Human Identity and COVID-19

This chapter bases itself on the premise that the society that will emerge from this COVID-19 health crisis will inevitably differ from the current one. People have become more vulnerable, and this sense of vulnerability, fragility, and uncertainty has spread throughout society, and is no longer limited to certain social groups. The contemporary idea of security has also collapsed in societies that no longer seem secure, predictable, or under control. This situation of a weakened society is the first paradigm shift, brought forth alongside the notion of identity linked to time, space, and humanity. To that end, we carry out a review of the events which triggered the crisis in Europe and Africa.

Imaging and sensing of pH and chemical state with nuclear-spin-correlated cascade gamma rays via radioactive tracer

Single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron-emission tomography (PET) are highly sensitive molecular detection and imaging techniques that generally measure accumulation of radio-labeled molecules by detecting gamma rays. Quantum sensing of local molecular environment via spin, such as nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers, has also been reported. Here, we describe quantum sensing and imaging using nuclear-spin time-space correlated cascade gamma-rays via a radioactive tracer. Indium-111 (111In) is widely used in SPECT to detect accumulation using a single gamma-ray photon. The time-space distribution of two successive cascade gamma-rays emitted from an 111In atom carries significant information on the chemical and physical state surrounding molecules with double photon coincidence detection. We propose and demonstrate quantum sensing capability of local micro-environment (pH and chelating molecule) in solution along with radioactive tracer accumulation imaging, by using multiple gamma-rays time-and-energy detection. Local molecular environment is extracted through electric quadrupole hyperfine interaction in the intermediate nuclear spin state by the explicit distribution of sub-MeV gamma rays. This work demonstrates a proof of concept, and further work is necessary to increase the sensitivity of the technique for in vivo imaging and to study the effect of scattered radiation for possible application in nuclear medicine.

Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future

Consider a simple idea describing the time, space and relationship scales of survival. Engineering has been going along with the current paradigm that growth in wealth and material consumption can continue through innovation and technology development. The proposed survival continuum concept represents a new way to think about sustainability that has clear implications for influencing engineering projects in all fields. The argument for survival as the driver for adaptation is developed sequentially, building on theory, definition, examples and history. The key idea is that sustainability will be effectively addressed by a new engineering discipline furthering development of the field of safety engineering with longer time scale, broader space scale and more complex relationship scale. The implication is that the past 100-year development of safety engineering can be leveraged to fast-track the inclusion of sustainability risk management throughout the entire engineering profession. The conclusion is that a new, interdisciplinary field, Transition Engineering, is emerging as the way our society will achieve sustainability-safety through rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and reduction in detrimental social and environmental impacts of industrialization.

A Scheme of Selecting Vehicles to Assist Download Based on WebGIS for VANET

The assisted download is an effective method solving the problem that the coverage range is insufficient when Wi-Fi access is used in VANET. For the low utilization of time-space resource within blind area and unbalanced download services in VANET, this paper proposes an approximate global optimum scheme to select vehicle based on WebGIS for assistance download. For WebGIS, this scheme uses a two-dimensional matrix to respectively define the time-space resource and the vehicle selecting behavior, and uses Markov Decision Process to solve the problem of time-space resource allocation within blind area, and utilizes the communication features of VANET to simplify the behavior space of vehicle selection so as to reduce the computing complexity. At the same time, Euclidean Distance(Metric) and Manhattan Distance are used as the basis of vehicle selection by the proposed scheme so that, in the case of possessing the balanced assisted download services, the target vehicles can increase effectively the total amount of user downloads. Experimental results show that because of the wider access range and platform independence of WebGIS, when user is in the case of relatively balanced download services, the total amount of downloads is increased by more than 20%. Moreover, WebGIS usually only needs to use Web browser (sometimes add some plug-ins) on the client side, so the system cost is greatly reduced.

Timing of magmatic-hydrothermal activity in the Variscan Orogenic Belt: LA-ICP-MS U–Pb geochronology of skarn-related garnet from the Schwarzenberg District, Erzgebirge

Here, we present in situ U–Pb laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) ages of andradite-grossular garnet from four magmatic-hydrothermal polymetallic skarn prospects in the Schwarzenberg District, Erzgebirge (Germany), located in the internal zone of the Variscan Orogenic Belt. Within the geochronological framework of igneous rocks and hydrothermal mineralization in the Erzgebirge, the obtained garnet ages define three distinct episodes of Variscan skarn formation: (I) early late-collisional mineralization (338–331 Ma) recording the onset of magmatic-hydrothermal fluid flow shortly after the peak metamorphic event, (II) late-collisional mineralization (~ 327–310 Ma) related to the emplacement of large peraluminous granites following large-scale extension caused by orogenic collapse and (III) post-collisional mineralization (~ 310–295 Ma) contemporaneous with widespread volcanism associated with Permian crustal reorganization. Our results demonstrate that the formation of skarns in the Schwarzenberg District occurred episodically in all sub-stages of the Variscan orogenic cycle over a time range of at least 40 Ma. This observation is consistent with the age range of available geochronological data related to magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits from other internal zones of the Variscan Orogenic Belt in central and western Europe. In analogy to the time–space relationship of major porphyry-Cu belts in South America, the congruent magmatic-hydrothermal evolution in the internal zones and the distinctly later (by ~ 30 Ma) occurrence of magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits in the external zones of the Variscan Orogenic Belt may be interpreted as a function of their tectonic position relative to the Variscan collisional front.

Seismic Source Processes of 25 Earthquakes (Mw>5) in the Gulf of California

ABSTRACT The Gulf of California (GoC) is a complex tectonic boundary that has been instrumented in the past several decades to record broadband seismograms. This volume of data has allowed us to study several source parameters systematically. Before, only a few source parameters of earthquakes greater than magnitude five had been studied in the GoC area. We re-examined the focal mechanisms of several earthquakes in the southern GoC that occurred over the last 20 yr using local–regional distance broadband seismograms. These focal mechanisms were then used as input data to retrieve the time–space history of the rupture for each earthquake. This work contributes to the study of 25 rupture-process models computed with the method proposed by Yagi et al. (1999). To investigate more about the nature of the seismicity in the GoC, we also calculated the non-double-couple component of moment tensors for 45 earthquakes. Previous studies (e.g., Ortega et al., 2013, 2016) have shown that non-double-couple components from moment tensors in this region are associated with complex faulting, suggesting that oblique faults or several parallel faults are interacting simultaneously. Our results show that, at least for moderate earthquakes (5 < M < 6), rupture processes in the GoC show a complex interaction between fault systems. It is revealed on the important contribution of non-double-couple component obtained in the full moment tensor analysis.

Photometric Classification of Early-time Supernova Light Curves with SCONE

In this work, we present classification results on early supernova light curves from SCONE, a photometric classifier that uses convolutional neural networks to categorize supernovae (SNe) by type using light-curve data. SCONE is able to identify SN types from light curves at any stage, from the night of initial alert to the end of their lifetimes. Simulated LSST SNe light curves were truncated at 0, 5, 15, 25, and 50 days after the trigger date and used to train Gaussian processes in wavelength and time space to produce wavelength–time heatmaps. SCONE uses these heatmaps to perform six-way classification between SN types Ia, II, Ibc, Ia-91bg, Iax, and SLSN-I. SCONE is able to perform classification with or without redshift, but we show that incorporating redshift information improves performance at each epoch. SCONE achieved 75% overall accuracy at the date of trigger (60% without redshift), and 89% accuracy 50 days after trigger (82% without redshift). SCONE was also tested on bright subsets of SNe (r < 20 mag) and produced 91% accuracy at the date of trigger (83% without redshift) and 95% five days after trigger (94.7% without redshift). SCONE is the first application of convolutional neural networks to the early-time photometric transient classification problem. All of the data processing and model code developed for this paper can be found in the SCONE software package 1 1 github.com/helenqu/scone located at github.com/helenqu/scone (Qu 2021).

Simultaneous Inversion of Layered Velocity and Density Profiles Using Direct Waveform Inversion (DWI): 1D Case

To better interpret the subsurface structures and characterize the reservoir, a depth model quantifying P-wave velocity together with additional rock’s physical parameters such as density, the S-wave velocity, and anisotropy is always preferred by geologists and engineers. Tradeoffs among different parameters can bring extra challenges to the seismic inversion process. In this study, we propose and test the Direct Waveform Inversion (DWI) scheme to simultaneously invert for 1D layered velocity and density profiles, using reflection seismic waveforms recorded on the surface. The recorded data includes primary reflections and interbed multiples. DWI is implemented in the time-space domain then followed by a wavefield extrapolation to downward continue the source and receiver. By explicitly enforcing the wavefield time-space causality, DWI can recursively determine the subsurface seismic structure in a local layer-by-layer fashion for both sharp interfaces and the properties of the layers, from shallow to deep depths. DWI is different from the layer stripping methods in the frequency domain. By not requiring a global initial model, DWI also avoids many nonlinear optimization problems, such as the local minima or the need for an accurate initial model in most waveform inversion schemes. Two numerical tests show the validity of this DWI scheme serving as a new strategy for multi-parameter seismic inversion.

Time-space-direction Extension TRIZ Innovation Model for Product Innovation

In order to solve the problem that college students are prone to thinking set and direction deviation in the process of innovation practice. TRIZ (Latin abbreviation of "Teoriya Resheniya Izoblatelskikh Zadatch", which means theory of the solution of innovative problems) is extended and matched with the meta conditional features or quantities of the three dimensions of TSD (time, space and direction) of the problem. In this paper, TRIZ-TSD extension problem solving model is proposed to find compatible solutions. TRIZ-TSD extension problem solving model expands the available resources of the original TRIZ analysis tools, strengthens the interaction between the analysis tools, and makes it more suitable for beginners to use in practical innovation. Taking the university student innovation award-winning project "the intelligent wall planting system" as an example, the basic process and practical effect of TRIZ-TSD fusion innovation model in solving specific problems are verified. The basic principle and thinking mode of this method is not only limited to the practice of College Students’ innovation projects, but also has certain reference value for solving problems in other fields.