FLUCTUATIONS AND FUTURE TREND OF CLIMATE, GLACIERS AND DISCHARGE OF ■R■MQI RIVER IN XINJIANG

Based on the analyses of various data available of the rümqi River, Xinjiang, it is found that the warming trend of the climate in recent years is mainly accompanied by the decrease in precipitation, discharge, and glacial mass balance. Since the Little Ice Age, the temperature has increased by 0.5—1.0℃, while the precipitation, glacial volume and annual discharge have decreased by 50 mm, 41% and 11%, respectively. It is possible that the trend would last for the next 10—15 years.     

Engineering chemistry for the future of chemical synthesis

Synthesis is changing in response to our modern resource conscious world. The principles of green chemistry are evolving as the interfaces and boundaries in science are less obvious and providing a new stimuli for future discovery. The invention and application of new chemical reactivity continues to be a primary driver since this opens up so many strategic opportunities for synthesis. However, the manual intensive efforts behind such activity inevitably lead to the need for more machine based approaches. Indeed, the engineering of chemistry delineated in this Symposium in Print seeks to collate some of the recent progress and innovation in the area with contributions from its visionary practitioners.     

EXTENDING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

The obvious current reversion to micro-scale investigations in basic chemical engineering, combined with the need, of a quite different nature, in the rapid growth of high added-value and small-lot functional materials, have been pointing to an area not yet sufficiently covered by the unit operations, transport phenomena and chemical reaction engineering. Although it is difficult to define accurately this area, a cursory scan of the activities already in progress has revealed a few common attributes: multi-phased (structured), multi-scaled, multi-disciplined, nonlinear, needs for resolution to reductionism-solvable subsystems, and pervasive in the process industry. From these activities, the present paper drafts a tentative scheme for studying the related problems: first to dissect a problem into various scales -- spatial, temporal or otherwise as best suits the case in hand -- in order to identify pertinent parameters which are then organized into model formulations. Together with inter-scale model formulations, a zoom-in/zoom-out process is carried out between the scales, by trial-and-error and through reasoning, to arrive at a global formulation of a quantitative solution, in order to derive, eventually, the general from the particular.     

电子回旋共振微波等离子体技术及应用

 电子回旋共振微波等离子体技术(ECR-MP)在表面处理、等离子体刻蚀和薄膜制备，尤其是高品质的激光惯性约束聚变薄膜靶的制备中有着重要的应用。综述了ECR-MP的基本原理、反应装置、实验研究、理论研究和应用情况的发展现状，同时分析了其今后可能的发展趋势。     

One-loop formulas for H → Zνlνl for l = e, μ, τ in 't Hooft-Veltman gauge

In this paper, we present analytical results for one-loop contributions to the decay processes \begin{document}$ H\rightarrow Z \nu_l\bar{\nu}_l $\end{document} (for \begin{document}$ l = e, \mu, \tau $\end{document}). The calculations are performed within the Standard Model framework in the 't Hooft-Veltman gauge. One-loop form factors are then written in terms of scalar one-loop functions in the standard notations of \begin{document}$ {\tt LoopTools}$\end{document}. As a result, one-loop decay rates for the decay channels can be evaluated numerically by using the package. Furthermore, we analyze the signals of \begin{document}$ H\rightarrow Z \nu_l\bar{\nu}_l $\end{document} via the production processes \begin{document}$ e^-e^+ \rightarrow ZH^* \rightarrow Z (H^* \rightarrow Z \nu_l\bar{\nu}_l) $\end{document}, including the initial beam polarizations at future lepton colliders. The Standard Model backgrounds, such as the processes \begin{document}$ e^-e^+ \rightarrow \nu_l\bar{\nu}_l ZZ $\end{document}, are also examined in this study. Numerical results indicate that one-loop corrections make contributions of approximately 10% to the decay rates. These are sizeable contributions and should be taken into account at future colliders. We show that the signals \begin{document}$ H\rightarrow Z\nu_l\bar{\nu}_l $\end{document} are clearly visible at the center-of-mass energy \begin{document}$ \sqrt{s}=250 $\end{document} GeV and are difficult to probe in higher-energy regions owing to the dominant backgrounds.     

Shall I Work with Them? A Knowledge Graph-Based Approach for Predicting Future Research Collaborations

We consider the prediction of future research collaborations as a link prediction problem applied on a scientific knowledge graph. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on the prediction of future research collaborations that combines structural and textual information of a scientific knowledge graph through a purposeful integration of graph algorithms and natural language processing techniques. Our work: (i) investigates whether the integration of unstructured textual data into a single knowledge graph affects the performance of a link prediction model, (ii) studies the effect of previously proposed graph kernels based approaches on the performance of an ML model, as far as the link prediction problem is concerned, and (iii) proposes a three-phase pipeline that enables the exploitation of structural and textual information, as well as of pre-trained word embeddings. We benchmark the proposed approach against classical link prediction algorithms using accuracy, recall, and precision as our performance metrics. Finally, we empirically test our approach through various feature combinations with respect to the link prediction problem. Our experimentations with the new COVID-19 Open Research Dataset demonstrate a significant improvement of the abovementioned performance metrics in the prediction of future research collaborations.     

Nanocellulose as a green and sustainable emerging material in energy applications: a review

In this review, a recent prospect on application of nanocellulose in energy application has been highlighted. To achieve high capacities that are essential for effective extraction of interesting ions and for faster charging and discharging in the energy storage devices, nanocellulose in the conducting matrix must obviously assist the dual purpose of mechanically improving and reinforcing the specific charge capacity. The abundant number of nanocellulose hydroxyl groups on the surface favors the formation of hydrogen bonding in an ordered structure and lead to it having high strength and stiffness properties at low density. This brought up the idea of utilizing nanocellulose as a reinforcement and energy adsorption agent originating from the possibility of exploiting the high strength and stiffness of cellulose crystals in composite applications. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The consumption-based determinants of the term structure of discount rates

The rate of return of a zero-coupon bond with maturity T is determined by our expectations about the mean (+), variance (-) and skewness (+) of the growth of aggregate consumption between 0 and T. The shape of the yield curve is thus determined by how these moments vary with T. We first examine growth processes in which a higher past economic growth yields a first-degree dominant shift in the distribution of the future economic growth, as assumed for example by Vasicek (J. Financ. Econ. 5, 177–188, 1977). We show that when the growth process exhibits such a positive serial dependence, then the yield curve is decreasing if the representative agent is prudent (), because of the increased risk that it yields for the distant future. A similar definition is proposed for the concept of second-degree stochastic dependence, as observed for example in the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model, with the opposite comparative static property holding under temperance (), because the change in downside risk (or skweness) that it generates. Finally, using these theoretical results, we propose two arguments in favor of using a smaller rate to discount cash-flows with very large maturities, as those associated to global warming or nuclear waste management. An earlier version of this paper was entitled “Transitory shocks to GNP and the consumption-based term structure of interest rates”. I am indebted to John Campbell, Martin Weitzman and to two referees for helpful comments.     

Analytical Chemistry,Past, Present and Future*This paper is dedicated to the Editorial Board of Analytical Letters.

ABSTRACT

Analytical Chemistry as a science has its own history as well as an important present and a sure future.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the role of Analytical Chemistry as a science and of Chemical Analysis as an art in the development of human society.

The correlation between method and instrument hyphenated by the sample is discussed along a long period of active Analytical Chemistry.

The connection between theory of Analytical Chemistry and the practice of chemical analysis enables us to be sure of the future of Analytical Chemistry.

We must consider that to do science it is necessary to know the history of science as well as to make research to be used not only in the present, but also in the near future.

Surely, Analytical Chemistry as a real scientific area will be on the top of sciences in the next century.     

Sea-level rise caused by climate change and its implications for society

Sea-level rise is a major effect of climate change. It has drawn international attention, because higher sea levels in the future would cause serious impacts in various parts of the world. There are questions associated with sea-level rise which science needs to answer. To what extent did climate change contribute to sea-level rise in the past? How much will global mean sea level increase in the future? How serious are the impacts of the anticipated sea-level rise likely to be, and can human society respond to them? This paper aims to answer these questions through a comprehensive review of the relevant literature. First, the present status of observed sea-level rise, analyses of its causes, and future projections are summarized. Then the impacts are examined along with other consequences of climate change, from both global and Japanese perspectives. Finally, responses to adverse impacts will be discussed in order to clarify the implications of the sea-level rise issue for human society.