25,780 research outputs found
A new approach to analysing human-related accidents by combined use of HFACS and activity theory-based method
This study proposes a new method for modelling and analysing human-related accidents. It integrates HFACS (Human Factors Analysis and Classification System), which addresses most of the socio-technical system levels and offers a comprehensive failure taxonomy for analysing human errors, and AT (Activity Theory)-based approach, which provides an effective way for considering various contextual factors systematically in accident investigation. By combining them, the proposed method makes it more efficient to use the concepts and principles of AT. Additionally, it can help analysts use HFACS taxonomy more coherently to identify meaningful causal factors with a sound theoretical basis of human activities. Therefore, the proposed method can be effectively used to mitigate the limitations of traditional approaches to accident analysis, such as over-relying on a causality model and sticking to a root-cause, by making analysts look at an accident from a range of perspectives. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method, we conducted a case study in nuclear power plants. Through the case study, we could confirm that it would be a useful method for modelling and analysing human-related accidents, enabling analysts to identify a plausible set of causal factors efficiently in a methodical consideration of contextual backgrounds surrounding human activities
Interlayer tunneling in counterflow experiments on the excitonic condensate in quantum Hall bilayers
The effect of tunneling on the transport properties of} quantum Hall double
layers in the regime of the excitonic condensate at total filling factor one is
studied in counterflow experiments. If the tunnel current is smaller than a
critical , tunneling is large and is effectively shorting the two layers.
For tunneling becomes negligible. Surprisingly, the transition
between the two tunneling regimes has only a minor impact on the features of
the filling-factor one state as observed in magneto-transport, but at currents
exceeding the resistance along the layers increases rapidly
Surface segregation and the Al problem in GaAs quantum wells
Low-defect two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) are essential for studies
of fragile many-body interactions that only emerge in nearly-ideal systems. As
a result, numerous efforts have been made to improve the quality of
modulation-doped AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wells (QWs), with an emphasis
on purifying the source material of the QW itself or achieving better vacuum in
the deposition chamber. However, this approach overlooks another crucial
component that comprises such QWs, the AlGaAs barrier. Here we show
that having a clean Al source and hence a clean barrier is instrumental to
obtain a high-quality GaAs 2DES in a QW. We observe that the mobility of the
2DES in GaAs QWs declines as the thickness or Al content of the
AlGaAs barrier beneath the QW is increased, which we attribute to
the surface segregation of Oxygen atoms that originate from the Al source. This
conjecture is supported by the improved mobility in the GaAs QWs as the Al cell
is cleaned out by baking
Anomalous kinetics of attractive reactions
We investigate the kinetics of reaction with the local attractive
interaction between opposite species in one spatial dimension. The attractive
interaction leads to isotropic diffusions inside segregated single species
domains, and accelerates the reactions of opposite species at the domain
boundaries. At equal initial densities of and , we analytically and
numerically show that the density of particles (), the size of domains
(), the distance between the closest neighbor of same species
(), and the distance between adjacent opposite species ()
scale in time as , , and respectively. These dynamical exponents form a new
universality class distinguished from the class of uniformly driven systems of
hard-core particles.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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