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Mine rope‐wire profile is prone to stress concentration zones by virtue of its manufacturing style and reveals a metastable surface. Metastability, being a non‐equilibrium state, tends to revert back to stability. Such a process of reversion may generate a number of non‐equilibrium states on the surface, which in contact with the mining‐environment foster the growth of a stable and adherent passive‐film.

This paper aims to conceptually unite an ontology of cybernetics, bridging living and technical systems, to facilitate future epistemological and theoretical advancements applicable to highly technical societies by crafting a set of definitions that elucidate the nature of the world in which these systems operate.

The research uses a thematic synthesis of two systems/cybernetic traditions: complex adaptive systems and mechanology. The primary sources for this research were the main theses and correlated papers published in the Simondon case for mechanology, and the seminal literature preselected by the Santa Fe Institute for complex adaptive systems.

The study proposes the following concepts: Individuation: the emergence of new properties in an individual composed of synergistically related parts; Technical evolution: the notion that technical objects evolve into living beings; circular causality: the notion that feedback and feedforward processes shape the organisation and structure of systems and their relationship with the environment; The milieu refers to the part of the environment that has a relationship of co-production, co-dependency, and co-evolution with systems. Metastability is a state that transcends stability and instability and motivates changes in the system. Transduction is the cumulative process of individuation in which systems change structure and organization to maintain operational coherence with their surroundings.

The concepts the paper identifies can serve as a starting point for an extended study on the ontology of cybernetics or as the basis for an evolutionary epistemology both in humans and machines.

The purpose of this paper is to bring both Simondonian and Deleuzian insights to bear upon the nature of documents and documentation by viewing them as non-representationalist, and as products of transduction and reticulation that render documents assemblages that are in constant negotiation with an environment as instances of a perpetually renewing problematic.

Simondon's work on metastability and transduction can offer particular insights into how the author views documents in terms of their materiality, signification, and possibly to move beyond the phenomenological bias in the treatment of documents.

In understanding or describing the process of documentation as a reticulation or unfolding, the author also comes to view the document as an assemblage in perpetual negotiation. This paper adapts Deleuze and Guattari's articulation framework of expression-signification and provides a bit of groundwork towards two registers of information (first and second order) according to the preindividual process of that allows for the individuation of documents.

This paper makes an original contribution to understanding the process of documentation and the product of documents in a more fluid, interdynamic context by shifting or displacing the traditional view of information.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theory that applies Miller et al.’s (1960) Test-Operate-Test-Exit (TOTE) concept to the psychophysiology involved in electroencephalographic (EEG) biofeedback (BFB).

Six components are presented, namely, the teleological brain, attractors as the “test” in TOTEs, EEG production, positive and negative feedback, synaptogenesis and designated actor, and then integrated into a theoretical structure. Comparisons with the previous conceptualizations are discussed, and finally, suggestions for practical application and needed research are offered.

Previous theories neglected significant variables and promoted unverified conceptualizations. These issues are redressed with a psychophysiological, cybernetic theory.

The pursuit of substantive research needed to verify the theory would improve the scientific foundations for EEG BFB.

This theory shifts the designated actor in BFB to the participant’s brain, away from the BFB provider. EEG BFB is thus viewed as a means for neuronominalization driven by the brain’s attractor systems instead of as an intrusive intervention.

The theory proposes a much more participant-centric process than previous modes, which also promotes self-determination. The research validation needed for the theory could produce wider EEG BFB acceptance and application.

The theory is a complete departure from previous conceptualizations. It is the first instance of TOTE application to psychophysiological processes, and it is the first fully cybernetic conceptualization of EEG BFB.

Safety and organizational research indicates that fostering resilience in organizations is a promising way for improving safety, albeit concrete means to implement resilience are still lacking, especially in the educational field. The purpose of this paper is to propose four principles for training design derived from past and current studies the authors conduct in high-risk organizations.

Training for resilience is considered within an enactive approach of human activity building on its properties of autonomy, structural coupling, self-organization, emergence, sensemaking, and metastability.

The article describes four educational design principles aiming at improving individual, collective, and organizational resilience: encourage mimetic experiences; pay attention to attention and concernedness; perturb and turn into an event; support participatory-sensemaking and collective sensemaking.

The training program the authors propose may be challenging to assess. Besides, the most durable solutions to improve safety through resilience are to be found at the crossroad between organizational design and training/development policies. Future research should determine the implementability criteria which are likely to support the use of the principles the authors propose, and contribute to enrich this educational foundation.

Education and training are conceived herein as high-order means to improve safety through resilience in high-risk organizations, fostering the capacity of the operators and organization to develop efficiently and in the long run. We provide independent but complementary training principles that cannot be hierarchized, but that can be locally prioritized in organizations.

This investigation deals with the equilibration of heat conduction simulation in a very thin film using molecular dynamics. Two parameters, the positional order parameter and the kinetic H‐function, are employed simultaneously to monitor the evolution to the equilibrium. With the different boundary conditions, material parameters, and molecular lattice configurations, the results of the simulation show that the combination of the two parameters can give a consistent prediction to the approach of the equilibrium. At the equilibrium state, the process of heat conduction in a thin film is studied to understand the macroscopic behaviour from the standpoint of molecular dynamic motions. The method used can be applied to solve other microscopic flow and heat transfer problems using molecular dynamic simulation.

The paper discusses the aspect of probable stress induced embrittlement of 304 stainless steel stresses originating from thermal exposure, uniaxial tension, and reverse bending, which have been simulated on the surface of SS plates of 1mm thickness, using conventional techniques. The physical and electrochemical properties of the treated SS materials have been followed up as a function of the corroding medium and also the type and extent of the stress interaction.

It is heartening to observe the large amount of basic research carried out around the world which has a bearing on the problems of the coatings industry. Some of the recent aspects of this work will be described here. At the same time the point can also be made that it is not well‐organized basic research. There are not, for example, basic co‐operative programmes between universities and industry whose objective is to solve some of the key problems with which the coatings industry is confronted. This is not to say that work of this sort does not go on. It is to say that this work does not go on in a way which can bring a number of forces together in the most efficient fashion.

The purpose of this paper is to present some numerical methods based on different time stepping and space discretization methods for the Allen‐Cahn equation with non‐periodic boundary conditions.

In space the equation is discretized by the Chebyshev spectral method, while in time the exponential time differencing fourth‐order Runge‐Kutta (ETDRK4) and implicit‐explicit scheme are used. Also, for comparison the finite difference scheme in both space and time is used.

It is found that the use of implicit‐explicit scheme allows use of a large time‐step, since an explicit method has less order of accuracy as compared to implicit‐explicit method. In time‐stepping the proposed ETDRK4 does not behave well for this special kind of partial differential equation.

The paper presents some numerical methods based on different time stepping and space discretization methods for the Allen‐Cahn equation with non‐periodic boundary conditions.

The Ni-base superalloy INC738LC is a precipitation strengthened alloy and is widely used in hot sections of gas turbine engines owing to its excellent high-temperature strength and high hot corrosion resistance. The purpose of this study is to determine the appropriate welding current of Ni-base superalloy INC738LC after two passes of applying the tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding technique.

Ni-base superalloy INC738LC plates were joined by TIG welding technique by varying the welding current (30, 40 and 50 A). Welded specimens were investigated using optical microscopy, tensile tests, Vickers’s micro-hardness tests and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Optical microscopy was used to characterize fusion zone, heat-affected zone and base metal. Tensile test was conducted to characterize weld strength by determining ultimate tensile strength. Scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate the fracture surfaces after tensile tests. Micro-hardness test was conducted to characterize the welded joint. XRD was applied to determine precipitates formed after welding.

The ultimate tensile strength results show that the optimum weld current out of the three weld currents was found to be 40 A, which is the closest to that of the base metal.

Many researchers have worked to optimize welding parameters such as current and speed from the microstructural observations and mechanical properties of welded joints. The optimum weld current out of the three weld currents was found to be 40 A.