Search results for: household service worker

Authors: Daniel Thompson, Muhammad Peerbux, Sophie Cerutti, Hansraj Bookun

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Introduction: Dialysis access is a key component of the care of patients with end stage renal failure. In our institution, a combined service of vascular surgeons and nephrologists are responsible for the creation and maintenance of arteriovenous fisultas (AVF), tenckhoff cathethers and Hickman/permcath lines. This poster investigates the last 10 years of dialysis access surgery conducted at St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. Method: A cross-sectional retrospective analysis was conducted of patients of St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) utilising data collection from the Australasian Vascular Audit (Australian and New Zealand Society for Vascular Surgery). Descriptive demographic analysis was carried out as well as operation type, length of hospital stays, postoperative deaths and need for reoperation. Results: 2085 patients with renal failure were operated on between the years of 2011 and 2020. 1315 were male (63.1%) and 770 were female (36.9%). The mean age was 58 (SD 13.8). 92% of patients scored three or greater on the American Society of Anesthiologiests classification system. Almost half had a history of ischaemic heart disease (48.4%), more than half had a history of diabetes (64%), and a majority had hypertension (88.4%). 1784 patients had a creatinine over 150mmol/L (85.6%), the rest were on dialysis (14.4%). The most common access procedure was AVF creation, with 474 autologous AVFs and 64 prosthetic AVFs. There were 263 Tenckhoff insertions. We performed 160 cadeveric renal transplants. The most common location for AVF formation was brachiocephalic (43.88%) followed by radiocephalic (36.7%) and brachiobasilic (16.67%). Fistulas that required re-intervention were most commonly angioplastied (n=163), followed by thrombectomy (n=136). There were 107 local fistula repairs. Average length of stay was 7.6 days, (SD 12). There were 106 unplanned returns to theatre, most commonly for fistula creation, insertion of tenckhoff or permacath removal (71.7%). There were 8 deaths in the immediately postoperative period. Discussion: Access to dialysis is vital for patients with end stage kidney disease, and requires a multidisciplinary approach from both nephrologists, vascular surgeons, and allied health practitioners. Our service provides a variety of dialysis access methods, predominately fistula creation and tenckhoff insertion. Patients with renal failure are heavily comorbid, and prolonged hospital admission following surgery is a source of significant healthcare expenditure. AVFs require careful monitoring and maintenance for ongoing utility, and our data reflects a multitude of operations required to maintain usable access. The requirement for dialysis is growing worldwide and our data demonstrates a local experience in access, with preferred methods, common complications and the associated surgical interventions.

Keywords: dialysis, fistula, nephrology, vascular surgery

Procedia PDF Downloads 94

Authors: David E. Culler, Noah D. Anderson

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Integrated systems for product design, manufacturing, and lifecycle management are difficult to implement and customize. Commercial software vendors, including CAD/CAM and third party PDM/PLM developers, create user interfaces and functionality that allow their products to be applied across many industries. The result is that systems become overloaded with functionality, difficult to navigate, and use terminology that is unfamiliar to engineers and production personnel. For example, manufacturers of automotive, aeronautical, electronics, and household products use similar but distinct methods and processes. Furthermore, each company tends to have their own preferred tools and programs for controlling work and information flow and that connect design, planning, and manufacturing processes to business applications. This paper presents a methodology and a case study that addresses these issues and suggests that in the future more companies will develop personalized applications that fit to the natural way that their business operates. A functioning system has been implemented at a highly competitive U.S. aerospace tooling and component supplier that works with many prominent airline manufacturers around the world including The Boeing Company, Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier Aerospace. During the last three years, the program has produced significant benefits such as the automatic creation and management of component and assembly designs (parametric models and drawings), the extensive use of lightweight 3D data, and changes to the way projects are executed from beginning to end. CATIA (CAD/CAE/CAM) and a variety of programs developed in C#, VB.Net, HTML, and SQL make up the current system. The web-based platform is facilitating collaborative work across multiple sites around the world and improving communications with customers and suppliers. This work demonstrates that the creative use of Application Programming Interface (API) utilities, libraries, and methods is a key to automating many time-consuming tasks and linking applications together.

Keywords: PDM, PLM, collaboration, CAD/CAM, scalable systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 163

Authors: Rafia Akbar

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This paper assesses different Energy Efficiency Measures (EEMs) and their impact on energy consumption and carbon footprint of an educational building located in Islamabad. A base case was first developed in accordance with typical construction practices in Pakistan. Several EEMs were separately applied to the baseline design to quantify their impact on operational energy reduction of the building and the resultant carbon emissions. Results indicate that by applying these measures, there is a potential to reduce energy consumption up to 49% as compared to the base case. It was observed that energy efficient ceiling fans and lights, insulation of the walls and roof and an efficient air conditioning system for the building can provide significant energy savings. The results further indicate that the initial investment cost of these energy efficiency measures can be recovered within 6 to 7 years of building’s service life.

Keywords: CO2 savings, educational building, energy efficiency measures, payback period

Procedia PDF Downloads 151

Authors: Loujaina Abdelwahed

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Debt relief granted to low-and middle-income countries effectively provides additional funds for governments that can be used to increase public investment on poverty-reducing services to alleviate poverty and boost economic growth. However, little is known about the extent to which the poor benefit from the increased public investment. This study aims to assess the impact of debt relief granted through multiple initiatives during the 1990s on poverty reduction. In particular, it assesses the impact on the level, depth and severity of poverty in 76 low-and middle income countries over the period 1990-2011. Debt relief is found to have a significant impact on reducing the level, the depth and the severity of poverty. Analysis of the different types of debt relief reveals that debt service relief reduces poverty, whereas debt principle relief does not have a significant impact.

Keywords: debt relief, developing countries, HIPC, poverty, system GMM estimator

Procedia PDF Downloads 379

Authors: Shui Lien Chen, Chen-Yin Kuo

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U-computing use has brings many new services of commerce, which could provide a new experience for customer. Location Based Services (LBS) is one of U-computing service. With increase of the smartphone and mobile internet users, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) take LBS in marketing strategy in Taiwan. For example, they would provide Facebook check-in to get a benefit (e.g. discount, free dessert and coupon) to attract customers purchasing. Therefore, this study is to understand which factors would affect SMEs adoption of u-computing and the performances after adopt U-computing. This study collected 187 useful data that were analyzed by SmartPLS 2.0 software. The results of this study are as follows. First, entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation positively affects innovation. Second, business resources and innovation positively affect u-computing use. Finally, U-computing positively affects both business value and customer value.

Keywords: entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, innovation, business resources, u-computing use, LBS

Procedia PDF Downloads 568

Authors: Agih Ukuru Agih

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This work is an appraisal of the application and applicability of computer system to financial management in improving the speed, performance, accuracy, and efficiency of the College of Education, Oju. The computerization of financial management, which is a recent development that has authentic and dedicated balancing of accounting records, would be of enormous benefits to the college. The core objective of this project is to recommend the software that typically matches a computerized institution, making for improved service, reduced fraud, mishandled funds, and financial records in the College of Education, Oju. Considering major globalization impacts in computerized financial management of the college, the study recommends among other things that the College of Education, Oju should endeavor to be positive towards computerized financial management in the institution.

Keywords: computer system, balancing, accounting records, computerized financial management

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: Jonathan R. Olsen, Natalie Nicholls, Jenna Panter, Hannah Burnett, Michael Tornow, Richard Mitchell

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The 20-minute neighborhood is a policy priority for governments worldwide and a key feature of this policy is providing access to natural space within 800 meters of home. The study aims were to (1) examine the association between distance to nearest natural space and frequent use over time and (2) examine whether frequent use and changes in use were patterned by income and housing tenure over time. Bi-annual Scottish Household Survey data were obtained for 2013 to 2019 (n:42128 aged 16+). Adults were asked the walking distance to their nearest natural space, the frequency of visits to this space and their housing tenure, as well as age, sex and income. We examined the association between distance from home of nearest natural space, housing tenure, and the likelihood of frequent natural space use (visited once a week or more). Two-way interaction terms were further applied to explore variation in the association between tenure and frequent natural space use over time. We found that 87% of respondents lived within 10 minute walk of a natural space, meeting the policy specification for a 20-minute neighbourhood. Greater proximity to natural space was associated with increased use; individuals living a 6 to 10 minute walk and over 10 minute walk were respectively 53% and 78% less likely to report frequent natural space use than those living within a 5 minute walk. Housing tenure was an important predictor of frequent natural space use; private renters and homeowners were more likely to report frequent natural space use than social renters. Our findings provide evidence that proximity to natural space is a strong predictor of frequent use. Our study provides important evidence that time-based access measures alone do not consider deep-rooted socioeconomic variation in use of Natural space. Policy makers should ensure a nuanced lens is applied to operationalising and monitoring the 20-minute neighbourhood to safeguard against exacerbating existing inequalities.

Keywords: natural space, housing, inequalities, 20-minute neighbourhood, urban design

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: Siah Koka, Rony Swennen

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Arumeru district is located in Arusha region in Upper Pangani basin in Tanzania. Economically it is dominated with agricultural activities. Banana, coffee, maize, beans, tomatoes, and cassava are the most important food and cash crops. This paper characterized the banana-based farming system of Arumeru district, evaluates its sustainability as well as research needs. The household questionnaire was performed on-site and on farm observation. Transect walk also involved to identify different agro- ecological zones. Results show that farm holdings (home gardens) are smaller than a hectare (0.7 ha) and continue to fragment as population continues to grow. Banana cultivation is the backbone of the farming systems present both in the upland and plains. In the upper belt banana found their place in the forest, which form the home garden structure typical to East African highland banana production systems. However, in the plains, cultivation is done in monoculture and depends heavily on irrigation. We found slightly less cultivars present and hypothetically more pest and disease pressure. This was mainly seen for Fusarium oxysporum species, which eradicates susceptible cultivars such as Mchare cultivars rapidly given the method of irrigation. The smaller permanent upland home garden plots provide thus a more suitable environment where banana perform better. It should be noted that findings indicated good performance to occur in the less suitable plains too. Good management is believed to be the most influencing factor, although our survey failed in identifying them. Population pressure is currently pushing the sustainable system in the uplands to its boundaries. Nutrient mining, deforestation and changing rain patterns threat production not only on Mt. Meru but on a global scale.

Keywords: Arumeru district, banana-based farming system, Tanzania, Arumeru district

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: Somkiat Korbuakaew, Bongkoch Puttawong

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This research aims to study the level of e-office system competence of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University graded by age, education background, position and work experience. Sample of this research is 291 staff at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. Data were collected by questionnaire. Statistics used in the research are percentage, mean and standard deviation. The result shows that the overall competence of E-office System of the university staff is at average level. When considered in each aspect, it was found that competency level for creating-forwarding-signing documents is high, while competency level for booking meeting rooms, requesting for transportation service, blackboard system, public relations and making appointment and meeting are average.

Keywords: competence, e-office, education background, work experience

Procedia PDF Downloads 238

Authors: Chananchida Yuktirat, Nichanant Sermsri

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The objectives of this research were to design and develop foot massage plate from coconut shell. The research investigated on the satisfaction of the users on the developed foot massage plate on 4 aspects; usage, practical in use, safety, and materials & production process. The sample group included 64 people joining the service at Wat Paitan Health Center, Bangkok. The samples were randomly tried on the massage plate and evaluated according to the 4 aspects. The data were analyzed to find mean, percentage, and standard deviation. The result showed that the overall satisfaction was at good level (mean = 3.80). When considering in details, it was found that the subjects reported their highest satisfaction on the practical usage (mean = 4.16), followed by safety (mean = 3.82); then, materials and production process (mean = 3.78). The least satisfaction aspect was on function and usage (mean = 3.45) or moderate level.

Keywords: coconut shell, design, foot massage, foot massage plate

Procedia PDF Downloads 225

Authors: Hanefi Cinar, Musa Cibuk, Ismail Erturk, Fikri Aggun, Munip Geylani

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Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs) carry heterogeneous data traffic with different urgency and quality of service (QoS) requirements. There are a lot of studies made on energy efficiency, bandwidth, and communication methods in literature. But delay, high throughput, utility parameters are not well considered. Increasing demand for real-time data transfer makes these parameters more important. In this paper we design new MAC protocol which is delay constrained and targets for improving delay, utility, and throughput performance of the network and finding solutions on collision and interference problems. Protocol improving QoS requirements by using TDMA, FDM, and OFDMA hybrid communication methods with multi-channel communication.

Keywords: MWSN, delay, hybrid MAC, TDMA, FDM, OFDMA

Procedia PDF Downloads 461

Authors: Ana Hol

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Digital systems are in the cognitive wave of the eTransformations and are now extensively aimed at meeting the individuals’ demands, both those of customers requiring services and those of service providers. It is also apparent that successful future systems will not just simply open doors to the traditional owners/users to offer and receive services such as Uber for example does today, but will in the future require more customized and cognitively enabled infrastructures that will be responsive to the system user’s needs. To be able to identify what is required for such systems, this research reviews the historical and the current effects of the eTransformation process by studying: 1. eTransitions of company websites and mobile applications, 2. Emergence of new sheared economy business models as Uber and, 3. New requirements for demand driven, cognitive systems capable of learning and just in time decision making. Based on the analysis, this study proposes a Cognitive eTransformation Framework capable of guiding implementations of new responsive and user aware systems.

Keywords: system implementations, AI supported systems, cognitive systems, eTransformation

Procedia PDF Downloads 222

Authors: Pepur Sandra, Bulog Ivana, Rimac Smiljanić Ana

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, stress and family financial fragility arose worldwide. Economic and health uncertainty created new pressure on the everyday life of families. The work from home, homeschooling, and care of other family members caused an increase in unpaid work and generated a new division of intrahousehold. As many times before, women have taken the higher burden. This paper analyzes family stress and finance during the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose that women's inclusion in paid and unpaid work and their financial literacy influence family finances. We build up our assumptions according to the two theories that explain intrahousehold family decision-making: traditional and barging models. The traditional model assumes that partners specialize in their roles in line with time availability. Consequently, partners less engaged in payable working activities will spend more time on domestic activities and vice versa. According to the bargaining model, each individual has their preferences, and the one with more household bargaining power, e.g., higher income, higher level of education, better employment, or higher financial knowledge, is likely to make family decisions and avoid unpaid work. Our results are based on an anonymous and voluntary survey of 869 valid responses from women older than 18 conducted in Croatia at the beginning of 2021. We found that families who experienced delays in settling current obligations before the pandemic were in a worse financial situation during the pandemic. However, all families reported problems settling current obligations during pandemic times regardless of their financial condition before the crisis. Women from families with financial issues reported higher levels of family and personal stress during the pandemic. Furthermore, we provide evidence that more women's unpaid work negatively affects the family's financial fragility during the pandemic. In addition, in families where women have better financial literacy and are more financially independent, families cope better with finance before and during pandemics.

Keywords: family financial fragility, stress, unpaid work, women's financial literacy

Procedia PDF Downloads 58

Authors: Yael Fisher

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Little is known about perceived self-efficacy of public preschool teachers, their perception of preschool excellence, or the relations between the two. There were three purposes for this research: defining the professional self-efficacy of preschool teachers (PTSE); defining preschool teachers' perception of preschool excellence (PTPPE); and investigating the relationship between the two. Scales for PTSE and PTPPE were developed especially for this study. Public preschool teachers (N = 202) participated during the 2013 school year. Structural Equation Modeling was performed to test the fit between the research model and the obtained data. PTPSE scale (α = 0.91) was comprised of three subscales: pedagogy (α=0.84), organization (α = 0.85) and staff (α = 0.72). The PTPPE scale (α = 0.92) is also composed of three subscales: organization and pedagogy (α = 0.88), staff (α = 0.84) and parents (α = 0.83). The goodness of fit measures were RMSEA = 0.045, CFI = 0.97, NFI = 0.89, df = 173, χ²=242.94, p= .000, showing GFI = 1.4 (< 3) as a good fit. Understanding self-efficacy of preschool teachers, preschool could and should lead to better professional development (in-service training) of preschool teachers.

Keywords: self-efficacy, public pre schools, preschool excellence, SEM

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: Alhusein Almahjoub, Dongyu Qiu

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This paper deals with the random access procedure in next-generation networks and presents the solution to reduce total service time (TST) which is one of the most important performance metrics in current and future internet of things (IoT) based networks. The proposed solution focuses on the calculation of optimal transmission probability which maximizes the success probability and reduces TST. It uses the information of several idle preambles in every time slot, and based on it, it estimates the number of backlogged IoT devices using Naïve Bayes estimation which is a type of supervised learning in the machine learning domain. The estimation of backlogged devices is necessary since optimal transmission probability depends on it and the eNodeB does not have information about it. The simulations are carried out in MATLAB which verify that the proposed solution gives excellent performance.

Keywords: random access, LTE/LTE-A, 5G, machine learning, Naïve Bayes estimation

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: B. G. Abiona, E. O. Fakoya, D. O. Alabi

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Influence of leadership roles on agricultural employees’ job satisfaction was studied. Data were from 68 randomly selected respondents. Major leadership roles include supervision of employees work (x̄=3.67), leaders were goal oriented (x̄=3.39), dissemination of information among the employees (x̄=3.35). Major employees’ satisfaction was: Employees work together with their colleagues (x̄=3.54) and also interact freely with their colleagues (x̄=3.51). Major challenges affecting employees job satisfaction were inadequate funding (x̄=3.30), irregular leave bonus (x̄=3.29), climate and weather condition (x̄=3.08) and inadequate incentive (x̄=3.02). Regression analysis showed a positive significant coefficient (P<0.05) exist between religion (p<0.05), educational status(p<0.05), year of service(p<0.05), leadership roles (p<0.005), challenges faced by respondents(P<0.05), and employees’ job satisfaction. For adequate leadership role, organization should pay attention to disbursement of training funds, availability of adequate incentive and leadership recognition.

Keywords: leadership roles, agricultural employees’, job satisfaction, institute, Nigeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 283

Authors: Champika Amarasinghe

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Introduction: Covid 19 pandemic was badly hit to the Sri Lankan economy during the year 2021. More than 65% of the Sri Lankan work force is engaged with small and medium scale businesses which no doubt that they had to struggle for their survival and business continuity during the pandemic. Objective: To assess the association of adherence to the new norms during the Covid 19 pandemic and maintenance of healthy working environmental conditions for business continuity. A cross sectional study was carried out to assess the OSH status and adequacy of Covid 19 preventive strategies among the 200 SME’S in selected two districts in Sri Lanka. These two districts were selected considering the highest availability of SME’s. Sample size was calculated, and probability propionate to size was used to select the SME’s which were registered with the small and medium scale development authority. An interviewer administrated questionnaire was used to collect the data, and OSH risk assessment was carried out by a team of experts to assess the OSH status in these industries. Results: According to the findings, more than 90% of the employees in these industries had a moderate awareness related to COVID 19 disease and preventive strategies such as the importance of Mask use, hand sainting practices, and distance maintenance, but the only forty percent of them were adhered to implementation of these practices. Furthermore, only thirty five percent of the employees and employers in these SME’s new the reasons behind the new norms, which may be the reason for reluctance to implement these strategies and reluctance to adhering to the new norms in this sector. The OSH risk assessment findings revealed that the working environmental organization while maintaining the distance between two employees was poor due to the inadequacy of space in these entities. More than fifty five percent of the SME’s had proper ventilation and lighting facilities. More than eighty five percent of these SME’s had poor electrical safety measures. Furthermore, eighty two percent of them had not maintained fire safety measures. Eighty five percent of them were exposed to heigh noise levels and chemicals where they were not using any personal protectives nor any other engineering controls were not imposed. Floor conditions were poor, and they were not maintaining the occupational accident nor occupational disease diseases. Conclusions: Based on the findings, proper awareness sessions were carried out by NIOSH. Six physical training sessions and continues online trainings were carried out to overcome these issues, which made a drastic change in their working environments and ended up with hundred percent implementation of the Covid 19 preventive strategies, which intern improved the worker participation in the businesses. Reduced absentees and improved business opportunities, and continued their businesses without any interruption during the third episode of Covid 19 in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: working environment, Covid 19, occupational diseases, occupational accidents

Procedia PDF Downloads 71

Authors: Burak Erkayman

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The manufacturing and service organizations are in the need of using ERP systems to integrate many functions from purchasing to storage, production planning to calculation of costs. Using ERP systems by the integration in the level of information provides companies remarkable advantages in terms of profitability, productivity and efficiency in processes. Cloud computing is one of the most significant changes in information and communication technology. The developments in Cloud Computing attract business world to take advantage of this field. Cloud Computing means much more storage area, more cost saving and faster data transfer rate. In addition to these, it presents new business models, new field of study and practicable solutions for anyone’s use. These developments make inevitable the implementation of ERP systems to cloud environment. In this study, the performance of ERP systems in cloud environment is analyzed through various performance criteria and a comparison between traditional and cloud-ERP systems is presented. At the end of study the transformation and the future of ERP systems is discussed.

Keywords: cloud-ERP, ERP system performance, information system transformation

Procedia PDF Downloads 512

Authors: Gaurangi Saxena, Ravindra Saxena

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Lately, cloud computing is used to enhance the ability to attain corporate goals more effectively and efficiently at lower cost. This new computing paradigm “The Cloud Computing” has emerged as a powerful tool for optimum utilization of resources and gaining competitiveness through cost reduction and achieving business goals with greater flexibility. Realizing the importance of this new technique, most of the well known companies in computer industry like Microsoft, IBM, Google and Apple are spending millions of dollars in researching cloud computing and investigating the possibility of producing interface hardware for cloud computing systems. It is believed that by using the right middleware, a cloud computing system can execute all the programs a normal computer could run. Potentially, everything from most simple generic word processing software to highly specialized and customized programs designed for specific company could work successfully on a cloud computing system. A Cloud is a pool of virtualized computer resources. Clouds are not limited to grid environments, but also support “interactive user-facing applications” such as web applications and three-tier architectures. Cloud Computing is not a fundamentally new paradigm. It draws on existing technologies and approaches, such as utility Computing, Software-as-a-service, distributed computing, and centralized data centers. Some companies rent physical space to store servers and databases because they don’t have it available on site. Cloud computing gives these companies the option of storing data on someone else’s hardware, removing the need for physical space on the front end. Prominent service providers like Amazon, Google, SUN, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce etc. are extending computing infrastructures and platforms as a core for providing top-level services for computation, storage, database and applications. Application services could be email, office applications, finance, video, audio and data processing. By using cloud computing system a company can improve its customer relationship management. A CRM cloud computing system may be highly useful in delivering a sales team a blend of unique functionalities to improve agent/customer interactions. This paper attempts to first define the cloud computing as a tool for running business activities more effectively and efficiently at a lower cost; and then it distinguishes cloud computing with grid computing. Based on exhaustive literature review, authors discuss application of cloud computing in different disciplines of management especially in the field of marketing with special reference to use of cloud computing in CRM. Study concludes that CRM cloud computing platform helps a company track any data, such as orders, discounts, references, competitors and many more. By using CRM cloud computing, companies can improve its customer interactions and by serving them more efficiently that too at a lower cost can help gaining competitive advantage.

Keywords: cloud computing, competitive advantage, customer relationship management, grid computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 290

Authors: Marco Ranzato, Maguelone Vignes

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The co-design process recently run by the trans-disciplinary urban laboratory Metrolab Brussels for outlining the architecture of a future integrated health centre in Brussels (Belgium) has highlighted that a buffer place open to the local community is the appropriate cornerstone around which organizing a space where diverse professionals and patients are together. In the context of the migrants 'crisis' in Europe, the growing number of vulnerable people in Brussels and the increasing complexity of the health and welfare systems, the NGO Doctors of the World (DoW) has launched a project funded by The European Regional Development Fund, and aiming to create a new community centre combining social and health services in a poor but changing neighborhood of Brussels. Willing not to make a 'ghetto' of this new integrated service, the NGO looks at hosting different publics in order to make the poorest, marginal and most vulnerable people access to a regular kind of service. As a trans-disciplinary urban research group, Metrolab has been involved in the process of co-designing the architecture of the future centre with a set of various health professionals, social workers, and patients’ representatives. Metrolab drawn on the participants’ practice experiences and knowledge of hosting different kinds of publics and professions in a same structure in order to imagine what rooms should fit into the centre, what atmosphere they should convey, how should they be interrelated and organized, and, concurrently, how the building should fit into the urban frame of its neighborhood. The result is that, in order for an integrated health centre framed in the landscape of a disadvantaged neighborhood to function, it has to work as social community centre offering accessibility and conviviality to diverse social groups. This paper outlines the methodology that Metrolab used to design and conduct, in close collaboration with DoW, a series of 3 workshops. Through sketching and paper modeling, the methodology made participants talk about their experience by projecting them into a situation. It included a combination of individual and collective work in order to sharp participants’ eyes on architectural forms, explicit their thoughts and experience through inter-subjectivity and imagine solutions to the challenges they raised. Such a collaborative method encompasses several challenges about patients’ participation and representation, replicability of the conditions of success and the plurality of the research findings communication formats. This paper underlines how this participatory process has contributed to build knowledge on the few-documented topic of the architecture of community health centres. More importantly, the contribution builds on this participatory process to discuss the importance of adapting the architecture of the new integrated health centre to the changing population of Brussels and to the issues of its specific neighborhood.

Keywords: co-design, health, social innovation, urban lab

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: S. Alotaibi, D. Roussinov

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Mobile government services implementation faces several challenges in developing countries. This paper studies some of those challenges in the context of Saudi Arabia. The study aims to investigate factors affecting m-government acceptance in Saudi Arabia, including ease of use, usefulness, service quality, trust, intention to use and users’ satisfaction. Our investigation will help in integrating the m-government services in citizens’ everyday life. We collected and analyzed our data from focus groups. These focus groups are from King Saud University and Imam Muhammed Bin Saud University, so the samples size are five and seven participants, respectively. We found that there are some factors to identifying citizen requirements to Saudi mobile government services. These services should be easy to use and not require too much effort. Also, these services must be fully trusted.

Keywords: e-government, m-government, focus group, Saudi mobile government services

Procedia PDF Downloads 282

Authors: K. Jithendra Gowd, Ch. Sai Babu, S. Sivanagaraju

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Electric power systems are daily exposed to service interruption mainly due to faults and human accidental interference. Short circuit currents are responsible for several types of disturbances in power systems. The fault currents are high and the voltages are reduced at the time of fault. This paper presents two suitable methods, consideration of fault resistance and Distributed Generator are implemented and analyzed for the enhancement of voltage profile during fault conditions. Fault resistance is a critical parameter of electric power systems operation due to its stochastic nature. If not considered, this parameter may interfere in fault analysis studies and protection scheme efficiency. The effect of Distributed Generator is also considered. The proposed methods are tested on the IEEE 37 bus test systems and the results are compared.

Keywords: distributed generation, electrical distribution systems, fault resistance

Procedia PDF Downloads 501

Authors: Marriette Sakah, Samuel Gyamfi, Morkporkpor Delight Sedzro, Christoph Kuhn

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Ghana is experiencing rapid economic development and its cities command an increasingly dominant role as centers of both production and consumption. Cities run on energy and are extremely vulnerable to energy scarcity, energy price escalations and health impacts of very poor air quality. The overriding concern in Ghana and other West African states is bridging the gap between energy demand and supply. Energy efficiency presents a cost-effective solution for supply challenges by enabling more coverage with current power supply levels and reducing the need for investment in additional generation capacity and grid infrastructure. In Ghana, major issues for energy policy formulation in residential applications include lack of disaggregated electrical energy consumption data and lack of thorough understanding with regards to socio-economic influences on energy efficiency investment. This study uses a bottom up approach to estimate baseline electricity end-use as well as the energy consumption of best available technologies to enable estimation of energy-efficiency resource in terms of relative reduction in total energy use for Tema city, Ghana. A ground survey was conducted to assess the probable consumer behavior in response to energy efficiency initiatives to enable estimation of the amount of savings that would occur in response to specific policy interventions with regards to funding and incentives provision targeted at households. Results show that 16% - 54% reduction in annual electricity consumption is reasonably achievable depending on the level of incentives provision. The saved energy could supply 10000 - 34000 additional households if the added households use only best available technology. Political support and consumer awareness are necessary to translate energy efficiency resources into real energy savings.

Keywords: achievable energy savings, energy efficiency, Ghana, household appliances

Procedia PDF Downloads 200

Authors: Ketwadee Madden

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Product or service image is among the vital factors that predict individuals’ choice of buying a product or services, goes to a place or attached to a person. Similarly, in the context of tourism, the destination image is a very important factor to which tourist considers before making their tour destination decisions. In light of this, the objective of this study is to conceptually investigate among French tourists, the determinants of Thailand’s tourism destination image. For this objective to be achieved, prior studies were reviewed, leading to the development of conceptual framework highlighting the determinants of destination image. In addition, this study develops some hypotheses that are to be empirically investigated. Aside these, based on the conceptual findings, suggestions on how to motivate European tourists to chose Thailand as their preferred tourism destination were made.

Keywords: cognitive destination image, affective destination image, motivations, risk perception, word of mouth

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Li-hsing Shih, Tzu-hsun Yen

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Because of the long-term commitment to net zero carbon emission, utility companies include more renewable energy supply, which generates electricity with time and weather restrictions. This leads to time-of-use electricity pricing to reflect the actual cost of energy supply. From an end-user point of view, better residential energy management is needed to incorporate the time-of-use prices and assist end users in scheduling their daily use of electricity. This study uses bi-criteria optimization methods to schedule daily energy consumption by minimizing the electricity cost and maximizing the comfort of end users. Different from most previous research, this study schedules users’ activities rather than household appliances to have better measures of users’ comfort/satisfaction. The relation between each activity and the use of different appliances could be defined by users. The comfort level is at the highest when the time and duration of an activity completely meet the user’s expectation, and the comfort level decreases when the time and duration do not meet expectations. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data for establishing regression models that describe users’ comfort levels when the execution time and duration of activities are different from user expectations. Six regression models representing the comfort levels for six types of activities were established using the responses to the questionnaire survey. A computer program is developed to evaluate electricity cost and the comfort level for each feasible schedule and then find the non-dominated schedules. The Epsilon constraint method is used to find the optimal schedule out of the non-dominated schedules. A hypothetical case is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the computer program. Using the program, users can obtain the optimal schedule of daily energy consumption by inputting the intended time and duration of activities and the given time-of-use electricity prices.

Keywords: bi-criteria optimization, energy consumption, time-of-use price, scheduling

Procedia PDF Downloads 43

Authors: El Ghazi Safae, Cherkaoui Mounia

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Within companies, emotions have been forgotten as key elements of successful management systems. Seen as factors which disturb judgment, make reckless acts or affect negatively decision-making. Since management systems were influenced by the Taylorist worker image, that made the work regular and plain, and considered employees as executing machines. However, recently, in globalized economy characterized by a variety of uncertainties, emotions are proved as useful elements, even necessary, to attend high-level management. The work of Elton Mayo and Kurt Lewin reveals the importance of emotions. Since then emotions start to attract considerable attention. These studies have shown that emotions influence, directly or indirectly, many organization processes. For example, the quality of interpersonal relationships, job satisfaction, absenteeism, stress, leadership, performance and team commitment. Emotions became fundamental and indispensable to individual yield and so on to management efficiency. The idea that a person potential is associated to Intellectual Intelligence, measured by the IQ as the main factor of social, professional and even sentimental success, was the main problematic that need to be questioned. The literature on emotional intelligence has made clear that success at work does not only depend on intellectual intelligence but also other factors. Several researches investigating emotional intelligence impact on performance showed that emotionally intelligent managers perform more, attain remarkable results, able to achieve organizational objectives, impact the mood of their subordinates and create a friendly work environment. An improvement in the emotional intelligence of managers is therefore linked to the professional development of the organization and not only to the personal development of the manager. In this context, it would be interesting to question the importance of emotional intelligence. Does it impact organizational performance? What is the importance of emotional intelligence and how it impacts organizational performance? The literature highlighted that measurement and conceptualization of emotional intelligence are difficult to define. Efforts to measure emotional intelligence have identified three models that are more prominent: the mixed model, the ability model, and the trait model. The first is considered as cognitive skill, the second relates to the mixing of emotional skills with personality-related aspects and the latter is intertwined with personality traits. But, despite strong claims about the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace, few studies have empirically examined the impact of emotional intelligence on organizational performance, because even though the concept of performance is at the heart of all evaluation processes of companies and organizations, we observe that performance remains a multidimensional concept and many authors insist about the vagueness that surrounds the concept. Given the above, this article provides an overview of the researches related to emotional intelligence, particularly focusing on studies that investigated the impact of emotional intelligence on organizational performance to contribute to the emotional intelligence literature and highlight its importance and show how it impacts companies’ performance.

Keywords: emotions, performance, intelligence, firms

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Andi Ismanto

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Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer in the world. The increasing number of palm oil extensification in Indonesia started on 2000-2011. Based on preliminary figures from the Directorate General of Plantation, palm oil area in Indonesia until 2011 is about 8.91 million hectares.On 2011 production of palm oil CPO reaches 22.51 million tons. In the other hands, the increasing palm oil production has impact to environment. The Empty Bunch of Palm Oil (EBPO)waste was increased to 20 million tons in 2009. Utilization of waste EBPO currently only used as an organic fertilizer for plants. But, it was not a good solution, because TKKS that used as organic compost has high content of carbon and hydrogen compound. The EBPO waste has potential used as fuel by gasification because it has short time of decomposition. So, the process will be more efficient in time. Utilization of urban wastehas been created using an incinerator used as a source of electrical energy for household.Usually, waste burning process by incinerator is using diesel fuel and kerosene. It is certainly less effective and not environment friendly, considering the waste incineration process using Incinerator tools are continuously. Considering biomass is a renewable source of energy and the world's energy system must be switch from an energy based on fossil resources into the energy based on renewable resources, the "Gurza Incinerator": Design Build Powerful Biomass Incinerator Empty Bunch of Palm Oil (EBPO) as Elecrical Biomass Base Development, a renewable future technology. The tools is using EBPO waste as source of burning to burn garbage inside the Incinerator hopper. EBPO waste will be processed by means of gasification. Gasification isa process to produce gases that can be used as fuel for electrical power. Hopefully, this technology could be a renewable future energy and also as starting point of electrical biomass base development.

Keywords: incinerator, biomass, empty bunch palm oil, electrical energy

Procedia PDF Downloads 459

Authors: Nina Sankat, Gerd Wilsch, Cassian Gottlieb, Steven Millar, Tobias Guenther

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Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a combination of laser ablation and optical emission spectroscopy, which in principle can simultaneously analyze all elements on the periodic table. Materials can be analyzed in terms of chemical composition in a two-dimensional, time efficient and minor destructive manner. These advantages predestine LIBS as a monitoring technique in the field of civil engineering. The decreasing service life of concrete infrastructures is a continuously growing problematic. A variety of intruding, harmful substances can damage the reinforcement or the concrete itself. To insure a sufficient service life a regular monitoring of the structure is necessary. LIBS offers many applications to accomplish a successful examination of the conditions of concrete structures. A selection of those applications are the 2D-evaluation of chlorine-, sodium- and sulfur-concentration, the identification of carbonation depths and the representation of the heterogeneity of concrete. LIBS obtains this information by using a pulsed laser with a short pulse length (some mJ), which is focused on the surfaces of the analyzed specimen, for this only an optical access is needed. Because of the high power density (some GW/cm²) a minimal amount of material is vaporized and transformed into a plasma. This plasma emits light depending on the chemical composition of the vaporized material. By analyzing the emitted light, information for every measurement point is gained. The chemical composition of the scanned area is visualized in a 2D-map with spatial resolutions up to 0.1 mm x 0.1 mm. Those 2D-maps can be converted into classic depth profiles, as typically seen for the results of chloride concentration provided by chemical analysis like potentiometric titration. However, the 2D-visualization offers many advantages like illustrating chlorine carrying cracks, direct imaging of the carbonation depth and in general allowing the separation of the aggregates from the cement paste. By calibrating the LIBS-System, not only qualitative but quantitative results can be obtained. Those quantitative results can also be based on the cement paste, while excluding the aggregates. An additional advantage of LIBS is its mobility. By using the mobile system, located at BAM, onsite measurements are feasible. The mobile LIBS-system was already used to obtain chloride, sodium and sulfur concentrations onsite of parking decks, bridges and sewage treatment plants even under hard conditions like ongoing construction work or rough weather. All those prospects make LIBS a promising method to secure the integrity of infrastructures in a sustainable manner.

Keywords: concrete, damage assessment, harmful substances, LIBS

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: Sri Yusnita Irda Sari, Deni Kurniadi Sunjaya, Ardini Saptaningsih Raksanagara

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Water is one of the fundamental basic needs for human life, particularly drinking water sources. Although water quality is getting better, fecal-contamination of water is still found around the world, especially in the slum area of mid-low income countries. Drinking water source contamination in urban slum dwellers increases the risk of water borne diseases. Low level of sanitation and poor drinking water supply known as risk factors for diarrhea, moreover bacteria-contaminated drinking water source is the main cause of diarrhea in developing countries. This study aimed to assess risk infection due to Fecal Coliform contamination in various drinking water sources in urban area by applying Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment (QMRA). A Cross-sectional survey was conducted in a period of August to October 2015. Water samples were taken by simple random sampling from households in Cikapundung river basin which was one of urban slum area in the center of Bandung city, Indonesia. About 379 water samples from 199 households and 15 common wells were tested. Half of the households used treated drinking water from water gallon mostly refill water gallon which was produced in drinking water refill station. Others used raw water sources which need treatment before consume as drinking water such as tap water, borehole, dug well and spring water source. Annual risk to get infection due to Fecal Coliform contamination from highest to lowest risk was dug well (1127.9 x 10-5), spring water (49.7 x 10-5), borehole (1.383 x 10-5) and tap water (1.121 x 10-5). Annual risk infection of refill drinking water was 1.577 x 10-5 which is comparable to borehole and tap water. Household water treatment and storage to make raw water sources drinkable is essential to prevent risk of water borne diseases. Strong regulation and intense monitoring of refill water gallon quality should be prioritized by the government; moreover, distribution of tap water should be more accessible and affordable especially in urban slum area.

Keywords: drinking water, quantitative microbiological risk assessment, slum, urban

Procedia PDF Downloads 264

Authors: Sanchai Ratthanakwan

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This research aims to study situations and characteristics of the problems facing the urban poor. The data and information are collected by focus group and in-depth interview leader and members of Four Regions Slum Network, community representatives and the social welfare officer. The research can be concluded that the problems of the urban poor faced with three major problems: Firstly, the shortage of housing and stability issues in housing; secondly, the problem of substandard quality of life; and thirdly, the debt problem. The study found that a solution will be found in two ways: First way is the creation of housing for the urban poor in slums or community intrusion by the state. Second way is the stability in the housing and subsistence provided by the community center called “housing stability”.

Keywords: urban poor, social welfare, Bangkok metropolis, housing stability

Procedia PDF Downloads 405