Construction of a surface air temperature series for Qingdao in China for the period 1899 to 2014

Abstract. We present a homogenized surface air temperature (SAT) time series at 2 m height for the city of Qingdao in China from 1899 to 2014. This series is derived from three data sources: newly digitized and homogenized observations of the German National Meteorological Service from 1899 to 1913, homogenized observation data of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) from 1961 to 2014 and a gridded dataset of Willmott and Matsuura (2012) in Delaware to fill the gap from 1914 to 1960. Based on this new series, long-term trends are described. The SAT in Qingdao has a significant warming trend of 0.11 ± 0.03 °C decade−1 during 1899–2014. The coldest period occurred during 1909–1918 and the warmest period occurred during 1999–2008. For the seasonal mean SAT, the most significant warming can be found in spring, followed by winter. The homogenized time series of Qingdao is provided and archived by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) web page under overseas stations of the Deutsche Seewarte (http://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/overseas_stations/ueberseedoku/doi_qingdao.html) in ASCII format. Users can also freely obtain a short description of the data at https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.5676/DWD/Qing_v1 And the data can be downloaded at http://dwd.de/EN/ourservices/overseas_stations/ueberseedoku/data_qingdao.txt

Laser Mode Bifurcations Induced by PT\mathcal{PT}-Breaking Exceptional Points

A laser consisting of two independently-pumped resonators can exhibit mode bifurcations that evolve out of the exceptional points (EPs) of the linear system at threshold. The EPs are non-Hermitian degeneracies occurring at the parity/time-reversal ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry breaking points of the threshold system. Above threshold, the EPs become bifurcations of the nonlinear zero-detuned laser modes, which can be most easily observed by making the gain saturation intensities in the two resonators substantially different. Small pump variations can then switch abruptly between different laser behaviors, e.g. between below-threshold and $\mathcal{PT}$-broken single-mode operation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Dynamic Provable Data Possession Protocols with Public Verifiability and Data Privacy

Cloud storage services have become accessible and used by everyone. Nevertheless, stored data are dependable on the behavior of the cloud servers, and losses and damages often occur. One solution is to regularly audit the cloud servers in order to check the integrity of the stored data. The Dynamic Provable Data Possession scheme with Public Verifiability and Data Privacy presented in ACISP'15 is a straightforward design of such solution. However, this scheme is threatened by several attacks. In this paper, we carefully recall the definition of this scheme as well as explain how its security is dramatically menaced. Moreover, we proposed two new constructions for Dynamic Provable Data Possession scheme with Public Verifiability and Data Privacy based on the scheme presented in ACISP'15, one using Index Hash Tables and one based on Merkle Hash Trees. We show that the two schemes are secure and privacy-preserving in the random oracle model.Comment: ISPEC 201

Three-dimensional parton distribution functions g1Tg_{1T} and h1L⊥h_{1L}^\perp in the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process

We present predictions of the unweighted and weighted double spin asymmetries related to the transversal helicity distribution $g_{1T}$ and the longitudinal transversity distribution $h_{1L}^\perp$, two of eight leading-twist transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs) or three-dimensional parton distribution functions (3dPDFs), in the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process at typical kinematics on the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR). We conclude that FAIR is ideal to access the new 3dPDFs towards a detailed picture of the nucleon structure.Comment: 6 latex pages, 5 figures, version for publication in EPJ

Single-mode lasing based on PT-breaking of two-dimensional photonic higher-order topological insulator

Topological lasers are a new class of lasers that seek to exploit the special properties of topological states of light. A typical limiting factor in their performance is the existence of non-topological states with quality factors comparable to the desired topological states. We show theoretically that by distributing uniform gain and loss on two sublattices of a two-dimensional higher-order topological insulator (HOTI) lattice, single-mode lasing based on topological corner states can be sustained over a wide range of pump strengths. This behavior stems from the parity/time-reversal breaking of the topological corner states, which supplies them with more effective gain than the edge and bulk states, rather than through localized pumping of the domain corners. These results point to opportunities for exploiting non-Hermitian phenomena and designing compact high performance topological lasers

A Dynamical Analysis of the Suitability of Prehistoric Spheroids from the Cave of Hearths as Thrown Projectiles

Spheroids are ball-shaped stone objects found in African archaeological sites dating from 1.8 million years ago (Early Stone Age) to at least 70,000 years ago (Middle Stone Age). Spheroids are either fabricated or naturally shaped stones selected and transported to places of use making them one of the longest-used technologies on record. Most hypotheses about their use suggest they were percussive tools for shaping or grinding other materials. However, their size and spherical shape make them potentially useful as projectile weapons, a property that, uniquely, humans have been specialised to exploit for millions of years. Here we show (using simulations of projectile motions resulting from human throwing) that 81% of a sample of spheroids from the late Acheulean (Bed 3) at the Cave of Hearths, South Africa afford being thrown so as to inflict worthwhile damage to a medium-sized animal over distances up to 25 m. Most of the objects have weights that produce optimal levels of damage from throwing, rather than simply being as heavy as possible (as would suit other functions). Our results show that these objects were eminently suitable for throwing, and demonstrate how empirical research on behavioural tasks can inform and constrain our theories about prehistoric artefacts

Dirac-harmonic maps from index theory

We prove existence results for Dirac-harmonic maps using index theoretical tools. They are mainly interesting if the source manifold has dimension 1 or 2 modulo 8. Our solutions are uncoupled in the sense that the underlying map between the source and target manifolds is a harmonic map.Comment: 26 pages, no figur