Conceivable Future Research Articles

Coal structure evaluation and morphological properties that affect the coal usage in industries

AbstractThe contemporary research article is central to understanding coal structure evaluation and the morphological development impacting its utilization in different applications. Through Mineral Liberation Analysis (MLA) designs high content phyllosilicates minerals and swelling clay minerals were rationalized to provides a novel insight into enhanced coal beneficiation and the benefits of coal by-product re-utilization progressions that encourage safer environments and economic sustainability. This work commences with collection of five (5) different coal samples from the central district region in Botswana, sample characterization deploying Thermogravimetric coal analysis (TGA), x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI) test that was directed to quantification of the coal hardness and fracture toughness during milling. The cumulative objective was to understand the correlation that exists between the natural composition of the coal sample and their adaptation and application in various carbonaceous products. A solid connection was thus identified in the sulfur and phosphorus weight percentage inclusions in all the coal materials hence higher significance in sphalerite mineral phases (Zn, Fe) S critically increased the fracture toughness and hardness properties. Moreover, mineral amalgams intrinsic to the coal maceral such as aluminum oxides (Al2O3), silicate (SiO2), calcites (CaO), Iron oxide (Fe2O3), potassium feldspars (K − AlSi3O8), albite (Na − AlSi3O8), and anorthite (Ca − Al2Si2O8) compounds in alkali feldspars were detected in larger quantities. The coal industry has attracted much industrial attention to manufacturing foundations producing cement, ceramic tiles, paving bricks, and material synthesis and will continue to supply other economic sectors in the conceivable future. Graphical Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AS A COPING TOOL IN PANDEMIC: LEARNINGS FROM THE PRESENT, SUGGESTIONS FOR THE NEXT

Due to social conventions that encourage social isolation and widespread lockdowns, the Covid-19 pandemic had inevitably resulted in a rise in the usage of digital devices. Worldwide, individuals and organisations have had to adapt to new ways of living and working. We examine potential outcomes of the digital upsurge and the related research problems. Organizations and educational institutions are converting to work-from-home policies as a result of increased digitalization (WFH). Blockchain technology will grow in importance, necessitating design and regulatory studies. The number of contract workers and the collaborative economy is anticipated to grow, raising issues with how work is distributed, how people collaborate, how people are motivated, and how work overload and reduced absenteeism are affected. With more people online, issues like workplace surveillance and technostress will surface. The effects and causes of the digital literacy may be studied. Internet freedom and zero-rating proposals will also necessitate study. The impact and repercussions of internet shutdowns, which are often used by nations, will also be a major research topic. In times of crisis, electronic money also takes relevance; research will be done on its acceptance, effects, and manner. With more people using the internet, privacy and espionage issues are becoming more important. In light of this, we anticipate that information systems will be used in a similar manner for a while into the conceivable future as they were during the lockdown. Our evaluation of these effects is predicated on the idea that, prior to the pandemic, a digital transformation was already in progress, and that, as a result of the lockdowns, it will take certain shapes. Lockdowns had resulted in an increase in the use of networks and information systems, as well as substantial changes in usage patterns and attitude. The alterations also came quickly, giving organisations and people little opportunity to plan, get ready, and put new configurations and arrangements in place. We look at various situations the increase in information technology pre-& post pandemic.

Japan’s death-laden society: Five areas of prospective policy challenges

Today, Japan stands as the world’s leading super-aged society. In the coming decade, preceding the rest of the aging globe, the country will phase into the next demographic stage called a “death-laden” society. Due in part to the aging and prospective mortality of the country’s two major baby boom generations along with a projected decline in the number of the working age population, Japan will be laden with ballooning deaths from old age from 2030 onward for several decades to come. Only in recent years have researchers started paying attention to this demographic prospect, and to date, little study has been done to systematically examine how the coming of a death-laden society may affect the health, well-being, and comfort of those in advanced age in the country. This paper aims to contribute to the newly emerging body of literature on this subject by exploring, based mainly on findings from expert interviews, five key areas of policy challenges with which Japan’s death-laden society will likely contend. These areas include: (1) shortages in basic medical resources for the dying; (2) mounting public burden of disease; (3) potential prevalence of ‘lonely deaths’ among those in advanced age; (4) urgency to facilitate national discussions on end-of-life options; and (5) crematorium shortages and their cultural impact. The future research is called for to help mitigate the impact of a death-laden society not only for Japan but also for other countries that may follow Japan’s demographic path in the conceivable future.

Future Treatments in Melanoma

Melanoma is a highly malignant tumor that is relatively common in the United States. Surgical extirpation is the mainstay in treatment, but a multimodal therapeutic approach is increasingly important in the era of highly effective immune and targeted therapies. Although resection of melanoma will continue to be the mainstay of management for the conceivable future, improvements in multimodality therapy have and will continue to rewrite the therapeutic playbook for this lethal and increasingly complex malignancy for head and neck surgeons treating patients with melanoma.

Graphene-Based Macromolecular Assemblies for Scavenging Heavy Metals.

The integration of graphene or graphene oxide nanosheets into three‐dimensional (3D) graphene‐based macromolecular assemblies (GMAs), in the form of sponges, beads, fibres, films, and crumpled nanosheets, has greatly advanced their environmental remediation applications. This is attributed to the outstanding physicochemical characteristics and superlative mechanical features of 3D GMAs, including precise and physically linked permeable networks, enormous surface area, profound porosity, and high‐class sturdiness, amongst others. In this review, the recent advancements towards the exploration of 3D GMAs as an exciting new class of high‐performance adsorbents, for eliminating toxic heavy metal ions from both wastewater and freshwater, are systematically summarized and discussed, from both fundamental and applied perspectives. In particular, the numerous surface modification techniques that are actively pursued to enrich the metal adsorption capacity of 3D GMAs, are comprehensively examined. Additionally, associated challenges are pointed out and tactical research strategies and improvements are proposed, with an eye on the conceivable future.

Horror, apocalypse and world politics

Abstract World politics generates a long list of anxiety-inspiring scenarios that threaten to unravel everyday life with sudden and violent destruction. From total war and the concentration camps, through nuclear firestorms, global pandemics and climate disaster, the diabolical violence of the recent past and conceivable future is the stuff of nightmares. Yet International Relations scholars and practitioners are often criticized for being disconnected from the human realities of international calamity. The challenge for both is to engage world politics in a way that foregrounds the human consequences of extreme violence and depravation. In this article, we explore these difficult experiences through popular culture representations of the apocalypse, a subject of intense interest for researchers in a discipline where global destruction is a distinct possibility. However, we take a different route by engaging the apocalypse through the horror genre, the one place where human suffering is explicitly accentuated. We argue that the horror genre is at once an access point for ethical engagement with the human consequences of extreme violence and a complex terrain where dark imaginings can be politically loaded, culturally specific and ethically ambiguous.

The End of American Literature: Essays from the Late Age of Print by Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Reviewed by: The End of American Literature: Essays from the Late Age of Print by Jeffrey R. Di Leo H. Aram Veeser Jeffrey R. Di Leo, The End of American Literature: Essays from the Late Age of Print. Huntsville: Texas Review Press, 2019. "Crisis? What crisis?" To Jeffrey Di Leo, author of The End of American Literature, the plummeting of jobs in Humanities is no crisis. It's not as though anyone's house has burned down. No one has lost all his/her possessions. Let's be reasonable. "A series of unfortunate situations warrants a drink, whereas a series of 'crises' tells us it's time to get drunk" (142). Crisis journalism, even in the staid Chronicle of Higher Education, willfully distorts reality. "Or does 6,000 articles in one journal alone dealing with higher education's crisis seem reasonable to you?" Written (with one exception) as editorials for the American Book Review, the thirty-six essays are a transcript of what caught the attention of one cagey, entrepreneurial, philosophical writer, a writer who comes into focus here as a sort of cross between Immanuel Kant and Jerry Seinfeld. Di Leo comments on the end of the book, of editing, of slow reading, of stamped letters, of telegrams, of bibliopalace [End Page 369] bookstores. He remarks on the creation in Texas of a bookless library, the volcanic increase of self-published books, the almost complete decline of non-corporate book reviewing, the metamorphosis of literary editors into business managing editors, the disappearance of warehouses storing tons of books, and the evaporation of the brick-and-mortar bookstores to which those books were trucked, with the few remaining bookstores easily mistaken for the gift shop at Graceland. He writes of the invention of the Espresso Book Machine ("the mother of all printers" that prints Ulysses on demand in four minutes), of starfuckers who founded magazines and set conditions for electing celebrities-as-world leaders. Wildly diverse in content, the book's inner logic is iron clad. Di Leo tries hard to answer the monumental riddle of the present: "how it fundamentally changes our relations is yet to be determined" (173). Di Leo is a prominent, self-questioning soothsayer who dares to guess what those changes will be. He is provoked, excited, amused, and troubled by the mists that conceal any conceivable future: "I worry about our nation's push to American greatness." Espresso Book Machines were heralded as the greatest innovation since Gutenberg. In the end only 500 were sold. Di Leo is circumspect: "an exciting pitch but still pale in comparison to the one Don Draper did for Hershey Bars." While he has worked exclusively on behalf of academic, indie, art-house, and small presses, he still allows that "there may yet be some justice in a publishing world over-run by neoliberal aesthetics and corporate greed." Disillusioned, he is less despairing than bemused. Other essays in this book cover the ingenious efforts of creators who turn unpredictability into art. One conceptual art piece urges prominent authors to place their writing in escrow for 100 years, only then to be shown to readers. Mischievously, Di Leo asks, What if this project had been started a century ago? Wouldn't we be disappointed when excitedly we tore open the long-sequestered best-sellers of Winston Churchill and Booth Tarkington? Hmmm. "Not worth the wait," Di Leo concludes. These authors, the most popular of their day, would be a complete bust upon their unveiling in 2015; all the more so the great film of that year, Birth of A Nation, based on a laudatory novel about the Ku Klux Klan. Unveiling that film today could mean only outrage and rioting. By contrast no geniuses of 1915 would be in the time capsule. Lawrence, Kafka, Joyce, Woolf—all were unknown and easily disregarded. And what if The Metamorphosis or Ulysses had gone into the black box? Di Leo is horrified by the possibility: 20th-century culture would have been diminished by half. The quest to anticipate the future makes Di Leo wary, self-conscious, and very funny. "Corporate publishing waits for no one—not even philosophy!" he confesses, wryly recalling his...

Vascular patterning in human heterotopic ossification

Heterotopic ossification (HO, also termed myositis ossificans) is the formation of extra-skeletal bone in muscle and soft tissues. HO is a tissue repair process gone awry, and is a common complication of surgery and traumatic injury. Medical strategies to prevent and treat HO fall well short of addressing the clinical need. Better characterization of the tissues supporting HO is critical to identifying therapies directed against this common and sometimes devastating condition. The physiologic processes of osteogenesis and angiogenesis are highly coupled and interdependent. However, few efforts have been made to document the vascular patterning within heterotopic ossification. Here, surgical pathology case files of 29 human HO specimens were examined by vascular histomorphometric analysis. Results demonstrate a temporospatial patterning of HO vascularity that depends on the "maturity" of the bony lesion. In sum, human HO demonstrates a time- and space-dependent pattern of vascularization suggesting a coupled pathophysiologic process involving the coordinate processes of osteogenesis and angiogenesis. Further imaging studies may be used to further characterize vasculogenesis within HO and whether anti-angiogenic therapies are a conceivable future therapy for this common condition.

Stochastic simulation of Boolean rxncon models: towards quantitative analysis of large signaling networks.

BackgroundCellular decision-making is governed by molecular networks that are highly complex. An integrative understanding of these networks on a genome wide level is essential to understand cellular health and disease. In most cases however, such an understanding is beyond human comprehension and requires computational modeling. Mathematical modeling of biological networks at the level of biochemical details has hitherto relied on state transition models. These are typically based on enumeration of all relevant model states, and hence become very complex unless severely – and often arbitrarily – reduced. Furthermore, the parameters required for genome wide networks will remain underdetermined for the conceivable future. Alternatively, networks can be simulated by Boolean models, although these typically sacrifice molecular detail as well as distinction between different levels or modes of activity. However, the modeling community still lacks methods that can simulate genome scale networks on the level of biochemical reaction detail in a quantitative or semi quantitative manner.ResultsHere, we present a probabilistic bipartite Boolean modeling method that addresses these issues. The method is based on the reaction-contingency formalism, and enables fast simulation of large networks. We demonstrate its scalability by applying it to the yeast mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) network consisting of 140 proteins and 608 nodes.ConclusionThe probabilistic Boolean model can be generated and parameterized automatically from a rxncon network description, using only two global parameters, and its qualitative behavior is robust against order of magnitude variation in these parameters. Our method can hence be used to simulate the outcome of large signal transduction network reconstruction, with little or no overhead in model creation or parameterization.

On the wave energy potential along the eastern Baltic Sea coast

We analyse the wave energy resource theoretically and practically available in a semi-sheltered shelf sea of moderate depth and with relatively severe but highly intermittent wave climate on the example of the Baltic Sea. The wave properties along the entire eastern Baltic Sea coast, from the Sambian (Samland) Peninsula to the eastern Gulf of Finland, are reconstructed numerically for 1970–2007 with a spatial resolution of 3 nautical miles (5.5 km) and temporal resolution of 1 h using the third generation wave model WAM. Owing to the shallowness of the sea (54 m on average) the finite-depth dispersion relation is used in the estimates of the wave energy resources in the nearshore, at depths of 7–48 m where the WAM model provides adequate results. The average wave energy flux (wave power) over the 38 years in question is about 1.5 kW/m (at selected locations up to 2.55 kW/m) in the nearshore regions of the eastern Baltic Proper but much smaller, about 0.7 kW/m, in the interior of the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga. The total theoretical wave energy resource in the entire study area is about 1.5 GW. The existing and proposed marine protected areas limit the available wave energy resource down to ∼840 MW. The production of grid energy is complicated because of extremely high intermittency and strong seasonal variation of the wave properties and frequent presence of sea ice. Although the wave energy resources are of obvious interest at some locations, their use for supplying power into the grid is questionable and probably not feasible in the conceivable future.

Ultrafast laser inscription: perspectives on future integrated applications

AbstractThis paper reviews the recent advancements achieved using ultrafast laser inscription (ULI) that highlight the cross‐disciplinary potential of the technology. An overview of waveguide fabrication is provided and the three distinct types of waveguide cross‐section architectures that have so far been fabricated in transparent dielectric materials are discussed. The paper focuses on two key emergent technologies driven by ULI processes. First, the recently developed photonic devices, such as compact mode‐locked waveguide sources and novel mid‐infrared waveguide lasers are discussed. Secondly, the phenomenon and applications of selective etching in developing ultrafast laser inscribed structures for compact lab‐on‐chip devices are elaborated. The review further discusses the conceivable future of ULI in impacting the aforementioned fields.

Editors’ Note: Reproduction, Motherhood, and Sexuality

Editors’ NoteReproduction, Motherhood, and Sexuality Guisela Latorre and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu Perhaps one the greatest satisfactions that comes with the job of academic editor is the unique privilege of getting a glimpse—a sneak peek, if you will—of new intellectual directions happening in any given field. As we enter our second year at the helm of Frontiers, we have become increasingly aware of how fortunate we are to read and publish work that, in our humble opinions, represents the future of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Such an insight and foreknowledge has had a tremendous effect on our individual research and teaching endeavors, for Frontiers constantly compels us to renew, reload, and refresh our praxis as scholars and educators. While the scholarly and creative works published in this issue rigorously and thoughtfully engage prior research in our field, these also distinguish themselves for their originality and progressive intellectual vision. We are thus proud to include in this issue a focused section that extends and expands our knowledge on the theme of our latest special issue, namely reproductive justice and reproductive technologies (Frontiers 34, no. 3.) Though that special issue centered more on the social, historical, medical, and political implications of reproduction, the articles in this issue turn more firmly to the field of representation. Both “Misconceived Metaphors” and “Without a Conceivable Future,” written by Mary Thompson and Nicole Sparling respectively, concern themselves with the way women’s reproduction is politicized in literary and film representation. Caitlin E. C. Myers in her essay “Colonizing the (Reproductive) Future” turns to journalistic coverage of arts (assisted reproductive technologies) with the ultimate purpose of exploring how these representations serve the needs of neoliberal rather than feminist interests in our society. For her part Jennifer Denbow in “Sterilization as Cyborg Performance” explores medical discourse that represents the practice of voluntary sterilization as a threat to patriarchal imperatives that impose reproductive and maternal desire on women’s bodies. In different and unique ways all the articles in this focused section speak volumes about how biased discourses and fictionalized representations can have very real effects on reproductive rights. [End Page vii] Closely related to the politics of reproduction is the often-tangled relationship between discourses on motherhood and nation, concerns that also figure prominently in this issue. Feminist and gender scholars have often critiqued, and in some cased denounced, the naturalized relationship between nationalist and family tropes. The gendering and racialization of the maternal have also been at the center of much intellectual debate in our field. Emily Cheng makes important contributions to these scholarly incursions in “Pearl S. Buck’s ‘American Children’” by underscoring the role that famed novelist and “China specialist” in the 1930s, Pearl S. Buck, played in US/Asia relations through her work as a transnational adoption advocate. The image of benevolent and moral mother of the nation that Buck signified is also a symptom of larger conservative discourses on mothering. Because the concepts of both motherhood and reproduction are also closely related to ideas about sexuality, we felt it was pertinent to include scholarly work on the topic in this issue. For instance, Grey Osterud’s article “‘It’s Very Little I Know about the Facts of Life to This Day’” looks closely at the silencing and shaming that surrounded the sexual lives of rural women in turn-of-the-century New York State. Given existing taboos about sex, providing safe and nurturing spaces for the open discussion of nonnormative sexualities has been an important mission for feminist scholars and activists alike. The contributors to the Intimate Matters roundtable offered their commitment to that mission by celebrating and reflecting on the historic publication of Intimate Matters by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, the first comprehensive book-length history of sexuality in the United States. The roundtable participants—Joanne Meyerowitz, Cynthia M. Blair, Margot Canaday, Thomas Foster, and Nayan Shah—evaluate the significance of Intimate Matters and also chart the exciting developments in sexuality history since its publication. The pioneering work of Intimate Matters is also mirrored by the role that artists have played in promoting crucial dialogues about sexuality. Chicano artist Joey Terrill, whose visually arresting...

A Rotaxane Turing Machine for Peptides

A ringing belt: An artificial molecular machine was invented to build up a programmable peptidic sequence. By molecular movements, the rotaxane-based machine progressively introduces amino acids to form a short peptide chain. The journey towards an artificial ribosome is still quite long, but a conceivable future can be envisaged.

Stem Cell Blues

Reconciling the promises and potential of stem cells on the one hand, with the achievement of that potential in a clinical setting in some conceivable future on the other hand, is an enormous challenge. With the first two issues of Stem Cell Reviews and Reports now published, we are determined to cover important topics and exciting new data to help actualize the potential in the field. With the tremendous speed with which the technologies and methodologies related to stem cells are growing, including recent developments in induced pluripotent cells, and the dramatic changes in the US political climate accompanying President Barack Obama’s decision to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research, it is a great period for stem cell research. With these rapidly moving changes, the goal of Stem Cell Reviews and Reports to cover not only original data and reviews in stem cell biology but also associated social, ethical and philosophical aspects of stem cell use, seems more timely than ever. My aim, with the help of a stellar editorial board, is to identify exciting contributions and challenging and emerging areas so as to provide an interesting platform for biologists, social scientists, lawyers, bioethicists and philosophers. The conception of this new journal was over a dinner with Ray Colon in a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan more than a year ago and I am grateful to Ray for his commitment, dedication and personal support in appointing me Editor in Chief of a new journal. It is also important to acknowledge the support and encouragements of Kathleen P. Lyons, Mindy OkuraMarszycki, Patricia Cleary, Patrick J. Marton, Tracy Catanese, and Vindra Dass, over the last year. I am also very grateful to Lyda Cervantes for her fantastic efforts in the editorial office. We are looking forward to many exciting submissions and related discussions.

Probing the gravitational scale via running gauge couplings

According to a recent paper by Robinson and Wilczek, the leading gravitational corrections to the running of gauge couplings tend to reduce the values of the couplings at energies below the gravitational scale, defined to be the energy above which gravity becomes strongly interacting. If the physical gravitational scale is sufficiently low, as conjectured in certain extra-dimension models, this behavior of the gauge couplings can be measured in future high energy experiments, providing a way to determine where the gravitational scale lies. We estimate that measurements of the fine structure constant at the Large Hadron Collider and the proposed International Linear Collider energies can probe the gravitational scale up to several hundred TeV, which will be the most stringent test that can be obtained in the conceivable future.

Prediction in Branching Time Logic

When we make a prediction we select, among the conceivable future descriptions of the world, those that appear to us to be most plausible. We capture this by means of two binary relations, ≺c and ≺p: if t1 and t2 are points in time, we interpret t1 ≺ct2 as sayingthat t2 is in the conceivable future of t1, while t1 ≺pt2 is interpreted to mean that t2 isin the predicted future of t1. Within a branching-time framework we propose the following notion of “consistency of prediction”. Suppose that at t1 some future moment t2 is predicted to occur, then (a) every moment t on the unique path from t1 to t2 should also be predicted at t1 and (b) the prediction of t2 should continue to hold at every such t. A sound and complete axiomatization is provided.

The combustion gas turbine

THERE ARE many conceivable future uses of the gas turbine, because it potentially promises higher efficiency at very high temperatures than most engines and prime movers used today. Future applications range from electric-power generation to power plants for propelling airplanes, trains, and ships.

Book Reviews

THESE books may suitably receive notice within one paragraph, being respectively concerned with political life of the past, the present, and the future. Dr. Hearnshaw deals succinctly, but engagingly, with the succession of premiers who guided the Empire's fortunes during a period commencing with Addington and concluding with Lord Salisbury, coincident with the closing of the Victorian era. Mr. Snell presents a description of the parliament of to-day, sufficiently realistic to be welcome. Mr. Mowrer's contribution is necessarily on less secure ground, as it deals in surmises, based, it is true, upon a logical progression from existing facts and tendencies towards a conceivable future. His remarks are cogent and well-balanced. “We cannot eliminate natural inequality”, “Standardised minds are a relapse of the race into the tribe”, “Under a rational system failure to vote would be penalised”. The author's remarks upon Russia and Italy are worthy of close attention. Perhaps not unreasonably, he is somewhat pessimistic— “Not for nothing was Sinon reputed the son of that Sisyphus condemned to perpetual stone (or was it log-) rolling”, “What is history but one long series of reforms that have failed?” For the world as a whole, Mr. Mowrer foreshadows internationalism as the over-riding government of to-morrow. (1) British Prime Ministers of the Nineteenth Century. Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw . (Benn's Sixpenny Library.) Pp. 80. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1930.) 6d. (2) Daily Life in Parliament. H. Snell . (Routledge Introductions to Modern Knowledge.) Pp. 74. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1930.) 6d. net. (3) Sinon: or The Future of Politics. E. A. Mowrer . (To-day and To-morrow Series.) Pp. 96. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1930. 2s. 6d. net.