The use of paleoclimatic simulations to refine the environmental and chronological context of archaeological/paleontological sites

To reconstruct the paleoenvironmental and chronological context of archaeological/paleontological sites is a key step to understand the evolutionary history of past organisms. Commonly used method to infer paleoenvironments rely on varied proxies such as faunal assemblages and isotopes. However, those proxies often show some inconsistencies. Regarding estimated ages of stratigraphic layers, they can vary depending on the dating method used. In this paper, we tested the potential of paleoclimate simulations to address this issue and contribute to the description of the environmental and chronological context of archaeological/paleontological sites. We produced a set of paleoclimate simulations corresponding to the stratigraphy of a Late-Pleistocene Holocene site, El Harhoura 2 (Morocco), and compared the climatic sequence described by these simulations to environmental inferences made from isotopes and faunal assemblages. Our results showed that in the studied site combined US-ESR ages were much more congruent with paleoenvironmental inferences than OSL ages. In addition, climatic variations were found to be more consistent with isotopic studies than faunal assemblages, allowing us to discuss unresolved discrepancies to date. This study illustrates the strong potential of our approach to refine the paleoenvironmental and chronological context of archaeological and paleontological sites.

Fully soft organic electrochemical transistor enabling direct skin-mountable electrophysiological signal amplification

Here, we propose fully soft OECTs with all soft components, including PEDOT:PSS-based soft channel, which shows substantial mechanical/electrical properties. In addition, further demonstrated skin-mountable amplifier implies the strong potential of...

Enhancing the Decision-Making Process through Industry 4.0 Technologies

In order to meet the increasingly complex expectations of customers, many companies must increase efficiency and agility. In this sense, Industry 4.0 technologies offer significant opportunities for improving both operational and decision-making processes. These developments make it possible to consider an increase in the level of operational systems and teams’ autonomy. However, the potential for strengthening the decision-making process by means of these new technologies remains unclear in the current literature. To fill this gap, a Delphi study using the Régnier Abacus technique was conducted with a representative panel of 24 experts. The novelty of this study was to identify and characterize the potential for enhancing the overall decision-making process with the main Industry 4.0 groups of technologies. Our results show that cloud computing appears as a backbone to enhance the entire decision-making process. However, certain technologies, such as IoT and simulation, have a strong potential for only specific steps within the decision-making process. This research also provides a first vision of the manager’s perspectives, expectations, and risks associated with implementing new modes of decision-making and cyber-autonomy supported by Industry 4.0 technologies.

Sovereign States in the Greenhouse: Does Jurisdiction Speak against Consumption- Based Emissions Accounting?

The paper investigates the significance of jurisdiction for the choice of accounting method of greenhouse gases. Making use of the distinction between retrospective and prospective responsibility, it assesses three different arguments from jurisdiction against consumption-based emissions accounting. It argues that one of these arguments, the effectiveness argument, provides a strong potential reason against consumptionbased emissions accounting. To the extent jurisdictional control is needed to reduce some emissions, and production-based accounting incentivizes states to reduce these emissions, there is a reason of environmental effectiveness for sticking with production-based accounting.

Dramaturgical self-efficacy and opportunity structures for white-collar crime

Perceived self-efficacy is often held to be the most focal mechanism of human agency. It has shown strong potential to explain action in multiple areas highly relevant to understanding crime, at least when the concept is formulated in close connection with the conditions that characterize the criminal acts it is supposed to explain. This article introduces the concept in the context of white-collar crime. To advance our understanding of how opportunities for such crime work, self-efficacy is defined with regard to one’s ability to control others’ impression of financially relevant information, or what is called dramaturgical self-efficacy. The presentation of this concept and its various elements is illustrated with contemporary empirical cases of white-collar crime and is preceded by a discussion of how opportunity structures and perceived self-efficacy have been understood in previous research relevant to the field. The article also discusses how the concept can be further developed with regard to the relationship between motivation and opportunity for white-collar crime.

Bound States in the Continuum (BIC) Protected By Self-Sustained Potential Barriers in a Flat Band System

In this work, we investigate the bound states in the continuum (BIC) of a one-dimensional spin-1 flat band system with a potential of type III, which has a unique non-vanishing matrix element in basis |1⟩. It is found that, for such a kind of potential, there exists an effective attractive potential well surrounded by infinitely high self-sustained barriers. Some bound states in the continuum (BIC) can appear for sufficiently strong potential. These bound states (BIC) are protected by the infinitely high potential barriers, which could not decay into the continuum. Taking a long-ranged Coulomb potential and a short-ranged exponential potential as two examples, the bound state energies are obtained. For a Coulomb potential, there exists a series of critical potential strength, near which the bound state energy can goes to infinite. For a sufficiently strong exponential potential, there exists two different bound states with a same number of wave function nodes. The existences of BIC protected by the self-sustained potential barriers is quite a universal phenomenon in the flat band system under a strong potential. A necessary condition for existence of BIC is that the maximum value of potential is larger than two times band gap.

Robot Autonomy vs. Human Autonomy: Social Robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Nature of Autonomy

Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a strong potential for social robots to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future.