Anthropogenic Cycles of the Elements: A Critical Review
Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2012 papers
Abstract
A cycle is the quantitative characterization of the flows of a specific material into, within, and from a given system. An anthropogenic elemental cycle can be static (for a point in time) or dynamic (over a time interval). The about 350 publications collected for this review contain a total of 1074 individual cycle determinations, 989 static and 85 dynamic, for 59 elements; more than 90% of the publications have appeared since 2000. The cycles are of varying quality and completeness, with about 80% at country- or territory-level, addressing 45 elements, and 5% at global-level, addressing 30 elements. Despite their limitations, cycles have often been successful in revealing otherwise unknown information. Most of the elements for which no cycles exist are radioactively unstable or are used rarely and in small amounts. For a variety of reasons, the anthropogenic cycles of only perhaps a dozen elements are well characterized. For all the others, with cycles limited or nonexistent, our knowledge of types of uses, lifetimes in those uses, international trade, losses to the environment, and rates of recycling is quite limited, thereby making attempts to evaluate resource sustainability particularly problematic.
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- → PRICES AND WAGES IN ENGLAND which by their level of prices fit a dozen of 12 and exclude a dozen of 20. Thus in 1400 there are two purchases of 1 doz. for 1s. 5d. and of 11 skins for 1s. 5d. In 1426 there are three purchases of 2 doz. for 5s., of 1 doz. for 3s., and of 6 for 1s. 4d. In 1466 3 skins for 8 1/2d. (i.e. 2.83d. each) compare with 2 doz. and 3 bought for 5s. 6d. in 1464 and 5 doz. and 10 bought for 12s. 6 1/2d. in 1465 ; with the dozen taken as 12, the price per unit of the small purchase in 1466 is higher than the price per unit in 1465 though not unreasonably higher, but would be out of all proportion with the dozen as 20. In 1568 purchases of 3 for 1s. and 18 for 6s. give a price of 4s. for 12 which is the price “ per dozen ” in each of the preceding five years 1563–67. After 1584 practically all purchases are by number, but all the few entries by the dozen by their price level fit a dozen of 12 and practically exclude one of 20. Acceptance of the exceptional entries of 1531 and 1533 as correctly recorded would mean, therefore, that, in a nearly continuous record, dozen changed from meaning 12 to meaning 20 and back again without any note of any kind in the record itself, and that for these two years or their surrounding decades dozen had a meaning in relation to parchment of which there is no trace in any other institution or in any of the material collected by Thorold Rogers. It is simpler to assume that the scribe in 1531 and 1533 made a slip in writing 4 score for 4 doz. and this assumption is made in tabulating the prices by the dozen and treating the dozen throughout as 12. It should be added that in 1579 a purchase is recorded of 5 doz. and 10 for 33s. 2d. at 6s. per doz. Since this occurs between and close to years when the dozen is certainly 12 (1568 and 1584), it may be another illustration of error in writing 1/2 score for 1/2 doz. This entry is discarded in tabulation as there is another straightforward entry at 6s. per doz. in the same year. The entries of 1531 and 1533 are tabulated with a warning. From 1646 two levels of price are apparent, the higher prices being specified as for large or great skins from 1675 to 1678. Occasionally three different prices occur in one year, presumably at times of changing prices, and it is sometimes difficult to decide whether the middle price belongs to the lower or to the higher level (1667 9s., 11s. and