Construction safety : development of an assessment tool to reduce risk on building sites

Australian construction and building workers are exposed to serious workplace risks - including injury, illness and death - and although there have been improvements in occupational health and safety (OHS) performance over the past 20 years, the injury and fatality rate in the Australian construction industry remains a matter of concern. The concept of safety culture is rapidly being adopted in the industry, including recognising the critical role that organisational leaders play in overall safety performance. This paper reviews recent research in construction safety leadership and provides some examples and applications relevant to risk reduction in the workforce. By focusing on developing safety competency in those that fulfil safety critical roles, and clearly articulating the relevant safety management tasks, leaders can positively influence the organisation’s safety culture. Finally, some promising research on Safety Effectiveness Indicators (SEIs) may be an industry-friendly solution to reducing workplace risks across the industry, by providing a credible, accurate, and timely measure of safety performance

How to Compute Equilibrium Prices in 1891

Irving Fisher's Ph.D. thesis, submitted to Yale University in 1891, contains a fully articulated general equilibrium model presented with the broad scope and formal mathematical clarity associated with Walras and his successors. In addition, Fisher presents a remarkable hydraulic apparatus for calculating equilibrium prices and the resulting distribution of society's endowments among the agents in the economy. In this paper we provide an analytical description of Fisher's apparatus, and report the results of simulating the mechanical/hydraulic "machine," illustrating the ability of the apparatus to "compute" equilibrium prices and also to find multiple equilibria.Fisher, general equilibrium, hydraulic apparatus, equilibrium prices, computable general equilibrium, algorithms

Are Noachian-age ridged plains (Nplr) actually early Hesperian in age

Whether or not the Nplr units in Memnonia and Argyre truly represent ridged plains volcanism of Noachian age or are simply areas of younger (Early Hesperian age) volcanism which failed to bury older craters and therefore have a greater total crater age than really applies to the ridged plains portion of those terrains is examined. The Nuekum and Hiller technique is used to determine the number of preserved crater retention surfaces in the Memnonia and Argyre regions where Scott and Tanaka show Nplr units to be common. The results for cratered terrain (Npl) in Memnonia is summarized along with those for ridged plains (Nplr) in both Memnonia and Argyre, and they are compared with similar results obtained for Tempe Terra and Lunae Plunum

Synopsis of biological data on the pink shrimp, Pandalus borealis Kroyer, 1838

This synopsis of the literature was designed to summarize the biological and biochemical studies involving Pandalus borealis as well as to provide a summary of the literature regarding the fisheries data published before early 1984. Included are many unpublished observations, drawn from studies at the State of Maine Department of Marine Resources Laboratory in West Boothbay Harbor, Maine. (PDF file contains 63 pages.

Closed-loop approach to thermodynamics

We present the closed loop approach to linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics considering a generic heat engine dissipatively connected to two temperature baths. The system is usually quite generally characterized by two parameters: the output power $P$ and the conversion efficiency $\eta$, to which we add a third one, the working frequency $\omega$. We establish that a detailed understanding of the effects of the dissipative coupling on the energy conversion process, necessitates the knowledge of only two quantities: the system's feedback factor $\beta$ and its open-loop gain $A_{0}$, the product of which, $A_{0}\beta$, characterizes the interplay between the efficiency, the output power and the operating rate of the system. By placing thermodynamics analysis on a higher level of abstraction, the feedback loop approach provides a versatile and economical, hence a very efficient, tool for the study of \emph{any} conversion engine operation for which a feedback factor may be defined

Boosting the Kerr-geometry into an arbitrary direction

We generalize previous work \cite{BaNa3} on the ultrarelativistic limit of the Kerr-geometry by lifting the restriction on boosting along the axis of symmetry.Comment: latex2e, no figure

Corporate governance disclosure and corporate performance of Nigerian banks

Corporate disclosure is a key mechanism of corporate governance. This study examined the effect of corporate governance disclosure (CGD) on the financial performance of commercial banks listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange. Based on the provisions of the Code of Corporate Governance for Public Companies in Nigeria, 2011 and the Code of Corporate Governance for Banks and Discount Houses 2014, the study developed a disclosure checklist and employed content analysis technique to extract corporate governance (CG) from 78 annual reports of 13 Nigerian commercial banks from 2011 to 2016. The study trichotomized CGD into those relating to the board of directors, risk framework, and whistleblowing policy. The results of the hypothesized relationships showed a positive and significant association between CGD and the banks' financial performance, with a positive effect of CGD on the board of directors and whistleblowing policy. However, the study did not find a significant association between CGD of risk management framework and the banks' financial performance. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a broader understanding of the effect of CGD on banks' financial performance. The development of a disclosure checklist based on the regulators’ codes of corporate governance is a useful addition to the literature