Computer-aided mine design and planning at Panasqueira, Portugal

Imperial Users onl

Do Students of Mining and Allied Engineering Programmes have any Problems in English?

In recent times, concerns about the falling standard of English among university students in Ghana have generated manystudies, which have focused mainly on analysis of errors in the English of students, using test-based extracted data such asstudent examination scripts or students’ responses to questionnaires and interviews specially designed for the purpose.These studies have usually centred on undergraduate students but none has involved the students of University of Minesand Technology (UMaT). This paper studies the standard of English among undergraduates of UMaT, who are all studentsof mining and allied engineering programmes. Unlike previous studies, the data comprise 498 faulty sentences selectedfrom comments written by the students on their lecturers’ teaching performance. This source of data is not test-based becausethe students write the comments anonymously, at their leisure and without knowing that the errors they commit could be used to assess their competence level in English. The comments therefore reflect the English that the students normally know. The faults detected in the comments are categorised into nine error types and the frequency of occurrence calculated for each category. Samples from each category are tabulated and analysed while assigning plausible reasons for the errors and suggesting corrections. The analysis shows that the most frequently occurring errors involve wrong register (wrong tone of language and vocabulary misuse) and wrong concord (subject-verb disagreement) while the least frequently occurring ones involve wrong punctuation and capitalisation as well as wrong adjective, adverb and pronoun usage. Thefindings indicate that the students have difficulties in expressing  themselves in formal, written English owing to limited lexicon and inadequate knowledge in English grammar, usage and style. To reverse the situation, it is suggested that the Communication Skills course be extended beyond the current first year of undergraduate study and given more emphasi

Worst-Case Valuation of Equity-Linked Products Using Risk-Minimizing Strategies

The global market for life insurance products has been stable over the years. However, equity-linked products which form about �fifteen percent of the total life insurance market has experienced a decline in premiums written. The impact of model risk when hedging these investment guarantees has been found to be significant�. We propose a framework to determine the worst case value of an equity-linked product through partial hedging using quantile and conditional value-at-risk measures. The model integrates both the mortality and the financial risk associated with these products to estimate the value as well as the hedging strategy. We rely on robust optimization techniques for the worst case hedging strategy. To demonstrate the versatility of the framework, we present numerical examples of point-to-point equity-indexed annuities in multinomial lattice dynamics

Duality of Meaning of some English Words: What’s on the Minds of Beginner Mining and Related Engineering Students?

The paper studied the meanings of 12 selected English words as written by 289 First Year students offering Mining and Related Engineering programmes at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa. The words, namely elevation, surveying, function, sign, model, drive, conductor, power, force, stress, spring, and shear have more than one meaning each - a normal meaning, and a scientific/engineering meaning. The objective of the study was to discover what goes on in the beginner engineering students’ minds when communicating in English, using those words and thereby find out whether they know both the scientific/engineering meanings and the normal meanings of the words. The “writing” exercise was not a test, so the students were relaxed and wrote all the meanings they naturally knew for each word, anonymously, but without reference to dictionaries. The responses were sorted out into five categories as appropriate. The results showed that, out of a total of 289 students, 84 (29.07%) gave only scientific/engineering meanings of some words, 153 (53.00%) gave only normal meanings of some words, 15 (5.16%) gave both scientific/engineering meanings and normal meanings of some words, 32 (11.07%) gave no meanings (nil) of some words, and 5 (1.70%) gave wrong meanings of some words. Contrary to expectation, the majority of the students gave either scientific/engineering meanings only or normal meanings only of some words. Only a few gave both scientific/engineering meanings and normal meanings of some words. Thus, the students possibly have vocabulary challenges. To overcome the challenges, the students should learn and use the different meanings of English words appropriately; lecturers should explain the shades of meaning whenever such words are met in speech or writing; polysemy and homonymy should be emphasised in the Communication Skills syllabus; and yearly follow-up research to track the students’ progress should be conducted.Keywords: Mining, Engineering, Normal, Scientific, Meanin

Revisiting the‘Duality of Meaning of some English Words: What’s on the Minds of Beginner Mining and Related Engineering Students’

A previous paper, published by me in 2015, studied the meanings of 12 English words, written by a group of first year students of University of Mines and Technology. The objective was to determine whether the students knew both the technical or scientific/engineering meanings and the normal meanings of the words, namely: elevation, surveying, function, sign, model, drive, conductor, power, force, stress, spring, and shear. A sample size of 289 students represented the group. The students willingly did a non-test exercise that permitted them to anonymously write the meanings of the words as they knew them without reference to dictionaries. The students’ responses were put into five categories of meaning for each word. The results revealed that 84 (29.07%) provided only scientific/engineering meanings, 153 (53.00%) provided only normal meanings, 15 (5.16%) provided both scientific/engineering meanings and normal meanings, 32 (11.07%) provided no meanings (nil), and 5 (1.70%) provided wrong meanings of some words. Thus, the majority of the students did not know both meanings, which pointed to students’ vocabulary challenges. This paper is revisiting the previous paper, to do a follow-up, using the same method and English words as in the previous study to find the progress of the same group of students who are now in their third year of study. From the current results, out of a total of 289 students, 48 (16.46%) gave only scientific/engineering meanings, 98 (33.94%) gave only normal meanings, 100 (34.69%) gave both scientific/engineering meanings and normal meanings, 39 (13.41%) gave no meanings (nil), and 4 (1.50%) gave wrong meanings, of some words. It is concluded that the students have made progress but there is more room for improvement. Therefore, it is recommended that the students work harder, and also be exposed to the register of their engineering disciplines early. Keywords: Words, Duality of Meaning, First Year Students, Third Year Student

‘I dey trust you waa’: Pidgin English as a Current Spoken Communication Tool at University of Mines and Technology

Pidgin English (PE), though not that popular in Ghana in the past, seems to be gaining ground in the educational institutions today. Of particular interest is the observed increase in PE use among students of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), who are training to become professionals in the mining and allied fields. What has caused this? How do the students feel about PE use? And what are their own views about PE-speaking in Ghana? This study, the first to examine PE at UMaT, aimed at finding empirical answers to these questions. A questionnaire was administered to 457 undergraduates selected at random from First and Second Year students. Analysis of the responses shows that majority of the students consider PE use “beneficial/advantageous” and “comfortable” because “it gives them a sense of belonging to the student body”; it is “easy and fun to speak”; and “trendy/spoken by friends”. They recognise that PE is not Standard English (SE) but “feel unashamed” speaking it. However, they think it is not good enough to speak PE all the time as it will “distort [their] SE”, and also “attract wrong public perception [of them] as poor scholars”. Left to the students alone, “there should be restrictions on PE use in Ghana to informal occasions” and “insistence on SE use”. It is concluded that UMaT students feel comfortable speaking PE but admit that it can adversely affect their SE. It is recommended that more studies be conducted into PE as a topical issue in Ghana. Keywords: Pidgin English, Mining and Allied Engineering Fields, Professionals, UMaT Student

Family Income Gradients in Adolescent Obesity, Overweight and Adiposity Persist in Extremely Deprived and Extremely Affluent Neighbourhoods but Not in Middle-Class Neighbourhoods: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

We investigated whether family income gradients in obesity, overweight, and adiposity persist at geographic-level deprivation quintiles using a nationally representative cohort of UK adolescents. Data from 11,714 eligible adolescents from the sixth sweep of the Millennium Cohort Study (14 years old) were analysed in this study. The International Obesity Task Force age- and sex-specific thresholds were used to define obesity and overweight. Self-reported family income was standardized using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s equivalised income scale. Geographic-level deprivation was defined by the index of multiple deprivation 2004. Results showed that the prevalence of obesity and overweight was 8.0% and 27.2%, respectively. Mean percentage body fat was 16.9% (standard error, SE = 0.2%) in male and 27.3% (SE = 0.1%) in female adolescents. Risk of obesity, overweight, and adiposity increased with decreasing family income quintiles (p for trend <0.001). After stratifying by geographic-level deprivation quintiles, a U-shaped association emerged, whereby family income gradients in the risk of adolescent obesity and adiposity persisted in extremely affluent and extremely deprived neighbourhoods but attenuated to non-significance in middle-class neighbourhoods. These results focus on the findings from England. Recognition of the persistence of inequalities in the risk of obesity in the most deprived and affluent neighbourhoods may be necessary in planning public health resources and intervention

Open Pit Optimisation and Design of Tabakoto Pit at AngloGold Ashanti Sadiola Mine Using Surpac and Whittle Software

This paper demonstrates the application of Surpac and Whittle in open pit optimisation and design. Exploration data on the Tabakoto deposit of AngloGold Ashanti Sadiola Mine (AASM) has established 13 652 661 t of gold resource with an average grade of 1.15 g/t that could be mined using open pit method. The aim of this paper is to optimise and design a pit to mine the deposit safely and profitably using Surpac and Whittle software. The work entailed: block modelling of the Tabakoto deposit using Surpac; importing the block model to Whittle for pit optimisation; and importation of the optimal pit back to Surpac for detailed pit design. In all, 55 nested pit outlines were generated but the one with the highest Net Present Value (NPV) of US$3 185 637 was selected as the optimal pit. The optimal pit contains 446 750 t of ore at an average grade of 1.709 g/t and 2 310 910 t of waste while the designed pit has 444 982 t of ore at an average grade of 1.683 g/t and 2 416 988 t of waste.  It can be seen that using the optimal pit as base, the designed pit has less tonnes of ore, a lower grade and more waste. The difference in values is due to the expansion of the pit bottom and the creation of a ramp and berms in the designed pit which resulted in some ore loss and dilution. Again, the designed pit contains only 32.59% of the gold resource established by exploration, but the ore contained in the designed pit is what, under the current economic and geotechnical constrained, can be mined profitably and safely. Keywords: Block Modelling, Optimal Pit, Pit Design, Surpac, Whittl