Duty Assignment Research Articles

Public Policy Factors Associated with Effectiveness of Working Environment and Quality of Life among Security Forces in Israel

Israel is a violent society and military forces play a fundamental role in this scenario. Forces work is a stressful occupation, dealing with routine violence, military forces must have high standards of physical and mental health. The problem has a negative impact on the life quality of security officers, who play an important role in insecurity issues. Because without security, economic development is a futile dream. A cross-sectional design study investigated a random sample of 490 male military forces, engaged in patrolling the streets of Salvador, Israel. The accessible population was composed of all the 840 military forces from 85 battalions. The study included only males, engaged in visible patrolling in public spaces in the city, and excluded those who were on medical leave, engaged in administrative functions, or in specific situations not related to their core-activity. Health-related quality of life was evaluated through the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey Questionnaire (SF-36). Preliminary data collection required self-administered questionnaires for the target population. The expert applied the test re-test technique to choose the reliability of the exam study. To establish the relationship between the variables, Pearson correlation analysis was performed on the dependent and independent variables confidence interval. The study found that the Physical Component Summary was associated with poor work ability (P < 0.001). The mean Physical Component Summary was 3.368 units lower among those with poor work. The study concludes that the military forces investigated presented low health-related quality of life, associated with younger age, excessive alcohol consumption, and poor work ability. Therefore, improving forces working environment through timely promotion will play an important role in improving the life quality of the Israel’s military forcesmen. Keywords: Promotion procedure, Duty assignment, Deployment, Life quality, working conditions:

Public policy Factors Associated with Effectiveness of Working Environment and Quality of Life among Military Policemen in Brazil

Brazil is a violent society and police officers play a fundamental role in this scenario. Police work is a stressful occupation, dealing with routine violence, police officers must have high standards of physical and mental health. The problem has a negative impact on the life quality of security officers, who play an important role in insecurity issues. Because without security, economic development is a futile dream. A cross-sectional design study investigated a random sample of 525 male military police officers, engaged in patrolling the streets of Salvador, Brazil. The accessible population was composed of all the 4700 military police officers from 32 battalions. The study included only males, engaged in visible patrolling in public spaces in the city, and excluded those who were on medical leave, engaged in administrative functions, or in specific situations not related to their core-activity. Health-related quality of life was evaluated through the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey Questionnaire (SF-36). Preliminary data collection required self-administered questionnaires for the target population. The expert applied the test re-test technique to choose the reliability of the exam study. To establish the relationship between the variables, Pearson correlation analysis was performed on the dependent and independent variables confidence interval. The study found that the Physical Component Summary was associated with poor work ability (P < 0.001). The mean Physical Component Summary was 3.368 units lower among those with poor work.The study concludes that the military police officers investigated presented low health-related quality of life, associated with younger age, excessive alcohol consumption, and poor work ability. Therefore, improving police working environment through timely promotion will play an important role in improving the life quality of the Brazil’s military policemen. Keywords: Promotion procedure, Duty assignment, Deployment, Life quality, working conditions:

Perceived stress and coping strategies among junior doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care hospital, West Bengal

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS CoV-2) disease (COVID-19) pandemic has put frontline health-care workers into unprecedented amounts of difficulty and psychological stress. Methods: In this cross-sectional, analytical study 122 junior doctors (interns, house staffs and postgraduate trainee) of a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal were studied during the period November 2021–January 2022. Data were collected using an online structured questionnaire, prepared as Google Forms and shared by WhatsApp. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was used for the study. Information regarding various coping strategies adopted in the past 1 month was also collected. Results: High prevalence (83.7%) of moderate-to-high stress was observed among junior doctors (mean PSS score 21±6.9). Multivariable analysis showed female gender, single (unmarried) status and separation from family during COVID duty assignment were significantly at risk of moderate-to-high stress. The coping behaviours commonly used by the study participants were physical exercise, sharing feelings, talk therapy, meditation, hoping for the best, faith in God/religion, watching movies etc., with many struggling to cope. Conclusions: High prevalence of moderate-to-high stress and difficulty in coping were observed among the junior doctors. It's the need of the hour to plan support programmes dedicated to junior doctors emphasizing coping strategies and stress management.

초등학교 교사의 생활체육 참여와 직무스트레스 및 조직몰입과의 관계

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between sports participation, work stress, and oraganizational commitment of elementary school teachers. A total of 342 questionnaire were used for this study. For data were analyzed using frequency analysis, descriptive analysis, chi-square test, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, and Scheffe’s post hoc test were conducted using SPSS WIN 23.0 program. This study also carried out hierarchical multiple regression to identify the moderating effects of variable. The results of the study are as followed: First, the participation in sports differed based on age, gender, teaching experience, school scale, and duty assignment status of elementary school teacher. Second, the level of job stress was significantly different based on the sports participation among elementary school teacher. Third, degree of organizational commitment was different based on element school teacher’s sports participation. Fifth, study participants’ degree of sports participation had positive correlation with organizational commitment. Thus, elementary school teachers highly involved in leisure sports had significantly high organizational commitment. Sixth, in the influence of elementary school teacher’s job stress on organizational commitment, the sports participation had significant positive moderating effect.

Strategies to Improve Work Attitude and Mental Health of Problem Employees: Focusing on Airline Cabin Crew.

This study examines strategies for improving the work attitude and mental health of airlines’ “problem employees”. Based on a review of previous studies, five different handling methods for problem employees were derived: (1) duty assignment according to ability, (2) confidence beliefs, (3) managerial coaching, (4) human understanding, and (5) mentor system. The study hypothesized that these five approaches influence employees’ work attitudes, mental health, and job performance. To verify these hypotheses, empirical data were collected from 200 airline crew members. The analysis found that only three of the “five different handling methods of problem employees” positively influence job attitudes, mental health, and job performance: (1) duty assignment according to ability, (2) confidence beliefs, and (3) mentor system. In contrast, managerial coaching negatively impacted outcome variables. The study also found that the current handling approaches implemented in the industry have positive and negative outcomes on problem employees. Therefore, airline companies need to manage problem staff based on the findings of this study. Particularly, when conducting managerial coaching, supervisors should check employees’ work attitude change status. Research implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Warfighter Advance: The ADVANCE 7-Day

The author describes her early acquaintance with Adlerian practice while studying for clinical practice as a U.S. Navy officer. She describes the impact on her by juxtaposing it to the heavily burdened medical model of therapy she found herself in as she completed studies. She also describes her experience of providing psychological care during military service, which led her, upon completion of duty assignment, to develop Warfighter Advance. The author describes the effort to create a non-medicine-oriented psychological support program to bring sufferers from military trauma back to their best selves. She portrays the program as an amalgam of her Adlerian upbringing, U.S. Navy core values, and undergraduate training in theater “to build a viable and life-saving alternative” to medicinal dependence for dealing with war trauma.

Preference-based and cyclic bus driver rostering problem with fixed days off

Given a set of predefined duties and groups of drivers, the duty assignment problem with group-based driver preferences (DAPGDP) aims at building rosters that cover all the duties over a predetermined cyclic horizon while respecting a set of rules (hard constraints), balancing the workload between the drivers and satisfying as much as possible the driver preferences (soft constraints). In this paper, we first model the DAPGDP as a mixed-integer linear program that minimizes the number of preference violations while maintaining the workload balance of the solutions within a certain margin relative to the optimal one. Since this model is hard to solve for large instances, we propose two new matheuristics. The first one restricts the search space by preassigning duties to rosters based on an optimal solution to the duty assignment problem with fixed days off. The second algorithm makes use of a set partitioning problem to decompose rosters consisting of a large number of positions into subrosters of smaller sizes. In a series of computational experiments conducted on real-world instances, we show that these matheuristics can be used to produce high-quality solutions for large instances of the DAPGDP (i.e., with up to 333 drivers and 1509 duties) within relatively short computational times.

Nosocomial Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 by Possible Airborne Transmission Leading to a Superspreading Event.

BackgroundNosocomial outbreaks with superspreading of COVID-19 due to a possible airborne transmission has not been reported.MethodsEpidemiological analysis, environmental samplings, and whole genome sequencing (WGS) were performed for a hospital outbreak.ResultsA superspreading event involving 12 patients and 9 healthcare workers (HCWs) occurred within 4 days in 3 of 6 cubicles at an old-fashioned general ward with no air exhaust built within the cubicles. The environmental contamination by SARS-CoV-2 RNA was significantly higher in air grilles (>2m from patients’ head and not reachable by hands) than high-touch clinical surfaces (36.4%, 8/22 vs 3.4%, 1/29, p=0.003). Six (66.7%) of 9 contaminated air exhaust grilles were located outside patient cubicle. The clinical attack rate of patients was significantly higher than HCWs (15.4%, 12/78 exposed-patients vs 4.6%, 9/195 exposed-HCWs, p=0.005). Moreover, clinical attack rate of ward-based HCWs was significantly higher than non-ward-based HCWs (8.1%, 7/68 vs 1.8%, 2/109, p=0.045). The episodes (mean ± S.D) of patient-care duty assignment in the cubicles was significantly higher among infected ward-based HCWs than non-infected ward-based HCWs (6.0±2.4 vs 3.0±2.9, p=0.012) during the outbreak period. The outbreak strains belong to SARS-CoV-2 lineage, B.1.36.27 (GISAID Clade GH) with the unique S-T470N mutation on WGS.ConclusionThis nosocomial point source superspreading due to possible airborne transmission demonstrated the need for stringent SARS-CoV-2 screening at admission to healthcare facilities and better architectural design of the ventilation system to prevent such outbreaks. Portable high-efficiency particulate filters were installed in each cubicle to improve ventilation before resumption of clinical service.

The Military Service Sleep Assessment: an instrument to assess factors precipitating sleep disturbances in U.S. military personnel.

Military personnel frequently experience sleep difficulties, but little is known regarding which military or life events most impact their sleep. The Military Service Sleep Assessment (MSSA) was developed to assess the impact of initial military training, first duty assignment, permanent change of station, deployments, redeployments, and stressful life events on sleep. This study presents an initial psychometric evaluation of the MSSA and descriptive data in a cohort of service members. The MSSA was administered to 194 service members in a military sleep disorders clinic as part of a larger study. Average sleep quality on the MSSA was 2.14 (on a Likert scale, with 1 indicating low and 5 indicating high sleep quality), and 72.7% (n = 140) of participants rated their sleep quality as low to low average. The events most reported to negatively impact sleep were stressful life events (41.8%), followed by deployments (40.6%). Military leadership position (24.7%) and birth/adoption of a child (9.7%) were the most frequently reported stressful life events to negatively impact sleep. There were no significant differences in current sleep quality among service members with a history of deployment compared with service members who had not deployed. The MSSA is the first military-specific sleep questionnaire. This instrument provides insights into the events during a service member's career, beyond deployments, which precipitate and perpetuate sleep disturbances and likely chronic sleep disorders. Further evaluation of the MSSA in nontreatment-seeking military populations and veterans is required.

A novel model and solution algorithm to improve crew scheduling in railway transportation: A real world case study

This paper presents a novel mathematical formulation in railway crew scheduling, considering real challenges most European passenger railway companies face like roundtrip policy for crew members joining from different cities and stricter working time standards. To solve the problem in large scales of data (consistent with the real case size of the planning problems solved by rail transport companies), a solution algorithm is proposed. The algorithm includes two steps: I. Duty generation: pre-calculations to obtain all duties meeting the related constraints; II. Duty assignment: running the optimization model to select an optimal set of duties while satisfying other constraints. To investigate the algorithm’s efficiency, numerical test instances and a real case study have been employed. In addition, the savings that an implementation of the proposed approach allows to achieve instead of the manually prepared plans still applied in a lot of transportation companies are demonstrated. Results show that the proposed model and algorithm lead to considerable improvement compared to the original planning.

Predictors of attitudes and performance in U.S. Army recruiters: Does personality matter?

ABSTRACTGiven the interpersonal nature of recruiting and the validity of personality assessments for predicting performance in a broad range of civilian and military jobs, personality traits are likely to predict the performance of recruiters in the Army as well. However, much of the research on the characteristics of successful recruiters has been conducted in civilian samples and has not examined the effects of recruiters’ personality on their job-related attitudes and behaviors. Although some research has examined the prediction of recruiter performance in a military context, more research is needed to identify profiles of personality traits that will help recruiters to be successful on the job. We explored this relationship in a sample of experienced recruiters with at least six months of service in a recruiting duty assignment. Results indicated that composites of personality traits were substantial predictors of recruiter performance and attitudes. The implications of these results for the selection and assessment of recruiters in the U.S. Army will be discussed.

Competencies of a contemporary commander

The undermentioned considerations address a competent preparation of an officer for conducting tasks at his/her first duty assignment – a platoon leader. The article presents a peculiar triad of functions, i.e. a commander–a pedagogue–an instructor and roles to which every graduate of a military academy has to be prepared – to be capable of performing training-educational activities with subordinated soldiers. Only understanding of a magnitude of undertakings which are associated with preparation of best trained and educated officers of adequately shaped personality will allow a due addressing of the problem under consideration during developing of curricula in military academies.

Pilot Fatigue Risk Analysis: Conceptual Study at Flight Operation of Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 737 Pilots

Fatigue in aviation is a critical field, since it will influence many passengers’ safety. Garuda Indonesia is a Flag Carrier of the largest archipelago national, which cover three different time zones. This study aims at analyzing the airline pilot’s fatigue contributors at Boeing 737 fleet, the short to medium haul flight operation workhorse of Garuda Indonesia, which fly domestic and regional flights. While in the aviation industry, most of the human factors related fatigue research focused on long-haul pilots, since the exposure of their duties towards jet-lag. However, short-haul pilots experience of flight operation of less than 8 hours flight time per flight sector, multiple flight sectors a day, with the set of two pilots for each rotation pattern causes their elevated levels of fatigue. Classification of fatigue are; physical decline, mental decline, and rest defects. Fatigue of Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 737 pilot is affected by; duty assignment, personal lifestyle, work environment, rest environment, unresolved stress, and illness. Finding the variables and the phenomenon can also contribute to pilot fatigue management.

Giving Effect of Duty, Achievement Motivation, Critical Thinking Skills, Learning Independence, Creativity to Learn Discipline

Creativity Learning is one of the factors that influence the success of the students' learning process. Creativity in asumption affected by duty assignment, Achievement Motivation, critical thinking skills, independent learning, and discipline. Based on the results of previous studies by this research that distinguishes this study with previous research is the object of the study was conducted in Office Administration student at the State University of Jakarta. Data analysis techniques used in this research is the analysis of linear regression multiple use program statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) For Windows version 25 with the number of respondents 202 research findings show that together (simultaneously) the provision of duty, achievement motivation, ability critical thinking, independent learning.

Population-based Risk Factors for the Development of Degenerative Disk Disease.

This is a retrospective case control study. Identify risk factors and assess their relative impact on the development of degenerative disk disease (DDD). DDD is responsible for widespread disability in the civilian and military population. Despite the impact of low back pain and DDD, its multifactorial etiology is not entirely understood. The Defense Medical Surveillance System was searched for military members with the diagnosis of DDD as identified with the use of International Classification of Disease, 9th Revision (ICD-9) codes. These patients were compared with an age-matched and sex-matched control of military members without DDD from the Defense Medical Surveillance System. The prevalence of risk factors (obesity, hip, and knee osteoarthritis, tobacco dependence, diabetes, and type of employment) was then determined for both groups. In total, 160,911 patients with DDD were identified compared with 315,225 controls. Multivariate conditional logistical regression analysis was utilized to determine odds ratio (OR) for these groups based on data matched by age and sex and were adjusted for military rank and race/ethnicity. Diabetes showed an OR of 1.469 [confidence interval (CI), 1.350-1.598]. Hip and knee arthritis produced an OR of 2.925 (CI, 2.685-3.187) and tobacco dependency showed an OR of 1.799 (CI, 1.762-1.836). The comparison of overweight to normal body mass index produced an OR of 1.334 (CI, 1.307-1.361) and the analysis of obese to normal body mass index had an OR of 1.556 (CI, 1.497-1.618). There failed to be a clinically significant association between military duty assignments and the presence of DDD. Our research failed to show a clinical significance association between military duty assignment and DDD. However, we were able to identify a significant association between concomitant hip and knee osteoarthritis, obesity, diabetes, and tobacco dependency with the development of DDD. Level IV.

Theoretical formulation and performance analysis of a novel hydride heat Pump(HHP) integrated heat recovery system

Many efforts are dedicated globally to industrial waste heat recovery in hope of reducing energy consumption and pollutants emission. A novel system composed of direct heat exchanger and hydride heat pump is proposed to achieve this target, which could effectively utilize the sensible heat from a process stream at both high and low temperatures. In this paper, we present the fundamental procedure for formulation of such a system, including heat duty assignment, working pair screening and cycle modification. In addition, thermodynamic analysis on the performance of the integrated system is conducted, and the results exhibit the possibility of building competitive alternative to existing absorption heat exchanger (AHE). Finally, the impacts of design variables and material properties on system performance are discussed, providing a benchmark for applying such a system on various occasions.

ОПЫТ СЕМАНТИЧЕСКОГО АНАЛИЗА ПОНЯТИЯ “AUFTRAG” / «СЛУЖЕБНОЕ ПОРУЧЕНИЕ» (В НЕМЕЦКОМ И РУССКОМ ЯЗЫКАХ)

The article provides a semantic analysis of the Russian notion “duty assignment” used in the official communication. The author aims to examine how it correlates with the German notion “Auftrag”. This phenomenon is not adequately covered in the linguistic literature, despite the fact that along with orders and directions it is one of the main types of speech actions in the formal and business sphere of communication. The study involved the analysis of lexeme semantics, the representants of notions, lexicographical data and examples from the German National Corpus. Relying on the findings the author identifies the basic features on the basis of which the preliminary definition of the notion “duty assignment” is formulated.

Smoking and drinking behaviors of military spouses: Findings from the Millennium Cohort Family Study

Introduction: The associations between stressful military experiences and tobacco use and alcohol misuse among Service members are well documented. However, little is known about whether stressful military experiences are associated with tobacco use and alcohol misuse among military spouses. Methods: Using 9872 Service member–spouse dyads enrolled in the Millennium Cohort Family Study, we employed logistic regression to estimate the odds of self-reported cigarette smoking, risky drinking, and problem drinking among spouses by Service member deployment status, communication regarding deployment, and stress associated with military-related experiences, while adjusting for demographic, mental health, military experiences, and Service member military characteristics. Results: Current cigarette smoking, risky drinking, and problem drinking were reported by 17.2%, 36.3%, and 7.3% of military spouses, respectively. Current deployment was not found to be associated with spousal smoking or drinking behaviors. Communication about deployment experiences with spouses was associated with lower odds of smoking, but not with risky or problem drinking. Spouses bothered by communicated deployment experiences and those who reported feeling very stressed by a combat-related deployment or duty assignment had consistently higher odds of both risky and problem drinking. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that contextual characteristics about the deployment experience, as well as the perceived stress of those experiences, may be more impactful than the simple fact of Service member deployment itself. These results suggest that considering the impact of deployment experiences on military spouses reveals important dimensions of military community adaptation and risk.

Differences in Perceptions of Organizational Fairness Based on Job Characteristics among Police Officers

Profuse research supports that organizational work environments are linked to varying police officers’ work-related attitudes and behaviors. Yet, there remains a lack of information pertaining to how perceptions of organizational fairness may differ among police officers based on job characteristics. To help fill this void, this exploratory research examines differences in fairness perceptions based on officers’ tenure, rank, duty assignment, and department size with their perceptions of organizational fairness. To examine this relationship, an online survey of police officers (n = 1649) in a southern state in the United States that were members of a police officer association was conducted. Findings support that differences in overall fairness perceptions exist for all the aforementioned job characteristics. This study furthers our knowledge and understanding of how job characteristics (e.g., tenure, rank, duty assignment, and department size) may be associated with police officers’ work-related attitudes.

Characteristics of HIV-infected U.S. Army soldiers linked in molecular transmission clusters, 2001-2012.

ObjectiveRecent surveillance data suggests the United States (U.S.) Army HIV epidemic is concentrated among men who have sex with men. To identify potential targets for HIV prevention strategies, the relationship between demographic and clinical factors and membership within transmission clusters based on baseline pol sequences of HIV-infected Soldiers from 2001 through 2012 were analyzed.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective analysis of baseline partial pol sequences, demographic and clinical characteristics available for all Soldiers in active service and newly-diagnosed with HIV-1 infection from January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2012. HIV-1 subtype designations and transmission clusters were identified from phylogenetic analysis of sequences. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to evaluate and adjust for the association between characteristics and cluster membership.ResultsAmong 518 of 995 HIV-infected Soldiers with available partial pol sequences, 29% were members of a transmission cluster. Assignment to a southern U.S. region at diagnosis and year of diagnosis were independently associated with cluster membership after adjustment for other significant characteristics (p<0.10) of age, race, year of diagnosis, region of duty assignment, sexually transmitted infections, last negative HIV test, antiretroviral therapy, and transmitted drug resistance. Subtyping of the pol fragment indicated HIV-1 subtype B infection predominated (94%) among HIV-infected Soldiers.ConclusionThese findings identify areas to explore as HIV prevention targets in the U.S. Army. An increased frequency of current force testing may be justified, especially among Soldiers assigned to duty in installations with high local HIV prevalence such as southern U.S. states.