The Earth as a living planet: human-type diseases in the earthquake preparation process

The new field of complex systems supports the view that a number of systems arising from disciplines as diverse as physics, biology, engineering, and economics may have certain quantitative features that are intriguingly similar. The earth is a living planet where many complex systems run perfectly without stopping at all. The earthquake generation is a fundamental sign that the earth is a living planet. Recently, analyses have shown that human-brain-type disease appears during the earthquake generation process. Herein, we show that human-heart-type disease appears during the earthquake preparation of the earthquake process. The investigation is mainly attempted by means of critical phenomena, which have been proposed as the likely paradigm to explain the origins of both heart electric fluctuations and fracture induced electromagnetic fluctuations. We show that a time window of the damage evolution within the heterogeneous Earth's crust and the healthy heart's electrical action present the characteristic features of the critical point of a thermal second order phase transition. A dramatic breakdown of critical characteristics appears in the tail of the fracture process of heterogeneous system and the injury heart's electrical action. Analyses by means of Hurst exponent and wavelet decomposition further support the hypothesis that a dynamical analogy exists between the geological and biological systems under study

Average profiles of the solar wind and outer radiation belt during the extreme flux enhancement of relativistic electrons at geosynchronous orbit

We report average profiles of the solar wind and outer radiation belt during the extreme flux enhancement of relativistic electrons at geosynchronous orbit (GEO). It is found that seven of top ten extreme events at GEO during solar cycle 23 are associated with the magnetosphere inflation during the storm recovery phase as caused by the large-scale solar wind structure of very low dynamic pressure (<1.0 nPa) during rapid speed decrease from very high (>650 km/s) to typical (400–500 km/s) in a few days. For the seven events, the solar wind parameters, geomagnetic activity indices, and relativistic electron flux and geomagnetic field at GEO are superposed at the local noon period of GOES satellites to investigate the physical cause. The average profiles support the "double inflation" mechanism that the rarefaction of the solar wind and subsequent magnetosphere inflation are one of the best conditions to produce the extreme flux enhancement at GEO because of the excellent magnetic confinement of relativistic electrons by reducing the drift loss of trapped electrons at dayside magnetopause

Dawn–Dusk Asymmetries In The Coupled Solar Wind–Magnetosphere–Ionosphere System: A Review

Dawn–dusk asymmetries are ubiquitous features of the coupled solar-wind–magnetosphere–ionosphere system. During the last decades, increasing availability of satellite and ground-based measurements has made it possible to study these phenomena in more detail. Numerous publications have documented the existence of persistent asymmetries in processes, properties and topology of plasma structures in various regions of geospace. In this paper, we present a review of our present knowledge of some of the most pronounced dawn–dusk asymmetries. We focus on four key aspects: (1) the role of external influences such as the solar wind and its interaction with the Earth\u27s magnetosphere; (2) properties of the magnetosphere itself; (3) the role of the ionosphere and (4) feedback and coupling between regions. We have also identified potential inconsistencies and gaps in our understanding of dawn–dusk asymmetries in the Earth\u27s magnetosphere and ionosphere

Pulsating aurora: Source region & morphology

Pulsating aurora, a common phenomenon in the polar night sky, offers a unique opportunity to study the precipitating particle populations responsible for this subtle yet fascinating display of lights. The conjecture that the source of these electrons originates near the equator, made decades ago, has now been confirmed using in-situ measurements. In this thesis, we present these results that compare the frequencies of equatorial electron flux pulsations and pulsating aurora luminosity fluctuations at the ionospheric footprint. We use simultaneous satellite-based data from GOES 13 and ground-based data from the THEMIS allsky imager array to show that there is a direct correlation between luminosity fluctuations near the ground and particle pulsations in equatorial space; the source region of the pulsating aurora. Pulsating aurora almost exclusively occurs embedded within a region of diffuse aurora. By studying the two particle populations, one can contribute to the theory behind auroral pulsations. The interplay between the two auroral types, and the systems that control them, are not yet well known. We analyze ground optical observations of pulsating aurora events to attempt to characterize the relationship between the two types of auroral precipitation. Pulsating aurora is a significant component of energy transfer within the framework of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Further study of the morphology, total energy deposition, and the pulsation mechanism of pulsating aurora is key to a better understanding of our earth-sun system

Impact of space weather on the polar atmosphere

The impact of the Chemical-Dynamical coulping and the Mansurov effect are examined. Statistical correlations are found for both mechanisms. The possibility of an aliasing effect being responsible for the obtained significance in both cases are explored, with the results sparking for further investigation.Masteroppgave i fysikkPHYS399MAMN-PHY

A study of relativistic electron flux enhancements in the Earth's outer radiation belt

The relativistic electron distribution that occupies the outer radiation belt has been observed to vary significantly during intervals of disturbed solar wind conditions. Of particular interest are the order of magnitude increases in the relativistic electron flux that sometimes, but not always, follow the onset of a magnetic storm. These currently unpredictable relativistic electron flux enhancements are potentially hazardous during space missions causing radiation damage to spacecraft instrumentation and to humans. The work presented here establishes the conditions in the solar wind that lead to such flux enhancements. In addition, through the combined analysis of electron and wave data we provide essential constraints for the numerous proposed mechanisms for the acceleration of relativistic electrons in the outer radiation belt. The study uses data from the two STRV micro-satellites, which uncommonly are in the necessary orbit to provide coverage of almost the total electron population of the outer radiation belt essential for understanding the dynamics of the electron population. Data on the > 0.75 MeV energy electrons is used to investigate the relationship between the electron flux enhancements during magnetic storms and the coincident solar wind and geomagnetic conditions. Three distinct different types of electron responses arc identified, with outcomes that are shown to strongly depend on the solar wind speed and in particular the interplanetary magnetic field orientation during the magnetic storm recovery phase. A number of the electron acceleration mechanisms proposed to explain relativistic electron flux enhancements are driven by Pc5 pulsations in the magnetosphere. We thus investigate the relationship between these waves and electron response during magnetic storms. The findings point to a strong correlation between the Pc5 energy present during flux enhancement events and the size of the subsequent flux increase. However, the strength of the Pc5 power falls off quickly in the vicinity of the peak flux enhancement. In order to separate non-adiabatic processes, such as electron loss and most importantly heating, from adiabatic effects, we represent the electron data in a canonical coordinate system of the three adiabatic invariants. M, J and &phis; during two case studies. Using this method we identify an internal source of accelerated relativistic electrons and a further source of relativistic electrons at larger L supplied via substorm injections and inward radial diffusion. We also confirm the absence of either source of relativistic electrons when the IMF is northward during the recovery phase. Finally we use the results to help validate or discredit the various proposed electron acceleration mechanisms and end by identifying the mechanism that fits most convincingly with the analysis

Poker flat incoherent scatter radar investigations of the nighttime E-region

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014Plasma within the ionosphere affects technology, such as long distance communications and satellite navigation, by scattering and altering the propagation of radio waves sent through the ionosphere. Understanding the structure and dynamics of the ionosphere that may interfere with modern technology is therefore an important aspect of Space Weather research. In this thesis, the average characteristics and dynamics of the nighttime E-region (90-150 km in altitude) are investigated during auroral disturbances and near extreme solar minimum. The near-continuous data on electron density obtained with the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) near Fairbanks, Alaska are utilized. A number of correlation analyses between E-region electron content and AE index are performed in order to examine the influence of geomagnetic conditions on the E-region in relation to time of the day as well as seasonal and solar cycle effects. It is shown that E-region electron content and AE index exhibit significant positive correlation, particularly near local magnetic midnight, with greater correlation generally occurring in spring and autumn. The midnight feature is interpreted as an indication that the electrojet system near midnight is mostly controlled by electric conductance. The presented statistical results on the current-conductance relationship utilizing a new dataset strengthen conclusions derived from previous studies. The extent of E-region contribution to the total electron content (TEC) is also estimated and investigated for various conditions for the first time using the full altitude profile of PFISR. The estimates ranged between 5%-60% and more active periods generally displayed a more significant contribution from the E-region to TEC. Additionally, using the AE index as an indicator of auroral disturbance onset, the evolution of auroral density enhancements is explored using the superposed epoch analysis technique. The behavior of E-region electron content, peak density, height of peak density, and layer thickness is considered and three discernible phases in response of the thick E-layer to auroral disturbances are found. The observations are consistent with a scenario in which an initially soft and broad auroral electron energy spectrum quickly hardens and narrows during the main response and then slowly softens and becomes more broad during recovery

Rise of the Modern Mediatrix: The Feminization of Media and Mediating Labor, 1865-1945

This dissertation uncovers a vast archive of fictional female telegraph, telephone, and typewriter girls, combining rigorous historical research with feminist, psychoanalytic readings of mass cultural texts to show how the global gendering of low-level communication work shaped modern media. It begins in the United States, where women first performed this work, and explores three further national contexts (France, Germany, and Britain) where female operators and typists circulated as media icons of techno-social connection in an increasingly atomized age. The title “modern mediatrix” describes the essential mediating role white-collar woman workers have played in modern media infrastructure, from switchboard to editing bench. This role has been promoted by corporations, nations, and mass media as feminine for over a century. Across four chapters that engage ad campaigns, plays, novels, and films, I reveal the modern mediatrix to be a uniquely flexible character, capable of creating continuity across industrial ruptures and activating new narrative forms. To trace this character’s construction, I tie her unique semiotic tools and social skills to evolving Christian notions of sanctified feminine transmission, weaving as women’s work, and Hollywood’s reliance on an invisible feminized clerical proletariat. Media scholars who point out telegraphs and typewriters still rarely note the girl behind the machine. For too long, my field has clung to the male factory worker as an all-purpose archetype for cinematic labor and depicted female tech users at home, alone, in the thrall of the apparatus. Instead, my project proposes the rise of the modern mediatrix as an essential theoretical and material foundation for film and media studies. Each of my chapters explores a different facet of the modern mediatrix. I begin in the 1860s, when Western Union began recruiting lady telegraphers and the Catholic Church premiered its Blessing of the Telegraph, with Mary cast as a pure channel for man’s natural use of electricity. Framed by this techno-romantic mother-figure, Chapter 1 examines three teenage girls enshrined in US popular history as the first users of the telegraph, telephone, and typewriter. I show how inventors and companies used virginal foremothers to claim paternity over communications technologies and their feminized workforces. Chapter 2 argues Bell’s speech-weaver ad campaigns coded onscreen operators as vernacular translators of transitional cinematic syntax. Highlighting telephone girls’ enlistment as temp techno-pedagogues during US film’s introduction of cross-cutting and European film’s polyglot transition to sound, it offers women’s film-weaving labor as an alternative to the surgical rhetoric (suture) and patriarchal authorship model typically used to historicize film editing conventions. Chapter 3 traces the secretary’s construction as an automatic audience member in interwar European modernist media. Suggesting that the hypnotic effects of taking dictation stoked Weimar-era anxieties about women workers’ receptivity to media-savvy fascist dictators, it catalogs secretarial symptoms that trouble Frankfurt school divisions of worker-spectators into shocked factory workers and absorbed little shopgirls. Chapter 4 uses the metallic echoes of taps to read Astaire-Rogers musicals as anxious allegories for the Production Code’s reliance on typists, and as encrypted channels to two fleetingly feminized languages, Morse and binary code. A postwar coda draws out the clerical conduit’s transgressive potential, hinted at by her narrative flexibility and explicitly reclaimed in the 1970s and 80s by feminist filmmakers and techno-scientists. With access to the codes of information capitalism, virginal electric muses and hysterical film fans became canny decipherers of mystified techno-cultural matrilineages

Warrant Economics, Call-Put Policy Options and the Fallacies of Economic Theory

In this paper we aim to trace the roots of the ongoing economic mayhem and to unmask the chorus of the tragedy which plays on the world stage. The main thesis of our work is that, despite the triumphant rhetoric praising the merits of perfect competition, the global fields of the dysfunctional market system have mushroomed in what we call Warrant Economics for the Free-Market Aristocracy . Warrant Economics unfolds in two symbiotic tenets that constitute the subtle architecture of the neoliberal edifice: (i) the systemic creation and preservation of inequality via Call-Put policy options, and (ii) the systemic exploitation of inequality via novel and toxic forms of securitisation. In effect, the power structure of insiders' capitalism that we describe, through the costless appropriation of an intricate cobweb of Call-Put structures, has distorted competition and accelerated economic concentration. We view the income distribution effect, which favours the top 1%, and the business concentration effect, which gravitates competition towards oligopolistic/monopolistic industries, as the two sides of the Warrant Economics coin. We argue that the Warrant Economics state of capitalism has been legitimised by a degenerating research programme blossomed under the fallacy that economics is the "physics of society". In this faculty of thought, we perceive the Great Recession as a symptom of Warrant Economics, rather than as a tsunami-like event.Warrant Economics, Call-Put policy options, Securitisation, Monopoly, Income distribution, Great Recession, Sovereign debt