Quality management in the public building construction process

The poor quality of public buildings in the Botswana construction industry has been surrounded by controversy and strongly held opinions. The work reported here attempts to indicate some salient issues affecting the quality management system, with particular reference to the construction phase. Three propositions are addressed by the work. First that quality problems related to public building processes in Botswana are primarily due to an inappropriate project organizational structure. Secondly, that the traditional building procurement system provides a poor quality management system. The third proposition is that the traditional building procurement system does not facilitate derived quality levels as defined by the contract drawings and specifications. Five objectives of this study are identified and various issues which are fundamental to the research are reviewed. The first is the way in which the Botswana public building sector is organized, focussing on the building construction process. The second is the review of quality management theories both in the manufacturing and construction industries. The third is the relationship between the project management structure and project quality management, and the quality of building. The fourth is the proposal of a conceptual framework of an appropriate quality management system. Finally, recommendations about how to deal with organization of public building projects in order to select appropriate quality management systems are given. Information is obtained on the research areas through the use of the following methods: 1. Consultations with quality management practitioners and review of the Quality Management literature. 2. Questionnaires to architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, construction firm executives, contracts managers, site managers, trade foremen and skilled tradespersons, on quality management problems and procurement systems. 3. Case studies investigating approaches to site quality management in general and the adequacy of quality management documents. 4. Semi structured interviews investigating public building clients views on the quality management system and project procurement systems. The data collected are analysed using triangulation (qualitative and quantitative methodologies) methodology and the main results are reported below. The primary conclusion to be drawn is that the quality management system purported to be in use in the Botswana public building sector differs significantly from that recommended in the theory, resulting in poor quality buildings. This is primarily due to the use of an inappropriate building procurement system. In general the traditional building procurement system in the Botswana public building sector is used as a 'default system'. There are indications to suggest that it is used merely because the clients and consultants have failed to consider the issue of appropriateness. An appropriate quality management model for the construction phase is proposed with a proviso that the Botswana public building sector should establish appropriate methods of selecting appropriate procurement systems as a prerequisite in formulating appropriate quality management systems for various projects

Do local financial and legal systems affect SMEs capital structure?

This note investigates the role of institutional differences at the local level as determinants of firms' capital structure. Specifically, its aim is to empirically assess whether and to what extent SMEs' financial decisions are affected by local financial development – evaluating this influence both ceteris paribus, and by allowing it to be conditional on different levels of legal enforcement inefficiency. Controlling for debt inertia, firms' heterogeneity and endogeneity problems, we find that local financial development may be an important determinant of SMEs' capital structure, and that firms appear to have better access to financial debt in areas characterized by a higher quality of the legal system. Thus, despite the international process of capital markets integration, local financial institutions do not seem to become irrelevant for SMEs, which are in need of well developed institutions at local level to gain easier access to external financial resources.firms' capital structure; bank debt; local financial development; local enforcement system, SMEs.

On-Farm Environmental Assessment of Very Small to Small-Sized Strawberry Farms in the Southeastern United States

Strawberries are the fifth most demanded fruit in the United States, with most eaten raw. Fresh strawberries are prone to on-farm contamination as evident by the number of foodborne disease outbreaks attributed to their consumption. Between 1997 and 2017, 32 strawberry-related outbreaks were reported, sickening 933 U.S. Americans. Proper implementation of risk management practices (RMP) can decrease strawberry exposure to foodborne pathogens. Most U.S. strawberry farms consist of very small-size operations, presenting unique challenges for implementing RMP. On-farm environmental assessments on small strawberry farms can be used to identify factors associated with RMP implementation. Two objectives guided this research: (1) determine the relationship between environmental characteristics (i.e., physical attributes) of produce farms and RMP and (2) determine the physical attributes of very small to small-sized strawberry farms (two acres or less) in the southeastern United States (SEUS) for implementation of RMP. A systematic literature review was first conducted to determine the relationship between the physical attributes of produce farms and implementation of RMP. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses principles to conduct our search. A total of 36 studies were included in our final analysis. Our quality assessment results showed that studies on this topic needed to be more rigorously designed and executed (e.g., powering sample sizes and training data collectors) to yield better quality evidence. Agricultural waters were the most common physical attribute assessed, with many farms reporting the use of unsafe water sources. Hygiene aids, such as accessible handwashing facilities, were also reported to be lacking across many farms. Animal intrusion measures were the least commonly assessed physical attribute. Only one study tested the relationship between on-farm physical attributes and implementation of RMP, reporting a positive relationship between accessible handwashing and worker hygiene practices. Additionally, an on-farm environmental assessment of strawberry farms, 2 acres or less, in the SEUS was conducted to collect data about farm physical attributes to implement RMP related to -- worker health and hygiene, agricultural water, animal control, biological soil amendments, harvesting and packing, storage and transportation, miscellaneous, and post-harvest handling and sanitation. Farms were assessed using a checklist and by creating a map of each farm layout. Descriptive statistics were performed to determine frequency of physical attributes. Compliance scores of physical attributes were calculated using a scoring system for each RMP. The analysis included 20 farms in 10 SEUS states. The common characteristics of these strawberry farms were the use of the plasticulture method, the use of the U-pick method, the use of mixed cropping system, and the use of seasonal and H-2A workers. The most common physical attributes were drip system for irrigation (n=20), adequate bathrooms and handwashing stations (n=19), and animal control prevention measures (n=18). Nearly all (n=19) did not have a body fluid spill kit. Also, over half (n=11) did not have a safe irrigation water source. The compliance score analysis results showed that more farms had physical attributes related to control of animal (90%, 18), but more attention should be paid for the food safety signage (55%, 11) on farms

Teaching quality management of physical education specialty in China and Ukraine

The integration of quality management in physical education has changed the traditional approach to teaching. The information overload and an enormous amount of irrelevant data available to qualified specialists may lead to professional stress. Quality management offers educators tips on how to avoid information overload while still staying updated with the necessary information, knowledge and skills. The research aimed to examine the main characteristics of quality management in teaching. The sample consisted of 296 students: 73% - male subjects, 27% - females subjects. The average age is 19.37±0.31. The research analyzed the factors affecting the quality of education using the quality competency and student satisfaction questionnaire. The findings revealed that Chinese students were satisfied with the physical and environmental conditions (8.1±0.23 points) and it was 22% higher than the results of Ukrainian students. The education programs, technological opportunities and student scientific work have the greatest influence on the quality of education in China (8.38±0.32). The least influence has the adequacy of management and staff (7.21±0.27). Career support, tours and practices related to physical education have the greatest influence on the education quality in Ukraine (8.43±0.32). The parameters identified by the research can be integrated into the system of higher physical education to improve the quality and academic achievements

Experience of Health Leadership in Partnering With University-Based Researchers in Canada – A Call to “Re-imagine” Research

Background: Emerging evidence that meaningful relationships with knowledge users are a key predictor of research use has led to promotion of partnership approaches to health research. However, little is known about health system experiences of collaborations with university-based researchers, particularly with research partnerships in the area of health system design and health service organization. The purpose of the study was to explore the experience and perspectives of senior health managers in health service organizations, with health organization-university research partnerships. Methods: In-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 25) were conducted with senior health personnel across Canada to explore their perspectives on health system research; experiences with health organization-university research partnerships; challenges to partnership research; and suggested actions for improving engagement with knowledge users and promoting research utilization. Participants, recruited from organizations with regional responsibilities, were responsible for system-wide planning and support functions. Results: Research is often experienced as unhelpful or irrelevant to decision-making by many within the system. Research, quality improvement (QI) and evaluation are often viewed as separate activities and coordinated by different responsibility areas. Perspectives of senior managers on barriers to partnership differed from those identified in the literature: organizational stress and restructuring, and limitations in readiness of researchers to work in the fast-paced healthcare environment, were identified as major barriers. Although the need for strong executive leadership was emphasized, “multi-system action” is needed for effective partnerships. Conclusion: Common approaches to research and knowledge translation are often not appropriate for addressing issues of health service design and health services organization. Nor is the research community providing expertise to many important activities that the healthcare system is taking to improve health services. A radical rethinking of how we prepare health service researchers; position research within the health system; and fund research activities and infrastructure is needed if the potential benefits of research are to be achieved. Lack of response to health system needs may contribute to research and ‘evidence-informed’ practice being further marginalized from healthcare operations. Interventions to address barriers must respond to the perspectives and experience of health leadership

The effect of incongruity on quality of health information systems : Bama, Nigeria PHC case study

Generally, organisations mobilise information from varying sources on which policies, plans, objectives and organisational management are predicated. indeed, everyone within organisation needs information to perform tasks, it is thus indispensable and its use so pervasive that a methodical approach for collection and processing is imperative. In health care organisations, involved with people and life, this is even of greater significance, in many instances allowable margin of error is narrow and can be devastating.Accurate and reliable information in clinical care for example cannot be compromised.On the other hand, adequate assessment of health services quality,effectiveness and efficiency depends on quality of information generated by the system, that is, accurate, relevant, timely, understandable and complete information. To achieve this, appropriate system design and operation is essential. Adoption of primary health care (PHC), in many developing countries in response to the Global 2000, necessitated establishment of chanisms for monitoring and evaluating effectiveness of services and programmes.Accordingly, in 1986 PHC was adopted in Nigeria, concomitantly, system monitoring and evaluation or the PHC Management Information System was effexted.The information system was envisaged to ameliorate the lack of reliable health information that has persisted since nception of modern health services in Nigeria. Findings in this and other studies indicate that existing health information systems have failed to provide accurate and reliable information, systems of data generation and processing are ineffective.The aim of this was to identify and understand factors that have contributed to the seemingly intractable and insalubrious information problem within the Nigerian health care system. It would be a herculean task for a lone researcher to undertake study of the entire health system, within resource and time limitations, data collection was therefore narrowed to the PHC level. Quality of the PHC management information system was assessed, with Bama Local Government as a case study. Focus was on understanding the information system's structure from a broad perspective to include, policies, objectives,established procedures; physical, material and human resources, in terms of their quality and quantity.Data collection was carried out using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The structure, process and outcome models provided a framework for in-depth data collection, through observation, interview, review of records and administration of questionnaire, as well as for organisation and analysis of research data. The PHC MIS was followed through, from the village, health facility, local government, state and national levels.Study results suggest general ineffectiveness due to pervasive incongruity in the information system. In the first instance design of the MIS did not reflect information needs of community health workers and the community in general,who to the most part limited appreciation of the MIS structure, objectives to be achieved. Local and regional information need was not delineated, data collected had little relevance to local information needs, resource for systems operation was abysmal, skilled personnel and training provided severely inadequate.Consequently, data collection and processing was hampered, information produced often inaccurate, untimely, immense, irrelevant and unreliable. Data collected were neither analysed nor utilised. The information system was short of being integrated since 60% of functional units within the PHC department as well as related health organisations in the community ran parallel information systems.Research data point to serious incongruity in the organisation and management of the information system. Incongruity that resulted from factors within the organisation as well derived from events within the wider social environment, which however culminated in an effective and dysfunctional information system.Chapters one to three of the thesis deal with conceptual issues related to management information systems, organisational design and quality respectively. In chapter four methodological issues surrounding data collection were discussed. Empirical data and analysis are presented are presented in chapters five to seven. In chapter eight, an attempt was made to develop a model of organisational incongruity, applied to explicate research findings.Chapter nine focuses on measures toward establishment of an effective PHC information system in Nigeria, contributions of this study and suggestions for future research

Quality of life of people with severe mental health problems:Testing an interactive model

Improvement of subjective quality of life (QoL) is seen as an important treatment outcome in clinical practice. The aim of this study is to test the theoretical model of Cummins, which includes a homeostatic management system. According to this model, objective variables are almost irrelevant to general well-being, while the feeling of having an influence on one’s circumstances (perceived deficit) is related to subjective QoL. The variables of the Cummins model were operationalised based on the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile, a structured interview to assess the subjective QoL of people with severe mental health problems. The Cummins model was tested using structural equation modelling and a mediator model between Objective QoL, Subjective QoL and Perceived Deficit. Subjective QoL and General Well-Being were significantly related and having a meaningful perspective in life was related to General Well-Being. Contrary to the Cummins model, both Objective QoL and Perceived Deficit had a significant relation to Subjective QoL and Perceived Deficit was a partial mediator between Objective QoL and Subjective QoL. Cummins’ theoretical model was partially confirmed. The current study suggests that meaningful (treatment) evaluation of subjective QoL can only be performed if objective QoL, General Well-Being and subjective evaluation (Perceived Deficit and Framework) are taken into account

Evaluating Web Search Result Summaries

The aim of our research is to produce and assess short summaries to aid users’ relevance judgements, for example for a search engine result page. In this paper we present our new metric for measuring summary quality based on representativeness and judgeability, and compare the summary quality of our system to that of Google. We discuss the basis for constructing our evaluation methodology in contrast to previous relevant open evaluations, arguing that the elements which make up an evaluation methodology: the tasks, data and metrics, are interdependent and the way in which they are combined is critical to the effectiveness of the methodology. The paper discusses the relationship between these three factors as implemented in our own work, as well as in SUMMAC/MUC/DUC

CAREER TRACK PREDICTION USING DEEP LEARNING MODEL BASED ON DISCRETE SERIES OF QUANTITATIVE CLASSIFICATION

In this paper, a career track recommender system was proposed using Deep Neural Network model. This study aims to assist guidance counselors in guiding their students in the selection of a suitable career track. It is because a lot of Junior High school students experienced track uncertainty and there are instances of shifting to another program after learning they are not suited for the chosen track or course in college. In dealing with the selection of the best student attributes that will help in the creation of the predictive model, the feature engineering technique is used to remove the irrelevant features that can affect the performance of the DNN model. The study covers 1500 students from the first to the third batch of the K-12 curriculum, and their grades from 11 subjects, sex, age, number of siblings, parent’s income, and academic strand were used as attributes to predict their academic strand in Senior High School. The efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm depend upon the correctness and quality of the collected student’s data. The result of the study shows that the DNN algorithm performs reasonably well in predicting the academic strand of students with a prediction accuracy of 83.11%. Also, the work of guidance counselors became more efficient in handling students’ concerns just by using the proposed system. It is concluded that the recommender system serves as a decision tool for counselors in guiding their students to determine which Senior High School track is suitable for students with the utilization of the DNN model

Image Compression Techniques: A Survey in Lossless and Lossy algorithms

The bandwidth of the communication networks has been increased continuously as results of technological advances. However, the introduction of new services and the expansion of the existing ones have resulted in even higher demand for the bandwidth. This explains the many efforts currently being invested in the area of data compression. The primary goal of these works is to develop techniques of coding information sources such as speech, image and video to reduce the number of bits required to represent a source without significantly degrading its quality. With the large increase in the generation of digital image data, there has been a correspondingly large increase in research activity in the field of image compression. The goal is to represent an image in the fewest number of bits without losing the essential information content within. Images carry three main type of information: redundant, irrelevant, and useful. Redundant information is the deterministic part of the information, which can be reproduced without loss from other information contained in the image. Irrelevant information is the part of information that has enormous details, which are beyond the limit of perceptual significance (i.e., psychovisual redundancy). Useful information, on the other hand, is the part of information, which is neither redundant nor irrelevant. Human usually observes decompressed images. Therefore, their fidelities are subject to the capabilities and limitations of the Human Visual System. This paper provides a survey on various image compression techniques, their limitations, compression rates and highlights current research in medical image compression