Given the deficiencies of traditional government capacity indicators and cultural factors (e.g., individualism) in explaining the discrepancies of different agents' responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the present study proposed and examined the role of neoliberalism, a novel cultural tradition of knowledge emphasizing the principles of free markets and self-governance, as an additional explanation of the discrepancies in the governmental and individual responses to the pandemic. Analyzing policy responses of 106 nations and personal responses from 105,203 individuals in 104 nations during the first wave of the pandemic, we found that nation-level neoliberalism (delineated by the economic freedom index) negatively predicted the nonlinear trajectories of government policy responses to contain the pandemic. Specifically, in more neoliberal countries, stringent containment policy responses showed a sharper decline in the later stage of the first wave of the pandemic. Moreover, nation-level neoliberalism negatively predicted individuals' pandemic-protective attitudes and behaviors. All these effects are independent of and incremental to those of nation-level individualism. In conclusion, this study sheds light on how neoliberalism could lead to negative consequences during large-scale, long-lasting public threats, offering practical guidance for adjusting public crisis management in the future.
Abstract Aim Quantifying niche shifts of non-native species and their interactions with natives is vital in evaluating invasion risk yet remains difficult. Climate filtering and competition with native congeners are two important processes impacting niche changes and yielding contradictory predictions for the coexistence of non-native and native species. Closely related species representing the Eastern Asia (EA)?Eastern North America (ENA) floristic disjunction provide a powerful yet unexplored system for assessing the relative roles of these two processes. Here, we tested three niche change scenarios (unfilling, expansion and stable) using EA species naturalized in ENA. We aim to answer: (1) which scenario is observed for naturalized species? and (2) how has niche overlap between EA and ENA congeners changed after naturalization? Location ENA and EA. Time Period Present. Major Taxa Studied Angiosperms. Methods Niches were estimated using both occurrences and predictions generated by ecological niche models. Niche changes of naturalized species and their niche overlap with natives were measured using Schoener's D. Contributions of niche expansion and unfilling on niche changes of naturalized niches were evaluated using hierarchical partitioning and linear regressions. We further measured pairwise phylogenetic distances among EA and ENA congeners and evaluated the association with niche overlap. Results Unfilling-dominated postintroduction niche changes of the naturalized species. EA species naturalized in ENA exhibited lower niche overlap with ENA native congeners compared with native range populations in EA. These results remain when considering time since introduction and potential physical dispersal limitations interpreted by projecting suitable niche space between EA and ENA. However, dispersal limitation may contribute to the degree of niche unfilling. Main Conclusions Using intercontinental disjunct species as a study system, we found that naturalization is shaped jointly by climate filtering and competition with native congeners, providing valuable insights for evaluating invasion risk underlying global floristic exchanges.
The development of nickel isotopes as a chemical tracer of past ocean environments requires a sound understanding of the modern oceanic budget. Our current understanding of this budget implies a large elemental and isotope imbalance between inputs to and outputs from the dissolved pool of the ocean. This imbalance is mainly caused by the dominant oxic sink of Ni to Mn oxide-rich sediments. Though the Ni isotope composition of Fe-Mn crusts has previously been used as proxy for the Ni isotope composition of these sediments, crusts and nodules represent a very small part of the total Mn oxide output. Instead, Mn oxide microparticle supply to pelagic and hemi-pelagic sediments dominates the removal of Mn to sediments, but there are very few isotope data for such samples. Here we present the first extensive Ni concentration and isotope dataset from fully oxic Mn-rich pelagic sediments, from 6 different sites across the open Pacific and 10 closely-spaced sites in the Indian Ocean. We also present data for one hemi-pelagic site representing a suboxic setting on the California Margin. Abyssal Pacific and Indian Ocean sediments have a Ni/Mn ratio of 0.02 (similar to Fe-Mn crusts) and their authigenic Ni is isotopically lighter (δ60Ni = +0.26 to +1.08‰) than seawater (+1.33‰) and crusts (+1.55±0.38‰). Data presented here for organic carbon-rich suboxic sediments of the Californian margin have lower Ni/Mn ratios (0.004 to 0.014 for the oxic top of the core, where Mn oxide is present in abundance) and even lighter authigenic Ni isotope compositions (δ60Ni = -0.08±0.11‰). We show that the Ni isotopes of nearly all Mn-rich sediments and deposits analysed to date, including the new data presented here, are correlated with Co/Mn ratios, suggesting that both are controlled by accumulation rate, progressive incorporation of Ni into the metal oxide structure and isotopic re-equilibration between the solid and aqueous phase. At sites where sediments are diagenetically processed, such as the California Margin, differential diagenetic remobilisation of Mn, Ni and Co cause deviations from this correlation. We present a new mass balance calculation that recognises the importance of scavenging of oceanic Ni to Mn oxide-rich proximal hydrothermal sediments, with low Ni/Mn and light isotope compositions. The mass balance produces a budget that can be simultaneously balanced for both amounts and isotope compositions of Ni. This result provides a strong basis for the application of Ni isotopes as records of the evolution of the metal sink from the oxic oceans through Earth history.
An approach to generalize any kind of collinear functional in density functional theory to noncollinear functionals is proposed. This approach satisfies the correct collinear limit for any kind of functional, guaranteeing that the exact collinear functional after generalization is still exact for collinear spins. Besides, it has well-defined and numerically stable functional derivatives, a desired feature for noncollinear and spin-flip time-dependent density functional theory. Furthermore, it provides local torque, hinting at its applications in spin dynamics.
Multispectral photometric stereo (MPS) aims at recovering the surface normal of a scene from a single-shot multispectral image captured under multispectral illuminations. Existing MPS methods adopt the Lambertian reflectance model to make the problem tractable, but it greatly limits their application to real-world surfaces. In this paper, we propose a deep neural network named NeuralMPS to solve the MPS problem under non-Lambertian spectral reflectances. Specifically, we present a spectral reflectance decomposition model to disentangle the spectral reflectance into a geometric component and a spectral component. With this decomposition, we show that the MPS problem for surfaces with a uniform material is equivalent to the conventional photometric stereo (CPS) with unknown light intensities. In this way, NeuralMPS reduces the difficulty of the non-Lambertian MPS problem by leveraging the well-studied non-Lambertian CPS methods. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world scenes demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Nonlocal modeling has drawn more and more attention and becomes steadily more powerful in scientific computing. In this paper, we demonstrate the superiority of a first-principle nonlocal model—Wigner function—in treating singular potentials which are often used to model the interaction between point charges in quantum science. The nonlocal nature of the Wigner equation is fully exploited to convert the singular potential into the Wigner kernel with weak or even no singularity, and thus highly accurate numerical approximations are achievable, which are hardly designed when the singular potential is taken into account in the local Schrödinger equation. The Dirac delta function, the logarithmic, and the inverse power potentials are considered. Numerically converged Wigner functions under all these singular potentials are obtained with a fourth-order accurate operator splitting spectral method, and display many interesting quantum behaviors as well.
In this work, an excitonic energy transfer (EET) based non-radical mechanism was proposed for the degradation of organic pharmaceuticals by graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) under visible light irradiation. Using diclofenac (DCF) as a model molecule, the competition between single electron transfer (SET) and EET was studied through modulating the exciton binding energy of g-C3N4. The different mechanisms of SET and EET for DCF degradation were predicted by DFT calculation, and further confirmed by their different degradation pathways. When EET played an important role, the rationality of some very popular radical scavengers, such as p-BQ, TEMPOL and furfuryl alcohol must be reconsidered. In addition, humic acid (HA) had a distinct effect on EET and SET. Specifically, HA enhanced the EET process through photosensitization, but suppressed SET through radical quenching effect. The effect of HA on DCF degradation depended on the contribution ratio of SET and ET.
Fracture-cave carbonate reservoirs represent a significant amount of oil and gas resources worldwide, while their intrinsic complex pore network, large caves and tectonic fractures bring challenges to reservoir characterizations and productions. Many models have been proposed to solve the pressure transient analysis (PTA) solutions for such reservoirs. With recent explorations, the position of fractures and caves can be determined by seismic data. However, models using the position information with the coexistence of discrete fractures and caves were not reported in the literature. This paper proposes a novel semi-analytical model based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM), to describe the transient pressure behavior of the fracture-cave carbonate reservoirs. Basically, the proposed model treats the cave edge as an inner boundary and includes the fracture-cave fluid interchanges. As a results, the model's solution is proved to be flexible for arbitrary cave and reservoir shape. A typical system consisting of one fracture and one case is discussed in detail. The result indicates the well location is the key factor to the pressure response, where the pressure response is mostly affected by the cave volume and fracture conductivity when the well is on the cave and fracture, respectively. The sensitivities of three major parameters on the pressure response are analyzed. In addition, the proposed model is applied in two field cases. The result shows the proposed model is reliable and accurate.