Modeling and Characterization of Stochastic Resistive Switching in Single Ag2S Nanowires

Chalcogenide resistive switches (RS), such as Ag2S, change resistance due to the growth of metallic filaments between electrodes along the electric field gradient. Therefore, they are candidates for neuromorphic and volatile memory applications. This work analyzed the RS of individual Ag2S nanowires (NWs) and extended the basic RS model to reproduce experimental observations. The work models resistivity of the device as a percolation of the conductive filaments. It also addressed continuous fluctuations of the resistivity with a stochastic change in volume fractions of the filaments in the device. As a result, these fluctuations cause unpredictable patterns in current-voltage characteristics and include a spontaneous change in resistance of the device during the linear sweep that conventional memristor models with constant resistivity cannot represent. The parameters of the presented stochastic model of a single Ag2S NW fit the experimental data reproduced key features of RS in the physical devices. Moreover, the model suggested a non-core shell structure of the Ag2S NWs. The outcome of this work is aimed to aid in simulating large self-assembled memristive networks and help to extend existing RS models.

Organic Carbon and Eukaryotic Predation Synergistically Change Resistance and Resilience of Aquatic Microbial Communities

With dramatic global rise of urbanization, anthropogenic activities alter aquatic ecosystems in urban rivers through inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nutrients. Microorganisms play crucial roles in global biogeochemical element cycles, providing functions to sustain microbial ecology stability. The DOC (bottom-up control) and microbial predation (top-down control) may synergistically drive the competition and evolution of aquatic microbial communities, and their resistance and resilience, of which experimental evidences remain scarce. In this study, laboratory sediment-water column experiments were employed to mimic the organic carbon-driven water blackening and odorization process in urban rivers and to elucidate impacts of DOC on the microbial ecology stability. Results showed that low DOC (25-75 mg/L TOC) and high DOC (100-150 mg/L TOC) changed the aquatic microbial community assemblies in different patterns: (1) the low DOC enriched K-selection microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and predators) with low biomass and low resilience, as well as high resistance to perturbations in changing microbial community assemblies; (2) the high DOC was associated with r-selection microorganisms with high biomass and improved resilience, together with low resistance detrimental to microbial ecology stability. Overall, this study provided new insights into impacts of DOC on aquatic microbial ecology stability, which may guide sustainable urban river management.

MANAGING BANKING INDUSTRY CHANGES UNDER THE COVID 19 PANDEMIA

The success of a change is valorized by a new state, and whether it will occur depends on several influential factors: environment, management, knowledge, the will to change, resistance to change, entrepreneurial spirit, motivation, risk. Managing change and making the right decisions is much easier when the path ahead of the manager is known. In contingencies, such as the global pandemic, Covid 19, banks' readiness to respond to challenges and manage change that threatens to overcome them is evident, which is the subject of this research. The aim of the research is to show the importance of banks in the course of starting to reorganize themselves and manage changes in a way that will enable them to survive in the market. For those banks that were not ready for changes, new business opportunities and customer satisfaction were lost, and employees were inefficient.

Must We Change? the Dark Side of Change and Change Resistance

Organizational change and innovation are generally treated as unquestioned goods, but some have argued that there exists a darker side to these phenomena. Change is often resisted or only grudgingly accepted by those involved and, given the assumed virtues of change and innovation, resistance has traditionally been considered an obstacle to overcome. This chapter will first consider the dark sides of change—that is, negative aspects, in particular change initiatives that are undertaken for ethically questionable reasons, using ethically questionable means, or resulting in deleterious consequences. Second, it reviews resistance to change—that is, an aversive cognitive, emotional, or behavioral response to a change initiative. Using a framework to consider the substance, processes, and outcomes of change initiatives, practical and theoretical implications are provided for a more nuanced approach to acknowledge the connections between perceptions of a change initiative as potential dark side judgments and resultant resistance behaviors.

From Resistance to Resilience

Two themes in the organizational change literature for decades have been of recurring interest to organizational scholars and practitioners and are central to Theodore Zorn’s and Jennifer Scott’s chapter—‘Why Change? The Dark Side of Change and Change Resistance’. The first theme centers on the idea that most change programs fail—they don’t produce change as intended. The second theme centers on the idea that most change programs are resisted. This essay seeks to add additional nuance to the analysis by emphasizing the contingent nature of change failures and resistance. That is, change and resistance are neither good nor bad in an absolute sense. Appraisals of change failure and resistance depend: they depend on the element of change that is being assessed; the point in time that assessment is being made, and whose perspective on change is being privileged. These considerations open our eyes to the possibility that resilience underlies resistance.

Effectiveness of Sustainable Agriculture and Industrial Agriculture in Africa

The aim of this analysis is to examine the efficacy of sustainable farming in Africa and industrial farming. Sustainable agriculture as an approach to food production that combines agriculture's economic, social and environmental dimensions. The agricultural societies in Asia and Africa have effectively followed these values. The growing evidence and accessible scientific review of the creation of programs suggests that sustainable interventions can be highly successful to enhance productivity, promote protection of soil and water incomes and to ensure food safety; improve agricultural, wildlife and plant health; increase natural disasters and climate change resistance, minimize greenhouse gas emissions and promote societies. This demonstrates that the efficiency of organic farming has a positive influence in different countries on the future of agriculture.

Change Resistance as Practicing Moral Authenticity: A Qualitative Study

Background and purposeOrganizational changes are increasingly rapid and continuous in health care as organizations strive to meet multiple external pressures. Much change in health care fails and nurse resistance is commonly blamed for such failure. Nurse resistance to organizational change is often described as overt behaviours and are deemed destructive to the change process. Much of the literature describing organizational change comes from the perspectives of administrators, there is little known about nurses’ experiences of organizational change. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore the nature of frontline nurses’ experiences of rapid and continuous change.MethodsA qualitative critical hermeneutic design was applied. 14 Registered Nurses participated in face-to-face interviews. Openended questions were used. The setting was an urban pediatric teaching hospital located in Canada. Research ethics board approval was obtained as required. Member reflections ensured accurate portrayals of participant’s experiences.ResultsThe findings from this study suggest that acts of resistance to change are not overt, but rather covert behaviors in micro-ethical moments. Nurses engaged in resistance as means to provide morally authentic care at the bedside. These acts were utilized to take back power over their practice amidst feelings of powerlessness, however, paradoxically, when participants described the concept of power, they understood it solely in the context of feeling powerless within the planning, implementation and evaluation of organizational change initiatives. Nurses engagement with resistant behaviours in the context of organizational change demonstrated ethical action and political agency that enabled morally authentic nursing practice.Implications for practiceThe findings from this study offer new understandings of a well-established concept in nursing and can be used when considering the ethical dimensions of nursing work amidst rapidly changing health care institutions.