Search results for: Alcohol related problems

Authors: Michal Lysek, Mike Danilovic, Jasmine Lihua Liu

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HMS Industrial Networks AB has been recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the industrial communication industry worldwide. The creation of their Anybus innovation during the 1990s contributed considerably to the company’s success. From inception, HMS’ employees were innovating for the purpose of creating new business (the creation phase). After the Anybus innovation, they began the process of internationalization (the commercialization phase), which in turn led them to concentrate on cost reduction, product quality, delivery precision, operational efficiency, and increasing growth (the growth phase). As a result of this transformation, performing new radical innovations have become more complicated. The purpose of our research was to explore the dynamics of innovation at HMS from the aspect of key actors, activities, and events, over the three phases, in order to understand what led to the creation of their Anybus innovation, and why it has become increasingly challenging for HMS to create new radical innovations for the future. Our research methodology was based on a longitudinal, retrospective study from the inception of HMS in 1988 to 2014, a single case study inspired by the grounded theory approach. We conducted 47 interviews and collected 1 024 historical documents for our research. Our analysis has revealed that HMS’ success in creating the Anybus, and developing a successful business around the innovation, was based on three main capabilities – cultivating customer relations on different managerial and organizational levels, inspiring business relations, and balancing complementary human assets for the purpose of business creation. The success of HMS has turned the management’s attention away from past activities of key actors, of their behavior, and how they influenced and stimulated the creation of radical innovations. Nowadays, they are rhetorically focusing on creativity and innovation. All the while, their real actions put emphasis on growth, cost reduction, product quality, delivery precision, operational efficiency, and moneymaking. In the process of becoming an international company, HMS gradually refocused. In so doing they became profitable and successful, but they also forgot what made them innovative in the first place. Fortunately, HMS’ management has come to realize that this is the case and they are now in search of recapturing innovation once again. Our analysis indicates that HMS’ management is facing several barriers to innovation related path dependency and other lock-in phenomena. HMS’ management has been captured, trapped in their mindset and actions, by the success of the past. But now their future has to be secured, and they have come to realize that moneymaking is not everything. In recent years, HMS’ management have begun to search for innovation once more, in order to recapture their past capabilities for creating radical innovations. In order to unlock their managerial perceptions of customer needs and their counter-innovation driven activities and events, to utilize the full potential of their employees and capture the innovation opportunity for the future.

Keywords: Barriers to innovation, dynamics of innovation, in search of excellence and innovation, radical innovation.

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Authors: Jochen Nelles, Susanne Kohns, Julia Spies, Friederike Schmitz-Buhl, Roland Thietje, Christopher Brandl, Alexander Mertens, Christopher M. Schlick

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Industrial robots as part of highly automated manufacturing are recently developed to cooperative (light-weight) robots. This offers the opportunity of using them as assistance robots and to improve the participation in professional life of disabled or handicapped people such as tetraplegics. Robots under development are located within a cooperation area together with the working person at the same workplace. This cooperation area is an area where the robot and the working person can perform tasks at the same time. Thus, working people and robots are operating in the immediate proximity. Considering the physical restrictions and the limited mobility of tetraplegics, a hands-free robot control could be an appropriate approach for a cooperative assistance robot. To meet these requirements, the research project MeRoSy (human-robot synergy) develops methods for cooperative assistance robots based on the measurement of head movements of the working person. One research objective is to improve the participation in professional life of people with disabilities and, in particular, mobility impaired persons (e.g. wheelchair users or tetraplegics), whose participation in a self-determined working life is denied. This raises the research question, how a human-robot cooperation workplace can be designed for hands-free robot control. Here, the example of a library scenario is demonstrated. In this paper, an empirical study that focuses on the impact of head movement related stress is presented. 12 test subjects with tetraplegia participated in the study. Tetraplegia also known as quadriplegia is the worst type of spinal cord injury. In the experiment, three various basic head movements were examined. Data of the head posture were collected by a motion capture system; muscle activity was measured via surface electromyography and the subjective mental stress was assessed via a mental effort questionnaire. The muscle activity was measured for the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), the upper trapezius (UT) or trapezius pars descendens, and the splenius capitis (SPL) muscle. For this purpose, six non-invasive surface electromyography sensors were mounted on the head and neck area. An analysis of variance shows differentiated muscular strains depending on the type of head movement. Systematically investigating the influence of different basic head movements on the resulting strain is an important issue to relate the research results to other scenarios. At the end of this paper, a conclusion will be drawn and an outlook of future work will be presented.

Keywords: Assistance robot, human-robot-interaction, motion capture, stress-strain-concept, surface electromyography, tetraplegia.

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Authors: L. Chiriatti, H. Hafid, H. R. Mercado-Mendoza, K. L. Apedo, C. Fond, F. Feugeas

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Substituting natural aggregate with recycled aggregate coming from concrete demolition represents a promising alternative to face the issues of both the depletion of natural resources and the congestion of waste storage facilities. However, the crushing process of concrete demolition waste, currently in use to produce recycled concrete aggregate, does not allow the complete separation of natural aggregate from a variable amount of adhered mortar. Given the physicochemical characteristics of the latter, the introduction of recycled concrete aggregate into a concrete mix modifies, to a certain extent, both fresh and hardened concrete properties. As a consequence, the behavior of recycled reinforced concrete members could likely be influenced by the specificities of recycled concrete aggregates. Beyond the mechanical properties of concrete, and as a result of the composite character of reinforced concrete, the bond characteristics at the rebar/concrete interface have to be taken into account in an attempt to describe accurately the mechanical response of recycled reinforced concrete members. Hence, a comparative experimental campaign, including 16 pull-out tests, was carried out. Four concrete mixes with different recycled concrete aggregate content were tested. The main mechanical properties (compressive strength, tensile strength, Young’s modulus) of each concrete mix were measured through standard procedures. A single 14-mm-diameter ribbed rebar, representative of the diameters commonly used in the domain of civil engineering, was embedded into a 200-mm-side concrete cube. The resulting concrete cover is intended to ensure a pull-out type failure (i.e. exceedance of the rebar/concrete interface shear strength). A pull-out test carried out on the 100% recycled concrete specimen was enriched with exploratory acoustic emission measurements. Acoustic event location was performed by means of eight piezoelectric transducers distributed over the whole surface of the specimen. The resulting map was compared to existing data related to natural aggregate concrete. Damage distribution around the reinforcement and main features of the characteristic bond stress/free-end slip curve appeared to be similar to previous results obtained through comparable studies carried out on natural aggregate concrete. This seems to show that the usual bond mechanism sequence (‘chemical adhesion’, mechanical interlocking and friction) remains unchanged despite the addition of recycled concrete aggregate. However, the results also suggest that bond efficiency seems somewhat improved through the use of recycled concrete aggregate. This observation appears to be counter-intuitive with regard to the diminution of the main concrete mechanical properties with the recycled concrete aggregate content. As a consequence, the impact of recycled concrete aggregate content on bond characteristics seemingly represents an important factor which should be taken into account and likely to be further explored in order to determine flexural parameters such as deflection or crack distribution.

Keywords: Acoustic emission monitoring, high-bond steel rebar, pull-out test, recycled aggregate concrete.

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Authors: Ali Reza Vaezi, Ouldouz Bakhshi Rad

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Gully erosion is a widespread and often dramatic form of soil erosion caused by water during and immediately after heavy rainfall. It occurs when flowing surface water is channelled across unprotected land and washes away the soil along the drainage lines. The formation of gully is influenced by various factors, including climate, drainage surface area, slope gradient, vegetation cover, land use, and soil properties. It is a very important problem in semi-arid regions, where soils have lower organic matter and are weakly aggregated. Intensive agriculture and tillage along the slope can accelerate soil erosion by water in the region. There is little information on the development of gully erosion in agricultural rainfed areas. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the relationship between gully erosion and morphometric characteristics of the drainage area and the effects of soil properties and soil management factors (land use and tillage method) on gully development. A field study was done in a 900 km2 agricultural area in Hshtroud township located in the south of East Azerbaijan province, NW Iran. Toward this, 222 gullies created in rainfed lands were found in the area. Some properties of gullies, consisting of length, width, depth, height difference, cross section area, and volume, were determined. Drainage areas for each or some gullies were determined, and their boundaries were drawn. Additionally, the surface area of each drainage, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties that may affect gully formation were determined. The soil erodibility factor (K) defined in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was estimated based on five soil properties (silt and very fine sand, coarse sand, organic matter, soil structure code, and soil permeability). Gully development in each drainage area was quantified using its volume and soil loss. The dependency of gully development on drainage area characteristics (surface area, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties) was determined using correlation matrix analysis. Based on the results, gully length was the most important morphometric characteristic indicating the development of gully erosion in the lands. Gully development in the area was related to slope gradient (r = -0.26), surface area (r = 0.71), the area of rainfed lands (r = 0.23), and the area of rainfed tilled along the slope (r = 0.24). Nevertheless, its correlation with the area of pasture and soil erodibility factor (K) was not significant. Among the characteristics of drainage area, surface area is the major factor controlling gully volume in the agricultural land. No significant correlation was found between gully erosion and soil erodibility factor (K) estimated by the USLE. It seems the estimated soil erodibility cannot describe the susceptibility of the study soils to the gully erosion process. In these soils, aggregate stability and soil permeability are the two soil physical properties that affect the actual soil erodibility and in consequence, these soil properties can control gully erosion in the rainfed lands. 

Keywords: Agricultural area, gully properties, soil structure, USLE, Universal Soil Loss Equation.

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Authors: Anne-Margré C. Vink

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Background. Food-related allergies and intolerances are frequently occurring in dogs. Diagnosis and monitoring according ‘Golden Standard’ of elimination efficiency is, however, time consuming, expensive, and requires expert clinical setting. In order to facilitate rapid and robust, quantitative testing of intolerance, and determining the individual offending foods, a serological test is implicated for Alimentary Induced Diseases and manifestations. Method. As we developed Medisynx IgG Human Screening Test ELISA before and the dog’ immune system is most similar to humans, we were able to develop Medisynx IgG Dog Screening Test ELISA as well. In this randomized, double-blind, split-sample, retro perspective study 47 dogs suffering from Canine Atopic Dermatitis (CAD) and several secondary induced reactions were included to participate in serological Medisynx IgG Dog Screening Test ELISA (within < 0,02 % SD). Results were expressed as titers relative to the standard OD readings to diagnose alimentary induced diseases and monitoring efficacy of an individual eliminating diet in dogs. Split sample analysis was performed by independently sending 2 times 3 ml serum under two unique codes. Results. The veterinarian monitored these dogs to check dog’ results at least at 3, 7, 21, 49, 70 days and after period of 6 and 12 months on an individual negative diet and a positive challenge (retrospectively) at 6 months. Data of each dog were recorded in a screening form and reported that a complete recovery of all clinical manifestations was observed at or less than 70 days (between 50 and 70 days) in the majority of dogs (44 out of 47 dogs =93.6%). Conclusion. Challenge results showed a significant result of 100% in specificity as well as 100% positive predicted value. On the other hand, sensitivity was 95,7% and negative predictive value was 95,7%. In conclusion, an individual diet based on IgG ELISA in dogs provides a significant improvement of atopic dermatitis and pruritus including all other non-specific defined allergic skin reactions as erythema, itching, biting and gnawing at toes, as well as to several secondary manifestations like chronic diarrhoea, chronic constipation, otitis media, obesity, laziness or inactive behaviour, pain and muscular stiffness causing a movement disorders, excessive lacrimation, hyper behaviour, nervous behaviour and not possible to stay alone at home, anxiety, biting and aggressive behaviour and disobedience behaviour. Furthermore, we conclude that a relatively more severe systemic candidiasis, as shown by relatively higher titer (class 3 and 4 IgG reactions to Candida albicans), influence the duration of recovery from clinical manifestations in affected dogs. These findings are consistent with our preliminary human clinical studies.

Keywords: Allergy, canine atopic dermatitis (CAD), food allergens, IgG-ELISA, food-incompatibility.

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Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Ioannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece’s deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs’ resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioural responses and experiences, can feed into: a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: Flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organisational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study.

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Authors: Alan Crowle, Philpp Thies

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s the floating offshore wind turbine industry continues to develop and grow, the capabilities of established port facilities need to be assessed as to their ability to support the expanding construction and installation requirements. This paper assesses current infrastructure requirements and projected changes to port facilities that may be required to support the floating offshore wind industry. Understanding the infrastructure needs of the floating offshore renewable industry will help to identify the port-related requirements. Floating offshore wind turbines can be installed further out to sea and in deeper waters than traditional fixed offshore wind arrays, meaning it can take advantage of stronger winds. Separate ports are required for substructure construction, fit-out of the turbines, moorings, subsea cables and maintenance. Large areas are required for the laydown of mooring equipment, inter array cables, turbine blades and nacelles. The capabilities of established port facilities to support floating wind farms are assessed by evaluation of size of substructures, height of wind turbine with regards to the cranes for fitting of blades, distance to offshore site and offshore installation vessel characteristics. The paper will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using large land based cranes, inshore floating crane vessels or offshore crane vessels at the fit-out port for the installation of the turbine. Water depths requirements for import of materials and export of the completed structures will be considered. There are additional costs associated with any emerging technology. However, part of the popularity of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines stems from the cost savings against permanent structures like fixed wind turbines. Floating Offshore Wind Turbine developers can benefit from lighter, more cost effective equipment which can be assembled in port and towed to site rather than relying on large, expensive installation vessels to transport and erect fixed bottom turbines. The ability to assemble Floating Offshore Wind Turbines equipment on shore means minimising highly weather dependent operations like offshore heavy lifts and assembly, saving time and costs and reducing safety risks for offshore workers. Maintenance might take place in safer onshore conditions for barges and semi submersibles. Offshore renewables, such as floating wind, can take advantage of this wealth of experience, while oil and gas operators can deploy this experience at the same time as entering the renewables space. The floating offshore wind industry is in the early stages of development and port facilities are required for substructure fabrication, turbine manufacture, turbine construction and maintenance support. The paper discusses the potential floating wind substructures as this provides a snapshot of the requirements at the present time, and potential technological developments required for commercial development. Scaling effects of demonstration-scale projects will be addressed; however the primary focus will be on commercial-scale (30+ units) device floating wind energy farms.

Keywords: Floating offshore wind turbine, port logistics, installation, construction.

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Authors: Tatsuya Kasuga, Hidehisa Shimada, Kimio Oguchi

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Recent rapid progress in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has advanced the penetration of sensor networks (SNs) and their attractive applications. Agriculture is one of the fields well able to benefit from ICT. Plant factories control several parameters related to plant growth in closed areas such as air temperature, humidity, water, culture medium concentration, and artificial lighting by using computers and AI (Artificial Intelligence) is being researched in order to obtain stable and safe production of vegetables and medicinal plants all year anywhere, and attain self-sufficiency in food. By providing isolation from the natural environment, a plant factory can achieve higher productivity and safe products. However, the biggest issue with plant factories is the return on investment. Profits are tenuous because of the large initial investments and running costs, i.e. electric power, incurred. At present, LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights are being adopted because they are more energy-efficient and encourage photosynthesis better than the fluorescent lamps used in the past. However, further cost reduction is essential. This paper introduces experiments that reveal which color of LED lighting best enhances the growth of cultured radish sprouts. Radish sprouts were cultivated in the experimental environment formed by a hydroponics kit with three cultivation shelves (28 samples per shelf) each with an artificial lighting rack. Seven LED arrays of different color (white, blue, yellow green, green, yellow, orange, and red) were compared with a fluorescent lamp as the control. Lighting duration was set to 12 hours a day. Normal water with no fertilizer was circulated. Seven days after germination, the length, weight and area of leaf of each sample were measured. Electrical power consumption for all lighting arrangements was also measured. Results and discussions: As to average sample length, no clear difference was observed in terms of color. As regards weight, orange LED was less effective and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). As to leaf area, blue, yellow and orange LEDs were significantly less effective. However, all LEDs offered higher productivity per W consumed than the fluorescent lamp. Of the LEDs, the blue LED array attained the best results in terms of length, weight and area of leaf per W consumed. Conclusion and future works: An experiment on radish sprout cultivation under 7 different color LED arrays showed no clear difference in terms of sample size. However, if electrical power consumption is considered, LEDs offered about twice the growth rate of the fluorescent lamp. Among them, blue LEDs showed the best performance. Further cost reduction e.g. low power lighting remains a big issue for actual system deployment. An automatic plant monitoring system with sensors is another study target.

Keywords: Electric power consumption, LED color, LED lighting, plant factory.

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Authors: Douglas N. Simões, Michele Pittol, Vanda F. Ribeiro, Daiane Tomacheski, Ruth M. C. Santana

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The increasing demand of thermoplastic elastomers is related to the wide range of applications, such as automotive, footwear, wire and cable industries, adhesives and medical devices, cell phones, sporting goods, toys and others. These materials are susceptible to microbial attack. Moisture and organic matter present in some areas (such as shower area and sink), provide favorable conditions for microbial proliferation, which contributes to the spread of diseases and reduces the product life cycle. Compounds based on SEBS copolymers, poly(styrene-b-(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-styrene, are a class of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), fully recyclable and largely used in domestic appliances like bath mats and tooth brushes (soft touch). Zinc oxide and zinc ions loaded in personal and home care products have become common in the last years due to its biocidal effect. In that sense, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of zinc as antimicrobial agent in compounds based on SEBS/polypropylene/oil/ calcite for use as refrigerator seals (gaskets), bath mats and sink squeegee. Two zinc oxides from different suppliers (ZnO-Pe and ZnO-WR) and one masterbatch of zinc ions (M-Zn-ion) were used in proportions of 0%, 1%, 3% and 5%. The compounds were prepared using a co-rotating double screw extruder (L/D ratio of 40/1 and 16 mm screw diameter). The extrusion parameters were kept constant for all materials. Tests specimens were prepared using the injection molding machine. A compound with no antimicrobial additive (standard) was also tested. Compounds were characterized by physical (density), mechanical (hardness and tensile properties) and rheological properties (melt flow rate - MFR). The Japan Industrial Standard (JIS) Z 2801:2010 was applied to evaluate antibacterial properties against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). The Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) NBR 15275:2014 were used to evaluate antifungal properties against Aspergillus niger (A. niger), Aureobasidium pullulans (A. pullulans), Candida albicans (C. albicans), and Penicillium chrysogenum (P. chrysogenum). The microbiological assay showed a reduction over 42% in E. coli and over 49% in S. aureus population. The tests with fungi showed inconclusive results because the sample without zinc also demonstrated an inhibition of fungal development when tested against A. pullulans, C. albicans and P. chrysogenum. In addition, the zinc loaded samples showed worse results than the standard sample when tested against A. niger. The zinc addition did not show significant variation in mechanical properties. However, the density values increased with the rise in ZnO additives concentration, and had a little decrease in M-Zn-ion samples. Also, there were differences in the MFR results in all compounds compared to the standard.

Keywords: Antimicrobial, home device, SEBS, zinc.

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Authors: Márcia Afonso, Cristina Fael, Marisa Dinis-Almeida

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Population growth in cities has led to an increase in the infrastructures construction, including buildings and roadways. This aspect leads directly to the soils waterproofing. In turn, changes in precipitation patterns are developing into higher and more frequent intensities. Thus, these two conjugated aspects decrease the rainwater infiltration into soils and increase the volume of surface runoff. The practice of green and sustainable urban solutions has encouraged research in these areas. The porous asphalt pavement, as a green infrastructure, is part of practical solutions set to address urban challenges related to land use and adaptation to climate change. In this field, permeable pavements with porous asphalt mixtures (PA) have several advantages in terms of reducing the runoff generated by the floods. The porous structure of these pavements, compared to a conventional asphalt pavement, allows the rainwater infiltration in the subsoil, and consequently, the water quality improvement. This green infrastructure solution can be applied in cities, particularly in streets or parking lots to mitigate the floods effects. Over the years, the pores of these pavements can be filled by sediment, reducing their function in the rainwater infiltration. Thus, double layer porous asphalt (DLPA) was developed to mitigate the clogging effect and facilitate the water infiltration into the lower layers. This study intends to deepen the knowledge of the performance of DLPA when subjected to clogging. The experimental methodology consisted on four evaluation phases of the DLPA infiltration capacity submitted to three precipitation events (100, 200 and 300 mm/h) in each phase. The evaluation first phase determined the behavior after DLPA construction. In phases two and three, two 500 g/m² clogging cycles were performed, totaling a 1000 g/m² final simulation. Sand with gradation accented in fine particles was used as clogging material. In the last phase, the DLPA was subjected to simple sweeping and vacuuming maintenance. A precipitation simulator, type sprinkler, capable of simulating the real precipitation was developed for this purpose. The main conclusions show that the DLPA has the capacity to drain the water, even after two clogging cycles. The infiltration results of flows lead to an efficient performance of the DPLA in the surface runoff attenuation, since this was not observed in any of the evaluation phases, even at intensities of 200 and 300 mm/h, simulating intense precipitation events. The infiltration capacity under clogging conditions decreased about 7% on average in the three intensities relative to the initial performance that is after construction. However, this was restored when subjected to simple maintenance, recovering the DLPA hydraulic functionality. In summary, the study proved the efficacy of using a DLPA when it retains thicker surface sediments and limits the fine sediments entry to the remaining layers. At the same time, it is guaranteed the rainwater infiltration and the surface runoff reduction and is therefore a viable solution to put into practice in permeable pavements.

Keywords: Clogging, double layer porous asphalt, infiltration capacity, rainfall intensity.

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Authors: Olivier Mills, Bernard McDonell, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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The increasing availability and quality of internet access throughout the developing world provides an opportunity to utilize online spaces to disseminate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) knowledge to practitioners. Since 2001, CAWST has provided in-person education, training and consulting services to thousands of WASH practitioners all over the world, supporting them to start, troubleshoot, improve and expand their WASH projects. As CAWST continues to grow, the organization faces challenges in meeting demand from clients and in providing consistent, timely technical support. In 2012, CAWST began utilizing online spaces to expand its reach by developing a series of resources websites and webinars. CAWST has developed a WASH Education and Training resources website, a Biosand Filter (BSF) Knowledge Base, a Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage Knowledge Base, a mobile app for offline users, a live chat support tool, a WASH e-library, and a series of webinar-style online training sessions to complement its in-person capacity development services. In order to determine the preliminary outcomes of providing these online services, CAWST has monitored and analyzed registration to the online spaces, downloads of the educational materials, and webinar attendance; as well as conducted user surveys. The purpose of this analysis was to find out who was using the online spaces, where users came from, and how the resources were being used. CAWST’s WASH Resources website has served over 5,800 registered users from 3,000 organizations in 183 countries. Additionally, the BSF Knowledge Base has served over 1000 registered users from 68 countries, and over 540 people from 73 countries have attended CAWST’s online training sessions. This indicates that the online spaces are effectively reaching a large numbers of users, from a range of countries. A 2016 survey of the Biosand Filter Knowledge Base showed that approximately 61% of users are practitioners, and 39% are either researchers or students. Of the respondents, 46% reported using the BSF Knowledge Base to initiate a BSF project and 43% reported using the information to train BSF technicians. Finally, 61% indicated they would like even greater support from CAWST’s Technical Advisors going forward. The analysis has provided an encouraging indication that CAWST’s online spaces are contributing to its objective of engaging and supporting WASH practitioners to start, improve and expand their initiatives. CAWST has learned several lessons during the development of these online spaces, in particular related to the resources needed to create and maintain the spaces, and respond to the demand created. CAWST plans to continue expanding its online spaces, improving user experience of the sites, and involving new contributors and content types. Through the use of online spaces, CAWST has been able to increase its global reach and impact without significantly increasing its human resources by connecting WASH practitioners with the information they most need, in a practical and accessible manner. This paper presents on CAWST’s use of online spaces through the CAWST-developed platforms discussed above and the analysis of the use of these platforms.

Keywords: Education and training, knowledge sharing, online resources, water and sanitation.

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Authors: Michael A. Unbehauen, Gregory D. Sloan, Alberto J. Squatrito

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Missile proliferation and global stability are intrinsically linked. Missile threats continually appear at the forefront of global security issues. North Korea’s recently demonstrated nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities, for the first time since the Cold War, renewed public interest in strategic missile defense capabilities. To protect from limited ICBM attacks from so-called rogue actors, the United States developed the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. This study examines if the GMD missile defense shield has contributed to a safer world or triggered a new arms race. Based upon increased missile-related developments and the lack of adherence to international missile treaties, it is generally perceived that the GMD system is a destabilizing factor for global security. By examining the current state of arms control treaties as well as existing missile arsenals and ongoing efforts in technologies to overcome U.S. missile defenses, this study seeks to analyze the contribution of GMD to global stability. A thorough investigation cannot ignore that, through the establishment of this limited capability, the U.S. violated longstanding, successful weapons treaties and caused concern among states that possess ICBMs. GMD capability contributes to the perception that ICBM arsenals could become ineffective, creating an imbalance in favor of the United States, leading to increased global instability and tension. While blame for the deterioration of global stability and non-adherence to arms control treaties is often placed on U.S. missile defense, the facts do not necessarily support this view. The notion of a renewed arms race due to GMD is supported neither by current missile arsenals nor by the inevitable development of new and enhanced missile technology, to include multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs), maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRVs), and hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). The methodology in this study encapsulates a period of time, pre- and post-GMD introduction, while analyzing international treaty adherence, missile counts and types, and research in new missile technologies. The decline in international treaty adherence, coupled with a measurable increase in the number and types of missiles or research in new missile technologies during the period after the introduction of GMD, could be perceived as a clear indicator of GMD contributing to global instability. However, research into improved technology (MIRV, MaRV and HGV) prior to GMD, as well as a decline of various global missile inventories and testing of systems during this same period, would seem to invalidate this theory. U.S. adversaries have exploited the perception of the U.S. missile defense shield as a destabilizing factor as a pretext to strengthen and modernize their militaries and justify their policies. As a result, it can be concluded that global stability has not significantly decreased due to GMD; but rather, the natural progression of technological and missile development would inherently include innovative and dynamic approaches to target engagement, deterrence, and national defense.

Keywords: Arms control, arms race, global security, GMD, ICBM, missile defense, proliferation.

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Authors: Marijana Ivanov, Roman Šubić

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This study analyzes the critical gaps in the architecture of European stability and the expected role of the banking union as the new important step towards completing the Economic and Monetary Union that should enable the creation of safe and sound financial sector for the euro area market. The single rulebook together with the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism - as two main pillars of the banking union, should provide a consistent application of common rules and administrative standards for supervision, recovery and resolution of banks – with the final aim of replacing the former bail-out practice with the bail-in system through which possible future bank failures would be resolved by their own funds, i.e. with minimal costs for taxpayers and real economy. In this way, the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns would be broken. It would also reduce the financial fragmentation recorded in the years of crisis as the result of divergent behaviors in risk premium, lending activities and interest rates between the core and the periphery. In addition, it should strengthen the effectiveness of monetary transmission channels, in particular the credit channels and overflows of liquidity on the money market which, due to the fragmentation of the common financial market, has been significantly disabled in period of crisis. However, contrary to all the positive expectations related to the future functioning of the banking union, major findings of this study indicate that characteristics of the economic system in which the banking union will operate should not be ignored. The euro area is an integration of strong and weak entities with large differences in economic development, wealth, assets of banking systems, growth rates and accountability of fiscal policy. The analysis indicates that low and unbalanced economic growth remains a challenge for the maintenance of financial stability and this problem cannot be resolved just by a single supervision. In many countries bank assets exceed their GDP by several times and large banks are still a matter of concern, because of their systemic importance for individual countries and the euro zone as a whole. The creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism is a response to the European crisis, which has particularly affected peripheral countries and caused the associated loop between the banking crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, but has also influenced banks’ balance sheets in the core countries, as the result of crossborder capital flows. The creation of the SSM and the SRM should prevent the similar episodes to happen again and should also provide a new opportunity for strengthening of economic and financial systems of the peripheral countries. On the other hand, there is a potential threat that future focus of the ECB, resolution mechanism and other relevant institutions will be extremely oriented towards large and significant banks (whereby one half of them operate in the core and most important euro area countries), and therefore it remains questionable to what extent will the common resolution funds will be used for rescue of less important institutions. Recent geopolitical developments will be the optimal indicator to show whether the previously established mechanisms are sufficient enough to maintain the adequate financial stability in the euro area market.

Keywords: Banking Union, financial integration, single supervisory mechanism (SSM).

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Authors: Daniel Puciato, Piotr Oleśniewicz, Julita Markiewicz-Patkowska, Krzysztof Widawski, Michał Rozpara, Władysław Mynarski, Agnieszka Gawlik, Małgorzata Dębska, Soňa Jandová

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Physical activity as a part of people’s everyday life reduces the risk of many diseases, including those induced by lifestyle, e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, coronary heart disease, degenerative arthritis, and certain types of cancer. That refers particularly to professionally active people, including the early senior group working on non-manual positions. The aim of the study is to evaluate the relationship between physical activity and the socio-economic status of non-manual workers from Wroclaw—one of the biggest cities in Poland, a model setting for such investigations in this part of Europe. The crucial problem in the research is to find out the percentage of respondents who meet the health-related recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning the volume, frequency, and intensity of physical activity, as well as to establish if the most important socio-economic factors, such as gender, age, education, marital status, per capita income, savings and debt, determine the compliance with the WHO physical activity recommendations. During the research, conducted in 2013, 1,170 people (611 women and 559 men) aged 21–60 years were examined. A diagnostic poll method was applied to collect the data. Physical activity was measured with the use of the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire with extended socio-demographic questions, i.e. concerning gender, age, education, marital status, income, savings or debts. To evaluate the relationship between physical activity and selected socio-economic factors, logistic regression was used (odds ratio statistics). Statistical inference was conducted on the adopted ex ante probability level of p<0.05. The majority of respondents met the volume of physical effort recommended for health benefits. It was particularly noticeable in the case of the examined men. The probability of compliance with the WHO physical activity recommendations was highest for workers aged 21–30 years with secondary or higher education who were single, received highest incomes and had savings. The results indicate the relations between physical activity and socio-economic status in the examined women and men. People with lower socio-economic status (e.g. manual workers) are physically active primarily at work, whereas those better educated and wealthier implement physical effort primarily in their leisure time. Among the investigated subjects, the youngest group of non-manual workers have the best chances to meet the WHO standards of physical activity. The study also confirms that secondary education has a positive effect on the public awareness on the role of physical activity in human life. In general, the analysis of the research indicates that there is a relationship between physical activity and some socio-economic factors of the respondents, such as gender, age, education, marital status, income per capita, and the possession of savings. Although the obtained results cannot be applied for the general population, they show some important trends that will be verified in subsequent studies conducted by the authors of the paper.

Keywords: International physical activity questionnaire, non-manual workers, physical activity, socio-economic factors, WHO.

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Authors: Chris Fersterer, Col Fay, Tobias Danielmeier, Kat Achterberg, Scott Willis

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New Zealand, an island nation, has an extensive coastline peppered with small communities of iconic buildings known as Bachs. Post WWII, these modest buildings were constructed by their owners as retreats and generally were small, low cost, often using recycled material and often they fell below current acceptable building standards. In the latter part of the 20^th century, real estate prices in many of these communities remained low and these areas became permanent residences for people attracted to this affordable lifestyle choice. The Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust (BRCT) is an organisation that recognises the vulnerability of communities in low lying settlements as now being prone to increased flood threat brought about by climate change and sea level rise. Some of the inhabitants of Blueskin Bay, Otago, NZ have already found their properties to be un-insurable because of increased frequency of flood events and property values have slumped accordingly. Territorial authorities also acknowledge this increased risk and have created additional compliance measures for new buildings that are less than 2 m above tidal peaks. Community resilience becomes an additional concern where inhabitants are attracted to a lifestyle associated with a specific location and its people when this lifestyle is unable to be met in a suburban or city context. Traditional models of social housing fail to provide the sense of community connectedness and identity enjoyed by the current residents of Blueskin Bay. BRCT have partnered with the Otago Polytechnic Design School to design a new form of community housing that can react to this environmental change. It is a longitudinal project incorporating participatory approaches as a means of getting people ‘on board’, to understand complex systems and co-develop solutions. In the first period, they are seeking industry support and funding to develop a transportable and fully self-contained housing model that exploits current technologies. BRCT also hope that the building will become an educational tool to highlight climate change issues facing us today. This paper uses the Climate Safe House (CSH) as a case study for education in architectural sustainability through experiential learning offered as part of the Otago Polytechnics Bachelor of Design. Students engage with the project with research methodologies, including site surveys, resident interviews, data sourced from government agencies and physical modelling. The process involves collaboration across design disciplines including product and interior design but also includes connections with industry, both within the education institution and stakeholder industries introduced through BRCT. This project offers a rich learning environment where students become engaged through project based learning within a community of practice, including architecture, construction, energy and other related fields. The design outcomes are expressed in a series of public exhibitions and forums where community input is sought in a truly participatory process.

Keywords: Community resilience, problem based learning, project based learning, case study.

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Authors: Sotirios Raptis

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Health and Social care (HSc) services planning and scheduling are facing unprecedented challenges, due to the pandemic pressure and also suffer from unplanned spending that is negatively impacted by the global financial crisis. Data-driven approaches can help to improve policies, plan and design services provision schedules using algorithms that assist healthcare managers to face unexpected demands using fewer resources. The paper discusses services packing using statistical significance tests and machine learning (ML) to evaluate demands similarity and coupling. This is achieved by predicting the range of the demand (class) using ML methods such as Classification and Regression Trees (CART), Random Forests (RF), and Logistic Regression (LGR). The significance tests Chi-Squared and Student’s test are used on data over a 39 years span for which data exist for services delivered in Scotland. The demands are associated using probabilities and are parts of statistical hypotheses. These hypotheses, as their NULL part, assume that the target demand is statistically dependent on other services’ demands. This linking is checked using the data. In addition, ML methods are used to linearly predict the above target demands from the statistically found associations and extend the linear dependence of the target’s demand to independent demands forming, thus, groups of services. Statistical tests confirmed ML coupling and made the prediction statistically meaningful and proved that a target service can be matched reliably to other services while ML showed that such marked relationships can also be linear ones. Zero padding was used for missing years records and illustrated better such relationships both for limited years and for the entire span offering long-term data visualizations while limited years periods explained how well patients numbers can be related in short periods of time or that they can change over time as opposed to behaviours across more years. The prediction performance of the associations were measured using metrics such as Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), Area Under Curve (AUC) and Accuracy (ACC) as well as the statistical tests Chi-Squared and Student. Co-plots and comparison tables for the RF, CART, and LGR methods as well as the p-value from tests and Information Exchange (IE/MIE) measures are provided showing the relative performance of ML methods and of the statistical tests as well as the behaviour using different learning ratios. The impact of k-neighbours classification (k-NN), Cross-Correlation (CC) and C-Means (CM) first groupings was also studied over limited years and for the entire span. It was found that CART was generally behind RF and LGR but in some interesting cases, LGR reached an AUC = 0 falling below CART, while the ACC was as high as 0.912 showing that ML methods can be confused by zero-padding or by data’s irregularities or by the outliers. On average, 3 linear predictors were sufficient, LGR was found competing well RF and CART followed with the same performance at higher learning ratios. Services were packed only when a significance level (p-value) of their association coefficient was more than 0.05. Social factors relationships were observed between home care services and treatment of old people, low birth weights, alcoholism, drug abuse, and emergency admissions. The work found  that different HSc services can be well packed as plans of limited duration, across various services sectors, learning configurations, as confirmed by using statistical hypotheses.

Keywords: Class, cohorts, data frames, grouping, prediction, probabilities, services.

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Authors: Elizabeth J. Currie, Fernando Ortega Perez

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—‘MEDICINE’ is a new project funded under the EC Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions, to determine concepts of health and healing from a culturally specific indigenous context, using a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The study will generate new theoretical and methodological approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. In the immediate wake of the conquest of Peru by invading Spanish armies and ideology, native Andeans responded by forming the Taki Onkoy millenarian movement, which rejected European philosophical and ontological teachings, claiming “you make us sick”. The study explores how people’s experience of their world and their health beliefs within it, is fundamentally shaped by their inherent beliefs about the nature of being and identity in relation to the wider cosmos. Cultural and health belief systems and related rituals or behaviors sustain a people’s sense of identity, wellbeing and integrity. In the event of dislocation and persecution these may change into devolved forms, which eventually inter-relate with ‘modern’ biomedical systems of health in as yet unidentified ways. The development of new conceptual frameworks that model this process will greatly expand our understanding of how people survive and adapt in response to cultural trauma. It will also demonstrate the continuing role, relevance and use of TM in present-day indigenous communities. Studies will first be made of relevant pre-Colombian material culture, and then of early colonial period ethnohistorical texts which document the health beliefs and ritual practices still employed by indigenous Andean societies at the advent of the 17^th century Jesuit campaigns of persecution - ‘Extirpación de las Idolatrías’. Core beliefs drawn from these baseline studies will then be used to construct a questionnaire about current health beliefs and practices to be taken into the study population of indigenous Quechua peoples in the northern Andean region of Ecuador. Their current systems of knowledge and medicine have evolved within complex historical contexts of both the conquest by invading Inca armies in the late 15^th century, followed a generation later by Spain, into new forms. A new model will be developed of contemporary  Andean concepts of health, illness and healing demonstrating  the way these have changed through time. With this, a ‘policy tool’ will be constructed as a bridhging facility into contemporary global scenarios relevant to other Indigenous, First Nations, and migrant peoples to provide a means through which their traditional health beliefs and current needs may be more appropriately understood and met. This paper presents findings from the first analytical phases of the work based upon the study of the literature and the archaeological records. The study offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s health needs.

Keywords: Andean ethnomedicine, andean health beliefs, health beliefs models, traditional medicine.

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Authors: Ting-Ting Hsieh, Che-Ming Chiang, Ming-Chin Ho, Kwang-Pang Lai

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The globe Sustainability has become the subject of international attention, the key reason is that global climate change. Climate and disasters around the abnormal frequency multiplier, the global temperature of the catastrophe and disaster continue to occur throughout the world, as well as countries around the world. Currently there are many important international conferences and policy, it is a "global environmental sustainability " and "living human health " as the goal of development, including the APEC 2007 meeting to "climate Clean Energy" as the theme Sydney Declaration, 2008 World Economic Forum's "Carbon - promote Cool Earth energy efficiency improvement project", the EU proposed "Green Idea" program, the Japanese annual policy, "low-carbon society, sustainable eco-city environment (Eco City) "And from 2009 to 2010 to promote the "Eco-Point" to promote green energy and carbon reduction products .And the 2010 World Climate Change Conference (COP16 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen), the world has been the subject of Negative conservative "Environmental Protection ", "save energy consumption, " into a positive response to the "Sustainable " and" LOHAS", while Taiwan has actively put forward eco-cities, green building, green building materials and other related environmental response Measures, especially green building construction environment that is the basis of factors, the most widely used application level, and direct contact with human health and the key to sustainable planet. "Sustainable development "is a necessary condition for continuation of the Earth, "healthy and comfortable" is a necessary condition for the continuation of life, and improve the "quality" is a necessary condition for economic development, balance between the three is "to enhance the efficiency of ", According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for the "environmental efficiency "(Eco-Efficiency) proposed: " the achievement of environmental efficiency, the price to be competitive in the provision of goods or services to meet people's needs, improve living Quality at the same time, the goods or services throughout the life cycle. Its impact on the environment and natural resource utilization and gradually reduced to the extent the Earth can load. "whichever is the economy "Economic" and " Ecologic". The research into the methodology to obtain the Taiwan Green Building Material Labeling product as the scope of the study, by investigating and weight analysis to explore green building environmental load (Ln) factor and the Green Building Quality (Qn) factor to Establish green building environmental efficiency assessment model (GBM Eco-Efficiency). And building materials for healthy green label products for priority assessment object, the object is set in the material evidence for the direct response to the environmental load from the floor class-based, explicit feedback correction to the Green Building environmental efficiency assessment model, "efficiency " as a starting point to achieve balance between human "health "and Earth "sustainable development of win-win strategy. The study is expected to reach 1.To establish green building materials and the quality of environmental impact assessment system, 2. To establish value of GBM Eco-Efficiency model, 3. To establish the GBM Eco-Efficiency model for application of green building material feedback mechanisms.

Keywords: Climate Change, Green Building Material (GBM), Eco-Efficiency, Life Cycle Assessment, Performance Evaluation

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