Nightmare Scenario Research Articles

The Intersection of Transhumanism, Prognosis, and AI in Dan Brown’s Origin

The intersection of Transhumanism, Prognosis, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a topic that has captured the imagination of science fiction writers for years. In Dan Brown’s novel, Origin, he explores the idea that as AI evolves to the point of self-learning, the prospect of a posthuman world becomes increasingly plausible. Artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous, not only in technology but also in the way people think about the world. Machines are learning, and evolving, and are soon expected to surpass human intelligence. However, this pursuit of creating the ultimate AI raises ethical and moral concerns. The idea of a machine achieving sentience and surpassing human intelligence is a nightmare scenario for some who fear the rise of artificial intelligence. In his quest to create the ultimate AI, the protagonist in “Origin” has plunged into dangerous territory, pushing the limits of what is acceptable. The defining technology of the modern era is artificial intelligence, a force that is transforming every aspect of society from finance to healthcare to transportation. As AI continues to advance, people are becoming increasingly concerned about the ethical implications of creating machines that can think and reason like humans. Transhumanism, which aims to enhance human capabilities through the use of technology, is closely linked with the development of AI. The coalescence of man and machine is becoming a real possibility, and the future belongs to those who can control it. In conclusion, the intersection of transhumanism, prognosis, and AI raises important ethical and moral questions about the future of humanity. As we continue to develop AI, it is essential to consider the potential consequences of creating machines that can think and reason like humans. The quest for the ultimate AI is a double-edged sword, and we must be careful not to plunge too far into dangerous territory.

On the Role of Technology in Human–Dog Relationships: A Future of Nightmares or Dreams?

Digital technologies that help people take care of their dogs are becoming more widespread. Yet, little research explores what the role of technology in the human-dog relationship should be. We conducted a qualitative study incorporating quantitative and thematic analysis of 155 UK dog owners reflecting on their daily routines and technology's role in it, disentangling the what-where-why of interspecies routines and activities, technological desires, and rationales for technological support across common human-dog activities. We found that increasingly entangled daily routines lead to close multi-species households where dog owners conceptualize technology as having a role to support them in giving care to their dogs. When confronted with the role of technology across various activities, only chores like cleaning up after their dogs lead to largely positive considerations, while activities that benefit themselves like walking together lead to largely negative considerations. For other activities, whether playing, training, or feeding, attitudes remain diverse. In general, across all activities both a nightmare scenario of technology taking the human's role and in doing so disentangling the human-dog bond, as well as a dream scenario of technology augmenting human abilities arise. We argue that the current trajectory of digital technology for pets is increasingly focused on enabling remote interactions, an example of the nightmare scenario in our thematic analysis. It is important to redirect this trajectory to one of technology predominantly supporting us in becoming better and more informed caregivers.

Endoscopic stapler entrapment during laparoscopic nephrectomy: Nightmare scenario for urologist

Endoscopic stapler entrapment during laparoscopic nephrectomy: Nightmare scenario for urologist

Balloon Shaft Fracture: A Nightmare Scenario in the Setting of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Balloon Shaft Fracture: A Nightmare Scenario in the Setting of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Sanctions against health system demonstrate that it's time to get serious about audit trail discovery.

In the world of health care litigation it has become clear that medical malpractice cases now contain two claims-one on the medicine and one on the electronic health record (EHR). Two years of contentious discovery motions over the production of a complete copy of the EHR and audit trail in a case involving the delivery of a baby recently resulted in a nightmare scenario for a large health care system: sanctions in the form of an order entering judgment of liability in favor of the patient. The order was entered before depositions on the medicine were ever held. The decision in Prieto v. Rush University Medical Center (RUMC), etal. is the premiere example why patients' lawyers are focused on the audit trail. In this case, they were able to secure a legal victory without even litigating the underlying facts of the case.

The India-Myanmar Kaladan Project: Vision and Reality

India’s recent connectivity projects in the East, like the USD 484 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transport Project, stem from a compulsion imposed by the sub-continent’s post-Partition geography. Pakistan lost its eastern wing in a bloody civil war in 1971 because it was logistically impossible for its army to hold on to an alienated province with millions of Bengalis up in arms and their insurrection fully backed by India. India did not lose its restive ‘Seven Sisters’ in the Northeast, but a spate of violent insurgencies by battling ethnicities (Naga, Mizo, Manipuri, Assamese, Bodos and other tribes) challenged Delhi’s control over the remote region. That has compelled post-colonial India to seek alternate trans-national connectivity to the region to get round the limitations imposed by the 21 km wide ‘Siliguri Corridor’, the only land link connecting the Indian mainland to the Northeast. A combined armoured-infantry-airborne thrust by China through the Zompheri Ridge down the Chumbi Valley and Jaldhaka, cutting off this Siliguri Corridor – this is the worst nightmare scenario for India’s military planners.

Dark QCD matters

We investigate the nightmare scenario of dark sectors that are made of non-abelian gauge theories with fermions, gravitationally coupled to the Standard Model (SM). While testing these scenarios is experimentally challenging, they are strongly motivated by the accidental stability of dark baryons and pions, that explain the cosmological stability of dark matter (DM). We study the production of these sectors which are minimally populated through gravitational freeze-in, leading to a dark sector temperature much lower than the SM, or through inflaton decay, or renormalizable interactions producing warmer DM. Despite having only gravitational couplings with the SM these scenarios turn out to be rather predictive depending roughly on three parameters: the dark sector temperature, the confinement scale and the dark pion mass. In particular, when the initial temperature is comparable to the SM one these scenarios are very constrained by structure formation, ∆Neff and limits on DM self-interactions. Dark sectors with same temperature or warmer than SM are typically excluded.

Unsupervised hadronic SUEP at the LHC

Confining dark sectors with pseudo-conformal dynamics produce SUEPs, or Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns, at colliders: isotropic dark hadrons with soft and democratic energies. We target the experimental nightmare scenario, SUEPs in exotic Higgs decays, where all dark hadrons decay promptly to SM hadrons. First, we identify three promising observables: the charged particle multiplicity, the event ring isotropy, and the matrix of geometric distances between charged tracks. Their patterns can be exploited through a cut-and-count search, supervised machine learning, or an unsupervised autoencoder. We find that the HL-LHC will probe exotic Higgs branching ratios at the per-cent level, even without a detailed knowledge of the signal features. Our techniques can be applied to other SUEP searches, especially the unsupervised strategy, which is independent of overly specific model assumptions and the corresponding precision simulations.

Pandemic Coronavirus Disease-19-Induced Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on the Bank Employee

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious viral disease that affects respiratory system and other organs. It is transmitted through air or contact of contaminated surfaces. Thus, physical and social distancing, hand washing with soap, or hand sanitizer are greatly persuaded. Interestingly, this pandemic does not only affect physical health, but also mental disorder, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that is marked with the presence of either obsession or persistent compulsive behavior, or in the most common form, both are present. Obsession is thought, image or desire that preoccupies someone’s mind which commonly is related to anxiety. Compulsion, in the other hand, is repetitive behavior that strongly derives individual to do so to achieve fulfillment of one’s obsession that is not considered normal on the bases of daily norm. CASE REPORT: A 26-year-old woman as a bank employee admitted of doing repetitively unreasonable hand washing and shower within approximately the past 3 months. She even washes her hands more than 10 times in an hour and takes shower more than 5 times a day. She admitted that this is her very first experience and all were started at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 pandemic also causes serious mental disorders and has become such a nightmare or worst scenario for those experiencing OCD. Physical and social distancing, hand washing with soap, or hand sanitizer are greatly.

Large N-ightmare dark matter

A dark QCD sector is a relatively minimal extension of the Standard Model (SM) that admits Dark Matter (DM) candidates, but requires no portal to the visible sector beyond gravitational interactions:a “nightmare scenario” for DM detection.We consider a secluded dark sector containing a single flavor of light, vector-like dark quark gauged under (N).In the large-N limit, this single-flavor theory becomes highly predictive, generating two DM candidates whose masses and dynamics are described by few parameters:a light quark-antiquark bound state, the dark analog of the η' meson, and a heavy bound state of N quarks, the dark analog of the Δ++ baryon.We show that the latter may freeze-in with an abundance independent of the confinement scale,forming DM-like relics for N ≲ 10, while the former may generate DM via cannibalization and freeze-out.We study the interplay of this two-component DM system,and determine the characteristic ranges of the confinement scale,dark-visible sector temperature ratio, and N that admit non-excluded DM,once effects of self-interaction constraints and bounds on effective degrees of freedom at the BBN and CMB epochs are included.

The role of antimicrobial resistance on long-term mortality and quality of life in critically ill patients: a prospective longitudinal 2-year study

BackgroundIn the recent era, antimicrobial resistance has been identified as one of the most important threats to human health worldwide. The rapid emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens (ABRP) in the modern intensive care unit (ICU) also represents a “nightmare scenario” with unknown clinical consequences. In the Greek ICU, in particular, gram negative ABRPs are now considered endemic. However, the possible longitudinal impact of ABRPs on long-term outcomes of ICU patients has not yet been determined.MethodsIn this two-year (January 2014-December 2015) single-centre observational longitudinal study, 351 non-neurocritical ICU patients ≥ 18 year-old were enrolled. Patients’ demographic, clinical and outcome data were prospectively collected. Quality-adjusted life years (QALY) were calculated at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after ICU admission.ResultsFifty-eight patients developed infections due to ABRP (ABRP group), 57 due to non-ABRP (non-ABRP group), and 236 demonstrated no infection (no-infection group) while in ICU. Multiple regression analysis revealed that multiple organ dysfunction syndrome score (OR: 0.676, 95%CI 0.584–0.782; P < 0.001) and continuous renal replacement therapy (OR: 4.453, 95%CI 1.805–10.982; P = 0.001) were the only independent determinants for ABRP infections in ICU. Intra-ICU, 90-day and 2-year mortality was 27.9%, 52.4% and 61.5%, respectively. Compared to the non-ABRP and no-infection group, the ABRP group demonstrated increased intra-ICU, 90-day and 2-year mortality (P ≤ 0.022), worse 2-year survival rates in ICU patients overall and ICU survivor subset (Log-rank test, P ≤ 0.046), and poorer progress over time in 2-year QALY kinetics in ICU population overall, ICU survivor and 2-year survivor subgroups (P ≤ 0.013). ABRP group was further divided into multi-drug and extensively-drug resistant subgroups [MDR (n = 34) / XDR (n = 24), respectively]. Compared to MDR subgroup, the XDR subgroup demonstrated increased ICU, 90-day and 2-year mortality (P ≤ 0.031), but similar 90-day and 2-year QALYs (P ≥ 0.549). ABRP infections overall (HR = 1.778, 95% CI 1.166–2.711; P = 0.008), as well as XDR [HR = 1.889, 95% CI 1.075–3.320; P = 0.027) but not MDR pathogens, were independently associated with 2-year mortality, after adjusting for several covariates of critical illness.ConclusionsThe present study may suggest a significant association between ABRP (especially XDR) infections in ICU and increased mortality and inability rates for a prolonged period post-discharge that requires further attention in larger-scale studies.

Editorial: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) - advances in epidemiology, diagnostics, treatments, host-directed therapies, pathogenesis, vaccines, and ongoing challenges.

Editorial: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) - advances in epidemiology, diagnostics, treatments, host-directed therapies, pathogenesis, vaccines, and ongoing challenges.

Floods and the COVID-19 pandemic-A new double hazard problem.

The coincidence of floods and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is a genuine multihazard problem. Since the beginning of 2020, many regions around the World have been experiencing this double hazard of serious flooding and the pandemic. There have been 70 countries with flood events occurring after detection of the country's first COVID‐19 case and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated. The main objective of this article is to assess challenges that arise from complex intersections between the threat multipliers and to provide guidance on how to address them effectively. We consider the limitations of our knowledge including “unknown unknowns.” During emergency evacuation, practicing social distancing can be very difficult. However, people are going to take action to respond to rising waters, even if it means breaking quarantine. This is an emergency manager's nightmare scenario: two potentially serious emergencies happening at once. During this unprecedented year (2020), we are experiencing one of the most challenging flood seasons we have seen in a while. Practical examples of issues and guides for managing floods and COVID‐19 are presented. We feel that a new approach is needed in dealing with multiple hazards. Our main messages are: a resilience approach is needed whether in response to floods or a pandemic; preparation is vital, in addition to defense; the responsible actors must be prepared with actions plans and command structure, while the general population must be involved in the discussions so that they are aware of the risk and the reasons for the actions they must take.This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Methods

Controlling formation of metal ion adducts and enhancing sensitivity in Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

Formation of metal ion adducts in mass spectrometry, particularly in electrospray ionization liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (ESI-LC-MS), is a nightmare scenario for an analyst dealing with quantitative analysis. We have studied in detail the metal adduct formation and concluded that the use of fluorinated alkanoic acids along with formic acid and volatile ammonium salts was extremely useful in suppressing metal adduct formation in positive ion mode of ESI-LC-MS. The extremely high electronegativity of fluorine atom and unique electrostatic nature of C—F bond coupled with stereo-electronic interactions with neighboring bonds or lone pairs enables the polyfluorinated alkanoic acids in trapping highly electropositive ions (Na+, K+) thereby letting proton do its job efficiently. Addition of formic acid, trifluoroacetic acid, heptafluorobutyric acid and ammonium acetate was found to be extremely effective in controlling metal ion adducts and producing [M+H]+ ions almost exclusively resulting in significant increase in the sensitivity. This technique has been successfully used in our laboratory for the estimation of targeted and nontargeted analysis of pesticides, marine toxins, drugs and pharmaceuticals etc. in various matrices including environmental waters using liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometer operated in all ion acquisition mode and triple quadruples (QQQ) in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode.

Dark matter and naturalness

The Standard Model of particle physics is governed by Poincaré symmetry, while all other symmetries, exact or approximate, are essentially dictated by theoretical consistency with the particle spectrum. On the other hand, many models of dark matter exist that rely upon the addition of new added global symmetries in order to stabilize the dark matter particle and/or achieve the correct abundance. In this work we begin a systematic exploration into truly natural models of dark matter, organized by only relativity and quantum mechanics, without the appeal to any additional global symmetries, no fine-tuning, and no small parameters. We begin by reviewing how singlet dark sectors based on spin 0 or spin frac{1}{2} should readily decay, while pure strongly coupled spin 1 models have an overabun-dance problem. This inevitably leads us to construct chiral models with spin frac{1}{2} particles charged under confining spin 1 particles. This leads to stable dark matter candidates that are analogs of baryons, with a confinement scale that can be naturally \U0001d4aa(100)TeV. This leads to the right freeze-out abundance by annihilating into massless unconfined dark fermions. The minimal model involves a dark copy of SU(3) × SU(2) with 1 generation of chiral dark quarks and leptons. The presence of massless dark leptons can potentially give rise to a somewhat large value of ∆Neff during BBN. In order to not upset BBN one may either appeal to a large number of heavy degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model, or to assume the dark sector has a lower reheat temperature than the visible sector, which is also natural in this framework. This reasoning provides a robust set of dark matter models that are entirely natural. Some are concrete realizations of the nightmare scenario in which dark matter may be very difficult to detect, which may impact future search techniques.

Helping you increase your visibility

There I was sitting in a room, with the event I helped plan about to kick off. The chairs were all set up as requested, drinks and snacks had been put out, the audiovisual equipment was tested and ready to go, and the keynote speaker had just arrived. This event was going to be perfect. As I looked around the room, however, I realized something was missing: the audience. Only a handful of people were filing into the perfectly set room. How embarrassing; we had put together this amazing event but neglected to focus enough attention on getting an audience. This nightmare scenario has likely happened to many of us, but it is avoidable. Effective publicity in today’s world means going beyond hanging an event flyer on the board in a lobby. It means using multiple channels to meet people where they are to increase awareness and visibility of events,

Books: Colonel Belchamp's Battlefield Tour: Wounding and Healing: A Doctor's Journey.

Adrian Crisp Matador Books , 2017 , PB, 272 pp, £ 7.99 , 978-1788036818 Dr James Butland’s son is killed in a car crash. This nightmare scenario propels the doctor into the realms of his past — his preparation for studying history at Oxford, his fighting with a rifle brigade at the ill-fated Battle of Calais in May 1940, his astonishing escape back to England, and his subsequent action with his regiment in …

Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity by Michael Scott

Reviewed by: Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity by Michael Scott Joe Wilson Michael Scott. Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity. New York: Basic Books, 2016. Pp. xvi, 411. $29.99. ISBN 978-0-465-09472-1. Scott offers a book (in some ways, the work might better be described as three loosely interconnected monographs) vast in scope, although not particularly detailed, and selective perhaps to the point of being idiosyncratic. He examines three different periods; the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.e.; the third and second centuries b.c.e.; and the fourth century c.e., focusing on the connections among the Mediterranean world, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Far East, and on the central role played by the Silk Road and Bactria in promoting these connections. In section 1, Scott links the development of the nascent popular movements towards more inclusive government in Rome and Athens. He adduces as evidence the Roman embassy to Athens and the Greek states of southern Italy to study Athenian law in order to facilitate Rome’s first efforts at codified law, the Twelve Tables. Scott considers the contact important, but he rightly highlights the serious differences between the respective paths chosen by the Athenians [End Page 585] and the Romans. Rome chose order through a regulated governmental structure in which each group played a part, although Republican Rome would never have adapted the far-reaching bureaucratic structure of China (that nightmare scenario awaited the Romans of the late empire). Such arrangements differed radically from the underlying principles of Athenian democracy, which anticipated that any member of the state (save for the thetes) might have to carry out any number of roles in the radical democracy. The Roman experience might bear some comparison to Confucius’ efforts to rationalize government in the Lu state in China, in Scott’s view. Puzzlingly, the author omits India from his discussion of the first period, despite the fact that India was known, if not well, to the Greeks; Herodotus has a section on India (3.98–106), mentions the voyage of Scylax (4.44), and describes the Indian troops in the army of Xerxes (7.65, 7.70, 7.86). In section 2, Scott’s thoughts on influence stand on much firmer ground: the political and military maneuvering of the Second Punic War brought Rome into contact with the kingdoms of the Diadochoi. The conflicts with the Seleucids, particularly Antiochus III, had far-reaching influence on events in Central Asia. Warfare and dynastic turbulence in Seleucid lands had enabled local governors in Bactria and Parthia to withdraw and establish their own kingdoms. Antiochus attempted to regain the lost kingdoms of Central Asia, but he was undone by the pure size of his kingdom, which he spent a lifetime attempting to maintain. Despite Antiochus’ efforts, he failed to keep the Romans out of the western part of his empire and Parthia and Bactria were again lost, each on the path to empire. Chandragupta, meanwhile, brought the Mauryan empire to such heights that Seleucus I, seeking to reclaim Alexander’s Indian possessions, could do no more than sign a treaty respecting Chandragupta’s claims and gaining some elephants. But the Mauryan empire did not survive intact for more than two or three generations; Chandragupta’s grandson Ashoka, having adopted Buddhism, neglected his royal and administrative responsibilities in favor of humanitarian efforts, and the empire dissolved into various warring states. At the same time, the growing power of the north Indian state and the ease of transit on the rapidly developing Silk Road allowed the easy influx of Buddhism into China. The Buddhists would eventually put a serious dent in the stranglehold maintained by the Legalists, who had been largely successful in expelling Confucian teachings from the seat of power in the Chin and Han empires. Militarily, China was less successful in dealing with various invaders; China managed only the expulsion of the Yuezhi, who migrated into Central Asia and upset the balance of Bactria and the Indo-Greek kingdom as the area slowly morphed into the Kushan empire. Scott begins his third section with the pivotal moment of Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge...

A Copyright Limitations Treaty Based on the Marrakesh Model: Nightmare or Dream Come True?

With the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled in 2013, the international copyright community has shown its willingness to take further steps in the harmonization of limitations and exceptions in the field of copyright. However, the Marrakesh Treaty is only the tip of the iceberg. Its preparation and negotiation took place against the background of a much broader debate over the introduction of so-called “ceilings” in international copyright law: binding rules that set a maximum level of permissible protection. While the Marrakesh Treaty entered into force on September 30, 2016, the bigger project of regulating the ceilings of copyright protection in an international instrument is still pending. Hence, the question arises whether the results of the small step of adopting the Marrakesh Treaty are encouraging enough to take the giant leap of discussing ceilings of copyright protection and establishing a general Copyright Limitations Treaty. To answer this question, the following analysis will first shed light on the peculiar configuration of the Marrakesh Treaty. The Treaty combines both very specific and very open rules on L&Es for blind and print-disabled persons with the abstract criteria of the “three-step test” known from Article 9(2) BC, Article 13 TRIPS and Article 10 WCT. As a result of this treaty architecture, the objective of offering maximum legal certainty in respect of use privileges for blind, visually impaired and print-disabled persons is compromised. The Marrakesh Treaty can lead to a nightmare scenario in which neither the goal of legal certainty nor the advantage of flexibility is realized. However, the Marrakesh Treaty also demonstrates how international norms could be structured to arrive at a sufficiently flexible and sustainable treaty framework for the regulation of limitations and exceptions at the national level. Certain features of the Treaty can serve as a source of inspiration for the development of a dream scenario.

The nightmare scenario: measuring the stochastic gravitational wave background from stalling massive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays

Massive black-hole binaries, formed when galaxies merge, are among the primary sources of gravitational waves targeted by ongoing Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments and the upcoming space-based LISA interferometer. However, their formation and merger rates are still highly uncertain. Recent upper limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background obtained by PTAs are starting being in marginal tension with theoretical models for the pairing and orbital evolution of these systems. This tension can be resolved by assuming that these binaries are more eccentric or interact more strongly with the environment (gas and stars) than expected, or by accounting for possible selection biases in the construction of the theoretical models. However, another (pessimistic) possibility is that these binaries do not merge at all, but stall at large ($\sim$ pc) separations. We explore this extreme scenario by using a galaxy-formation semi-analytic model including massive black holes (isolated and in binaries), and show that future generations of PTAs will detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from the massive black-hole binary population within $10-15$ years of observations, even in the "nightmare scenario" in which all binaries stall at the hardening radius. Moreover, we argue that this scenario is too pessimistic, because our model predicts the existence of a sub-population of binaries with small mass ratios ($q \lesssim 10^{-3}$) that should merge within a Hubble time simply as a result of gravitational-wave emission. This sub-population will be observable with large signal-to-noise ratios by future PTAs thanks to next-generation radio telescopes such as SKA or FAST, and possibly by LISA.