Robert Pool – författare

Deliberate practice: your path to extraordinary performanceIn Peak, psychologist Anders Ericsson, whose research inspired the famous “10,000-hour rule,” reveals what truly drives mastery - and it’s not talent. Drawing on three decades of much-admired, myth-shattering research, Ericsson shows that focused, purposeful practice can unlock exceptional skill in anyone.Drawing on countless case-studies of musicians and athletes, surgeons and students, Peak offers actionable strategies to improve learning, motivation and performance. Ericsson's revolutionary methods will show you how to improve at almost any skill that matters to you, and that you don't have to be a genius to achieve extraordinary things.Engaging, evidence-based and empowering, it’s the ultimate guide to achieving potential in work, sport and life.‘Anyone who wants to get better at anything should read Peak’ Fortune‘This book… could truly change the world’ Joshua Foer‘Groundbreaking... brilliantly useful’ Daniel Coyle‘Powerful... actually shows us how to get better (much better) at the things we care about’ Seth Godin

We have long recognized technology as a driving force behind much historical and cultural change. The invention of the printing press initiated the Reformation. The development of the compass ushered in the Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World. The cotton gin created the conditions that led to the Civil War. Now, in Beyond Engineering, science writer Robert Pool turns the question around to examine how society shapes technology. Drawing on such disparate fields as history, economics, risk analysis, management science, sociology, and psychology, Pool illuminates the complex, often fascinating interplay between machines and society, in a book that will revolutionize how we think about technology. We tend to think that reason guides technological development, that engineering expertise alone determines the final form an invention takes. But if you look closely enough at the history of any invention, says Pool, you will find that factors unrelated to engineering seem to have an almost equal impact. In his wide-ranging volume, he traces developments in nuclear energy, automobiles, light bulbs, commercial electricity, and personal computers, to reveal that the ultimate shape of a technology often has as much to do with outside and unforeseen forces. For instance, Pool explores the reasons why steam-powered cars lost out to internal combustion engines. He shows that the Stanley Steamer was in many ways superior to the Model T--it set a land speed record in 1906 of more than 127 miles per hour, it had no transmission (and no transmission headaches), and it was simpler (one Stanley engine had only twenty-two moving parts) and quieter than a petrol engine--but the steamers were killed off by factors that had little or nothing to do with their engineering merits, including the Stanley twins' lack of business acumen and an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. Pool illuminates other aspects of technology as well. He traces how seemingly minor decisions made early along the path of development can have profound consequences further down the road, and perhaps most important, he argues that with the increasing complexity of our technological advances--from nuclear reactors to genetic engineering--the number of things that can go wrong multiplies, making it increasingly difficult to engineer risk out of the equation. Citing such catastrophes as Bhopal, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, the Challenger, and Chernobyl, he argues that is it time to rethink our approach to technology. The days are gone when machines were solely a product of larger-than-life inventors and hard-working engineers. Increasingly, technology will be a joint effort, with its design shaped not only by engineers and executives but also psychologists, political scientists, management theorists, risk specialists, regulators and courts, and the general public. Whether discussing bovine growth hormone, molten-salt reactors, or baboon-to-human transplants, Beyond Engineering is an engaging look at modern technology and an illuminating account of how technology and the modern world shape each other.

We have long recognized technology as a driving force behind much historical and cultural change. The invention of the printing press initiated the Reformation. The development of the compass ushered in the Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World. The cotton gin created the conditions that led to the Civil War. Now, in Beyond Engineering, science writer Robert Pool turns the question around to examine how society shapes technology. Drawing on such disparate fields as history, economics, risk analysis, management science, sociology, and psychology, Pool illuminates the complex, often fascinating interplay between machines and society, in a book that will revolutionize how we think about technology. We tend to think that reason guides technological development, that engineering expertise alone determines the final form an invention takes. But if you look closely enough at the history of any invention, says Pool, you will find that factors unrelated to engineering seem to have an almost equal impact. In his wide-ranging volume, he traces developments in nuclear energy, automobiles, light bulbs, commercial electricity, and personal computers, to reveal that the ultimate shape of a technology often has as much to do with outside and unforeseen forces. For instance, Pool explores the reasons why steam-powered cars lost out to internal combustion engines. He shows that the Stanley Steamer was in many ways superior to the Model T--it set a land speed record in 1906 of more than 127 miles per hour, it had no transmission (and no transmission headaches), and it was simpler (one Stanley engine had only twenty-two moving parts) and quieter than a petrol engine--but the steamers were killed off by factors that had little or nothing to do with their engineering merits, including the Stanley twins' lack of business acumen and an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. Pool illuminates other aspects of technology as well. He traces how seemingly minor decisions made early along the path of development can have profound consequences further down the road, and perhaps most important, he argues that with the increasing complexity of our technological advances--from nuclear reactors to genetic engineering--the number of things that can go wrong multiplies, making it increasingly difficult to engineer risk out of the equation. Citing such catastrophes as Bhopal, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, the Challenger, and Chernobyl, he argues that is it time to rethink our approach to technology. The days are gone when machines were solely a product of larger-than-life inventors and hard-working engineers. Increasingly, technology will be a joint effort, with its design shaped not only by engineers and executives but also psychologists, political scientists, management theorists, risk specialists, regulators and courts, and the general public. Whether discussing bovine growth hormone, molten-salt reactors, or baboon-to-human transplants, Beyond Engineering is an engaging look at modern technology and an illuminating account of how technology and the modern world shape each other.

The goal of this workshop was to bring together bioinformatics stake holders from government, academe, and industry for a day of presentations and dialogue. Fifteen experts identified and discussed some of the most important issues raised by the current flood of biologic data. Topics explored included the importance of database curation, database integration and interoperability, consistency and standards in terminology, error prevention and correction, data provenance, ontology, the importance of maintaining privacy, data mining, and the need for more computer scientists with specialty training in bioinformatics. Although formal conclusions and recommendations will not come from this particular workshop, many insights may be gleaned about the future of this field, from the context of the discussions and presentations described here.

Proponents of agricultural biotechnology believe that genetically modified (GM) crops have the potential to provide great ecological benefits, such as reduced pesticide and land use, as well as agricultural benefits. However, given the rapid emergence of commercial GM crops and the likely increase in their use, many groups have raised concerns about the potential unintended, adverse ecological effects of these crops. Some ecological concerns are enhanced development of pest resistance, crosspollination with wild relatives, and reductions in beneficial insects or birds. Ecological Monitoring of Genetically Modified Crops considers the latest in monitoring methods and technologies and to asks--What are the challenges associated with monitoring for ecological effects of GM crops? Is ongoing ecological monitoring of GM crops a useful and informative activity? If so, how should scientifically rigorous monitoring be carried out in the variety of ecological settings in which GM crops are grown?

On May 18-19, 2021, the Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a public workshop to examine the frontiers of research on moiré quantum matter. Participants at the workshop discussed the challenges and possibilities that this new material presents. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

Developing a new drug or biological agent to treat cancer is a long and painstaking process. Almost daily, advances are made in basic science that unmask the biological machinery of cancer and other diseases. Yet the speed at which new cancer treatments emerge has remained slow at best. This new book by the Institute of Medicine examines impediments to developing new agents to treat cancer. It then offers recommendations on how to eliminate or reduce barriers without compromising the scientific integrity of the research process or lowering the standards of evidence for approving new treatments. "Shortening the Time Line for New Cancer Treatments" carefully examines the steps involved in developing new treatments for cancer from the conception and testing of a new agent through to its final availability to patients. From a focused study of the history of public and private investment in cancer drug development to an assessment of recent changes in science that may alter the ways in which new cancer drugs will be developed, this important new book will be valuable to a variety of readers.The recommendations in the book are specifically offered to the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, academic research institutions, and the advocacy community, all of whom bear considerable responsibility and wield considerable influence in directing the tools for cancer drug development.

Among the various segments of society affected by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year and a half, few were hit as hard as the aviation industry. At its worst point, in March 2020, passenger volumes for U.S. airlines had dropped more than 95 percent. Airlines, airports, aircraft manufacturers, and other components of the air travel system faced an unprecedented challenge, with threats to the health of passengers and crews combined with threats to the financial health of the entire system.To address the many COVID-related issues facing the aviation industry, on June 28-30, 2021, the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a three-day workshop, Aviation After a Year of Pandemic - Economics, People, and Technology. Funded by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration and held remotely via Zoom, the workshop focused on four specific areas regarding the effects of COVID on the aviation industry: economics, personnel, technology, and next steps. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

It is widely understood that stem cell treatments have the potential to revolutionize medicine. Because of this potential, in 2004 California voters approved Proposition 71 to set up a 10-year, $3 billion program to fund research on stem cells. Under the direction of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, this program will pay to build facilities for stem cell research and will fund doctors and scientists to carry out research with the ultimate goal of helping to develop therapies based on stem cells. For this research to move forward, however, will require a steady supply of stem cells, particularly human embryonic stem cells. Those stem cells are collected from developing human embryos created from eggs-or oocytes-harvested from the ovaries of female donors. Thus much of the promise of stem cells depends on women choosing to donate oocytes to the research effort. The oocyte donation process is not without risk, however. Donors are given doses of hormones to trigger the production of more eggs than would normally be produced, and this hormone treatment can have various side effects.Once the eggs have matured in the ovary, they must be retrieved via a surgical procedure that is typically performed under anesthesia, and both the surgery and the anesthesia carry their own risks. Furthermore, given the very personal nature of egg donation, the experience may carry psychological risks for some women as well. With this in mind, in 2006 the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine contracted with the National Academies to organize a workshop that would bring together experts from various areas to speak about the potential risks of oocyte donation and to summarize what is known and what needs to be known about this topic. The Committee on Assessing the Medical Risks of Human Oocyte Donation for Stem Cell Research was formed to plan the workshop, which was held in San Francisco on September 28, 2006. This report is a summary and synthesis of that workshop.

NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) share responsibility for overseeing respiratory protection in the workplace and have established regulations for this purpose. Specifically, NIOSH has issued regulations which define respirator testing and certification. OSHA has issued regulations which define conditions under which employers are required to maintain respiratory protection programs in general industry, shipyards, marine terminals, and construction. In 2005, NIOSH contracted with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to study the NIOSH-sponsored Anthrotech study along with its supporting information and reports, and to examine and report on the adequacy and relevance of the study protocol, the analyses conducted, the resulting anthropometric dataset, and the appropriateness of the respirator fit-test panels derived from the new dataset. Assessment of the NIOSH Head-and-Face Anthropometric Survey of U.S. Respirator Users focuses on the establishment of the scientific base required for certification standards of respirators, not their use in the workplace.This report describes and analyzes the anthropometric measurements performed by Anthrotech for its NIOSH-sponsored study. This report looks at the survey methods used by Anthrotech in the study, and examines how Anthrotech analyzed its data to derive fit-test panels and suggests some ways that analysis could be improved. This report discusses future directions, pointing toward further analyses of the data and offers suggestions for moving from research to practice.

The integration of biology, genomics, and health has opened the possibility of applying genomics technology to nutrition. In 2001, scientists associated with the Human Genome Project announced the successful mapping of the reference sequence of the human genome. Since then, a body of information has emerged. Genomics and related areas of research have contributed greatly to efforts to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying diet-disease relationships. Integration and application of genetic and genomics technology into nutrition research is, therefore, needed to develop nutrition research programs that are aimed at the prevention and control of chronic disease through genomics-based nutritional interventions. Of interest is the integration of relevant computational methods into nutritional genomics research; the enhancement of tools applicable to systems biology; and the effective dissemination of genomics-derived information to scientists, policy makers, and the interested public. To address these issues, a workshop was held on June 1 and 2, 2006.The workshop included presentations that were structured around three focus sessions: human genetic variation, epigenetics, and systems biology. A fourth session presented discussions on the implications of nutrigenomics for the future of nutrition science research. Numerous themes emerged from the workshop presentations. First, nutrigenomics is a complex field because it addresses issues related to multigenetic traits that can be modified by a number of nutritional and other environmental factors. Such complexity presents a challenge to the field; and the ensuing research opportunities will require cooperative work among scientific disciplines and across government, academic, and industrial centers, as well as adequate funding, to be realized. Additionally, the ability to stretch the limits of conventional research methodologies afforded by new genetic and genomic applications at the level of the individual opens the door to a wealth of potential benefits to areas such as disease prevention and wellness, bearing in mind the necessity of ethical safeguards.This potential, however, must be wisely exploited to avoid the pitfalls of overpromising research results and prematurely setting unrealistic expectations for beneficial outcomes. Finally, careful and rigorous research must be employed to optimize outcomes and assure acceptance by the scientific community. In summary, nutrition science is uniquely poised to serve as the crossroads for many disciplines and, using genomics tools, can bring this knowledge together to better understand and address diet-related chronic diseases and molecular responses to dietary factors.

In recent years, the costs of new drug development have skyrocketed. The average cost of developing a new approved drug is now estimated to be $1.3 billion (DiMasi and Grabowski, 2007). At the same time, each year fewer new molecular entities (NMEs) are approved. DiMasi and Grabowski report that only 21.5 percent of the candidate drugs that enter phase I clinical testing actually make it to market. In 2007, just 17 novel drugs and 2 novel biologics were approved. In addition to the slowing rate of drug development and approval, recent years have seen a number of drugs withdrawn from the market for safety reasons. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 10 drugs were withdrawn because of safety concerns between 2000 and March 2006 (GAO, 2006). Finding ways to select successful drug candidates earlier in development could save millions or even billions of dollars, reduce the costs of drugs on the market, and increase the number of new drugs with improved safety profiles that are available to patients. Emerging scientific knowledge and technologies hold the potential to enhance correct decision making for the advancement of candidate drugs.Identification of safety problems is a key reason that new drug development is stalled. Traditional methods for assessing a drug's safety prior to approval are limited in their ability to detect rare safety problems. Prior to receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, a drug will have been tested in hundreds to thousands of patients. Generally, drugs cannot confidently be linked to safety problems until they have been tested in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. With current methods, it is unlikely that rare safety problems will be identified prior to approval. Emerging Safety Science: Workshop Summary summarizes the events and presentations of the workshop.

On September 22-23, 2009, the National Research Council held a workshop on the field evaluation of behavioral and cognitive sciences--based methods and tools for use in the areas of intelligence and counterintelligence. Broadly speaking, the purpose of the workshop was to discuss the best ways to take methods and tools from behavioral science and apply them to work in intelligence operations. More specifically, the workshop focused on the issue of field evaluation--the testing of these methods and tools in the context in which they will be used in order to determine if they are effective in real-world settings. This book is a summary and synthesis of the two days of presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop. The workshop participants included invited speakers and experts from a number of areas related to the behavioral sciences and the intelligence community. The discussions covered such ground as the obstacles to field evaluation of behavioral science tools and methods, the importance of field evaluation, and various lessons learned from experience with field evaluation in other areas.

Recent years have seen a growing tendency for social scientists to collect biological specimens such as blood, urine, and saliva as part of large-scale household surveys. By combining biological and social data, scientists are opening up new fields of inquiry and are able for the first time to address many new questions and connections. But including biospecimens in social surveys also adds a great deal of complexity and cost to the investigator's task. Along with the usual concerns about informed consent, privacy issues, and the best ways to collect, store, and share data, researchers now face a variety of issues that are much less familiar or that appear in a new light. In particular, collecting and storing human biological materials for use in social science research raises additional legal, ethical, and social issues, as well as practical issues related to the storage, retrieval, and sharing of data.For example, acquiring biological data and linking them to social science databases requires a more complex informed consent process, the development of a biorepository, the establishment of data sharing policies, and the creation of a process for deciding how the data are going to be shared and used for secondary analysis--all of which add cost to a survey and require additional time and attention from the investigators. These issues also are likely to be unfamiliar to social scientists who have not worked with biological specimens in the past. Adding to the attraction of collecting biospecimens but also to the complexity of sharing and protecting the data is the fact that this is an era of incredibly rapid gains in our understanding of complex biological and physiological phenomena. Thus the tradeoffs between the risks and opportunities of expanding access to research data are constantly changing. Conducting Biosocial Surveys offers findings and recommendations concerning the best approaches to the collection, storage, use, and sharing of biospecimens gathered in social science surveys and the digital representations of biological data derived therefrom.It is aimed at researchers interested in carrying out such surveys, their institutions, and their funding agencies.

Sociocultural Data to Accomplish Department of Defense Missions: Toward a Unified Social Framework summarizes presentations and discussions that took place on August 16-17, 2010, at a National Research Council public workshop sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. The workshop addressed the variables and complex interaction of social and cultural factors that influence human behavior, focusing on potential applications to the full spectrum of military operations. The workshop's keynote address by Major General Michael T. Flynn, U.S. Army, provided critical context about the cultural situation and needs of the military operating in Afghanistan. Additional presentations were divided into four panels to address the diverse missions encountered by the U.S. military worldwide. The workshop concluded with a final panel to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different methods of acquiring and using relevant data and knowledge to accomplish these missions.The panel topics and presenters are listed below: * Conflict Is Local: Mapping the Sociocultural Terrain David Kennedy, Hsinchun Chen, and Kerry Patton * Bridging Sociocultural Gaps in Cooperative Relationships Robert Rubinstein, Alan Fiske, and Donal Carbaugh * Building Partner Capacity with Sociocultural Awareness Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and Shinobu Kitayama * The Art of Sociocultural Persuasion Jeanne Brett, James Dillard, and Brant R. Burleson * Tools, Methods, Frameworks, and Models Mark Bevir, Laura A. McNamara, Robert G. Sargent, and Jessica Glicken Turnley

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop on February 4th and 5th, 2021 to review the issues related to safety of passengers and employees in commercial air transportation, for domestic and international travel, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop explored best practices to assess and mitigate COVID-19 transmission risks experienced during the travel chain, from the departure airport entrance to the destination airport exit. The workshop also identified areas where more research is needed to address gaps in understanding. This publication documents the presentations and discussions held during the workshop, and is presented as a synthesis of the workshop.

On July 26, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) with the purpose of soliciting comments on how current regulations for protecting research participants could be modernized and revised. The rationale for revising the regulations was as follows: this ANPRM seeks comment on how to better protect human subjects who are involved in research, while facilitating valuable research and reducing burden, delay, and ambiguity for investigators. The current regulations governing human subjects research were developed years ago when research was predominantly conducted at universities, colleges, and medical institutions, and each study generally took place at only a single site. Although the regulations have been amended over the years, they have not kept pace with the evolving human research enterprise, the proliferation of multisite clinical trials and observational studies, the expansion of health services research, research in the social and behavioral sciences, and research involving databases, the Internet, and biological specimen repositories, and the use of advanced technologies, such as genomics.Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule: Perspectives of Social and Behavioral Scientists: Workshop Summary focuses on six broad topic areas: 1. Evidence on the functioning of the Common Rule and of institutional review boards (IRBs), to provide context for the proposed revisions. 2. The types and levels of risks and harms encountered in social and behavioral sciences, and issues related to the severity and probability of harm, because the ANPRM asks for input on calibration of levels of review to levels of risk. 3. The consent process and special populations, because new rules have been proposed to improve informed consent (e.g., standard consent form, consent for future uses of biospecimens, and re-consenting for further use of existing research data). 4. Issues related to the protection of research participants in studies that involve use of existing data and data sharing, because the ANPRM proposed applying standards for protecting the privacy of healthcare data to research data. 5. Multidisciplinary and multisite studies, because the ANPRM proposed a revision to the regulations that would allow multisite studies to be covered by a single IRB. 6.The purview and roles of IRBs, because the ANPRM included possible revisions to categories of research that could entail changes in IRB oversight.

As an all-volunteer service accepting applications from nearly 400,000 potential recruits annually from across the U.S. population, the U.S. military must accurately and efficiently assess the individual capability of each recruit for the purposes of selection, job classification, and unit assignment. New Directions for Assessing Performance Potential of Individuals and Groups is the summary of a workshop held April 3-4, 2013 to examine the future of military entrance assessments. This workshop was a part of the first phase of a larger study that will investigate cutting-edge research into the measurement of both individual capabilities and group composition in order to identify future research directions that may lead to improved assessment and selection of enlisted personnel for the U.S. Army. The workshop brought together scientists from a variety of relevant areas to focus on cognitive and noncognitive attributes that can be used in the initial testing and assignment of enlisted personnel. This report discusses the evolving goals of candidate testing, emerging constructs and theory, and ethical implications of testing methods.

Liquid fuels are a major part of modern life. They supply energy for ground, water, and air transportation as well as power for industrial and farming machinery. But fossil fuels - the dominant liquid fuel in use for well over a century - have many disadvantages. The use of fossil fuels has obvious health downsides, such as emissions of pollutants that are directly harmful to health. The burning of fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming, itself a long-term threat to human health. There have also been health concerns related to insecurity of liquid fuel supplies and the potential of international conflicts being caused by fuel scarcity. Furthermore, there are concerns that the world's large but still limited supply of fossil fuels could be strained by the increasing demand that results from societies around the world achieving greater prosperity. In the face of these concerns, new policies have been created that encourage the development of renewable sources of energy in general and biofuels in particular.In January 2013, the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine of the Institute of Medicine held a 2- day, interactive, public workshop on the intersection of biofuels, climate change, and human health. Workshop attendees explored public health issues related to the composition of traditional and alternative fuels and fuel additives, and they discussed the known and potential health impacts associated with the use of these fuels and fuel additives. The Nexus of Biofuels, Climate Change, and Human Health is the summary of that workshop. This report examines air, water, land use, food, and social impacts of biomass feedstock as an energy resource, and the state of the science and health policy implications of using different types (and generations) of biofuels as an energy source.

On November 7-8, 2013, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop to discuss approaches related to identifying and reducing potential environmental public health risks to new and existing industrial chemicals present in society. Industrial chemicals include chemicals used in industrial processes or commercial products, not including those found in food, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals. Identifying and Reducing Environmental Health Risks of Chemicals in Our Society is a summary and synthesis of the presentations and discussions that took place during the two days of the workshop. The workshop examined successes and areas for improvement within current regulatory programs for assessing industrial chemical safety, frameworks for chemical prioritization to inform targeted testing and risk management strategies, concepts of sustainability and green chemistry that support the design and use of safer alternatives, and efforts to reduce the risk of chemicals in our society.

On March 19, 2014, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop on the topic of the sharing of data from environmental health research. Experts in the field of environmental health agree that there are benefits to sharing research data, but questions remain regarding how to effectively make these data available. The sharing of data derived from human subjects--making them both transparent and accessible to others--raises a host of ethical, scientific, and process questions that are not always present in other areas of science, such as physics, geology, or chemistry. The workshop participants explored key concerns, principles, and obstacles to the responsible sharing of data used in support of environmental health research and policy making while focusing on protecting the privacy of human subjects and addressing the concerns of the research community. Principles and Obstacles for Sharing Data from Environmental Health Research summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

A particularly valuable opportunity to improve public health arises when an urban area is being redesigned and rebuilt following some type of serious disruption, whether it is caused by a sudden physical event, such as a hurricane or earthquake, or steady economic and social decline that may have occurred over decades. On November 10, 2014, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop concerning the ways in which the urban environment, conceived broadly from factors such as air quality and walkability to factors such as access to fresh foods and social support systems, can affect health. Participants explored the various opportunities to reimagine the built environment in a city and to increase the role of health promotion and protection during the process of urban revitalization. Bringing Public Health into Urban Revitalization summarizes the presentations and discussions from this workshop.

In March 2015, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop to explore the role that chemical exposures may play in the development of obesity. The obesity epidemic that has gripped the United States and much of the developed world for the past several decades has proved remarkably resistant to the various approaches tried by clinicians and public health officials to fight it. This raises the possibility that, in addition to the continued exploration of consumer understanding and behavior, new approaches that go beyond the standard focus on energy intake and expenditure may also be needed to combat the multifactorial problem of obesity. The speakers at the workshop discussed evidence from both studies with animal models and human epidemiological studies that exposure to environmental chemicals is linked both to weight gain and to glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and other aspects of the metabolic syndrome.In addition to conventional environmental chemical exposures, this workshop also included one panel to discuss the potential role of other exposures, including sugar, artificial sweeteners, and antibiotics, in aiding or causing obesity. The participants also examined possible biological pathways and mechanisms underlying the potential linkages. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

As a living substrate, soil is critical to the function of Earth's geophysical and chemical properties. Soil also plays a major role in several human activities, including farming, forestry, and environmental remediation. Optimizing those activities requires a clear understanding of different soils, their function, their composition and structure, and how they change over time and from place to place. Although the importance of soil to Earth's biogeochemical cycles and to human activities is recognized, the current systems in place for monitoring soil properties - including physical, chemical, and, biological characteristics - along with measures of soil loss through erosion, do not provide an accurate picture of changes in the soil resource over time. Such an understanding can only be developed by collecting comprehensive data about soils and the various factors that influence them in a way that can be updated regularly and made available to researchers and others who wish to understand soils and make decisions based on those data.The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened key stakeholders in a workshop on March 2-4, 2021, to discuss the development of a dynamic soil information system. Workshop discussions explored possiblities to dynamically and accurately monitor soil resources nationally with the mutually supporting goals of (1) achieving a better understanding of causal influences on observed changes in soil and interactions of soil cycling of nutrients and gases with earth processes, and (2) providing accessible, useful, and actionable information to land managers and others. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

On November 29-30, 2018, in Washington, D.C., the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held the Workshop on the Continuous Improvement of NASA's Innovation Ecosystem. The workshop was requested by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of the Chief Technologist with the goal of identifying actionable and implementable initiatives that could build on NASA's current innovation culture to reach a future state that will ensure the agency's continued success in the evolving aerospace environment. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

One of the holy grails in biology is the ability to predict functional characteristics from an organism's genetic sequence. Despite decades of research since the first sequencing of an organism in 1995, scientists still do not understand exactly how the information in genes is converted into an organism's phenotype, its physical characteristics. Functional genomics attempts to make use of the vast wealth of data from "-omics" screens and projects to describe gene and protein functions and interactions. A February 2020 workshop was held to determine research needs to advance the field of functional genomics over the next 10-20 years. Speakers and participants discussed goals, strategies, and technical needs to allow functional genomics to contribute to the advancement of basic knowledge and its applications that would benefit society. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Emerging real-time data sources, together with innovative data science techniques and methods - including artificial intelligence and machine learning - can help inform upstream suicide prevention efforts. Select social media platforms have proactively deployed these methods to identify individual platform users at high risk for suicide, and in some cases may activate local law enforcement, if needed, to prevent imminent suicide. To explore the current scope of activities, benefits, and risks of leveraging innovative data science techniques to help inform upstream suicide prevention at the individual and population level, the Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a virtual workshop series consisting of three webinars held on April 28, May 12, and June 30, 2022. This Proceedings highlights presentations and discussions from the workshop.