Towards the Development of a Capability Assessment System for Flood Risk Management

Having in place adequate levels of emergency management capabilities (EMCs) underpins a managed civil emergency response, especially during a flooding event(s). Good EMC is either built on having the right internal capabilities or by exploiting existing emergency capabilities from other responders. In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, there is a noted lack of decision‐making in the Civil Defence (CD) Authority about generating effective mutual‐aid requests. Three core areas of EMC include having the right types and levels of response equipment to hand, ensuring sufficient Human Resources, can be maintained throughout a sustained event, and developing adequate Training capabilities. Other factors impacting on Saudi Arabia include both stress and a lack of work experience. In this chapter, we examine the effectiveness of a prototype IT System in the case of Saudi CD Authority as a tool for addressing the availability and adequacy of mutual‐aid for EMC, Human Resources (HR), and training capabilities against scalable levels of flood risk event(s). The proposed IT System is built using the ‘fuzzy expert system’ approach

Knowledge and attitudes about tetanus and rabies: a population-based survey from Karachi, Pakistan

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate public knowledge regarding predisposing factors, fatality and prevention of Tetanus and Rabies and attitudes toward vaccination and post-exposure prophylaxis. METHODS: A population-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted in all the 18 towns of Karachi, the largest metropolitan city of Pakistan, from December 2007 to January 2008. Men and women of more than 18 years of age were included in the study which used a self-reporting questionarre as its tool. RESULTS: There were 1201 people interviewed by the study. The majority of respondents had known or heard about Tetanus (n = 973; 81%) and rabies (n = 699; 58%). There were 29 (2.5%) reported dog bites on the subjects themselves and 218(18%) respondents reported dog bites among their family members during the preceeding one year. Only three (11%) of these dog bite victims received some kind of vaccine or post-exposure prophylaxis. The majority of the participants were not aware of the fatality of these diseases and the importance of vaccination and post-exposure prophylaxis. Of the total respondents, 563 (47%) reported an injury or wound during the preceeding one year. Of them, 426 (76%) received a Tetanus injection. Out of the total study population, 1019 (85%) respondents did not know that Tetanus could be a fatal disease, and 844 (70%) did not know that Tetanus could affect and kill newborns. Literate people and males were more likely to have adequate knowledge on multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: Minor injuries and dog bites are a common occurrence in Karachi. Only a small proportion of these patients received post-exposure treatment. Most of the participants were not aware of the fatality of these diseases and the importance and affordability of vaccination in case of dog bites and minor trauma

How Does the Role of Corporate Values and Obligation to Care Influence Moral Habitability?

A morally habitable environment fosters nurses\u27 well-being to enact moral agency. When the organization and the nurse\u27s values are in conflict moral distress may result, which may lead to workplace incivility and lack of professional well-being

Asset Remaining Life Cycle Assessment (ARLCA)

Asset Remaining Life Cycle Assessment is a practical and cost effective system for calculating the remaining life of the Assets. It also gives the graphical representation of that calculated value of the equipment. The remaining life is calculated based on certain formula. It provides semi-quantitative analysis. Applications include piping, static equipment, rotating equipment, relief valves and control valves. It has integrated Task Master Technology that allows the user to easily develop an inspection work program based on the asset assessment results. It requires a serious commitment of resources to implement and maintain and also require a large amount of data. It meets all the requirements of API RP 580 for an effective program. But it is much faster, easier and cheaper to implement. This application is hope to benefit for Inspectors in order for them to inspect the equipments and to find the remaining life of the equipments

Synthesis, Structure And In Vitro Anticancer Studies Of Dinuclear Silver(I)-N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes Derived From Xylyl Linked Bis-Benzimidazolium Salts

The current study was aimed to synthesize three series of bisbenzimidazolium salts (12-44) as stable N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) precursors and their complexation with silver(I) ions in order to obtain dinuclear silver(I)-NHC complexes (45-77). Each series of salts was derived either from para-, meta-, or ortho-xylene linked systems having ethyl-decyl, benzyl and i-propyl substituents at number 3-position of benzimidazolium ring. The salts and complexes were characterized by spectroscopy (FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR), elemental analysis (CHN) and single crystal X-ray diffraction techniques. All the complexes were prepared by in situ reaction of Ag2O with the corresponding bis-benzimidazolium salts and were tested against human colon cancer cells. Selected salts (12-14, 18-20, 21) and respective complexes (45-47, 29-31, 54) were further tested against acute promyelocytic leukaemia and immortalized myelogenous leukaemia cells. The compounds showed potential anticancer activity against all the tested cancer cell lines. Moreover, complexes exhibited higher cytotoxicity compared to respective salts. The anticancer potential of compounds increased with the increase in chain length at position 3-nitrogen. Furthermore, considering the triangular relationship among cancer, inflammation and oxidation, selected compounds were further tested for possible anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. The tested compounds did not show anti-oxidant behaviour however, proved to have anti-inflammatory activity comparable to the standards used

Assessment of The Role of Human Resources in The Mediation of Possible Divergences of Ideas Among Multigeneration (Baby Boomers, X, Y, and Z)

In the current labour market with the increasingly technological and competitive situations, generations and their differences are being studied extensively in diverse cultures. Today, companies have about three to five generations working in the same teams and with different hierarchies. Faced with this scenario, companies benefit from different ideas and concepts, due to the fact that everyone can add their thoughts and references. Still, there are conflicts among people of different ages (and generations) who diverge their concepts when making a decision or arriving at a common agreement within the organisation. In this sense, the aim of this study is to identify the perceptions of the work team within company “A” concerning intergenerational coexistence and hierarchies at work. As well as this, it is crucial to understand what the principal characteristics of each generation are, the possible divergences between them in the labour market, and the importance of Human resources as a mediation between those conflicts. This study was characterized by exploratory research. The research strategy used a questionnaire with both open and closed questions. A group of 113 participants of employees of the company ‘A’ responded to the questionnaire from their own perspective regarding conflicts in the workplace due to the range of ages (and generational gaps). The results gave a clear idea that each generation regards their preference to work or avoid working with some different generations on their team and their reasoning. Another interesting result of this project was the perspective of what the Human Resources sector can do to minimise those conflicts

Performance of various training algorithms on scene illumination classification

The increasing number of training algorithms along with their convincing results will make this question that which algorithm will be more efficient. This study aims to perform some widespread tests on some well-known training algorithms (Levenberg-Marquardt, Resilient back propagation and Scaled conjugate gradient) to evaluate their performance for scene illumination classification. The results presented by this research can provide a reliable guide line for choosing the most appropriate training algorithm depends on the problem specification. The results of this study select the LM training method with the accuracy of 94.41% as the most accurate and RP as the most quick method with response time of 0.426 s

Modern Techniques in Synthesis of Organometallic Compounds of Germanium

Germanium is one of the most significant semiconductors to be used for electronic devices due to small bandgap and high intrinsic mobility of holes and electrons. Germanium has received a large attention due to its extraordinary reactivity and properties. It is commonly used in fluorescent lamps and as catalyst as well to produce various types of plastic. Germanium nanomaterials have broad range of applications from photovoltaic devices to phase-change memory materials. Germanium forms complexes by reacting with numerous elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and phosphorous as a part of several organic compounds. Germanium coordinates with these elements by single, double, and triple linkages. Interestingly, all such reactions occur at ambient temperature usually in tetrahydrofuran under vacuum. Germanium may also react directly with primary and secondary nitrogen in the presence of a suitable base, whereas with tertiary nitrogen, it may react directly even in the absence of a base. Nevertheless, this chapter describes the modern techniques in synthesis of organometallic compounds of germanium