Humans perceive through various sensory impressions, including the five senses. Not only the number of different stimuli in everyday life increase, but also the degree of assessment of urgent and irrelevant information. But online it is not possible for the customer to physically perceive and assess the haptics of a product. This paper focus on the questions if it is possible for humans to perceive and identify surface properties without using their sense of touch and if humans can judge and classify the haptics of a textile materials via digital channels through a purely visual perception?

Effective infection control measures during norovirus outbreaks are urgently needed in places where vulnerable individuals gather. In the present study, the effect of a number of measures was investigated in daily practice. Forty-nine Dutch nursing homes were monitored prospectively for norovirus outbreaks during two winter seasons. A total of 37 norovirus outbreaks were registered. Control measures were most effective when implemented within 3 days after onset of disease of the first patient. Measures targeted at reduced transmission between persons, via aerosols, and via contaminated surfaces reduced illness in staff and in residents. Reducing illness in staff results in fewer costs for sick leave and substitution of staff and less disruption in the care of residents. The effect of control measures on outbreak duration was limited. This is the first intervention study examining the effect of control measures. Further research is needed to extend and refine the conclusions.

In sows, excessive loss of live weight and body tissue reserves during lactation is associated with reduced subsequent reproductive performance. This is a particular problem in the gilt where the combination of low feed intake potential and relatively low body fat reserves often results in large amounts of body tissue catabolism during lactation to support milk production. The key to minimizing weight loss during lactation is to maximize feed intake of the gilt during lactation. Although there has been a substantial amount of research in this area, most of this has been carried out in research facilities. The objective of this research was to investigate the impact of feeding strategy (i.e., method and frequency of feeding) on feed intake in gilts during lactation under commercial conditions.

Losses of pigs (dead and non-ambulatory) during transport are of great concern from both animal welfare and also economic perspectives. Based on several field studies, we have reported the incidence of transport losses in market weight pigs to be ~1% (Ellis et al. , 2003). Transport losses can be influenced by numerous factors including genetics, carcass muscling, health status, structural soundness, live weight, nutrition, handling, facility design, and conditions during transport to the plant. Few, if any, of these factors have been examined under typical commercial conditions. Floor space on the trailer during transport is a potential contributing factor that can be easily changed by varying the number of pigs placed on the truck and represents a simple approach to managing transport losses. The objective of this study was to investigate effects of two floor spaces (0.39 and 0.48 m2/pig) during transport, that represent the range currently being used in commercial practice in the U.S., on the incidence of dead and non-ambulatory pigs and to evaluate relationships between transport conditions and transport losses.

When emptying finishing barns, it is common practice on U.S. operations to dispatch pigs over a two- to three-week period with the heaviest animals being selected first. However, there has been little research carried out under commercial conditions on the effect of removing different proportion of slaughter weight pigs from a pen on the subsequent growth performance of the remaining pigs. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of removing 0 to 45% of the heaviest animals from a pen on subsequent pig performance at slaughter.

At weaning, piglets must adapt to considerable changes in their environmental, immunological, and nutritional status. This period of adaptation is accompanied by a reduction in piglet growth rate that has been associated with the shift from sow’s milk to a solid dry diet. Consequently, feeding management strategies that result in increased feed intake may increase piglet growth rate postweaning. This study evaluated the effects of providing feed as a gruel and feeding on floor mats on piglet performance for three weeks after weaning

When emptying finishing barns, it is common practice on U.S. operations to dispatch pigs over a two- to three-week period with the heaviest animals being selected first. However, there has been little research carried out under commercial conditions on the effect of removing pigs from a pen at slaughter weight on the performance of the remaining animals. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of removing the heaviest 30% of animals from a pen on the subsequent growth performance of the remaining pigs.

Wean-to-finish production, which involves taking pigs from weaning to slaughter in the same building, is becoming widely adopted in the US swine industry. This production system is being advocated largely because of claims of improved animal performance and a decrease in labor needed for animal movement compared to conventional multiple-stage systems. One of the potential disadvantages of this system is the considerable underutilization of floor space during the early growth period if pigs are penned in the group sizes that are appropriate for finishing pigs. However, increasing the stocking rate initially at weaning, with some of these pigs subsequently being moved to another finishing facility, may increase output from the system. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate effects of initial stocking rate and of feeder-trough space in commercial wean-to-finish facilities on pig performance from weaning to slaughter.

Free-standing single crystals of bulk GaN were grown via unseeded vapor phase transport at 1130°C on hexagonal BN surfaces via direct reaction of Ga with ammonia. The number of nucleation events was reduced and the crystal size increased by introducing the ammonia at high temperatures. The resulting crystals were either needles or platelets depending on the process variables employed. Low V/III ratios achieved via ammonia flow rates ≤ 75sccm and/or ammonia total pressures ≤ 430Torr favored lateral growth. The average lateral growth rate for the platelets was ∼50μm/hr; the average vertical growth rate for the needles was ∼500μm/hr. Growth rates in all other directions for each of these two morphologies were very low. Seeded growth of both needle and platelet crystals was also achieved; however, the growth rate decreased at longer times and higher pressures due to reaction with H2 from the increased decomposition of ammonia. Nitrogen dilution suppressed this decomposition. A 2mm × 1.5mm GaN crystal was grown with minimal decomposition in a 66.7%NH3 and 33.3%N2 gas mixture.

Metallurgical reactions between Ni and GaN have been explored at temperatures between 400 and 900 °C in N2, Ar, and forming gas. A trend of increasing Ga content in the reacted films was observed with increasing temperature. The reactions are consistent with the thermodynamics of the Ni-Ga-N system. Changes in the film morphology on annealing were also examined. Metal island formation and a corresponding deep, non-uniform metal penetration into GaN were observed at high temperatures. The relevance of the observed nature of phase formation and morphology in these thin films to electrical properties of Ni/GaN and Au/Ni/GaN contacts is also considered.

The heteroepitaxial nucleation and eventual growth of large area single crystal diamond films has long eluded researchers interested in tapping it's many enabling properties, specifically in the field of active electronics. The uncertainty surrounding the diamond nucleation mechanism(s) and corresponding inability to carefully control this process are often blamed for the difficulty in achieving true heteroepitaxial growth. Biasenhanced nucleation (BEN) has been shown to provide in-situ control of the nucleation process. Subsequent advancements in both nucleation and deposition stages has resulted in highly oriented diamond films, approaching single crystal quality yet still plagued by arrays of medium to low angle grain boundaries that can degrade the electronic transport properties. To further improve upon these results and achieve large area, single crystal films it is believed that development must focus on the more fundamental problems of diamond nucleation. This paper presents a review of recent progress pertaining to the bias-enhanced process and focuses on data specific to the epitaxial nucleation dilemma.

Diamond nucleation has been investigated on a variety of potential heteroepitaxial substrate materials. Previous work in this laboratory has demonstrated heteroepitaxial nucleation on both Si and SiC substrates via bias-enhanced nucleation (BEN). In this study the effects of BEN of diamond on refractory metal substrates is investigated in detail. Initial data suggest a strong correlation between the carbide forming nature of the substrate material and the rate of nucleation during biasing. Our second avenue of research involves low pressure diamond growth on nickel. This material is a promising material due to its close lattice match and recent evidence of epitaxy reported by other researchers. To form heteroepitaxial diamond on nickel a high temperature pretreatment routine has been established and is the basis for this area of research. The relative importance of hydrogen absorption during this routine is explored and correlated to the formation and degree of diamond epitaxy.

A study was performed on polycrystalline copper versus that of Si(100) utilizing a negative substrate bias to enhance diamond nucleation. The biasing pretreatment and subsequent growth of the diamond were performed via microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition and the initial stages of nucleation were characterized by in-vacuo surface analysis. The biasing pretreatment step proved to have a tremendous influence on the nucleation density pertaining to Si(100) substrates, however, the nucleation density on polycrystalline copper was only increased slightly. A highly graphitic surface coverage of roughly 10A was evident on the copper substrates prior to the detection of diamond and was quite stable in thickness in as early as 15 minutes of biasing. The Si(100) substrates, however, were characterized by the formation of a carbide with some form of nondiamond carbon present on the surface throughout the biasing pretreatment.

Alloys based on intermetallic compounds such as Ti3Al (alpha-two), offer excellent elevated temperature strength and creep resistance. These same properties, however, combined with the susceptibility of the materials to interstitial element contamination, limit the use of “conventional” thermomechanical processing (TMP) in the production of sheet product forms. Plasma spraying of intermetallic alloys offers an alternative, near net shape processing path to produce homogeneous sheet products, having fine grained, equiaxed microstructures. This paper details the microstructural evolution and associted mechanical properties of Ti-24A1-11Nb (at.%) processed to sheet form using RF plasma spraying. The response of the microstructure/tensile properties of the plasma sprayed alpha-two to various controlled heat treatments is discussed.