69 research outputs found
Correction: Dealing with the heterogeneous presentations of freezing of gait: how reliable are the freezing index and heart rate for freezing detection?
No full textFollowing publication of the original article [1], the middle name of the author Bastiaan R. Bloem has been updated in the author group. The original article has been corrected.</p
DIE AARD EN ROL VAN DIE MAATSKAPLIKE WERKER SE PERSOONLIKHEID ASOOK DIE EKSTERNE OMGEWING IN DIE SUKSESVOLLE BESTUUR VAN ’N PRIVAATPRAKTYK
No full textBinne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks het die toetrede van maatskaplike werkers tot privaatpraktyk die afgelope dekade toegeneem. Tans bestaan daar geen betroubare statistiek om te bepaal hoeveel maatskaplike werkers wel binne privaatpraktyk funksioneer nie, maar vanuit die databank van die Suid-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir maatskaplike werkers in Privaatpraktyk blyk dit dat tot 10% van geregistreerde maatskaplike werkers in privaatpraktyk werksaam is (SAASWIPP, CDROM, 2003)
Contents of a transformative developmental social work curriculum.
No full textJournal Article. Community Psychosocial Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, PotchefstroomSouth Africa is recognized as the most unequal society in the world. In the National Development Plan 2030 in 2012 the South African government has called on social workers to participate in transformation by addressing inequality. A pursuit of social justice highlights the need for a social work curriculum that is transformative in nature and cultivates an anti-colonial Global South approach. Transformative developmental social work based on social development theory is a modality of choice when it comes to practicing social work in Global South countries. It empowers social workers to contribute to social justice in societies that are plagued by inequality. Although South Africa has incorporated developmental social work into its social welfare policies, a knowledge gap still exists that hampers social workers in bridging the gap between theoretical training and practicing in Global South countries. It is, therefore, necessary for South Africa to develop social development training, and practice which answers to its own socio-political, cultural, and economic environment. To reach this objective, a curriculum is crucial in which social justice, human rights, and equality are pursued. The aim of the study was to develop a curriculum for undergraduate social work training in transformative developmental social work to enable social workers to contribute to social justice. A multi-method and multi-phased study approach were used for the purpose of curriculum and programme development. In phase one, a scoping review was done about current social development teaching in the Global South. During phase two, a quantitative cross-sectional study with newly graduated social workers was done. They completed the Social Justice Scales of Torres-Harding et al. Phase three was a qualitative descriptive study with young South Africans that were used to describe their experience of social justice in South Africa. These phases were used to gather information to guide the process of curriculum development. Curriculum contents were then verified using the Delphi Technique by social work teaching experts. The research study produced a curriculum for transformative developmental social work training for undergraduate social work students
EXPLORING THE ROLE OF JOB RESOURCES IN THE WELL-BEING OF WOMEN ACADEMICS IN THE WORKPLACE
No full textDespite several changes in the workplace, women still face unique challenges with harmful effects on their well-being. Job resources are a crucial buffer between job demands and workplace well-being. The aim of this article is to present the findings of a qualitative study on women academics’ experiences of workplace well-being in relation to job resources. An exploratory and descriptive research design was used to investigate in what ways job resources contribute to women academics’ perceptions of workplace well-being. Purposive sampling was conducted at a top-rated university in South Africa. Data were gathered through twelve semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that women academics value a variety of job resources associated with psychological, social, physical, and organisational resources. The study also revealed the inherent job resources creating strains on women’s well-being in the workplace. It is recommended that higher education institutions focus on workplace well-being from a practice, organisational, and policy perspective
Verslag behorende bij het processchema: Vinylacetaat uit azijnzuur en acetyleen
No full textDocument(en) uit de collectie Chemische ProcestechnologieDelftChemTechApplied Science
Refined Risk Management in Safe Reinforcement Learning with a Distributional Safety Critic
No full textSafety is critical to broadening the real-world use of reinforcement learning (RL). Modeling the safety aspects using a safety-cost signal separate from the reward is becoming standard practice, since it avoids the problem of finding a good balance between safety and performance. However, the total safety-cost distribution of different trajectories is still largely unexplored. In this paper, we propose an actor critic method for safe RL that uses an implicit quantile network to approximate the distribution of accumulated safety-costs. Using an accurate estimate of the distribution of accumulated safetycosts, in particular of the upper tail of the distribution, greatly improves the performance of riskaverse RL agents. The empirical analysis shows that our method achieves good risk control in complex safety-constrained environments.AlgorithmicsIntelligent Electrical Power Grid
A Geotechnical Working Plan for a Thorough but Quick Assessment of Existing Slopes in Clay Mines
No full textIn the Westerwald area clay quarries are in production. In order to assess the stability of the slopes the geotechnical characterisation of these quarries needs to be improved. This report provides the justification for a working plan for a thorough but quick assessment of existing slopes in clay mines. Literature is consulted for the information for the types of measuring and monitoring equipment for slopes, what instabilities look like in the field, how the safety factor are calculated, what information can be gathered outside the mine and what a field investigation should concern. To come to a working plan a field investigation was conducted to try out the different measurement equipment. For field testing, the needle penetrometer and hand vane shear came out as useful tools for correlating undrained shear strengths parameters of different layers. For thorough correlations, between layers and a dataset of geotechnical parameters, Atterberg limits are used to minimise the number of geotechnical parameters that have to be tested. The parameters are tested with different machines based on the timespan over which the slope has to be stable. Short-term slopes with insitu conditions are best tested with triaxial tests, but UCS and a theoretical strong shear box can provide useful data as well. Long-term slopes are better tested with either a shear box or ring shear because remoulded or weathered properties are needed. Monitoring is found to be done best by using InSAR monitoring provided a suggestion is added to increase the number of data points inside the mine. The working plan is presented as a flowchart for a good overview
Sustainable endoscopy: Redesigning the polyp trap
No full textThis project aims to reduce the environmental impact of an endoscopic product, the Polyp trap. The polyp trap is a single use device, that is used during endoscopy to catch removed polyps. Endoscopy is a department that has a relatively high reliance on single-use devices. This is one of the reasons why endoscopy has a high carbon footprint. Through observations in hospitals, literature and product research, the context of endoscopy, the polyp trap and other single-use devices are analysed. Additionally, circular frameworks and strategies specific to the medical context were explored, to identify circular opportunities for the polyp trap. A fast-track LCA of the current polyp trap is used to estimate its current environmental impact and analyse how interventions in design, function or material could influence its carbon footprint. The insights from this research are used to generate ideas aimed at decreasing the polyp traps environmental impact. The resulting idea directions are presented to various healthcare professionals, such as nurses and infection prevention specialists during interviews. During these interviews, opportunities and risks for the redesign are discussed. Insights from the interviews are used to further develop the idea direction into the final design.The final design consists of two concepts: The first concept is more conceptual, and reduces its impact by using some components for a longer amount of time; one day rather than per patient. The second concept is more traditional, and decreases its CF through minimising the required amount of material, leading to a smaller design that uses lower-impact materials. The environmental footprint of the final concepts is evaluated with a fast-track LCA.Integrated Product Desig
Implementation of the Ring of Fire system for on-site car aerodynamics
No full textAerodynamic research in the automotive industry is an essential part of the reduction in resistance during driving, as it leads to an increased fuel efficiency and higher top speed. State-of-the-art aerodynamic research is conducted in wind tunnels, through numerical simulations (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and on-site coast down techniques. In recent year, a novel quantitative flow measurement technique for full-scale, on-site transiting objects has emerged: the Ring of Fire. This system is a non-intrusive, large-scale, stereoscopic particle image velocimetry measurement technique, which provides insight in the on-site flow topology around transiting objects and simultaneously determine their drag. In this project, the Ring of Fire measurement system is implemented for the automotive industry in collaboration with Volkswagen. The Volkswagen Tiguan and Up are tested, where for the Tiguan a configuration with the radiator front open and with the radiator front closed are tested at a speed of 120 km/h. The objective of this research is to assess the applicability and feasibility of the Ring of Fire system for full-scale cars, comparing the flow visualisation in the wake of a car between different models and configurations, and additionally determining the drag and its uncertainty through the control volume approach. A 3x3 meter field of view is used to obtained flow fields up to 5 meters in the wake. Up to 1 meter in the near wake the flow shows a clear upwash due to a vortex pair for both cars. After 1 meter, the wake of the Up transitions into a downwash, lowering the overall wake contour and causing a lateral expansion. In contrast, the wake of the Tiguan shows four vortices, of which the upper pair consists of two strong vortices maintaining upwash up to the far wake. A 'mushroom' kind of shape is the consequence, which is in accordance with the typical wake structures found in literature for estate cars. The Up however, shows a wake structure comparable to a notchback type car. The control volume approach shows that the drag up to 2 meter is highly underestimated, which can be attributed to the incorrect reconstruction of the near wake pressure using the 2D Poisson equation. After 3 meter, the wake starts to diffuse in small scale structures which cannot be resolved by the window sizes. Therefore, the drag followed from the measurements between 2 and 3 meter, resulting in a mean value comparable to those found in wind tunnel tests and with an uncertainty of the mean at a 95\% confidence level below 3\%. The Ring of Fire system setup in this project is capable of showing the differences between the Up and Tiguan, in terms of flow topology as well as drag values. However, a statistical distinction between the two Tiguan configurations was not established, likely due to the limited number of runs that were of sufficient quality for the Tiguan open configuration. Nonetheless, this first research towards the implementation of the Ring of Fire system for the automotive industry showed that its a promising technique, capable of defining on-site aerodynamic characteristics of cars and potentially serve as a validation tool for numerical simulations. Moreover, future research could investigate its applicability to accelerating, drafting or cornering cars, which cannot be investigated using the state-of-the-art techniques.Aerospace Engineering | Aerodynamic
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