Original Theory Research Articles

Description of the Polach model compared to FASTSIM and CONTACT and a proposal for a variant dedicated to large creepages

The Polach model is a fast and versatile method for calculating tangential forces in railway dynamics under Hertzian conditions. Although its theoretical basis is well established in the original publications, it lacks expressions of local quantities such as tractions and relative slip velocities. They are given in this article in the absence of spin, within the frame of Kalker's original theory, and compared with CONTACT and FASTSIM with an elliptical normal pressure distribution. As for the extended Polach method dedicated to traction and braking, it is generally no longer possible to associate an expression of these local quantities with the tangential forces. In the limited cases where this is still possible, it is found that the tractions associated with the Polach model are very close to those of extensions of CONTACT and FASTSIM with an elliptical normal pressure distribution. Following this observation, a variant of the Polach method is proposed based on the extension of FASTSIM, providing insight into local quantities in the absence of spin. The principle of this modification could be applied to any approximate method based on Kalker’s simplified theory in order to extend its field of application to large creepages.

A forgotten chapter in the history of Nordic educational theory: J.V. Snellman’s theory of Bildung

ABSTRACT J.V. Snellman (1806–1881) developed an original theory of Bildung inspired by Hegelian philosophy and social theory. His conception of Bildung is timely for several reasons. It anticipated both the cultural-historical understanding of the human mind and today’s European Bildung-based curriculum theory. According to Snellman, the primary duty of a civilized person is to understand the demands of their era and to work towards solving its problems. The construction of national Bildung must contribute to the development of universal culture and foster peaceful relations between nations. Knowledge and learning are grounded in the critical interpretation and further development of the finest achievements of cultural tradition, making them responsive to the challenges of the present and the future. In Snellman’s view, education leads to the formation of moral agency and personal conviction. This conviction also entails a political commitment to reform and improve the norms and institutions of society.

Exploring the Issue of Western and Local Perspectives on Yangshao Culture

The discovery of Yangshao Village stands as one of the most significant archaeological findings in Chinese history. Its study, ongoing since the last century, holds immense importance for understanding the origins of Chinese civilization. The Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson played a pivotal role in the excavation of the Yangshao site. Central to the research is the debate between the Western origin theory and the indigenous origin theory of Yangshao culture. The discovery of Longshan culture serves as evidence against the Western origin theory. Through analysis, it becomes clear that both Longshan and Yangshao cultures are indigenous to China, not opposing entities but rather representing different chronological periods. Although Andersson's initial hypotheses were flawed, his contributions to the inception of Chinese archaeology and the training of field archaeologists were decisive.

Nonlinear massive gravity theory of geometric origin

We study the number of propagating degrees of freedom, at nonlinear order, in torsion gravity theories, a class of modified theories of gravity that include a propagating torsion in addition to the metric. We focus on a three-parameter subfamily of theories (“torsion bigravity”) that contains, at linear order, only two physical excitations: a massless spin-2 one (with 2 degrees of freedom) and a massive spin-2 one (with 5 degrees of freedom). We study the dynamics of the massive spin-2 field in the limit where the torsion field decouples from the metric. The number of degrees of freedom of the torsion field is found to change, at nonlinear order, from five to nine. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Quantum simulation with gauge fixing: From Ising lattice gauge theory to dynamical flux model

Quantum simulation of synthetic dynamic gauge field has attracted much attentions in recent years. There are two traditional ways to simulate gauge theories. One is to directly simulate the full Hamiltonian of gauge theories with local gauge symmetries. And the other is to engineer the projected Hamiltonian in one gauge subsector. In this work, we provide the third way towards the simulation of gauge theories based on . To demonstrate this concept, we fix the gauge of an Ising lattice gauge field coupled with spinless fermions on a ladder geometry. After the gauge fixing, this gauge theory is reduced to a simpler model, in which fermions hop on a ladder with a fluctuating dynamical Z2 flux. Then we show that this model can be realized via Floquet engineering in ultracold atomic gases. By analytical and numerical studies of this dynamical flux model, we deduce that there is a confinement-to-deconfinement phase transition in the original unfixed gauge theory. This work paves the way to quantum simulate lattice gauge theory using the concept of gauge fixing, relevant both for condensed-matter and high-energy physics. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

A note on non-Lorentzian duality symmetries

We work out non-Lorentzian dual actions for electromagnetism and linearised gravity, both in the Carrollian and Galilean cases. This is done in the same way as for Lorentzian theories, by first constructing a parent action that reduces to a pair of dual actions. In the case of Maxwell theory, each pair of dual actions consists of the known ‘electric’ and ‘magnetic’ limits of the original theories, showing that these limits are related by an off-shell electromagnetic duality. We have obtained dualities between on one hand the non-Lorentzian contractions of linearised gravity in second-order form, and on the other hand the theories one obtains by gauging the corresponding kinematic algebras. In the Carrollian contraction, these dual actions reproduce the known ‘electric’ and ‘magnetic’ Carrollian theories of gravity, and we find a similar result in the Galilean case.

Direction and clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine in the prevention and treatment of cancer

Cancer is a major chronic disease that threatens human health, while traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a unique method for cancer prevention and treatment in China. After about 70 years of innovation and development, TCM has made constant progress in areas such as the clinical diagnosis, treatment, evidence-based researches, and mechanism exploration of cancer. It has special advantages in aspects such as reducing toxicity, enhancing treatment efficacy, managing symptoms, accelerating recovery, preventing recurrence and metastasis, and prolonging advanced-stage survival. However, there are still bottlenecks for TCM in cancer care. This paper cuts in the key links between TCM and western medicine in their combined application in cancer prevention and treatment, and take the original TCM theories on cancer as the lead, high-quality evidence-based researches as the drive, and analysis on the dynamic mechanism as the core, to show the advantages and effects of TCM in cancer treatment in an all-round way. It also aims to provide novel strategies for sustainable and innovative development and for formulation of comprehensive schemes that integrate TCM and western medicine for cancer prevention and treatment.

William Fontaine’s (Forgotten) Kantian Analysis of Ernest Everett Just’s Mathematical Biology

The African-American philosopher William Fontaine (1909-1968) inaugurated a neo-Kantian philosophical analysis of the original biological theories of fellow African-American Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941), and his thesis regarding the “space-time” structure of biological systems deserves our renewed consideration today. First comparing Just’s methodology in his 1939 text <i>Biology of the Cell Surface</i> to Immanuel Kant’s <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> (1781/1787), Fontaine then suggested a parallel reading of Just’s irreducible theory of cellular structure to Samuel Alexander’s (1859-1938) Gifford Lectures of 1920 on the metaphysical possibility of non-Euclidean or multidimensional space-time — Along these lines, Just had written of life’s constituents, because “assembled both in space and time, its investigation is limited”. Since Kant was well-known and also later criticized for his logical commitments to three-dimensional Euclidean space-time, it is clear that Fontaine’s reading of Just’s statements departed from traditional Kantian philosophy. However, since Just’s <i>Biology of the Cell Surface</i> emphasized the whole-part relation of living organisms as well the distinction between reductionistic mechanism and emergent theories — metaphysical views that Kant also expounded — Fontaine’s analysis charted a new route for bringing Kantian philosophy into the context of contemporary theories of non-Euclidean and higher-dimensional space-time. This paper first reviews the original contributions of Ernest Everett Just to biology as well as William Fontaine’s philosophical commentary upon them, and then considers the current scientific basis for non-Euclidean and higher-dimensional geometries in the biological sciences.

The role of electronic excited states in the spin-lattice relaxation of spin-1/2 molecules.

Magnetic resonance is a prime method for the study of chemical and biological structures and their dynamical processes. The interpretation of many of these experiments relies on understanding how the spin of unpaired electrons exchanges energy with their environment, or lattice, and relaxes to equilibrium. Here, we overcome the common use of effective spin Hamiltonians to describe spin-lattice relaxation in spin-1/2 and apply ab initio open quantum systems theory to their full molecular electronic wavefunction. Simulations for two Cr(V) coordination compounds under this framework show a marked improvement in accuracy and demonstrate that relaxation in spin-1/2 molecules is enabled by virtual transitions to molecular excited states with energy approaching 20,000 cm-1. This work establishes a connection between the original theory of Van Vleck and modern electronic structure methods, ultimately exemplifying the urgency of further advancing an ab initio approach to spin-lattice relaxation.

Tradition-Aware Chaplaincy Theory (TACT): A Name Change for and Evolution of Religiously Informed, Relationally Skillful Chaplaincy Theory.

Religiously Informed, Relationally Skillful Chaplaincy Theory (RIRSCT) (Ragsdale & Desjardins, 2020) is a chaplaincy theory positing that healthcare chaplains would be more helpful to patients and to members of the healthcare team if they were better versed in how patients' religious beliefs and practices impacted their healthcare experience. Changing the theory's name to Tradition-Aware Chaplaincy Theory expands the original theory to include spiritualities and secular belief systems not included in the term "Religiously Informed."

Accounting for Divergences in Industrial Policy Performance in the Cement and Textile Industries in Nigeria

ABstract The performance of industrial policies in Nigeria’s cement and textile industries has shown puzzling divergence. While the Backward Integration Policy (BIP) transitioned Nigeria from a net cement importer to a self-sufficient producer, the textile industrial policies have failed to revive the ailing Nigerian textile industry. To understand this divergence in policy outcomes, this paper combines political settlement (PS) analysis with technological capability (TC) theory and the concept of rents space (RS). It finds that while political leadership support is vital for policy performance, differing industrial policy outcomes between the case-study industries are attributable to differences in: (i) the requirements, adoption, and implementation of learning, capabilities, and routines in particular industries, (ii) the relative capabilities of entrepreneurs, and (iii) the relative importance of respective industry entrepreneurs to ruling elites for political financing. Apart from contributing to the scant literature exploring the puzzle of divergent policy outcomes among sectors of the same economy, the paper also contributes to theory by applying a dimension of Khan’s original PS theory that existing literature underemphasises—that is, the dimension on how the relative power and capabilities of productive entrepreneurs in particular sectors affect the performance of policy institutions.

Lorentzian bordisms in algebraic quantum field theory

It is shown that every algebraic quantum field theory has an underlying functorial field theory which is defined on a suitable globally hyperbolic Lorentzian bordism pseudo-category. This means that globally hyperbolic Lorentzian bordisms between Cauchy surfaces arise naturally in the context of algebraic quantum field theory. The underlying functorial field theory encodes the time evolution of the original theory, but not its spatially local structure. As an illustrative application of these results, the algebraic and functorial descriptions of a free scalar quantum field are compared in detail.

The Matrix Reloaded: A Revised Framework for the Inference of the Four Basic Forms of Social Differentiation

ABSTRACTThis paper revisits and refines Niklas Luhmann's framework for understanding social differentiation, addressing unresolved ambiguities in his original theory. Luhmann's approach, which initially identified three core forms of social differentiation—segmentation, stratification and functional differentiation—expanded to include a fourth form, centralization. By critically examining the theoretical underpinnings and limitations of Luhmann's distinctions, this study shows how the four basic forms of social differentiation can be inferred from a cross‐tabulation of the equality/inequality distinction, provided that this distinction is treated as a false distinction and decomposed into two true ones. This new approach not only resolves existing ambiguities but also enhances the analytical capacity of the theory, potentially extending its application beyond social sciences to other domains of differentiation.

Gapped phases with non-invertible symmetries: (1+1)d

We propose a general framework to characterize gapped infra-red (IR) phases of theories with non-invertible (or categorical) symmetries. In this paper we focus on (1+1)d gapped phases with fusion category symmetries. The approach that we propose uses the Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT) as a key input: associated to a field theory in dd spacetime dimensions, the SymTFT lives in one dimension higher and admits a gapped boundary, which realizes the categorical symmetries. It also admits a second, physical, boundary, which is generically not gapped. Upon interval compactification of the SymTFT by colliding the gapped and physical boundaries, we regain the original theory. In this paper, we realize gapped symmetric phases by choosing the physical boundary to be a gapped boundary condition as well. This set-up provides computational power to determine the number of vacua, the symmetry breaking pattern, and the action of the symmetry on the vacua. The SymTFT also manifestly encodes the order parameters for these gapped phases, thus providing a generalized, categorical Landau paradigm for (1+1)d gapped phases. We find that for non-invertible symmetries the order parameters involve multiplets containing both untwisted and twisted sector local operators, and hence can be interpreted as mixtures of conventional and string order parameters. We also observe that spontaneous breaking of non-invertible symmetries can lead to vacua that are physically distinguishable: unlike the standard symmetries described by groups, non-invertible symmetries can have different actions on different vacua of an irreducible gapped phase. This leads to the presence of relative Euler terms between physically distinct vacua. Along with the physical description of symmetric gapped phases, we also provide a mathematical one as pivotal 2-functors whose source 2-category is the delooping of the fusion category characterizing the symmetry and the target 2-category is the Euler completion of 2-vector spaces.

Typology of trust in micro-health and fitness influencers

PurposeHealth and fitness influencers who directly affect one’s well-being through their messages create situations of vulnerability that require trust. To understand the various dimensions of trust, this study integrated a typology of trust into source credibility theory. The purpose of the study is to explore the typology’s four trust dimensions concomitant with the perceived attractiveness and expertise of such influencers to identify consumers’ attitudes toward micro-health and fitness influencers.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a manipulated-stimuli online survey and gathered 414 micro-influencer evaluations. Variance-based structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe results supported the four of trust building. However, a less complex trust formation process was revealed, thereby contrasting the original trust theory formulation. Specifically, the effect of disposition to trust on institution-based trust was higher for regular than for heavy social media users. Also, compared to regular social media users, trusting intentions had a greater impact on heavy social media users’ attitudes toward micro-influencers. In addition, the effect of institution-based trust on trusting beliefs was higher for older than for younger participants. Furthermore, placement of congruent compared to noncongruent products created differences in perceived attitudes toward micro-influencers. In particular, disposition to trust had a larger effect on institution-based trust for noncongruent than for congruent product placements.Originality/valueThis study extended source credibility theory by including alternative trust dimensions – notably, non-situation-specific disposition to trust and institution-based trust, as well as situation-specific trusting beliefs and trusting intentions – into source credibility.

Tyconius the African: Reassessing the Theory of His Greek Origins

Tyconius the African: Reassessing the Theory of His Greek Origins

Gestural Iconicity and Alignment as Steps in the Evolution of Language.

Studies of the evolution of language rely heavily on comparisons to nonhuman primates, particularly the gestural communication of nonhuman apes. Differences between human and ape gestures are largely ones of degree rather than kind. For example, while human gestures are more flexible, ape gestures are not inflexible. In this piece, I closely consider two features of the gestural communication of apes and humans that might display differences in kind: iconicity and temporal alignment. Iconicity has long played a privileged role in theories of gestural language origins, the proposal being that it provided a steppingstone into language through a stage of pantomime. However, iconicity is not as easy as it seems. Evidence from co-speech gestures of hearing children and from homesign suggests that iconic reference is both cognitively complex and slow to develop in humans. There is no conclusive evidence that nonhuman apes understand or produce iconic gestures; some gestures may appear iconic to human observers but the apes themselves may not understand the similarity between form and meaning. Far from providing an easy pathway into the emergence of symbolic communication, iconicity relies on sophisticated capacities for analogy and abstraction, ones often lacking in apes and young children. Temporal alignment between gesture and vocalization is another area that may show sharp contrasts between adult humans and apes, though data here is sparser. I discuss the tight synchronization of gesture and speech that emerges over the first year of life in human children and contrast it with gesture and vocalization in apes, which typically are described as overlapping but not simultaneous. Human ancestors probably communicated in ways similar to other apes, but the dual emergence of the ability to use iconic reference and the alignment of hand and mouth may have set our ancestors down a unique evolutionary road toward language.

Active Inference and Artificial Spin Ice: Control Processes and State Selection.

Theory and simulations are used to demonstrate implementation of a variational Bayes algorithm called "active inference" in interacting arrays of nanomagnetic elements. The algorithm requires stochastic elements, and a simplified model based on a magnetic artificial spin ice geometry is used to illustrate how nanomagnets can generate the required random dynamics. Examples of tracking and PID control are demonstrated and shown to be consistent with the original stochastic differential equation formulation of active inference. Interestingly, nonlinear response in the form of spikes and spike trains not predicted by the original theory can appear in the nanomagnet system for certain temperature regimes. A theoretical approach using a mean-field approximation for spin systems is proposed, which describes the transition to nonlinear response. Finally, the possibility to create simple magnetic arrays using realistic models is shown with micromagnetic simulations of a simple 17 element array of nanomagnets that include magnetic anisotropies, and exchange and dipolar interactions. Possible applications are simulated to illustrate how nanomagnetic arrays can be used as the stochastic element for feedback control of processes, investigation and control of magnetic state evolution, and as a method to optimize pulsed field magnetic switching protocols.

Redressing the Absence of Military Blockhouses and Forts in ‘Origin Theories’ for the Elevated House

ABSTRACT Architectural histories remain largely silent on Indigenous people’s agency in the creation of Australian frontier settler architectures. It is argued that this absence has negatively impacted our understanding of emerging Australian vernacular architectures. A case study is made of elevated buildings found in the colonial settlement of Port Essington, Northern Territory. This paper explores social and cultural drivers for building elevation. It considers British military personnel and officials’ fear of attack settling in Northern Australia. Here, successful Aboriginal guerrilla war tactics directly impacted British fort design. Inter-cultural conflict directly resulted in the shift from groundwork fortifications to elevated timber blockhouses. Defensively sited, blockhouses provided an elevated point of retreat for dwelling; visually surveying surroundings; securing precious stores; and mounting offensive military attacks. It is concluded that frontier conflict should be more closely explored in Australian architectural histories.

Linear theory of visco-resistive tearing instability

A new linear theory of a tearing instability is shown, where the modified LSC (Loureiro, Schekochihin, and Cowley) theory [T. Shimizu, arXiv:2209.00149 (2022)] is extended to visco-resistive MHD. In contrast to the original LSC theories [Loureiro et al., Phys. Plasmas 14, 100703 (2007)], in the modified LSC theory, the upstream open boundary condition is implemented at a finite point ξc. At this point, the original LSC theories are solved for ξc=+∞. This paper first studies when the resistivity and viscosity are uniform in space. In addition, some variations in the non-uniformity are studied. It is shown that the non-uniformity can enhance the linear growth rate, and the tearing instability can occur even in an unlimitedly thin current sheet. Unexpectedly, it suggests that the forward cascade process of the plasmoid instability (PI) does not stop, i.e., the finite differential MHD simulations fail. To stop the forward cascade, viscosity is required not only in the inner region of the current sheet but also in the outer region. When the uniform viscosity is assumed, the critical condition is predicted to be 2Pm/(Sξc)=0.06, beyond which the tearing instability, i.e., the forward cascade, stops. Here, S is the Lundquist number, and Pm is the magnetic Prandtl number. According to the critical condition, the resistivity and viscosity employed in most high-S MHD simulations of PI are too small to stop the forward cascade. This critical condition may be also applicable for the trigger problem of the current sheet destabilization.