Sample Of Workers Research Articles

Location-based Work Sampling

Question: Which opportunities can merging geographic location data with Work Sampling (WS) data bring for construction management? Purpose: To identify which opportunities adding geographic information to the random observations made (named in this study as geo-located observations) can bring. Research Method: The authors presented the implementation of a novel adaptation of the WS technique, named Location-Based Work Sampling (LBWS), based on the findings from a Case Study. The research process followed four steps: (1) clarifying the categories of the activities; (2) deciding the confidence interval; (3) collecting and extracting data; and (4) analyzing the data. For adding location data to the technique, the authors used the geographic coordinates provided by smartwatches used by the research team connected to two Global Navigations Satellite Systems (GNSS), and the coordinates obtained from photos taken for each observation. Findings: LBWS consists of a visual graphical approach that facilitates sharing information obtained during the WS application, based on adding geo-location information to the random observations. The technique shows the observations made on construction trades and work categories in the foreground and job site spaces in the background. Limitations: The use of geographic coordinates provided by the photos limits the application of this technique to outdoor activities. Implications: Creating a relatively simple visualization of the observations on the job site layout showed that a more comprehensive analysis of the job site activities could be conducted. Value for practitioners: The LBWS technique can provide a better understanding of the ongoing activities’ behavior and contribute to the existing Location-Based Management Systems. Keywords: Location-based Management, Visual Management, Work Sampling. Paper type: Case Study

Study of emotional skills in a sample of students and workers

Purpose: This study seeks to assess the levels of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and emotional competencies in a sample of workers and college students according to gender. Furthermore, the research upon which this paper is established seeks to analyze the divergence between the sexes from distinct angles of EQ and emotional competencies. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the differences among the scores of men and women for each of the samples. Self-informed instruments were administered to determine the levels of EQ and emotional competencies in a sample of one hundred and two workers who are residents in Quito, Ecuador, and three hundred and seventy-eight college students from San Francisco de Quito University. The evaluation of the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) type trait was measured through the short version of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue-SF) in Spanish, as developed by Pérez (2003).Findings: First, the study performed a detailed analysis of the variables for the worker's sample, which shows that the highest score belongs to the total Measurement of Affective Regulation Styles (MARS) scale. In connection with the different facets of TEIQue, the highest is emotionality (43,245), while the lower score is related to adaptability (11,362). When analyzing workers’ samples, the results show there is no compelling discrepancy between sexes in terms of emotional competencies and EQ. However, with regard to adaptability, there is a display that indicates a tendency towards significance where men show higher scores than women, which suggests that men are more adaptable than women. The students’ samples show that the self-control scale appears to be higher in men than in women, suggesting that men show a model of greater emotional control than women who participated in the study. This finding contrasts with the competencies and skills evaluated with the MARS instrument, which reported women achieving higher scores than men. Originality/value: During the last few years, the study of emotions has been an essential change in the world of research. The influence of emotions in the academic field and later in the workplace has been seen as an essential way to improve well-being and increase motivation and productivity. Even so, there are a significant number of unknowns, such as the influence they have on different sexes.

Using smartwatches to understand the relationship between construction workers’ travelled distance and time spent on direct work

Construction production processes are, in general, improved by removing non-value-adding activities. This includes reducing workers’ movements (walking) for transportation, inspections, etc. This research analyses the relationship between construction workers’ travelled distance and time spent on Direct Work (DW) at a construction site. An exploratory case study of the tasks performed by the carpenter trade was conducted.. Several sources of evidence, tools, and techniques were adopted: (a) direct observation to characterize the main activities; (b) Work Sampling (WS) technique to estimate the distribution of work time spent on different activities; (c) smartwatches to collect the data on construction workers’ travelled distance on the site during workhours; and (d) questionnaire application to collect workers’ perception of using the smartwatches. The relationship between distance travelled by workers and the time spent on DW was tested using linear regression analysis. The results indicate DW is indirectly correlated to how much workers walk on the construction site (R=0.445). This study presents a pioneering use of data gathered from smartwatches as a tool for collecting workers’ travelled distance. The use of smartwatches has the potential implication to automate the data collection to estimate the time spent on DW based on travelled distances.

A Comparison of Self-evaluated Survey and Work Sampling Approach for Estimating Patient-care Unit Cost Multiplier in Genetic Nursing Activities

To compare patient care multipliers estimated from subjective evaluation against work sampling (WS) techniques in genetic nursing activities. An observational WS technique was conducted from November to December 2019 with nine genetic nurses in a tertiary referral center in Malaysia. The WS activity instrument was devised, validated, and pilot tested. All care- and non-care-related activities were sampled at 10-minute intervals within 8hours of working over 14days, followed by a subjective evaluation of activities survey over the same period. Bonferroni correction was undertaken for multiple testing with a p value of 0.0025. The two techniques produced significant differences in genetic nurses' activities categorization. The WS showed that compared with subjective evaluation, direct care (19.3% vs. 45.0%; p<.001) was estimated to be significantly lower, and indirect care (40.4% vs. 25.6%; p<.001) and unit-related activity (28.5% vs. 16.9%; p<.001) were higher. Both techniques produced a similar proportion of time spent in other non-care activities (12.0%) but differed in genetic meetings and information-gathering activities. While the multipliers for patient face-to-face contact were significantly larger between WS (4.57) and the survey (1.94), the multipliers for patient care time were smaller between WS (1.47) and the survey (1.24), indicating that caution should be taken when multiplying for patient contact time compared to patient care activity to determine the cost of care provision. A considerable proportion of time spent away from the patient needs to be allocated to patient-related care time. Thus, estimating the paid cost solely based on direct time with patients considerably underestimates the cost per hour of nurses' care. It is recommended to employ 'patient-related activity' instead of the 'face-to-face contact' multiplier because the former did not significantly differ from the one estimated using WS.

Impacts of signal processing factors on perceptual restoration in cochlear-implant users.

Cochlear-implant (CI) users have previously demonstrated perceptual restoration, or successful repair of noise-interrupted speech, using the interrupted sentences paradigm [Bhargava, Gaudrain, and Başkent (2014). "Top-down restoration of speech in cochlear-implant users," Hear. Res. 309, 113-123]. The perceptual restoration effect was defined experimentally as higher speech understanding scores with noise-burst interrupted sentences compared to silent-gap interrupted sentences. For the perceptual restoration illusion to occur, it is often necessary for the masking or interrupting noise bursts to have a higher intensity than the adjacent speech signal to be perceived as a plausible masker. Thus, signal processing factors like noise reduction algorithms and automatic gain control could have a negative impact on speech repair in this population. Surprisingly, evidence that participants with cochlear implants experienced the perceptual restoration illusion was not observed across the two planned experiments. A separate experiment, which aimed to provide a close replication of previous work on perceptual restoration in CI users, also found no consistent evidence of perceptual restoration, contrasting the original study's previously reported findings. Typical speech repair of interrupted sentences was not observed in the present work's sample of CI users, and signal-processing factors did not appear to affect speech repair.

Evaluating hematology/oncology clinical pharmacist activities via self-reported work sampling.

Hematology/oncology clinical pharmacists' work activities have been described in previous literature, but time spent on pharmacist tasks has not been well characterized. Random work sampling (WS) is a form of activity assessment to determine the proportion of time spent in various types of work. Based on results from previous WS evaluations at University of Utah and its Huntsman Cancer Hospital, activities were changed to maximize time dedicated to clinical activities and pharmacists' benefit to providers and patients in both inpatient and ambulatory care settings. Therefore, updated random WS evaluations were completed during spring 2019 and fall 2020. Personal digital assistant (PDA) devices were used to record hematology/oncology clinical pharmacists' onsite or remote location and work activity data. Data were collected 8 times per hour on weekdays, with a goal of 275 observations per pharmacist. Results were then classified as clinical, professional, or technical activities. In 2019, 9,079 observations were recorded by 31 onsite pharmacists. In 2020, 28 pharmacists recorded 8,803 observations (5,524 during onsite work and 3,279 during remote work). The overall distribution of pharmacists' work activities remained stable between 2019 and 2020, with 89% of activities classified as clinical or professional. Pharmacists spent a smaller proportion of time on in-person communication in 2020, balanced by increases in chart review and text-based communication. Onsite pharmacists reported a larger proportion of clinical activities, while remote pharmacists reported a larger proportion of professional activities. Continued WS assessment of work activity patterns will allow identification of opportunities to streamline workflows, maximize pharmacist engagement in clinical activities, and development of remote work policy.

Characterization and Suitability of Nigerian Barites for Different Industrial Applications

This work aimed to characterize barite samples from selected different locations in Nigeria and determine their suitability for various industrial applications. The properties determined include mineralogy, chemical composition, morphology, functional groups, and specific gravity. Samples were obtained from ten locations in Nasarawa and Taraba states as well as a standard working sample (WS) obtained from a drilling site. The samples were characterized using scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX), Fourier infrared analysis (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Specific gravity (SG) was determined using the pycnometer method. Results of SEM-EDX analysis show that the WS has a Ba-S-O empirical composition of 66.5% whereas these of the ten samples investigated vary between 59.36% and 98.86%. The FTIR analysis shows that the functional groups of S-O, SO42−, Ba-S-O, OH of the ten samples match that of the WS. Results of XRD show that the ten samples have the same mineralogical composition as the WS and all meet American Petroleum Institute (API) standards for industrial barite. Similar matching results are shown from EDXRF spectra intensity, position, and composition analysis of the ten samples compared to the WS. Specific gravity (SG) results show that six out of the ten samples have SG above 4.2 which is the recommended minimum for the American Petroleum Institute (API) standard. The other four samples will require beneficiation to meet the standard for drilling mud application. Using all the parameters of the assessment together, results show that while some (6) of the samples can be used for drilling fluid application, some (4) require beneficiation but all ten samples can be used for other industrial applications including healthcare, construction, plastic, cosmetics, paper, and rubber industries. The results of the study can be used for value addition in developing beneficiation procedures, processes, and technology for purification along with new materials for the industries.

Cost of Outpatient Department Services at a Community Health Center of Bankura, West Bengal.

Background:Changing trends of privatization and globalization of health care compel the hospitals to practice cost accounting for providing accurate information about the cost of patient care.Objectives:The objectives were to determine unit cost and to identify major cost areas of outpatient department (OPD) services provided by the community health center (CHC) of Bankura district, West Bengal.Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted at Amarkanan CHC in 2016. Work sampling (WS) and time motion (TM) study were conducted for assessing the workforce cost, otherwise complete enumeration was done to assess the cost of different service areas such as medicine, logistic, maintenance, transport, electricity, building, equipment, and furniture. A predesigned pro forma and a questionnaire were used for WS and TM study and for interviewing the key informants for collection of information pertaining to different costs. Unit cost of different services as well as overall unit cost was estimated.Results:If a patient received injection, undergone dressing, and had electrocardiogram and X-ray both done in a day, then the total cost of OPD services for workforce was Rs. 85.33/. Cost of logistics per patient per day was maximum in X-ray room. Manpower exerted the maximum cost incurred by the government to conduct OPD in Amarkanan CHC. Overall, the unit cost in OPD incurred by the government was Rs. 44.53/-.Conclusion:Close monitoring is required by aligning the staffing pattern and patient activities and having adequate number of staff with right skill at right place and time for efficiency, productivity, and cost-effectiveness.

The Music Film as Essay: Montage as Argument in Khalil Joseph's Fly Paper and Process

The Music Film as Essay:Montage as Argument in Kahlil Joseph's Fly Paper and Process James Tobias (bio) Correction: Kahlil Joseph's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this essay. We regret the error. The online version has been updated. In conversation with the music-video form, the Black essay film advances processes of remembrance that leverage the possibilities of digital streaming but work against its instrumental logic through the double haptics of audio and vision. This essay shows this refusal and leveraging at work in Kahlil Joseph's twenty-three-minute installation Fly Paper (2018) and the visual album he directed for Sampha Sisay's 2017 album Process. The historical essay film, for all its critical value, also has a special character: it may tend toward a specific kind of engagement, projecting a generatively problematic nowness where demands made on receivers' attention and memory entwine with questions of historical memory and media memory. Chris Marker—for Timothy Corrigan, the paradigmatic practitioner of the film essay—prototypes in Sans Soleil (1983) "immersion" in the nowness of cinematic time as just this complex problem of memory—and just as "immersion" became a technical ideal in the design of "navigable" screens.1 Made on the [End Page 157] cusp of transitions to digital production, Marker's film handles memory in ways that still resonate: indexed in the audiovisual image's memorializing power, historical memory matters all the more at the moment of crisis because it struggles to cohere in the interface of the historical and the medial. As the essay film has gained in its power to convey arguments about media power, historical memory, and the desire for a different world, Black audiovisual essayism—whether that of the Black Audio Film Collective, or the call-and-response between Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston (1989) and Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied (1989)—has long explored this interface of media power, historical memory, and futural desire. For Corrigan, the essay film "subjects personal expression to the public domain of experience" to arrive at a moment of exterior belief "in a world always eliciting and refusing thought."2 Yet Black essayism challenges more than just a resistance to thought. The fact of working from underrepresentation to exteriorize subjective thought in the audiovisual image reorders the audiovisual image's priorities and those of its historical archive. Black film essayism thus matters as a complex material process in its own right, as thought and as force, haptics entangled with argumentation. A montage of home video, historical footage, and contemporary footage shot by Joseph, all set in Harlem, Kahlil Joseph's Fly Paper makes specific the problematic of reordering audiovisual priorities and, in so doing, the historical trajectory of the film essay. Alessandra Raengo points out this work's sampling of Marker's Sans Soleil, observing the work's concern with a man who "has lost the ability to lose" memory; the film "is determined to carry the lost object(s) along, regardless of the cost."3 Fly Paper's unidentified subject models a characteristic attributed to digital networks: the lengthening extent of media memory, in contexts where we may struggle to process experience as much in terms of how we orient our moving bodies toward media objects as in terms of subjective, psychic experience. As an immersive installation, the version of Fly Paper presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles in Fall 2018 suggests the renewed relevance of an "expanded cinema" amid the politics, economics, and aesthetics of digital streaming. Rumbling with bass that filters through spectators' bodies as they sprawl on cushions spread across the gallery floor, Fly Paper lifts Alexandra Stewart's reading of a key line from the English version of Sans Soleil: "At least they will see the black." As heard in Fly Paper, by auditor-viewers experiencing something on the order of a mediatic lucid dream, the Sans Soleil quotation is shorn of context, turned toward the Black essay cinema, so that the historicity and mediating power of the essay film prioritize Afro-diasporic memory. As bass washes through gallery space otherwise oriented toward the screen, the libidinal energies of the...

Cultural adaptation and validation of the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index - GOHAI - Colombian version.

Objective: This study aims to carry out the cultural adaptation and the validation of the GOHAI scale for the Colombian population.Methods: Translation process, cultural adaptation, and content and face validity were carried out with a sample of 63 participants as a pretest. The validation counted with a sample of 7,200 subjects, divided into two groups: a work sample (WS) with 3,628 subjects and a confirmatory sample (CS) with 3,572 subjects. Construct, criterion validity and internal consistency were performed for both samples. Test-retest reliability was assessed with a sub-sample of 75 participantsResults: The GOHAI showed an appropriate face and content validity, the pre-test revealed an understandable questionnaire, the scale showed a unidimensional factorial structure and a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.8. Convergent validity with a self-perception on general health scale pointed to a significant correlation (p= 0.0001), while discriminant validity showed significant differences regarding groups according to age group, skin color, educational level, socio-economic level, healthcare affiliation and self-perception about need of dental prostheses. Gender groups did not show significant differences among groups within either sample. The CS showed similar results, differences existed among factorial structures of 2 and 3 factors, and for discriminant validity, the CS showed statistically significant differences for the Area variable not in the WS. Kendall’s test-retest analysis’s correlation is 0.85 (p= 0.0000). Conclusions: The GOHAI scale is valid and reliable enough to be used as a measure of Oral-Health-Related Quality of Life in the Colombian elderly population, also could be applied for other Latin-American populations.

O estudo de marcas culturais no relato de viagem de Au Pays de l'Or Noir

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar resultados parciais do projeto de pesquisa intitulado: Processo tradutório e estudo de marcas culturais do relato de viagem Aupays de l’or de noir, cujos métodos utilizados foram o estudo dos marcadores culturais/ICEs e das estratégias de tradução adotadas em um dos relatos de viagem de Paul Walle: Aupays de l’ornoir, Para, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, publicado originalmente em 1909, na França. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida a partir de uma amostragem lexical da obra, levando em consideração o estudo das palavras em língua portuguesa (marcadores culturais) ligadas aos campos da Ecologia e da Cultura Material (NEWMARK, 1992), na obra francesa, e a estratégia de tradução da realidade em linguagem (LAPLANTINE, 1996) adotada pelo autor. Tivemos como base teórico-metodológica para a descrição dos marcadores culturais os textos de Newmark, (1992), Franco Aixelá (2013), Laplantine (1996) e Ferreira (2014).

Evolution of local work function in epitaxial VO2 thin films spanning the metal-insulator transition

Transport and Kelvin probe force microscopy measurements were simultaneously conducted on epitaxial VO2 thin films. The sample's work function abruptly dropped from 4.88 eV to 4.70 eV during heating from 333 K to 353 K, suggesting a significant change in its electronic band structure spanning the metal insulator transition. The work function showed nearly no statistical deviation across the film's surface during the transition, likely due to band bending at the boundaries of the small domains. Resistance profiles confirmed that the local work function corresponded closely to the resistance of the corresponding area.

Mechanisms responsible for inducing and balancing the presence of Cs adatoms in dynamic Cs based SIMS

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is an established technique for sensitive compositional analysis of solids. To achieve high sensitivity in the so-called dynamic SIMS mode, notably in the analysis of negative secondary ions, it is common practice to use Cs primary ions for sputter erosion as well as for loading the sample with Cs. In qualitative terms, the negative-ion yield enhancement has been attributed to a lowering of the sample's work function but, remarkably, the physical processes involved in producing the favorable conditions have not been clarified in any detail before. This study provides evidence that work function changes observed under Cs bombardment can be explained if the implanted ions are transiently converted to adatoms. Previously disregarded properties of Cs atoms include the huge size, the high mobility and bond formation with coverage dependent strength. It is shown that implanted Cs atoms are rapidly relocated towards the receding surface, presumably in response to the stress generated by the retained material. After passage through the solid–vacuum interface, Cs atoms loose their valance electron and become bound to the surface via dipole interaction. This way they become adatoms. Stationary conditions in terms of Cs surface coverage are established by the balance between adatom formation and sputter ejection at energies exceeding the bond strength. Combining calculated sputter cross sections for adatom removal with experimental data from various sources, the rates of Cs implantation and reemission are shown to be in balance with an uncertainty of only about±20%.

Work function shifts and variations of ionization probabilities occurring during SIMS analyses using an in situ deposition of Cs0

Abstract To optimize the advantageous quantification technique consisting in analyzing MCs x + clusters, the Laboratoire d'Analyse des Materiaux (LAM) has developed the Cation Mass Spectrometer (CMS), a new instrument specially dedicated to performing this kind of analysis. To further enhance the potential of this instrument, we have developed a column that delivers a collimated and adjustable stream of neutral Cs atoms to be deposited on the surface of the sample while this one is being analyzed by SIMS. As this configuration permits a successful decoupling of the sputtering and Cs introduction processes by avoiding the constraints imposed by an energetic Cs + ion bombardment, it becomes possible to optimize simultaneously the sensitivity of the analysis, by carefully adjusting the Cs concentration to its optimum value, and the depth resolution of the analysis, by choosing adequate primary bombardment conditions. For the present paper, we have performed in situ measurements of the produced variations of the sample's work function, which are a typical concomitant of alkali metal deposition, by recording successive energy distributions of secondary Cs + ions sputtered from three different samples (Al, Si, Ni). The work function shifts detected by using this method can subsequently be used to explain the variations of the ionization probability of secondary Cs found in a previous study of MCs x + cluster analysis based upon the described technique. In this respect, we find curves which are typical for what one would expect considering the electron-tunneling model and this theoretical prediction is thus corroborated by our experimental results.