SARS-CoV-2 Inactivation Simulation Using 14 MeV Neutron Irradiation

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is deadly, contagious, can cause COVID-19 disease, and endangers public health and safety. The development of SARS-CoV-2 inactivation technology is crucial and imminent in current pandemic period. Neutron radiation is usually used to sterilize viruses because neutron radiation is 10 times more effective than gamma-rays in inactivating viruses. In this work we established a closed SARS-CoV-2 inactivation container model by the Monte Carlo method and simulated the inactivation performance by using several different neutrons sources. To study the effects of inactivation container factors, including the reflector thickness, the type of the reflector material, the SARS-CoV-2 layer area and the distance from the radiation source on the energy deposition of a single neutron particle in SARS-CoV-2 sample, we simulated the neutron energy deposition on a SARS-CoV-2 sample. The simulation results indicate that the saturated thicknesses of reflector materials for graphite, water and paraffin are approximately 30 cm, 15 cm, and 10 cm, respectively, and the energy deposition (radiation dose) becomes larger when the SARS-CoV-2 layer area is smaller and the SARS-CoV-2 layer is placed closer to the neutron source. The calculated single-neutron energy deposition on 10 × 10 cm2 SARS-CoV-2 layer is about 3.0059 × 10−4 MeV/g with graphite as the reflection layer, when the 14 MeV neutron source intensity is 1012 n/s and the SARS-CoV-2 layer is 5 cm away from the neutron source. If the lethal dose of SARS-CoV-2 is assumed as the IAEA recommended reference dose, 25 kGy, the SARS-CoV-2 could be decontaminated in about 87 min, and the sterilization time could be less than 52s if the 14 MeV neutron intensity is increased to 1014 n/s.

Pregnant Females as Historical Individuals: An Insight From the Philosophy of Evo-Devo

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a new historical individual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions.

The Container Model of Society as a Research Paradigm

The article deals with the container model of society (CMS) which has been used for a long time in disciplines dealing with the study of society, the processes of its development and change. The term CMS was introduced into the scientific circulation of foreign social sciences and humanities about twenty years ago, but it is not yet widely known in the Russian social studies. The article traces the history of the formation of the KMO and its introduction into the research apparatus of foreign social and humanitarian works, provides an overview of the monograph by U. Beck, as well as the article by N. Glik Schiller and A. Wimmer. The CMS is based on the view of society as a set of closed social groups that are “containers”. Hitherto CMS has been used as the methodological tool, which allowed reconsidering the old approaches and the concepts formed in the social and migrant studies. However, the fact that not only scientists, but also ordinary members of the community, were inclined to systematize social reality like the puzzle of the homogeneous “containers”, was out of the re­searchers’ attention. The main peculiarity of the modern situation around CMS consists in the circumstance that CMS is reproducing itself permanently in the common discourses, in the various confrontations and conflicts. The arti­cle’s authors try to show not just the methodological, but also the theoretical pos­sibilities of CMS for the social studies in Russia. In view of the principles, which the individuals use to identify themselves and others, the socio-humanitarian studies are capable to get a fundamentally new approach toward the analysis of the social field of the human existence as well as to diverge from the method­ological dogmatism in the field of the social sciences.

Finite Element Method for Thermal Design of Radioactive Material Transport Packages

In this paper, a simplified typical radioactive material transport container model is used to change the thickness of the container insulation layer and the thickness of the heat sink respectively. The finite element method is used to simulate the heat transfer, and a quantitative optimization of the heat transfer performance of the radioactive material transport container is given.

A Vertex-Aligned Model for Packing 4-Hexagonal Clusters in a Regular Hexagonal Container

This paper deals with a problem the packing polyhex clusters in a regular hexagonal container. It is a common problem in many applications with various cluster shapes used, but symmetric polyhex is the most useful in engineering due to its geometrical properties. Hence, we concentrate on mathematical modeling in such an application, where using the “bee” tetrahex is chosen for the new Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) design upgrade, which is one of four detectors used in Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). We start from the existing hexagonal containers with hexagonal cells packed inside, and uniform clustering applied. We compare the center-aligned (CA) and vertex-aligned (VA) models, analyzing cluster rotations providing the increased packing efficiency. We formally describe the geometrical properties of clustering approaches and show that cluster sharing is inevitable at the container border with uniform clustering. In addition, we propose a new vertex-aligned model decreasing the number of shared clusters in the uniform scenario, but with a smaller number of clusters contained inside the container. Also, we describe a non-uniform tetrahex cluster packing scheme in the proposed container model. With the proposed cluster packing solution, it is accomplished that all clusters are contained inside the container region. Since cluster-sharing is completely avoided at the container border, the maximal packing efficiency is obtained compared to the existing models.

Experimental Study of Dam-Break-Like Tsunami Bore Impact Mechanism on a Container Model

Tsunami disasters have frequently occurred in recent years. More and more researchers are focusing on this topic. To investi-gate the tsunami bore impact mechanism on a container model, a multi-functional slope-changing tsunami flume is built in this study. To simulate a tsunami bore, a dam-break wave was generated by a free-falling gate in a reservoir. A needle water level gauge and a high-speed camera were used to measure the tsunami wave heights and velocities for different storage water levels in the test flume, and the corresponding Froude numbers of tsunami waves were also calculated. The factors af-fecting the movement distance of the tsunami wave impacting the container model are explored in this experiment, and the results show that the movement distance is positively correlated with the storage water level, and negatively correlated with the container density and the coast slope.

КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНА МЕТАФОРА ЯК ЗАСІБ РЕАЛІЗАЦІЇ КОНЦЕПТУ SELF-ALIENATION / САМОВІДЧУЖЕННЯ В АНГЛОМОВНОМУ НАУКОВО-ФАНТАСТИЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

The article deals with the investigation of conceptual metaphors as a means of realizing SELF-ALIENATION concept in the English science fiction. The study is based on the conceptual metaphor theory which states that metaphors incorporate thought, language and speech (Lakoff &Johnson, 2003). Conceptual metaphor modelling appears to be productive to analyze the structure of metaphors, since it is based on the interrelation between source and target domains and their mapping. SELF-ALIENATION concept is characterized by the range of conceptual metaphor models, among which SELF IS CONTAINER, SELF IS DISCLOSURE, SELF IS LIQUID and SELF IS DIGITAL UNIT are most frequently used in the English science fiction. SELF IS CONTAINER model is represented by the lexemes ‘personality’, ‘body’, ‘identity’ and ‘individuality’ which best represent the essence of the SELF-ALIENATION concept revealing implicit author’s intentions.

The Transnationalization of Public Spheres and Global Policy

The globalized spheres of digital communication require a substantial revision of conventional conceptions of ‘the public sphere’. This article lays out the core strands of such a new debate by identifying the limitations of traditional public sphere approaches which are caused by the boundedness of the foci on the national ‘container’ model associated with the European nation state. Instead of limiting publicness to national boundaries, new approaches are required to understand the new discursive spheres of connectivity of citizens across all society types, today enabled by digital communication. Such an approach is necessary to map out the new dimension of public discourse. The article concludes with the suggestion of a model of publicness understood as ‘reflective interdependence’ connecting citizens across societies.