Anomalously slow relaxation in the diluted Ising model below the percolation threshold

The relaxational behaviour of the bond-diluted two-dimensional Ising model below the percolation threshold is studied using Monte Carlo techniques. The non-equilibrium decay of the magnetization,M(t), and the relaxation of the equilibrium spin-spin autocorrelation function, C(t), are monitored. The behaviour of both C(t) and M(t) is found to satisfy the Kohlrausch law of a stretched exponential with the same temperature-dependent exponent. The Kohlrausch exponent does not appear to depend on the bond concentration. The results indicate that we are not yet in the asymptotic regime, even when C(t) and M(t) are less than 10^{-4}.Comment: 33 pages, including 10 figures, tex; hard-copy available on request from [email protected] To appear in Physica A (Statistical and Theoretical Physics

Towards more train paths through early passenger intention inference

© 2015 ATRF, Commonwealth of Australia. All rights reserved. In public train stations, the designed way finding tends to induce individuals to conform to specific egress patterns. Whilst this is desirable for a number of reasons, it can cumulate into congestion at specific points in the station. Which, in turn, can increase dwell time; for example, loading and unloading time increases with concentrations of people trying to load/unload onto the same carriage. Clearly, an influencing strategy that is more responsive to the current station situation could have advantages. Our prior research studies in Perth Station demonstrated the feasibility of reliably and predictably influencing passengers egress patterns in real time during operations. This capability suggests the possibility of active counterbalancing of the egress-alternatives while maintaining way finding. However, the prerequisite for such capability is the availability of knowledge of passenger's intention at a point in their journey where viable egress-alternatives to their destination exist. This work details an approach towards an early (in the passenger journey) passenger intention inference system necessary to enable active egress-alternative influencing. Our contextually grounded approach infers intention through reasoning upon observed system and passenger cues in conjunction with a-priori knowledge of how train stations are used. The empirical validation of our intention inference system, which was conducted with data acquired during operations on a platform in Brisbane’s Central train station in Queensland, is presented and discussed. The findings are then employed to argue the feasibility of an influencing system to reduce passenger congestion and the potential service impacts

Statistics of first-passage times in disordered systems using backward master equations and their exact renormalization rules

We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of disordered systems as defined by a master equation involving transition rates between configurations (detailed balance is not assumed). To compute the important dynamical time scales in finite-size systems without simulating the actual time evolution which can be extremely slow, we propose to focus on first-passage times that satisfy 'backward master equations'. Upon the iterative elimination of configurations, we obtain the exact renormalization rules that can be followed numerically. To test this approach, we study the statistics of some first-passage times for two disordered models : (i) for the random walk in a two-dimensional self-affine random potential of Hurst exponent $H$, we focus on the first exit time from a square of size $L \times L$ if one starts at the square center. (ii) for the dynamics of the ferromagnetic Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model of $N$ spins, we consider the first passage time $t_f$ to zero-magnetization when starting from a fully magnetized configuration. Besides the expected linear growth of the averaged barrier $\bar{\ln t_{f}} \sim N$, we find that the rescaled distribution of the barrier $(\ln t_{f})$ decays as $e^{- u^{\eta}}$ for large $u$ with a tail exponent of order $\eta \simeq 1.72$. This value can be simply interpreted in terms of rare events if the sample-to-sample fluctuation exponent for the barrier is $\psi_{width}=1/3$.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Extent, frequency and rate of water erosion of arable land in Britain - benefits and challenges for modelling

Soil erosion on arable land in lowland Britain has been the subject of field-based surveys, which have assessed the volumes or masses of soil transported in channels across farmers’ fields. These surveys provide a unique database on the extent, frequency and rates of soil loss by water. This study synthesizes the key findings from those surveys and underscores the implications for soil erosion modelling. Rill erosion occurs in a small number of fields (consistently <10%). Over ~5 yr, a considerable proportion of the farmed landscape will suffer from rill erosion, but mostly in fields that erode only once. Mean erosion rates for lowland arable landscapes are much less than mean erosion rates for individual eroded fields within that landscape. These observations pose important challenges for modelling. Rainfall and cropping vary from year to year so that risk of wash or rill erosion in the same field also varies. Due to the infrequent occurrence of rill erosion, loss rates of eroding fields cannot be spatially extrapolated across the landscape, except in the case of wash erosion which takes place a number of times in almost all fields every year. A consistent pattern of increasing wash erosion, in terms of spatial extent, is emerging in lowland Britain. Resulting losses of fine silt and clay-sized particles are small in amount and possibly insignificant in terms of loss of soil as a resource, but have significant implications for contaminant concentrations and pollution of water courses

Nursing Management of Incontinence Care in Acute and Long-Term Care Settings

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of urinary incontinence; the effect it has on older adults and the barriers nursing staff face when managing incontinence appropriately in acute and long term care settings. A literature search between 1995 and 2016 was conducted using medical health data-bases CINAHL and Medline, using a combination of key words such as: older adult, geriatric, nursing, urinary incontinence, continence, management, promotion, and interventions. Incontinence increases the risk of falls, skin damage, depression, urinary tract infections and development of functional dependency in older adults. Although there are similar barriers that nursing teams face when implementing continence care in long term and acute care settings, there are differences in assessment patterns, nursing culture, and in how nursing attitudes affects continence care. In both settings, nursing staff focus on containment methods rather than continence promotion techniques. In order to ensure best practice in continence care with older people, nursing staff require more education on continence care and support in integrating clinical practice guidelines. More research is needed to better understand nursing perceptions of urinary incontinence and the use of continence products with hospitalized older adults.&nbsp