Millennial slip rate of the Longitudinal Valley fault from river terraces: Implications for convergence across the active suture of eastern Taiwan

The Longitudinal Valley fault is a key element in the active tectonics of Taiwan. It is the principal structure accommodating convergence across one of the two active sutures of the Taiwan orogeny. To understand more precisely its role in the suturing process, we analyzed fluvial terraces along the Hsiukuluan River, which cuts across the Coastal Range in eastern Taiwan in the fault's hanging wall block. This allowed us to determine both its subsurface geometry and its long-term slip rate. The uplift pattern of the terraces is consistent with a fault-bend fold model. Our analysis yields a listric geometry, with dips decreasing downdip from about 50° to about 30° in the shallowest 2.5 km. The Holocene rate of dip slip of the fault is about 22.7 mm/yr. This rate is less than the 40 mm/yr rate of shortening across the Longitudinal Valley derived from GPS measurements. The discrepancy may reflect an actual difference in millennial and decadal rates of convergence. An alternative explanation is that the discrepancy is accommodated by a combination of slip on the Central Range fault and subsidence of the Longitudinal Valley floor. The shallow, listric geometry of the Longitudinal Valley fault at the Hsiukuluan River valley differs markedly from the deep listric geometry illuminated by earthquake hypocenters near Chihshang, 45 km to the south. We hypothesize that this fundamental along-strike difference in geometry of the fault is a manifestation of the northward maturation of the suturing of the Luzon volcanic arc to the Central Range continental sliver

Dark matter: an efficient catalyst for intermediate-mass-ratio-inspiral events

Gravitational waves (GWs) can be produced if a stellar compact object, such as a black hole (BH) or neutron star, inspirals into an intermediate-massive black hole (IMBH) of $(10^3 \sim 10^5)\,M_\odot$. Such a system may be produced in the center of a globular cluster (GC) or a nuclear star cluster (NSC), and is known as an intermediate- or extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (IMRI or EMRI). Motivated by the recent suggestions that dark matter minispikes could form around IMBHs, we study the effect of dynamical friction against DM on the merger rate of IMRIs/EMRIs. We find that the merger timescale of IMBHs with BHs and NSs would be shortened by two to three orders of magnitude. As a result, the event rate of IMRIs/EMRIs are enhanced by orders of magnitude relative to that in the case of no DM minispikes. In the most extreme case where IMBHs are small and the DM minispikes have a steep density profile, all the BH in GCs and NSCs might be exhausted so that the mergers with NSs would dominate the current IMRIs/EMRIs. Our results suggest that the mass function of the IMBHs below $10^4 \,M_\odot$ would bear imprints of the distribution of DM minispikes because these low-mass IMBHs can grow efficiently in the presence of DM minispikes by merging with BHs and NSs. Future space-based GW detectors, like LISA, Taiji, and Tianqin, can measure the IMRI/EMRI rate and hence constrain the distribution of DM around IMBHs.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure

The Impact of Urbanization on Carbon Emission: Empirical Evidence in Beijing

AbstractBased on the historical data in Beijing from 1980 to 2013, this paper uses the ARDL approach to examine the impact of urbanization on carbon emission. The results show that, first, the urbanization level plays a positive role in promoting carbon emission no matter in the long or short term during the sample period. Second, the impact of per capita energy consumption on carbon emission does not seem significant no matter in the long or short term, which is due to the energy efficiency improvement and energy consumption structure adjustment in the past decades. Third, the growth of per capita GDP may curb carbon emission growth in the long term although its impact in the short term does not appear statistically significant, and we find significant inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita GDP and per capita carbon emission in Beijing during the sample period. Finally, there exists significant negative adjusting mechanism from the short term towards the long term among these variables

A Case of Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia Complained of Anorexia

It has been reported that an 82-year-old man had complained of “anorexia with wasting away (weight loss of 35 pounds) over the past six months”. The cause was unknown, and his appetite dropped to only liquid milk and soy milk every day. On further examination, his CA-199 (a tumor marker) was in the normal range, but the serum IgM level was found to be 4 times higher than normal, and lymphoplasmacytic cells in his bone marrow were 2 times higher than normal. His myeloid differentiation factor (MYD88) was detected to be positive in gene mutations, confirming a diagnosis of “Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia” (WM) complicated with “Bing-Neel syndrome” (BNS); as a result, the anorexia was attributed to it, and the symptomatic treatment with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) was proposed to improve his condition