A Behavioral Economic Approach to Nuclear Disarmament Advocacy

Nuclear disarmament advocates have provided a strong moral voice for the total disarmament of nuclear weapons, but if they are to remain credible participants in the disarmament process, they must redouble their efforts to assist in the difficult technical and political obstacles that stand in the way of a world without nuclear weapons. This Note first outlines impediments to disarmament towards which advocates could helpfully direct their attention, such as: conventional force imbalances; developing proliferation-safe civil nuclear technologies; enforcing nonproliferation obligations; and verifying nuclear disarmament. Second, it explains how tools from behavioral economics and negotiation theory could inform a more influential disarmament advocacy. Among other things, it suggests an iterative approach to disarmament to combat loss aversion and reference dependence. To fight time discounting, this Note urges support for ex ante agreement on UN Security Council action in response to violations of the nonproliferation regime. Finally, it recommends using a fairness norm based on process rather than distribution in formal disarmament negotiations

Patients' Post-/Long-COVID Symptoms, Vaccination and Functional Status-Findings from a State-Wide Online Screening Study.

(1) Background: Better understanding of post-/long-COVID and limitations in daily life due to the symptoms as well as the preventive potential of vaccinations is required. It is unclear whether the number of doses and timepoint interrelate with the trajectory of post-/long-COVID. Accordingly, we examined how many patients positively screened with post-/long-COVID were vaccinated and whether the vaccination status and the timepoint of vaccination in relation to the acute infection were related to post-/long-COVID symptom severity and patients' functional status (i.e., perceived symptom severity, social participation, workability, and life satisfaction) over time. (2) Methods: 235 patients suffering from post-/long-COVID were recruited into an online survey in Bavaria, Germany, and assessed at baseline (T1), after approximately three weeks (T2), and approximately four weeks (T3). (3) Results: 3.5% were not vaccinated, 2.3% were vaccinated once, 20% twice, and 53.3% three times. Overall, 20.9% did not indicate their vaccination status. The timepoint of vaccination was related to symptom severity at T1, and symptoms decreased significantly over time. Being vaccinated more often was associated with lower life satisfaction and workability at T2. (4) Conclusions: This study provides evidence to get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, as it has shown that symptom severity was lower in those patients who were vaccinated prior to the infection compared to those getting infected prior to or at the same time of the vaccination. However, the finding that being vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 more often correlated with lower life satisfaction and workability requires more attention. There is still an urgent necessity for appropriate treatment for overcoming long-/post-COVID symptoms efficiently. Vaccination can be part of prevention measures, and there is still a need for a communication strategy providing objective information about the usefulness and risks of vaccinations

Stochastic method for in-situ damage analysis

Based on the physics of stochastic processes we present a new approach for structural health monitoring. We show that the new method allows for an in-situ analysis of the elastic features of a mechanical structure even for realistic excitations with correlated noise as it appears in real-world situations. In particular an experimental set-up of undamaged and damaged beam structures was exposed to a noisy excitation under turbulent wind conditions. The method of reconstructing stochastic equations from measured data has been extended to realistic noisy excitations like those given here. In our analysis the deterministic part is separated from the stochastic dynamics of the system and we show that the slope of the deterministic part, which is linked to mechanical features of the material, changes sensitively with increasing damage. The results are more significant than corresponding changes in eigenfrequencies, as commonly used for structural health monitoring.Comment: This paper is accepted by European Physical Journal B on November 2. 2012. 5 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Dynamics of Annealed Systems under External Fields: CTRW and the Fractional Fokker-Planck Equations

We consider the linear response of a system modelled by continuous-time random walks (CTRW) to an external field pulse of rectangular shape. We calculate the corresponding response function explicitely and show that it exhibits aging, i.e. that it is not translationally invariant in the time-domain. This result differs from that of systems which behave according to fractional Fokker-Planck equations

Screening and assessment for post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS), guidance by personal pilots and support with individual digital trainings within intersectoral care: a study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Because the clinical patterns and symptoms that persist after a COVID-19 infection are diverse, a diagnosis of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS) is difficult to implement. The current research project therefore aims to evaluate the feasibility and the practicability of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and cross-sectoral treatment program consisting of a low-threshold online screening and holistic assessment for PACS. Furthermore, it aims to evaluate digital interventions and the use of so-called personal guides that may help to facilitate the recovery of PACS. METHODS: This German study consists of a low-threshold online screening for PACS where positively screened participants will be supported throughout by personal pilots. The personal pilots are aimed at empowering patients and helping them to navigate through the study and different treatment options. Patients will then be randomly assigned either to an intervention group (IG) or an active control group (ACG). The IG will receive a comprehensive assessment of physiological and psychological functioning to inform future treatment. The ACG does not receive the assessment but both groups will receive a treatment consisting of an individual digital treatment program (digital intervention platform and an intervention via a chatbot). This digital intervention is based on the needs identified during the assessment for participants in the IG. Compared to that, the ACG will receive a more common digital treatment program aiming to reduce PACS symptoms. Importantly, a third comparison group (CompG) will be recruited that does not receive any treatment. A propensity score matching will take place, ensuring comparability between the participants. Primary endpoints of the study are symptom reduction and return to work. Secondary outcomes comprise, for example, social participation and activities in daily life. Furthermore, the feasibility and applicability of the online screening tool, the holistic assessment, digital trainings, and personal pilots will be evaluated. DISCUSSION: This is one of the first large-scale studies to improve the diagnosis and the care of patients with PACS by means of empowerment. It is to be evaluated whether the methods utilized can be used for the German and international population. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05238415; date of registration: February 14, 2022

Anomalous diffusion, Localization, Aging and Sub-aging effects in trap models at very low temperature

We study in details the dynamics of the one dimensional symmetric trap model, via a real-space renormalization procedure which becomes exact in the limit of zero temperature. In this limit, the diffusion front in each sample consists in two delta peaks, which are completely out of equilibrium with each other. The statistics of the positions and weights of these delta peaks over the samples allows to obtain explicit results for all observables in the limit $T \to 0$. We first compute disorder averages of one-time observables, such as the diffusion front, the thermal width, the localization parameters, the two-particle correlation function, and the generating function of thermal cumulants of the position. We then study aging and sub-aging effects : our approach reproduces very simply the two different aging exponents and yields explicit forms for scaling functions of the various two-time correlations. We also extend the RSRG method to include systematic corrections to the previous zero temperature procedure via a series expansion in $T$. We then consider the generalized trap model with parameter $\alpha \in [0,1]$ and obtain that the large scale effective model at low temperature does not depend on $\alpha$ in any dimension, so that the only observables sensitive to $\alpha$ are those that measure the `local persistence', such as the probability to remain exactly in the same trap during a time interval. Finally, we extend our approach at a scaling level for the trap model in $d=2$ and obtain the two relevant time scales for aging properties.Comment: 33 pages, 3 eps figure

Exploratory Behavior, Trap Models and Glass Transitions

A random walk is performed on a disordered landscape composed of $N$ sites randomly and uniformly distributed inside a $d$-dimensional hypercube. The walker hops from one site to another with probability proportional to $\exp [- \beta E(D)]$, where $\beta = 1/T$ is the inverse of a formal temperature and $E(D)$ is an arbitrary cost function which depends on the hop distance $D$. Analytic results indicate that, if $E(D) = D^{d}$ and $N \to \infty$, there exists a glass transition at $\beta_d = \pi^{d/2}/\Gamma(d/2 + 1)$. Below $T_d$, the average trapping time diverges and the system falls into an out-of-equilibrium regime with aging phenomena. A L\'evy flight scenario and applications to exploratory behavior are considered.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, new versio

Wind Energy and the Turbulent Nature of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Wind turbines operate in the atmospheric boundary layer, where they are exposed to the turbulent atmospheric flows. As the response time of wind turbine is typically in the range of seconds, they are affected by the small scale intermittent properties of the turbulent wind. Consequently, basic features which are known for small-scale homogeneous isotropic turbulence, and in particular the well-known intermittency problem, have an important impact on the wind energy conversion process. We report on basic research results concerning the small-scale intermittent properties of atmospheric flows and their impact on the wind energy conversion process. The analysis of wind data shows strongly intermittent statistics of wind fluctuations. To achieve numerical modeling a data-driven superposition model is proposed. For the experimental reproduction and adjustment of intermittent flows a so-called active grid setup is presented. Its ability is shown to generate reproducible properties of atmospheric flows on the smaller scales of the laboratory conditions of a wind tunnel. As an application example the response dynamics of different anemometer types are tested. To achieve a proper understanding of the impact of intermittent turbulent inflow properties on wind turbines we present methods of numerical and stochastic modeling, and compare the results to measurement data. As a summarizing result we find that atmospheric turbulence imposes its intermittent features on the complete wind energy conversion process. Intermittent turbulence features are not only present in atmospheric wind, but are also dominant in the loads on the turbine, i.e. rotor torque and thrust, and in the electrical power output signal. We conclude that profound knowledge of turbulent statistics and the application of suitable numerical as well as experimental methods are necessary to grasp these unique features (...)Comment: Accepted by the Journal of Turbulence on May 17, 201

Aging in the random energy model

In this letter we announce rigorous results on the phenomenon of aging in the Glauber dynamics of the random energy model and their relation to Bouchaud's 'REM-like' trap model. We show that, below the critical temperature, if we consider a time-scale that diverges with the system size in such a way that equilibrium is almost, but not quite reached on that scale, a suitably defined autocorrelation function has the same asymptotic behaviour than its analog in the trap model.Comment: 4pp, P