#Concrete Applications
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evolutionshotcrete · 28 days ago
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nnctales · 1 year ago
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Understanding the Key Differences between High Performance and High Strength Concrete
Concrete, one of the most widely used construction materials, has undergone significant advancements over the years. Among these innovations are high performance concrete (HPC) and high strength concrete (HSC). While they may sound similar, these two types of concrete serve distinct purposes and exhibit contrasting properties. In this article, we will delve into the differences between high…
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ophazines · 3 months ago
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Here are the results of the interest check! There were 185 responses. Thank you so much for your interest!
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kooki914 · 2 months ago
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I know this may sound like a silly question, but specifically for the undertale version of Asgore: what coud a partner do to help him become more assertive? Asking because I'm planning to ship him with an OC and I still despise how basically in the ending Toriel gets to verbally tear intro him and he doesn't bother to defend himself (specially with the "just get one soul and leave to kill 6 more ppl to break the barrier" wich she coud have done herself but refused to while living inside her own little bubble ignoring the suffering of her fellos monsters, I undestand she was grieving but I feel it coud have been done without making her seem on the right and nobody speaking agaist her). I also know that by doing this he may appear out of character or that "he changed just for his partner", but knowing that a partner can help you to change for the better while highliting you best personality traits, and I was wondering wich coud be the most coherent way (my plan is for them to spend at least 5 years together, and that Asgore also helps his parter change for the better since they arrive having strong biases agaist monsters).
I don't think this is a silly question at all! It's something I've tackled somewhat in my Spadesgore fics, the idea that someone's habits rub off on Asgore and what can seem like a negative change to outsiders (him being more closed off and assertive) is actually a positive one in the long run because he actually, y'know, gets a spine and stops putting other people's needs above his own.
With Undertale specifically it's a VERY complicated question because I feel like step 1 of any Asgore development in Undertale is that he needs to fully face the brunt of his actions. I'm actually somewhat of the opposite opinion to you about the "confrontation" between him and Toriel, I think the narrative very clearly spells out that his "violence when you're faced with violence" response was the INCORRECT one (while Toriel choosing pacifism in the face of a bloodthirsty nation was, arguably, the least morally dubious choice any character could've made), but Asgore never... confronted the root of that problem? He essentially got a slap on the wrist for the murder of 6 children, and while that WAS narratively satisfying for a game about forgiveness and letting go of the past, I think a bit of self-discipline is in order for Asgore, post the events of the game. Him confronting HIMSELF rather than relying on someone else to do it for him is kind of pivotal to that, in my opinion, because this isn't something a relationship can mend FOR him. Let me elaborate.
WARNING - since this post is analyzing Asgore, there's implications of suicidal ideation, but it's not discussed at length. And, fair warning, this post is less "proper character analysis" and more "wayward speculation based on narrative beats for the sake of shipping" <3
While Asgore is the type of person to feel borderline incomplete when not in a relationship with someone (see: all of his behavior in Deltarune; and in Undertale the way he just Stops Speaking once it's clear Toriel wants nothing to do with him, it's like he's just entirely shut himself out of the conversation as if he has nothing to offer anymore, only ever speaking in vague platitudes until the final boss is defeated and he's osmosed into the friend group), contrary to what he thinks a relationship Won't Fix Him NOR his issues around self-worth. It's something he has to tackle on his own because, if he enters another relationship without doing so, he's gonna end up in the same cycle of trying to impress his partner, exhausting himself, and putting his partner between a rock and a hard place because he's both extremely emotionally needy while NEVER communicating his needs properly, closing himself off while desperate for intimacy.
It's borderline masochistic, his tendencies to just passively wait for outsiders to judge, reward, punish, and practically command his every action. It's why he's kind of a bad leader? He's community oriented, but in that way where he wants to please everyone instead of enacting lasting change, because (I think) he can't really envision a greater good because he's got anxiety up the ass. He's REactive rather than ACTIVE, and while that's typically not THAT big of a deal (again, his Deltarune self as an example of how you can have a normal-ish life even with that weird mentality), when you're put in the position of a leader and then refuse to make conscious choices out of a fear of hurting someone, you're inevitably going to hurt Everyone, which is exactly what happened in Undertale. I guess an easy way to make Asgore a little more self-assured is, paradoxically, give him less power. This may seem antithetical, but if he's allowed to, like, sit and breathe for a minute without everything resting on his shoulders, and small, inconsequential decisions are up to him without the title of "King" looming over him, it might make him feel more confident in THOSE choices, specifically. This doesn't fix the core issue, though, more just gives him a safety net where he can hide from his royal problems with someone who sees him as more than just his title and duty, which is valid (and honestly really cozy and cute), but I'm here to break people and put them back together, so strap in.
You mentioned your OC is a human who has a lot of bias against monsters initially, so allow me to run (a mile) with that for a minute. You probably already have a meetcute in mind for them, but it's honestly a really good setup, I can't help but throw my two (or three) cents into it. It forces our POV character (the OC) to go through considerable change throughout the events of the narrative (whether you fic this or not you've already implemented character development into your romance plot and I Adore that), and in turn a changing perspective on Asgore himself. Try to think of things a human might hold him accountable for, justly or otherwise, someone who heard of mythical monsters and a terrible king who slays children. Your OC might start off somewhat siding with Toriel at first (as she was the only monster who attempted to SAVE humans rather than kill them), but gradually grow to sympathise with Asgore once they get to know him, not just because he's a walking pity party but because that human and Asgore might have more in common than they first thought. (This is where I run out of info on your OC and can't really fill in the blanks LMAO go wild with this part. It can be something as simple as gardening or something as deep rooted and psychological as "the need to please other people in order to feel like you're worth anyone's time". Bonus points if it's both and the gardening is symbolic of the psychological issues.)
From Asgore's perspective, though, this would be utterly baffling. To this day, I don't doubt he somewhat idolises Toriel, he clearly still longs to be close with her, so to see someone (a HUMAN no less) stop empathising with her feelings and instead side with his own? He'd think they're nuts! ... But also, it'd be deeply validating in that guilty-pleasure kind of way (guilty because he doesn't think he deserves redemption). It actually starts turning gears in his head, though... If someone in a position like that, someone belonging to a nation he's hurt so badly, can see the GOOD in him and try to nurture a bond with him despite it all... doesn't it mean he's genuinely worth something? Even if he himself can't see it yet?
(This is, you may note, similar to what happens with Frisk in most fan-plots, but also highlights where I think Asgore's "redemption" in Undertale falls a bit short on the character level. Frisk never really gets to spend time with Asgore, since it's narratively irrelevant whether they like the guy or not, because the point of their conflict is that Frisk refuses to kill him, and refuses to be killed BY him. It's a conflict that re-states the core moral of the game, while also partly dismissing a genuine bond between the characters because it's necessary for it to stay vague for them to properly represent the narrative forces that they do (humanity and monster-kind). The popular fanon is that Asgore adopts Frisk similarly to the way Toriel does, but, in the game there's literally nothing to support that. The equally valid interpretation is that Frisk sees Asgore as just Some Guy they're lukewarm with for the sake of not kickstarting another monster-human war, even if they genuinely don't like him on a personal level, just like Toriel doesn't anymore. Because, again, there's nothing in the game to support Frisk being besties with literally EVERYONE, they just hang out with monsters sometimes and Don't Kill Them, it's not a high bar.)
IF you don't want to take the angle of your OC siding with Toriel (if the monster bias is THAT bad in the beginning), I'd instead propose really hammering home the monster hatred. Just by existing, by being someone hostile to Asgore over something he DIDN'T expect to get hostility over (the fact that he's a monster, and not the fact that he's a murderer) would maybe make him question why he WANTED to be told he was irredeemable, and why it's so strange to receive that input for the wrong reasons. Maybe he tries convincing the human that, actually, monsters are good and HE'S the one who's to blame for everything bad, and when he's brushed off with "no all monsters suck" it just baffles him more. Bonus points if later on it hits him like a truck that your OC developing feelings for HIM specifically made them get over their monster hatred. He thinks it's a case of "if you learn to love the worst of something you'll love the best too" but then has to come face to face with the idea that he ISN'T the worst of monster kind! That they actually prefer HIS company over other monsters! And not even for superficial reasons! And maybe there's still prejudices to overcome with the human, but they're trying FOR him, not in spite of him, and it's yet another little sign from the heavens to Asgore that maybe, just maybe, he's not as irredeemable as he thought.
Another potential avenue, that's less directly correlated with shipping, is to give him a kid that is his responsibility alone to take care of. Whether that be a literal adopted child, or a kid he has to impromptu take care of for a while, I feel like having someone (anyone, really) other than himself to provide for sort of nudges his priorities back in place (even if it doesn't really dismantle the core of his issues). (My reasoning for this being a potential avenue is how much Asgore's let himself go in Deltarune when no-one lives with him, juxtaposed to his well-maintained house in Undertale where he's constantly taking visitors and patiently waiting for his wife to come back.) Something small and defenseless that depends on him for support and protection is something that could really make him realise how much his well-being actually means in the grand scheme of things, that even if it isn't pleasant he has to stand his ground if only for the sake of this child that depends on him for literally everything (which was, incidentally, also his motivation for starting the war in the first place - avenging the children he failed to protect with a fiery vengeance as the only concrete decision he made in his time as king (that we know of)).
Maybe the point of contact/conflict between your OC and Asgore in this scenario is someone who doesn't believe he should be allowed to take care of a child (what with the 6 dead in his basement), and while the feud may start as mild, it might get more and more out of hand and forces Asgore to actually put his foot down and Demand custody rather than ask politely, maybe because the kid in question trusts him and nobody else for backstory reasons, or because they're literally His Kid (Chara slots in really well into this role IMO but you don't have to go with that route if you don't want to tackle revival shenaniganery). This is, imo, much harder to execute in literary form? (If you're not gonna fic this, ignore this part) It bumps up the conflict from slowburn to full on enemies-to-lovers, even if it speedruns the process of Asgore getting a spine, and if you can pull that off hats off to you but I always struggle with proper enemies to lovers with no intermediary of "friends" in between.
IN ANY CASE, past the "will they - won't they" phase, once they're actually together, I'd suggest your OC lightly nudge Asgore into that self-assuredness he's desperately missing, and moreover I suggest it not be on purpose. While it's probably the healthier option to talk to your partner if they're having self-esteem issues, this is fiction and I love drama, if you expected anything else you came to the wrong person, and ALSO this is Asgore we're talking about. He's the king of "never talk about my emotions, ever" so even if something is brought to the forefront he'd probably just apologise and privately cry about it without fixing literally anything. It would be more impactful (imo) if Asgore chose to adopt some of the habits of his partner without him being prodded over it, or pushed into it. At first, small things, like actually asking for the pickles in his order himself (/ref, meme), but slowly it might evolve into him realising just how much he's been neglecting himself. Scenario example of what I mean - his partner has actual self-preservation instincts and can help themself when in a tough spot, and Asgore is caught off guard when that same kindness is offered to him (as the king of monsters, his subjects revered him so heavily they kind of forgot he can actually get hurt or might need help with otherwise ordinary things, and Asgore stopped helping himself along the way because of it).
A different scenario might be something benign, like an insult or backhanded compliment Asgore brushes off, but his partner doesn't. Asgore might hold the (correct) position that, as a political figure, there's literally no point in trying to stave off every insult or mean opinion, and (incorrectly) asserts it doesn't have an effect on him overall. Because, in reality, it DOES stick. He has a hard time shaking off disapproval and hatred when he's carrying around so much guilt (juxtaposed to how genuinely confident he seems in Gerson's stories of Asgore before his children fell down and before Toriel left, when Asgore could ACTUALLY roll with the punches and not mind public embarrassment because the opinion of the masses didn't matter to him as much as it does now), and maybe his partner can point out to him that he seems weirdly more fixated on the actual Contents of the insult than they do. Where they just didn't like someone's tone or intent, Asgore's actually focusing on What they said, and it's a clear indication of the way he compartmentalises and somewhat takes in every criticism he's ever received. Because depression and low self esteem just does that to a motherfucker sometimes.
Overall there's also a sort of... tricky line to tread when trying to write around/through one of the character's defining flaws. Asgore was always described as a pushover, so what are you really left with when trying to override that fatal flaw that makes him what he is? This sort of trope, "your strongest attribute is your biggest weakness", stems all the way back from ancient Greece because its a GOLDEN trope, and when making fan content I think there's an interesting line that can be drawn. Asgore's best quality is his friendliness and approachable-ness, so how do we NOT diminish that while actually diminishing the FLAW part of that core character trait? Maybe Asgore's more confident and self-assured now that he has a partner that supports him basically unconditionally, but ALSO he still cracks under pressure easily and gives into demands if pressed enough. Maybe he stands his ground more and can actually tell people off without being a total pushover, but ALSO he ends up feeling a lot of guilt over doing so and maybe regresses back into old habits soon after.
Because, again, a relationship won't fix him, and to me that's part of the appeal. Instead of finding someone to "make him whole", it's more about finding someone that's gonna be there for him during the good and the bad days, someone who maybe fills in for some of the traits he lacks, but never overrides what makes him who he is. Because, let's be honest, him being a pushover is probably what allows him to properly consider a relationship with someone who started off so heavily biased against him. Having little self esteem paved the way for him to not dismiss this person outright, opening his arms to someone who started off with genuine hatred towards him, and it's not a good habit(!!), but it's woven into his vary nature as a character, and I always find it interesting to see that push and pull between progress and loving even the bad parts of someone's personality. Again, especially because it's fiction, there's a lot to explore when it comes to that line of thinking, "do I want to make you better or am I trying to change a fundamental part of you"? I don't think Asgore would be abandoning his nature by having a spine and not taking shit from literally everyone, BUT it might be a line of thinking HE falls back on, because he's had literally hundreds of years of this habit built up, it's gonna be hard to make any progress without immediately taking two steps back again. Especially because it's Asgore, he's basically a smiling boulder that refuses to move or change (and I say that affectionately).
TL;DR:
I think finding a way to instill a sense of Inherent Worth in Asgore is a good way to shake him into being a little more assertive. It's what I did in my own fics (and a lot of this post was me re-treading the same ideas with different characters to pair Asgore with), and the premise of someone who dislikes him from the get-go but learns to love him in time is (in my opinion) the best vessel to do that through. Because, if this person, who means a lot to him, can get over their biases and love him, (like ACTUALLY love him, not the way his subjects love their king, but the way a person loves another person) doesn't that mean there's worth to him being himself, and not just what people expect of him? Is the fact that he's beloved by someone he loves not reason enough to try and survive another day, and thrive in the long run?
It's difficult to instill worth in a character that's had hundreds of years of literal and figurative dehumanization on his hands, but it has to start with small things. Him being more than just a king. Then, him being more than just a friend, more than just a person you're eventually going to grow tired of or disgusted with, and eventually someone who doesn't need constant approval to feel like he's allowed to breathe. Small kindnesses go a long way, and if he starts to see himself in someone he wants to protect, or ends up in a position where he's being provided for by someone he loves, it can build up those ideas of worth and (ironically) independence, because it's less about pleasing a crowd and more about Not Dying because he's actually not that bad to have around in the first place.
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treecakes · 2 months ago
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it feels SO informal to text my professor abt school related stuff but she’ll never get back to me otherwise.
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ceescedasticity · 2 years ago
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ERIADOR
Why is the Lonely Land so lonely? There's been some discussion of this on the discord server and I thought I'd try to sum up my thoughts.
But first, ERIADOR:
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Base map cropped from Christopher Tolkien's, overlay by me. Long Tolkien Gateway-based discussion follows!
The green area in the west is Second Age Lindon (except pre-downfall-of-Númenor there was at least some more land west of the mountains, thanks loads Eru). Any time in the Third Age elves are occupying much less of this, but we don't know how much less, and there's no indication it was ever formally claimed by anyone else.
Off-red area north of Lindon was Second Age dwarf territory — it's possible dwarves also controlled the actual mountains in what is marked Lindon, but it's not stated. The red dot is the approximate location of First Age Belegost. It should probably be more in the mountains proper. Third Age I would guess their territory extended farther south? There was a dwarven kingdom-in-exile somewhere around there T.A. 2802-2941, but presumably dwarves living there both before and after.
You can see the Shire in light blue — boundaries are kind of a guess. It was established T.A. 1601. And then 'suffered greatly' in 1636 from the Great Plague. Rough start!
Angmar is in gray in the northeast. It lasted T.A. 1300-1975. Angmar's borders other than the south one are not entirely clear. They Grey Mountains are mentioned as the eastern border, but that takes us across the Misty Mountains? Anyway Angmar's capital Carn Dûm is noted, at the end of the Mountains of Angmar. There were supposed to be evil Men living there. Its forces also included orcs.
It's generally unclear what the northern border of Arnor was — or the effective northern border. It never seems to be defined, but they clearly weren't doing much when you get up into the Forodwaith. Too cold. Which is kind of weird when you consider that Forochel is at approximately the same latitude as Dorthonion and the ocean is right there NO I SAID I WASN'T GOING TO CONSIDER CLIMATE/LATITUDE/CHANGING OF WORLD. Ahem. There were people minding their own business up there, especially towards the coast away from Angmar.
Apart from its fuzzy northern border, old Arnor was bordered in the west by (south to north) the Blue Mountains/Gulf of Lune/probably River Lhûn. Then its, uh, southwest border was the coast, and its southeast border was Rivers Gwathlo/Mitheithel/Bruinen (a.k.a. Greyflood/Hoarwell/Loudwater) up to the Misty Mountains. It's not clear whether Arnor included what later became Angmar.
Arnor split up in T.A. 861 into Arthedain (northwest), Cardolan (south), and Rhudaur (northeast). There was some dispute between the three over the part of Arthedain around Weathertop, where Arthedain had the watchtower of Amon Sûl and accompanying palantír and the other two kind of wanted it.
Arthedain had the cities Annúminas (the old capital of Arnor) and (its own capital) Fornost. It included what were supposed to be the most populous regions of Arnor. The Shire is in Arthedain, though it was apparently mostly unused by Men by the time the Shire was founded (even though the Baranduin was previously a locus of population — clearly things were already not so great). Northern Arthedain didn't get hit as hard by the Great Plague. It was at war with Angmar off and on from T.A. 1356 at the latest until its fall in T.A. 1974.
Cardolan had two towns on its borders — Bree and Tharbad — but if it had a capital or notable locations of its own they aren't recorded apparently. Its defenses were broken and its last prince killed in T.A. 1409. After this most of the remaining Dúnedain of Cardolan holed up in what became the Barrow-downs and Old Forest. (The Barrow-downs weren't haunted yet but they were a gravesite, and, like, in the Old Forest? How'd that work out for them? Yeeesh.) There were still non-Dúnedain living elsewhere in Cardolan, but most of them died in the Great Plague in 1636. It was after this that the Barrow-downs got haunted, so presumably the remaining Dúnedain were gone, too.
Rhudaur really seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of both size and kind of territory. Yes, they get to be neighbors with Elrond, but does that really make up for it? The territory breakup would be somewhat more equitable if Rhudaur originally included what became Angmar, but that's not clear, and it's not like that's particularly nice territory. Anyway, Rhudaur allied with Angmar sometime before T.A. 1356. It sounds like they did so officially sometime after T.A. 1349, when the king of Arthedain decided to claim overlordship of the other two on the grounds that they didn't have Isildur descendants anymore, but there must have been some sort of relationship before that. According to Arthedain there were only evil men left in Rhudaur after 1409, and there was no one at all in Rhudaur after 1975; there was 'a shadow on the land'. —Okay apparently the etymology of Rhudaur is arguably 'troll forest' or 'evil forest', which, really? I'm going to say it started as the alternate possibility 'east forest', and the other is a later folk etymology.
The uncolored area between the rivers and the mountains used to be Eregion, and doesn't seem to have been claimed by Arnor at all. Imladris is up at its north end, which is probably why Arnor set the border there, but I don't think there's much evidence Imladris was governing the region in any way. Khazad-dum was still active until T.A. 1981, but there's no evidence they did any governing, either. Not clear if anyone lived there.
Dunland… is Dunland. Its western border is unclear because it's supposed to be a road which isn't fully drawn on the map, and also the road curves towards the Isen in a way which would seem to preclude Dunland's southern border being the Isen? Also, how is Dunland isolated enough to avoid the worst of the Great Plague when one of its borders is the main North-South road? Does Dunland have an effective border of some miles east of the road? Anyway the Dunlendings' ancestors were chased there in the Second Age by Númenóreans and they've been there ever since.
Then we have the nice empty space marked Enedwaith! (Technically includes Dunland.) Enedwaith was not part of Gondor or Arnor; they 'had a joint interest, but apparently the only part they actually cared about was maintaining the North-South Road (indicated by the long skinny thingy) and Tharbad. Most of Enedwaith's pre-Númenórean occupants got chased into Dunland by the Númenóreans, but then the Númenóreans didn't really settle there either even in the Third Age. There were some Drúedain in the marshes towards the coast. Both Enedwaith and Minhiriath in Cardolan suffered devastating deforestation in the Second Age, but in the Third Age were apparently perfectly good grassland. —Technically speaking Enedwaith is not considered Eriador apparently? But I'm not sure what it is.
Okay, what else… The town of Tharbad is on the map. It was founded in the Second Age as an Númenórean fort/river haven, and there was a battle there, but after that was ignored for a while until Arnor and Gondor needed a road and a place to cross the Gwathlo. The whole area around the river convergence was really marshy — it was called the Swanfleet — but it was extensively drained to enable building a proper fortified town, a bridge, and causeways for the road on either side. Tharbad hung on after the Great Plague. It did not hang on after Fell Winter-related floods in 2912, presumably because all the drainage systems, dikes, etc. were destroyed in the floods and the area returned to its natural state as a giant marsh. There was still sort of a ford in the ruins of the bridge, but it wasn't a very good ford.
Aaaaand Bree-land, which probably I should have marked but it's just a really small area around Bree. The Bree-men have been living there since the Second Age — their ancestors fled Númenóreans — and just… carried on, all through the rise and fall of the North-kingdom. (For non-Númenóreans carrying on through the rise may be the more impressive part.) Bree was an active trading town and in the late Third Age saw travelers from all sorts of places! Bree-land was occupied by Men and later hobbits. Noted to be most westerly settlement of Men. Hmmm. Not sure I believe that.
Okay. I may have to come back, but I think that covers it.
Stay tuned for (at some point) "why is the Lonely Land so lonely?"
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jesterguy · 1 year ago
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Basically what my past two weeks have amounted to
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jcmarchi · 7 months ago
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Two MIT teams selected for NSF sustainable materials grants
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/two-mit-teams-selected-for-nsf-sustainable-materials-grants/
Two MIT teams selected for NSF sustainable materials grants
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Two teams led by MIT researchers were selected in December 2023 by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator, a part of the TIP Directorate, to receive awards of $5 million each over three years, to pursue research aimed at helping to bring cutting-edge new sustainable materials and processes from the lab into practical, full-scale industrial production. The selection was made after 16 teams from around the country were chosen last year for one-year grants to develop detailed plans for further research aimed at solving problems of sustainability and scalability for advanced electronic products.
Of the two MIT-led teams chosen for this current round of funding, one team, Topological Electric, is led by Mingda Li, an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. This team will be finding pathways to scale up sustainable topological materials, which have the potential to revolutionize next-generation microelectronics by showing superior electronic performance, such as dissipationless states or high-frequency response. The other team, led by Anuradha Agarwal, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory, will be focusing on developing new materials, devices, and manufacturing processes for microchips that minimize energy consumption using electronic-photonic integration, and that detect and avoid the toxic or scarce materials used in today’s production methods.
Scaling the use of topological materials
Li explains that some materials based on quantum effects have achieved successful transitions from lab curiosities to successful mass production, such as blue-light LEDs, and giant magnetorestance (GMR) devices used for magnetic data storage. But he says there are a variety of equally promising materials that have shown promise but have yet to make it into real-world applications.
“What we really wanted to achieve is to bring newer-generation quantum materials into technology and mass production, for the benefit of broader society,” he says. In particular, he says, “topological materials are really promising to do many different things.”
Topological materials are ones whose electronic properties are fundamentally protected against disturbance. For example, Li points to the fact that just in the last two years, it has been shown that some topological materials are even better electrical conductors than copper, which are typically used for the wires interconnecting electronic components. But unlike the blue-light LEDs or the GMR devices, which have been widely produced and deployed, when it comes to topological materials, “there’s no company, no startup, there’s really no business out there,” adds Tomas Palacios, the Clarence J. Lebel Professor in Electrical Engineering at MIT and co-principal investigator on Li’s team. Part of the reason is that many versions of such materials are studied “with a focus on fundamental exotic physical properties with little or no consideration on the sustainability aspects,” says Liang Fu, an MIT professor of physics and also a co-PI. Their team will be looking for alternative formulations that are more amenable to mass production.
One possible application of these topological materials is for detecting terahertz radiation, explains Keith Nelson, an MIT professor of chemistry and co-PI. This extremely high-frequency electronics can carry far more information than conventional radio or microwaves, but at present there are no mature electronic devices available that are scalable at this frequency range. “There’s a whole range of possibilities for topological materials” that could work at these frequencies, he says. In addition, he says, “we hope to demonstrate an entire prototype system like this in a single, very compact solid-state platform.”
Li says that among the many possible applications of topological devices for microelectronics devices of various kinds, “we don’t know which, exactly, will end up as a product, or will reach real industrial scaleup. That’s why this opportunity from NSF is like a bridge, which is precious, to allow us to dig deeper to unleash the true potential.”
In addition to Li, Palacios, Fu, and Nelson, the Topological Electric team includes Qiong Ma, assistant professor of physics in Boston College; Farnaz Niroui, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT; Susanne Stemmer, professor of materials at the University of California at Santa Barbara; Judy Cha, professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University; industrial partners including IBM, Analog Devices, and Raytheon; and professional consultants. “We are taking this opportunity seriously,” Li says. “We really want to see if the topological materials are as good as we show in the lab when being scaled up, and how far we can push to broadly industrialize them.”
Toward sustainable microchip production and use
The microchips behind everything from smartphones to medical imaging are associated with a significant percentage of greenhouse gas emissions today, and every year the world produces more than 50 million metric tons of electronic waste, the equivalent of about 5,000 Eiffel Towers. Further, the data centers necessary for complex computations and huge amount of data transfer — think AI and on-demand video — are growing and will require 10 percent of the world’s electricity by 2030.
“The current microchip manufacturing supply chain, which includes production, distribution, and use, is neither scalable nor sustainable, and cannot continue. We must innovate our way out of this crisis,” says Agarwal.
The name of Agarwal’s team, FUTUR-IC, is a reference to the future of the integrated circuits, or chips, through a global alliance for sustainable microchip manufacturing. Says Agarwal, “We bring together stakeholders from industry, academia, and government to co-optimize across three dimensions: technology, ecology, and workforce. These were identified as key interrelated areas by some 140 stakeholders. With FUTUR-IC we aim to cut waste and CO2-equivalent emissions associated with electronics by 50 percent every 10 years.”
The market for microelectronics in the next decade is predicted to be on the order of a trillion dollars, but most of the manufacturing for the industry occurs only in limited geographical pockets around the world. FUTUR-IC aims to diversify and strengthen the supply chain for manufacturing and packaging of electronics. The alliance has 26 collaborators and is growing. Current external collaborators include the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI), Tyndall National Institute, SEMI, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Agarwal leads FUTUR-IC in close collaboration with others, including, from MIT, Lionel Kimerling, the Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; Elsa Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering; Randolph Kirchain, principal research scientist in the Materials Research Laboratory; and Greg Norris, director of MIT’s Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE). All are affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory. They are joined by Samuel Serna, an MIT visiting professor and assistant professor of physics at Bridgewater State University. Other key personnel include Sajan Saini, education director for the Initiative for Knowledge and Innovation in Manufacturing in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Peter O’Brien, a professor from Tyndall National Institute; and Shekhar Chandrashekhar, CEO of iNEMI.
“We expect the integration of electronics and photonics to revolutionize microchip manufacturing, enhancing efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and paving the way for unprecedented advancements in computing speed and data-processing capabilities,” says Serna, who is the co-lead on the project’s technology “vector.”
Common metrics for these efforts are needed, says Norris, co-lead for the ecology vector, adding, “The microchip industry must have transparent and open Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models and data, which are being developed by FUTUR-IC.” This is especially important given that microelectronics production transcends industries. “Given the scale and scope of microelectronics, it is critical for the industry to lead in the transition to sustainable manufacture and use,” says Kirchain, another co-lead and the co-director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT. To bring about this cross-fertilization, co-lead Olivetti, also co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), will collaborate with FUTUR-IC to enhance the benefits from microchip recycling, leveraging the learning across industries.
Saini, the co-lead for the workforce vector, stresses the need for agility. “With a workforce that adapts to a practice of continuous upskilling, we can help increase the robustness of the chip-manufacturing supply chain, and validate a new design for a sustainability curriculum,” he says.
“We have become accustomed to the benefits forged by the exponential growth of microelectronic technology performance and market size,” says Kimerling, who is also director of MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory and co-director of the MIT Microphotonics Center. “The ecological impact of this growth in terms of materials use, energy consumption and end-of-life disposal has begun to push back against this progress. We believe that concurrently engineered solutions for these three dimensions will build a common learning curve to power the next 40 years of progress in the semiconductor industry.”
The MIT teams are two of six that received awards addressing sustainable materials for global challenges through phase two of the NSF Convergence Accelerator program. Launched in 2019, the program targets solutions to especially compelling challenges at an accelerated pace by incorporating a multidisciplinary research approach.
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vaguegrant · 2 years ago
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Let's check in on science today and
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huh. okay then:
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Astronauts probably don't want to be living in houses made from scabs and urine.
Science says so.
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kachmedcom · 1 year ago
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La radiesthésie: Ouvrez-vous à de nouvelles possibilités
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Si vous êtes intéressé par la radiesthésie, cette formation est faite pour vous. Elle vous permettra d'acquérir les connaissances et les compétences nécessaires pour devenir un praticien professionnel. Aujourd'hui, la radiesthésie est de plus en plus populaire, car elle offre de nombreuses possibilités. Elle peut être utilisée pour : • Trouver des solutions à des problèmes concrets : choix d'un emplacement pour une maison ou une entreprise, recherche d'un objet perdu, amélioration de la santé, • Développer sa spiritualité : la radiesthésie peut être utilisée pour se connecter à son intuition, à ses guides spirituels, ou à l'énergie de l'univers. • Se lancer dans une nouvelle activité professionnelle : la radiesthésie est une compétence très recherchée dans de nombreux domaines, tels que la géobiologie, la santé naturelle, ou encore le développement personnel. L'enseignement est dispensé par un radiesthésiste professionnel avec plus de 20 ans d'expérience. Il vous accompagnera tout au long de votre formation et vous aidera à développer vos compétences. Inscrivez-vous dès aujourd'hui !
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nnctales · 1 year ago
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Basalt Fiber Reinforcement in Construction: A Sustainable Paradigm Shift
Introduction In the contemporary construction landscape, a notable shift towards sustainable and eco-friendly building materials is underway. Among the alternatives gaining prominence is basalt fiber reinforcement, positioning itself as a compelling substitute for traditional steel reinforcement. This transition is fueled by a collective desire to reduce environmental impact and elevate the…
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landoffreaksandfrogs · 1 year ago
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not to say of course that any classpect is USELESS or ONLY DETRIMENTAL. hell, two people of the SAME classpect can be wildly different from each other if their journey through sburb are meant to be about different things.
to use the prince of mind example - yes, you can definitely have it be a “fake news” dumbfuck bastard who uses their abilities to actively make the people around them be more stupid.
but a prince of mind can also be used to destroy *indecision.* a player that can act without thinking whereas someone else would be overcome by analysis paralysis. it could definitely be a WRONG decision, but oftentimes any decision at all is better than none at all.
furthermore, a prince of mind would probably have a much more grounded sense of self than a non-destructive class of the same aspect. one of the crises that the mind players we see face is a lack of confidence in their decisions and an unstable identity, we also, ironically, cant tell what theyre thinking most of the time.
the thing about the prince aspect is that theyre oftentimes more accurately represented by an *opposing* aspect, and could use their lack of an aspect with tremendous power. a prince of mind would probably be very passionate and adaptable, like the average heart player, as opposed to what we see in the prince of heart in canon.
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satans-fluffy-kitten · 2 years ago
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Girlies and gaylies, do you ever get. Violently murderous. For no reason.
Like. I've been seated in the library trying to study endocrine pharmacology. Stewing in rage. Absolutely foaming at the mouth. All thoughts and instincts set to murderkillmaim. For no reason and towards nothing??
Someone diagnose me
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fixdex-fastening-technology · 3 months ago
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goyalcementblocking · 4 months ago
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Goyal Cement Blocking, a leading precast compound wall manufacturer, offers high-quality, durable, and aesthetically pleasing walls. Our innovative designs ensure quick installation, cost-effectiveness, and long-lasting performance. Perfect for residential, commercial, and industrial applications, Goyal Cement Blocking is your trusted partner for secure and stylish boundary solutions.
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jcmarchi · 20 days ago
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Study: Marshes provide cost-effective coastal protection
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/study-marshes-provide-cost-effective-coastal-protection/
Study: Marshes provide cost-effective coastal protection
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Images of coastal houses being carried off into the sea due to eroding coastlines and powerful storm surges are becoming more commonplace as climate change brings a rising sea level coupled with more powerful storms. In the U.S. alone, coastal storms caused $165 billion in losses in 2022.
Now, a study from MIT shows that protecting and enhancing salt marshes in front of protective seawalls can significantly help protect some coastlines, at a cost that makes this approach reasonable to implement.
The new findings are being reported in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, in a paper by MIT graduate student Ernie I. H. Lee and professor of civil and environmental engineering Heidi Nepf. This study, Nepf says, shows that restoring coastal marshes “is not just something that would be nice to do, but it’s actually economically justifiable.” The researchers found that, among other things, the wave-attenuating effects of salt marsh mean that the seawall behind it can be built significantly lower, reducing construction cost while still providing as much protection from storms.
“One of the other exciting things that the study really brings to light,” Nepf says, “is that you don’t need a huge marsh to get a good effect. It could be a relatively short marsh, just tens of meters wide, that can give you benefit.” That makes her hopeful, Nepf says, that this information might be applied in places where planners may have thought saving a smaller marsh was not worth the expense. “We show that it can make enough of a difference to be financially viable,” she says.
While other studies have previously shown the benefits of natural marshes in attenuating damaging storms, Lee says that such studies “mainly focus on landscapes that have a wide marsh on the order of hundreds of meters. But we want to show that it also applies in urban settings where not as much marsh land is available, especially since in these places existing gray infrastructure (seawalls) tends to already be in place.”
The study was based on computer modeling of waves propagating over different shore profiles, using the morphology of various salt marsh plants — the height and stiffness of the plants, and their spatial density — rather than an empirical drag coefficient. “It’s a physically based model of plant-wave interaction, which allowed us to look at the influence of plant species and changes in morphology across seasons,” without having to go out and calibrate the vegetation drag coefficient with field measurements for each different condition, Nepf says.
The researchers based their benefit-cost analysis on a simple metric: To protect a certain length of shoreline, how much could the height of a given seawall be reduced if it were accompanied by a given amount of marsh? Other ways of assessing the value, such as including the value of real estate that might be damaged by a given amount of flooding, “vary a lot depending on how you value the assets if a flood happens,” Lee says. “We use a more concrete value to quantify the benefits of salt marshes, which is the equivalent height of seawall you would need to deliver the same protection value.”
They used models of a variety of plants, reflecting differences in height and the stiffness across different seasons. They found a twofold variation in the various plants’ effectiveness in attenuating waves, but all provided a useful benefit.
To demonstrate the details in a real-world example and help to validate the simulations, Nepf and Lee studied local salt marshes in Salem, Massachusetts, where projects are already underway to try to restore marshes that had been degraded. Including the specific example provided a template for others, Nepf says. In Salem, their model showed that a healthy salt marsh could offset the need for an additional seawall height of 1.7 meters (about 5.5 feet), based on satisfying a rate of wave overtopping that was set for the safety of pedestrians.
However, the real-world data needed to model a marsh, including maps of salt marsh species, plant height, and shoots per bed area, are “very labor-intensive” to put together, Nepf says. Lee is now developing a method to use drone imaging and machine learning to facilitate this mapmaking. Nepf says this will enable researchers or planners to evaluate a given area of marshland and say, “How much is this marsh worth in terms of its ability to reduce flooding?”
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently released guidance for assessing the value of ecosystem services in planning of federal projects, Nepf explains.  “But in many scenarios, it lacks specific methods for quantifying value, and this study is meeting that need,” she says.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also has a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) toolkit, Lee notes. “They have guidelines on how to quantify each of the environmental services, and one of the novelties of this paper is quantifying the cost and the protection value of marshes. This is one of the applications that policymakers can consider on how to quantify the environmental service values of marshes,” he says.
The software that environmental engineers can apply to specific sites has been made available online for free on GitHub. “It’s a one-dimensional model accessible by a standard consulting firm,” Nepf says.
“This paper presents a practical tool for translating the wave attenuation capabilities of marshes into economic values, which could assist decision-makers in the adaptation of marshes for nature-based coastal defense,” says Xioaxia Zhang, a professor at Shenzen University in China who was not involved in this work. “The results indicate that salt marshes are not only environmentally beneficial but also cost-effective.”
The study “is a very important and crucial step to quantifying the protective value of marshes,” adds Bas Borsje, an associate professor of nature-based flood protection at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who was not associated with this work. “The most important step missing at the moment is how to translate our findings to the decision makers. This is the first time I’m aware of that decision-makers are quantitatively informed on the protection value of salt marshes.”
Lee received support for this work from the Schoettler Scholarship Fund, administered by the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
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