown by several authors to be insensitive to periodic perturbations, thereby apparently sanctioning the death of linear response, a building block of nonequilibrium statistical physics. The authors show that it is possible to go beyond the "death of linear response" and establish a permanent correlation between an external stimulus and the response of a complex network generating nonergodic renewal processes, by taking as stimulus a similar nonergodic process. The ideal condition of 1/f noise corresponds to a singularity that is expected to be relevant in several experimental conditions.

Description: In this article, the authors discuss the idea that non-philosophers should judge philosophers. As universities face growing demands for academic accountability, philosophers ought to take the lead in exploring what accountability means. Otherwise we may be stuck with Dickens's Mr. Gradgrind. ("Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts along are wanted in life.") But a philosophical account of accountability will also require redefining the boundaries of what counts as philosophy.

Description: This article discusses biocultural ethics. Abstract: Biocultural homogenization involves three major drivers: (a) the physical barrier to everyday contact with biodiversity derived from the rapid growth of urban population, (b) the conceptual barrier derived from the omission in formal and non-formal education of native languages that contain a broad spectrum of traditional ecological knowledge and values, and (c) political barriers associated with the elimination or reduction of the teaching of ethics under the prevailing neoliberal economy governance since the 1960s. Biocultural ethics aims at overcoming these barriers by recovering the vital links between biological and cultural diversity, between the habits and the habitats of the inhabitants. These links are acknowledged by early Western philosophy. Amerindian traditional ecological knowledge, and contemporary ecological and evolutionary sciences, but have been lost in prevailing modern ethics. There is an overlooked diversity of forms of knowing and inhabiting regional ecosystems, each of them having diverse environmental and social consequences. A better understanding of the regionally diverse mosaics of ecosystems, languages, and cultures facilitates the distinction of specific causes and responsible agents of environmental problems, and the disclosure of sustainable practices, forms of ecological knowledge and values that offer already existing options to solve socio-ecological problems.

Description: This article discusses the biological and toxicological activity of gases and vapors. Abstract: A large amount of data on the biological and toxicological activity of gases and vapors has been collected from the literature. Processes include sensory irritation thresholds, the Alarie mouse test, inhalation anasthesia, etc. It is shown that a single equation using only five descriptors (properties of the gases and vapors) plus a set of indicator variables for the given processes can correlate 643 biological and non-lethal toxicological activities of 'non-reactive' compounds with a standard deviation of 0.36 log unit. The equation is scaled to sensory irritation thresholds obtained by the procedure of Cometto-Muñiz, and Cain, and provides a general equation for the prediction of sensory irritation thresholds in man. It is suggested that differences in biological/toxicological activity arise primarily from transport from the gas phase to a receptor phase or area, except for odor detection thresholds where interaction with a receptor(s) is important.