Number Of Workforce Research Articles

Edible Bird Nest Processing using Machine Vision and Robotic Arm

Edible Bird nest food product is one of the demanding food product in food production industry. Government looking into ways to improve this industry to boost the economy. Many large scale production are being operated around Malaysia. One of the major difficulties faced in processing the bird nest is to remove its impurities or more formerly known as dirt. Current conventional cleaning method which is manual cleaning is not cost effective and time consuming. Furthermore, it also requires large number of workforce to be used for processing small quantities of bird nest. This paper presents an automated system which utilizes machine vision system and an industrial robot to accomplish a better processing system for edible bird nest. This system offers great advantage compared to conventional process by reducing the time consumed for processing and increase the efficiency.

Analysis of Factors Affecting Adoption and Application of Sprinkler Irrigation by Farmers in Famenin County, Iran

Due to its location in the dry belt, the vast country of Iran has always been faced with the problem of water shortages. In such a climate one should take measures to increase the productivity and improve the efficiency of irrigation through expansion of water-conserving technology in the agricultural sector, as this is the largest and most important consumer of water. Therefore this study aimed at investigating factors affecting the adoption and application of sprinkler irrigation technology by farmers in the county of Famenin, Iran. Survey research was the dominant approach. The statistical population consisted of farmers in the Famenin County, and, using Cochran’s formula, 280 of them were selected through multi-stage stratified random-sampling equally among adopters and non-adopters. In order to assess the validity of the questionnaire the opinions of experts were used and to measure the reliability of the questionnaire Cronbach’s alpha statistic was used (82%). The results showed the adoption of sprinkler irrigation systems to be influenced by environmental factors such as the area under cultivation, access to water, water quality, and non-environmental factors such as the workforce number in the family, employment diversity, and participation in extension education and courses on agricultural water management. Ultimately the logit model is estimated in this paper. Adopters have also expressed reasons such as failure to adequately train farmers for maintenance after system installation, scientific and practical justifications, lack of availability of efficient repairs, inappropriate design and implementation by companies, low-quality components and fittings, clogging of sprinklers due to salty water, non-compliance with environmental conditions, difficulty using machines, the large area occupied by these systems, transportation, parts shortage, lack of security and the possibility of the theft of parts and fittings, and communal ownership of water resources as their dissatisfaction factors.

Trend in distribution of primary health care professionals in Jiangsu province of eastern China.

IntroductionSince the late 1990s, the Chinese government has carried out several reforms on the primary health care, which is greatly improved but still left much to be desired, especially for the health workforces. The aim of this study was to analyze the number of health workforces and the trends in distribution of health workforces in Jiangsu province of eastern China from 2008 to 2012.MethodsThe time trends in number and distribution of health professionals were compared in study period. Lorenz curves were plotted and Gini coefficient, Atkinson index and Theil index were calculated for inequalities in the distribution of health workforces to population and area.ResultsThe number of health workforces increased every year and the inequality in the distribution of health workforces showed a decline trend from 2008 to 2012. After 2009, these trends changed more rapidly. There was the disproportionality between physicians and nurses. The values of three inequality indicators based on area were larger than those based on population.ConclusionThe health reform in 2009 might play an important role in increasing the number of health workforces and improving the distribution of health workforces in primary health care facilities. The disproportionality between physicians and nurses was related to the shortage of number of nurses.

Traditional Birth Attendance (TBA) in a health system: what are the roles, benefits and challenges: A case study of incorporated TBA in Timor-Leste.

BackgroundOne current strategy to overcome the issue of shortage of qualified health workers has focused on the use of community health workers in the developing countries to deliver health care services specifically to the most vulnerable communities in the rural areas. Timor-Leste is the one of the world’s newest developing countries that has incorporated the traditional birth attendance in its health system through a family health promoter initiative in response to reproductive and child health, hence to improve primary health care delivery and increase number of healthcare workforce.MethodsThe study utilized a non-systematic review of the literature using key words such as community health workers, traditional birth attendants, reproductive health, child health and health outcomes. A case study from Timor-Leste was also used.ResultsTraditional birth attendants have performed wide variety of tasks including outreach and case finding, health and patient education, referrals, home visits and care management. Evidence indicated that there were, to varying degrees, positive associations between traditional birth attendance training and maternity care. Traditional birth attendance training was found to be associated with significant increases in attributes such as knowledge, attitude, behavior, advice for antenatal care, and pregnancy outcomes. However, some challenges faced by traditional birth attendants’ role in encouraging women to go to health center for preventive services would be the compliance and refusal of the referral. The implementation case study from Timor-Leste shows that integrating traditional birth attendance into a national healthcare system through Family Health Promoter program has been programmatic effective. It is recommended that the implementation should consider regular communication between health staff and community leaders in recruiting members of family health promoters, and the use of supportive supervision tools to identify weaknesses in the management of this initiative.ConclusionIn Timor-Leste, incorporating traditional birth attendance through family health promoter program has played crucial roles in delivering and increasing access to reproductive health services by women in rural communities of the nation. Whilst it requires a long-term commitment and good partnership, the current reduction in maternal mortality ratio in Timor-Leste is encouraging and serves to illustrate how this initiative aims to improve primary health care delivery and increase number of healthcare workforce.

Growth trends in medical specialists education in Iran; 1979 - 2013.

Over the past 35 years Iran had significant quantitative progress in postgraduate medical education; and growth in specialist's physician workforce supply. Health and medical education policy makers have struggled with many issues related to physician supply, such as determining the sufficient number of physicians workforce and the appropriate number to train; establishing new medical schools; the diversity of specialty programs; efforts to increase the supply of physicians in specialty level in remote and rural areas; and the growing number of female physicians and its impact on health services. After establishment of Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) in Iran, expansion of medical specialty education was a priority. Since then, great advances have been made in training of new specialty programs. Despite of these brilliant advances during the last decades in Iran, there has been no integrated and comprehensive documentation of previous and current growth trend, yet. To understand where Iranian physician supply and specialty training is headed, we examined the Iranian medical specialist's trends from 1979 to 2013 in a national study by support of Iranian academy of medicine. This paper documents the growth trend of medical specialist's workforce over the past 35 years. Examining the health manpower growth trends allow health and medical education policy makers to plan innovative strategies for the purposeful development of postgraduate medical education to ensure that in future there would be sufficient physicians supply, with the right skills, in the right places in response to population demands.

Models for predicting turnover of residential aged care nurses: A structural equation modelling analysis of secondary data

BackgroundNurse turnover in the residential aged care industry is a pressing issue. Researchers have shown ongoing interest in exploring how the factors that are amendable to change in aged care policy, regulation and funding and in organizational procedures (e.g. job demands, coping resources and psychological health of nurses) impact on turnover. However, the findings are mixed. ObjectiveThis study tested two theoretical models of turnover to examine the structural relationships among job demands, coping resources, psychological health and turnover of residential aged care nurses. Although many previous studies operationalized turnover as intention to leave, the present study investigated actual turnover by following up with the same individuals over time, and thus provided more accurate predictive models of turnover behaviour. Design and methodsThe sample, 239 Australian residential aged care nurses, came from the Nurses and Midwives e-cohort Study. Job demands, coping resources, and psychological health were measured using standardized instruments. Structural equation modelling was used to test the measurement and structural models. ResultsControlling for a number of workforce and individual characteristics, coping resources (measured by job control, supervisor support, and co-worker support) were negatively and directly associated with turnover. Additionally, the findings supported the Job Demand-Control-Support model in that higher coping resources and lower job demands (indicated by psychological demands, physical demands, and effort) were related to better psychological health (measured by vitality, social functioning, role emotional, and mental health), and higher job demands were related to lower coping resources. ConclusionsFindings suggest that aged care policy makers and service providers might consider increasing coping resources available to nurses and minimizing job demands of care work to reduce turnover and improve nurses’ psychological health. Moreover, findings from this Australian study may provide valuable practical and policy implications for other developed countries.

Better understanding the small business construct to advance research on delivering workplace health and safety

A critical step toward advancing research for achieving greater impact on occupational safety and health in small businesses is to have a better understanding of what is meant by the term ‘small business’. The term needs to reflect not only the number of people employed and the financial resources of an enterprise, but also the psychosocial experience of the people that are represented in small businesses. In this article we discuss the role of several dimensions in differentially defining the small business construct, including: number of employees, business age, structure, workforce, manager centricity, and culture. As greater consensus on the small business label is reached, more focused frameworks for small business occupational safety and health research, policy and practice may be developed.

LABOUR MARKET CHANGES IN RURAL AREAS OF HUNGARY: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

Abstract After the collapse of the single-party state, a new economic and social structure was born in Hungary. The main purpose of my study is to present the changes that occurred within the employment in rural areas. I shall analyse the changes in employment rates, and also the change in the distribution of employment amongst various sectors of the national economy. In order to understand the labour-market related problems of the extended rural areas, I shall focus mostly on changes that occurred within the sector of agriculture. After the regime change in Hungary, making a living in rural areas was greatly upset by the vast amount of free labour emerging due to the disintegration of the large-scale state system of agriculture. Since agriculture could be the only certain market for employing the high number of unskilled workforce that is typical at rural areas, I shall explore the changes occurred within the agrarian sector and in its employment in the past two decades, and also current plans and initiatives that are proposed to improve employment in the sector of agriculture.

The Geography Of Graduate Medical Education: Imbalances Signal Need For New Distribution Policies

Graduate medical education (GME) determines the overall number, specialization mix, and geographic distribution of the US physician workforce. Medicare GME payments-which represent the largest single public investment in health workforce development-are allocated based on an inflexible system whose rationale, effectiveness, and balance are increasingly being scrutinized. We analyzed Medicare cost reports from teaching hospitals and found large state-level differences in the number of Medicare-sponsored residents per 100,000 population (1.63 in Montana versus 77.13 in New York), total Medicare GME payments ($1.64million in Wyoming versus $2billion in New York), payments per person ($1.94 in Montana versus $103.63 in New York), and average payments per resident ($63,811 in Louisiana versus $155,135 in Connecticut). Ways to address these imbalances include revising Medicare's GME funding formulas and protecting those states that receive less Medicare GME support in case funding is decreased and making them a priority if it is increased. The GME system badly needs a coordinating body to deliberate and make policy about public investments in graduate medical education.

Design of cellular manufacturing system with quasi-dynamic dual resource using multi-objective GA

A new concept is presented in this paper of quasi-dynamic cell formation for the design of a cellular manufacturing system, based on analysing the fact that static and dynamic cell formation could not reflect the real situation of a modern cellular manufacturing system. Further, workforce resources are integrated into quasi-dynamic cell formation and thus a quasi-dynamic dual-resource cell-formation problem is proposed. For solving this problem, this paper first establishes a non-linear mixed integer programming model, where inter-cell and intra-cell material cost, machine relocation cost, worker operation time, loss in batch quality and worker salary are to be minimised. Then, a multi-objective GA is developed to solve this model. Finally, a real life case study is conducted to validate the proposed model and algorithm. The actual operation results show that the case enterprise significantly decreases its material handling cost and workforce number and obviously increases its product quality after carrying out the obtained scheme.

Sustainable Multi-Product Seafood Production Planning Under Uncertainty

A multi-product fish production planning produces simultaneously multi fish products from several classes of raw resources. The goal in sustainable production planning is to meet customer demand over a fixed time horizon divided into planning periods by optimizing the tradeoff between economic objectives such as production cost, waste processed cost, and customer satisfaction level. The major decisions are production and inventory levels for each product and the number of workforce in each planning period. In this paper we consider the management of small scale traditional business at North Sumatera Province which performs processing fish into several local seafood products. The inherent uncertainty of data (e.g. demand, fish availability), together with the sequential evolution of data over time leads the sustainable production planning problem to a nonlinear mixed-integer stochastic programming model. We use scenario generation based approach and feasible neighborhood search for solving the model.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE TYPE OF AGRICULTURE SUITED FOR APPLICATION OF WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

The world’s population is expected to double by 2050; world food supply is unlikely to double by doubling the area under cultivation or by doubling the availability of water. There are other challenges too, such as decline in the number of farms and a decline in the number of agriculture workforce. Climate change is expected to further aggravate the existing situation. Therefore, for the humanity to survive agriculture has to become smart – one way is by integrating Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in agriculture. In this paper, we will present the application of WSN in agriculture and discuss different types of sensors, different types of WSN and their application in 13 different types of traditional agriculture. We identify the type of agriculture most suited for WSN in terms of applications. We will also review some recent applications of WSN in agriculture; identify challenges and present possible future directions.

지역의 경제수준에 따른 의료자원 분포의 형평성 분석

One of the ways to achieve the principle of equal access for equal needs, availability and geographical accessibility of health care resources regardless of resident sites is important. The purpose of this paper is to measure socioeconomic inequities in distribution of health care resources among regions in the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea). Data were extracted from regional statistics of National Health Insurance, Community Health Survey, Korea Social Science Data Archive, and Korean Statistical Information Services at the same period of 2009. The dependent variables were the number of health workforce and health care facilities in each region. The proxy indicator of regional socioeconomic status was local tax per person. To identify whether inequalities among regions, we examined the concentration index(CI) and indirectly standardized CI by controlling each region's demographics and need factors. Total observations were 232 districts in nationwide, and we analyzed separately Seoul(25 districts) and non-Seoul areas(207 districts). The standardized CI values of health care resources were positive(favoring the rich region) across the nation in almost all kinds of resources. Especially the number of specialist, dentist, dental clinics, clinics, oriental medical clinics, pharmacists, and pharmacies were statistically significantly favoring the rich region. But the CI for the number of long-term care hospitals, public health centers were negative(favoring the poor region). The tendency of CI presenting positive values were increased in Seoul area. But in the case of non-Seoul, the CI indexes were nearly zero. The results suggest that except the Seoul area, little regional socioeconomic-related inequalities were observed in the distribution of health care resources in Korea.

Management practices: An analysis of gender differences in the strategy execution

The paper sets out to investigate the difference between female and male managers in the context of strategy execution in their organizations with regard to the conceptual framework of leadership and performance. A survey questionnaire was administered to 322 managers to study the 5 dimensions regarding obstacles in strategy execution previously identified. The study primarily used principal component analysis (PCA) and then an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine the relationship between dimensions of strategy execution identified in previous research and also to assess empirical differences for socio-demographic variables such as personal and organizational perception of performance, number of years in the management position, number of workforce under supervision and number of years as an employee in the organization. The research found gender differences regarding strategy execution between men and women and confirmed the main hypothesis that there would be difference between men and women in matters of strategy execution. Additional work will be necessary to increase sample size and to specify sector of activity to generalize the findings. The study highlighted gender differences in terms of strategy execution and management practices. Key words: Gender management, strategy execution, women, organization, performance, leadership.

Accessibility of Primary Health Care Workforce in Rural China

This study aims to develop an accessibility index to illustrate the status of the accessibility of primary health care workers in remote and rural areas in China. Relevant county-level data were used to analyze the number and distribution of primary health care workforce in rural China, and relevant provincial-level data were used to analyze the accessibility index. The study found that the development of rural primary health care workers is suboptimal. The rural Primary Health Care Worker Accessibility index shows that the accessibility to primary health care workers in western rural areas is poor. The correlation between PHCWA index and maternal mortality rate is more significant than that between primary health care workers density and maternal mortality rate. In addition to increasing the number of primary health care workers, strategies addressing the challenge of distance are also required.

Dynamics of Present Day Organizations Triggering a New Hr Paradigm : A Critical Analysis

Continuous change becomes a culture in new age organization. Radical shift in economic, social, cultural and technological environments compels today's organizations to cope with mass obsolescence in traditional organizational structures and designs, products and processes, technology, work culture etc. compel an organization to put thrust on innovations to sustain in an unpredictable and chaotic environment. The urge in the organizations of the day is how to build a highly responsive and adaptive system within that can quickly usher in reengineering in the respective sphere of obsolescence to insulate from the vagaries of upheavals. Indeed, today's organization ought to be busy to tide over turbulent business environment. Moreover, overwhelming information technology (IT) upsurge drives an organization to shift towards generating a knowledgeable work force who can substitute a substantial number of manual workforce to achieve organization's goal. An organization is now a knowledge driven unit. Therefore, the modern organization is more human-machine oriented compared to human dominated in traditional organization. Today, information sharing, knowledge dissemination, multitasking, computerized product designs and production, application of e-commerce etc. are the propelling forces to remodel organizational behavior. So, the psychodynamics of group behavior has undergone a sea change. The present article makes an attempt to portray the dynamics of group behavior in the present day organization and depict a behavioral model that truly integrates various interconnecting forces that shape the dynamics of group behavior in a knowledge driven organization.

Production planning of fish processed product under uncertainty

Marine fisheries play an important role in the economic development of Indonesia. Besides being the most affordable source of animal protein in the diet of most people in the country, this industrial sector could provide employment to thousands who live at coastal area. We consider the management of small scale traditional business at North Sumatera Province which processes fish into several local seafood products. The inherent uncertainty of data (for example, demand and fish availability), together with the sequential evolution of data over time leads the production planning problem to be a linear mixed-integer stochastic program. We use a scenario generation based approach for solving the model. The result shows the amount of each fish processed product and the number of workforce needed in each horizon planning. References Birge J. R., Louveaux F. V. Introduction to stochastic programming. New York: Springer; 1997. Mawengkang H., Saib Suwilo, Opim S. Sitompul. Revision Modeling of Two-Stage Stochastic Programming Problem. Journal of Industrial System 2006; 7 (4):6--10. Mawengkang H., Suherman. A Heuristic Method of Scenario Generation in Multi-Stage Decision Problem under Uncertainty. Journal of Industrial System 2007; 8(2) : 98--105. Mulvey J. M., Van derbei R., Zenios S. Robust optimization of large scale systems. Operations research 1995;43 (2): 264--281. Rico-Ramirez V. Two-stage stochastic linear programming: a tutorial. SIAG/OPT Views-and-News 2002; 13 (1): 8--14. Sen S., Higle J. L. Introductory tutorial on stochastic linear programming models. Interfaces 1999; 29 (2): 33--61. Van der Vlerk M. H., Haneveld W. K. Stochastic integer programming: General models and algorithms. Annals of Operations Research,85:39--57,1999.

Comércio informal e a produção do espaço urbano em Uberlândia (MG)

Em meio à globalização da economia e a abertura dos mercados, o modelo de produção capitalista passa por uma etapa de reestruturação na qual impõe a sociedade, ao Estado e ao espaço, diversas e contínuas transformações que permitem a sua manutenção e expansão. Nesse contexto, o crescimento do setor terciário tem sido uma tendência mundial, evidenciada pela ampliação do trabalho autônomo, pelo aumento dos postos de trabalho das populações marginalizadas e pela diminuição da importância das atividades primárias para a macro-economia. As atividades econômicas informais estão cada vez mais presentes no cotidiano da sociedade brasileira. Seu crescimento deve-se, entre outras razões, às transformações sócio-econômicas resultantes da adoção de modelos flexíveis de gestão que se refletiram diretamente sobre o mercado de trabalho. Diante do aumento dos índices de desemprego e das baixas remunerações oferecidas no setor formal, a informalidade tem sido, na maioria das vezes, a única alternativa de trabalho para um expressivo contingente de mão-de-obra que se encontra fora dos padrões exigidos pelo mercado de trabalho. A partir dessas considerações, este artigo tem como principal objetivo analisar a expansão da economia informal, com ênfase ao comércio informal, na cidade de Uberlândia (MG) e a (re) produção do espaço urbano.

Port safety and the container revolution: A statistical study on human factor and occupational accidents over the long period

Several factors can affect occupational accident frequency, namely economical factors, technologies used (low automation, discontinuous operating) job design, organization of work/environmental conditions and human factors. In particular, technological advances in industrial activities can give rise to improvement in productivity and in occupational health and safety, but not necessarily simultaneously. The beginning of the container transport dates back to 50 years ago, but while containerization changed everything, from ships and ports to patterns of global trade, its impact on work injuries was not explored at all. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between work organization, job experience, productivity and occupational accidents, from the starting of the container expansion to nowadays, considering Genoa port (Italy), one of the largest of the Mediterranean Sea. In order to minimize possible reporting biases, such as underreporting or reclassification to a lower level of severity, injury statistics are elaborated starting from data collected directly on-site, from internal accident or medical-aid reports. An in-depth statistical analysis on occupational injuries in the years 1980–2006 is carried out, with reference to frequency indexes, mechanism of injury and material causes. The increase of container-ships traffic and, consequently, the sharp change in port infrastructure involved a rapid modification also in the work organization, with particular reference to the number and characteristics of workforce (decrease from 5783 to nearly 1000 employees and increase of low experience workers from 28% to 74%). The striking high percentage increase of young or low experienced workers in handling container (and performing correlated new tasks) caused a remarkable increase of the risk for occupational injuries. In the studied port, we recorded an increase of the frequency index (injuries per hundred thousand hours worked) from 13.0 to 29.7. It results that the increased expansion of shipping container utilization is not connected to a correspondent human factor safety implementation. Main risk factors are pointed out, revealing an increase of accidents due to transport vehicle (+8.3%) and a reduction of accidents caused by substance or materials (−4.5%). These factors show a statistical significant correlation with the new job tasks. Consideration of these findings may enable managerial solutions and workplace organization interventions for the prevention of injuries and safety performance improvement in port activities.

Workload Indicators Of Staffing Need Method in determining optimal staffing levels at Moi Teaching and Referal Hospital

There is an increasing demand for quality healthcare in the face of limited resources. With the health personnel consuming up to three quarters of recurrent budgets, a need arises to ascertain that a workforce for any health facility is the optimal level needed to produce the desired product. To highlight the experience and findings of an attempt at establishing the optimal staffing levels for a tertiary health institution using the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method popularised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland. A descriptive study that captures the activities of a taskforce appointed to establish optimal staffing levels. Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), Eldoret, Kenya, a tertiary hospital in the Rift Valley province of Kenya from September 2005 to May 2006. The cadres of workers, working schedules, main activities, time taken to accomplish the activities, available working hours, category and individual allowances, annual workloads from the previous year's statistics and optimal departmental establishment of workers. There was initial resentment to the exercise because of the notion that it was aimed at retrenching workers. The team was given autonomy by the hospital management to objectively establish the optimal staffing levels. Very few departments were optimally established with the majority either under or over staffed. There were intradepartmental discrepancies in optimal levels of cadres even though many of them had the right number of total workforce. The WISN method is a very objective way of establishing staffing levels but requires a dedicated team with adequate expertise to make the raw data meaningful for calculations.