What else? The Standard Model answers all our questions about high-energy physics. At the time of writing of this book, there was no evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. The predicted values of all observables are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data; only few of them show some tension (that is, a discrepancy of more than three standard deviations) in the global fit.

This chapter focuses on how to create Big Datasets by thinking like a data scientist. It begins by discussing examples of impactful open access datasets. It then teaches the reader the basics of data scraping to allow them to create their own datasets, including an introduction to client-side web coding. The chapter concludes with discussion on the ethical questions around data scraping, and current practices in Open Science to make your datasets publicly available.

In this and the following chapter we explore the importance of context for social work practice. Ife et al. suggest that context is vital because it impacts on how social workers understand the issues they are working with and how they will respond. Social work does not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, we focus on a number of powerful social forces that shape our social contexts. These consist of far-reaching (sometimes global) social structures and discourses. Social structures, as noted in Chapter 1, are the enduring social patterns, divisions and institutional arrangements that can give rise to inequality and harm. Discourses, on the other hand, are sets of ideas or language about a particular topic with shared meanings and assumptions that reflect and reinforce particular power relations. In other words, discourses are never neutral descriptions of reality, but actively justify certain asymmetric social structures; in turn, these structures promote discourses favourable to their maintenance.

This chapter will introduce you to some of the key formal social work theories that underpin practice. We begin with the individualistic and systems-based theories that originated in psychology and conservative sociology respectively. As was evident in Chapter 5 on the history of social work, these establishment theories generally dominated social work before the emergence of critical social work theories. We then shift our attention to the development of critical theories, such as Marxist, radical, structural, feminist and anti-oppressive perspectives that aim for social justice and autonomy, and discuss the more recent contribution of poststructural and queer theories to the evolution of critical theories and to critical social work. The newer critical theories developed out of critiques of the older establishment theories, so it is necessary to have some familiarity with the principles of both. Finally, we draw on research with our first-year students to demonstrate the application of theory in relation to a case study.

Rivers and their valleys have long been a source of contemplation and wonder. They are not only key geomorphic agents, but they are also economically important, acting as transportation arteries, sources of irrigation water and food, and as generators of hydropower. We also use rivers for drinking, waste disposal, and for a variety of recreational activities. Many geomorphologists consider running water to be the most dominant and important geomorphic process – shaping landscapes everywhere. Even in deserts, running water is often the most important and widespread geomorphic agent.

Most valleys have a stream or a river at their bottom. In ancient days, it was thought that water simply “found” its way into preexisting valleys, forming rivers there. Geomorphologists now know that most valleys were formed by the rivers currently within them, which moved sediment out and carved the valley over time.

This chapter first describes how we measure data, and how its creation has skyrocketed in recent years. We then define Big Data and psychology for the purposes of the book, and motivate why their intersection is important to study. The chapter ends with a guide to how to use the book, and brief summaries of the upcoming chapters.

Arches, hoodoos, buttes, mesas … these are the picturesque landforms that most tourists and landscape-lovers know about, and which are the focus of many parks and recreation areas. All of these landforms are bedrock-controlled, with rock at or immediately beneath the surface. This chapter introduces a wide array of bedrock-controlled landforms. Most have formed on sedimentary rock, the most common rock in Earth’s upper crust. Thus, much of the focus in this chapter will be on landforms developed on flat-lying bedrock strata (layers) that have experienced minimal tectonic disturbance throughout their history. Chapters 9 and 10 focus on bedrock-controlled landforms formed on much more tectonically active landscapes.

Weathering is central to geomorphology; without it, landforms would not exist. Weathering sculpts rocks and landscapes at all scales, from producing tiny pits on rock surfaces to forming large valleys. It is everywhere.

However, weathering does not work alone. Instead, it operates alongside other surficial processes to produce the landscapes we see around us. Weathering is often defined as the in situ (meaning “in position”) breakdown of rocks and minerals. It is distinct from erosion, which involves the removal and transport of material, usually downslope. Often, weathering preconditions rocks for erosion by making them weaker and less coherent. Together, weathering and erosion operate to form landforms via denudation – the overall lowering of the land surface.

The theory called the Standard Model represents the state of the art of our understanding of the physics of elementary particles and their interactions. It is, as explained in the following chapters, a gauge theory, that is, a theory in which the interactions among the matter constituents are determined by gauge invariance and carried by gauge bosons. Everything else in physics (except perhaps gravitational phenomena at very high energies), as well as everything in the Universe, from chemistry to biology, is but an application (admittedly, very convoluted in most cases) of this model.