Search results for: safety leadership

Authors: Spira A., Marabelle A., Kientop D., Moser E., Mumm J.

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Background: Both interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) have been extensively studied for their stimulatory function on T cells and their potential to obtain sustainable tumor control in RCC, melanoma, lung, and pancreatic cancer as monotherapy, as well as combination with PD-1 blockers, radiation, and chemotherapy. While approved, IL-2 retains significant toxicity, preventing its widespread use. The significant efforts undertaken to uncouple IL-2 toxicity from its anti-tumor function have been unsuccessful, and early phase clinical safety observed with PEGylated IL-10 was not met in a blinded Phase 3 trial. Deka Biosciences has engineered a novel molecule coupling wild-type IL-2 to a high affinity variant of Epstein Barr Viral (EBV) IL-10 via a scaffold (scFv) that binds to epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). This patented molecule, termed DK210 (EGFR), is retained at high levels within the tumor microenvironment for days after dosing. In addition to overlapping and non-redundant anti-tumor function, IL-10 reduces IL-2 mediated cytokine release syndrome risks and inhibits IL-2 mediated T regulatory cell proliferation. Methods: DK210 (EGFR) is being evaluated in an open-label, dose-escalation (Phase 1) study with 5 (0.025-0.3 mg/kg) monotherapy dose levels and (expansion cohorts) in combination with PD-1 blockers, or radiation or chemotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors overexpressing EGFR. Key eligibility criteria include 1) confirmed progressive disease on at least one line of systemic treatment, 2) EGFR overexpression or amplification documented in histology reports, 3) at least a 4 week or 5 half-lives window since last treatment, and 4) excluding subjects with long QT syndrome, multiple myeloma, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis or uncontrolled infectious, psychiatric, neurologic, or cancer disease. Plasma and tissue samples will be investigated for pharmacodynamic and predictive biomarkers and genetic signatures associated with IFN-gamma secretion, aiming to select subjects for treatment in Phase 2. Conclusion: Through successful coupling of wild-type IL-2 with a high affinity IL-10 and targeting directly to the tumor microenvironment, DK210 (EGFR) has the potential to harness IL-2 and IL-10’s known anti-cancer promise while reducing immunogenicity and toxicity risks enabling safe concomitant cytokine treatment with other anti-cancer modalities.

Keywords: cytokine, EGFR over expression, interleukine-2, interleukine-10, clinical trial

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Authors: Sekou Kangoye, Alexis Todoskoff, Mihaela Barreau

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Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC) is a structural coverage criterion that aims to prove that all conditions involved in a Boolean expression can influence the result of that expression. In the context of automotive, MC/DC is highly recommended and even required for most security and safety applications testing. However, due to complex Boolean expressions that often embedded in those applications, generating a set of MC/DC compliant test cases for any of these expressions is a nontrivial task and can be time consuming for testers. In this paper we present an approach to automatically generate MC/DC test cases for any Boolean expression. We introduce novel techniques, essentially based on binary trees to quickly and optimally generate MC/DC test cases for the expressions. Thus, the approach can be used to reduce the manual testing effort of testers.

Keywords: binary trees, MC/DC, test case generation, nontrivial task

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Authors: Richard Colwell, Thomas Englert

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In cryogenic liquefaction processes, brazed aluminum core heat exchangers are used to minimize surface area/volume of the exchanger. Aluminum alloy (5083-H321; UNS A95083) piping must transition to higher melting point 304L stainless steel piping outside of the heat exchanger kettle or cold box for safety reasons. Since aluminum alloys and austenitic stainless steel cannot be directly welded to together, a transition joint consisting of 5 layers of different metals explosively bonded are used. Failures of two of these joints resulted in process shut-down and loss of revenue. Failure analyses, FEA analysis, and mock-up testing were performed by multiple teams to gain a further understanding into the failure mechanisms involved.

Keywords: explosion bonding, intermetallic compound, thermal strain, titanium-nickel Interface

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Authors: Livhuwani Muthelo, R. N. Malema, T. M. Mothiba

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Long term exposure to excessive noise in the mining industry increases the risk of noise induced hearing loss, with consequences for employee’s health, productivity and the overall quality of life. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that contribute to Noise Induced Hearing Loss amongst employees at the Platinum mine in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Study method: A qualitative, phenomenological, exploratory, descriptive, contextual design was applied in order to explore and describe the contributory factors. Purposive non-probability sampling was used to select 10 male employees who were diagnosed with NIHL in the year 2014 in four mine shafts, and 10 managers who were involved in a Hearing Conservation Programme. The data were collected using semi-structured one-on-one interviews. A qualitative data analysis of Tesch’s approach was followed. Results: The following themes emerged: Experiences and challenges faced by employees in the work environment, hearing protective device factors and management and leadership factors. Hearing loss was caused by partial application of guidelines, policies, and procedures from the Department of Minerals and Energy. Conclusion: The study results indicate that although there are guidelines, policies, and procedures available, failure in the implementation of one element will affect the development and maintenance of employees hearing mechanism. It is recommended that the mine management should apply the guidelines, policies, and procedures and promptly repair the broken hearing protective devices.

Keywords: employees, factors, noise induced hearing loss, noise exposure

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Authors: Susanna Graziano, Lydia Krstic Ward

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The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate the steps of using multimedia and collaborative platforms in project-based learning. The presentation will demonstrate the stages of the learning project with various components of independent and collaborative learning, where students research the topic, share information, prepare a survey, use social media (Facebook, Instagram, WhasApp) and collaborative platforms (wikispaces.com and Google docs) to collect, analyze and process data, then produce reports and logos to be displayed as a final product. At the beginning of the presentation participants will answer a questionnaire about project based learning and share their experience on using social media, real–world project work and collaborative learning. Using a PPP, the presentation will walk participants through the steps of a completed project where tertiary education students are involved in putting together a multimedia campaign for safe driving in Kuwait. The research component of the project entails taking a holistic view on the problem of the high death rate in traffic accidents. The final goal of the project is to lead students to raise public awareness about the importance of safe driving. The project steps involve using the social media and collaborative platforms for collecting data and sharing the required materials to be used in the final product – a display of written reports, slogans and videos, as well as oral presentations. The same structure can be used to organize a multimedia campaign focusing on other issues, whilst scaffolding on students’ ability to brainstorm, retrieve information, organize it and engage in collaborative/ cooperative learning whilst being immersed in content-based learning as well as in authentic tasks. More specifically, the project we carried out at Box Hill College was a real-world one and involved a multimedia Campaign for Safe Driving since reckless driving is one of the major problems in the country. The idea for the whole project started by a presentation given by a board member of the Kuwaiti Society for Traffic Safety who was invited to college and spoke about: • Driving laws in the country, • What causes car accidents, • Driving safety tips. The principal goal of this project was to let students consider problems of traffic in Kuwait from different points of view. They also had to address the number and causes of accidents, evaluate the effectiveness of the local traffic law in order to send a warning about the importance of safe driving and, finally, suggest ways of its improvement. Benefits included: • Engagement, • Autonomy, • Motivation, • Content knowledge, • Language mastery, • Enhanced critical thinking, • Increased metacognitive awareness, • Improved social skills, • Authentic experience.

Keywords: social media, online learning platforms, collaborative platforms, project based learning

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Authors: Arati S. Kade, Iftikhar Hussain, Somnath Dadas

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The paper studies resilience and uncertainties among nomadic-pastoral communities in India during large events such as pandemics and attempts to understand that with changing times and increased uncertainties, how nomadic communities historically showed their resilience. A review of the literature was performed concerning nomadism and development relations and conflicts by focusing on structural violence on nomadic communities from the caste class and patriarchy as a framework along with the role of the state. Philosophical views on the anti-nomad bias of political theories by Erik Ringmar, along with the decolonial approach by Linda Smith and debrahmanization by Braj Ranjan Mani were used to analyze criminalization of nomads. Data were collected using in-depth telephonic interviews and news reports published during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. Focusing on historical context of current crises, the paper leads to the discussion on how nomadic communities negotiate with the sedentary society during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings of the current paper approve the hypotheses that the COVID-19 pandemic followed by lockdown deeply impacted the pastoral production system, building on the continued cycle of marginalization by the state and caste society in India, while traditional knowledge stood the test of time. Be it developmental states or pandemics, the nomadic communities have shown their resilience in a number of ways, such as keeping distance from sedentary society, usage of traditional medicine, and relying on traditional leadership.

Keywords: COVID-19, criminalization, India, nomadism, pandemic, pastoralism, resilience, traditional knowledge

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Authors: Liliana Gomez Cardona, Echo Parent-Racine, Joy Outerbridge, Arlene Laliberté, Outi Linnaranta

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Suicide rates among Inuit in Nunavik are six to eleven times larger than the Canadian average. The colonization, religious missions, residential schools as well as economic and political marginalization are factors that have challenged the well-being and mental health of these populations. In psychiatry, screening for mental illness is often done using questionnaires with which the patient is expected to respond how often he/she has certain symptoms. However, the Indigenous view of mental wellbeing may not fit well with this approach. Moreover, biomedical treatments do not always meet the needs of Indigenous peoples because they do not understand the culture and traditional healing methods that persist in many communities. Assess whether the questionnaires used to measure symptoms, commonly used in psychiatry are appropriate and culturally safe for the Inuit in Quebec. Identify the most appropriate tool to assess and promote wellbeing and follow the process necessary to improve its cultural sensitivity and safety for the Inuit population. Qualitative, collaborative, and participatory action research project which respects First Nations and Inuit protocols and the principles of ownership, control, access, and possession (OCAP). Data collection based on five focus groups with stakeholders working with these populations and members of Indigenous communities. Thematic analysis of the data collected and emerging through an advisory group that led a revision of the content, use, and cultural and conceptual relevance of the instruments. The questionnaires measuring psychiatric symptoms face significant limitations in the local indigenous context. We present the factors that make these tools not relevant among Inuit. Although the scale called Growth and Empowerment Measure (GEM) was originally developed among Indigenous in Australia, the Inuit in Quebec found that this tool comprehends critical aspects of their mental health and wellbeing more respectfully and accurately than questionnaires focused on measuring symptoms. We document the process of cultural adaptation of this tool which was supported by community members to create a culturally safe tool that helps in resilience and empowerment. The cultural adaptation of the GEM provides valuable information about the factors affecting wellbeing and contributes to mental health promotion. This process improves mental health services by giving health care providers useful information about the Inuit population and their clients. We believe that integrating this tool in interventions can help create a bridge to improve communication between the Indigenous cultural perspective of the patient and the biomedical view of health care providers. Further work is needed to confirm the clinical utility of this tool in psychological and psychiatric intervention along with social and community services.

Keywords: cultural adaptation, cultural safety, empowerment, Inuit, mental health, Nunavik, resiliency

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Authors: W. Widhiada, D. N. K. P. Negara, P. A. Suryawan

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The technological advances in the field of health to be very important, especially on the safety of the baby. In this case a lot of premature infants death caused by poorly managed health facilities. Mostly the death of premature baby caused by bacteria since the temperature around the baby is not normal. Related to this, the incubator equipment needs to be important, especially in how to control the temperature in incubator. On/Off controls is used to regulate the temperature distribution in the incubator so that the desired temperature is 36 °C to stay awake and stable. The authors have been observed and analyzed the data to determine the temperature distribution in the incubator using program of MATLAB/Simulink. The output temperature distribution is obtained at 36 °C in 400 seconds using an Arduino AT 2560. This incubator is able to maintain an ambient temperature and maintain the baby's body temperature within normal limits and keep the moisture in the air in accordance with the limit values required in infant incubator.

Keywords: on/off control, distribution temperature, Arduino AT 2560, baby incubator

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Authors: Jongho Park, Taekyun Kim, Jungbhin You, Sungnam Hong, Sun-Kyu Park

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Due to the aging of bridges, increasing of maintenance costs and decreasing of structural safety is occurred. The steel corrosion of reinforced concrete bridge is the most common problem and this phenomenon is accelerating due to abnormal weather and increasing CO₂ concentration due to climate change. To solve these problems, composite members using textile have been studied. A textile reinforced concrete can reduce carbon emissions by reduced concrete and without steel bars, so a lot of structural behavior studies are needed. Therefore, in this study, textile reinforced concrete beam was made and flexural test was performed. Also, the change of flexural strength according to the prestressing was conducted. As a result, flexural strength of TRC with prestressing was increased compared and flexural behavior was shown as reinforced concrete.

Keywords: AR-glass, flexural strength, prestressing, textile reinforced concrete

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Authors: Ould Bouamama, M. Bressel, D. Hissel, M. Hilairet

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Fuel cell (FC) is one of the best alternatives of fossil energy. Recently, the research community of fuel cell has shown a considerable interest for diagnosis in view to ensure safety, security, and availability when faults occur in the process. The problematic for model based FC diagnosis consists in that the model is complex because of coupling of several kind of energies and the numerical values of parameters are not always known or are uncertain. The present paper deals with use of one tool: the Linear Fractional Transformation bond graph tool not only for uncertain modelling but also for monitorability (ability to detect and isolate faults) analysis and formal generation of robust fault indicators with respect to parameter uncertainties.The developed theory applied to a nonlinear FC system has proved its efficiency.

Keywords: bond graph, fuel cell, fault detection and isolation (FDI), robust diagnosis, structural analysis

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Authors: Peng Li, Er-xiang Song

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Numerical analysis of longitudinal tunnel seismic response due to spatial variation of earthquake ground motion is an important issue that cannot be ignored in the design and safety evaluation of tunnel structures. In this paper, numerical methods for analysis of tunnel longitudinal response under asynchronous seismic wave is extensively studied, including the improvement of the 1D time-domain finite element method, three dimensional numerical simulation technique for the site asynchronous earthquake response as well as the 3-D soil-tunnel structure interaction analysis. The study outcome will be beneficial to aid further research on the nonlinear meticulous numerical analysis and seismic response mechanism of tunnel structures under asynchronous earthquake motion.

Keywords: asynchronous input, longitudinal seismic response, tunnel structure, numerical simulation, traveling wave effect

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Authors: T. Damak, O. Kriaa, A. Baccar, M. A. Ben Ayed, N. Masmoudi

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In the last few years, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems have become widely used in the safety, the security, and the commercial aspects. Forethought, several methods and techniques are computing to achieve the better levels in terms of accuracy and real time execution. This paper proposed a computer vision algorithm of Number Plate Localization (NPL) and Characters Segmentation (CS). In addition, it proposed an improved method in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) based on Deep Learning (DL) techniques. In order to identify the number of detected plate after NPL and CS steps, the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithm is proposed. A DL model is developed using four convolution layers, two layers of Maxpooling, and six layers of fully connected. The model was trained by number image database on the Jetson TX2 NVIDIA target. The accuracy result has achieved 95.84%.

Keywords: ANPR, CS, CNN, deep learning, NPL

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Authors: Rose Ogbechie, Nicholas Anakwue

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In recent times, research has centered, in the area of Business Ethics, on the issue of human quality treatment (HQT), regarding the way people are dealt with, in organizations, taking into cognizance, respect for the dignity of the human person, as well as, the rights and responsibilities of the corporate individual. As such, the principle of respect is an essential ethical principle that should govern professional relationships in the workplace. There is a prevailing myth in the Nigerian business space, that to drive business success, business leadership must coerce and drive people, oftentimes, beyond comfort to meet work expectations. This has, most times, necessitated abuses and insults on subordinates in the workplace, and instituted a rigid hierarchy of management in business relationships. Nestlé Nigeria, one of the largest foods and beverage companies in Africa, provides a contrast to this myth in their success heuristic. Over the years in Nigeria, the company has registered significant successes in the Nigerian Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Market, with stellar performances year-on-year, and a high-penetration rate of its products in the Nigerian consumer space. At the heart of the FMCG giant’s success and culture is the principle of respect—respect for stakeholders, respect for all peoples, respect for cultures, respect for the environment. Utilizing qualitative research methods, through interviews and focus group discussions with Nestlé’s stakeholders, this paper explores the ethical principle of respect, and how, through it, human quality treatment influences positively organizational growth.

Keywords: human quality treatment, respect, Nestlé Nigeria, FMCG, organizational growth

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Authors: Cheryl Forchuk, Sandra Fisman, Steve Cordes, Dan Catunto, Katherine Krakowski, Melissa Jeffrey, John D’Oria

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The discharge of youth aged 16-25 from hospital into homelessness is a prevalent issue despite research indicating social, safety, health and economic detriments on both the individual and community. Lack of stable housing for youth discharged into homelessness results in long-term consequences, including exacerbation of health problems and costly health care service use and hospital readmission. People experiencing homelessness are four times more likely to be readmitted within one month of discharge and hospitals must spend $2,559 more per client. Finding safe housing for these individuals is imperative to their recovery and transition back to the community. People discharged from hospital to homelessness experience challenges, including poor health outcomes and increased hospital readmissions. Youth are the fastest-growing subgroup of people experiencing homelessness in Canada. The needs of youth are unique and include supports related to education, employment opportunities, and age-related service barriers. This study aims to identify the needs of youth at risk of homelessness by evaluating the efficacy of the “Preventing Discharge to No Fixed Address – Youth” (NFA-Y) program, which aims to prevent youth from being discharged from hospital into homelessness. The program connects youth aged 16-25 who are inpatients at London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London to housing and financial support. Supports are offered through collaboration with community partners: Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Canadian Mental Health Association Elgin Middlesex, City of London Coordinated Access, Ontario Works, and Salvation Army’s Housing Stability Bank. This study was reviewed and approved by Western University’s Research Ethics Board. A series of interviews are being conducted with approximately ninety-three youth participants at three time points: baseline (pre-discharge), six, and twelve months post-discharge. Focus groups with participants, health care providers, and community partners are being conducted at three-time points. In addition, administrative data from service providers will be collected and analyzed. Since homelessness has a detrimental effect on recovery, client and community safety, and healthcare expenditure, locating safe housing for psychiatric patients has had a positive impact on treatment, rehabilitation, and the system as a whole. If successful, the findings of this project will offer safe policy alternatives for the prevention of homelessness for at-risk youth, help set them up for success in their future years, and mitigate the rise of the homeless youth population in Canada.

Keywords: youth homelessness, no-fixed address, mental health, homelessness prevention, hospital discharge

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Authors: Mamiza Haq

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This paper examines the relevance of bank capital and charter value on bank insolvency and liquidity risks. Using an unbalanced panel of 2,111 unique local banks across 22 countries over 1998-2012, we find that both bank capital and charter value lower insolvency and liquidity risks, but this effect varies among conventional, Islamic, and Islamic-window banks. The risk constraining effect of bank capital becomes more prominent in the post 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Moreover, the relationships vary when conditioned upon other key bank-specific characteristics. For instance, the effect of capital on risk-reduction diminishes in the presence of high charter value for conventional-G7 and Islamic-window banks, during-GFC and pre-GFC period; respectively. Our findings have important policy implications related to bank safety. The results are robust to a range of robustness tests.

Keywords: bank capital, charter value, risk, financial crisis

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Authors: William C. Bracken

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This paper discusses the forensic investigation of a fatality-involved catastrophic structure collapse and the special challenges faced when tasked with directing such an effort. While this paper discusses the investigation’s findings and the outcome of the event; this paper’s primary focus is on the challenges faced directing a forensic investigation that requires coordinating with governmental oversight while also having to accommodate multiple parties’ investigative teams. In particular the challenges discussed within this paper included maintaining on-site safety and operations while accommodating outside investigator’s interests. In addition this paper discusses unique challenges that one may face such as what to do about unethical conduct of interested party’s investigative teams, “off the record” sharing of information, and clandestinely transmitted evidence.

Keywords: catastrophic structure collapse, collapse investigation, Jacksonville parking garage collapse, forensic investigation

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Authors: Daniela Manila Bianchi, Samantha Lupi, Elisa Barcucci, Sandra Fragassi, Clara Tramuta, Lucia Decastelli

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Introduction: The undeclared allergens detection in food products plays a fundamental role in the safety of the allergic consumer. The protection of allergic consumers is guaranteed, in Europe, by Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament, which governs the consumer's right to information and identifies 14 food allergens to be mandatorily indicated on food labels: among these, an egg is included. An egg can be present as an ingredient or as contamination in raw and cooked products. The main allergen egg proteins are ovomucoid, ovalbumin, lysozyme, and ovotransferrin. This study presents the results of a survey conducted in Northern Italy aimed at detecting the presence of undeclared egg proteins in food matrices in the latest ten years (2011-2021). Method: In the period January 2011 - October 2021, a total of 1205 different types of food matrices (ready-to-eat, meats, and meat products, bakery and pastry products, baby foods, food supplements, pasta, fish and fish products, preparations for soups and broths) were delivered to Food Control Laboratory of Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale of Piemonte Liguria and Valle d’Aosta to be analyzed as official samples in the frame of Regional Monitoring Plan of Food Safety or in the contest of food poisoning. The laboratory is ISO 17025 accredited, and since 2019, it has represented the National Reference Centre for the detection in foods of substances causing food allergies or intolerances (CreNaRiA). All samples were stored in the laboratory according to food business operator instructions and analyzed within the expiry date for the detection of undeclared egg proteins. Analyses were performed with RIDASCREEN®FAST Ei/Egg (R-Biopharm ® Italia srl) kit: the method was internally validated and accredited with a Limit of Detection (LOD) equal to 2 ppm (mg/Kg). It is a sandwich enzyme immunoassay for the quantitative analysis of whole egg powder in foods. Results: The results obtained through this study showed that egg proteins were found in 2% (n. 28) of food matrices, including meats and meat products (n. 16), fish and fish products (n. 4), bakery and pastry products (n. 4), pasta (n. 2), preparations for soups and broths (n.1) and ready-to-eat (n. 1). In particular, in 2011 egg proteins were detected in 5% of samples, in 2012 in 4%, in 2013, 2016 and 2018 in 2%, in 2014, 2015 and 2019 in 3%. No egg protein traces were detected in 2017, 2020, and 2021. Discussion: Food allergies occur in the Western World in 2% of adults and up to 8% of children. Allergy to eggs is one of the most common food allergies in the pediatrics context. The percentage of positivity obtained from this study is, however, low. The trend over the ten years has been slightly variable, with comparable data.

Keywords: allergens, food, egg proteins, immunoassay

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Authors: Kristine Joy Simpao

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Improving labour productivity is one of the most enthralling and challenging aspects of managing hotels and restaurant business. The demand to secure countless productivity became an increasingly pivotal role of managers to survive and sustain the business. Besides making business profitable, they are in the doom to make every resource to become productive and effective towards achieving company goal while maximizing the value of organization. This paper examines what productivity means to the services industry, in particular, to the hotel industry. This is underpinned by an investigation of the extent of practice of respondent hotels to the labour productivity aspect in the areas of materials management, human resource management and leadership management and in a way, computing the labour productivity ratios using the hotel simple ratios of productivity in order to find a suitable measurement and control standards for hotels with SBMA, Olongapo City as the locale of the study. The finding shows that hotels labour productivity ratings are not perfect with some practices that are far below particularly on strategic and operational decisions in improving performance and productivity of its human resources. It further proves of the no significant difference ratings among the respondent’s type in all areas which indicated that they are having similar perception of the weak implementation of some of the indicators in the labour productivity practices. Furthermore, the results in the computation of labour productivity efficiency ratios resulted relationship of employees versus labour productivity practices are inversely proportional. This study provides a potential measurement and control standards for the enhancement of hotels labour productivity. These standards should also contain labour productivity customized for standard hotels in Subic Bay Freeport Zone to assist hotel owners in increasing the labour productivity while meeting company goals and objectives effectively.

Keywords: labour productivity, hotel, measurement and control, standards, efficiency ratios, practices

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Authors: Bamlaku Tadesse Mengistu

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Resource-based inter-ethnic conflicts are common in eastern Ethiopia among the Afar, Ittu-Oromo, and Issa-Somali pastoral groups. The qualitative data required for the study were collected from community leaders, ordinary members of the communities, and administrative and political bodies at various levels through one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. The quantitative data were also collected through a household survey from the 128 households drawn from the three districts of Meiso-Mullu, Meiso, and Amibara. This research tried to assess the triggering factors of inter-ethnic violent conflicts and tensions observed and other motivating factors that encourage the rival groups to instigate the recent conflicts. The research revealed some of the triggering factors that instigate violent conflicts among the rival groups such as the bad actions of conflict entrepreneurs/rent seekers, the incidence of plunder (banditry), the encroachment of farmers’ to pastoral lands/vice versa, the destruction of farmers’ crops by pastoralists’ livestock, and among others. The roles of conflict entrepreneurs such as low and medium level administrators/leaders, illicit arms traffickers, local level elites, and among others are very much significant in fueling up inter-ethnic conflicts and tensions. Leaders of various levels wrongly agitate the politicization of ethnicity and ethnic identity as well as regional boundaries as they are political boundaries rather than administrative boundaries.

Keywords: eastern ethiopia, resource competition, ethnic conflict, AFAR, ISSA and ITTU.

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Authors: Guillaume Craveur

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This study highlights the impact of an onboard fire for the evacuation of a rolling stock. Two fires models are achieved. The first one is a zone model realized with the CFAST software. Then, this fire is imported in a building EXODUS model in order to determine the evacuation time with effects of fire effluents (temperature, smoke opacity, smoke toxicity) on passengers. The second fire is achieved with Fire Dynamics Simulator software. The fire defined is directly imported in the FDS+Evac model which will permit to determine the evacuation time and effects of fire effluents on passengers. These effects will be compared with tenability criteria defined in some standards in order to see if the situation is acceptable. Different power of fire will be underlined to see from what power source the hazard become unacceptable.

Keywords: fire safety engineering, numerical tools, rolling stock, evacuation

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Authors: Osama Elsarrar, Marjorie Darrah, Richard Devin

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This paper discusses the idea of capturing an expert’s knowledge in the form of human understandable rules and then inserting these rules into a dynamic cell structure (DCS) neural network. The DCS is a form of self-organizing map that can be used for many purposes, including classification and prediction. This particular neural network is considered to be a topology preserving network that starts with no pre-structure, but assumes a structure once trained. The DCS has been used in mission and safety-critical applications, including adaptive flight control and health-monitoring in aerial vehicles. The approach is to insert expert knowledge into the DCS before training. Rules are translated into a pre-structure and then training data are presented. This idea has been demonstrated using the well-known Iris data set and it has been shown that inserting the pre-structure results in better accuracy with the same training.

Keywords: neural network, self-organizing map, rule extraction, rule insertion

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Authors: Miracle Ajah

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One of the biggest challenges facing Theological/Religious Education in Nigeria is access to quality learning materials. For instance at the Trinity (Union) Theological College, Umuahia, it was difficult for lecturers to access suitable and qualitative materials for instruction especially the ones that would suit the African context and stimulate a deep rooted interest among the students. Some textbooks written by foreign authors were readily available in the School Library, but were lacking in the College bookshops for students to own copies. Even when the College was able to order some of the books from abroad, it did not usher in the needed enthusiasm expected from the students because they were either very expensive or very difficult to understand during private studies. So it became necessary to develop contextual materials which were affordable and understandable, though with little success. The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)’s innovation in the development and sharing of learning resources through its Open Course ware is a welcome development and of great assistance to students. Apart from NOUN students who could easily access the materials, many others from various theological/religious institutes across the nation have benefited immensely. So, the thesis of this paper is that the promotion of open educational resources in theological/religious education in Nigeria would facilitate a better informed/equipped religious leadership, which would in turn impact its adherents for a healthier society and national development. Adopting a narrative and historical approach within the context of Nigeria’s educational system, the paper discusses: educational traditions in Nigeria; challenges facing theological/religious education in Nigeria; and benefits of open educational resources. The study goes further to making recommendations on how OER could positively influence theological/religious education in Nigeria. It is expected that theologians, religious educators, and ODL practitioners would find this work very useful.

Keywords: OER, theological education, religious education, Nigeria

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Authors: Shazali Abdulahi

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Project planning is the first phase in project life cycle which relates to the use of schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report the project progress within the project environment. Likewise, project execution is the third phase in project lifecycle, is the phase where the work of the project must get done correctly and it’s the longest phase in the project lifecycle therefore, they must be effectively communicated, now today Communication has become the crucial element of every organization. During construction project delivery, information needs to be accurately and timely communicating among project stakeholders in order to realize the project objective. Effective communication among stakeholders during construction project delivery is one of the major factors that impact construction project delivery. Therefore, the aim of the research work is to examine the critical factors influencing effective communication among stakeholders on construction project delivery from the perspective of construction professionals (Architects, Builders, Quantity surveyors, and Civil engineers). A quantitative approach was adopted. This entailed the used of structured questionnaire to one (108) construction professionals in public and private organization within dutse metropolis. Frequency, mean, ranking and multiple linear regression using SPSS vision 25 software were used to analyses the data. The results show that Leadership, Trust, Communication tools, Communication skills, Stakeholders involvement, Cultural differences, and Communication technology were the most critical factors influencing effective communication among stakeholders on construction project delivery. The hypothesis revealed that, effective communication among stakeholders has significant effects on construction project delivery. This research work will profit the construction stakeholders in construction industry, by providing adequate knowledge regarding the factors influencing effective communication among stakeholders, so that necessary steps to be taken to improve project performance. Also, it will provide knowledge about the appropriate strategies to employ in order to improve communication among stakeholders.

Keywords: effetive communication, ineffective communication, stakeholders, project delivery

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Authors: Wissem Abdaoui, Ilhem Mokhtari, Adel Gouri, Benouareth Djamel Eddine

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Contracted in a health facility, hospital-acquired infections are a major public health problem in recent years. The increase of nosocomial infections is partly related to diagnostic and therapeutic advances in medicine. The aim of our study was to isolate and diagnose some types of bacteria that are circulating in the hospital by performing different samples at two medical services: Pulmonary and Infectious Diseases. The antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed for bacterial isolates. The results have shown that there is a predominance of enterobacteria followed by the staphylococcus with its two species epidermidis ans saprophyticus. The study of the antibiogramme identified that some of these bacteria have a resistant profile against all the tested antibiotics. The fight against nosocomial infections is difficult because it must act on several factors: quality of care, safety of the hospital environment, hygiene, wearing gloves etc. are all areas that should be of heightened vigilance and preventive measures.

Keywords: nosocomial infection, isolation, identification, sensitivity and resistance to antibiotics

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Authors: Baldev Setia, Raj Rajeshwari, Maneesh Kumar

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Present paper is an analysis of water transmission mains failed due to surge analysis by using basic software known as Surge Analysis Program (SAP). It is a real time failure case study of a pipe laid in Una, Himachal Pradesh. The transmission main is a 13 kilometer long pipe with 7.9 kilometers as pumping main and 5.1 kilometers as gravitational main. The analysis deals with mainly pumping mains. The results are available in two text files. Besides, several files are prepared with specific view to obtain results in a graphical form. These results help to observe the pressure difference and surge occurrence at different locations along the pipe profile, which help to redesign the transmission main with different but suitable safety measures against possible surge. A technically viable and economically feasible design has been provided as per the relevant manual and standard code of practice.

Keywords: surge, water hammer, transmission mains, SAP 2000

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Authors: Merhawit Fisseha Gebremariam, Yohannes Yebabe Tesfay

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This study focuses on the formulation of a sustainable, effective, and efficient supply chain strategy framework that will enable Ethiopian privatized firms. The study examined the role of privatization in productive sourcing, production, and delivery to Ethiopian firm’s performances. To analyze our hypothesis, the authors applied the concepts of Key Performance Indicator (KPI), strategic outsourcing, purchasing portfolio analysis, and Porter's marketing analysis. The authors selected ten privatized companies and compared their financial, market expansion, and sustainability performances. The Chi-Square Test showed that at the 5% level of significance, privatization and outsourcing activities can assist the business performances of Ethiopian firms in terms of product promotion and new market expansion. At the 5% level of significance, the independent t-test result showed that firms that were privatized by Ethiopian investors showed stronger financial performance than those that were privatized by foreign investors. Furthermore, it is better if Ethiopian firms apply both cost leadership and differentiated strategy to enhance thriving in their business area. Ethiopian firms need to implement the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model for an exclusive framework that supports communication links the supply chain partners, and enhances productivity. The government of Ethiopia should be aware that the privatization of firms by Ethiopian investors will strengthen the economy. Otherwise, the privatization process will be risky for the country, and therefore, the government of Ethiopia should stop doing those activities.

Keywords: correlation analysis, market strategies, KPIs, privatization, risk and Ethiopia

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Authors: Semiarto Aji Purwanto, Sutji Shinto

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Over a quarter century, the idea of sustainable development has become a global discussion. In Indonesia, more than five decades since the development of the country took priority over any other matter, a discussion on the need of development is still an intriguing. Far from the enthusiasm of development programs run by the Indonesian government since 1967, the Dayak community in the interior of Kalimantan tropical forest was significantly abandoned from the changes. There were not many programs for the interior because the focus of development mostly was in Java island. Consequently, the Dayak live their life as shifting cultivator that has been practiced for centuries. Our ethnographic observation conducted in April-July 2016, found that today, they still maintain the knowledge and keeping the existence of local variety of rice. While in Java, these varieties have been replaced by more-productive-and-resistant-to-pest varieties, the Dayak still maintain more than 60s varieties. From the biodiversity’s perspective, it is a delightful news; while from the cultural perspective, the persistence of their custom regarding to the practice of traditional cultivation is fascinating as well. The local knowledge of agriculture is well conserved and practice daily. It is revealed that the resilience of those rice varieties is related to the local social structure since the distribution of each variety usually limited to the particular clans in the community. While experiencing the lack of programs for village development, the community has maintained the local leadership and its government structure at the village level. The paper will explore the effect of how a neglected area, which was disregarded by development program, sustains their culture and biodiversity. We would like to discuss the concept of sustainability whether it needed for the development programs, for the changes into a modern civilisation, or for the sake of the local to survive.

Keywords: sustainable development, local knowledge, rice, resilience, Kalimantan, Indonesia

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Authors: Willian C. De Brito, Hernan D. C. Munoz, Erlan V. C. Carvalho, Helder L. C. De Oliveira

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In order to improve commute time for small distance trips and relieve large cities traffic, a new transport category has been the subject of research and new designs worldwide. The air taxi travel market promises to change the way people live and commute by using the concept of vehicles with the ability to take-off and land vertically and to provide passenger’s transport equivalent to a car, with mobility within large cities and between cities. Today’s civil air transport remains costly and accounts for 2% of the man-made CO₂ emissions. Taking advantage of this scenario, many companies have developed their own Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) design, seeking to meet comfort, safety, low cost and flight time requirements in a sustainable way. Thus, the use of green power supplies, especially batteries, and fully electric power plants is the most common choice for these arising aircrafts. However, it is still a challenge finding a feasible way to handle with the use of batteries rather than conventional petroleum-based fuels. The batteries are heavy and have an energy density still below from those of gasoline, diesel or kerosene. Therefore, despite all the clear advantages, all electric aircrafts (AEA) still have low flight autonomy and high operational cost, since the batteries must be recharged or replaced. In this sense, this paper addresses a way to optimize the energy consumption in a typical mission of an aerial taxi aircraft. The approach and landing procedure was chosen to be the subject of an optimization genetic algorithm, while final programming can be adapted for take-off and flight level changes as well. A real tilt rotor aircraft with fully electric power plant data was used to fit the derived dynamic equations of motion. Although a tilt rotor design is used as a proof of concept, it is possible to change the optimization to be applied for other design concepts, even those with independent motors for hover and cruise flight phases. For a given trajectory, the best set of control variables are calculated to provide the time history response for aircraft´s attitude, rotors RPM and thrust direction (or vertical and horizontal thrust, for independent motors designs) that, if followed, results in the minimum electric power consumption through that landing path. Safety, comfort and design constraints are assumed to give representativeness to the solution. Results are highly dependent on these constraints. For the tested cases, performance improvement ranged from 5 to 10% changing initial airspeed, altitude, flight path angle, and attitude.

Keywords: air taxi travel, all electric aircraft, batteries, energy consumption, genetic algorithm, landing performance, optimization, performance improvement, tilt rotor, VTOL design

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Authors: Hae-Won Seo, Yong-Gu Lee

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Recent progress in the next generation of automobile technology is geared towards incorporating information technology into cars. Collectively called smart cars are bringing intelligence to cars that provides comfort, convenience and safety. A branch of smart cars is connected-car system. The key concept in connected-cars is the sharing of driving information among cars through decentralized manner enabling collective intelligence. This paper proposes a foundation of the information model that is necessary to define the driving information for smart-cars. Road conditions are modeled through a unique data structure that unambiguously represent the time variant traffics in the streets. Additionally, the modeled data structure is exemplified in a navigational scenario and usage using UML. Optimal driving route searching is also discussed using the proposed data structure in a dynamically changing road conditions.

Keywords: connected-car, data modeling, route planning, navigation system

Procedia PDF Downloads 371

Authors: D. Shamatov

Abstract:

Becoming a teacher is a journey with significant learning experiences. Exploring teachers’ lives and experiences can provide much-needed insights into the multiple realities of teaching. Teachers’ stories through qualitative narrative studies help understand and appreciate the complexities of the socio-political, economic and practical realities facing teachers. Events and experiences, both past and present, that take place at home, school, and in the broader social sphere help to shape these teachers’ lives and careers. Researchers and educators share the responsibility of listening to these teachers’ stories and life experiences and being sensitive to their voices in order to develop effective models for teacher development. A better understanding of how teachers learn to become teachers can help teacher educators prepare more effective teacher education programs. This paper is based on qualitative research which includes individual and focus group interviews, as well as auto-biography stories of Master of Science in School Leadership students at Graduate School of Education of Nazarbayev University. Twenty five MSc students from across Kazakhstan reflected on their professional journey and wrote their professional autobiographies as teachers. Their autobiographies capture the richness of their experiences and beliefs as a teacher, but also serve as window to understand broader socio-economic and political contexts where these teachers live and work. The study also provides an understanding of the systemic and socio-economic challenges of teachers in the context of post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It helps the reader better understand how wider societal forces interact and frame the development of teachers. The paper presents the findings from these stories of MSc students and offers some practical and policy implications for teacher preparation and teacher development.

Keywords: becoming a teacher, Kazakhstan, teacher stories, teacher development

Procedia PDF Downloads 426