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Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. No matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers in even layers, adapting to the contours of things and marking the passage of time. In itself, it is also a gathering place, a random community of what has been and what is yet to be, a catalog of traces and a set of promises: dead skin cells and plant pollen, hair and paper fibers, not to mention dust mites who make it their home. And so, dust blurs the boundaries between the living and the dead, plant and animal matter, the inside and the outside, you and the world (“for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”). This book treats one of the most mundane and familiar phenomena, showing how it can provide a key to thinking about existence, community, and justice today.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Combining history and science, a sweeping look at the smallest substance and the biggest challenges facing people and the planet Four and a half billion years ago, planet Earth was formed from a vast spinning nebula of cosmic dust, the detritus left over from the birth of the sun. Within the next one hundred years, life on Earth would be profoundly changed by heat, drought, fire, and, again, dust. Dust is a legacy of twentieth-century progress and a toxic threat to life in the changing climate of the twenty-first. And yet dust is something we hardly ever consider—so small and mundane. Jay Owens's Dust corrects that oversight, sparking curiosity and wonder. This is a book on humanity and Earth and what we've done to it. Dust moves from the suburbs of a thirsty Los Angeles to Oklahoma and its Dust Bowl migrants, and the desert Southwest where nuclear testing created radioactive fallout that spread across America. Owens visits the desiccated remains of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, the Greenland Ice Sheet, and beyond. Smart and beautifully written, Dust helps us understand our legacy and the challenges we face, building big ideas from the smallest particles.

An accurate and complete characterization of the solid pollutants in air, taking into account the physio-chemical and technological data available concerning the origin, transformation, and the effects of dust, is a synoptic approach known as SISintegrated dust analysis and is the underlying concept of this book.

In the field of industrial ventilation and air quality, a lack of adequate analysis for aerodynamic processes, as well as a shortage of properly equipped computer facilities, has forced specialists to rely on an empirical approach to find answers in the past. Commonly based on crude models, practical data, or countertypes, the answers often offered

In this book, the authors present current research in the study of the sources, environmental concerns and control of dust. Topics discussed in this compilation include the characterization of heavy metals content in attic dust from copper ore and ferronickel smelter processing plants in Macedonia; dust control in the mining industry of Australia; the health and environmental effects of dust storms in the Arabian Peninsula; dust fallout and its potential hazard on public health in Kuwait; photochemical and climate implications of airborne dust and assessing the quality of the urban environment by the elemental concentrations of foliage dust.

ties on adhesion (Chapter V); and the detachment of particles by an air stream (Chapter X). The other chapters have undergone substantial revision: New material has been introduced, and topics such as autohesion, wetting, film ad­ hesion, and surface washing have been eliminated. The expansion of research on adhesive interaction has led to many joint endeavors with students and followers; the author gives special thanks to G. A. Serebryakov, K. A. Lazarev, E. I. Andrianov, E. I. Dergunov, and E. A. Ronginskii. Many years of creative cooperation bind the author to the staff of the Omsk Branch of the Frunze Polytechnic Institute, headed by Zh. T. Tekenov, Candidate of Physico mathematical Sciences. The author thanks Professor G.1. Fuks, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, for his help in the preparation of the first and second editions of this monograph; his constructive criticism and gracious assistance have raised the level of quality of the material set forth here. In the preparation of this book, as in all the previous books, inestimable help has been given by my wife, Antonina Alekseevna Zimon, without whose participation it would have been unthinkable to carry out such a volume of work.

Arthur McIvor and Ronald Johnston explore the experience of coal miners'lung diseases and the attempts at voluntary and legal control of dusty conditions in British mining from the late nineteenth century to the present. In this way, the book addresses the important issues of occupational health and safety within the mining industry; issues that have been severely neglected in studies of health and safety in general. The authors examine the prevalent diseases, notably pneumoconiosis, emphysema and bronchitis, and evaluate the roles of key players such as the doctors, management and employers, the state and the trade unions. Throughout the book, the integration of oral testimony helps to elucidate the attitudes of workers and victims of disease, their'machismo'work culture and socialisation to very high levels of risk on the job, as well as how and why ideas and health mentalities changed over time. This research, taken together with extensive archive material, provides a unique perspective on the nature of work, industrial relations, the meaning of masculinity in the workplace and the wider social impact of industrial disease, disability and death. The effects of contracting dust disease are shown to result invariably in seriously prescribed lifestyles and encroaching isolation. The book will appeal to those working on the history of medicine, industrial relations, social history and business history as well as labour history.

The Annals of Occupational Hygiene: Inhaled Particles V emphasizes respired particles, particularly their effects, fate, and entry, by considering quantitative exposure-effect relationships and basic mechanisms. Divided into eight sections, the book presents analysis of the dynamics of particles that enter the mouth or nose, which has been considered relative to hygiene standards grounded on'total dust'. The concerns include the retention of mineral fibers and asbestos in the lungs. The effects on health of coal dusts and fly ash generally common in the energy industries are considered. The text also presents the tests of the carcinogenicity and pathogenicity of dusts and the toxicity of nitrous oxides. The book then focuses on the response of the airways to aerosols, sulfates, gold mine dusts, and organic dusts. Coal mining and its relationship with the progression of pneumoconiosis are also discussed. The book is a great source of information for those who are doing studies in the field of occupational health, particularly on the effects of dust and other related particles on the health of workers.

Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits explores the entrainment, dispersion, and deposition of aeolian dust and dust deposits, with emphasis on transport and deposition of dust derived by deflation of surface sediments and soils. Topics covered range from the mechanisms of fine-particle formation to dust sources, sinks, and rates of deposition. Dust-transporting wind systems are also discussed, along with the grain size, mineralogy, and chemical composition of aeolian dust. Comprised of nine chapters, this book begins with an overview of the general nature and significance of windborne dust as well as the importance of aeolian dust and loess. The next chapter deals with the mechanisms underlying the formation of fine particles, including glacial grinding, frost and salt weathering, and fluvial comminution. The reader is then introduced to dust entrainment, transport, and deposition, together with dust sources, sinks, and rates of deposition. Subsequent chapters focus on the implications of dust deflation, transport, and deposition; dust deposition in the oceans; and loess distribution and the thickness and morphology of loess deposits. This monograph is written primarily for research workers and advanced students in sedimentology, geomorphology, and Quaternary studies, but is also likely to be of value to soil scientists, meteorologists, planetary geologists, engineers, and others concerned with environmental management.