1,720,954 research outputs found
Use of scientific ergonomic programs to improve organisational performance
No full textSubmitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Engineering degree, Durban University of Technology, 2021.The packaging industry is characterised by ineffective ergonomic programs that are
inadequately implemented thereby failing to yield benefits for the organisations. The
study aims to determine an effective scientific ergonomic program that focuses on
improving the organisation's overall performance by aligning these programs with the
organisation's business strategy. A quantitative research methodology with a
questionnaire as the research instrument was adopted for this study. A quantitative
analysis was conducted at two sites of a liquid packaging company in South Africa
using a sample of 70 participants from the production and engineering departments.
The data collected in this study were analysed with descriptive statistics.
The findings on the anthropometric and physiological factors revealed that the
employees at the packaging sites were generally satisfied with the workstation design.
However, it was found that several factors hindered the effective implementation of
ergonomics in the packaging industry, and these include awareness in the subject of
ergonomics, job task design, human-computer interaction, disconnection between
employees and organisational strategies and poor implementation of anthropometric
and physiological factors. The findings on the factors related to illumination also
revealed that the light reflections, shadows, or flicker from the fluorescent tubes could
be prevented. Additionally, a high percentage of the respondents also disapproved of
the current lighting conditions that need to be addressed to prevent any risk of injury
or poor performance related to lighting and illumination. The findings also
demonstrated that there was a need for an improvement plan concerning noise and
vibration at the packaging sites.
It was also found that there is a huge gap in knowledge about the basic principles and
fundamentals of ergonomics. While most workers understood their job expectations
none of them understood how factors such as safety procedures, operational
performance, and employee best practices fitted into the bigger picture of the
organisation. An effective ergonomic program that incorporated systems engineering
risk assessment methodology, was developed, embracing a probability of occurrence
matrix, ratings of criticality and rating of consequences. It was recommended that the
organisation should train employees on ergonomics best practices to create an effective program that will address operational gaps and enhance the organisation's overall performance.
An effective ergonomic programme to improve performance in the packaging industry
No full textThe packaging industry in South Africa is devoid of effective ergonomic programmes due to poor implementation thereby leading to failure to yield realisable benefits for the implementing firms. The study aims to develop an effective SEP that focuses on improving the firm's overall performance through synchronisation of the ergonomic programmes with the firm's business strategy. A quantitative research methodology with a questionnaire as the research instrument was adopted for this study. A quantitative research methodology was adopted to elicit information from the employees at a liquid packaging company in South Africa. A sample of 70 employees from engineering and production departments was used. The research findings demonstrated that several factors hindered the effective implementation of ergonomics in the packaging industry, and these include awareness in the subject of ergonomics, job task design, human-computer interaction, disconnection between organisational strategies and employees, as well as poor implementation of physiological and anthropometric factors. An effective ergonomic programme that incorporated systems engineering risk assessment methodology, was developed, embracing a probability of occurrence matrix, ratings of criticality and rating of consequences. It was recommended that the organisation should train the employees on ergonomics best practices to create an effective programme that will eliminate operational gaps and lead to enhanced organisational performance
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
