Is China challenging the US in the Persian Gulf? Oil, security, and politics

In this new report DIIS researchers Yang Jiang and Lars Erslev Andersen explore the changing strategic roles of the USA and China in the Persian Gulf region, in particular in view of US (mis)handling of local conflicts and China's expanding economic interest there, in order to identify the implications for Danish Middle East Policy. While the US has provided the security umbrella in the region, its handling of ethnic conflicts and civil wars has irritated members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Political developments, including 9/11 and the Arab Spring, have forced the member states of the GCC to take action to avoid the spread of democratic movements and reforms, while seeking to handle their own affairs without interference from the US, EU and UN. Problems in GCC-US relations also make GCC states look Eastwards for new partners, providing a power vacuum and opportunity for China to edge in. China has expanding economic involvement in the Gulf and has overtaken the US as the biggest importer of oil from the GCC. With expanding trade, investment and contract work in the Gulf, China seeks to protect its assets and citizens there. It can no longer follow the old diplomatic strategy of keeping a low profile and keeping business and politics separate. China has learned from crises in Libya and Sudan and changed its policy from non-intervention to active mediation, supporting UN sanctions, contributing to UN peacekeeping missions and securing peacekeeping to protect its oil interests. Doubts remain both within the GCC and in Chinese policymaking circles as to what extent China should be strategically involved in the Gulf, and China does not seek to challenge or replace the US as the security provider of the Middle East. However, there is no doubt that active pragmatism has become China's guiding diplomatic strategy and that we will see more political and strategic activities from China in the region. [...

Defining a 3-dimensional trishear parameter space to understand the temporal evolution of fault propagation folds

The application of trishear, in which deformation occurs in a triangular zone in front of a propagating fault tip, is often used to understand fault related folding. A key element of trishear, in comparison to kink-band methods, is that non-uniform deformation within the triangle zone allows the layer thickness and length to change during deformation. By varying three controlling parameters independently (trishear propagation/slip ratio, trishear apical angle and fault dip), we construct a three-dimensional parameter space to demonstrate the variability of resultant geometry feasible with trishear. We plot published natural examples in this parameter space and identify two clusters and show that the most applicable typical trishear propagation/slip ratio is 2to3, while the trishear apical angle varies from 30° to 100°. We propose that these findings can help estimate the best-fit parameters for natural structures. We then consider the temporal evolution of specific geometric examples and factors that increase the complexity of trishear including: (1) fault-dip changes and (2) pre-existing faults.To illustrate the applicability of the parameter space and complex trishear models to natural examples, we apply our results to a sub-surface example from the Qaidam basin in northern Tibetan Plateau

Effects of inherited structures on inversion tectonics: Examples from the Asturian Basin (NW Iberian Peninsula) interpreted in a Computer Assisted Virtual Environment (CAVE)

Map shows mid-nineteenth century Texas counties, major cities, towns, roads, railroads, and areas of Native American habitation. Includes detailed notes on map. Insets: "Plan of Sabine Lake," "Plan of the Northern Part of Texas," and "Plan of Galveston Bay." Relief shown by hachures. Depths shown by soundings on inset. Scales [ca. 1:2,350,000], [ca. 1: 529,000], [ca. 1:3,800,000], and [ca. 1:887,000]

Kinematics of fault-related folding derived from a sandbox experiment

We analyze the kinematics of fault tip folding at the front of a fold-and-thrust wedge using a sandbox experiment. The analog model consists of sand layers intercalated with low-friction glass bead layers, deposited in a glass-sided experimental device and with a total thickness h = 4.8 cm. A computerized mobile backstop induces progressive horizontal shortening of the sand layers and therefore thrust fault propagation. Active deformation at the tip of the forward propagating basal décollement is monitored along the cross section with a high-resolution CCD camera, and the displacement field between pairs of images is measured from the optical flow technique. In the early stage, when cumulative shortening is less than about h/10, slip along the décollement tapers gradually to zero and the displacement gradient is absorbed by distributed deformation of the overlying medium. In this stage of detachment tip folding, horizontal displacements decrease linearly with distance toward the foreland. Vertical displacements reflect a nearly symmetrical mode of folding, with displacements varying linearly between relatively well defined axial surfaces. When the cumulative slip on the décollement exceeds about h/10, deformation tends to localize on a few discrete shear bands at the front of the system, until shortening exceeds h/8 and deformation gets fully localized on a single emergent frontal ramp. The fault geometry subsequently evolves to a sigmoid shape and the hanging wall deforms by simple shear as it overthrusts the flat ramp system. As long as strain localization is not fully established, the sand layers experience a combination of thickening and horizontal shortening, which induces gradual limb rotation. The observed kinematics can be reduced to simple analytical expressions that can be used to restore fault tip folds, relate finite deformation to incremental folding, and derive shortening rates from deformed geomorphic markers or growth strata

Exhibiting, Disseminating, Teaching: Digital Literature in Danish Public Libraries

Danish public libraries have since 2010 exhibited, disseminated, and taught digital literature. This paper lays out the general trajectory of their work, and introduces the notion of a post-digital literacy: a theoretical lens through which to conceptualize and articulate the importance of teaching digital literature in K-12. In fruitful dialogue with a variety of other parties and institutions, including Aarhus University and the ELO, a handful of public libraries have developed considerable and impressive expertise, grounded in practice-based experimentation. Their efforts, which have taken place in the course of six projects, are the case into which this paper inquires. The case represents an astute continuity in terms of exhibiting and communicating digital literature to the general public, yet the decade of work has hitherto not been presented or analyzed collectively. In doing so, this paper not only collects the efforts made by multiple librarians in multiple libraries and documented in a variety of places and formats, it also considers the general trajectory of the work carried out as an ample case for charting areas for future work. In particular, the paper covers the projects: Open Work, 2010 (Danish: ‘Åbent Værk’); Literature Takes Place, 2011-2013 (Danish: ‘Litteraturen finder sted’); DigiSpace, 2015-2016 (Danish: ‘DigiRum’); Turn on Literature, 2016-2018 (Danish: ‘Tænd litteraturen’); Advisory Board for Digital Literature, 2016-2018 (Danish: ‘Advisory board for digital litteratur’); and Literature in Digital Transformation, 2019-2020 (Danish: ‘Litteratur i digital transformation’). The paper introduces each of these projects in chronological order, thus collecting and communicating the collective efforts made to an international academic audience. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how there has been a shift in general focus, from early projects focusing on the possibility of exhibiting digital literature in public libraries per se (Open Work & Literature Takes Place); over projects mixing the exhibitions with an extensive focus on (informal) dissemination (DigiSpace & Turn on Literature); to later projects focusing explicitly on (formal) K-12 teaching, while maintaining public exhibitions as a fruitful way to conduct such teaching (Advisory Board for Digital Literature & Literature in Digital Transformation). Indeed, the latest project, Literature in Digital Transformation, included the development of a teaching platform intended for higher levels of K-12 education, which enables teachers to integrate digital literature into their teaching as well as examinations. The teaching platform itself is introduced in some detail. Finally the paper discusses the importance of teaching digital literature, not only as a contemporary kind of (multi-modal) literature, but also as cultural computation, setting the stage for the development of a post-digital literacy. As part hereof, the paper argues for the importance of situating digital literature as part of the current push for teaching computation and computational thinking in K-12 education. Based on the last decade’s worth of work, the paper offers reflections on the possibility of public libraries to take on a central role in teaching children and youths about cultural consequences of mass digitization – through a practice of teaching digital literature

Chemical Power for Microscopic Robots in Capillaries

The power available to microscopic robots (nanorobots) that oxidize bloodstream glucose while aggregated in circumferential rings on capillary walls is evaluated with a numerical model using axial symmetry and time-averaged release of oxygen from passing red blood cells. Robots about one micron in size can produce up to several tens of picowatts, in steady-state, if they fully use oxygen reaching their surface from the blood plasma. Robots with pumps and tanks for onboard oxygen storage could collect oxygen to support burst power demands two to three orders of magnitude larger. We evaluate effects of oxygen depletion and local heating on surrounding tissue. These results give the power constraints when robots rely entirely on ambient available oxygen and identify aspects of the robot design significantly affecting available power. More generally, our numerical model provides an approach to evaluating robot design choices for nanomedicine treatments in and near capillaries.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure