Type Of Barrier Research Articles

Taking a Detour: Affective Stimuli Facilitate Ultimately (Not Immediately) Compatible Approach-Avoidance Tendencies.

Abundant evidence suggests that affective stimuli facilitate responses that lead to a compatible change in distance between the affective stimulus and the self (positive → approach, negative → avoidance). A special situation arises, when a barrier blocks the direct way toward or away from an affective stimulus. Recent evidence suggests that in such cases affective stimuli facilitate responses that ultimately lead to a compatible change in distance, even when this requires an initial step in the opposite and thus incompatible direction. The present study investigated whether this is the case even when relatively complex processing is required to recognize the presence of a barrier and, thus, the need for a detour. Employing a stimulus-response-compatibility task, we asked participants to move a manikin along the pathways of a maze toward or away from a positive or negative stimulus. The direct way was possible on half of the trials and blocked by a barrier on the other half of the trials. In the latter case, the manikin had to first be moved in the direction opposite to the position ultimately intended. We manipulated between participants the type of barrier and, thus, the complexity of cognitive processing required to recognize the need for a detour. In the simple condition, a black bar was presented as a barrier on the way. In the complex condition, a blue or yellow bar was presented, and the color indicated whether the bar constituted a barrier (locked gate) or not (open gate). Replicating and extending previous findings, the present study shows that affective stimuli facilitate ultimately (not immediately) compatible approach–avoidance responses, even when relatively complex processing is required to recognize the need for a detour.

On-farm deaths of dairy cows are associated with features of freestall barns

On-farm death (OFD) of a dairy cow is always a financial loss for a farmer, and potentially a welfare issue that has to be addressed within the dairy industry. The aim of this study was to explore the associations between OFD of dairy cows, housing, and herd management in freestall barns. To achieve the goal, we followed 10,837 cows calving in 2011 in 82 herds. Data were gathered with observations and a structured interview during farm visits and from a national dairy herd improvement database. The hazard of OFD was modeled with a shared frailty survival model, with SAS 9.3 PHREG procedure (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). The study population was 58% Ayrshire and 42% Holstein cows. The median herd size and mean milk yield in the study herds were 116 cows and 9,151 kg of milk per cow per year. The overall probability of OFD was 6.0%; 1.8% of the cows died unassisted and 4.2% were euthanized. Variation in OFD percentage between individual herds was large, from 0 to 16%, accounting for 0 to 58% of all removals in the herds. Keeping close-up dry cows in their own group was associated with higher hazard of OFD [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.37] compared with keeping them in the same pen with far-off dry cows. Higher hazard on OFD was observed when barns had only one kind of calving pen; single (HR = 2.09) or group pens (HR = 1.72), compared with having both of those types. The hazard of OFD was lower if the whole herd was housed in barns or pens that had only 1 type of feed barrier at the feed bunk, namely post-and-rail (HR = 0.51) or a type with barriers between the cow's heads (HR = 0.49), compared with having 2 types. Lower OFD hazard was observed with wider than 340 cm of walking alley next to the feeding table (HR = 0.75), and with housing a whole herd in pens with only 1 type of walking alley surface, specifically slatted (HR = 0.53) or solid (HR = 0.48), compared with having both types. The hazard of OFD was higher with stalls wider than 120 cm (HR = 1.38) compared with narrower stalls. The hazard of OFD was also associated with breed, parity, and calving season. This study identified many factors that contribute to the incidence of OFD of dairy cows. The solutions for reducing on-farm mortality include housing, management, and breeding choices that are most probably herd specific.

Design of flexible barriers against sizeable landslides in Hong Kong

A new type of flexible debris-resisting barrier has been designed using the state-of-the-art analytical force approach for mitigation of channelised debris flow hazards in a hillside study area in ...

Advanced Functional Materials Solutions to Engineering the Neural Interface

Advanced Functional Materials Solutions to Engineering the Neural Interface

Non-formal CNE Program Barriers to Participation: A Comparative Study among Hospital Nurses of two Provinces in Pakistan

Rapid scientific and technological discoveries have increased demands of specialized nursing care. Because knowledge and skills can be replaced by engaging nurses in a set amount of continuing nursing education (CNE) program activities. Literature suggested that degree or license is not the end point of education after basic nursing study. Apparently, basic nursing education for practice becomes obsolete within five to ten years of graduation. This obsolescence can lead to the poor performance of nurses in clinical practice. Therefore, a comparative study was designed to investigate and compare most influential and predicting barriers to participation among hospital nurses of two provinces in Pakistan. This was a cross sectional analytical study in which convenience sampling approach was used to collect data of three hundred (n=300) nurses through “Barriers to Participation Questionnaire” (BPQ). Quantitatively, result interpretation was set as “the lower the mean score in each type of barrier, higher the barrier was measured due to reverse Likert scale rating. Generally, administrative barrier was found higher and most prevalent barrier, work-related barrier was more predictive and financial barriers as predicting barrier as compare to family and personal barrier. Data also revealed that Punjab nurses have greater administrative with mean score of 2.16±0.87 and work-related barriers with mean score of 2.43±0.81 than the nurses from Sindh province with mean score of 2.26±0.75 and 2.81±0.90. Regarding financial barrier, both provinces nurses have equal level barriers than the family and personal barriers among nurses of two provinces. To keep nurses connected with advanced knowledge in rapidly changing health care environment, more opportunities for non-formal CNE programs should be provided for employed nurses both in and outside of the organization.

Self-healing thermal barrier coating systems fabricated by spark plasma sintering

The present paper focuses on the Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) manufacturing of a new type of self-healing thermal barrier coating (TBC) and a study of its thermal cycling behaviour. The ceramic coating consists on an Yttria Partially Stabilized Zirconia (YPSZ) matrix into which healing agents made of MoSi2-Al2O3 core-shell particles are dispersed prior to sintering. The protocol used to sinter self-healing TBCs on MCrAlY (M: Ni or NiCo) pre-coated Ni-based superalloys is described and the reaction between the particles and the MCrAlY bond coating as well as the preventive solutions are determined. Thermal cycling experiments are performed on this complete multilayer system to study the crack healing behaviour. Post-mortem observations highlighted local healing of cracks due to the formation of silica and the subsequent conversion to zircon at the rims of the cracks.

Overcoming the species hybridization barrier by ploidy manipulation in the genus Oryza.

In most eudicot and monocot species, interspecific and interploidy crosses generally display abnormalities in the endosperm that are the major cause of a post-zygotic hybridization barrier. In some eudicot species, however, this type of hybridization barrier can be overcome by the manipulation of ploidy levels of one parental species, suggesting that the molecular mechanisms underlying the species hybridization barrier can be circumvented by genome dosage. We previously demonstrated that endosperm barriers in interspecific and interploidy crosses in the genus Oryza involve overlapping but different mechanisms. This result contrasts with those in the genus Arabidopsis, which shows similar outcomes in both interploidy and interspecific crosses. Therefore, we postulated that an exploration of pathways for overcoming the species hybridization barrier in Oryza endosperm, by manipulating the ploidy levels in one parental species, might provide novel insights into molecular mechanisms. We showed that fertile hybrid seeds could be produced by an interspecific cross of female tetraploid Oryza sativa and male diploid Oryza longistaminata. Although the rate of nuclear divisions did not return to normal levels in the hybrid endosperm, the timing of cellularization, nucellus degeneration and the accumulation of storage products were close to normal levels. In addition, the expression patterns of the imprinted gene MADS87 and YUCCA11 were changed when the species barrier was overcome. These results suggest that the regulatory machinery for developmental transitions and imprinted gene expression are likely to play a central role in overcoming species hybridization barriers by genome dosage in the genus Oryza.

The effect of feed barrier design on displacements during feeding of dairy cows in small herds

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to investigate the effect of feed barrier design on displacements in dairy cows fed only roughage diets in the bunk in small commercial dairy herds. Six Norwegian dairy herds with open barriers (OB) and six herds with individual headspace barriers (IHB) were randomly selected. Number of displacements and withdrawals without physical contact was somewhat higher, but not significantly higher, in the IHB herds than in the OB herds but the variation between herds within the type of barrier were very large. The number of pushes and buttings directed towards the front part of the body of cows was significantly higher in the OB herds than in the IHB herds whereas pushes and butts directed towards the side of cows were significantly higher in the IHB herds than in the OB herds.

Identifying environmental barriers to participation: Usability of a health-literacy informed problem-identification approach for parents of young children with developmental disabilities.

Parents of very young children recently diagnosed with developmental disabilities (DD) need to identify environmental barriers to their children's participation and adopt an adaptive orientation to solving these problems. Given the health service disparities for diverse families, parents may benefit from easy to use problem-identification approaches that address environmental barriers stemming from community and policy contexts. This feasibility study evaluated the usability of a health literacy-informed, structured, environment-focused problem-identification approach for parents of young children with DD. We used purposeful, convenience sampling to enrol 9 mothers of children ages 1-3 with DD (4 racial/ethnic minorities, 3 high school education, 4 annual household income <$20,000). We developed a structured problem-identification approach guided by a social ecological model featuring home, community, and policy contexts. The approach was applied to 3 short stories during a narrative elicitation interview. Two researchers independently coded parent responses for the type of barrier and solution identified with and without the approach. Parents identified 121 environmental barriers without the approach. When using the approach and prompted to consider home, community, and policy barriers, parents identified an additional 222 environmental barriers; the greatest number of barriers were aligned with International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health-Children and Youth environment Chapter 5 "Services, systems, and policies." Using the approach, parents with a postgraduate education and annual household income >$80,000 identified the most environmental barriers, and parents reporting the lowest annual household incomes identified the fewest environmental barriers. When parents attributed participation challenges to an environmental barrier, ~57% of solutions required parents to interact with individuals at the community or policy level. This study suggests that parents with a range of background characteristics can use a structured, environment-focused problem-identification approach. With the approach, parents are more likely to attribute participation challenges to environmental barriers and adopt a problem-solving orientation focused on changes to the community and policy context.

Peculiar properties of internal transport barrier formation near the q = 1 and q = 2 surfaces in tokamaks

A new type of internal transport barrier (ITB) was found in the T-10 tokamak plasma for the first time. It is created by sawtooth oscillations which are almost damped by off-axis electron cyclotron resonance heating and electron cyclotron current drive (ECRH and ECCD). During the ITB formation, the electron temperature, Te, at a relative radius r/a ≤ 0.45 rapidly rises to a new quasi-steady state, while the turbulence level, which is measured at the ITB, falls below its pre-crash value, and the turbulence spectrum shrinks in a wide range of frequencies. The ITB appears near the q = 1 magnetic surface and exists for approximately 50–70% of the plasma energy confinement time. During this process, accumulation of impurities was not observed. An abrupt and non-local reduction of the electron heat flux (ITB-event) around the q = 1 surface (within 1 ms in the spatial zone with a relative radius 0.2 < r/a < 0.5) was observed for the first time for the case with a gas puffing cut-off in OH T-10 discharges with an increasing high density. In contrast to the ITB that forms during the ECR heating, in this case, impurities begin to accumulate simultaneously with the ITB event. Analysis of the D-III-D experiments with a weak reverse magnetic shear shows that the appearance of a qmin = 2 surface leads to this ITB event in a very wide spatial region (the relative radius of the plasma column is 0 < r/a < 0.7).

Use of thermal energy and analysis of barriers to the implementation of thermal efficiency measures in cement production: Exploratory study in Colombia

The cement industry is one of the world’s largest energy consumers. In this work, a walk-through study of representative cement companies was carried out to characterize the energy profile of the cement industry in Colombia, with emphasis on evaluating the degree of obsolescence of the technology used in the processes, as well as identifying the main barriers that prevent the adaptation of more efficient technologies. Perception-surveys were performed among the energy managers to determine the barriers that hinder the implementation of energy efficiency measures. A factor that quantifies the influence of each type of barrier was defined according to the results of the survey. The results show that the Colombian cement industry has a specific energy consumption that is competitive with the largest cement producers in the world, while the technological obsolescence found is at a medium - low level. Furthermore, the main barrier to the penetration of energy efficiency technologies and measures is identified as the hidden costs associated with the implementation of these technologies. Finally, some conventional and emerging technologies are proposed to improve the efficiency of thermal energy use in the processes studied.

High-performance water-based barrier coatings for the corrosion protection of structural steel

This article provides an overview of the outcomes of a European-funded project called BarrierPlus. A new type of water-based barrier coating was developed for structural steel applications. The advantages of this coating include enhanced moisture resistance, low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and one-component self-crosslinking free of isocyanates. To enable this performance, a latex polymer binder was uniquely designed without using soap-like molecules, known as surfactants, to form the dispersion. By minimizing surfactants in the coating, the barrier properties were significantly enhanced. The latex was successfully scaled up to 15 kg quantities by an SME, coating formulations were scaled to pilot quantities and a variety of characterization and coating performance tests were completed. A life cycle assessment found that the BarrierPlus coating has a better environmental profile than an industry benchmark solvent-borne coating and showed promising results relative to commercial waterborne benchmarks.

ParTejas

In this article, we present the design of a novel parallel architecture simulator called ParTejas . ParTejas is a timing simulation engine that gets its execution traces from instrumented binaries using a fast shared-memory-based mechanism. Subsequently, the waiting threads simulate the execution of multiple pipelines and an elaborate memory system with support for multilevel coherent caches. ParTejas is written in Java and primarily derives its speedups from the use of novel data structures. Specifically, it uses lock-free slot schedulers to design an entity called a parallel port that effectively models the contention at shared resources in the CPU and memory system. Parallel ports remove the need for fine-grained synchronization and allow each thread to use its local clock. Unlike conventional simulators that use barriers for synchronization at epoch boundaries, we use a sophisticated type of barrier, known as a phaser. A phaser allows threads to perform additional work without waiting for other threads to arrive at the barrier. Additionally, we use a host of Java-specific optimizations and use profiling to effectively schedule the threads. With all our optimizations, we demonstrate a speedup of 11.8× for a multi-issue in-order pipeline and 10.9× for an out-of-order pipeline with 64 threads, for a suite of seven Splash2 and Parsec benchmarks. The simulation error is limited to 2% to 4% as compared to strictly sequential simulation

Review of recent experiments on the T-10 tokamak with all metal wall

Transition to an all-metal wall was realized on T-10 by replacement of graphite limiters with tungsten ones. Light impurity levels remained high and W accumulation in the plasma core was revealed. A movable lithium (Li) limiter was added to investigate the possibility of the limitation of tungsten and light impurity levels in plasma. For the first time, tokamak results on tungsten protection with Li were obtained in OH and ECRH regimes. After lithization the tungsten density in the core dropped more than an order of magnitude, while W influx into plasma decreased 2–4 times. Drastic drops of light impurities in plasma were observed together with improvement of energy confinement time and density limit values. Nevertheless, Li levels in plasma remained low in both OH and ECRH regimes. Li density in the core as low as 0.5% of ne was obtained. Tungsten transport in T-10 plasma was investigated and results on prevention of W accumulation with central ECRH were obtained. Effects of plasma exposure on ITER-grade tungsten plates from limiters were studied. Investigations of density fluctuation with correlation reflectometry confirmed a decrease of fluctuation amplitude on high field side. Modeling showed that this effect can be, to a great extent, explained by the non-locality of reflectometry. Toroidal correlations at a distance of 2.5 m along field lines were studied. Three-wave interaction between geodesic acoustic modes and broad-band turbulence was found by analysis of heavy ion beam probe diagnostics data. The possibility of plasma current control and the prevention of non-thermal electron beams formation at density limit disruption by means of ECR heating and the controlled operation of OH power supply system has been demonstrated. The study of plasma density decay after gas puff switch off during density ramp-up phase in OH regimes and the effect of ‘density pump out’ during ECRH showed that both effects can be explained by the assumption regarding electron transport growth upon reaching marginal pressure profile. A new type of internal transport barrier in the narrow zone near q = 1 surface has been found.

IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPT ON RETAIL INDUSTRY

The objectives of this paper seek to know how sustainability concept and implementation of the retail industry in Indonesia based on sustainability theoretical framework. The research was conducted in Jakarta (Indonesia), the survey was carried out on the basis of questionnaire that was used as a support during the interviews. A total of 137 Indonesia retail enterprises were involved in the research. The results achieved highlight, how CSR does make business sense in Indonesia context. This process calls for new forms of collaboration involving firms along the supply chain, local authorities, the international player and civil society. The conclusion of this research how CSR become a mandatory requirement for access to the International market, transform itself into a new type of technical barrier to trade. CSR need to be fostered rather than imposed through the creation of innovative partnership and locally rooted solution

Schottky Barriers in Bilayer Phosphorene Transistors.

It is unreliable to evaluate the Schottky barrier height (SBH) in monolayer (ML) 2D material field effect transistors (FETs) with strongly interacted electrode from the work function approximation (WFA) because of existence of the Fermi-level pinning. Here, we report the first systematical study of bilayer (BL) phosphorene FETs in contact with a series of metals with a wide work function range (Al, Ag, Cu, Au, Cr, Ti, Ni, and Pd) by using both ab initio electronic band calculations and quantum transport simulation (QTS). Different from only one type of Schottky barrier (SB) identified in the ML phosphorene FETs, two types of SBs are identified in BL phosphorene FETs: the vertical SB between the metallized and the intact phosphorene layer, whose height is determined from the energy band analysis (EBA); the lateral SB between the metallized and the channel BL phosphorene, whose height is determined from the QTS. The vertical SBHs show a better consistency with the lateral SBHs of the ML phosphorene FETs from the QTS compared than that of the popular WFA. Therefore, we develop a better and more general method than the WFA to estimate the lateral SBHs of ML semiconductor transistors with strongly interacted electrodes based on the EBA for its BL counterpart. In terms of the QTS, n-type lateral Schottky contacts are formed between BL phosphorene and Cr, Al, and Cu electrodes with electron SBH of 0.27, 0.31, and 0.32 eV, respectively, while p-type lateral Schottky contacts are formed between BL phosphorene and Pd, Ti, Ni, Ag, and Au electrodes with hole SBH of 0.11, 0.18, 0.19, 0.20, and 0.21 eV, respectively. The theoretical polarity and SBHs are in good agreement with available experiments. Our study provides an insight into the BL phosphorene-metal interfaces that are crucial for designing the BL phosphorene device.

Protection of Greenhouses against Wind Damage

The paper presents a case study of a greenhouse building affected by wind loads. The building is a lightweight steel structure with a height of 7.1meters, 12.8 meters wide and 171m long. The roof of the building is a lattice cupola. The main purpose of the authors was to find solutions in order to reduce wind loads on the building envelope, using some wind protection barriers. In order to identify the optimal solution, different types of wind barriers were analyzed. Using Ansys CFX, the authors carried out numerical simulation for each type of wind barrier, in order to find out which reduces the most the wind pressures on the walls and on the roof of the analyzed building. The results provided by numerical simulation of wind action on the building were used to make a comparative study between different patterns of wind fences. The comparison between pressures developed on the walls and roof for each type of fence, has allowed the choice of an optimal solution that can be applied also to other similar buildings.

Delivery systems: A systematic approach for barrier management

Safety Management Systems usually follow specified formats, as required by standards and other procedures. The quality of such systems is often obtained with assessments at the ordinal measurement level. This paper introduces a barrier-based safety management system coupled with a quantitative approach to safety management modelling. The risk management part of this system is composed of so-called delivery systems, which describe the management processes in place in order to manage barriers. The proposed approach aims to determine how the delivered management factors affect risks by influencing the functioning of barriers. Taking the competence delivery system as an example, competent people are delivered to carry out the tasks of barriers, and these tasks guarantee barriers’ effectiveness. In this research, barriers are grouped into five types. By quantifying competence indicators and the performance of each type of barrier, the link between a delivery system (competence) and barriers is established. Other delivery systems can be quantified in a similar way, meaning that safety management systems will work more efficiently with such monitoring. In addition, this quantification can be used as input for audits, by making assessments more transparent.

The dynamics of landscape-scale ecological connectivity based on least-cost model in Dongshan Island, China

As a hot topic in Landscape Ecology study, ecological connectivity is an important indicator for regional land sustainable use and biological protection. This paper conducted a systematic assessment of ecological connectivity using remote sensing images of Dongshan Island in 1994, 2003 and 2011. Based on least-cost modelling, the method takes into consideration the type of barrier, the distance impact, and the adjacent land use types to obtain the Barrier Effect Index (BEI) and Ecological Connectivity Index (ECI). The application of this method to Dongshan Island showed the ecological connectivity index (ECI) was low in 1994, improved in 2003, and decreased significantly in 2011. The results of the dynamic analysis of landscape structure showed farmland and roads were the main landscape classes that caused the low observed ECI in 1994 and 2003; these tended to divide the landscape and cause fragmentation. Construction land and roads were the main landscape classes resulting in low ECI in 2011, while forest and grassland had a high ECI. Trajectory analysis showed ECI tended to decrease in the low mountain forest zone of the northwestern and southeastern parts of Dongshan Island as well as in the coastal protection forest area. The areas where ECI became high were located in the northeastern part of Dongshan Island where cities and towns are concentrated with high human populations. Therefore, rapid urbanization has been the most important factor driving changes in landscape structure and patterns during the last 17 years on Dongshan Island. The approach not only assists us in revealing the driving mechanism of landscape dynamics from another aspect, but also can assess the impacts of regional and urban plans on landscape structure and function.

Dynamic Barriers for Protection against Rocks Falls

In this paper the most important aspects for designing dynamic barriers for protection against rockfalls are presented. Technological advances in fabrication of metallic materials are increasingly enabling the use of barriers with greater ability to absorb energy. However, in order to establish what type of barrier is needed to solve a given problem (location, height and energy), it is necessary to know the basic principles of the way these elements function, as well as the design methodology to be applied. In the following paragraphs of the paper the basic concepts that should be taken into account by the engineer responsible for the design of a barrier are described, and, by applying a commercial software, a real example of the design of a rockfall protection system on a hillside is finally illustrated.