The Institute of New Feelings: Plastic Identities and Imperfect Surfaces

Digital media are moldable spaces where an image is simultaneously a thought. This instance and flexibility enables digital existences to be malleable, transformative, situational, and unstable. They are plastic images. Video games generate digital bodies that are a fusion of subjectivities and cybernetic simulations, in a perceivable and ambiguous process. Such bodies are extensions of ourselves, being girlish, imperfect, unfinished and happening—digesting and emitting clusters of feelings, regardless of our biological gender and age. The performative experience of play is progressively departing from spectacle, gambling and competition, and increasingly shifting towards an emotional journey of alternate realities, spreading subjectivities into the visible and invisible areas of screens. Such experience, and our plastic identities that reside within, marks a collaborative attempt between designers and audience to establish a new protocol of liquid perspectives functioning within and beyond digital space. Digital plasticity itself is a practice, as well as an inextricable process of understanding and deploying identities in the contemporary media-saturated pluralistic environment

Pre-nuclear level of I-129 in Chinese loess-paleosol sections: A search for the natural I-129 level for dating in terrestrial environments

Due to its long half-life (15.7 Myr), radioactive I-129 has great potential for dating geologic materials as old as 100 Myr. Thus, knowing the natural level of I-129 is crucial to dating applications. The initial ratio of I-129/I-127 in the ocean has been quantified by a number of researchers who have reached a consensus value. However, the applicability of I-129 dating in the terrestrial environment remains problematic because the lack of an initial I-129/I-127 value. In this work, samples of loess-paleosol sections from the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) were analyzed for I-129/I-127, aiming to provide an Initial I-129/I-127 ratio that can be adopted for dating purposes in terrestrial environments. A value of (2.0 +/- 1.0) x 10(-11) for the I-129/I-127 ratio was found in two investigated loess-paleosol sections from Xifeng and Luochuan, China. This ratio is one order of magnitude higher than the initial value reported for the marine environment. Alteration of the natural initial I-129 In the investigated samples due to the downward migration of anthropogenic I-129 and by excess fissiogenic I-129 from uranium was not supported. Consequently, the I-129/I-127 ratio measured is considered to be a pristine value, and the difference from that In the marine systems is attributed to an Isotopic dilution effect. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Actively controllable topological phase transition in phononic beam systems

Topological insulators, which allow edge or interface waves but forbid bulk waves, have revolutionized our scientific cognition of acoustic/elastic systems. Due to their nontrivial topological characteristics, edge (interface)waves are topologically protected against defects and disorders. This superior and unique characteristic could lead to a wealth of new opportunities in applications of quantum and acoustic/elastic information processing. However, current acoustic/elastic topological insulators are still at an infancy stage where the theory and prediction only work in laboratories and there are still many problems left open before promoting their practical applications. One of the apparent disadvantages is their narrow working frequency range, which is the main concern in this paper. We design a one-dimensional phononic beam system made of a homogeneous epoxy central beam sandwiched by two homogeneous piezoelectric beams, and covered with extremely thin electrodes, periodically and separately placed. These electrodes are connected to external electric circuits with negative capacitors. We show that a topological phase transition can be induced and tuned by changing the values of the negative capacitors. It follows that the working frequency of the topologically protected interface mode can be widely changed, such that the working frequency range of the topological insulator can be considerably `broadened'. This intelligent topological device may also find wide applications in intelligent technologies that need controllable information processing of high precision

A SURVEY OF THE C-14 CONTENT OF DISSOLVED INORGANIC CARBON IN CHINESE LAKES

We present radiocarbon (C-14) measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) from surface waters of 11 lakes, widely distributed in China. Surface lake water DIC (FC)-C-14 values show distinct differences, and we relate these to the physical exchange character ("open" or "closed") of each lake. Open lakes studied here generally have lower DIC (FC)-C-14 values than closed lakes. We present a simple model of a lake water cycle to calculate an average residence time for each lake. Comparisons between lake DIC (FC)-C-14 and average residence time shows that the DIC (FC)-C-14 increases with the average residence time and reflects a steady-state

¹²⁹I and its species in the East China Sea: level, distribution, sources and tracing water masses exchange and movement

Anthropogenic I-129 as a long-lived radioisotope of iodine has been considered as an ideal oceanographic tracer due to its high residence time and conservative property in the ocean. Surface water samples collected from the East China Sea (ECS) in August 2013 were analyzed for I-129, I-127 and their inorganic chemical species in the first time. The measured I-129/I-127 ratio is 1-3 orders of magnitude higher than the pre-nuclear level, indicating its dominantly anthropogenic sources. Relatively high I-129 levels were observed in the Yangtze River and its estuary, as well as in the southern Yellow Sea, and I-129 level in seawater declines towards the ECS shelf. In the open sea, I-129 and I-127 in surface water exists mainly as iodate, while in Yangtze River estuary and some locations, iodide is dominated. The results indicate that the Fukushima nuclear accident has no detectable effects in the ECS until August 2013. The obtained results are used for investigation of interaction of various water masses and water circulation in the ECS, as well as the marine environment in this region. Meanwhile this work provides essential data for evaluation of the possible influence of the increasing NPPs along the coast of the ECS in the future