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Clinically, the stable sole‐ground contact in the diet is considered as important for achieving safe swallows in the dysphagic patients. However, the effects of varied sole‐ground contacts on swallow‐related muscles activities remain unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sole‐ground contacts on the muscle activities during swallow for various materials; 26 healthy adult subjects participated in this study. Three different sole‐ground contact conditions were investigated; sole‐ground contact with knees bent to 90° (KB 90°), sole‐ground contact with knees bent to 135° (KB 135°), and sole‐ground off the floor (Off). Participants swallowed four bolus materials (saliva, 5‐ml water, 10‐ml water, and 5‐ml yogurt) in each sole‐ground contact condition. The muscular activities of the suprahyoid (SH) muscle and the sternocleidomastoid muscle during swallowing were detected and recorded using surface electromyography. The sole‐ground contact pressure was evaluated using the data acquisition system. Duration of SH during 10‐ml water swallow for Off was significantly longer than that for KB 90°. Duration of SH during 5‐ml yogurt swallow for Off was significantly longer than that for KB 90°. Integration of SH during 10‐ml water swallow for Off was significantly greater than that for KB 135°. Integration of SH during 5‐ml yogurt swallow for Off was significantly greater than that for KB 90°. No significant differences were found in peak of SH. Sole‐ground contact conditions had significant effect on swallow‐related muscles activities. The stable sitting positions might be more advantageous for performing effective swallows compared with less stable sitting positions.

Although intergroup friendships have been shown to reduce prejudice, little research has considered whether interventions fostering intergroup friendship would be effective in highly prejudicial contexts. We conducted a quasi-experiment (N = 61) to test whether a contact-based intervention based on intergroup friendship could reduce bias against Roma people among non-Roma Hungarians. Participants in the contact condition engaged in a face-to-face interaction with a Roma person, and responded to questions involving mutual self-disclosure. Through pre- and post-test questionnaires, we observed significant positive change in attitudes and contact intentions among participants in the contact condition, while these effects were not observed among participants in the control condition. Positive change was moderated by perceived institutional norms, which corroborates the potential of contact-based interventions.

This experiment (N = 49) is the first to show that imagined contact can buffer anticipatory physiological responses to future interactions, and improve the quality of these interactions. Participants imagined a positive interaction with a person with schizophrenia, or in a control condition, a person who did not have schizophrenia. They then participated in an interaction with a confederate whom they believed had schizophrenia. Participants in the imagined contact condition reported more positive attitudes and less avoidance of people with schizophrenia, displayed smaller anticipatory physiological responses, specifically smaller changes in interbeat interval and skin conductance responses, and had a more positive interaction as rated by the confederate. These findings support applying imagined contact to improve the treatment of people with severe mental health disorders.

Intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) reflects an affect-laden revulsion toward out-groups. Previous attempts to weaken its prediction of prejudice have failed. Given that clinical approaches to disgust sensitivity successfully utilize mental imagery, we consider contact simulation interventions. Participants were randomly assigned to control, standard imagined contact, or an elaborated contact condition (elaborated imagined contact [EIC]; detailed imagination involving physical contact with a homeless person, with relaxation instructions). Both contact conditions (vs. control) significantly weakened the link between ITG-DS and prejudice, yet only EIC weakened the relation between ITG-DS and out-group trust. Mediated moderation analysis confirmed that EIC significantly attenuated the link between ITG-DS and prejudice through increasing trust. Clinically relevant treatments are thus valuable in severing the association between (a) ITG-DS and (b) lower out-group trust and greater out-group prejudice.

This study compares two methods for model scale testing of ferrous/non-ferrous tribocouples under large area conformal contact condition, the kind existing in engine components such as journal bearings. Results show that the ring-on-disc method is better suited to visualise the performance of such tribosystems compared with the pin-on-plate method. The former offers greater sensitivity to minor changes in coefficient of friction and contact potential and is able to determine the thermal stability of the tribosystem under given conditions. Post-test surface characterisation revealed protective phosphorus-rich tribofilms on the surface of the steel counterparts from both test methods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents mixed finite element methods of higher-order for an idealized frictional contact problem in linear elasticity. The approach relies on a saddle point formulation where the frictional contact condition is captured by a Lagrange multiplier. The convergence of the mixed scheme is proven and some a priori estimates for the h- and p-method are derived. Furthermore, a posteriori error estimates are presented which rely on the estimation of the discretization error of an auxiliary problem and some further terms capturing the error in the friction and complementary conditions. Numerical results confirm the applicability of the a posteriori error estimates within h- and hp-adaptive schemes. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

We examine the existence of solutions to incremental friction problems for a continuous elastic object in contact with obstacles. The contact is modelled by a modified Signorini impenetrability contact condition. In particular, we consider the case when the boundary conditions of the object permit the object to perform rigid body motions. This means that the friction forces have to balance the applied forces if the object is to remain stationary. The main result is friction dependent conditions on the applied force that is sufficient for the existence of solutions to the incremental friction problem.

The finite-element method (FEM) has become an applicable method to analyse the stress distribution of bioprosthetic valves. However, most of the stress analyses performed in the past have been on bioprosthetic aortic valves. No public reports are available on the numerical simulation of stress analysis for stentless quadrileaflet pericardial mitral valves up to date. This study applied FEM to investigate the mechanical behaviours of a modified stentless quadrileaflet pericardial mitral valve. The finite-element model includes the material non-linearity, large deformation and the contact condition of leaflets. The results showed that the deformed shapes of valve in the numerical simulation are quite similar to ones observed in the hydrodynamic experiment in vitro, the stress distribution is relatively uniform and the magnitudes of stresses are in a reasonable range. It can be concluded that the finite-element model in this paper is reasonable and feasible, and the numerical results can be used to evaluate the biomechanical performance of this valve. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Instant gear contact can be simulated with contacting discs, which provides steady operating conditions and eliminates most of the dynamics and manufacturing tolerances involved in real gears, resulting in an accurately controlled contact condition. A high-pressure twin-disc test device was developed, where loading and rolling velocity can be varied continuously. It is equipped with disc bulk temperature, mean contact resistance and friction moment measurements. The test discs were grinded transversal to the disc rolling direction with proper crowning corresponding to the real gear flank properties. The test device was applied by studying the friction behaviour against the slide-to-roll ratio at different contact pressures, rolling velocities and surface roughness. The measurements were performed using mineral base oil in the range of operation conditions often used in industrial gears. In general, the measured friction coefficient behaviour correlates with earlier published results and is logical with measured bulk temperature and mean contact resistance. The limiting shear stress of the lubricant has an essential role in friction behaviour. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The aim of this study was to develop and assess a prejudice-reduction intervention for young children based on a relatively recent psychological concept, extended contact. A number of extended contact interventions were tested based on different models of generalized intergroup contact. A 3 (type of extended contact: neutral, decategorization, and "intergroup") x 2 (time of interview: pre- vs. post-extended contacts) mixed design was used, with the latter variable being within participants. Non-disabled children (N = 67) aged 5-10 years took part in a 6-week intervention involving reading stories featuring disabled and non-disabled children in friendship contexts. The main dependent variables were children's attitudes and intended behavior toward non-disabled and disabled people. Results showed that extended contact led to increased positivity toward the disabled, and this was most pronounced in the intergroup-extended contact condition. These findings suggest that extended contact can provide a prejudice-reduction intervention tool that can be used with young children in contexts in which the opportunity for direct contact is low. The findings also add to the psychological literature, providing support of the Hewstone and Brown (1986) "intergroup" model in the context of extended contact.

SUMMARY The authors thank the discussers R.Conti, L.De Sanctis and G.M.B.Viggiani for their interest to the paper entitled ‘Influence of diaphragm wall installation on the numerical analysis of deep excavation’ and for providing the opportunity to submit additional information to clarify some issues. The authors broadly agree with the comments which deal with three main aspects of the paper: presence of water and type of analysis, constitutive modelling and numerical strategies. The present reply addresses some additional issues that the discussers find not clear on the original paper submitted by the writers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Tlze present research asked whether 7.5-month-old infants realize tlzut an object cannot displace another ohject \v~thout contacting it. Tlze infants in E-xperiment I were asszgned to a contact or a no-contact condition. The infants in the nocontact conn'itio~? saw static familiarrzation displaj~s in which (1 tall, thin burrier stood across the bottom of a ramp, a cylinder rested ugaitzst the left side of the harrier and a wheeleci t o j bug against its right side. The infants in the contact condition saw similar cl'isp1ay.s except thut a lurge portion of the harrier's lort'er half was removed so that the qllinder rested directly against tlze bug. N e x t , a small screen wa,s placed in.fr.ont of the bottom of'the ramp; onlj, the upper portion o f the harrier was visible above the screen. The infants irl the two conditions watcheci the same test event. The cylinder was released and rolled to the bottorn of the ramp, partly disappearing behind the screen 1s left edge; next, the hug rolled do~vrz the track, us though launched by the cjdincler. Tlze infants in the no-contact condition looked reliably longer at the test event than clid those In the contact condition. This result stlggested that the infants ( a ) vic~wc~d the hug as an inert object that could move onlj ~txhen ucted uporz; ( h ) believed thut the cj.linder could not act on the bug without contacting it; ( c ) realized thut the cylinder could contact the bl4g when the hdf-harrier but not the harrier was present; ( d ) remembered after the screen rz,a.s raised whether contact co as possible b e t w ~ e n the cylinder and hug; and [ e ) ~i.c.re surprised in the no-contact condition tvhen the hug us la~rnched do~iw the track. A second experiment confirrne~ihe results of Experiment I . Previous research comparing infirnts' responses to no-contact and contact events has typic.ul!)' mude use of seIfmo11ing rather thun Inert objects. These e.uperiments have consistentlj ,found that infints do not look reliahlj lotger at no-contact tha12 at contact events. In the General Discussion, we e..;cmtni~ze tlze contrast between these prior results and the present results cznd speculate on how infants' espc~ctations about inert and self-moving objects mu^ he best characterized.

The contact condition is described as a linear complementarity form with penalty parameters. Based on the boundary element discretization, a mathematical programming method for elastic contact problems with friction is presented. This method avoids the tiresome iterative procedures used in previous work and, if there is no unloading, only one incremental step is necessary for a solution. Two examples are given to demonstrate the correctness and effectiveness of the method.

ITWM-Fraunhofer, Fraunhofer Platz 1, 67663, KaiserslauternWhat is the contact condition in a 1D beam-model and is it possible to obtain the frictional moments and forces from the 3Dtraction? If it is possible does the cross-section of the beams influence these values? These questions motivate to study thedimension reduction of a 3D contact problem for beams. This paper is a continuation of [1]. In [1] the asymptotic dimensionreduction of a Robin-type elasticity boundary value problem was presented. In this work the explicit relation between a 3Dcontact problem and a 3D Robin-type elasticity boundary value problem are established and the 1D equations derived in [1]are interpreted as 1D contact conditions, further some numerical examples are shown.

In this work a 3-D contact elasticity problem for a thin fiber and a rigid foundation is studied. We describe the contact condition by a linear Robin-boundary-condition (by meaning of the penalized and linearized non-penetration and friction conditions). The Robin parameters are scaled differently in the longitudinal and cross-sectional directions. The dimension of the problem is reduced by a standard ([3], [4]) asymptotic approach with an additional expansion suggested to fulfil the contact conditions. The 3-D contact conditions result into 1-D Robin-boundary-conditions for corresponding ODEs. The Robin-coefficients of the 1-D problem depend on the ones from the 3-D statement and on the cross-section of the fiber. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)