Alcohol, assault and licensed premises in inner-city areas

This report contains eight linked feasibility studies conducted in Cairns during 2010. These exploratory studies examine the complex challenges of compiling and sharing information about incidents of person-to-person violence in a late night entertainment precinct (LNEP). The challenges were methodological as well as logistical and ethical. The studies look at how information can be usefully shared, while preserving the confidentiality of those involved. They also examine how information can be compiled from routinely collected sources with little or no additional resources, and then shared by the agencies that are providing and using the information.Although the studies are linked, they are also stand-alone and so can be published in peer-reviewed literature. Some have already been published, or are ‘in press’ or have been submitted for review. Others require the NDLERF board’s permission to be published as they include data related more directly to policing, or they include information provided by police.The studies are incorporated into the document under section headings. In each section, they are introduced and then presented in their final draft form. The final published form of each paper, however, is likely to be different from the draft because of journal and reviewer requirements. The content, results and implications of each study are discussed in summaries included in each section.Funded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund, an initiative of the National Drug StrategyAlan R Clough (PhD) School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences James Cook UniversityCharmaine S Hayes-Jonkers (BPsy, BSocSci (Hon1)) James Cook University, Cairns.Edward S Pointing (BPsych) James Cook University, Cairns

INSIdE NANO : a systems biology framework to contextualize the mechanism-of-action of engineered nanomaterials

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are widely present in our daily lives. Despite the efforts to characterize their mechanism of action in multiple species, their possible implications in human pathologies are still not fully understood. Here we performed an integrated analysis of the effects of ENMs on human health by contextualizing their transcriptional mechanism-of-action with respect to drugs, chemicals and diseases. We built a network of interactions of over 3,000 biological entities and developed a novel computational tool, INSIdE NANO, to infer new knowledge about ENM behavior. We highlight striking association of metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles and major neurodegenerative disorders. Our novel strategy opens possibilities to achieve fast and accurate read-across evaluation of ENMs and other chemicals based on their biosignatures.Peer reviewe

Improving Business Performance Through The Integration Of Human Factors Engineering Into Organizations Using A Systems Engineeri

Most organizations today understand the valuable contribution employees as people (rather than simply bodies) provide to their overall performance. Although efforts are made to make the most of the human in organizations, there is still much room for improvement. Focus in the reduction of employee injuries such as cumulative trauma disorders rose in the 80 s. Attempts at increasing performance by addressing employee satisfaction through various methods have also been ongoing for several years now. Knowledge Management is one of the most recent attempts at controlling and making the best use of employees knowledge. All of these efforts and more towards that same goal of making the most of people s performance at work are encompassed within the domain of the Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics field. HFE/E provides still untapped potential for organizational performance as the human and its optimal performance are the reason for this discipline s being. Although Human Factors programs have been generated and implemented, there is still the need for a method to help organizations fully integrate this discipline into the enterprise as a whole. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to help organizations integrate HFE/E into it business processes. This research begun with a review of the ways in which the HFE/E discipline is currently used by organizations. The need and desire to integrate HFE/E into organizations was identified, and a method to accomplish this integration was conceptualized. This method consisted on the generation of two domain-specific ontologies (a Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics ontology, and a Business ontology), and mapping the two creating a concept map that can be used to integrate HFE/E into businesses. The HFE/E ontology was built by generating two concept maps that were merged and then joined with a HFE/E discipline taxonomy. A total of four concept maps, two ontologies and a taxonomy were created, all of which are contributions to the HFE/E, and the business- and management-related fields

Planning Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) Based on The Covid-19 Pandemic Guidance at So Good Food Dairy Company

Companies need an Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) culture based on a new life guidance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The application of OSH at So Good Food Dairy Company is moderate, though there are no control measures to minimize this risk. This study further aimed to analyze the application of OSH in the workplace and determine the implementation of the OSH Management System (OSHMS). Furthermore, it focused on identifying the probability of accidents at each workstation and proposed risk mitigation plans and anticipatory steps. Questionnaires were then administered to collect primary data from 62 respondents at the So Good Food Dairy Company’s processing, filling, packing, and storage workstations. Similarly, secondary data were obtained from documented information about the company’s OSH. All the respondents provided valid answers with a Cronbach alpha value of 0.9671, considered very reliable. Moreover, the questionnaire responses showed that So Good Food Dairy Company was rated highly by workers. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was used to identify the factors causing work accidents and Risk Priority Number (RPN), while recommendations for improvement were made based on the Hazard Identification Risk Assessment & Risk Control (HIRARC) principles. A total of 12 probability accidents were observed in processing, four in filling and packing, and six in storage. Therefore, this study proposes an OSH design that includes an OSHMS planning based on clauses ISO 45001:2018 and ISO/PAS 45005:2020. Additionally, seven OSH programs and a risk mitigation road map using the Pareto Chart principle to set priorities were recommended

Ethical dilemmas in clinical social work practice : how are social workers affected and how do we respond?

This mixed-methods exploratory research was undertaken to gain insight into how social workers perceive, are affected by, and respond to situations in which they are not able to enact social work ethics, or are asked to facilitate perceived injustice because of workplace restrictions. Seventy-four social workers responded to my online mixed methods survey. In quantitative responses, Likert scaled responses rated participants’ frequency and level of distress when encountering ethical dilemmas involving structural racism, classism, cultural insensitivity, sexism, heterosexism, protocols prioritizing funding over client care, protocols interfering with the treatment relationship, and protocols interfering with client self-determination. Participants also rated their sense of burnout related to structurally imposed ethical dilemmas. Both descriptive statistics were derived, and correlations were obtained between demographic information and quantitative response re: frequency and distress. Qualitative text boxes allowed descriptions of experiences with ethical dilemmas in more detail – e.g., information about roles and social work settings in which dilemmas took place, and descriptions of participants’ suffering and action in relation to dilemmas. The study opens new avenues for social work as a profession to explore in the interest of preserving its loyalty to the social work code of ethics, and the individual social workers’ well-being and professional satisfaction

Migrant Workers, Rights, and the Rule of Law: Responding to the Justice Gap

Migrant agricultural workers provide an essential and longstanding contribution to food security in Canada. Exploitation and rights shortfalls for these workers are welldocumented. On paper, they have rights on par with Canadian workers, but these rights do little to address the structure and dynamics underpinning their subordination in Canadian society. In this article, I argue that law creates a “justice gap” in the case of these workers. Law gives rights to these workers on an individual basis but also creates structural vulnerability which renders them unlikely to make use of individual remedies or compliance-based systems. Rights and protection discourse does not challenge the underlying institutional arrangements in which workers’ labour unfreedom is maintained. I argue that the justice gap can be understood as a rule of law problem, but that the utility of this approach is u

Beyond the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Confronting Structural Racism in the Workplace

Since 1967, sociologists have produced a compelling body of literature on structural racism that explains why severe racial disparities persist throughout American society in all social domains: employment, education, residential patterns, wealth accumulation, and so on. Structural racism perpetuates the effects of past, overt discrimination because it does its work through organizational procedures and social policies that appear to be race neutral. Dealing with structural racism requires us to focus on social structure instead of the intentions of bigoted individuals. In this Article, we link the disciplines of sociology and constitutional history to demonstrate that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to recognize the reality of structural racism in the workplace. Instead, the Court has developed legal doctrines that protect this hidden form of racism, assure its continuation, and disable other branches of the federal and state governments from eradicating it. The Court\u27s willful blindness toward race and employment ignores the reality of structural racism and instead embeds the justices\u27 unacknowledged racial policy preferences into constitutional law. Their doctrinal assumptions about intent, colorblindness, facial neutrality, and white innocence enable them notjust to ignore structural racism but to perpetuate and affirm it. In this Article, we first review the sociological literature on structural racism and construct a template of structural racism by identifying its six key components: (1) irrelevance of intent, (2) individualism, (3) belief in structural neutrality, (4) colorblindness, (5) white advantage, and (6) invisibility. We then provide examples of structural racism in the social domain of employment. Next we demonstrate how Supreme Court constitutional decisions regarding employment since 1964 map onto this template of structural racism: (1) the Court demands a showing of intent, (2) the Court insists on the notion that racism is inflicted only by individuals upon individuals, (3) the Court persists in its belief in structural neutrality, (4) the Court\u27s anti-classification understanding of equal protection is merely a judicial formulation of colorblindness, (5) the Court\u27s concern for white innocence reaffirms white advantage and white normativity, and (6) the Court\u27s embrace of all five of these components serves to keep structural racism invisible and thereby further maintains it. We conclude first that the Court has ignored nearly a half-century ofsubstantial research in sociology and instead has clung to outdated assumptions about how racism operates that perpetuate racial inequality. Second, we find that at the same time, the Court does invoke structural social understanding—by ignoring intent, being attentive to group actions and effects on groups, andfocusing on inadvertent effects of institutional policies and procedures—but does so only to protect whites\u27 interests