Proceedings American Philosophical Society Vol 129 No 4 1985

When the German chemist Emil Fischer presented his lock-and-key hypothesis in 1899, his analogy to describe the molecular relationship between enzymes and substrates quickly gained vast influence and provided future generations of scientists with a tool to investigate the relation between chemical structure and biological specificity. Rebecca Mertens explains the appeal of the lock-and-key analogy by its role in model building and in the construction of long-term, cross-generational research programs. She argues that a crucial feature of these research programs, namely ascertaining the continuity of core ideas and concepts, is provided by a certain way of analogy-based modelling.

Contrary to common intuition that all digits should occur randomly with equal chances in real data, empirical examinations consistently show that not all digits are created equal, but rather that low digits such as {1, 2, 3} occur much more frequently than high digits such as {7, 8, 9} in almost all data types, such as those relating to geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and engineering, as well as in accounting, financial, econometrics, and demographics data sets. This intriguing digital phenomenon is known as Benford's Law. This book gives a comprehensive and in-depth account of all the theoretical aspects, results, causes and explanations of Benford's Law, with a strong emphasis on the connection to real-life data and the physical manifestation of the law. In addition to such a bird's eye view of the digital phenomenon, the conceptual distinctions between digits, numbers, and quantities are explored; leading to the key finding that the phenomenon is actually quantitative in nature; originating from the fact that in extreme generality, nature creates many small quantities but very few big quantities, corroborating the motto "small is beautiful", and that therefore all this is applicable just as well to data written in the ancient Roman, Mayan, Egyptian, and other digit-less civilizations. Fraudsters are typically not aware of this digital pattern and tend to invent numbers with approximately equal digital frequencies. The digital analyst can easily check reported data for compliance with this digital law, enabling the detection of tax evasion, Ponzi schemes, and other financial scams. The forensic fraud detection section in this book is written in a very concise and reader-friendly style; gathering all known methods and standards in the accounting and auditing industry; summarizing and fusing them into a singular coherent whole; and can be understood without deep knowledge in statistical theory or advanced mathematics. In addition, a digital algorithm is presented, enabling the auditor to detect fraud even when the sophisticated cheater is aware of the law and invents numbers accordingly. The algorithm employs a subtle inner digital pattern within the Benford's pattern itself. This newly discovered pattern is deemed to be nearly universal, being even more prevalent than the Benford phenomenon, as it is found in all random data sets, Benford as well as non-Benford types. Contents:Benford's LawForensic Digital AnalysisFraud DetectionData Compliance TestsConceptual and Mathematical FoundationsBenford's Law in the Physical SciencesTopics in Benford's LawThe Law of Relative Quantities Readership: Professionals, researchers and serious students of financial and data analysis, forensic accounting, fraud investigation, auditing, mathematics and probability and statistics. Key Features:The book is a concise account of practical applications of the phenomenon of fraud detection and it corrects several errors committed in the field where mistaken applications are usedThe perceptive reader interested in knowing about the use of this digital law in fraud detection, would be able to learn about it with a minimal amount of effort and time, without searching through literally hundreds of various small articles on the topicThe book provides numerous new theoretical points-of-view of the phenomenon, new methods for testing data for compliance, and fuses many different aspects of the law into a singular explanationKeywords:Benford's Law;Digits;Quantities;Relative Quantities;Numbers;Fraud;Fraud Detection;Data;Data Analysis;Forensic Analysis;Pattern;Physics;Chemistry;Geology;Astronomy

Erasmus advised readers to learn quotations by heart and copy them everywhere: write them in the front and back of books; inscribe them on rings and cups; paint them on doors and walls, ?even on the glass of a window.? Emerson noted that ?in Europe, every church is a kind of book or bible, so covered is it with inscriptions and pictures.? In Arabic script as tall as a man, the Koran is quoted on the walls and domes of mosques. ø We quote to admire, provoke, commemorate, dispute, play, and inspire. Quotations signal class, club, clique, and alma mater. They animate wit, relay prophecies, guide meditation, and accessorize fashion. ø In Quotology Willis Goth Regier draws on world literature and contemporary events to show how vital quotations are, how they are collected and organized, and how deceptive they can be. He probes all these aspects, identifying fifty-nine types of quotations, including misquotations and anonymous sayings. Following the logic of quotology, Quotology concludes with famous last words.

Antebellum American Pendant Paintings: New Ways of Looking marks the first sustained study of pendant paintings: discrete images designed as a pair. It opens with a broad overview that anchors the form in the medieval diptych, religious history, and aesthetic theory and explores its cultural and historical resonance in the 19th-century United States. Three case studies examine how antebellum American artists used the pendant format in ways revelatory of their historical moment and the aesthetic and cultural developments in which they partook. The case studies on John Quidor’s Rip Van Winkle and His Companions at the Inn Door of Nicholas Vedder (1839) and The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1849) and Thomas Cole’s Departure and Return (1837) shed new light on canonical antebellum American artists and their practices. The chapter on Titian Ramsay Peale’s Kilauea by Day and Kilauea by Night (1842) presents new material that pushes the geographical boundaries of American art studies toward the Pacific Rim. The book contributes to American art history the study of a characteristic but as yet overlooked format and models for the discipline a new and productive framework of analysis focused on the fundamental yet complex way images work back and forth with one another.

Throughout history, kings and emperors have promised “freedoms” to their people. Yet these freedoms were really only permissions handed down from on high. The American Revolution inaugurated a new vision: people have basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and government must ask permission from them. Sadly, today’s increasingly bureaucratic society is beginning to turn back the clock and to transform America into a nation where our freedoms—the right to speak freely, to earn a living, to own a gun, to use private property, even the right to take medicine to save one’s own life—are again treated as privileges the government may grant or withhold at will. Timothy Sandefur examines the history of the distinction between rights and privileges that played such an important role in the American experiment, and how we can fight to retain our freedoms against the growing power of government. Illustrated with dozens of real-life examples—including many cases he litigated himself—Sandefur shows how treating freedoms as government-created privileges undermines our Constitution and betrays the basic principles of human dignity.