The impact of occupational stress on psychological well-being in the fire service.

The research aimed to examine the impact of occupational stress on psychological well-being in the Fire Service. In particular, the research examined the impact of occupational stress (Uplifts and Hassles) and individual differences (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Mastery and Coping) on work and context free well-being and Work Performance as part of a model based on the work of Cooper (1986) and Williams and Cooper (1998). The research involved three stages, two of which were quantitative and the third qualitative. In stage one, cross sectional data was collected using a questionnaire from five samples (N=867). In stage two, data was collected at a second time point from two of these samples (i. e. longitudinal data, N=123). In stage three, semi structured interviews were conducted with six fire personnel taken from one of the longitudinal samples, and thematic analysis was conducted. The statistical analysis of the data was conducted via hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Path analyses were also conducted on both cross sectional and the longitudinal data. The quantitative results, in terms of work well-being and Work Performance suggested there was good well-being. However, the context free well-being measure indicated poor General mental health. Furthermore, stress and individual differences had important influences on work and context free well-being, as well as on Work Performance. Neuroticism and Mastery seemed to be particularly important for these Fire Service samples. This latter with respect to General mental health finding was supported by the qualitative research which suggested that Fire Service personnel were experiencing stress. The qualitative research also suggested possible interventions the Fire Service could put into practice to support its employees such as Coaching and mentoring' and `Support from colleagues'

¿Será Bali II un punto de inflexión?

Este ARI examina las medidas que se están tomando y aquéllas que deberían tomarse para que Indonesia pueda desarrollar una respuesta satisfactoria a la amenaza de terrorismo islamista tras el atentado de Bali del día 1 de octubre de 2005. La respuesta indonesia tras el primer incidente terrorista en Bali en 2002 fue firme, pero insuficiente. A pesar de que no faltaron datos de inteligencia antes del segundo atentando terrorista en Bali, perpetrado el día 1 de octubre de 2005, las autoridades indonesias no lograron responder adecuadamente a la amenaza. El éxito en la prevención de atentados terroristas es el mejor baremo para medir la funcionalidad de una estrategia contraterrorista. Bali II puso de manifiesto la falta de incomprensión de la magnitud de la amenaza por parte de Indonesia y la incapacidad de su Gobierno de desarrollar una estrategia global para luchar contra un movimiento yihadista de rápido crecimiento en el país. Este segundo atentado en Bali también demostró la continuada falta de liderazgo antiterrorista de Indonesia y su falta de inversión en el desarrollo de la legislación, capacitación e inteligencia adecuadas. Este ARI examina las medidas que se están tomando y las que deberían tomarse para que Indonesia pueda responder satisfactoriamente a la amenaza del terrorismo islamista tras el atentado de Bali del 1 de octubre de 2005. ¿Será Bali II otro punto de inflexión

DISC Analysis of Cal Poly CM Students and Industry Professionals

This research analyzes why type D personality, as defined by the DISC personality assessment of 123test, was by far the most common personality type in the Cal Poly Commercial Construction class of winter 2022. This is interesting, as type D is the rarest personality type, making up ~ 9% of the global population (D Style - Type D Personality, n.d.). This was investigated by collecting DISC data from other Cal Poly Construction Management students to see if winter 2022 was an outlier, or if D type prominence is indeed a Cal Poly trend. The results of this research confirm that type D is the most common personality type among Cal Poly Construction Management students. Additional DISC data gathered from construction management industry professionals, suggests that type D is also the most common DISC personality type in the construction management industry. Notably, this study also suggests that type C personality is exceedingly rare in the construction management industry

Evaluating the Impact of Biofortification: A Meta-analysis of Community-level Studies on Quality Protein Maize (QPM)

Biofortification, or the genetic improvement of the nutritional quality of food crops, is a promising strategy to combat undernutrition, particularly among the rural poor in developing countries. However, traditional methods of impact assessment do not apply to biofortified crops as little or no yield increases are expected. Significant progress has been made to develop maize varieties with improved protein quality, collectively known as quality protein maize (QPM). Evidence for the impact of QPM at the community level, as demonstrated by randomized, controlled studies, was evaluated using meta-analysis. A new and generalizable effect size was proposed to quantify the impact of QPM on a key outcome, child growth. The results indicated that consumption of QPM instead of conventional maize leads to an 8% (95% CI: 4-12%) increase in the rate of growth in height and a 9% (95% CI: 4-12%) increase in the rate of growth in weight in infants and young children with mild to moderate undernutrition from populations in which maize is a significant part of the diet. These results are the first step in evaluating the potential economic impact of QPM by establishing and quantifying a link between use of the improved crop and nutritional outcomes. QPM can serve as a model for other biofortification efforts, and in particular, the conceptual framework and methodologies for impact assessment are directly applicable to other biofortified crops.Impact assessment, biofortification, meta-analysis, Crop Production/Industries, Food Security and Poverty,

Extension and adoption of biofortified crops: Quality protein maize in East Africa

Biofortified crops, bred for improved nutritional quality, can alleviate nutritional deficiencies if they are produced and consumed in sufficient quantities. These varieties can be promoted based on their agronomic performance or based on their nutritional qualities. Quality protein maize (QPM) was the first biofortified crop and has been disseminated in Africa using both approaches. To study their effectiveness, a survey of rural households was conducted in the maize-growing areas of East Africa, comparing communities with access to QPM extension activities to control communities. The results show that a third to one half of the farmers in project communities participated in extension activities in all countries except Kenya. In these communities, familiarity with QPM was high (74-80% of farmers), again except for Kenya (19%), but understanding of their nutritional benefits was much lower (47-55%, with 7% in Kenya). In all countries, farmers evaluated QPM varieties as good or better than conventional varieties (CV) for post-harvest characteristics. For agronomic characteristics, however, QPM varieties scored better than CV in Uganda, about the same in Tanzania, but less in Ethiopia. Adoption patterns differed widely between the countries: in the project areas it varied from 70% in Uganda, 30% in Tanzania to none in Kenya. In the control areas, adoption was only observed in Uganda (45% of farmers). Factors that significantly influenced adoption were farmers’ participation in extension activities, farmers’ agronomic and post-harvest evaluation of QPM vs. CM, and their understanding of the nutritional benefits of QPM. Evaluation for agronomic performance was found to be more important than knowledge of nutritional benefits, thus favoring the first approach. A reliable seed supply was, however, found to be a basic condition for adoption.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Jemaah Islamiyah and the threat of chemical and biological terrorism

Over the course of the past decade, the possibility of the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) by non-state actors has been a topic of extensive academic and public debate. Originally, this debate concentrated primarily on capabilities, where the ease of acquisition of CBW materials after the breakup of the Soviet Union, as well as more widespread availability of information needed for the production and weaponization of CBW agents, were the sources of major concern. Relatively recently, the debate was brought to a more realistic level through the acknowledgment of technical hurdles associated with the successful delivery of CBW agents, as well as the possible motivational constraints involved in the decision of terrorist groups to use such weapons. Another shift in the debate was represented by the claim that the rise of religious terrorism had eroded these constraints. According to this argument, religious terrorists whose operations have been observed to be responsible for the vast majority of all casualties in terrorist attacks worldwide are believed to be unconstrained by political considerations, as their only constituency is God. Further, the ability of religious terrorists to dehumanize indiscriminately their enemies is strengthened by the perceived divine sanction of their actions

Jemaah Islamiyah and the threat of chemical and biological terrorism

Over the course of the past decade, the possibility of the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) by non-state actors has been a topic of extensive academic and public debate. Originally, this debate concentrated primarily on capabilities, where the ease of acquisition of CBW materials after the breakup of the Soviet Union, as well as more widespread availability of information needed for the production and weaponization of CBW agents, were the sources of major concern. Relatively recently, the debate was brought to a more realistic level through the acknowledgment of technical hurdles associated with the successful delivery of CBW agents, as well as the possible motivational constraints involved in the decision of terrorist groups to use such weapons. Another shift in the debate was represented by the claim that the rise of religious terrorism had eroded these constraints. According to this argument, religious terrorists whose operations have been observed to be responsible for the vast majority of all casualties in terrorist attacks worldwide are believed to be unconstrained by political considerations, as their only constituency is God. Further, the ability of religious terrorists to dehumanize indiscriminately their enemies is strengthened by the perceived divine sanction of their actions

Explainable and Accurate Natural Language Understanding for Voice Assistants and Beyond

Joint intent detection and slot filling, which is also termed as joint NLU (Natural Language Understanding) is invaluable for smart voice assistants. Recent advancements in this area have been heavily focusing on improving accuracy using various techniques. Explainability is undoubtedly an important aspect for deep learning-based models including joint NLU models. Without explainability, their decisions are opaque to the outside world and hence, have tendency to lack user trust. Therefore to bridge this gap, we transform the full joint NLU model to be `inherently' explainable at granular levels without compromising on accuracy. Further, as we enable the full joint NLU model explainable, we show that our extension can be successfully used in other general classification tasks. We demonstrate this using sentiment analysis and named entity recognition.Comment: Accepted at CIKM 202

Differences in monetary policies between two hypothetical closed economies:one which is concerned with avoiding a large negative output gap and the other which is not

This research is focused on the effect of varying output gap target bounds on monetary policy. Here, a mathematical theory known as the ‘Viability Theory’ is employed to approach this problem in the context of satisficing policies, as discussed by Nobel Prize winning Herbert Simon, [see Simon (1955)]. A closed economy’s monetary policy problem of controlling inflation is considered to be this sort of satisficing policy problem. The viability theory is used to form viability kernels (using VIKAASA), which are a collection of points from which evolutions can start and remain within a certain constraint set K given some restricted controls, [see Krawczyk and Kim(2009)]. Using VIKAASA one can build such kernels for various exogenously defined constraint sets K and policy instruments. This study contributes in filling a gap of knowledge about what the viable economic states are if the output gap is targeted. The main results of this research show that, when smaller than historically acceptable output gaps are targeted, the central banks should avoid high level inflation at extreme positive output gaps, while at lower output gap limits very small inflation should also be avoided. The former prescription should be realised by having higher level interest rates and the latter by having lower level interest rates. Early interest rates adjustments are always recommended for central banks to avoid extreme situations