Extreme States Research Articles

Unconventional thickness dependence of electrical resistivity of silver film electrodes in substoichiometric oxidation states

The scaling down of metallic electrodes into ultrathin film geometries presents significant challenges in precisely controlling electrical resistivity. This difficulty stems from the rapid variation in resistivity with thickness, particularly near the percolation threshold. Currently, our understanding of the prediction of thickness-dependent resistivity in metallic film electrodes in volatile substoichiometric oxide (suboxide) states is limited. This study offers experimental and numerical evidence demonstrating a marked resistivity fluctuation spanning four to five orders of magnitude during the initial growth stages of suboxidized Ag film electrodes. These stages range from cluster coalescence to reaching the percolation threshold. The unusual resistivity change is attributed to the variation in suboxidation states with thickness, as well as the outward migration of interstitial O ions. These findings offer a crucial framework for controlling the electrical properties of thin metallic oxide films in extreme suboxidation states, extending beyond the conventional understanding applicable to thermodynamically stable metallic oxide phases.

Polarization- and Chaos-Game-Based Fingerprinting of Molecular Targets of Listeria Monocytogenes Vaccine and Fully Virulent Strains.

Two approaches to the synthesis of 2D binary identifiers ("fingerprints") of DNA-associated symbol sequences are considered in this paper. One of these approaches is based on the simulation of polarization-dependent diffraction patterns formed by reading the modeled DNA-associated 2D phase-modulating structures with a coherent light beam. In this case, 2D binarized distributions of close-to-circular extreme polarization states are applied as fingerprints of analyzed nucleotide sequences. The second approach is based on the transformation of the DNA-associated chaos game representation (CGR) maps into finite-dimensional binary matrices. In both cases, the differences between the structures of the analyzed and reference symbol sequences are quantified by calculating the correlation coefficient of the synthesized binary matrices. A comparison of the approaches under consideration is carried out using symbol sequences corresponding to nucleotide sequences of the hly gene from the vaccine and wild-type strains of Listeria monocytogenes as the analyzed objects. These strains differ in terms of the number of substituted nucleotides in relation to the vaccine strain selected as a reference. The results of the performed analysis allow us to conclude that the identification of structural differences in the DNA-associated symbolic sequences is significantly more efficient when using the binary distributions of close-to-circular extreme polarization states. The approach given can be applicable for genetic differentiation immunized from vaccinated animals (DIVA).

Beyond 10-year lead-times in EQ-5D-5L: leveraging alternative lead-times in willingness-to-accept questions to capture preferences for worse-than-dead states and their implication.

A fixed 10-year lead-time in composite time-trade-off (C-TTO) tasks might compromise the precision of utility values below -1. This study explored how alternative lead-times (ALTs) influence EQ-5D-5L value sets and their implications in economic evaluations. Leveraging data from Taiwan's EQ-5D-5L valuation and capitalizing on its exploratory willingness-to-accept question, we explored participants' quantification of "worse-than-dead (WTD)" health states with ALTs up to 50years. We then derived alternative value sets incorporating these ALTs through interval regression and compared them against those from conventional models. To evaluate their impact on health change valuation, we simulated utility differences for all possible EQ-5D-5L health-state-pairs using each value set. With a salient floor effect observed in the C-TTO values, the model with ALT led to a wider range of predicted utilities ( - 2.3897 ~ 1), compared with those of conventional models (generalized least squares (GLS): - 0.7773 ~ 1; Tobit-GLS: - 0.9583 ~ 1). Compared to the Tobit-GLS model, the model with ALT increased the numerical distance in 80% of health-state-pairs, with 11% decreasing and 9% altering direction (e.g., positive to negative) in utility differences. While ALTs offer insights into patient preferences, their integration into economic evaluations might require rescaling. Future research should prioritize advanced rescaling methods or enhanced elicitation strategies for populations with substantial censoring. This is pivotal for improving the elicitation of extreme WTD states and accurately discerning the relative distances between health states. Countries developing EQ-5D-5L value sets should consider pilot studies and incorporating region-specific questions on social determinants, especially where pronounced floor effects are suspected.

Stator Turn Fault Diagnosis and Severity Assessment in Converter-Fed Induction Motor Using Flat Diagnosis Structure Based on Deep Learning Approach

This work aims to explore the hybrid deep learning techniques for early interturn fault diagnosis and fault severity assessment in variable frequency induction motor drive. However, the existing literature mostly focuses on identifying the fault patterns, whereas the assessment of fault deterioration before it reaches the extreme degradation state has been less investigated. In this paper, a hybrid structure combining two-dimensional convolution neural network (2DCNN) and long-short term memory/gated recurrent unit (LSTM/GRU) has been modelled as a relatively lightweight flat diagnosis structure (FDS) for early fault identification and its severity assessment simultaneously in converter-fed induction motor. Initially, the hierarchical layers of 2DCNN extract the effective features automatically for fault detection and its severity identification simultaneously. Then, these features are presented as suitable inputs to LSTM/GRU for classification. A comparative evaluation of the proposed hybrid method with the standalone structure, namely 2DCNN, LSTM and SVM proves the advantages of the proposed scheme, and its applicability for both fault diagnosis and fault severity assessment in industrial drive systems, under variable frequencies and load variations.

Response of the Tropospheric Dynamics to Extreme States of the Stratospheric Polar Vortex during ENSO Phases in Idealized Model Experiments

Response of the Tropospheric Dynamics to Extreme States of the Stratospheric Polar Vortex during ENSO Phases in Idealized Model Experiments

Extreme-oriented sensitivity analysis using sparse polynomial chaos expansion. Application to train–track–bridge systems

The use of sensitivity analysis is essential in model development for the purposes of calibration, verification, factor prioritization, and mechanism reduction. While most contributions to sensitivity methods focus on the average model response, this paper proposes a new sensitivity method focusing on the extreme response and structural limit states, which combines an extreme-oriented sensitivity method with polynomial chaos expansion. This enables engineers to perform sensitivity analysis near given limit states and visualize the relevance of input factors to different design criteria and corresponding thresholds. The polynomial chaos expansion is used to approximate the model output and alleviate the computational cost in sensitivity analysis, which features sparsity and adaptivity to enhance efficiency. The accuracy and efficiency of the method are verified in a truss structure, which is then illustrated on a dynamic train–track–bridge system. The role of the input factors in response variability is clarified, which differs in terms of the design criteria chosen for sensitivity analysis. The method incorporates multi-scenarios and can thus be useful to support decision-making in design and management of engineering structures.

Nexus between water-energy-carbon footprint network: Multiregional input-output and coupling coordination degree analysis

With rising concerns over global issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, and resource shortages, the need for coordinated development of the water-energy-carbon (WEC) nexus has become a pressing global issue. However, existing research mainly focuses on individual sectors or specific aspects of WEC and lacks a thorough comprehension of the link among them, especially in the full supply network. This study creates a multi-model evaluation technique to estimate the WEC network across various sectors and provinces in order to close this gap. Specifically, WEC multiregional input-output analysis including 42 industrial sectors and coupling coordination degree models is proposed to further analyze the interaction relationship among WEC. The results indicate that the implied carbon footprint is positively correlated with virtual water and implied energy, but the WEC footprint is negatively correlated with the external footprint. The energy-carbon correlation is the strongest relationship, followed by the energy-water correlation. In addition, the WEC coupled network shows an extreme disorder state, while it decreases from developed areas to less developed areas. The transfer of WEC is dominated by industries with higher consumption coefficients. This phenomenon also exists in the WEC flow in provinces. From less developed to more developed places, there is a considerable influx of WEC. The multi-model evaluation method proposed in our study could be applied by governments to estimate the WEC coupled network, compare it with other regions, and analyze the potential effects of environmental policies.

Testing Nonmonotonicity in Health Preferences.

The main aim of this article is to test monotonicity in life duration. Previous findings suggest that, for poor health states, longer durations are preferred to shorter durations up to some threshold or maximum endurable time (MET), and shorter durations are preferred to longer ones after that threshold. Monotonicity in duration is tested through 2 ordinal tasks: choices and rankings. A convenience sample (n = 90) was recruited in a series of experimental sessions in which participants had to rank-order health episodes and to choose between them, presented in pairs. Health episodes result from the combination of 7 EQ-5D-3L health states and 5 durations. Monotonicity is tested comparing the percentage rate of participants whose preferences were monotonic with the percentage of participants with nonmonotonic preferences for each health state. In addition, to test the existence of preference reversals, we analyze the fraction of people who switch their preference from rankings to choices. Monotonicity is frequently violated across the 7 EQ-5D health states. Preference patterns for individuals describe violations ranging from almost 49% with choices to about 71% with rankings. Analysis performed by separate states shows that the mean rates of violations with choices and ranking are about 22% and 34%, respectively. We also find new evidence of preference reversals and some evidence-though scarce-of transitivity violations in choices. Our results show that there is a medium range of health states for which preferences are nonmonotonic. These findings support previous evidence on MET preferences and introduce a new "choice-ranking" preference reversal. It seems that the use of 2 tasks with a similar response scale may make preference reversals less substantial, although it remains important and systematic. Two procedures based on ordinal comparisons are used to elicit preferences: direct choices and rankings. Our study reports significant rates of nonmonotonic preferences (or maximum endurable time [MET]-type preferences) for different combinations of durations and EQ-5D health states.Analysis for separate health states shows that the mean rates of nonmonotonicity range from 22% (choices) to 34% (rankings), but within-subject analysis shows that nonmonotonicity is even higher, ranging from 49% (choices) to 71% (rankings). These violations challenge the validity of multiplicative QALY models.We find that the MET phenomenon may affect particularly those EQ-5D health states that are in the middle of the severity scale and not so much the extreme health states (i.e., very mild and very severe states).We find new evidence of preference reversals even using 2 procedures of a similar (ordinal) nature. Percentage rates of preference reversals range from 1.5% to 33%. We also find some (although scarce) evidence on violations of transitivity.

TMIC-01. PERICYTES ORCHESTRATE A TUMOR-SUPPRESSIVE MICROENVIRONMENT BY IMPINGING ON THE CROSSTALK BETWEEN MACROPHAGES AND TUMOR-INITIATING CELLS IN GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME

Abstract Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is characterized by fast progression, infiltrative growth pattern and a high rate of relapse. A defining feature of GBM is the existence of spatially and functionally distinct cellular niches, i.e. a hypoxic niche, a leading-edge niche, and a peri-vascular niche, in which malignant cells engage in paracrine crosstalk with cell types comprising the tumor microenvironment, including immune cells, astrocytes, and vascular cells. Here, by analysis of single-cell transcriptomic data of human GBM and transgenic mouse models of GBM, we unexpectedly identified pericytes intimately associated with the endothelium as the most active paracrine signaling hub within the tumor parenchyma. Exclusive signaling axes emanating from pericytes were received by endothelial cells, malignant cells, astrocytes, and immune cells. Depletion of pericytes through genetic engineering in several different transgenic and orthotopic mouse models of GBM demonstrated accelerated tumor progression, a disrupted blood-brain-barrier, and premature death of pericyte-poor mice. Mechanistic studies revealed that pericyte deficiency altered the cellular composition of GBM, remodeled the endothelium, and impacted on the immune cell landscape. Specifically, endothelial cells deprived of pericyte association upregulated Colony Stimulating Factor (CSF)-1, which in turn attracted peri-vascular tumor-associated macrophages polarized towards an immune-suppressive phenotype. In the absence of pericytes, the recruited macrophages expressed Hepatocyte Growth Factor (HGF), which reinforced activation of its receptor tyrosine kinase c-Met on a subset of GBM cells harboring an extreme mesenchymal-like state. Indeed, orthotopic implantation of isolated c-Met-expressing GBM cells corroborated their superior tumor-initiating capability and invasive phenotype, compared to cells negative for c-Met. Taken together, we infer that the pericyte represents a critical modulator of GBM development by orchestrating a tumor-suppressive microenvironment; our findings thus highlight the importance of pericyte preservation in the face of current and future GBM therapies.

The effect of current rise time on the acceleration of thick flyers to hypervelocities using an electric gun

The electric gun is a projectile launcher which utilises both the rapid expansion of an ohmically heated exploding foil and strong electromagnetic forces to accelerate an insulating flyer up to 20 km/s. The gun’s acceleration mechanism is highly efficient at converting stored electrical energy in the pulsed-power device driving the load to kinetic energy in the flyer, with values of up to 25% reported (Osher et al., 1990). This high efficiency would allow capacitor banks to use less energy than conventional drives to generate higher pressure states in materials of interest to extreme state research. Despite its promising efficiency, the electric gun is rarely used, as the process of launching flyers above 0.5 mm thickness in this manner is highly variable, often resulting in uncontrolled launch characteristics and premature failure of the flyer. The gun is also difficult to optimise without use of a sophisticated multi-physics hydrocode, further limiting its take-up. This work presents experimental results from the successful launch of 24 × 24 mm flyers up to 2.0 mm thick to 10 km/s using an electric gun load on 1.2 MJ pulsed-power device: Machine 3. In combination with results from a 0D model, these findings are used to identify the mechanism for the destruction of thick flyers accelerated using electric guns, including strategies for mitigating their break-up. The results support the existing idea that flyer failure can be avoided by limiting the maximum pressure within the flyer. They also reveal a second mechanism by which the flyer integrity can be maintained when the current rise time is longer than the flight time; high pressures in thick flyers caused their density to remain high enough to prevent the driving foil plasma from breaking through, averting their disassembly. This second mechanism provides a route to accelerate thick electric gun flyers to higher velocities with efficiencies up to around 9% whilst lengthening the shock duration on impact, broadening the gun’s potential applications in extreme state research.

Warming, acidification, and calcification feedback during the first hyperthermal of the Cenozoic—The Latest Danian Event

Abstract The Latest Danian Event (LDE; ca. 62.15 Ma) is a major double-spiked eccentricity-driven transient warming event and carbon cycle perturbation (hyperthermal) in the early Paleocene, which has received significantly less attention compared to the larger events of the late Paleocene–early Eocene. A better understanding of the nature of the LDE may broaden our understanding of hyperthermals more generally and improve our knowledge of Earth system responses to extreme climate states. We present planktic and benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and B/Ca records that shed new light on changes in South Atlantic temperature and carbonate chemistry during the LDE. Our planktic Mg/Ca record reveals a pulsed increase in sea-surface temperature of at least ~1.5 °C during the older carbon isotope excursion, and ~0.5 °C during the younger isotope excursion. We observe drops in planktic and benthic B/Ca, synchronous with pronounced negative excursions in benthic δ13C, which suggest a shift in the carbonate system toward more acidic, dissolved inorganic carbon–rich conditions, in both the surface and deep ocean. Conditions remained more acidic following the LDE, which we suggest may be linked to an enhanced ocean alkalinity sink due to changes in the makeup of planktic calcifiers, hinting at a novel feedback between calcifier ecology and ocean-atmosphere CO2.

Extreme state prediction of long-span bridges using extended ACER method

An accurate prediction of the future service state of long-span bridges is crucial for the structural reliability evaluation, maintenance planning, and further life-cycle cost analysis. By extending the average conditional exceedance rate (ACER) statistical model and applying input–output data collected through a structural health monitoring (SHM) system, this paper proposes a novel methodology for predicting the future service state of long-span bridges. The advantages lie in the consideration of the main excitation load as the structural input and the strain response of the bridge as the output. Therefore, a mapping relationship between the extreme excitation load and extreme strain could be established, and the future service state of long-span bridges could be predicted. The proposed method comprises three steps: (1) extraction of the ambient temperature-induced strain and vehicle-induced strain from the measured strain series through the SHM system using the baseline estimation and denoising with sparsity (BEADS) method, (2) establishing statistical models of the extreme values of different excitations (input) and structural strains (output) using a cascade of conditioning approximations and the ACER to obtain the tail trend of the data and extrapolating it, and (3) establishing a functional relationship between the input and output extreme values based on the same conditions of the regression period at the target prediction level, after which the future service state of long-span bridges can be predicted. The proposed method is applied to a case study of the Jinchao Bridge in Guangdong Province, China, and the results are expected to provide a scientific reference for the design of new bridges and in the maintenance of existing ones in service.

Sloshing Response of an Aquaculture Vessel: An Experimental Study

The sloshing response is crucial to the design and operation of aquaculture vessels and affects the safety of the culture equipment and the efficiency of the culture operation. A 1/50 scaled model was utilized to investigate the coupled sloshing response characteristics of a novel aquaculture vessel in a wave basin. Two wave directions (beam and head wave) and two filling levels (81.5% and 47.4%) are taken into account. The time-domain and frequency-domain characteristics of the sloshing response under the linear regular wave and extreme operational sea state were investigated using regular wave tests and irregular wave tests, respectively. The sloshing mechanism in the aquaculture tanks is complicated, due to the coupling effect between external waves, ship motion, and internal sloshing. In linear regular waves, the wave frequency mode dominates the sloshing response, which is larger under beam wave conditions than under head wave conditions and larger under half load conditions than full load conditions. The irregular wave test results confirmed the regular wave test conclusions, but the sloshing response has stronger nonlinearity, higher natural modes appeared, and the amplitude of the higher natural modes is also relatively larger.

Borderline personality disorder, substance abuse and disordered eating: perceptions of treatment and recovery within community mental health

PurposeBorderline personality disorder (BPD) is a debilitating illness characterised by a pervasive pattern of emotional instability, interpersonal difficulties and impulsive behaviour in association with repeated self-injury and chronic suicidal ideation. People diagnosed with BPD also have high rates of co-occurring psychopathology, including disorders associated with disturbed impulse control, such as substance use disorder (SUD) and disordered eating behaviours. The co-occurrence of BPD and impulse control disorders contributes to the severity and complexity of clinical presentations and negatively impacts the course of treatment and recovery. This study qualitatively documents aspects of the lived experience and recovery journeys of people diagnosed with BPD and co-occurring SUD and/or disordered eating. This study aims to identify similarities with respect to themes reported at different stages of the recovery process, as well as highlight important factors that may hinder and/or foster recovery.Design/methodology/approachIn-person, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 specialist service consumers within a clinical setting. Ten women and two men (22–58 years; mean: 35.5 years) were recruited. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis principles.FindingsAs expected, participants with co-occurring disorders experienced severe forms of psychopathology. The lived experience descriptions aligned with the proposition that people with BPD engage in impulsive behaviours as a response to extreme emotional states. Key emergent themes and sub-themes relating to recovery comprised three domains: factors hindering adaptive change; factors assisting adaptive change and factors that constitute change. An inability to regulate negative affect appears to be an important underlying mechanism that links the three disorders.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the potential shortcomings in the traditional approach of treating co-occurring disorders of BPD, SUD and eating disorders as separate diagnoses. The current findings strongly support the adoption of an integrative approach to treating complex mental health issues while concurrently emphasising social connection, support and general health and lifestyle changes.Originality/valueThe findings of this study contribute to the burgeoning BPD recovery literature. A feature of the current study was its use of in-depth face-to-face interviews, which provided rich, many layered, detailed and nuanced data, which is a major goal of qualitative research (Fusch and Ness, 2015). Furthermore, the interviews were conducted within a safe clinical setting with engagement facilitated by a clinically trained professional. There was also a genuine willingness among participants to share their stories in the belief that doing so would inform effective future clinical practice. Their willingness and engagement as participants may reflect their progress along the path to recovery in comparison to others with similar diagnoses. Finally, most of the interviewees were engaging in dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT)-style therapies; two were receiving mentalisation-based therapy treatment, and most had previously engaged in cognitive behavioural therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy-based approaches. The predominance of DBT-style therapy may have influenced the ways that themes were articulated. Future studies could supplement this area of research by interviewing participants receiving therapeutic interventions other than DBT for the treatment of BPD and heightened impulsivity.

Characterizing stable nanocrystalline Cu-Ta behavior and failure dynamics under extremes of strain rate, strain, temperature and pressure by modified dynamic tensile extrusion

This work presents characterization of thermo-mechanically stable, bulk nanocrystalline (NC) Cu-Ta alloys under a combination of extreme states using high-temperature, dynamic tensile extrusion experiments. The NC Cu-Ta was subjected to high dynamic strain rates up to 105/s, large plastic strains of 100–500 %, and high homologous temperatures greater than 50 %TM. This combination of thermo-mechanical conditions provides a unique look at how these extremely stable microstructures can accommodate and reconfigure under situations where dislocation activity is the most extreme, given constitutive relationships between strain rate, dislocation nucleation, and plastic work. Elevated temperature tests results reveal NC Cu-1Ta alloys are capable of forming a coherent jet, (25 mm in length by 1.8 mm in diameter) as it accelerates out of the die after being dynamically extruded. Microstructural analysis reveals that unlike previous reports on conventional un-stabilized nano or near nano-grained Cu, NC Cu-Ta alloys behave differently. They do not undergo grain coarsening via a nucleation and growth process, but rather behave identically to that of coarse-grained Cu. The NC grains elongate along the extrusion direction and at the same time shrink in diameter and develop a <111> type texture. Ultimately, the occurrence of premature dynamic failure was attributed to the inherent constraints posed by processing defects during synthesis.

The Response of the Tropospheric Dynamics to Extreme States of the Stratospheric Polar Vortex during Enso Phases in Idealized Model Experiments

Extreme states of the stratospheric polar vortex (SPV) affect the average position of the main propagation trajectories of synoptic vortices in the Northern Hemisphere over a time period from 2 weeks to 2 months. This time scale is considered to be one of the most difficult periods in forecasting. Based on the analysis of data from idealized numerical experiments on the Isca platform, we studied the processes of formation of anomalous positions of storm tracks in the Atlantic-European region as a response to sudden stratospheric warmings and events of extremely strong SPV during various phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation. It was shown that in winter it is impossible to say unambiguously about the southward displacement of the Atlantic storm track during El Niño events without taking into account the intensity of SPV. The intensity of SPV, expressed as the zonal component of wind speed, averaged along 60° N at the level of 10 hPa, has its maximum predictive potential during El Niño.

Expansion of extrafollicular B and T cell subsets in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus.

Most childhood-onset SLE patients (cSLE) develop lupus nephritis (cLN), but only a small proportion achieve complete response to current therapies. The prognosis of children with LN and end-stage renal disease is particularly dire. Mortality rates within the first five years of renal replacement therapy may reach 22%. Thus, there is urgent need to decipher and target immune mechanisms that drive cLN. Despite the clear role of autoantibody production in SLE, targeted B cell therapies such as rituximab (anti-CD20) and belimumab (anti-BAFF) have shown only modest efficacy in cLN. While many studies have linked dysregulation of germinal center formation to SLE pathogenesis, other work supports a role for extrafollicular B cell activation in generation of pathogenic antibody secreting cells. However, whether extrafollicular B cell subsets and their T cell collaborators play a role in specific organ involvement in cLN and/or track with disease activity remains unknown. We analyzed high-dimensional mass cytometry and gene expression data from 24 treatment naïve cSLE patients at the time of diagnosis and longitudinally, applying novel computational tools to identify abnormalities associated with clinical manifestations (cLN) and disease activity (SLEDAI). cSLE patients have an extrafollicular B cell expansion signature, with increased frequency of i) DN2, ii) Bnd2, iii) plasmablasts, and iv) peripheral T helper cells. Most importantly, we discovered that this extrafollicular signature correlates with disease activity in cLN, supporting extrafollicular T/B interactions as a mechanism underlying pediatric renal pathogenesis. This study integrates established and emerging themes of extrafollicular B cell involvement in SLE by providing evidence for extrafollicular B and peripheral T helper cell expansion, along with elevated type 1 IFN activation, in a homogeneous cohort of treatment-naïve cSLE patients, a point at which they should display the most extreme state of their immune dysregulation.

Evidence of unconventional superconductivity on the surface of the nodal semimetal CaAg1−xPdxP

Surface states of topological materials provide extreme electronic states for unconventional superconducting states. CaAg1−xPdxP is an ideal candidate for a nodal-line Dirac semimetal with drumhead surface states and no additional bulk bands. Here, we report that CaAg1−xPdxP has surface states that exhibit unconventional superconductivity (SC) around 1.5 K. Extremely sharp magnetoresistance, tuned by surface-sensitive gating, determines the surface origin of the ultrahigh-mobility “electrons.” The Pd-doping elevates the Fermi level towards the surface states, and as a result, the critical temperature (Tc) is increased up to 1.7 K from 1.2 K for undoped CaAgP. Furthermore, a soft point-contact study at the surface of Pd-doped CaAgP proved the emergence of unconventional SC on the surface. We observed the bell-shaped conductance spectra, a hallmark of the unconventional SC. Ultrahigh mobility carriers derived from the surface flat bands generate a new class of unconventional SC.

Two-dimensional turbulence above topography: Vortices and potential vorticity homogenization.

The evolution of unforced and weakly damped two-dimensional turbulence over random rough topography presents two extreme states. If the initial kinetic energy [Formula: see text] is sufficiently high, then the topography is a weak perturbation, and evolution is determined by the spontaneous formation and mutual interaction of coherent axisymmetric vortices. High-energy vortices roam throughout the domain and mix the background potential vorticity (PV) to homogeneity, i.e., in the region between vortices, which is most of the domain, the relative vorticity largely cancels the topographic PV. If [Formula: see text] is low, then vortices still form but they soon become locked to topographic features: Anticyclones sit above topographic depressions and cyclones above elevated regions. In the low-energy case, with topographically locked vortices, the background PV retains some spatial variation. We develop a unified framework of topographic turbulence spanning these two extreme states of low and high energy. A main organizing concept is that PV homogenization demands a particular kinetic energy level [Formula: see text]. [Formula: see text] is the separator between high-energy evolution and low-energy evolution.

Delineating humanistic underpinnings in the midst of posthuman evolution: A study of Hannu Rajaniemi’s Jean le Flambeur trilogy

This research aims to delve into the intricate and multilayered connection between humans and posthumans, as depicted in Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy. This Finnish American author's trilogy, consisting of The Quantum Thief (2010), The Fractal Prince (2012), and The Causal Angel (2014), paints an insightful picture of this interaction. The investigation aims to illuminate the emergence of humanity in an extremely posthuman and postsingular landscape, arguing that one must understand humanity as not entirely separate from posthumanism. Instead, humanity should be considered a specific case, or limit case, of the broader posthumanist concept. The form of humanity that arises from the boundaries of an extreme posthuman state of evolution will not mirror the pre-posthuman state; instead, it will transform into a more comprehensive, inclusive entity. The analysis of these three novels will illustrate how Rajaniemi's work does not entirely dismiss human agency. Instead, it recontextualizes and reshapes it within a dramatically different posthuman setting.