Search results for: product safety

Authors: A. Buruzs, A. Torma

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The relationship of the automotive industry with raw material supply is a major challenge and presents obstacles. Automobiles are ones of the most complex products using a large variety of materials. Safety, eco-friendliness and comfort requirements, physical, chemical and economic limitations set the framework in which this industry continuously optimizes the efficient and responsible use of resources. The concept of circular economy covers the issues of waste generation, resource scarcity and economic advantages. However, circularity is already known for the automobile industry – several efforts are done to foster material reuse, product remanufacturing and recycling. The aim of this study is to give an overview on how the producers comply with the growing demands on one hand, and gain efficiency and increase profitability on the other hand from circular economy.

Keywords: automotive industry, circular economy, international requirements, natural resources

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Authors: Reza Sadeghi

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Storage pests with quantitative, qualitative, and hygienic losses to storage products lead to heavy damage to these products. One of the best methods of controlling storage pests is microwave heating, which is an environmentally friendly method and can be used to replace chemical methods to control storage pests. Pistachios and almonds are the most important dried fruit items in Iran, which account for a significant part of Iran's exports every year. In this study, which along with Pistachio and almond samples were exposed to microwave radiation at 320, 720, 900 watts with times of 10, 20, 30 seconds. Qualitative evaluation of product changes due to the above treatments was performed in the form of changes in colorimetric factors and organoleptic properties of the product. The results showed that in microwave treatment, power, and time factors had a significant effect on the taste and overall acceptance of pistachio product, polymer and power interaction, polymer and time, time and power had no significant effect on pistachio product quality. In almond products, the factors of polymer, time, power, interaction of polymer and power, polymer and time, and power had no significant effect on almond quality.

Keywords: microwave, qualitative, pistachio, almond

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Authors: M. Bahgat, F. M. Awan, H. A. Hanafy, O. N. Alzeghaibi

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Strontium hexaferrite (SrFe12O19; Sr-ferrite) is one of the well-known materials for permanent magnets. In this study, M-type strontium ferrite was prepared by following the conventional ceramic method from steelmaking by-product. Initial materials; SrCO3 and by-product, were mixed together in the composition of SrFe12O19 in different Sr/Fe ratios. The mixtures of these raw materials were dry-milled for 6h. The blended powder was pre-sintered (i.e. calcination) at 1000°C for different times periods, then cooled down to room temperature. These pre-sintered samples were re-milled in a dry atmosphere for 1h and then fired at different temperatures in atmospheric conditions, and cooled down to room temperature. The produced magnetic powder has a dense hexagonal grain shape structure. The calculated energy product values for the produced samples ranged from 0.3 to 2.4 MGOe.

Keywords: hard magnetic materials, ceramic route, strontium ferrite, synthesis

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Authors: Sneha Bhatnagar, Sachin Bhatnagar

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Denim presently is the most widely accepted textile product and shows its hold even in future with its growing popularity. Denim today is no longer restricted to only a pair of jeans but has diversified in all different product categories. Although denim is considered as an expression of youth and demonstrates durability and comfort, denim raises issues of sustainability. Through an exploratory research, the researcher aims at addressing the possibilities of denim fashion promoting environmental sustainability by means of creativity, awareness, recycle and artisan appreciation. It also touches on how eco conscious fashion brands involve in development in terms of ideation and modification of denim as a fabric or product into diversified sustainable fashion. In conclusion, it is shown that blue denim fashion continues to evolve and shows eventual transformation in becoming green denim in future, nurturing values of both quality and sustainability.

Keywords: arts, craft, creativity, denim, fashion, recycle, sustainability

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Authors: Leila Jafari, Viliam Makis

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In this paper, the joint optimization of the economic manufacturing quantity (EMQ), safety stock level, and condition-based maintenance (CBM) is presented for a partially observable, deteriorating system subject to random failure. The demand is stochastic and it is described by a Poisson process. The stochastic model is developed and the optimization problem is formulated in the semi-Markov decision process framework. A modification of the policy iteration algorithm is developed to find the optimal policy. A numerical example is presented to compare the optimal policy with the policy considering zero safety stock.

Keywords: condition-based maintenance, economic manufacturing quantity, safety stock, stochastic demand

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Authors: Kelly Jaunzems

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Social media is a powerful instrument of communication, enabling the presentation of information in multiple forms and modes, amplifying the interactions between people, organisations, and stakeholders, and increasing the range of communication channels available. Younger generations are highly engaged with social media and more likely to use this channel than any other to seek information. Given this, it may appear extraordinary that occupational safety and health professionals have yet to seriously engage with social media for communicating safety messages to younger audiences who, in many industries, might be statistically more likely to encounter more workplace harm or injury. Millennials, defined as those born between 1981-2000, have distinctive characteristics that also impact their interaction patterns rendering many traditional occupational safety and health communication channels sub-optimal or near obsolete. Used to immediate responses, 280-character communication, shares, likes, and visual imagery, millennials struggle to take seriously the low-tech, top-down communication channels such as safety noticeboards, toolbox meetings, and passive tick-box online inductions favoured by traditional OSH professionals. This paper draws upon well-established communication findings, which argue that it is important to know a target audience and reach them using their preferred communication pathways, particularly if the aim is to impact attitudes and behaviours. Health practitioners have adopted social media as a communication channel with great success, yet safety practitioners have failed to follow this lead. Using a digital ethnography approach, this paper examines seven organisations’ Facebook posts from two one-month periods one year apart, one in 2018 and one in 2019. Each of the years informs organisation-based case studies. Comparing, contrasting, and drawing upon these case studies, the paper discusses and evaluates the (non) use of social media communication of safety information in terms of user engagement, shareability, and overall appeal. The success of health practitioners’ use of social media provides a compelling template for the implementation of social media into organisations’ safety communication strategies. Highly visible content such as that found on social media allows an organization to become more responsive and engage in two-way conversations with their audience, creating more engaged and participatory conversations around safety. Further, using social media to address younger audiences with a range of tonal qualities (for example, the use of humour) can achieve cut through in a way that grim statistics fail to do. On the basis of 18 months of interviews, filed work, and data analysis, the paper concludes with recommendations for communicating safety information via social media. It proposes exploration of the social media communication formula that, when utilised by safety practitioners, may create an effective social media presence. It is anticipated that such social media use will increase engagement, expand the number of followers and reduce the likelihood and severity of safety-related incidents. The tools offered may provide a path for safety practitioners to reach a disengaged generation of workers to build a cohesive and inclusive conversation around ways to keep people safe at work.

Keywords: social media, workplace safety, communication strategies, young workers

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Authors: Michael N. O'Sullivan, Con Sheahan

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Mass customization is the idea of offering custom products or services to satisfy the needs of each individual customer while maintaining the efficiency of mass production. Technologies like 3D printing and artificial intelligence have many start-ups hoping to capitalize on this dream of creating personalized products at an affordable price, and well established companies scrambling to innovate and maintain their market share. However, the majority of them are failing as they struggle to understand one key question – where does customization make sense? Customization and personalization only make sense where the value of the perceived benefit outweighs the cost to implement it. In other words, will people pay for it? Looking at the Kano Model makes it clear that it depends on the product. In products where customization is an inherent need, like prosthetics, mass customization technologies can be highly beneficial. However, for products that already sell as a standard, like headphones, offering customization is likely only an added bonus, and so the product development team must figure out if the customers’ perception of the added value of this feature will outweigh its premium price tag. This can be done through the use of a ‘serious game,’ whereby potential customers are given a limited budget to collaboratively buy and bid on potential features of the product before it is developed. If the group choose to buy customization over other features, then the product development team should implement it into their design. If not, the team should prioritize the features on which the customers have spent their budget. The level of customization purchased can also be translated to an appropriate production method, for example, the most expensive type of customization would likely be free-form design and could be achieved through digital fabrication, while a lower level could be achieved through short batch production. Twenty-five teams of final year students from design, engineering, construction and technology tested this methodology when bringing a product from concept through to production specification, and found that it allowed them to confidently decide what level of customization, if any, would be worth offering for their product, and what would be the best method of producing it. They also found that the discussion and negotiations between players during the game led to invaluable insights, and often decided to play a second game where they offered customers the option to buy the various customization ideas that had been discussed during the first game.

Keywords: Kano model, mass customization, new product development, serious game

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Authors: Young-Hun Lee, Tae-Gwan Kim, Jong-Kyu Kim, Young-Chul Park

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In this study, Spring safety valve Heat - structure coupled analysis was carried out. Full analysis procedure and performing thermal analysis at a maximum temperature, them to the results obtained through to give an additional load and the pressure on the valve interior, and Disc holder Heat-Coupled structure Analysis was carried out. Modeled using a 3D design program Solidworks, For the modeling of the safety valve was used 3D finite element analysis program ANSYS. The final result to be obtained through the Analysis examined the stability of the maximum displacement and the maximum stress to the valve internal components occurring in the high-pressure conditions.

Keywords: finite element method, spring safety valve, gap, stress, strain, deformation

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Authors: Rodrigo Aguiar, Adelino Ferreira

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Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of unnatural death and injuries worldwide, representing a significant problem of road safety. In this context, the use of artificial intelligence with advanced machine learning techniques has gained prominence as a promising approach to predict traffic accidents. This article investigates the application of machine learning algorithms to develop traffic accident frequency prediction models. Models are evaluated based on performance metrics, making it possible to do a comparative analysis with traditional prediction approaches. The results suggest that machine learning can provide a powerful tool for accident prediction, which will contribute to making more informed decisions regarding road safety.

Keywords: machine learning, artificial intelligence, frequency of accidents, road safety

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Authors: Chi-Hao Yeh

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The aim of this paper is to show how to apply TRIZ to resolve conflicts in management area, which can be readily applied in new product development (NPD) process and Knowledge Management (KM) system in desinging and manfacturing stages. TRIZ has been well-known as a creative and innovative thinking theory in solving engineering and technology contradictions in the last two decades. However, few studies and practical usage were proposed in management area. Conflicts occurring including schedule, budget, and risk plannings at smart phone R&D process are discussed to demonstrate the ideas guided by 39 TRIZ management parameters, 40 TRIZ innovative principles, and contradiction matrix. The results show that TRIZ is able to provide direct, quick and effective alternatives to resolve the management conflicts. In this manner, huge effort and cost can be actually saved and practical experince can be stored in KM system. In this paper, an innovative 3C consuming product such as smart-phone is utilized as a case study to describe the proposed TRIZ-based conflicts-solving approaches in NPD process and Knowledge Management (KM) system.

Keywords: TRIZ, conflicts-solving in managment area, new product development (NPD), knowledge management (KM), smart-phone

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Authors: Asim Shabir, Ruqia Shaikh

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Supersized pricing is an effective strategy often used by marketers to make consumers buy more. However, such a strategy also results in more purchases and consumption, especially of hedonic food products. This study brings interesting insights about supersized pricing as it provides value-based justification to consumers; as a result, the guilt associated with the purchase and consumption of hedonic products diminishes, which mediates the impact between supersized pricing and size choice. Interestingly, there is a three-way interaction between pricing, product type, and health goal prime. Health prime diminishes the impact of supersized pricing in the case of more hedonic products (unhealthy) compared to less hedonic (perceived as healthy) products.

Keywords: supersized pricing, anticipated consumption guilt, health claim, product type

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Authors: Martina Marinelli, Samanta Vellante, Francesco Pilotti, Daniele Di Valerio, Gaetanino Paolone

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Any development in web marketing technology requires changes in information engineering to identify instruments and techniques suitable for the production of software applications for informative marketing. Moreover, for large web solutions, designing an interface that enables human interactions is a complex process that must bridge between informative marketing requirements and the developed solution. A user-friendly interface in web marketing applications is crucial for a successful business. The paper introduces mkInfo - a software platform that implements informative marketing. Informative marketing is a new interpretation of marketing which places the information at the center of every marketing action. The creative team includes software engineering researchers who have recently authored an article on automatic code generation. The authors have created the mkInfo software platform to generate informative marketing web applications. For each web application, it is possible to automatically implement an opt in page, a landing page, a sales page, and a thank you page: one only needs to insert the content. mkInfo implements an autoresponder to send mail according to a predetermined schedule. The mkInfo platform also includes e-commerce for a product or service. The stakeholder can access any opt-in page and get basic information about a product or service. If he wants to know more, he will need to provide an e-mail address to access a landing page that will generate an e-mail sequence. It will provide him with complete information about the product or the service. From this point on, the stakeholder becomes a user and is now able to purchase the product or related services through the mkInfo platform. This paper suggests a possible definition for Informative Marketing, illustrates its basic principles, and finally details the mkInfo platform that implements it. This paper also offers some Informative Marketing models, which are implemented in the mkInfo platform. Informative marketing can be applied to products or services. It is necessary to realize a web application for each product or service. The mkInfo platform enables the product or the service producer to send information concerning a specific product or service to all stakeholders. In conclusion, the technical contributions of this paper are: a different interpretation of marketing based on information; a modular architecture for web applications, particularly for one with standard features such as information storage, exchange, and delivery; multiple models to implement informative marketing; a software platform enabling the implementation of such models in a web application. Future research aims to enable stakeholders to provide information about a product or a service so that the information gathered about a product or a service includes both the producer’s and the stakeholders' point of view. The purpose is to create an all-inclusive management system of the knowledge regarding a specific product or service: a system that includes everything about the product or service and is able to address even unexpected questions.

Keywords: informative marketing, opt in page, software platform, web application

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Authors: Mensah-Akoto Julius, Kenichi Matsui

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This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on waste management workers in Ghana. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 60 waste management workers in Accra metropolis, the capital region of Ghana, to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on waste generation, workers’ safety in collecting solid waste, and service delivery. To find out correlations between the pandemic and safety of waste management workers, a regression analysis was used. Regarding waste generation, the results show the pandemic led to the highest annual per capita solid waste generation, or 3,390 tons, in 2020. Regarding the safety of workers, the regression analysis shows a significant and inverse association between COVID-19 and waste management services. This means that contaminated wastes may infect field workers with COVID-19 due to their direct exposure. A rise in new infection cases would have a negative impact on the safety and service delivery of the workers. The result also shows that an increase in economic activities negatively impacts waste management workers. The analysis, however, finds no statistical relationship between workers’ service deliveries and employees’ salaries. The study then discusses how municipal waste management authorities can ensure safe and effective waste collection during the pandemic.

Keywords: Covid-19, waste management worker, waste collection, Ghana

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Authors: Ana Bilandzic, Marcus Foth, Greg Hearn

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In a narrow sense, innovation is the invention and commercialisation of a new product or service in the marketplace. The literature suggests places that support knowledge exchange and social interaction, e.g. coffee shops, to nurture innovative ideas. With the widespread success of Internet, interpersonal communication and interaction changed. Online platforms complement physical places for idea exchange and innovation – the rise of hybrid, ‘net localities.’ Further, since its introduction in 2003 by Chesbrough, the concept of open innovation received increased attention as a topic in academic research as well as an innovation strategy applied by companies. Open innovation allows companies to seek and release intellectual property and new ideas from outside of their own company. As a consequence, the innovation process is no longer only managed within the company, but it is pursued in a co-creation process with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Quirky.com (Quirky), a company founded by Ben Kaufman in 2009, recognised the opportunity given by the Internet for knowledge exchange and open innovation. Quirky developed an online platform that makes innovation available to everyone. This paper reports on a study that analysed Quirky’s business process in an extended event-driven process chain (eEPC). The aim was to determine how the platform enabled crowdsourced innovation for physical products on the Internet. The analysis reveals that key elements of the business model are based on open innovation. Quirky is an example of how open innovation can support crowdsourced and crowdfunded product ideation, development and selling. The company opened up various stages in the innovation process to its members to contribute in the product development, e.g. product ideation, design, and market research. Throughout the process, members earn influence through participating in the product development. Based on the influence they receive, shares on the product’s turnover. The outcomes of the study’s analysis highlighted certain benefits of open innovation for product development. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research to look into opportunities of open innovation approaches to be adopted by tertiary institutions as a novel way to commercialise research intellectual property.

Keywords: business process, crowdsourced innovation, open innovation, Quirky

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Authors: Prasanna Kumar Khaund, Sukanya Talukdar

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A concrete gravity dam is a major hydraulic structure and it is very essential to consider the earthquake forces, to get a proper design base width, so that the entire weight of the dam resists the overturning moment due to earthquake and other forces. The main objective of this study is to obtain the design base width of a dam for different seismic conditions by varying the earthquake coefficients in both vertical and horizontal directions. This shall be done by equating the factor of safety against overturning, factor of safety against sliding and factor of safety against shear friction factor for a dam with their limiting values, under both tail water and no tail water condition. The shape of the Mettur dam in India is considered for the study. The study has been done taking a constant head of water at the reservoir, which is the maximum reservoir water level and a constant height of tail water. Using linear approximation method of Newton Raphson, the obtained equations against different factors of safety under different earthquake conditions are solved using a programme in C++ to get different values of base width of dam for varying earthquake conditions.

Keywords: design base width, horizontal earthquake coefficient, tail water, vertical earthquake coefficient

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Authors: Seok Hong Min, Tae Kwon Ha

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With the increasing interest on Ti alloys, the extraction process of Ti from its typical ore, TiO₂, has long been and will be important issue. As an intermediate product for the production of pigment or titanium metal sponge, tetrachloride (TiCl₄) is produced by fluidized bed using high TiO₂ feedstock. The purity of TiCl₄ after chlorination is subjected to the quality of the titanium feedstock. Since the impurities in the TiCl₄ product are reported to final products, the purification process of the crude TiCl₄ is required. The purification process includes fractional distillation and chemical treatment, which depends on the nature of the impurities present and the required quality of the final product. In this study, thermodynamic analysis on the impurity effect in the chlorination process, which is the first step of extraction of Ti from TiO₂, has been conducted. All thermodynamic calculations were performed using the FactSage thermodynamical software.

Keywords: rutile, titanium, chlorination process, impurities, thermodynamic calculation, FactSage

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Authors: Weeraya Samnuknit, Apichat Boontawan

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A vacuum fractionation technique was introduced to remove ethanol from fermentation broth. The effect of initial glucose and ethanol concentrations were investigated for specific productivity. The inhibitory ethanol concentration was observed at 100 g/L. In order to increase the fermentation performance, the ethanol product was removed as soon as it is produced. The broth was boiled at 35°C by reducing the pressure to 65 mBar. The ethanol/water vapor was fractionated for up to 90 wt% before leaving the column. Ethanol concentration in the broth was kept lower than 25 g/L, thus minimized the product inhibition effect to the yeast cells. For batch extractive fermentation, a high substrate utilization rate was obtained at 26.6 g/L.h and most of glucose was consumed within 21 h. For repeated-batch extractive fermentation, addition of glucose was carried out up to 9 times and ethanol was produced more than 8-fold higher than batch fermentation.

Keywords: ethanol, extractive fermentation, product inhibition, vacuum fractionation

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Authors: Seyed Abbas Tabatabaei, Marjan Naderan Tahan, Arman Kadkhodai

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An efficient optimization approach, called feasible gate (FG), is developed to enhance the computation efficiency and solution quality of the previously developed highway alignment optimization (HAO) model. This approach seeks to realistically represent various user preferences and environmentally sensitive areas and consider them along with geometric design constraints in the optimization process. This is done by avoiding the generation of infeasible solutions that violate various constraints and thus focusing the search on the feasible solutions. The proposed method is simple, but improves significantly the model’s computation time and solution quality. On the other, highway alignment optimization through Feasible Gates, eventuates only economic model by considering minimum design constrains includes minimum reduce of circular curves, minimum length of vertical curves and road maximum gradient. This modelling can reduce passenger comfort and road safety. In most of highway optimization models, by adding penalty function for each constraint, final result handles to satisfy minimum constraint. In this paper, we want to propose a safety-function solution by introducing gift function.

Keywords: safety, highway geometry, optimization, alignment

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Authors: A. B. Elistina, S. Norhafifah, R. N. Nashaqilla, M. A. Afida Mastura., O. Mohhidin

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The issue of halal, especially in food products, raises lots of concern among Muslim consumers. Halal is often associated with safe, clean and nutritious food, according to the principle of halal toyyiban. Apart from that, the importance of halal food is not only emphasized by Muslim consumers but also non-Muslims. This is because the halal product is something that has been recognized for its cleanliness and safety. Nevertheless, consumers often face problems to ensure that the products they buy are genuinely halal as they can only rely on the certification of the authorities. However, the issue is the extent to which consumers place trust in the responsible certification authorities to determine the status of halal for a product. Therefore, this paper is intended to identify the relationship between consumer values and trust towards responsible parties such as Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), the Ministry of Health (MOH), foreign halal certification body and producers with consumers’ behavior. Apart from that, this study will also determine the value which consumers hold when choosing halal food and its relationship with consumers’ behavior. The total of 400 respondents who had been selected through stratified random sampling had participated in this study, and the data were collected through a set of self-administered questionnaire. The results showed that trust towards JAKIM is the highest, followed by trust towards MOH, foreign Halal certification agency and lastly the producers. Meanwhile, the values associated with halal foods are the quality, followed by emotional, economic and lastly social values. Results show that all factors can explain 20.3% variance in consumers’ behavior when consuming halal food products and trust towards the producers become the main determinant factor. Therefore, this study is expected to help the certification authorities local or abroad to inculcate trust among consumers as well as assisting food products manufacturers to enhance the halal food industry in Malaysia.

Keywords: behavior, consumers, halal food, trust, value

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Authors: Özlem Turan, Şule Turhan

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About 1 billion people in the world are suffering from hunger. Approximately 1.3 billion tons of produced food is wasted each year as well. While the waste of industrialized countries is 670 million tons per year, the waste per year in developing countries is estimated as 630 million tons. When evaluated in this respect, the importance of sustainability and food security can be seen clearly. Food safety is defined as taking the necessary measures and eliminating all risk arising from food. The goal of sustainable food security is, protection of consumer health, development of safe food and beverages trade nationally and internationally and to ensure reliable fair trade schemes. In this study, this study will focus on sustainable food systems and food security, by examining the food wastage and losses from environmental and economic point of views and the precautions that need to be taken will be discussed.

Keywords: food, food safety, food systems, sustainability

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Authors: Issam Alnader, Aboubaker Lasebae, Rand Raheem

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Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are distributed network systems used in a wide range of applications, including safety-critical systems. The latter provide critical services, often concerned with human life or assets. Therefore, ensuring the dependability requirements of Safety critical systems is of paramount importance. The purpose of this paper is to utilize the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to elongate the service availability of WSNs by increasing the time it takes a node to become obsolete via optimal load balancing. We propose an HMM algorithm that, given a WSN, analyses and predicts undesirable situations, notably, nodes dying unexpectedly or prematurely. We apply this technique to improve on C. Lius’ algorithm, a scheduling-based algorithm which has served to improve the lifetime of WSNs. Our experiments show that our HMM technique improves the lifetime of the network, achieved by detecting nodes that die early and rebalancing their load. Our technique can also be used for diagnosis and provide maintenance warnings to WSN system administrators. Finally, our technique can be used to improve algorithms other than C. Liu’s.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks, IoT, dependability of safety WSNs, energy conservation, sleep awake schedule

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Authors: Ebrahim Sabermaash Eshghi, Donna Sandsmark

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Nowadays, successful companies try to create a reliable and unique competitive position in the market. It is important to consider that only choosing and codifying a competitive strategy appropriate with the market conditions does not have any influence on the final performance of the company by itself, but it is the connection and interaction between upstream level strategies and functional level strategies which leads to development of company performance in its operating environment. Given the importance of the subject, this study tries to investigate effective factors on product performance and prioritize them. This study was done with quantitative-qualitative approach (interview and questionnaire). In sum, 103 informed managers and experts of Pars-Khazar Company were investigated in a census. Validity of measure tools was approved through experts’ judgments. Reliability of the tools was also gained through Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient as 0.930 and in sum, validity and reliability of the tools was approved generally. Analysis of collected data was done through Spearman Correlation Test and Friedman Test using SPSS software. The results showed that management of distribution and demand process (0.675), management of Product Pre-test (0.636) and Manufacturing and inventory management(0.628) had the highest correlation with product performance. Prioritization of factors of structure of launching new products based on the average showed that management of volume of launched products and Manufacturing and inventory management had the most importance.

Keywords: product performance, home appliances, market, case study

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Authors: Mohamed Wahba

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Objective: To build a comparative arm for product (X) in specific gene mutated advanced gastrointestinal cancer using real world evidence to fulfill HTA requirements in drug evaluation. Methods: Data for product (X) were collected from phase II clinical trial while real world data for (Y) and (Z) were collected from US database. Real-world (RW) cohorts were matched to clinical trial base line characteristics using weighting by odds method. Outcomes included progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rates. Study location and participants: Internationally (product X, n=80) and from USA (Product Y and Z, n=73) Results: Two comparisons were made: trial cohort 1 (X) versus real-world cohort 1 (Z), trial cohort 2 (X) versus real-world cohort 2 (Y). For first line, the median OS was 9.7 months (95% CI 8.6- 11.5) and the median PFS was 5.2 months (95% CI 4.7- not reached) for real-world cohort 1. For second line, the median OS was 10.6 months (95% CI 4.7- 27.3) for real-world cohort 2 and the median PFS was 5.0 months (95% CI 2.1- 29.3). For OS analysis, results were statistically significant but not for PFS analysis. Conclusion: This study provided the clinical comparative outcomes needed for HTA evaluation.

Keywords: real world evidence, pharmacoeconomics, HTA agencies, oncology

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Authors: Adil Basuki Ahza, Michael Liong, Subarna Suryatman

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Healthy chips now dominating the snack market shelves. More than 80% processed snack foods in the market are chips. This research takes the advantages of twin extrusion technology to produce two types of product, i.e. directly expanded and intermediate ready-to-fry or microwavable chips. To improve the functional quality, the cereal-tuber based mix was enriched with antioxidant rich mix of temurui, celery, carrot and isolated soy protein (ISP) powder. Objectives of this research were to find best composite cassava-sorghum ratio, i.e. 60:40, 70:30 and 80:20, to optimize processing conditions of extrusion and study the microstructural, physical and sensorial characteristics of the final products. Optimization was firstly done by applying metering section of extruder barrel temperatures of 120, 130 and 140 °C with screw speeds of 150, 160 and 170 rpm to produce direct expanded product. The intermediate product was extruded in 100 °C and 100 rpm screw speed with feed moisture content of 35, 40 and 45%. The directly expanded products were analyzed for color, hardness, density, microstructure, and organoleptic properties. The results showed that interaction of ratio of cassava-sorghum and cooking methods affected the product's color, hardness, and bulk density (p<0.05). Extrusion processing conditions also significantly affected product's microstructure (p<0.05). The direct expanded snacks of 80:20 cassava-sorghum ratio and fried expanded one 70:30 and 80:20 ratio shown the best organoleptic score (slightly liked) while baking the intermediate product with microwave were resulted sensorial not acceptable quality chips.

Keywords: cassava-sorghum composite, extrusion, microstructure, physical characteristics

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Authors: Anna Bjällmark, Victoria Persson, Bodil Karlsson, May Bazzi

Abstract:

Introduction: Interventional radiology (IR) is a continuously growing discipline that allows minimally invasive treatments of various medical conditions. The IR environment is, in several ways, comparable to the complex and accident-prone operation room (OR) environment. This implies that the IR environment may also be associated with various types of risks related to the work process and communication in the team. Patient safety is a central aspect of healthcare and involves the prevention and reduction of adverse events related to patient care. To maintain patient safety, it is crucial to build a safety culture where the staff are encouraged to report events and incidents that may have affected patient safety. It is also important to continuously evaluate the staff´s attitudes to patient safety. Despite the increasing number of IR procedures, research on the staff´s view regarding patients is lacking. Therefore, the main aim of the study was to describe and compare the IR team members' attitudes to patient safety. The secondary aim was to evaluate whether the WHO safety checklist was routinely used for IR procedures. Methods: An electronic survey was distributed to 25 interventional units in Sweden. The target population was the staff working in the IR team, i.e., physicians, radiographers, nurses, and assistant nurses. A modified version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) was used. Responses from 19 of 25 IR units (44 radiographers, 18 physicians, 5 assistant nurses, and 1 nurse) were received. The respondents rated their level of agreement for 27 items related to safety culture on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “Disagree strongly” to “Agree strongly.” Data were analyzed statistically using SPSS. The percentage of positive responses (PPR) was calculated by taking the percentage of respondents who got a scale score of 75 or higher. The respondents rated which corresponded to response options “Agree slightly” or “Agree strongly”. Thus, average scores ≥ 75% were classified as “positive” and average scores < 75% were classified as “non-positive”. Findings: The results indicated that the IR team had the highest factor scores and the highest percentages of positive responses in relation to job satisfaction (90/94%), followed by teamwork climate (85/92%). In contrast, stress recognition received the lowest ratings (54/25%). Attitudes related to these factors were relatively consistent between different professions, with only a few significant differences noted (Factor score: p=0.039 for job satisfaction, p=0.050 for working conditions. Percentage of positive responses: p=0.027 for perception of management). Radiographers tended to report slightly lower values compared to other professions for these factors (p<0.05). The respondents reported that the WHO safety checklist was not routinely used at their IR unit but acknowledged its importance for patient safety. Conclusion: This study reported high scores concerning job satisfaction and teamwork climate but lower scores concerning perception of management and stress recognition indicating that the latter are areas of improvement. Attitudes remained relatively consistent among the professions, but the radiographers reported slightly lower values in terms of job satisfaction and perception of the management. The WHO safety checklist was considered important for patient safety.

Keywords: interventional radiology, patient safety, safety attitudes questionnaire, WHO safety checklist

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Authors: Ismail Muratoglu, Ahmet Meyveci, Abdurrahman Tuncer, Erkan Demirci

Abstract:

This study is dedicated to the analysis of the problems of occupational safety in Turkey, Italy and Poland. The need analysis was applied to three different countries which are Turkey; 4, Poland; 1, Italy; 1 state. The number of the subjects is 891 in Turkey. The number of the subjects is 26 in Italy and the number of the subjects is 19 in Poland. The total number of samples of study is 936. Four different forms (Job Security Experts Form, Student Form, Teacher Form and Company Form) were applied. Results of experts of job security forms are rate of 7.1%. Then, the students’ forms are rate of 34.3%, teacher or instructor forms are rate of 9.9%. The last corporation forms are rate of 48.7%.

Keywords: Europe, need analysis, occupational safety, Turkey, vocational education

Procedia PDF Downloads 429

Authors: Manthan Patel, Vinit Ahlawat, Anshh Singh Claire, Pijush Samui

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the analysis of quicksand condition for a dam foundation. The quicksand condition occurs in cohesion less soil when effective stress of soil becomes zero. In a dam, the saturated sediment may appear quite solid until a sudden change in pressure or shock initiates liquefaction. This causes the sand to form a suspension and lose strength hence resulting in failure of dam. A soil profile shows different properties at different points and the values obtained are uncertain thus reliability analysis is performed. The reliability is defined as probability of safety of a system in a given environment and loading condition and it is assessed as Reliability Index. The reliability analysis of dams under quicksand condition is carried by Gaussian Process Regression (GPR). Reliability index and factor of safety relating to liquefaction of soil is analysed using GPR. The results of reliability analysis by GPR is compared to that of conventional method and it is demonstrated that on applying GPR the probabilistic analysis reduces the computational time and efforts.

Keywords: factor of safety, GPR, reliability index, quicksand

Procedia PDF Downloads 480

Authors: Rauno Pääkkönen, Fabriziomaria Gobba, Leena Korpinen

Abstract:

The objective of the study is to assess the implementation of LED lighting into forest machine work in the dark. In addition, the paper includes a wide variety of important and relevant safety and health parameters. In modern, computerized work in the cab of forest machines, artificial illumination is a demanding task when performing duties, such as the visual inspections of wood and computer calculations. We interviewed entrepreneurs and gathered the following as the most pertinent themes: (1) safety, (2) practical problems, and (3) work with LED lighting. The most important comments were in regards to the practical problems of LED lighting. We found indications of technical problems in implementing LED lighting, like snow and dirt on the surfaces of lamps that dim the emission of light. Moreover, service work in the dark forest is dangerous and increases the risks of on-site accidents. We also concluded that the amount of blue light to the eyes should be assessed, especially, when the drivers are working in a semi-dark cab.

Keywords: forest machines, health, LED, safety

Procedia PDF Downloads 429

Authors: Mohammad Azam

Abstract:

This work is an endeavor to empirically investigate the Gross Domestic Product-Growth as mediating variable between various factors and portfolio returns using a broad sample of 522 financial and non-financial firms enlisted on Pakistan Stock Exchange between January-1993 and June-2022. The study employs the Structural Equation modeling and Ordinary Least Square regression to determine the findings before and during the Covid-19 epidemiological situation, which has not received due attention by researchers. The analysis reveals that market and investment factors are redundant, whereas size and value show significant results, whereas Gross Domestic Product-Growth performs significant mediating impact for the whole time frame. Using before Covid-19 period, the results reveal that market, value, and investment are redundant, but size, profitability, and Gross Domestic Product-Growth are significant. During the Covid-19, the statistics indicate that market and investment are redundant, though size and Gross Domestic Product-Growth are highly significant, but value and profitability are moderately significant. The Ordinary Least Square regression shows that market and investment are statistically insignificant, whereas size is highly significant but value and profitability are marginally significant. Using the Gross Domestic Product-Growth augmented model, a slight growth in R-square is observed. The size, value and profitability factors are recommended to the investors for Pakistan Stock Exchange. Conclusively, in the Pakistani market, the Gross Domestic Product-Growth indicates a feeble moderating effect between risk-premia and portfolio returns.

Keywords: asset pricing puzzle, mediating role of GDP-growth, structural equation modeling, COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan stock exchange

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Authors: Asad Abbas, Muhammad Fezan Afzal, Muhammad Latif Anjum, Muhammad Azmat

Abstract:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is used to link up real objects that use the internet to interact. IoT applications allow handling and operating the equipment in accordance with environmental needs, such as transportation and healthcare. IoT devices are linked together via a number of agents that act as a middleman for communications. The operation of a heat sensor differs indoors and outside because agent applications work with environmental variables. In this article, we suggest using Software Product Line (SPL) to model IoT agents and applications' features on an XML-based basis. The contextual diversity within the same domain of application can be handled, and the reusability of features is increased by XML-based feature modelling. For the purpose of managing contextual variability, we have embraced XML for modelling IoT applications, agents, and internet-connected devices.

Keywords: IoT agents, IoT applications, software product line, feature model, XML

Procedia PDF Downloads 92