494 research outputs found

    Evaluation of Project Managers Understanding of Safety Management Plan on Construction Site.

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    Safety Management Plan (SMP) is a collection of documents that outline how the principal contractor will manage health and safety for employees, sub-contractors, suppliers, visitors and the general public. SMP formulates the approach to risk management and minimizes the potential human and financial loss to employers and employees alike. Thus, project managers are not expected to be health and safety experts, nor are they expected to conduct thorough worksite inspection. However, a basic appreciation of the safety and regulations issue most frequently encounter in construction site will help to ensure a safe work environment for employee and contractors, and minimize potential liability exposure. The objective of the paper is to determine the level of understanding of safety management system in workplace among the project managers of some selected sites in Kuala Lumpur. Structured or standardized questionnaires were used in the project manager’s interview at 5 different construction sites, on average, the score form the five sites as regard to project manager’s interview is 71.67%. In conclusion, the project managers have virtually all the potential and significant knowledge of the safety management plan practice in their sites, but still there was the need for improvement in the knowledge among the project managers as regard to the safety management system. The study therefore, recommended that in order to improve on the knowledge of safety management system on sites adequate training program should be incorporate into the organisational action plan for project managers. Such training program organised by National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Malaysia could be of great help in improving the knowledge of safety management system among the project manager.   Keywords Safety, Health, Management, Construction, Pla

    Probing the Superfluid to Mott Insulator Transition at the Single Atom Level

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    Quantum gases in optical lattices offer an opportunity to experimentally realize and explore condensed matter models in a clean, tunable system. We investigate the Bose-Hubbard model on a microscopic level using single atom-single lattice site imaging; our technique enables space- and time-resolved characterization of the number statistics across the superfluid-Mott insulator quantum phase transition. Site-resolved probing of fluctuations provides us with a sensitive local thermometer, allows us to identify microscopic heterostructures of low entropy Mott domains, and enables us to measure local quantum dynamics, revealing surprisingly fast transition timescales. Our results may serve as a benchmark for theoretical studies of quantum dynamics, and may guide the engineering of low entropy phases in a lattice

    Cost efficiency of Yemen Islamic banks: An inefficiency effects approach (2002-2014)

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    REFERENCES   Battese, G. E. and T. J. Coelli. 1988. Prediction of firm-level technical efficiencies with a generalized frontier production function and panel data. Journal of Econometrics 38(3):387-399. Battese, G. E. and T. J. Coelli. 1992. Frontier production functions, technical efficiency and panel data: with application to paddy farmers in India. Journal of Productivity Analysis 3(1-2):153-169. Battese, G. E. and T. J. Coelli. 1995. A model for technical inefficiency effects in a stochastic frontier production function for panel data. Empirical Economics 20(2):325-332. Bushara, M. and M. Abuagla. 2016. Measuring production efficiency of sorghum small farmers in Rahad Agricultural Scheme season (2011-2012). Journal of Socialomics 5(192):1-10. Bushara, M. O. and M. G. Mohayidin. 2008. Cost efficiency of Malaysian oil and fat industry: An empirical evidence. Sudan Journal of  Agricultural Research 9:135-147. Hasan, M. and J. Dridi. 2011. The effects of the global crisis on Islamic and conventional banks: A comparative study. Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy 2(2):163-200. Huang, C. J. and J.-T. Liu. 1994. Estimation of a non-neutral stochastic frontier production function. Journal of Productivity Analysis 5(2):171-180. Isik, I. and M. K. Hassan. 2003. Financial deregulation and total factor productivity change: An empirical study of Turkish commercial banks. Journal of Banking and Finance 27(8):1455-1485. Kumbhakar, S. C., S. A. Ghosh and J. T. McGuckin. 1991. A generalized production frontier approach for estimating determinants of inefficiency in US dairy farms. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 9(3):279-286. Kyj, L. and I. Isik. 2008. Bank x-efficiency in Ukraine: An analysis of service characteristics and ownership. Journal of Economics and Business 60(4):369-393. McKinnon, R. 1997. Money and capital in economic development. The Brookings Washington DC. Pasiouras, F. 2008. Estimating the technical and scale efficiency of Greek commercial banks: The impact of credit risk, off-balance sheet activities, and international operations. Research in International Business and Finance 22(3):301-318. Pitt, M. M., and L.F. Lee. 1981. The measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the Indonesian weaving industry. Journal of Development Economics 9(1):43-64. Reifschneider, D. and R. Stevenson. 1991. Systematic departures from the frontier: A framework for the analysis of firm inefficiency. International Economic Review32(3):715-723. Samad, A. and M. K. Hassan. 1999. The performance of Malaysian Islamic bank during 1984-1997: An exploratory study. International Journal of Islamic Financial Services 1(3):1-14. Schmidt, P. and C. K. Lovell. 1979. Estimating technical and allocative inefficiency relative to stochastic production and cost frontiers. Journal of Econometrics 9(3):343-366. Sealey, C. W. and J. T. Lindley. 1977. Inputs, outputs and a theory of production and cost at depository financial institutions. The Journal of Finance 32(4):1251-1266. Sufian, F. and M. Akbar Noor Mohamad Noor. 2009. The determinants of Islamic banks' efficiency changes: Empirical evidence from the MENA and Asian banking sectors. International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management 2(2):120-138. Sufian, F. and M. S. Habibullah. 2010. Assessing the impact of financial crisis on bank performance: Empirical evidence from Indonesia. ASEAN Economic Bulletin27(3):245-262. Tecles, P. L. and B. M. Tabak. 2010. Determinants of bank efficiency: The case of Brazil. European Journal of Operational Research 207(3):1587-1598. Weill, L. 2004. Measuring cost efficiency in European banking: A comparison of frontier techniques. Journal of Productivity Analysis 21(2):133-152. Willison, B. 2009. Technology trends in Islamic investment banking. Islamic Finance News 6(19):22-23

    Modulation of L-arginine-induced acute pancreatitis by meloxicam and/or L-carnitine in rats

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    Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory disease, where oxidative stress, subsequently inflammatory mediators activation play a pivotal role. Currently, no definite treatment exists and therapy is mainly supportive that directed to inhibit local pancreatic injury and systemic inflammatory complications. This study is presented to explore whether anti-inflammatory and/or antioxidant drug could ameliorate L-arginine-induced AP.Methods: Rats were sub-grouped randomly into five groups. Control group, AP was provoked by a single intraperitoneal injection of L-arginine (250 mg/100g), rat treated with meloxicam (4 mg/kg, IP), animals treated with L-carnitine (500 mg/kg, IP), and rats were treated with both meloxicam and L-carnitine. All treatments were once daily for 7 consecutive days and started 1 hr later after L-arginine administration. Serum and tissues samples were prepared for biochemical analysis. Histopathological examination for the other pancreatic tissues was done.Results: L-arginine significantly elevated serum activity of amylase and lipase enzymes, while notably reduced serum calcium level. Moreover, L-arginine markedly increased the pancreatic tissues content of tumor necrosis factor-α, malondialdehyde, and nitric oxide. In addition, L-arginine significantly increased pancreatic activity of myeloperoxidase, while markedly depleted glutathione level. Treatment with either meloxicam or L-carnitine significantly attenuated L-arginine-induced biochemical changes. On the other hand, co-administration of both meloxicam and carnitine has an ameliorative effect greater than each drug alone.Conclusion: Treatment with both meloxicam and L-carnitine is a more effective than each of them alone which is attributed to augmentation their antioxidant, anti‑inflammatory effects

    An Arabic CCG approach for determining constituent types from Arabic Treebank

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    AbstractConverting a treebank into a CCGbank opens the respective language to the sophisticated tools developed for Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) and enriches cross-linguistic development. The conversion is primarily a three-step process: determining constituents’ types, binarization, and category conversion. Usually, this process involves a preprocessing step to the Treebank of choice for correcting brackets and normalizing tags for any changes that were introduced during the manual annotation, as well as extracting morpho-syntactic information that is necessary for determining constituents’ types. In this article, we describe the required preprocessing step on the Arabic Treebank, as well as how to determine Arabic constituents’ types. We conducted an experiment on parts 1 and 2 of the Penn Arabic Treebank (PATB) aimed at converting the PATB into an Arabic CCGbank. The performance of our algorithm when applied to ATB1v2.0 & ATB2v2.0 was 99% identification of head nodes and 100% coverage over the Treebank data

    Phenotypic and Molecular Detection of Metallo-β –Lactamase Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolates From Different Clinical Infections in Erbil

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    Metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been documented to be a critical nosocomial infection. Itwas continuous intrinsic and acquired resistance to a various group of antimicrobial agents and its resistance ability to develop multidrug resistance lead to a severe therapeutic problem. The study aimed to identify the molecular characterisation of clinical isolates of Metallo-β -lactamase P. aeruginosain Erbil hospitals. This study was carried out during the period from October 2017 to March 2018. A total of 300 clinical specimens were collected from patients (urine 124, wound 80, burns 40, bronchial wash 30, and sputum 26) aged 15-65 years attending Rizgary, West emergency, Erbil teaching hospitals. Out of 300 specimens, 50 isolates of P. aeruginosawere recovered and accounted for 16% of hospitalised infection isolates, the diagnosis of P. aeruginosaisolates was confirmed phenotypically and genotypically via the amplification of 16SrRNAgeneby using PCR technique. All isolates were tested toward the different class of antimicrobials by using agar diffusion method and VITEK 2 system. Levofloxacin, Norfloxacin, and Imipenem was the most effective antimicrobial, and most of the isolates were high resistance to (P, L,V, PI, R, CHL, E, B, A, N, TE, G, MEM, CEF, CTX, ATM).The lowest resistance was to IMP, LEV and NOR. Out of 50 of isolates,14 (28%) were found to produce MBL.16SrRNAwere used to confirm P. aeruginosa and blaVIM, blaIMP used to detect the MBL. All isolates were positive for 16SrRNA, while 12 (85%) and 8 (57%) were positive for blaVIM and blaIMP genes. In conclusion, the present study proved thatMetallo-β-lactamase is producing P. aeruginosaisolated had phenotypic characterisation which strongly correlated with according to genotypic characterisation. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt in Erbil city

    Cryogenic Ion Trapping Systems with Surface-Electrode Traps

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    We present two simple cryogenic RF ion trap systems in which cryogenic temperatures and ultra high vacuum pressures can be reached in as little as 12 hours. The ion traps are operated either in a liquid helium bath cryostat or in a low vibration closed cycle cryostat. The fast turn around time and availability of buffer gas cooling made the systems ideal for testing surface-electrode ion traps. The vibration amplitude of the closed cycled cryostat was found to be below 106 nm. We evaluated the systems by loading surface-electrode ion traps with 88^{88}Sr+^+ ions using laser ablation, which is compatible with the cryogenic environment. Using Doppler cooling we observed small ion crystals in which optically resolved ions have a trapped lifetime over 2500 minutes.Comment: 10 pages, 13 EPS figure

    A numerical 1.5D method for the rapid simulation of geophysical resistivity measurements

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    In some geological formations, borehole resistivity measurements can be simulated using a sequence of 1D models. By considering a 1D layered media, we can reduce the dimensionality of the problem from 3D to 1.5D via a Hankel transform. The resulting formulation is often solved via a semi-analytic method, mainly due to its high performance. However, semi-analytic methods have important limitations such as, for example, their inability to model piecewise linear variations on the resistivity. Herein, we develop a multi-scale finite element method (FEM) to solve the secondary field formulation. This numerical scheme overcomes the limitations of semi-analytic methods while still delivering high performance. We illustrate the performance of the method with numerical synthetic examples based on two symmetric logging-while-drilling (LWD) induction devices operating at 2 MHz and 500 KHz, respectively

    Lattice dynamical signature of charge density wave formation in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x

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    We report a detailed Raman scattering study of the lattice dynamics in detwinned single crystals of the underdoped high temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x (x=0.75, 0.6, 0.55 and 0.45). Whereas at room temperature the phonon spectra of these compounds are similar to that of optimally doped YBa2Cu3O6.99, additional Raman-active modes appear upon cooling below ~170-200 K in underdoped crystals. The temperature dependence of these new features indicates that they are associated with the incommensurate charge density wave state recently discovered using synchrotron x-ray scattering techniques on the same single crystals. Raman scattering has thus the potential to explore the evolution of this state under extreme conditions.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure
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