Baltic Dry Index. 624 unch. Brent Crude 28.64 Spot Gold 1613
Coronavirus Cases 03/4/20
World 1,027,775 Deaths 54,011
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for
the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Winston Churchill
Today,
nothing but bad news. Though the figures are far from accurate, they are at
least indicative. On Thursday, or at the very latest early Friday morning in
Asia, the official count of coronavirus cases passed the one million mark. From
one case (allegedly,) in China on December 19th, to one million globally on April 2nd.
Though
Italy and Spain might just be peaking, although that’s still tentative, the USA
seems to be a basket case, led by a chaotic, incompetent response by Democrat
led New York City and New York State.
In
fairness, NYC is probably the worst city in the developed world to be trying to
stem a new epidemic. Given the population density, high rise density, creaking
transportation system, lack of a free at the point of use medical system, and
loony left wing fanatic politicians, this is probably going to get much worse
before the tri-state region’s coronavirus crisis ends.
In
global economy news yesterday, other than a very modest oil price rebound, the
news was unrelentingly bad. We seem to
be on the cusp of a major foodstuffs supply dislocation!
Were
that to happen at a time of fast soaring unemployment as a result of all the
global lockdowns, vast social disorder is the universal, usual outcome.
Below,
what else could possibly go wrong?
Global coronavirus cases surpass one million
April 2, 2020 /
8:54 PM
(Reuters)
- Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than
52,000 deaths as the pandemic further exploded in the United States and the
death toll climbed in Spain and Italy, according to a Reuters tally of official
data.
Italy had the most deaths, more than 13,900, followed by Spain. The
United States had the most confirmed cases of any country, more than 240,000,
the data showed.
Since the virus was first recorded in China late last year, the pandemic
has spread around the world, prompting governments to close businesses, ground
airlines and order hundreds of millions of people to stay at home to try to
slow the contagion.
Amid unprecedented government steps to prop up economies battered by the
outbreak, U.S. weekly jobless claims jumped to a record 6.6 million, double the
record from the previous week. That reinforced economists’ views that the
longest employment boom in U.S. history probably ended in March, and that
claims were expected to rise further.
Morgues and hospitals in New York City, the epicenter of the U.S.
outbreak, bent under the strain on Thursday, struggling to treat or bury
casualties, as New York state’s Governor Andrew Cuomo offered a grim prediction
the rest of the country would soon face the same misery.
Staff at one medical center in Brooklyn were seen disposing of their
gowns and caps and other protective wear in a sidewalk trash can after wheeling
bodies out of the hospital and loading them into a refrigerated truck.
In hard-hit Spain, the death toll rose to more than 10,000 on Thursday
after a record 950 people died overnight, but health officials were encouraged
by a slowdown in daily increases in infections and deaths.
More
China's services activity shrinks further in March, job cuts fastest on record: Caixin PMI
April 3, 2020 /
3:31 AM
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China’s services sector struggled to get back on its feet in March
after a brutal month of unprecedented shop closures and public lockdowns amid
the coronavirus outbreak, a private survey showed on Friday.
Services companies cut jobs at the fastest pace on record as orders
plunged for the second straight month and businesses scrambled to reduce their
operating costs. Export orders also slumped again as more countries imposed
their own tough virus containment measures.
While the Caixin/Markit services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)
rebounded to 43 in March from a record low of 26.5 in February, it still
remained deep in contraction territory and was the second weakest reading since
the survey began in late 2005. The 50-point mark separates growth from
contraction on a monthly basis.
The findings add to fears that consumer-facing services firms could be
hit much harder and longer by the downturn than factories, which are slowly
getting back to work, albeit at below normal levels. Similar business surveys
will be released for Europe and the United States later on Friday.
The services sector is an important generator of jobs in China and
accounts for about 60% of its economy, which now looks likely to shrink for the
first time in 30 years. Many companies are smaller, privately owned firms with
much less cash to see them through an extended slumps than larger, state-owned
enterprises.
While some restaurants, malls, and movie theatres are slowly reopening
as China eases restrictions, many remained closed or are operating at limited
capacity as authorities sound the alarm about a possible second wave of
infections and advise people to avoid gatherings.
More
Brace for the ‘deepest recession on record,’ says BofA analysts, as jobless claims surge to 6.6 million
Published: April 2, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. ET
There are no parallels for the pandemic fueled slowdown
that the U.S. economy is currently contending with, and that is forcing
economists like those of Bank of America Global Research to forecast a
decidedly grimmer outlook for the American economy than they offered just two
weeks ago. The BofA researchers on Thursday said the coming recession “appears to be deeper and more prolonged than we were led to believe just 14 days ago when we last updated our forecasts, not just in the US but globally as well.”
The April 2 research report, which includes star economist Michelle Meyer, comes as the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits last week soared by a record 6.6 million, bringing the increase in new jobless claims in the last two weeks of March to 10 million.
As MarketWatch reports the scale of the shutdowns of business in force, intended to help mitigate the spread of the deadly pathogen, is unprecedented and is having a substantial negative impact on the labor market and the broader economy.
To that end, BofA sees between 16 and 20 million job losses, which could send the unemployment rate, which stands at 3.5% as of February’s report, surging within a few months to 15.6%, which would by far outstrip the unemployment rate during the 2007-09 recession.
A report on U.S. nonfarm payrolls will be released on Friday, but isn’t likely to show the full extent of the labor-market damage because of when that data was recorded, just before the worst of the coronavirus outbreak.
The BofA team forecast three consecutive quarters of contraction in gross domestic product, “with the US economy shrinking 7% (annualized) in 1Q, 30% in 2Q and 1% in 3Q.”
On the bright side, the economists estimate that the fourth quarter of 2020 will see a sizable pop in business activity as the measures put in place to slow the deadly contagion are slowly unwound.
That said, the cumulative decline in economic expansion will be severe: “We forecast the cumulative decline in GDP to be 10.4% and this will be the deepest recession on record, nearly five times more severe than the post-war average,” the analysts wrote.
More
How the Coronavirus Has Broken the Global Economy
By Stephanie Flanders and Scott Lanman
April
2, 2020, 9:00 AM GMT+1
In
a matter of weeks the Covid-19 virus has turned the world upside down. In the
start of a new season of Stephanomics, James Mayger and Zhu Lin report from
China - the original epicenter of the virus – on how truck drivers there
are trying to get back to normal. Then host Stephanie Flanders asks US
economist Adam Posen how the economics profession has risen to the challenge of
the crisis - and whether the right advice has been getting through to
governments.
The
terrible human cost of the coronavirus has been evident for some time. But most
countries are only now starting to see the economic cost which fighting the
pandemic will also inflict. In this third season of Stephanomics we’ll be doing
our best to help you understand that story with reporting and insights from
experts inside and outside Bloomberg.
Coronavirus Pandemic Sets Off a New Wave of Blank Sailings
March 30 2020
Just as the number of blank sailings out of China
by container carriers started to subside, the industry is bracing for another
surge on the Asia-Europe trade as the coronavirus pandemic spreads to Europe.The number of blank sailings jumped from 2 to 45 on the main deep-sea trades last week, according to Copenhagen-based consultancy Sea-Intelligence.
2M alliance between the two container shipping majors Maersk and MSC was especially active as the two carriers temporarily withdrew the AE2/Swan and AE20/Dragon services on the Asia-Europe trade for the entire second quarter of 2020.
However, if demand picks up earlier than expected they might also resume service earlier. The capacity withdrawal equals a 21% capacity reduction in the trade.
“Given the short notice as well as extended duration, this can only be seen as a reflection in a similar sharp decline in both active and expected booking activity from their customers. It should, therefore, be expected that this week will see a further rapid escalation in the amount of blank sailings both by other carriers as well as in other trade lanes,” Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said.
Furthermore, quite a few of the blank sailings from all the alliances are made with a notice time much shorter than usual. This shows that the drop-off in booking levels is happening very quickly, the consultancy estimates.
The effect of the virus outbreak in China was the cancellation of more than 100 sailings. The spread of the pandemic to Europe and the Americas is set to have an even more substantial impact.
“All in all, both shippers and carriers are entering a period where significant amount of time and effort needs to go into exception handling. When shippers see a sharp decline in demand for their goods, they naturally have fewer containers to ship, and hence have no choice but to book significantly less cargo than originally planned.
“When carriers see such a sharp drop in booking activity, they have no choice but to cancel sailings,” Murphy added.
The canceled sailings will require a reshuffle of the supply chains, and the new arrangements are expected to be ad-hoc as market uncertainty lingers on.
German economy could shrink more this year than in 2008/9 crisis: minister
April 2, 2020 /
1:21 PM
BERLIN (Reuters) -
Europe’s largest economy might shrink more this year than during the 2008/9
financial crisis, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Thursday,
adding that contractions of more than 8% might be registered in some months as
coronavirus bites.
Germany is in virtual lockdown, with more than 73,000 people infected
and 872 deaths from the pandemic. Schools, shops, restaurants and sports
facilities have closed and many firms have stopped production to help slow the
spread of the disease.
Altmaier said the economy had fared well during the first two months of
the year - before Germany went into virtual lockdown in March - and said the
virus would take a heavy toll on the economy in April before probably reaching
its peak in May.
“We expect that in individual months in the first half, the economy
could shrink by more than 8%,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday the KfW state development bank said the German
economy was likely to shrink by 10-15% in the second quarter.
“The declines I’ve talked about will probably be at least as bad, if not
even worse than with the banking and stock market crisis of 2008/2009,”
Altmaier said, without giving an exact prediction.
The German economy shrank by 5.7% in 2009.
More
Italy business lobby sees industry output down as much as 15% in second quarter
April 2, 2020 /
1:31 PM
ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s main business association said on Thursday it
saw the country’s industrial production falling as much as 15% in the second
quarter of the year due to the coronavirus outbreak, after an 11-year record
drop in the first three months of 2020.
Confindustria said output in the first quarter of the year was expected
to be 5.4% lower than the previous quarter, with output in March down 16.6%
compared with February, due to the coronavirus emergency and the linked
lockdown measures.
Italy, the epicentre of the virus outbreak in Europe, was the first
Western country to introduce sweeping bans on movement and economic activity,
having first confirmed the presence of coronavirus almost six weeks ago.
“Covid-19 has hit Italian and international production systems all of a
sudden, with a destructive strength and in a widespread manner,” Confindustria
said in its report.
On Tuesday the association said the coronavirus crisis would bite as
much as 6% off Italy’s gross domestic product this year.
China Rejects U.S. Intelligence Claim It Hid Virus Numbers
Bloomberg News
April
2, 2020, 8:19 AM GMT+1 Updated on April 2, 2020, 10:01 AM GMT+1
China
rejected the American intelligence community’s conclusion that Beijing
concealed the extent of the coronavirus epidemic, and accused the U.S. of
seeking to shift the blame for its own handling of the outbreak.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday defended as “open
and transparent” China’s response to the virus first identified in December in
the central Chinese city of Wuhan. She was responding to a Bloomberg News
report saying that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded in a
classified report to the White House that Beijing under-reported both total
cases and deaths from the disease.
“Some U.S. officials just want to shift the blame,” Hua told a regular
briefing in Beijing. “Actually we don’t want to fall into an argument with
them, but faced with such repeated moral slander by them, I feel compelled to
take some time and clarify the truth again.”
Hua questioned the speed of the U.S.’s response to the virus after
banning arrivals from China on Feb. 2. “Can anyone tell us what the U.S. has
done in the following two months?” she said.
China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is
intentionally incomplete, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing three officials,
who asked not to be identified because the report is secret. Two of the
officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake. The report
was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.Since China first disclosed a new form of pneumonia on Dec. 31, the country has publicly reported about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares with more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
More
In better, coronavirus news, there
might just be light at the end of the tunnel.
Chinese scientists seeking potential COVID-19 treatment find 'effective' antibodies
April 1, 2020 /
9:24 AM
BEIJING
(Reuters) - A team of Chinese scientists has isolated several antibodies that
it says are “extremely effective” at blocking the ability of the new
coronavirus to enter cells, which eventually could be helpful in treating or
preventing COVID-19.
There is currently no proven effective treatment for the disease, which
originated in China and is spreading across the world in a pandemic that has
infected more than 850,000 and killed 42,000.
Zhang Linqi at Tsinghua University in Beijing said a drug made with
antibodies like the ones his team have found could be used more effectively
than the current approaches, including what he called “borderline” treatment
such as plasma.
Plasma contains antibodies but is restricted by blood type.
In early January, Zhang’s team and a group at the 3rd People’s Hospital
in Shenzhen began analysing antibodies from blood taken from recovered COVID-19
patients, isolating 206 monoclonal antibodies which showed what he described as
a “strong” ability to bind with the virus’ proteins.
They then conducted another test to see if they could actually prevent
the virus from entering cells, he told Reuters in an interview.
Among the first
20 or so antibodies tested, four were able to block viral entry and of those,
two were “exceedingly good” at doing so, Zhang said.
The team is now focused on identifying the most powerful antibodies and
possibly combining them to mitigate the risk of the new coronavirus mutating.
If all goes well, interested developers could mass produce them for
testing, first on animals and eventually on humans.
The group has partnered with a Sino-U.S. biotech firm, Brii Biosciences,
in an effort “to advance multiple candidates for prophylactic and therapeutic
intervention”, according to a statement by Brii.
More
Dutch Scientists Find a Novel Coronavirus Early-Warning Signal
By Jason Gale
March
31, 2020, 5:56 AM GMT+1
Dutch
scientists were able to find the coronavirus in a city’s wastewater before
Covid-19 cases were reported, demonstrating a novel early warning system for
the pneumonia-causing disease.
The so-called SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is often excreted in an infected person’s stool. Although it’s unlikely that sewage will become an important route of transmission, the pathogen’s increasing circulation in communities will increase the amount of it flowing into sewer systems, Gertjan Medema and colleagues at the KWR Water Research Institute in Nieuwegein said on Monday.
They detected genetic material from the coronavirus at a wastewater treatment plant in Amersfoort on March 5, before any cases had been reported in the city, located about 50 kilometers (32 miles) southeast of Amsterdam. The Netherlands confirmed its first Covid-19 case on Feb. 27 and discovered health workers had fallen ill with the infection in a southern part of the country days later -- a sign that it was spreading in the community.
“It is important to collect information about the occurrence and fate of this new virus in sewage to understand if there is no risk to sewage workers, but also to determine if sewage surveillance could be used to monitor the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in our communities,” Medema, the institute’s principal microbiologist, and co-authors said in a paper released ahead of peer review. “That could complement current clinical surveillance, which is limited to the Covid-19 patients with the most severe symptoms.
It’s the first report of detection of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage, they said.
Wastewater surveillance is a well established method of detecting
poliovirus and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as well as the use of illicit and
prescription medications.
Sewage surveillance could also serve as early warning of the emergence
and re-emergence of Covid-19 in cities, the Dutch scientists said.
Morehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/coronavirus-in-sewage-portended-covid-19-outbreak-in-dutch-city
Finally, more trouble in the food supply chain. Supply shortages ahead? Food riots ahead?
Countries Across the World Start to Suspend Food Exports to Secure Domestic Supplies
Multiple countries in Asia and other parts of the world have put exports
of agricultural goods on hold due to fears of potential food shortages in their
own domestic markets.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced Monday that the country will
suspend exports of white rice and paddy rice starting April 5 to ensure local
food security amid the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing only fragrant rice to be
traded.
Around 40% of the Asian nation’s 620,000 tons of exported rice last year
was shipped to neighboring China, data from Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF)
shows.
Earlier, Vietnam, the world’s third largest rice exporter, declined new
rice contracts from overseas since Saturday but hasn’t rolled out any specific
restriction on exports. The nation, which accounts for 15% of the world’s trade
in rice by volume, shipped 6.37 million tons of rice abroad in 2019, data from
its Ministry of Industry and Trade shows.
A statement from Vietnam’s government shows there was a 31.7%
year-on-year jump in the country’s rice export in the first two months of this
year to 928,798 tons. “If exports keep rising at this pace, Vietnam would face
the risk of shortages for domestic consumption,” the ministry said.
Kazakhstan has also adopted a similar strategy by suspending 12 kinds of
food products including wheat and sugar since March 22 to secure enough
domestic supply, while Egypt has issued a notice saying it is suspending
exports of all kinds of legumes for three months starting Saturday as “part of
preventive measures”.
Although the world’s largest rice exporter India hasn’t taken any action
against potential food shortages, the 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed on
March 24 has already crippled the transport of goods, as all public transport
has been suspended and states’ borders have been closed.
Uproar Among Workers Supplying the World’s Meat Is Spreading
By Jen Skerritt and Tatiana Freitas
Updated on April 2, 2020, 1:55 PM GMT+1
A growing number of workers who are crucial to supplying
the world with meat are demanding that their companies do more to keep them
safe from the coronavirus.Labor unions are starting to speak out as their members fall ill, there are reports of increased absenteeism and some front line workers have even walked off the job. That’s raising the specter of mass protests that could threaten global meat supplies just as supply chains unravel and grocery stores struggle to keep food on their shelves.
It’s part of the balancing act facing meat and agricultural producers in a pandemic: how to keep the world fed while safeguarding employees. Slaughterhouses and processing plants are sanitizing their operations more, staggering lunch breaks and checking people’s temperatures, but unions say they’re still falling short.
“They’re scared to make that decision that you guys need to be six feet apart because the production is going to plummet,” said Paula Schelling, acting national joint council chairwoman of food-inspector locals for the American Federation of Government Employees.
The first case of a worker at a major U.S. meat producer testing positive for the virus was reported last week at poultry giant Sanderson Farms Inc. Since then, infections have cropped up everywhere from JBS SA plants in Iowa to Harmony Beef in Alberta.
While scattered factories have closed temporarily or cut output, generally companies are keeping plants running when workers get sick. Rather than shutting entire plants, they’ve focused on identifying areas where infected people have had direct contact.
Demands by meat unions for greater protections are part of a broader movement of essential workers rising up and in some cases walking off. An employee at Amazon.com Inc. said he was fired for leading a strike at a warehouse in New York, while workers at Whole Foods Market went on a sickout strike over working conditions.
In Brazil, a labor judge granted a petition in mid-March by workers at two JBS facilities in Santa Catarina state, a chicken-production hub, to halt or reduce operations because of safety concerns. The next day, JBS won a decision to overturn the ruling because food processing is considered essential.
Workers still feel unsafe, Celso Elias, a director at the union, said in a telephone interview.
More
Exclusive: Argentina beef shipments to EU, China stall amid virus
April 3, 2020 /
5:48 AM
BUENOS
AIRES (Reuters) - Shipments of beef from Argentina’s famed cattle ranches to
the European Union have plunged to almost zero amid the global coronavirus
outbreak, while sales to top buyer China have tumbled from last year’s levels,
industry officials told Reuters.
The slump in exports underscores how the pandemic is affecting global
food supply chains, with demand dented by widespread closures of restaurants
and transportation of goods stymied by measures to control the virus’ spread.
Argentine beef shipments have skyrocketed in recent years, fuelled
especially by demand in China, helping the South American nation boost beef
exports to $3 billion in 2019.
Shipments jumped 50% last year to 845,877 tonnes, with China taking
around three-quarters of that, official data show. The European Union accounted
for 9% of beef exports.
The coronavirus pandemic, which has seen over a million people infected
and caused over 50,000 deaths, has arrested the market, clogging global trade
and hurting demand in a hit to Argentina as it grapples with recession and a
debt crisis.
“Due to the impact of the pandemic, export markets have cut many of
their purchases and are extremely restricted,” said Mario Ravettino, president
of the ABC consortium of Argentine meat exporters, which represents local meat
packers.
Ravettino said that March beef exports to China slumped to around 15% of
levels seen late last year, when the South American country was sending around
50,000 tonnes each month to meet consumer demand.
More
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to
happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability
afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
Winston Churchill
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, trouble ahead for UK
landlords and tenants. Boom times ahead for UK solicitors and barristers. I
wonder how WeWork is doing with shared offices and desks?
Landlords set to fight wave of legal battles with struggling business tenants
Highly leveraged landlords may be unable to grant leeway
to cash-strapped retailers and other businesses
Property lawyers are gearing up for a raft of legal
battles between businesses
and landlords when a ban on evicting commercial tenants ends in
June. Emergency laws rushed through Parliament last week prevent landlords from kicking retailers and other businesses out of their premises until 30 June but does not suspend rules requiring tenants to pay rent.
Major retailers such as Primark and JD Sports have already stopped handing over money. Tens of thousands of smaller businesses could also follow suit as they fight to conserve cash and stay afloat.
David Fleming, a debt and restructuring adviser at Duff & Phelps, said the current crisis will inevitably lead to disputes between landlords and businesses starved of funds during the coronavirus lockdown.
Danielle Drummond-Brassington, head of real estate disputes at City law firm CMS, warned that rows could also erupt over service charges in shared offices and shopping centres where pharmacies and supermarkets remain open but other shops have been forced to shut.
Landlords may still be paying for cleaning and security services even though not all tenants will benefit.
Retail bosses called on Tuesday for the state to step in and pay rents for cash-strapped commercial tenants who are unable to sell any goods.
Taxpayer money should be used to protect landlords from collapse if tenants on high streets and shopping centres cannot pay their rent, the British Retail Consortium said.
Mr Fleming said some businesses have simply stopped paying without talking to their landlords. This could spark problems further down the line if payments are missed, he said.
---- Ms Drummond-Brassington said landlords with heavy borrowing might have their hands tied by their lenders, preventing them from granting leeway to struggling tenants.
Legal spats could arise when the next set of quarterly rents fall due in June, she said, particularly if the Government’s moratorium on businesses being forced out of their properties has ended by then. At that point some firms will have had almost no income for three months.
Whether companies end up going to court could also depend on whether they have enough cash available to take the risk of racking up legal fees, she added.
Landlords are already being squeezed. Shopping centre owner Hammerson said it was paid just 37pc of rents due for the second quarter.
More
Coronavirus: A UK real estate perspective (UPDATED 26 March)
26 March 2020
The government has published its coronavirus COVID-19 action plan, which recognises the
virus as a "significant challenge for the entire world." Although a
lot is yet unknown about the virus, the World Health Organisation declared it a
public health emergency of international concern. The situation is rapidly
evolving and businesses must consider their position and the potential impact
of coronavirus COVID-19.As of 23 March 2020, the UK government has introduced three new measures:
- closing non-essential shops and community spaces
- requiring people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes
- stopping all gatherings of more than two people in public
The government has confirmed that it will review these measures in three weeks (13 April 2020), and relax them if the evidence shows this is possible. More detailed information regarding the closure of all non-essential premises can be found here, including a full list of those businesses and other venues that must close. Businesses and other venues not on this list may remain open, but nonetheless must operate in accordance with this advice.
In this article, we highlight some issues that may arise from a UK real estate perspective and provide some practical guidance. The situation is in flux, so it's important to keep up to date with advice published by the government and regulatory agencies, particularly if the virus itself mutates, a real concern expressed by the WHO from past experience of similar outbreaks.
This note is not intended to be all encompassing; nor does it constitute legal advice. Please get in touch with your usual DLA Piper contact if you require more specific advice on any query, whether on real estate matters or any wider business issues. We have a dedicated team addressing enquiries for our real estate clients.
Landlord and tenant considerations
If a tenant is unable to occupy, what are the legal consequences?
More,
much, much more.
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
AI finds 2D materials in the blink of an eye
Date:
April 1, 2020
Source:
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
Summary:
A research team has introduced a machine-learning algorithm that can scan
through microscope images to find 2D materials like graphene. This work can
help shorten the time required for 2D material-based electronics to be ready
for consumer devices.
Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, a part of The
University of Tokyo, demonstrated a novel artificial intelligence system that
can find and label 2D materials in microscope images in the blink of an eye.
This work can help shorten the time required for 2D material-based electronics
to be ready for consumer devices.
Two-dimensional materials offer an exciting new platform for the
creation of electronic devices, such as transistors and light-emitting diodes.
The family of crystals that can be made just one atom thick include metals,
semiconductors, and insulators. Many of these are stable under ambient
conditions, and their properties often different significantly from those of
their 3D counterparts. Even stacking a few layers together can alter the
electronic characteristics to make them suitable for next-generation batteries,
smartphone screens, detectors, and solar cells. And perhaps even more amazing:
you can make some yourself using office supplies. The 2010 Nobel Prize in
Physics was awarded for the realization that atomically thin
"graphene" can be obtained by exfoliating piece of pencil lead,
graphite, with a piece of sticky scotch tape.
So, what keeps you from making your own electronic devices at work
between meetings?
Unfortunately, the atomically thin 2D crystals have low
fabrication yields and their optical contrasts comprise a very broad range, and
finding them under a microscope is a tedious job.
Now, a team led by The University of Tokyo has succeeded in automating
this task using machine learning. The used many labeled examples with various
lighting to train the computer to detect the outline and thickness of the
flakes without having to fine tune the microscope parameters. "By using
machine learning instead of conventional rule-based detection algorithms, our
system was robust to changing conditions," says first author Satoru
Masubuchi.
The method is generalizable to many other 2D materials, sometimes
without needing any addition data. In fact, the algorithm was able to detect
tungsten diselenide and molybdenum diselenide flakes just by being trained with
tungsten ditelluride examples. With the ability to determine, in less than 200
milliseconds, the location and thickness of the exfoliated samples, the system
can be integrated with a motorized optical microscope.
More
Nixene Publishing
We specialise in the world of graphene and two dimensional (2D) materials
Nixene Publishing creates information products for the emerging graphene and other two dimensional materials market. Our premium information products began as a private research project to create information and understanding about the emerging world of graphene and other two dimensional (2D) materials.Our project quickly became a significant regular undertaking as the pace of development activity increased. Nixene Publishing emerged a world leader in clear, concise graphene and 2D material communication.
- 2013: 14, 600 graphene academic papers reported by Science Direct
- 2017: 25,000 academic papers according to Nixene Publishing
- 2019: Cornell University’s online digital archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers noted 127, 546 graphene journal publications
More
https://www.nixenepublishing.com/
Another weekend and still no let-up in the pace of global economic collapse. Hopefully next week’s developments will be better. Stay well and keep six feet away from all human beings on the planet. Sixty feet if they’re coughing or sneezing. Have a great weekend everyone.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist
sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 21,917 +45 Down. NASDAQ: 7,700 +149 Down.
SP500: 2,585 +38 Down.
The NASDAQ and S&P have
joined the DJIA in down. All three monthly slow indexes have collapsed.
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