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The relations of job stress dimensions to safety climate and accidents occurrence among the workers
Get PDFYesBased on a literature review, likely, there is a relationship between job stress and safety climate, and in this way, the accident occurrence is affected. Therefore, the present study was aimed to investigate the relations of job stress dimensions to safety climate and accidents occurrence among the workers using regression models. This cross-sectional study was carried out on 1530 male employees in 2019. People were randomly selected from various departments. The participants filled out the questionnaires, including demographical information and accident history questionnaire, the NIOSH generic job stress questionnaire, and the Nordic safety climate questionnaire. In addition, information on occupational experience and accident history was obtained from the health unit of the petrochemical company. In the end, data were analyzed using statistical tests of bivariate correlation, multivariate correlation, and logistic regression. Based on the bivariate analysis, the variables of job satisfaction (0.998), problem at work (0.900), depression (-0.836), and physical environment (-0.796) among the job stress dimensions had the highest correlation coefficients with the total score of the safety climate, respectively. The results of the logistic regression analysis with the adjustment of the effect of the safety climate indicated that the relationships between the dimensions of the job satisfaction (Wald = 6.50, OR = 4.96, and p-value<0.05) and social supports (Wald = 5.88, OR = 3.20, and p-value<0.05) with the accident occurrence were significant. To increase the positive safety climate and decrease the accident occurrence, industries must try to reduce job stress in the workplaces through controlling the important factors, such as low job satisfaction and poor social supports.Tehran University of Medical Sciences (97-03-61-38355)
Internet of Things and Safety Assurance of Cooperative Cyber-Physical Systems: Opportunities and Challenges
Get PDFYesThe rise of artificial intelligence in parallel with the fusion of the physical and digital worlds is sustained by the development and progressive adoption of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and the Internet of Things (IoT). Cooperative and autonomous CPSs have been shown to have significant economic and societal potential in numerous domains, where human lives and the environment are at stake. To unlock the full potential of such systems, it is necessary to improve stakeholders' confidence in such systems, by providing safety assurances. Due to the open and adaptive nature of such systems, special attention was invested in the runtime assurance, based on the real-time monitoring of the system behaviour. IoT-enabled multi-agent systems have been widely used for different types of monitoring applications. In this paper, we discuss the opportunities for applying IoT-based solutions for the cooperative CPSs safety assurance through an illustrative example. Future research directions have been drawn based on the identification of the current challenges
Stochastic distribution tracking control for stochastic non-linear systems via probability density function vectorisation
Get PDFYesThis paper presents a new control strategy for stochastic distribution shape tracking regarding non-Gaussian stochastic non-linear systems. The objective can be summarised as adjusting the probability density function (PDF) of the system output to any given desired distribution. In order to achieve this objective, the system output PDF has first been formulated analytically, which is time-variant. Then, the PDF vectorisation has been implemented to simplify the model description. Using the vector-based representation, the system identification and control design have been performed to achieve the PDF tracking. In practice, the PDF evolution is difficult to implement in real-time, thus a data-driven extension has also been discussed in this paper, where the vector-based model can be obtained using kernel density estimation (KDE) with the real-time data. Furthermore, the stability of the presented control design has been analysed, which is validated by a numerical example. As an extension, the multi-output stochastic systems have also been discussed for joint PDF tracking using the proposed algorithm, and the perspectives of advanced controller have been discussed. The main contribution of this paper is to propose: (1) a new sampling-based PDF transformation to reduce the modelling complexity, (2) a data-driven approach for online implementation without model pre-training, and (3) a feasible framework to integrate the existing control methods.National Science Foundation of China under Grants (61603262 and 62073226), Liaoning Province Natural Science Joint Foundation in Key Areas (2019- KF-03-08), Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (20180550418), Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program, i5 Intelligent Manufacturing Institute Fund of Shenyang Institute of Technology (i5201701), Central Government Guides Local Science and Technology Development Funds of Liaoning Province (2021JH6/10500137)
Return on investment in social media marketing: bibliometric analysis
Get PDFYesReturn on investment (ROI) from social media marketing activities has attracted significant attention from academics and practitioners resulting in an increasing number of studies on this important topic. The current study conducted a bibliometric analysis to provide a consolidated view on the topic of ROI in social media marketing. By using 115 outputs from the Web of Science database and employing software CiteSpace the study presents and discusses the analysis of temporal distribution, cited countries, cited journals, cited authors, and research hotspots from 2009 till 2020. A holistic picture of this topic will help researchers to get an overview of this field and develop directions for future studies
Shear behaviour of reinforced construction and demolition waste-based geopolymer concrete beams
Get PDFYesGeopolymer concrete is a promising candidate to replace conventional concrete as geopolymer concrete depends on alkali-activated binders instead of Portland cement. The elimination of cement from the mixture results in the reduction of the greenhouse gas release. From the literature, it is known that the micro-scale characteristics of the geopolymer concrete are similar to its counterparts. However, the structural performance of geopolymer elements should be investigated in detail. Therefore, in this study, the structural performance of reinforced geopolymer concrete beams is compared by conducting bending tests to determine the shear behavior of new generation geopolymer concrete produced from entirely construction and demolition wastes (CDW). In these tests, geopolymer concrete with recycled aggregates, geopolymer concrete with natural aggregates, conventional concrete with recycled aggregates, and conventional concrete with natural aggregates are used in order to study the possibility of reaching fully-recycled construction materials. Three different shear-span-to-depth ratios (a/d) are utilized to investigate the different modes of failure. Therefore, the structural performance of beams was, firstly, compared for mixtures without recycled aggregates to control the possible side effects of 100% recycled concrete construction. Load-deflection curves, moment-curvature curves, and crack patterns were utilized to conclude the performance of geopolymer concrete. Test results revealed that geopolymer concrete beams exhibited similar performance to the conventional concrete beams of the same grade. However, the inclusion of recycled aggregates caused a shift in the failure mechanism from shear-dominated to flexure-dominated, especially in specimens with larger a/d ratios. Finally, the capacity prediction performance of current codes, i.e., TS500 and ACI318, are also examined, and the calculations resulted that the current code equations have a percentage error of approximately 55% on average, although TS500 equations performed slightly better.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Scientific and Technical Research Council (TUBITAK) of Turkey and the British Council provided under projects: 218M102 and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No: 869336, ICEBERG (Innovative Circular Economy Based solutions demonstrating the Efficient recovery of valuable material Resources from the Generation of representative End-of-Life building material)
Barriers and enablers to the uptake of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation. A qualitative study with patients and staff in three health economies
No full textImplementation and uptake of novel and cost-effective medicines can improve patient
health outcomes and healthcare efficiency. However, the relative uptake of new
medicines recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence often
lags behind other comparative countries’ health systems. One example is the uptake
of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, which
was slow and had a high level of unexplained variation across different health
economies in England. This research aimed to explore barriers and enablers to the
uptake of DOACs from the perspectives of patients, healthcare professionals, and key
stakeholders by conducting systematic and narrative reviews and semi-structured
interviews. Data collected from 21 patients, 23 healthcare professionals, and 23 key
stakeholders recruited from three different health economies was analysed using the
Framework method. The findings identified a range of intersecting factors acting as
barriers and/or enablers to the uptake DOACs. While there were a wide range of
experiences and views, an agreement between patients and healthcare
professionals/key stakeholders on several identified factors was observed. Attributes
of the innovation, characteristics of patients and prescribers, local health economy
readiness for change, implementation process, and external health system context
were suggested as influences. Mapping of the findings to the Diffusion of Innovations
in Service Organisations model identified 11 components for a future toolkit
development to facilitate uptake of nationally recommended new medicines. This
thesis highlighted the role of patients, consideration of all costs associated with new
medicines, and compatibility with the health economy’s care model impact on the
uptake
Probing the role of Val228 on the catalytic activity of Scytalidium catalase
No full textNoScytalidium catalase is a homotetramer including heme d in each subunit. Its primary function is the dismutation of H2O2 to water and oxygen, but it is also able to oxidase various small organic compounds including catechol and phenol. The crystal structure of Scytalidium catalase reveals the presence of three linked channels providing access to the exterior like other catalases reported so far. The function of these channels has been extensively studied, revealing the possible routes for substrate flow and product release. In this report, we have focussed on the semi-conserved residue Val228, located near to the vinyl groups of the heme at the opening of the lateral channel. Its replacement with Ala, Ser, Gly, Cys, Phe and Ile were tested. We observed a significant decrease in catalytic efficiency in all mutants with the exception of a remarkable increase in oxidase activity when Val228 was mutated to either Ala, Gly or Ser. The reduced catalytic efficiencies are characterized in terms of the restriction of hydrogen peroxide as electron acceptor in the active centre resulting from the opening of lateral channel inlet by introducing the smaller side chain residues. On the other hand, the increased oxidase activity is explained by allowing the suitable electron donor to approach more closely to the heme. The crystal structures of V228C and V228I were determined at 1.41 and 1.47 Å resolution, respectively. The lateral channels of the V228C and V228I presented a broadly identical chain of arranged waters to that observed for wild-type enzyme
Functional Modelling of Systems with Multiple Operation Modes: Case Study on an Active Spoiler System
Get PDFYesThis article presents the application of the Enhanced Sequence Diagram (ESD) for the analysis of the functionality of a system with shape-changing aspects in the context of its multiple operational
modes, considering an active rear spoiler as a case study. The article provides new insights on the ESD support for model-based capture and articulation of functional requirements across multiple operation modes of the same system, with appropriate detail on attributes and metrics, and the alignment of these attributes and metrics in line with the concept of time through scope lines. The article also provides a comprehensive argument and discussion, exemplified based on the case study, for the support that the ESD provides for early systems functional and architecture analysis, within the context of a broader model-based Failure Mode Analysis methodology
Construction of Ternary Phase Diagrams: Application of Quantitative NMR
Get PDFYesThe growth of cocrystalline phases continues to expand as a key area of crystal engineering research. Understanding the phase behavior of the material and controlling the crystalline form of the material from a solution-based route can be aided by the construction of a ternary phase diagram for the system. A range of methods exist for this process which display a variety of costs and time to achieve the final diagram. The application of quantitative NMR (qNMR) to this problem offers a fast analysis method to directly determine the solution composition of all species (coformers and solvent) and is demonstrated to successfully allow the construction of ternary diagrams with and without a cocrystal phase being formed for systems with high and low solubility
Diverse roles of microRNA-145 in regulating smooth muscle (dys)function in health and disease
No full textYesMicroRNAs are short, non-coding RNAs that target messenger RNAs for degradation. miR-145 is a vascular-enriched microRNA that is important for smooth muscle cell (SMC) differentiation. Under healthy circumstances, SMC exist in a contractile, differentiated phenotype promoted by miR-145. In cases of disease or injury, SMC can undergo reversible dedifferentiation into a synthetic phenotype, accompanied by inhibition of miR-145 expression. Vascular disorders such as atherosclerosis and neointimal hyperplasia are characterised by aberrant phenotypic switching in SMC. This review will summarise the physiological roles of miR-145 in vascular SMC, including the molecular regulation of differentiation, proliferation and migration. Furthermore, it will discuss the different ways in which miR-145 can be dysregulated and the downstream impact this has on the progression of vascular pathologies. Finally, it will discuss whether miR-145 may be suitable for use as a biomarker of vascular disease