Design and Simulation of a Digital Twin Mobility Concept: An Electric Aviation System Dynamics Case Study with Capacity Constraints

Vertical mobility, as a commercial service, has been strongly focused on the scheduled volume and long-distance mobility services. Thus, limiting its potential coverage, flexibility, and adaptability with high investments and centralized mobility hubs, called airports. In this context, a customized and on-demand air mobility concept providing high flexibility in location combinations and time schedules appears as an unexplored challenge for regional mobility needs. As a result, the aim of this research is to provide a generic framework for various mobility means as well as to design a holistic air mobility management concept for electric vertical mobility for profitable and sustainable operations by providing a service to society. A system dynamics simulation case study applies the conceptual model for an on-demand air mobility network of electric aircrafts in a regional area considering capacity constraints in vertiports, aircrafts, charging, and parking stations. Thus, bottlenecks and delays can be quantified by using a digital twin tool for customized scenarios. Simulation results show how an optimal maintenance management and redistribution of aircraft units improve service indicators in passenger quantity and customer order lead time as well as reduce aircraft on ground time. As a result, a digital twin air mobility network model with simulation capabilities is a key factor for successful operations.

Their Own Devices: Steampunk Airships as Heterotopias of Crisis and Deviance

Michel Foucault uses a sailing vessel as the exemplar of his theory of heterotopia because of its mobility. The lateral and vertical mobility of the steampunk airship indicates the potential for an even greater exemplar of heterotopia, particularly of Foucault’s defining principles of heterotopic crisis and deviance. These principles are explored onboard the steampunk airships of Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy and Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series, resulting in travel towards progressive social frontiers of gender and race. The protagonists of the Leviathan trilogy move from a position of crisis to deviance, as mediated through the friendship and romance of two representatives of warring factions. In contrast, the heroine of the Finishing School series moves from deviance to crisis as she navigates the vagaries of gender and racial identity. These airship heterotopias of young adult fiction, which not only descend geographically but also socially, cross liminal crisis spaces of class, race, gender, and identity to craft literary cartographies for these social frontiers, providing readers with literary maps for their uncertain real worlds of crisis.

Reinterpreting the Relationship between the Caste System and Marxism

In India, sixty years ago it was irrefutable that the structure of the caste system paralleled the Marxist view of class organization, in terms of the lower castes' lack of vertical mobility, dependence on hereditary division of labour, and deficiency of capital and land. In fact, since its emergence in 1964, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) has maintained that it would be in the best interest of lower caste individuals to support a Marxist agenda to launch nationwide class struggle to free themselves from the shackles of the caste system. It is also true that, in the 1970s, 85% percent of lower caste individuals made up the bottom 35% of India’s financial ladder, leading to the quotidian Marxian argument that the lower castes can be equated to the proletariat of Western Society. While these arguments might have some truth to them, this essay will explore why India, over the last sixty years, has endured too great of a reformation in terms of the caste system to simply be equated to the Marxist class organization. The disparity between the negativism of the CPI(M) and the current extent of oppression of the lower caste is shown, through the exploration of logical incorencies on the part of the CPI(M) and the lower caste perception of the policies directed at them by both left and right-wing political parties. Furthermore, it is established why the notion of an entire Marxist class revolution no longer has political appeal amongst the lower caste: the reservations and affirmative action on the part of the current administration. Yet it is still conceded that, although used in an orthogonally different manner, the Marxist framework can, to a certain extent, still be applied to current organization of the caste system in India.

PROFESSIONAL MOBILITY OF A FUTURE SPECIALIST IN THE STRUCTURE OF READINESS FOR ACTIVITY IN SPECIALTY: ESSENTIAL AND CONCEPTUAL ASPECT

The article presents an analysis and generalization of approaches to the essence and content of professional mobility of future specialists. It is concluded that professional mobility is directly interrelated with readiness to work in the specialty, since these two concepts have common elements in the structure, in particular professional knowledge, abilities, skills and professionally important qualities. Taking into account the results of the analysis of research related to the problem of professional mobility, it was found out that this concept can be defined as readiness and ability to work in the context of transformation of professional (production, service) tasks, development of new specialties or changing them. Professional mobility covers the ability to successfully switch to another activity or change types of activities, effectively use the system of generalized professional techniques to perform any tasks in the professional sphere, and it is relatively easy to move from one type of activity to another. For professional mobility, it is important to have a high level of generalized professional knowledge, experience in improving them and obtaining them independently. The results of the review of publications on the research topic suggest that there are two types of mobility – horizontal and vertical. Horizontal mobility involves the transition of an individual or social object from one social position to another, which is at the same level, as well as a change of place of residence. As for vertical mobility, it involves the transition of an individual or social object from one social position to another. It was found out that mobility is an integrative property that is formed and developed during practical, educational, social, socio-cultural activities of a person and provides him or her with the opportunity to realize one’s inclinations, abilities, opportunities.

Key drivers of pyrogenic carbon redistribution during a simulated rainfall event

Pyrogenic carbon (PyC) is produced by the incomplete combustion of vegetation during wildfires and is a major and persistent pool of the global carbon (C) cycle. However, its redistribution in the landscape after fires remains largely unknown. Therefore, we conducted rainfall simulation experiments on 0.25 m2 plots with two distinct Swiss forest soils (Cambisol (clay loam) and Luvisol (sandy silt)). We applied PyC produced from wood (Picea abies) labeled under FACE conditions and C4 grass (Miscanthus sinensis) to the soil surface to study PyC redistribution by runoff and splash and the vertical mobility of PyC in a 10 cm unsaturated soil column based on the differences in δ13C of soils and PyC. We assessed the effect of soil texture, slope angle and PyC characteristics (feedstock and particle size) on the mobility of PyC during 30 min of intense rainfall (102 mm h−1). Our results highlight that PyC is highly mobile. Surface runoff transported between 0.2 % and 36.0 % of the total added PyC. Erosion by splash further redistributed 10.3 % to 25.3 % of the added PyC. Soil type had a substantial impact on the redistribution of PyC by both runoff and splash: on average, we recovered 10.5 % of the added PyC in runoff and splashed material for the clay-rich Cambisol and 61.3 % of the added PyC for the sandy silt Luvisol combined. PyC feedstock had a clear but contrasting effect on PyC redistribution: relocation in the runoff and splashed material was greater for wood PyC (43.4 % of total added PyC) than grass PyC (28.4 %). However, more wood PyC (11.5 %; fraction of organic C derived from the PyC) remained where it was initially applied compared to grass PyC (7.4 %). The results further suggest that the effect of PyC characteristics on its mobility can be highly variable and depend not only on the material from which it was derived, but also on other factors (e.g., particle size, porosity, density). In particular, the mobility of PyC was almost twice as large for fine-grained PyC (< 63 µm) than for coarse PyC (63 µm–2 mm). Vertical mobility of PyC up to 10 cm depth was greater in the clay-rich, well-aggregated Cambisol but limited in the physically instable Luvisol, likely due to quick aggregate breakdown and surface sealing. The addition of PyC to the surface of the studied soils further induced changes in the export of native soil organic carbon (nSOC) after the 30 min rainfall event. Our study shows that large quantities of PyC can be redistributed by water erosion over short timescales and that the mobility of PyC depends to a great extent on the response of soils to rainfall. Moreover, the addition and redistribution of PyC affects the export of nSOC and thus the C budget of fire-affected soils and catchments.