Changes in worker perceptions of health and safety during the BG Tanzania drilling campaign (2011-2016)

Research studies on the implementation of global health and safety standards mostly concentrate on the safety perceptions of workers (Gao et al., 2016) and safety culture (Lu and Yang, 2009). Most of the studies are medium to large scale in nature and are heavily reliant on quantitative data. Very few studies have attempted to capture personal perspectives using qualitative techniques from individuals who are working within new venture environments regarding the implementation of global health and safety standards. In addition, no studies of this nature which had been completed by insider researchers were identified within the literature reviews for this research project. This project was completed by an insider researcher who worked for BG Group/Shell during an extended gas exploration drilling campaign in Tanzania between 2011 and 2016. The research focuses on a cross section of local and expatriate workers from the Mtwara Supply Base facility in Tanzania. Participants included frontline and supervisory roles from within the operational team at the supply base. The intent of the research was to complete a qualitative review of the impacts of implementing global health and safety standards at the Mtwara Supply Base over the five-year period between 2011 and 2016. The mixed method data collection for the research involved the completion of 16 semi-structured interviews with expatriate and local staff and the completion of 55 multiple-choice questionnaire surveys by local staff, plus an analysis of the health and safety incident data for the Mtwara operational sites during that time. The research findings confirmed that 15 out of 16 of the interview participants acknowledged changes in their perception of health and safety during their time working at the Mtwara Supply Base. These changes mainly involved positive personal impacts in terms of learning and personal development as a result of working on the project and in some cases changes to safe working outside of the working environment. Participants also commented on the transfer of best practice from the project into the local community and to third party contractor organisations who supplied services to the drilling project. The survey data indicated that the majority of survey participants perceived an improvement in their own health and safety awareness which increased with their length of service at the Mtwara Supply Base. Survey participants also confirmed that in their opinion there were tangible indicators of improvements in relation to the Mtwara Supply Base HSSE performance during the lifecycle of the project. Examples included: a reduction in the number of injuries to personnel and increased numbers of health and safety interventions taking place (to stop unsafe behaviours/improve unsafe conditions which had been observed). A review of the incident data for the Mtwara operational sites also revealed performance improvements at the supply base, with a reduced severity of incident rates as the drilling campaign continued. Six emergent themes which were developed from the coding analysis of the qualitative data from the survey questionnaires and interviews: 1. Impacts of the implementation of HSSE standards on individuals 2. Impacts of the implementation of HSSE standards on the wider community 3. What worked well and why – organisational factors and HSSE improvements 4. BG/Shell Lessons Learned from the drilling campaign 5. Ideas for Shell to consider in future drilling campaigns 6. Ideas for improving occupational health and safety within Tanzania From the emerging themes and survey data it was evident that the implementation of HSSE standards within the Mtwara Supply Base had a positive influence on the broader health and safety culture relating to other entities, both inside and outside the supply base. The research also identified wider factors which contributed to HSSE performance improvements, such as the local content policies which BG/Shell (and other operators) applied to their respective operations, the importance of effective community engagement, BG/Shell organisational factors, contractor management and the selection of expatriate supervisory personnel. The research concluded that impacts of these wider factors should also be carefully considered when planning future campaigns within Tanzania or other similar new start-up projects

Shock absorbing mount for electrical components

A shock mount for installing electrical components on circuit boards is described. The shock absorber is made of viscoelastic material which interconnects the electrical components. With this system, shocks imposed on one component of the circuit are not transmitted to other components. A diagram of a typical circuit is provided

The dynamics of the semicircular canals

Transfer functions derived for theoretical dynamic responses of semicircular canals defined by differential equatio

Zadie Smith’s Intimations: The Idea of the Ambient Essay

Following the devastating global crisis of the First World War, Virginia Woolf noted in ‘The Modern Essay’ (1919), that ‘the essay is alive; there is no reason to despair’. Just over one hundred years later, in the middle of another global crisis, Zadie Smith’s collection of essays, Intimations (2020), reassures us once again of the ongoing social significance of the essay and the continued existence of readerships happy to receive it in newspapers, magazines and books. While the short essays in Smith’s collection lack the size of the late-Victorian essays Woolf would have feasted on, they, much like Smith’s earlier collections: Feel Free: Essays (2018) and Changing my Mind: Occasional Essays (2009), do not lack sonority. Operating as a collection of ambient essays, that is essays immersed in the ‘here and now’ and taking place in the shared world of the everyday, Smith’s collection finds its counterpart in the Woolfian essay. These ambient texts produced by Woolf and Smith are not simply situated in a world of voices outside the self, but also encompassed /enveloped by porous boundaries, and enter into dialogue with uncontrollable external circumstances, thereby facilitating reflections on the socio-political environs of the wider world

When the path is never shortest: a reality check on shortest path biocomputation

Shortest path problems are a touchstone for evaluating the computing performance and functional range of novel computing substrates. Much has been published in recent years regarding the use of biocomputers to solve minimal path problems such as route optimisation and labyrinth navigation, but their outputs are typically difficult to reproduce and somewhat abstract in nature, suggesting that both experimental design and analysis in the field require standardising. This chapter details laboratory experimental data which probe the path finding process in two single-celled protistic model organisms, Physarum polycephalum and Paramecium caudatum, comprising a shortest path problem and labyrinth navigation, respectively. The results presented illustrate several of the key difficulties that are encountered in categorising biological behaviours in the language of computing, including biological variability, non-halting operations and adverse reactions to experimental stimuli. It is concluded that neither organism examined are able to efficiently or reproducibly solve shortest path problems in the specific experimental conditions that were tested. Data presented are contextualised with biological theory and design principles for maximising the usefulness of experimental biocomputer prototypes.Comment: To appear in: Adamatzky, A (Ed.) Shortest path solvers. From software to wetware. Springer, 201

Shock and vibration isolation mount for small electronic components

Mount includes metallic cup and support ring placed in mold fixture. Viscoelastic material is injected between these parts by means of large hypodermic needle. Circular projections on cup and ring extend into material and are kept in place without dependence on quality of adhesion between material and metal