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Influence of partnering on stakeholder’s behaviour in construction mega-projects
No full textConstruction mega-projects are typically associated with cost overruns and time delays due to conflicts of interest between diverse stakeholders. This research investigates the influence of the partnering approach and the adoption of Design and Build (D&B), also known as Design-Build (DB), contracts on the behavior of stakeholders on mega-projects in Qatar. Through a case study, the significant factors that influence stakeholder management are appraised, such as cooperation, developing trust and lack of communication. The research concluded that mutual trust, transparency, leadership, a well-defined scope of work, clear definition of responsibilities, collaboration, and training are the main success factors of partnering projects. The research also concluded that the State of Qatar is a leader in the implementation of partnering approaches and the adoption of D&B contracts, with a proven record of successful delivery using this procurement method. ‘Trust’ and ‘collaboration’ among stakeholders have been found to be the critical success factors of partnering projects in Qatar
Remarkable lives: Charlotte Wall in conversation with Jerome Carson
No full textPurpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of Charlotte Wall. Design/methodology/approach In this case study, Charlotte provides a short account of her background and is then interviewed by Jerome. Findings Charlotte took comfort in being given a diagnosis of bipolar; it helped explain a lot of her problems. Research limitations/implications It is easier to identify with a single case study and person's story than anonymised group research data. Each have their place in helping us understand mental health problems. Practical implications Transitions are not always bad. Charlotte talks about how her life changed for the better when she went to sixth form college. The onward transition to university has also been a positive experience for her. This needs to be remembered. Social implications As everyone is currently living through the Covid-19 pandemic, Charlotte's perspective on the importance of social support for mental well-being is critical. Thankfully, she has loving parents and a partner. There are others less fortunate. Originality/value Charlotte shows us how she embraced her diagnosis of bipolar and her "weirdness"
Impact of public procurement reform on public health service delivery case of Malawi
No full textProcurement of Medical Supplies in public hospitals has for many years faced a myriad of challenges and constrictions that in many cases are detrimental to public health services delivery.Disintegrated supply chain management is among the challenges in the public health sector. In 2019 Malawi registered 48% overall availability of medicine in public hospitals. On the other hand an average of 52% stock out of medicines was on the higher side therefore this thesis intended to investigate the possible causes with a focus on role of reformed Public Procurement as policy intervention on how effective it has been in improving drug availability Public Health Services in Malawi. For 39 years since independence Malawi had no public procurement legal framework in place to regulate public sector procurement systems. Following the public outcry against poor public services delivery that was believed to have been caused by glaring procurement system inefficiencies and procurement related corruption, the Government responded with a reform in Public Procurement as a policy intervention. The Public Procurement legal framework was in place by 2003. The government intended to improve supply chain management by regulating its functions, which seem to still be relevant factor for improved public service delivery to date. The Malawi National Health Policy (2018) and the Health Sector Strategy Plan II, 2017 – 2022, (HSSP II), continue to seek improvement of supply chain if health service delivery is to improve.This thesis therefore assessed the impact of “Public Procurement Reform on Public Health Service Delivery.” The assessment focused on critical broad objectives of the reform, which is efficiency and economy. The reform has posted significant positive strides towards public procurement transparency and accountability in public health service. However, following detailed data collection and analysis, the research has exposed deficiencies on procurement economy and efficiency. Deficient areas being lack of procurement professional capacity, noncompliance with key provisions of the law and absence of store management framework in the reform. These dimensions have related impact on availability of medicines in public health services.These findings directly hinge on policy implication, knowledge contribution to procurement as a field of study and practice and set a parameter for future research studies
So you want to be a qualified nursing associate?
No full textThis is the submitted version of the article by Maggie Ward, Trainee Nursing Associate - Manchester Royal Infirmary, for the Professional - Life trajectory section of British Journal of Healthcare Assistants,© 2020 MA Healthcare Ltd. The final expanded article can be found at the link above
James Kay of Turton Tower: Inventor and Flax Spinner (1774-1857)
No full textThis is the story of James Kay's invention of a novel wet spinning system for flax in 1825, which was taken up by Irish spinners and enabled the Irish linen Industry to become of global importance in the late19th and early 20th centuries. In England, his patent was invalidated by John Marshall of Leeds following a series of lawsuits during the 1835-41 period. In so doing, Marshall, one of the richest and most powerful "textile barons" of his time, destroyed Kay's reputation in England to the effect that his name has all but disappeared from the list of 19th century textile industrial entrepreneurs. James Kay did, however, become sufficiently wealthy from his invention to enable him to buy and refurbish Turton Tower to the state that may be seen to this day, but his industrial contribution and story has never been told. His invention, which enabled very fine linen yarns to be produced by steam driven machinery, may be compared to Samuel Crompton's more well-known and famous cotton spinning mule, which was invented over 40 years earlier in the late 1770s. Just as the mule drove the early 19th century Industrial Revolution so Kay's wet spinning invention provided the impetus for the growth of the Irish linen industry in the second half of the 19th century. His wet spinning process is still the basis of modern spinning of fine linen yarns, although this industry is now concentrated in Russia and China
Super-resolution of real-world rock microcomputed tomography images using cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks
No full textDigital rock imaging plays an important role in studying the microstructure and macroscopic properties of rocks, where microcomputed tomography (MCT) is widely used. Due to the inherent limitations of MCT, a balance should be made between the field of view (FOV) and resolution of rock MCT images—a large FOV at low resolution (LR) or a small FOV at high resolution (HR). However, large FOV and HR are both expected for reliable analysis results in practice. Super-resolution (SR) is an effective solution to break through the mutual restriction between the FOV and resolution of rock MCT images, for it can reconstruct an HR image from a LR observation. Most of the existing SR methods cannot produce satisfactory HR results on real-world rock MCT images. One of the main reasons for this is that paired images are usually needed to learn the relationship between LR and HR rock images. However, it is challenging to collect such a dataset in a real scenario. Meanwhile, the simulated datasets may be unable to accurately reflect the model in actual applications. To address these problems, we propose a cycle-consistent generative adversarial network (CycleGAN)-based SR approach for real-world rock MCT images, namely, SRCycleGAN. In the off-line training phase, a set of unpaired rock MCT images is used to train the proposed SRCycleGAN, which can model the mapping between rock MCT images at different resolutions. In the on-line testing phase, the resolution of the LR input is enhanced via the learned mapping by SRCycleGAN. Experimental results show that the proposed SRCycleGAN can greatly improve the quality of simulated and real-world rock MCT images. The HR images reconstructed by SRCycleGAN show good agreement with the targets in terms of both the visual quality and the statistical parameters, including the porosity, the local porosity distribution, the two-point correlation function, the lineal-path function, the two-point cluster function, the chord-length distribution function, and the pore size distribution. Large FOV and HR rock MCT images can be obtained with the help of SRCycleGAN. Hence, this work makes it possible to generate HR rock MCT images that exceed the limitations of imaging systems on FOV and resolution
Sleep and the athlete: narrative review and 2021 expert consensus recommendations
No full textElite athletes are particularly susceptible to sleep inadequacies, characterised by habitual short sleep (<7 hours/night) and poor sleep quality (eg, sleep fragmentation). Athletic performance is reduced by a night or more without sleep, but the influence on performance of partial sleep restriction over 1–3 nights, a more real-world scenario, remains unclear. Studies investigating sleep in athletes often suffer from inadequate experimental control, a lack of females and questions concerning the validity of the chosen sleep assessment tools. Research only scratches the surface on how sleep influences athlete health. Studies in the wider population show that habitually sleeping <7 hours/night increases susceptibility to respiratory infection. Fortunately, much is known about the salient risk factors for sleep inadequacy in athletes, enabling targeted interventions. For example, athlete sleep is influenced by sport-specific factors (relating to training, travel and competition) and non-sport factors (eg, female gender, stress and anxiety). This expert consensus culminates with a sleep toolbox for practitioners (eg, covering sleep education and screening) to mitigate these risk factors and optimise athlete sleep. A one-size-fits-all approach to athlete sleep recommendations (eg, 7–9 hours/night) is unlikely ideal for health and performance. We recommend an individualised approach that should consider the athlete’s perceived sleep needs. Research is needed into the benefits of napping and sleep extension (eg, banking sleep)
Sustainable demand chain toward prosperity of NPD projects: a systematic review
No full textManufacturing organisations are currently experiencing a tight competition with their global rivals through new product offerings. With the viewpoint of rapid developing sustainable practices, this research pursues to investigate the impact of sustainable practices within demand driven distribution networks towards effective planning for product development purposes. Utilising the systematic review method of literature, different angles of this emerging perspective will be clarified. In the first step, we identify new product development (NPD) approaches as well as identification of traditional supply chain and demand chain approaches followed by scrutinising current world literature and a critical review as inputs of research findings. The systematic literature is guided by five key steps recommended by previous studies. A systematic literature review is conducted comprising of 75 scientific journal and conference papers from the year 2000 to 2020 towards analysis and discussions. The proposed conceptual framework provides with six propositions to be further measured, tested and validated. This research highlights the need for both academia and industries to combine the demand chain rising theories with sustainable supply chain to act as inputs towards increasing the success rate of NPD projects
Winter is coming: Age and early psychological concomitants of the Covid-19 pandemic in England.
No full textTo demonstrate early psychological concomitants of the Covid-19 pandemic in England on a sample of younger and older people.A cross sectional quantitative questionnaire (n = 1608), was conducted on the Prolific website. Participants completed the PERMA Scale (Flourishing), the four Office of National Statistics (ONS4) Wellbeing Questions, the Clinical Outcomes Measure in Routine Evaluation (CORE-10) and the short University of California Los Angeles Brief Loneliness Scale.Data were gathered on March 18th, 2020, near the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study looks at the effects of the developing pandemic on younger participants (age 18 to 25, n = 391) and older participants (aged 60 to 80, n = 104). Flourishing levels for older participants were significantly higher (M=107.96), than for younger participants (M=97.80). Younger participants scored significantly higher on the ONS4 for anxiety and lower than the older participants for happiness, life satisfaction and having a worthwhile life. Levels of psychological distress (CORE-10) were also significantly lower for older participants (M=9.06) than for younger participants (M=14.61). Finally, younger participants scored significantly higher on the Brief UCLA Loneliness Scale (M= 6.05), than older participants (M=4.64).From these findings, the Covid-19 pandemic was having a significantly greater effect on younger people in England, less than one week before the UK went into “lockdown.” Scores for both the Younger and Older groups on all the study measures were worse than normative comparisons. The study had no specific measure of Covid-19 anxiety, but nor was one available at the time of the survey.This study suggests that younger people (18 to 25) may be a more vulnerable group during the Covid-19 pandemic than many may have realised.As a recent British Psychological Society report concluded, there is a lot of untapped wisdom amongst older groups in our society.This is one of the earliest studies to look at psychological distress before England went into "lockdown.