Academic literature on the topic 'Barley – Growth model'

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is often grown in sites with low rainfall and high temperature during grain filling. Because spike architecture is one of basic footprints of barley domestication, the importance of spikes in adaptation to different environments or abiotic stresses can be hypothesised. In order to compare different barley spike types in terms of kernel growth and yield components, we tested 15 two-row and 10 six-row winter genotypes in eight environments where terminal drought was simulated by defoliation at 7 days after heading (7 DAH). Control plants were grown intact. On average, two-row genotypes outyielded six-row genotypes by 17% under control conditions and 33% under simulated late drought. Observations of kernel dry weights from 7 DAH through to harvest maturity at 5-day intervals were regressed onto a measure of thermal time. After preliminary evaluation of four nonlinear (S-shaped) models for kernel dry-weight accumulation, the ordinary logistic model was deemed the most appropriate in most cases and was finally applied to all plant-growth curves. Four parameters were estimated from the logistic model. Whereas two earliness estimators (inflection point and thermal time needed to reach maximum kernel weight) were similar for the two barley types, maximum kernel weight (Ymax) and mean rate of kernel growth (RG) were higher (P<0.05) in two-row than in six-row barleys. Differences in Ymax and RG among six-row barley genotypes were greater between control and defoliation treatments than between years, whereas among two-row barley genotypes, differences between years were greater, suggesting better stability of six-row types and better drought tolerance of two-row types in the tested barley set.

Проблема и цель. В настоящее время все больше внедряются в сельскохозяйственное производство информационные технологии, позволяющие в режиме он-лайн воспользоваться необходимой информацией по конкретной теме, прогнозировать процессы и снизить риски последствий предлагаемых мероприятий. В стране уже действует ведомственный проект «Цифровое сельское хозяйство», информационно-коммуникационная платформа «Цифровая мелиорация» и др. Авторами предложен алгоритм управления ростовыми процессами ячменя, возделываемого на торфяных почвах длительного осушения при внесении нового удобрительного мелиоранта на основе козьего навоза. Методология. Исследования включали лизиметрический трехлетний опыт по изучению эффективности нового удобрительного мелиоранта в п. Полково Рязанского района Рязанской области и установлении оптимального варианта. В работе применялись цифровые технологии в виде платформенных решений, доступные его резидентам в интернет-пространстве, Единая федеральная информационная система, содержащая информацию о землях сельскохозяйственного назначения (ЕФИС ЗСН), технология промышленного интернета вещей, автоматизированная метеостанция. Результаты. Для расчета водного баланса территории, величины транспирации и эвапотранспирации, аккумуляции азота растениями и его выноса в грунтовые воды использовалась имитационная модель фитоценоза "АМПРА" разработанная во ВНИИГиМе. Для решения поставленной цели нами были собраны данные о мелиоративном объекте, качестве почвы, урожаям за многолетний период, погодным условиям, эффекту от каждого нового приема в технологии возделывания культур. Пполучен непрерывный доступ к информации о погоде через автоматическую метеостанцию; интегрирована система управления данными с применением модели “АМПРА” (Авторегуляторная Модель Почва-Растение-Атмосфера); внедрена система бизнес-аналитики для обработки полученных данных и разработки алгоритмов для подготовки инструкции; использована компьютерная программа Statistica 10 для обработки данных, управления и прогноза процессов. Модель позволила спрогнозировать снижение урожайности зерна ячменя при повышении дозы удобрительного мелиоранта более чем 15 т/га. Заключение. Решать проблемы сельского хозяйства в настоящее время целесообразно с использованием цифровых технологий. Так, использованная в исследованиях модель роста растений "АМПРА" позволила отследить процессы накопления основных питательных веществ при внесении в почву удобрительного мелиоранта в условиях полива, изменение тургорного давления в разные часы суток; определить влагообеспеченность растений и водный потенциал листьев; получить рассчитанный листовой индекс, высоту растений и площадь корней. Problem and purpose. At present, more and more information technologies are being introduced into agricultural production, which make it possible to use the necessary information on a specific topic on-line, predict processes and reduce the risks of the consequences of the proposed measures. The country has departmental project “Digital Agriculture”, information and communication platform “Digital Melioration”, etc. The authors have proposed an algorithm for managing the growth processes of barley cultivated on peat soils for long-term drainage with the introduction of a new fertilizing ameliorant based on goat manure. Methodology. Investigations included a lysimetric three-year experiment to study the effectiveness of a new fertilizer ameliorant in the settlement of Polkovo, Ryazan district, Ryazan region, and to determine the optimal option. The work used digital technologies in the form of platform solutions available to its residents in the Internet, the Unified Federal Information System containing information on agricultural land (UFIS AL), the technology of the Industrial Internet of Things, an automated weather station. Results. To calculate the water balance of the territory, the amount of transpiration and evapotranspiration, the accumulation of nitrogen by plants and its removal into the groundwater, a simulation model of the phytocenosis "AMPRA" developed at VNIIGiM was used. To achieve this purpose, we collected data on the reclamation facility, soil quality, yields over a long period, weather conditions, the effect of each new technique in the technology of crop cultivation. The continuous access to weather information through an automatic weather station was obtained. A data management system was integrated using the AMPRA model (Autoregulatory Model Soil-Plant-Atmosphere), a business intelligence system was introduced to process the data obtained and develop algorithms for preparing instructions. Computer program Statistica 10 was used for data processing, control and forecasting of processes. The model made it possible to predict a decrease in the yield of barley grain with an increase in the dose of a fertilizer ameliorant of more than 15 t/ha. Conclusion. It is now advisable to solve agricultural problems using digital technologies. Thus, the AMPRA plant growth model used in the research made it possible to track the processes of accumulation of the main nutrients when a fertilizing ameliorant was introduced into the soil under irrigation conditions, the change in turgor pressure at different time of the day, to determine the moisture supply of plants and the water potential of leaves, to obtain the calculated leaf index, height plants and root area.

In conditions of chemical pollution, it is relevant to enhance the resistance of plants with substances that have a protective action. The effect of humic substance Lignohumate on the phytotoxic properties of phosphorus-containing compounds methylphosphonic acid (MPA) and sodium pyrophosphate (SPP) was studied in model experiments. Lignohumate was tested at three concentrations (0.1, 0.5, and 1 g/L) on Hordeum distichum L. of the Novichok variety. The test functions were such indicators as the germinating and sprouting ability of seeds, the growth and biomass accumulation of seedlings, and the inhibition effect. Lignohumate in the studied concentrations did not affect germination of the barley seeds, but it stimulated growth of the barley seedlings. In the conditions of MPA pollution (0.01 mol/L), Lignohumate exerted a protective effect on the plants, and the highest concentration of humic preparation (1 g/L) was the most effective. In the experiments with SPP (0.01 mol/L), Lignohumate stimulated germination the barley seeds but it did not reduce the growth inhibitory effect of SPP. The combined exposure to the studied pollutants negatively affected growth and accumulation of biomass by the barley roots. The introduction of Lignohumate weakened the combined effect but could not completely countervail it. The calculation of inhibition effect showed that the phytotoxicity of phosphorus-containing substances reduced in the order MPA (without buffer) - SPP - MPA (with buffer) - MPA+SPP . The introduction of Lignohumate to the growth medium was the most effective in experiments with low-toxic substances.

It is important to be able to predict the yield and monitor the growth conditions of crops in the field to increase productivity. One way to assess field-based geospatial crop productivity is by integrating a crop model with a remote-controlled aerial system (RAS). The objective of this study was to simulate spatiotemporal barley growth and yield based on the development of a crop-modeling system integrated with RAS-based remote sensing images. We performed field experiments to obtain ground truth data and RAS images of crop growth conditions and yields at Chonnam National University (CNU), Gwangju, South Korea in 2018, and at Gyeongsang National University (GNU), Jinju, South Gyeongsang, South Korea in 2018 and 2019. In model calibration, there was no significant difference (p = 0.12) between the simulated barley yields and measured yields, based on a two-sample t-test at CNU in 2018. In model validation, there was no significant difference between simulated yields and measured yields at p = 0.98 and 0.76, according to two-sample t-tests at GNU in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The remote sensing-integrated crop model accurately reproduced geospatial variations in barley yield and growth variables. The results demonstrate that the crop modeling approach is useful for monitoring at-field barley conditions.

SummaryThe growth of kernels at selected positions along the spike of barley was studied using three models: segmented, logistic and Gompertz. The segmented model divides the growth period into three segments: an initial constant stage, a middle period of ‘linear growth’, and a final constant stage. The identification of a period during which growth is approximately linear - the ‘linear phase’ - was estimated from the curvilinear functions by imposing some criterion to determine the period of ‘linear growth’ in order that the results were similar to those from the segmented model. From this a model of final growth, growth rate and duration of growth as a function of kernel position was developed and fitted to data from four different thinning treatments at five sowing dates. The model of final growth and growth rate was shown to have a family of gamma functions. The analysis of these models showed that there were marked interactions between sowing and thinning treatments for growth rate, less so for grain yield, but there was no substantial interaction for duration.

Plants are exposed to numerous pathogens and fend off many of these with different phytohormone signalling pathways. Much is known about defence signalling in the dicotyledonous model plant Arabidopsisthaliana, but it is unclear to which extent knowledge from model systems can be transferred to monocotyledonous plants, including cereal crops. Here, we investigated the defence-inducing potential of Arabidopsis resistance-inducing compounds in the cereal crop barley. Salicylic acid (SA), folic acid (Fol), and azelaic acid (AzA), each inducing defence against (hemi-)biotrophic pathogens in Arabidopsis, were applied to barley leaves and the treated and systemic leaves were subsequently inoculated with Xanthomonastranslucens pv. cerealis (Xtc), Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei (powdery mildew, Bgh), or Pyrenophora teres. Fol and SA reduced Bgh propagation locally and/or systemically, whereas Fol enhanced Xtc growth in barley. AzA reduced Bgh propagation systemically and enhanced Xtc growth locally. Neither SA, Fol, nor AzA influenced lesion sizes caused by the necrotrophic fungus P. teres, suggesting that the tested compounds exclusively affected growth of (hemi-)biotrophic pathogens in barley. In addition to SA, Fol and AzA might thus act as resistance-inducing compounds in barley against Bgh, although adverse effects on the growth of pathogenic bacteria, such as Xtc, are possible.

Competition and yield advantage in barley varietal mixtures and in barley-oats mixtures were investigated. The trials were based on replacement series, but in a few cases the overall density of the stand was varied on the basis of an addition series. Both models of competition, one based on the de Wit model and the other upon a linear regression model, agreed as to which component was the dominant and which was the subordinate in the mixture. The competition coefficients from regression analyses depicted competition between components better in a dense than in a sparse stand. The competitive ability of a genotype did not depend directly upon individual characters of the genotype, such as rate of initial development, earliness, culm height, tillering capacity or grain yield in monoculture (adaptation), A good combination of characters from the viewpoint of competition was provided by the barley cv. Arra with its rapid initial development and rapid culm growth (earliness), the variety being dominant irrespective of number of components in the mixture, stand density, level of nitrogen fertilization or growing season. This suggests that competitive relations and distribution of resources within a mixture are determined at an early stage in the growing period. In other cases the competitive ability of a genotype varied from one environment to another with the competitive relations between components being inconsistent. The dominance of an aggressor usually increased with increasing nitrogen fertilization especially when the total density of the stand was high. As a rule, competition affected all the components of yield with the kernel weight being least affected. The grain yield of varietal mixtures did not differ from the yield of the highest yielding component grown alone, i.e., mixtures did not over yield. The relative yield total of varietal mixtures was higher at low (RYT > 1) than at optimal densities (RYT =1). Also the relative yield total was higher under conditions where the nitrogen fertilization was not optimal. The results of a varietal trial repeated during three successive years indicated that the relative yield total of a given mixture varied from one growing season to another, fluctuating around unity. Thus highly adapted barley varieties appear to compete for the same resources, and the grain yield advantage of such mixtures is marginal. The results of the barley-oats mixture trials revealed that the mixture may over yield. The relative yield totals of barley-oats mixtures were usually equal to or greater than unity the latter suggesting that the mixtures of barley and oats may use resources more efficiently than monocultures, and some grain yield advantage could be achieved with such mixtures. The protein yield of the barley-oats mixtures did not differ from the yield of the highest yielding component grown alone. The ratio of actual and expected protein yield and the relative protein yield total were usually slightly greater than one. The grain yields of mixtures were not consistently more stable than monocultures as determined by the coefficient of variation.

The growth and development of wheat, barley, and annual ryegrass (Lolium rigidum Gaud.) were studied in monoculture and in additive mixtures at two sites of contrasting climate and soil type in New South Wales. Although smaller, annual ryegrass paralleled the behaviour of the two cereals in monoculture in all respects. The phenological development of all three species was more rapid at the wheatbelt site (Forbes) than on the coastal plain (Camden); yield loss was also greater at Forbes. The early growth rate of barley was greater than that of wheat or ryegrass at both sites. As a result, barley was more able to suppress ryegrass in mixtures and to maintain its yield than wheat. Sensitivity analysis of a growth simulation model suggested that the early rate of leaf production was likely to be influential in determining the magnitude of biomass reduction at anthesis; relative phenological development and height growth dynamics appeared to have little effect.

In this study, the growing behaviors of some cool season cereals (bread wheat, rye, durum wheat and barley) cereals were modeled simultaneously during the two growing seasons. For this purpose, Cox Regression was proposed as an alternative to the preferred regression methods in previous studies. In the study, based on the seasonal data of two different season growing seasons (2012-2013, 2013-2014 and both), each of which has 5 replicates 27 samples, growth rates of these cereals via dry matter accumulation quantities were explained in three different models. For this purpose, the dry matter accumulation amounts were fitted to the survival data and Cox Regression method, which uses the hazard function, the rate of occurrence of a particular event, was preferred. As a result, each model was found to be very important (p <0.000). It was determined that i) the fastest growing species was barley, ii) dry matter accumulation decreased as temperature increased, and iii) dry matter accumulation in crops changed during each growth season.

CSM-Cropsim-CERES -Wheat is a crop growth model that predicts crop development stages, among other things, using genetic coefficients for vernalization and photoperiod. We used this model to predict flowering date for 12 durum varieties seeded in trials at Maricopa and Yuma from 1998 to 2006. The difference between simulated and measured flowering date averaged 4 days without genetic coefficients and improved to 3.5 days if genetic coefficients for flowering and vernalization were included for each variety.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

This chapter outlines a second key context for the resurgence of interest in empathy: the rapid growth of interest in human rights discourses in the early twenty-first century. The first section, ‘Cultivating empathy’, reviews key claims made by human-rights scholars concerning the empathy-building qualities of fiction, before outlining the critical response to such claims and introducing Edith Stein’s phenomenological model of empathy as a promising framework. The second section, ‘Reading humanitarian campaigns’ reads side by side Sara Ahmed and Virginia Woolf to provide a feminist underpinning for an other-directed approach to empathy. The third section, ‘Positioning the empathetic gaze’ reads Susan Sontag alongside Pat Barker to argue that both writers are cognisant, in looking at another’s suffering, of the implication of the gaze in structures of power and privilege. The final section, ‘Empathy and the institution’, focuses on Pat Barker’s Life Class to ask where and when the scene of empathy is situated, and with what effects.

The two most important life functions that organisms carry out to persist in the environment are reproduction and growth. In this chapter we examine the role of climate and climate variability as controlling factors in the growth of one of the most important and productive of the North American boreal forest tree species, white spruce (Picea glauca [Moench] Voss). Because the relationship between climate and tree growth is so close, tree-ring properties have been used successfully for many years as a proxy to reconstruct past climates. Our recent reconstruction of nineteenth- century summer temperatures at Fairbanks based on white spruce tree-ring characteristics (Barber et al. in press) reveals a fundamental pattern of quasi-decadal climate variability. The values in this reconstruction of nineteenth-century Fairbanks summer temperatures are surprisingly warm compared to values in much of the published paleoclimatic literature for boreal North America. In this chapter we compare our temperature reconstructions with ring-width records in northern and south-central Alaska to see whether tree-growth signals in the nineteenth century in those regions are consistent with tree-ring characteristics in and near Bonanza Creek (BNZ) LTER (25 km southwest of Fairbanks) that suggest warm temperatures during the mid-nineteenth century. We also present a conceptual model of key limiting events in white spruce reproduction and compare it to a 39-year record of seed fall at BNZ. Finally, we derive a radial growth pattern index from white spruce at nine stands across Interior Alaska that matches recent major seed crop events in the BNZ monitoring period, and we identify dates after 1800 when major seed crops of white spruce, which are infrequent, may have been produced. The boreal region is characterized by a broad zone of forest with a continuous distribution across Eurasia and North America, amounting to about 17% of the earth’s land surface area (Bonan et al. 1992). The boreal region is often conceived of as a zone of relatively homogenous climate, but in fact a surprising diversity of climates are present. During the long days of summer, continental interior locations under persistent high-pressure systems experience hot weather that can promote extensive forest fires frequently exceeding 100 kilohectares (K ha). Summer daily maximum temperatures are cooled to a considerable degree in maritime portions of the boreal region affected by air masses that originate over the North Atlantic, North Pacific, or Arctic Oceans.

This chapter elevates the need to enhance global understanding of how the e-business and e-commerce artifact is unfolding in developing countries in Africa. As markets become saturated in the developed world, companies are diversifying by considering online sales opportunities in developing countries. For instance, conservative estimates of Internet users in Africa is currently at about 120 million, without taking into account the explosive growth of mobile Internet browsing. This is barely 6% of the total population, with growth rates being the highest in the world. Thus e-business applications, whether based on the traditional Internet infrastructure or mobile technology, is positioned to provide a strategic opportunity for organizations as the focus shifts to online consumers in developing countries, especially those in Africa and Asia. The motivation for the contribution in this paper stems from the claim that the fast advent of the environment of e-business has been claimed to change the game of business, threatening the existence, not only of firms, but also of whole industries. Perhaps due to the speed of change, there is little generic strategic guidance available for organizations to help them navigate through the uncharted waters of the new domain of business. There also seems to be little work from developing countries, on the actual value that firms can hope to get from participating in e-business, which would make the new environment relevant to established and evolving new businesses. Therefore, the chapter’s contribution stems from a quest to provide an explanatory critique of the real nature of e-business in a developing countries ‘context and explore a possible successful model for e-business adoption. The alternative conceptualization shall be explored based on two outcomes that are inevitably a consequence of increasing e-business adoption in developing countries: increasing business reliance on virtual markets and marketing and increasing accessibility of global markets occasioned by the Internet and mobile infrastructure. Thus, the first part of the chapter will explore how the online business contexts are influencing buyer behaviour; while the second part attempts an alternative conceptualization of web user behaviour.

To read the comparable chapter on economic geography in Geography in America is to recall a world, and a way of viewing that world, that seems remote. For one thing, that chapter was called Industrial Geography. There were good reasons why industrial geography was so prominent in the last report. The 1970s and 1980s were a period of fundamental industrial change in Western economies involving deindustrialization and lay-offs, restructuring of methods of production, the emergence of new manufacturing and service sectors, and new forms of international economic organization supported by innovations in telecommunications, transportation, and corporate organization and management. All those substantive issues remain important, and in some cases central, to present economic geographical research. Changed, though, is the conceptualization of those issues. In particular, newer approaches tend to blur the boundary between the economic part of economic geography, and other social, cultural, and political geographical practices. Some have labeled this move “the cultural turn” (Crang 1997; Thrift and Olds 1996; Barnes 1996b), but this description is too narrow because more than just the cultural is at stake. Rather, the very idea of the economic is being reconceived. The economic is no longer conceptualized as sovereign, isolated, and an entity unto itself, but porous and dependent, bleeding into other spheres as they bleed into it. To use Karl Polyani’s (1944) term, which is often deployed in this literature, the economy is “embedded” within broader processes. There are at least two reasons for the reconceptualization of the economic by economic geographers. One is internal to the academy, and is bound up with a broader intellectual shift in the social sciences and humanities that is increasingly suspicious of essentialized entities such as “the economy” (Barnes 1996a; Gibson-Graham 1996; Lee and Wills 1997). A second source of change is the actual geography of economic activities. The economic geographical landscape of the 1990s seems quite different from the one written about in the last report, and thereby demands a new theoretical vocabulary in which to be represented. In the last report, for example, there was no mention of Fordism or post-Fordism, flexibility or economies of scope, localities or local modes of regulation, growth coalitions or territorial complexes, or glocalization or even globalization.

Recent economic, social and environmental concerns have drawn attention to the necessity to rethink our consumption patterns (Barnes & Mattsson, 2016) and call for alternative forms of consumption. In parallel, digitalization dramatically changes the way we live, work, consume and travel (OECD, 2020). As a result, new consumption practices have emerged in the last years, privileging access over ownership (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). Those practices, labelled as sharing economy or collaborative consumption (Belk, 2014; Benoit et al., 2017; Botsman & Rogers, 2010), involve most of the time peer-to-peer exchanges (for a fee or for free) that are coordinated through community-based online services (Hamari, Sjoklint & Ukkonen, 2016). Such collaborative services have recently boomed, impacting many sectors, including the hospitality and tourism industry (Sigala, 2017), with well-known initiatives such as Airbnb or Couchsurfing. Peer-to-peer accommodation services are transforming the tourism industry (PWC, 2015) by enabling consumers to share and access goods escaping traditional services like hotels and travel agencies. According to Hotrec (2014), peer-to-peer accommodation is twice bigger than the conventional tourism accommodation industry in Europe. The World Bank Group estimates a 31% annual growth of this new accommodation type between 2013 and 2025, which is six times bigger than the annual growth of the conventional bed and breakfast and hotel industry. In total, peer-topeer accommodation makes up about 7% of accommodation worldwide (Bakker & Twining-Ward, 2018). Two of the most sucessful sharing economy unicorns, AirBnB and Couchsurfing, have very different business models. Airbnb is an online peer-to-peer marketplace that matches hosts wishing to share their home with travelers (i.e. guests) who are looking for accommodation. Valued at 38 billion USD (Forbes, 2018), Airbnb has more than 60 million customers and around two million accommodations in the world (OECD, 2016). At the opposite, Couchsurfing is a free online hospitality exchange network that connects travelers looking for a place to sleep with people offering their ‘couch’ for a couple of nights. The community gathers around ten million members around the world.

Cannon barrel life can be maximized by fully understanding the correlation between temperature and hoop stress and their relation to crack growth. Use of elevated temperature fatigue to predict failure of a gun barrel based on the number and type of rounds along with temperature data will both maximize the usable life of a cannon barrel and maintain a safe operating environment the men and women using these cannons. This analysis will help increase the usable life of large caliber cannon barrels; round data that is collected throughout the life of a cannon barrel will be used to determine the proper time to decommission the barrel. Experimental data was collected utilizing an MTS 858 fatigue system applying low cycle fatigue analysis. Numerous operating temperatures and stresses were calculated from various cannon round types and used to determine test parameters. From this data, a correlation was generated between stress and temperature to predict life expectancy of the test specimens. Several specimens were then cycled for various temperature and pressure combinations, thereby verifying the accuracy of the prediction model. Data was collected using methods set forth in ASTM E466-07 which dictates the standard practice for force-controlled fatigue testing. Data was analyzed using Minitab for development of the life cycle prediction model. Since the accuracy of the model dictates its reliability, this was used to provide a safety cushion to ensure that failure does not occur prior to the expected time.

Abstract Oil and gas pipelines are essential infrastructures that sustain the economy of modern society. They are designed for continuous and reliable operations over their service lives. Once installed, however, their reliability is affected by several threats among which external corrosion plays a significant role. Corrosion-based pit depth growth reduces the wall thickness over time that consequently affect the mechanical strength and the hydraulic performance of the pipeline. Pipeline utility managers rely on the corrosion growth rate models to plan their maintenance, rehabilitation and/or replacement. Existing pipeline deterioration models are mostly based on the power law function that relates the pit depth with the exposure time and rarely include the soil factors that can have effect on the corrosion growth rate. Moreover, the way these factors affect the corrosion rate is complex and cannot be captured with simple linear relationship. This paper uses data found in the literature to build a nonlinear pit depth growth model based on Bayesian spectral analysis regression technique. All continuous covariates are allowed to have smooth nonlinear spectral representations of their effect function on the pit depth growth. The discrete (i.e. categorical) factors are modeled using the ordinary least squared algorithm. The final semiparametric model allows to capture all pit depth measurements, even those difficult to be modeled using high degree polynomials. The stochastic nature of the pit depth growth is captured through the Bayesian approach. A time dependent reliability analysis using subset simulation is carried out to evaluate the changes occurring in the probability of failure of the pipe over time and allow for a better planning and management of these important infrastructure. The model is applied on a bare pipe directly exposed to the soil environment over time. The Bayesian pit depth growth model is accurate enough to allow the computation of the time dependent reliability of pipelines considering both the mechanical and hydraulic reliabilities.

In the case of failure incidents involving important components, it is necessary to clarify the fracture mechanism by failure analysis. In the case of conventional steel materials, according to the individual fracture mode the fracture surfaces have unique fracture morphology corresponding to tensile, impact, creep and fatigue conditions. We can identify the mechanism of a fracture by observing its fracture surface, and this is known as the fractography. However regarding nickel-base superalloys, any differences in fracture morphology are unfortunately barely distinguishable, which makes it difficult to conduct fractography. In this paper, in order to characterize the damage behavior of IN738LC, the misorientation analysis within grains by using the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) method across almost all the whole range of specimens has been carried out. As a result, it was found that the cross section of fracture samples have unique distinguishable morphology corresponding to the individual fracture mode. Furthermore, the striations corresponding to the fatigue crack growth rate was found in the crack cross-sectional sample. It was considered that the EBSD striation observed on the cross section reveals the fatigue crack growth rate, as with striations found in the fatigue fracture surface such as conventional steel materials. On the case study of the actual (service and damaged) gas turbine blade, the EBSD analysis as the fractography revealed the mechanism of cracking and the fatigue crack growth rate. Thus, it is concluded that the misorientation analysis of damage materials allows the qualitative estimation of the fracture mode and the quantitative life assessment of the fatigue crack growth.

This paper is a description of the models and methods used by CanmetMATERIALS to model failure and fracture of Ti-6Al-4V alloy sample as part of the Second Sandia Fracture Challenge. Finite element models, meshed with 8-noded brick elements, were used to simulate loading of the tensile, shear, and fracture specimens. The approximate element size near localization and failure in each of the specimens ranged from about 0.2 to 0.4 mm transitioning to larger elements away from the failure zone. Simulations were performed using the explicit dynamic solvers in ABAQUS and DYNA3D. For both solvers, a user-defined subroutine was implemented to describe the material behavior. The Xue-Weirzbicki damage model was used to describe the failure of the material. The foregoing is a general three-dimensional damage-mechanics-based approach to model failure and fracture under low to high constraint and also ductile and shear failure. Plastic deformation was modeled using both isotropic von-Mises and the Cazacu-Plunkett-Barlat 2006 (CPB06) asymmetric/anisotropic yield function. Both subroutines used the Bazant-Pijaudier-Cabot non-local approach to mitigate the mesh dependence of finite element simulations. Crack growth was modeled using the element deletion technique. Though the two subroutines were very similar, there were small differences in the implementations of the two models, such as the tolerances utilized for convergence, which led to two slightly different predictions. The yield and failure models were approximately calibrated using a combination of the tensile, shear data, and supplemented with data from the open literature. Blind predictions of the loading of the challenge-sample geometry were made and subsequently found to be in reasonable agreement with the experiments carried out at Sandia National Labs. Sources of discrepancies are identified and discussed in this report.

Abstract Precise predictions and solutions for tomorrow's needs are the key to building a growing, sustainable business. This requires a mixture of vision, strategic risk taking business model and investment in new technology. Refining trends forecast is useful for predicting possible landscape, where in challenge would be to meet twice the energy levels from today with half the CO2 emissions by 2030. Increasing and diversification of world's energy supplies to support the population of over 8 billion then would be a mammoth task, given that the triangle of energy, food and water will be crucial. Three fundamental factors that will influence and shape this setting are: Global products demand will rise by 1.1% - 1.3% annually by 2030 to over 115 million barrels per day, with marginal influence of crude oil prices;Reinforced legislation targeting reduction of GHG emissions, requiring improved clean transportation and bunker fuels - accounting 2/3rd of total demand and growth;Refining and Petrochemicals form the backbone of global economics and meeting demand with inevitable steady profitability is a major task possibly also using alternative unconventional sources. In competitive context – innovation, operational excellence and implementation of robust strategies are critical for sustenance and growth. Project returns can however be enhanced by incorporating integration principles and model at the design stage itself. Whilst development pace of new technologies would accelerate which can radically alter business structure in certain geographies, question remains on what makes a successful project come to fruition. The presentation discusses futuristic economic unlocking of value by application of technology models and best practices by utilizing various feed-stocks, including natural gas as a main competitor and maximum upgrading bottom-of-the-barrel. Besides, novel process designs and operational control would be squeezed as it is invariably the last fraction which is most difficult to remove! This paper contains forward-looking scenario about global Refining strategy, Petrochemicals feed-stock cost advantages, technology diversification routes to maximize returns from cheaper sources, financial performance and economics, growth opportunities in various countries, sectors or markets, besides a focus on Europe and GCC regions and current projects in Kuwait. However, these involve uncertainty as they depend mainly on future circumstances like commercializing R&D, not all of which can be controlled or accurately predicted, hence are directional for investment decisions.

It is of interest to model crack propagation in irradiated Zr-2.5Nb nuclear pressure tubes and X70 pipeline steel. These materials can undergo a range of conditions leading to fracture with operating temperatures between room temperature and 300 °C for Zr-2.5Nb and strain-rates ranging from quasi-static to dynamic in the case of pipeline steel. In the case of the hexagonal closed-packed zirconium alloy, the influence of plastic anisotropy is also of interest. When trying to capture the fracture response under a wide variety of conditions, limitations of traditional Linear Elastic and Elastic Plastic Fracture Mechanics become apparent such as trying to capture effects of crack tunnelling, the transition from flat-to-slant fracture, and anisotropy. Various damage mechanics based approaches to model 3D crack propagation will be presented and discussed including the crack tip opening angle, a Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman type damage model based on void nucleation, growth, and coalescence, and the Xue and Wierzbicki model based on the relationship between failure strain with stress triaxiliaty and lode angle dependence. A non-local damage scheme, which mitigates the mesh-dependence of results, will also be presented. For Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube, simulations were performed using Hill’48 and Cazacu-Barlat-Plunkett 2006 anisotropy yield functions. Experimental data from compact tension and rising pressure burst tests on irradiated Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube and both static and dynamic drop weight tear tests on X70 pipeline steel will be compared to predictions from finite element simulations. It is shown that simulations using the various damage models can capture the measured crack propagation behaviour, including crack tunnelling, to varying degrees of accuracy. The Xue and Wierzbicki fracture model was shown to capture the transition from a flat, tunnelling (ductile fracture) crack to a slanted (shear fracture) crack during propagation that was observed in both Zr-2.5Nb and pipeline steel.

The rapid growth of the global network infrastructure has resulted in a sharp increase in the number and size of data center facilities. Total data center power consumption now represents a significant fraction of global electricity production. To conserve natural resources, and to satisfy the cooling demands of compact, powerful electronics, thermal management strategies with high heat transfer coefficients must be employed. Two-phase liquid immersion cooling is one such strategy that has been gaining momentum in commercial cooling applications over recent years. The work discussed in this paper provides information on two different flow boiling investigations performed on vertically oriented surfaces in a small form factor server model. Two different types of surfaces — bare silicon, and silicon surfaces attached with microfinned heat sinks were tested in this study. Novec 649 dielectric fluid was used as the primary working fluid. The first investigation compares the thermal performance of parallel and impinging flow distribution systems, for different subcooling and flow rate conditions. The second investigation is on nucleation suppression in flow boiling for the parallel and impinging flow distribution systems. In this study, flow rates ranging from 0 ml/min to 1650 ml/min were tested and high-speed imaging was performed to capture the change in bubble characteristics. The resulting observations, including highest heat flux values supported without nucleation activity, are reported and discussed.

A recent theorem due to Barber shows an analogy between conductance and incremental stiffness of a contact, implying bounds on conductance based on peak-to-peak roughness. This shows that even a fractal roughness, with bounded amplitude, has a finite conductance. The analogy also permits a simple interpretation of classical results of rough contact models based on independent asperities such as Greenwood-Williamson and developments. For example, in the GW model with exponential distribution of asperity heights, the conductance is found simply proportional to load, and inversely proportional to a roughness amplitude parameter which does not depend greatly on resolution, contrary to parameters of slopes and curvatures. However, for the Gaussian distribution or for more refined models also considering varying curvature of asperities (such as Bush Gibson and Thomas), there is dependence on sampling interval and the conductance grows unbounded. An alternative choice of asperity definition (Aramaki-Majumdar-Bhushan) is suggested, which builds on the geometrical intersection of the rough surface, with the consequence of a finite contact area, and converging load-separation and load-conductance relationship. A discussion follows, also based on numerical results.