News by Subject Mathematics

Quantum computers that are exponentially faster than any of our current classical computers and are capable of code-breaking applications could be available in 12 to 15 years, posing major risks to the security of current communications systems, according to a new RAND Corporation report. The security risks posed by this new category of computers can be managed if the US government acts quickly, and a centrally coordinated, whole-of-nation approach is the best way to manage those challenges.

A new paper, ;COVID-19 in Humanitarian Settings and Lessons Learned from Past Epidemics' published in Nature Medicine, invokes a global response to protect the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the concept of crowdfunding is still in its early phases of development, a group of marketing researchers have conducted a study that reveals the most powerful drivers behind effective crowdfunding campaigns. According to the researchers, there are three primary mechanisms that serve as the major drivers of crowdfunding campaigns that yield results.

In this week's Chaos, researchers use a theoretical model to examine what effect extreme views have on making the entire system more polarized. The group's network-based model extends a popular approach for studying opinion dynamics, called the Cobb model, and is based on the hypothesis that those with opinions farther from the middle of a political spectrum are also less influenced by others, a trait known to social scientists as 'rigidity of the extreme.'

A Lancaster University statistician who worked on the first published large randomized clinical trial for a potential treatment for the COVID-19 virus said the study produced positive results.

As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, a new mathematical model could offer insights on how to improve future epidemic predictions based on how information mutates as it is transmitted from person to person and group to group. The Army Research Office funded this model, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University.

When an accident involving oil spills occurs, forecasting the behaviour of the oil slick and understanding in advance where and when it will reach the coastline is crucial to organize an efficient emergency response that is able to limit environmental and economic repercussions. A study led by CMCC Foundation's researchers, based on the concrete case study of the 2018 oil spill accident off Corsica, demonstrates the effectiveness of the MEDSLIK-II oil spill model, which they developed for predicting an oil-beaching event.

It is clear that we must prioritize identifying and alleviating the conditions that made the Covid-19 pandemic possible. Even as it rages, scientists are already asking if it is more than just a virus, but rather a symptom emerging from something much deeper, a nonlinear dynamical system of coupled pathologies underlying a veneer of 'progress' in an increasingly fragile, volatile, hyperconnected world.

School closures are intended to slow the transmission of the coronavirus. But researchers find that the toll school closures take on health care workers could potentially negate any mortality benefits from the closures.

Consumer stockpiling and hoarding took center stage in recent months as the COVID-19 virus has spread around the world, and with it, panic buying on the part of millions. News broadcasts and social media feeds have been filled with examples of the worst aspects of human nature.